“How secure will the bases be?” the Vice President asked next.
“Their main protection will be distance. The Chinese will have to reach the best part of a thousand miles to hit them. We’ve tagged ten E-3B AWACS out of Tinker Air Force Base to go over and establish continuous radar coverage, plus a lot of fighters to do BARCAP. Once that’s done, we’ll think about what missions we’ll want to fly. Mainly defensive at first, until we get firmly established.”
Moore didn’t have to explain to Jackson that there was more to moving an Air Force than just the aircraft. With each fighter squadron went mechanics, ordnancemen, and even air-traffic controllers. A fighter plane might have only one pilot, but it needed an additional twenty or more personnel to make it a functioning weapon. For more complex aircraft, the numbers just went higher.
“What about CINCPAC?” Jackson asked.
“We can give their navy a serious headache. Mancuso’s moving his submarines and other ships.”
“These images aren’t all that great,” Ryan observed, looking down at the radar overheads.
“We’ll have visuals late tomorrow,” Ed Foley told him.
“Okay, when we do, we’ll have to show them to NATO, see what they’ll do to help us out.”
“First Armored has orders to stand by to entrain. The German railroads are in better shape today than they were in 1990 for DESERT SHIELD,” the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs informed them. “We can change trains just east of Berlin. The Russian railroads have a different gauge. It’s wider. That actually helps us, wider cars for our tracks to ride on. We figure we can move First Armored to the far side of the Urals in about seven days.”
“Who else?” Ryan asked.
“Not sure,” Moore answered.
“The Brits’ll go with us. Them we can depend on,” Adler told them all. “And Grushavoy was talking to their Prime Minister. We need to talk to Downing Street to see what developed from that.”
“Okay, Scott, please look into that. But first let’s get that note drafted for Beijing.”
“Right,” SecState agreed, and headed for the door.
“Jesus, I hope we can get them to see sense,” Ryan said to the maps and imagery before his eyes.
“Me, too, Jack,” the Vice President agreed. “But don’t bet the farm on it.”
What Adler had said to him on the flight from Warsaw came back to him. If only America still had ballistic missiles, deterrence would have been far easier. But Ryan had played a role in eliminating the damned things, and it seemed a very strange thing for him to regret now.
The note was generated and sent to the embassy in Beijing in less than two hours. The Deputy Chief of Mission, or DCM, in the embassy was a career foreign-service officer named William Kilmer. The formal note arrived as e-mail, and he had a secretary print it up in proper form and on expensive paper, which was folded into an envelope of creamy texture for hand delivery. He called the Chinese Foreign Ministry, requesting an urgent meeting with Foreign Minister Shen Tang. This was granted with surprising alacrity, and Kilmer walked to his own automobile, a Lincoln Town Car, and drove himself to the Ministry.
Kilmer was in his middle thirties, a graduate of the College of William and Mary in Virginia and Georgetown University in Washington. A man on his way up, his current position was rather ahead of his years, and the only reason he’d gotten it was that Ambassador Carl Hitch had been expected to be a particularly good mentor for bringing him along from AAA ball into the bigs. This mission, delivering this note, made him think about just how junior he was. But he couldn’t very well run from the job, and career-wise he was taking a big step. Assuming he didn’t get shot. Unlikely, but. . .
The walk to Shen’s office was a lonely one. The corridor seemed to stretch into infinity as he stepped down it in his best suit and shiny black shoes. The building and its appointments were supposed to be imposing, to show representatives of foreign countries just how impressive the People’s Republic of China was. Every country did it this way, some better than others. In this case the architect had earned his money, Kilmer thought. Finally—but sooner than he’d expected when he’d begun—he found the door and turned right to enter the secretaries’ anteroom. Shen’s male executive assistant led the American into a more comfortable waiting room and fetched water for him. Kilmer waited for the expected five minutes, because you didn’t just barge in to see a senior government minister of a major power, but then the high doors—they were always double doors at this level of diplomacy—opened and he was beckoned in.
Shen was wearing a Mao jacket today instead of the usual Western-style business suit, a dark blue in color. He approached his guest and extended his hand.
“Mr. Kilmer, a pleasure to see you again.”
“Thank you for allowing this impromptu audience, Minister.”
“Please have a seat.” Shen waved to some chairs surrounding the usual low table. When both of them were seated, Shen asked, “What can I do for you this day?”
“Minister, I have a note from my government to place into your hand.” With that, Kilmer pulled the envelope from his coat pocket and handed it across.
The envelope was not sealed. Shen withdrew the two-page diplomatic message and leaned back to read it. His face didn’t alter a dot before he looked up.
“This is a most unusual communication, Mr. Kilmer.”
“Minister, my government is seriously concerned with recent deployments of your military.”
“The last note delivered from your embassy was an insulting interference with our internal affairs. Now you threaten us with war?”
“Sir, America makes no threats. We remind you that since the Russian Federation is now a signatory of the North Atlantic Treaty, any hostilities directed at Russia will compel America to honor her treaty commitments.”
“And you threaten the senior members of our government if something untoward should happen to Americans in our country? What do you take us for, Mr. Kilmer?” Shen asked in an even, unexcited voice.
“Minister, we merely point out that, as America extends to all of our visitors the protection of our laws, we hope that the People’s Republic will do the same.”
“Why should we treat American citizens any differently from the way we treat our own?”
“Minister, we merely request your assurance that this will be the case.”
“Why should it not be the case? Do you accuse us of plotting a war of aggression against our neighbor?”
“We take note of recent military actions by the People’s Republic and request clarification.”
“I see.” Shen folded the papers back up and set them on the table. “When do you request a reply?”
“As soon as you find it convenient to do so, Minister,” Kilmer answered.
“Very well. I will discuss this matter with my colleagues on the Politburo and reply to you as quickly as we can.”
“I will convey that good news to Washington, Minister. I will not take more time from your day, sir. Thank you very much indeed for your time.” Kilmer stood and shook hands one more time. Kilmer walked through the anteroom without a glance left or right, turned left in the corridor, and headed toward the elevators. The corridor seemed just as long for this little walk, he thought, and the clicking of his heels on the tile floor seemed unusually loud. Kilmer had been an FSO long enough to know that Shen should have reacted more irately to the note. Instead he had received it like an invitation to an informal dinner at the embassy. That meant something, but Kilmer wasn’t sure what. Once in his car, he started composing his dispatch to Foggy Bottom, then quickly realized that this was something he’d better report by voice first over the STU.
How good is he, Carl?” Adler asked the ambassador. “He’s an okay kid, Scott. Photographic memory, talent I wish I had. Maybe he was promoted a little fast, but he’s got the brains he needs, just a little short on field experience. I figure in another three years or so, he’ll be ready to run his own embassy and start his way up the ladder.”
In a place like Lesotho, SecState thought, which was a place to make “backwater” seem a compliment. Well, you had to start somewhere. “How will Shen react?”
“Depends. If they’re just maneuvering troops on routine training, they might be a little angry. If it’s for real and we’ve caught them with their hands in the cookie jar, they’ll act hurt and surprised.” Hitch paused for a yawn. “Excuse me. The real question is whether it’ll make them think things over.”
“Will it? You know most of ’em.”
“I don’t know,” Hitch admitted uncomfortably. “Scott, I’ve been there a while, sure, but I can’t say that I fully understand them. They make decisions on political considerations that Americans have a hard time comprehending.”