WHEN PEOPLE GOT to a certain point, their work never really stopped. They could go away, but then the work came to them, found them wherever they might be, and the only issue, really, was how expensive it was to bring
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the work to them. That was a problem for both Jack Ryan and Robby Jackson.
For Jack it was the speeches Gallic Weston had prepared for him–he’d be flying tomorrow, to Tennessee, then to Kansas, then to Colorado, then to California, and finally back to Washington, arriving at three in the morning on what was going to be the biggest special-election day in American history. Just over a third of the House seats vacated by that Sato guy would be selected, with the remainder to be done over the following two weeks. Then he’d have a full Congress to work with, and maybe, just maybe, he could get some real work done. Pure politics loomed in his immediate future. This coming week he’d be going over the detailed plans to streamline two of the government’s most powerful bureaucracies, Defense and Treasury. The rest were in the works, too.
Since he was here with the President, Admiral Jackson was also getting everything developed by the office of J-2, the Pentagon’s chief of intelligence, so that he could conduct the daily around-the-world brief. It took him an hour just to go over the materials.
“What’s happening, Rob?” Jack asked, and instead of a friendly inquiry into how a guy’s week was going, -the President was asking the state of the entire planet. The J-3’s eyebrows jerked up.
“Where do you want me to start?”
“Pick a spot,” the President suggested.
“Okay, Mike Dubro and the Ike group are still heading north to China, making good time. Good weather and calm seas, they’re averaging twenty-five knots. That advances their ETA by a few hours. Exercises continue on the Formosa Strait, but both sides are hugging their coasts now. Looks like maybe the shoot-downs got everybody to calm down a bit. Secretary Adler is supposed to be in there right now, talking to them about things.
“Middle East. We’re watching the UIR military run exercises, too. Six heavy divisions, plus attachments and tactical air. Our people on the scene have Predators up and watching pretty closely–”
“Who authorized that?” the President asked.
“I did,” Jackson replied.
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“Invading another country’s airspace?”
“J-2 and I are running this. You want us to know what they’re up to and what their capabilities are, don’t you?”
“Yes, I need that.”
“Good, you tell me what to do, and let me worry about how, all right? It’s a stealthy platform. It self-destructs if it goes out of control or the guys directing it don’t like something, and it gives us very good real-time data we can’t get from satellites, or even from J-STARS, and we don’t have one of those over there at the moment. Any other questions, Mr. President?”
“louche, Admiral. What’s the take look like?”
“They’re looking better than our initial intelligence assessment led us to expect. Nobody’s panicking yet, but this is starting to get our attention.”
“What about Turkestan?” Ryan asked.
“They’re evidently trying to get elections going, but that’s old information, and that’s all we know on the political side. The overall situation there is quiet at the moment. Satellites show increased cross-border traffic– mainly trade, the overhead-intelligence guys think, nothing more than that.”
“Anybody looking at Iranian–damn, UIR–troop dispositions on the border?”
“I don’t know. I can check.” Jackson made a note. “Next, we’ve spotted the Indian navy.”
“How?”
“They’re not making a secret of anything. I had ’em send a pair of Orions off from Diego Garcia. They spotted our friends from three hundred miles out, electronic emissions. They are about four hundred miles offshore from their base. And, by the way, that places them directly between Diego and the entrance to the Persian Gulf. Our defense attache will drop in tomorrow to ask what they’re up to. They probably won’t tell him very much.”
“If they don’t, I think maybe Ambassador Williams will have to make a call of his own.”
“Good idea. And that’s the summary of today’s news, unless you want the trivia.” Robby tucked his documents away. “What do your speeches look like?”
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“The theme is common sense,” the President reported. “In Washington?”
ADLER WAS NOT overly pleased. On arriving in Beijing, he’d learned that the timing wasn’t good. His aircraft had gotten in on what had turned out to be a Saturday evening–the date line again, he realized–then he learned that the important ministers were out of town, studiously downplaying the significance of the air battle over the strait, and giving him a chance to recover from jet lag so that he would be up to a serious meeting. Or so they’d said.
“What a pleasure to have you here,” the Foreign Minister said, taking the American’s hand and guiding him into his private office. Another man was waiting in there. “Do you know Zhang Han San?”
“No, how do you do, Minister?” Adler asked, taking his hand as well. So, this was what he looked like.
People took their seats. Adler was alone. In addition to the two PRC ministers, there was an interpreter, a woman in her early thirties.
“Your flight was a pleasant one?” the Foreign Minister inquired.
“Coming to your country is always pleasant, but I do wish the flight were faster,” Adler admitted.
“The effects of travel on the body are often difficult, and the body does affect the mind. I trust you have had some time to recover. It is important,” the Foreign Minister went on, “that high-level discussions, especially in times of unpleasantness, are not clouded by extraneous complications.”
“I am well rested,” Adler assured them. He’d gotten plenty of sleep. It was just that he wasn’t sure what time it was in whatever location his body thought itself to be. “And the interests of peace and stability compel us to make the occasional sacrifice.”
“That is so true.”
“Minister, the unfortunate events of the last week have troubled my country,” SecState told his hosts.
“Why do those bandits seek to provoke us?” the For-
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eign Minister asked. “Our forces are conducting exercises, that is all. And they shot down two of our aircraft. The crewmen are all dead. They have families. This is very sad, but I hope you have noted that the People’s Republic has not retaliated.”
“We have noted this with gratitude.”
“The bandits shot first. You also know that.”
“We are unclear on that issue. One of the reasons for my coming here is to ascertain the facts,” Adler replied.
“Ah.”
Had he surprised them? SecState wondered. It was like a card game, though the difference was that you never really knew the value of the cards in your own hand. A flush still beat a straight, but the hole card was always down, even for its owner. In this case, he had lied, but while the other side might suspect the lie, they didn’t know for sure, and that affected the game. If they thought he knew, they would say one thing. If they thought he didn’t know, they’d say another. In this case, they thought he knew, but they weren’t sure. He’d just told them otherwise, which could be a lie or the truth. Advantage, America. Adler had thought about this all the way over.
“You have said publicly that the first shot was taken by the other side. Are you sure of this?”
“Completely,” the Foreign Minister assured him.
“Excuse me, but what if the shot were taken by one of your lost pilots? How would we ever know?”
“Our pilots were under strict orders not to fire except in self-defense.”
“That is both a reasonable and prudent guide for your personnel. But in the heat of battle–or if not battle, a somewhat tense situation, mistakes do happen. We have the problem ourselves. I find aviators to be impulsive, especially the young, proud ones.”
“Is not the same true of the other side as well?” the Foreign Minister asked.
“Certainly,” Adler admitted. “That is the problem, isn’t it? Which is why,” he went on, “it is the business of people like ourselves to ensure that such situations do not arise.”
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“But they always provoke us. They hope to garner your favor, and we find it troubling that this may have succeeded.”
“Excuse me?”
“Your President Ryan spoke of two Chinas. There is only one China, Secretary Adler. I’d thought that issue settled a long time ago.”
“That was a semantic error on the President’s part, a linguistic nuance,” Adler replied, dismissing the observation. “The President has many qualities, but he has yet to learn the niceties of diplomatic exchange, and then a foolish reporter seized on the issue. Nothing more than that. There have been no changes in our policies toward this region.” But Adler had deliberately not said “our policies,” and “have been” instead of “are.” There were times when he thought that he might have made a fortune for himself by drafting insurance policies.