The launcher crews and site-defense force walked beside the cars as they deployed. The attention of the security men focused out to meet any potential threat, that of the missile men turned inward toward their deadly charges.
The train braked to a halt, its engine powering down to an idle. The security troopers pivoted and dropped to one knee, assault rifles at the ready. The launcher crews held at parade rest, grimly awaiting the orders that would send them into action.
They would wait in vain for the next fifteen minutes. The air horns blared again. The switching engine revved up to power and, like a crayfish returning to its hide, the missile train reversed slowly back into its cavern.
The last of the launcher crew followed it into the tunnel.
The doors closed behind it. The Nationalist nuclear-deterrent force had just executed its first mission.
RIZAL PARK, MANILA 1728 HOURS ZONE TIME; AUGUST 13, 2006
"So," General Ho said slowly, "what the Nationalists claim is true. They have nuclear armaments."
"I am authorized to verify that fact," Van Lynden replied.
"Between ten and twenty of your major cities and military installations have been targeted. I am also authorized to state that their ballistic-missile delivery systems have been hardened and camouflaged to the point that they would be immune to any first strike launched by the People's Republic."
The Red General gazed silently out across the expanse of Manila Bay, his eyes narrowing. The two men had returned to the bench at the base of the fountain where they had met previously. Van Lynden had requested this off-the-boards meeting prior to the start of the day's round of crisis reduction talks.
"This is madness," the Chinese officer hissed.
"I agree," Van Lynden replied levelly.
' ' the Nationalists think that these bombs of theirs will deter us from using our own?"
"Will they, General?"
"I don't know." Ho covered his face with his hands wearily.
"I honestly do not know, Mr. Secretary. As the conflict within my nation has grown, my government has come to look upon our stock of nuclear armaments as the final and ultimate insurance of our survival."
He dropped his hands to his lap and straightened again.
"How they would react should that final reed be broken, I cannot say."
"Survival is the point here, General," Van Lynden insisted.
"We are no longer talking about the survival of a government here. This situation is escalating to the point that we are talking about the survival of your population. We are now looking at a MAD scenario.
Mutually Assured Destruction!
Neither side can possibly want that outcome!"
Ho did not answer, and Van Lynden groped for another angle of attack.
"Could it be, Genera], that we have a balance of power established here?
Could this provide common cause for both sides to seek a compromise?"
The general shook his head. "Mr. Secretary, compromise would assure our destruction as surely as the Nationalists' bombs. Each day this rebellion is allowed to continue, our control over our people erodes like a handful of sand held under a stream of water. Plurality is not acceptable to the leadership of my government. To accept the Nationalists and the rebels as our equals would be to acknowledge them as our masters."
"Maybe that should be telling you something, General." Ho paused for a long moment, then nodded. "Perhaps so, Mr. Secretary. But I am not one of those who will make these decisions. Nor will my opinion likely be asked.
"I am a warrior, and I understand the principles of war: the taking and defending of territory, the enforcement of political will. But we are rapidly passing beyond warfare now.
We are entering into an area of hatred and revenge and despair that is perhaps even beyond the rule of logic and self preservation. The Nationalists and the rebels must understand this. As I have said before, they are the ones with the options."
"What if they don't see it that way, General?"
"Then you had best have escape aircraft standing by to evacuate your Embassy personnel, Mr. Secretary. The radioactive fallout here in the Philippines will probably be quite severe."
THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D.C.
1101 HOURS ZONE TIME; AUGUST 12, 2006
"We have identified a total of six firing batteries," Lane Ashley reported. "Two missiles each, for a total of twelve rounds."
"Are we certain that's it?" President Childress inquired grimly.
' ' think so, sir, at least as far as their IRBM force goes.
The Nationalists seem to have deliberately let us have a look at them.
They ran them out of their concealment points during one of our reconsat overpasses."
"They wanted us to be able to verify that they actually have a nuclear-strike capacity," Harrison Van Lynden added.
The secretary of state was attending this crisis-group meeting via a telecommunications channel, his image filling a flatscreen display on the inner wall.
The president massaged his temples. "All right. Let's define this capacity a little further. Do we have any performance estimates on these things? Throw weight? Megatonnage?"
Sam Hanson nodded from his chair. "What we're seeing here is a derivative of the Israeli-designed Shavit launch system.
That, in turn, was a derivative of the Israeli Jericho II theater ballistic missile equipped with a second stage. Lift weight to orbit is about three hundred and fifty pounds. Suborbital is still going to be less than half a ton.
"Our nuclear-ordnance people at Sandia Base project a warhead in the Hiroshima range. Ten to twenty kilotons. Not what we would consider a strategic weapon, but drop one in on a city and you'd still make a pretty good mess out of the place."
"Accuracy? Range?" ' ' terms of accuracy, like I said, they are probably good for city busting. As for range, we think they can currently SEA STRIKE 171
target just about any point within Red territory from Taiwan."
"God damn." President Childress slammed his palm down onto his desk. ' '
damn! Where in the hell do the Israelis think they can get off selling strategic-strike technology like this!"
"Sir, I've already had my people check into that," Van Lynden replied. '
' Nationalists purchased two Shavit prototypes plus the production rights and design schematics for the system during your predecessor's administration. State approved the sale, as did the United Nations inspectors. The Shavit is a recognized satellite launch vehicle and has been used as such by several third-world states."
"Unfortunately, sir, this is a classic example of swing technology,"
Lane Ashley added. "Just as an insecticide plant can be used to produce nerve gas, a satellite booster can be used to deliver an atomic weapon.
It's a fact we have to live with."
' '. Damn, Lane, how did they get the assembly of this system past us?"
The NSA director shrugged her slim shoulders. "Ninety percent of the components were probably lifted stock off of the Nationalists' booster production line. Likely they just listed them as being quality rejects.
"The launchers and launch vehicles were probably modularized and assembled right in the firing bunkers. Until they were rolled out, there wasn't anything for our reconsats to spot. It's the same kind of meticulous planning that we've been seeing from the Nationalists throughout this operation."
Sam Hanson grunted an acknowledgment. ' ' year or two back, when they first started using the Shavit, the Taiwanese reported a couple of failed satellite launches with the booster.
Those might have actually been ranging tests for this IRBM version."
"Okay, then, they not only have the system, but they've proved it as well." Childress rose from behind his desk and paced a few steps across the room's dark-blue carpeting.
Abruptly, he looked up and into the videophone monitor.
"Harry, is there any chance that this is going to make the Communists pull their horns in a lit
tle?"
Twelve thousand miles away, Van Lynden shook his head.
"It doesn't look promising, sir. I've talked off the record with one of the senior members of the Red delegation. The indication that I got from him was that the Reds might very well prefer a nuclear exchange rather than to accept a total defeat."
Sam Hanson cut in. "Sir, with the sailing of the Red boomer, I think we can take that as a given. They are planning to use the bomb. Within the next twenty-eight days, there is going to be a nuclear war."
On the videophone, the secretary of state looked up sharply.
"Twenty-eight days? Where does that come from?"
"Submerged duration, Harry," Sam Hanson replied, slouching back in his chair and interlacing his fingers over his stomach. "Our Ohio-class boomers routinely deploy for sixty days and can stretch out to one-twenty, if necessary. A Russian Typhoon or Delta can do thirty with a stretch-out to forty-five. A Xia can stay out thirty days at the most, and it sortied two days ago.
"The Communist naval bases are all within strike range of Taiwan. The Reds have got to know that the Nationalists are bound to go after that sub with everything they've got the second they get a fix on it. That boomer is dead if it goes home again. They're in a ' it or lose it'
scenario. You don't need a computer to figure that one out."
"We're already seeing a major retasking of Taiwanese naval forces," Lane Ashley added. "All of their submarines and the majority of their large surface units appear to be initiating antisubmarine operations within the East China Sea.
The Nationalists are going after the Red missile boat with the bulk of their available ASW assets. And, Mr. President, it might solve a lot of problems if they find that submarine too." "Go on," Childress said.
"We have run model analyses of several different potential scenarios for a Red Chinese nuclear first strike. In every instance, the warheads aboard that Xia SSBN have been the key to an effective strike. Eliminate them, and the scenarios fall apart."
"The Communists have other nuclear arms, Lane," Van Lynden commented from the telescreen.
"Yes, Harry, they do. But not many, and they can't be sure of their delivery systems. The Nationalists have air superiority over their held territory. It's questionable if the Reds could get air-dropped bombs through to any critical targets.
"The Nationalists are also fielding both the Patriot and the Arrow battlefield antimissile systems. That could limit the effectiveness of any strikes launched by the Reds using their short-range, Scud-type artillery rockets.
"Those sea-launched IRBMs with their big one-megaton warheads are absolutely critical for any successful strike template that the Communists might develop against the Nationalists.
Without them, the Reds would come way out on the losing side of any exchange. It would be the equivalent of their committing nuclear suicide."
"That course of action can't be discounted, Lane," the secretary of state said dryly.
"Maybe not, Harry," Ben Childress commented slowly, ' ', no matter what, with those city-busters eliminated from the equation, the Reds would be taking a whole lot fewer people with them."
The group of advisers looked on as the president deliberately removed his glasses and polished each lens in turn. He redonned them after a full minute and looked over at his National Security Adviser. "Sam, get on the line to the Chief of Naval Operations. Have him start tasking for a large-scale antisubmarine operation in the western Pacific If we commit, this will-be live fire. Search and destroy."
"Yes, sir."
"At this time, authorization will be under the Presidential War Powers Act over my signature alone. I want this maintained as a black operation at this time. Full security. No public release or acknowledgment. We cannot afford to let the Reds know what we are considering."
"Or the press, for that matter," Hanson grunted. "That would amount to the same thing."
The president glanced at the NSA director. "Ms. Ashley, as of this moment, the United States has no intelligence priority higher than the hunt for this ballistic-missile submarine!
I want this boat found!"
"Understood, Mr. President."
Childress then turned toward the wall flatscreen. "Harry, I'll need two things from you before we can consider committing to further action, one being the assurance that we have exhausted all valid diplomatic options in this situation.
The other is the consensus of the other Pacific Rim powers and a commitment of support from them." The secretary of state nodded thoughtfully. "I believe that I can come across with both of those, sir.
In fact, I know a way that the first can provide us with the second."
HOTEL MANILA, REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES 2034 HOURS ZONE TIME; AUGUST
17, 2006
Harrison Van Lynden came to his feet as the Secret Service agent ushered his two guests into the sitting room of his suite.
"Secretary Duan, Professor Djinn, I thank you for coming here this evening."
"It is our pleasure, Mr. Secretary," Ho replied. "How may we be of assistance to you?"
"I hope we may be of assistance to each other. Please, be seated." Van Lynden gestured to the couch that faced him across the low coffee table.
However, it was tea that was brought forward by another silent aide--steaming green tea served in delicate handleless porcelain cups.
More than a gesture of hospitality, Van Lynden was invoking an ancient Chinese ritual of negotiation, one that he hoped would stand him in good stead tonight.
The secretary of state and his two guests shared the first sip, which signaled the beginning.
"I would like to speak about the current state of the crisis reduction talks," Van Lynden began. "And I have called you here tonight in this rather unconventional manner because, sometimes, that is the best way to circumvent an impasse.
And we are at an impasse, a very dangerous one."
' ' are sometimes born of commitment, Mr. Secretary," Professor Djinn replied. "I fear that this is the case."
"I understand that, Professor. Unfortunately, I fear that this commitment of yours, Professor, could lead to the world's first nuclear war. That is an option that I know that neither United Democratic Forces, nor the Nationalists, nor the Communists desire. There has got to be some solution here that does not require the death of millions."
"There is," Professor Djinn replied levelly. "The solution is for the Communists to admit their defeat."
"That's not an easy thing for anyone to admit to. But possibly we might be able to get the Communists to admit that it's time for change. I would like to put forward the following proposition tomorrow. A freeze-in-place of all UDF and Red Chinese forces, a cease-fire, and the deployment of a U.N. observer group to monitor the truce."
"Which would resolve nothing, Mr. Secretary."
"It would put this nuclear confrontation on hold! It would give you the chance to initiate direct negotiations with the Communists. They have got to accept the United Democratic Forces as a factor in China's future. Maybe we can broker some kind of power-sharing agreement."
"And what part would the Nationalists have to play in this power sharing?" Secretary Duan inquired.
' ' a supportive faction of the UDFC. Speaking frankly, any cease-fire agreement that we might make with the Communists will probably mandate a Nationalist withdrawal from the mainland."
"That is unacceptable, Mr. Secretary," the Nationalist statesman replied flatly.
"Even in exchange for seeing Taipei enveloped in a thermonuclear fireball."
"Yes." Duan deliberately picked up his cup and drank from it. ' ' have been denied our homeland and our heritage for half a century. We are a patient people, but even we have a limit to our patience. We are going home, Mr. Secretary, even though the path there may have its risks."
"We of the mainland have also waited a long time," Professor Djinn interjected, picking up the line of the discourse.
"We have waited for a liberation from tyranny, a libera
tion from want, a liberation from death."
The elderly man lifted a torment-distorted hand. "We are dying now. We have died slowly for every day of the fifty years that the Communists have ruled us. Why should we fear their bombs? The death that they give us will only be swifter and cleaner."
Duan nodded in agreement. "We have planned a very long time for this moment. Mr. Secretary. It will be another long time before we could bring another such moment about again. We will not be content with half-measures, nor will we permit half of our people to continue to live under the lie of the Communists!
"We have nuclear arms of our own. We will trust in that shield, and in the hope that Beijing will not be foolish enough to commit this last great atrocity."
"You risk much," Van Lynden replied slowly.
"So we understood when we launched this battle."
Secretary Duan lifted and drained his cup with great deliberation.
Professor Djinn following suit. The negotiations were over. Their last word on the subject had been spoken.
"I see." Van Lynden left the remainder of his tea unfinished on the table.
The secretary of state bid good evening to his two guests.
After their departure, however, he recrossed the sitting room and entered his sleeping quarters.
Lucena Sagada awaited him there, tending the microphone relay. Also seated in the room in a collection of acquired chairs were the representatives from Japan, Korea, and the Philippines. Each man was removing an earphone as Van Lynden entered.
"Gentlemen," he said, "now it is my turn to apologize to you about my unconventional form of diplomacy. However, I felt that it was imperative that, in the face of the decision that we must make, you all have the opportunity to hear the latest and last word from our friends the Chinese."
Ambassador Moroboshi gave a slight smile. "I daresay, Mr. Secretary, that it won't be the first time matters of statesmanship have been resolved in a bedroom."
"But few, I suspect, quite this grave," Ambassador Chung Pak responded.
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