Onslaught

by David Poyer

  On the radio, a Cambridge economist was discussing the average of the lowest quarter-end price-to-earnings ratio during panics and recessions from 1873 on. “The Dow closed yesterday at 6299, the S&P below 500 for the first time since the previous century. The question is, what knock-on effects insurance losses and the disruption of normal trade with Asia will have in the event of a prolonged conflict in the Pacific. That explains the massive drops in valuation of the major insurers, along with electronics, computer manufacturers, and large retailers. The sole sector with positive movement is defense manufacturing.”

  She could imagine how her foster dad must feel. He’d always believed in being 100 percent invested, betting on growth. Her own portfolio was more conservative, but still, she’d lost over half her net value. The market ran on confidence, and the American people seemed to have lost that altogether: in Congress, in their president, in their economy, even in themselves.

  So far, the primary instinct seemed to be self-preservation.

  Diane Rehm was reporting that combined Vietnamese and U.S. forces were threatening the Spratly Islands, in the South China Sea. Did that bring peace closer? Or push it out of reach? No one seemed to know. Just as she didn’t know where Dan was. The last she’d heard, before the Internet collapsed, his ship was in the South China Sea. Beyond that, nothing for days. Zip on the news, silence from the Navy … but of course, rumors swirled.

  On impulse, she pulled her cell from the center console. But the screen still read no service. Just like everyone else’s.

  The rain torrented down even harder as she reached the checkpoint at last. Sandbags. Orange plastic cones gleamed wet. An African-American guardsman waved her to a stop in front of a collapsible barrier, then did a double take and saluted. The Pentagon decal, still on her windshield. From the last administration, but it still showed three stars, her equivalent rank as undersecretary of defense. Rain brushed her cheek with cold fingers as she presented her identification. He handed it back, peered into the car. Her wipers slashed rain at him; he flinched; water dripped off the barrel of his rifle.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I’ll turn those off—”

  “Pop the trunk, please, ma’am. Where we headed this fine morning?”

  “The Capitol. Armed Services Committee. I’ve been asked in to advise.”

  He nodded again, gaze lingering on the side of her head as, in the rearview, another trooper inspected her trunk. She brushed a blond lock back to cover her ear. The graft had taken, but imperfectly. The surgeons had warned her, ears were difficult.

  The soldier behind her yelled something. The guardsman stepped away and waved her through. “There’ll be another pass point, on Constitution.”

  She’d been in the South Tower, interviewing with Cohn, Kennedy, when the first jet hit the North Tower. Had fled desperately down the crowded, smoky, jet-fuel-smelling stairwell. Pursued by claps of thunder, nearer and nearer, as the World Trade Center collapsed above her, one story imploding into the next, like a vengeful giant’s approaching footsteps. Sometimes the joints between the concrete paving slabs in a highway would sound like it, car-umph, car-umph, and she had to pull off the road and talk herself down, or bolt a Xanax.

  She’d spent seven hours in surgery, with broken ribs, a broken thigh, fractured pelvis, breaks in the arm, and internal injuries. The left eye saved, but the left ear burnt off. They’d “reconstructed” it, but it was still ugly, a reddened, twisted nub.

  But as Dan would say, she was still in the game.

  She came back to the present headed down Constitution, with traffic sparse, speed better than on a normal day. Taillights blurred and ran pink on the rainy windshield, and she turned the wipers back up. Less than a quarter tank now … Ahead in the dim dawn rose the white cupcaked dome of the Capitol. Her destination was beyond it, the Russell Senate Office Building. She’d worked there for years, first as a junior staffer, then as defense adviser to Bankey Talmadge. She’d risen with Talmadge as he climbed the seniority ladder to chairman, and been staff director for four years before going to Defense as the Undersecretary.

  Bankey had called last night, asking her to come in. The familiar, gruff, vaguely drunken voice. Half in the bag, as usual in the evenings. But Talmadge in the bag was still four times as smart as the average senator stone sober. “Mindy’s good, but she’s not you. I sorely need somebody who knows what’s what. Any chance of temptin’ you back from that egghead company?”

  “You know that’s not in the cards, Bankey. I’ve got to win this election.”

  “Oh, right, I forgot. Maryland, right? Is cash a problem? I got a little bit’a spare change I can swing from the party. If you need it.”

  A “little bit” for Talmadge meant several million. She’d salivated at the thought, then felt ashamed. Being from one of the oldest families in Maryland, she hadn’t expected trouble raising funding. And at first it had gone well, thanks to her dad’s contacts; Checkie had spent his life in banking. But she hadn’t been able to give his friends the assurances they wanted, and then with the war, and the market crash, even the pledges she’d managed to garner had evaporated.

  “Uh, sure, we can talk about that,” she’d said. Grasping that, like a manumitted slave, she’d been bought back, at least for the duration.

  The final cordon was at the foot of Capitol Hill, across from the seventies concrete waffle of the Labor Department. About the only building in Washington named after a woman. After another search and ID check, she headed for Senate parking. Which was full, but cars were parked on the grass. She left the Audi there.

  * * *

  “HEY, there’s my favorite girl.” Talmadge’s cheeks were rosy, and even this early she could smell bourbon from across the room. “Grab a seat, Missy.”

  The senator’s office was high-ceilinged, ornate, a stark contrast to the labyrinthine warren of cubicles and converted closets the staffers sweated in. “Missy” was his nickname for her. Blair smiled at Mindy, hoping she didn’t take offense. Her old employer was one of the few remnants of the age of the dinosaurs, coeval with Barry Goldwater, Bob Dole, Robert Byrd, Strom Thurmond, the other Talmadge a distant cousin.… With the passage of decades his offices had grown larger, his perks greater, his clout colossal. Especially with defense contractors, whose purse strings the Armed Services Committee controlled.

  The staffer was petite, brisk, with long glossy dark hair and a sharp little nose. Her squeaky voice was instantly irritating. “Hi there, Blair, how nice to meet you at last. Bankey always talks about you. You’re like, you know, the ex-mistress.”

  Talmadge reddened, rumbled in pleasure. How he loved the little double entendres. And his dalliances had indeed been legendary. Fortunately, Blair reflected, his follow-through had cooled before she’d come on the scene. “Heh heh … What say we get down to business. Missy—I mean, Mindy? Want to bring Missy up to speed? And then we’ll maybe have a little refresher.” He glanced at a chifforobe; Blair knew what that meant.

  Mindy opened a folder. “The press is voicing doubts about Defense and the president’s direction of the crisis. WSJ quotes you from day before yesterday. The polls are sobering. Between 75 and 80 percent of the public thinks we should stay neutral in the Pacific. Things haven’t quite shaken down to party positions yet, but Fox is asking if we should consider war at all. After all, isn’t Taiwan part of China?”

  “The old isolationist wing,” Talmadge grumbled.

  “Yes, Senator. Some are asking, why not just hand it over? ‘Taiwan’s a lot closer to China than Hawaii is to California’—that kind of thing.”

  “That’s gonna be interesting. The China Lobby versus the America Firsters.”

  “Senator?” It was Mary, Talmadge’s blue-haired, stooped secretary. The office buzz was that long ago, perhaps in the Ordovician age, there’d been a flame, but Blair had never heard them converse in other than the frostiest formality. Which indeed might confirm the rumor. “It’s Mr. Herzog. Hello, Blair. Good to see you again.” />
  “’S’cuse me, gotta take this.” He swung his chair toward the tall window that, thanks to four decades in the Senate, looked out on the Capitol grounds almost on a level with that building itself. In the cold light the trees stood motionless. “Hey there, Augie. What’s shakin’?”

  Mary asked her, “Is your husband still in the Navy, Blair?”

  “Yes, he is. Commanding a cruiser. Out in the Pacific.”

  “Oh my. Really? I certainly hope … certainly hope things will settle down out there.” She glanced at Talmadge, shook her head, and tiptoed out.

  Talmadge hung up, muttering, “He’s sellin’ America short. Lookin’ for a crisis, and hoping I’ll help trigger it. Then we gotta print twenty or thirty billion more in fake money to pay him.…” The old man looked bewildered. “And the fella calls himself a patriot. This ain’t how it used to be.”

  Mary, at the door again. “Mr. Callahan. Line two.”

  “London Callahan, or Seattle Callahan?”

  “Seattle, sir.”

  Talmadge swiveled away again, and once more only detached words bounced off the expanse of plate glass. “Billy? Hey, what’s shakin’? Yeah … yeah. Real Buck Rogers, hey? But, you know, we wouldn’t have them thangs until five, six years from now.… You could speed it up? How much? Yeah. Oh yeah?… Sure, build us some, if you can. I’ll make sure you get paid.”

  When he hung up this time Blair caught his eye. “Exactly what did you need, Bankey? You wanted me here first thing.”

  “Well, you’ve kept your hand in. I could use your advice.”

  She glanced at Mindy. “You have a defense aide. Hu? Ku?”

  “Hu. Caught short in LA, couldn’t get back with all the airlines shut down. Like I say, you were at the Pentagon. How do we look, for this thing in the Pacific?”

  She took a breath, organizing her thoughts, then launched into a recap. “The Pakistan-Indian nuclear exchange broke the escalation ceiling. I’m sure Premier Zhang knows eighty percent of our ground forces are bogged down in the Mideast. He’s obviously judged this a good time to rebalance the power structure in Asia. Also, I suspect Ed Szerenci’s partially to blame.”

  Mindy said, “The national security adviser?”

  “I met with him just before this began. He seemed to think, better war now than later. Quoted me history, about Germany and Britain. He began shooting down their reconnaissance satellites. They retaliated.”

  “An’ now we’re invading South China,” Talmadge rumbled.

  “Um, I didn’t hear that.” Blair frowned. “We’re threatening the Spratlys. That’s on the news. But that’s a long way from the coast.”

  “The Paracels aren’t,” Mindy put in. “I hear that’s the Joint Chiefs’ plan. But, maybe more like a raid than an invasion. And that is classified.”

  Blair was about to ask how she knew, if it was so damn secret, but was forestalled by a tap at the door. A smooth-faced, very tall African-American in a gray suit stuck his head in. Talmadge called, “Hey, Hu. Glad ya could make it. They flyin’ again?”

  “Had to rent a car from Philly. Senator. Mindy. And this is—?” He lifted an eyebrow at Blair.

  Mindy made the introductions. “Hu” Kuwalay, the defense assistant, picked up the conversation as if he’d been listening outside the door. “We face a difficulty, Senator. You’ve seen the polls. There’s a considerable element with grave doubts about the president’s direction of this crisis. After all, isn’t Taiwan part of China?”

  Blair said, “A lot of history, but we made a commitment to defend Taiwan.”

  Talmadge nodded heavily. “The Taiwan Relations Act of ’79.”

  Blair said, “Correct. We would regard any attempt to reunify by force as a grave breach of the peace.”

  Kuwalay said, “But actually, the act you cite recognizes the People’s Republic as the legitimate government of Taiwan. Yes, we ‘regard’ aggression as a ‘breach of the peace,’ but we’re actually not pledged to intervene. Some members are asking, why not arrange a compromise? The way Britain handed over Hong Kong, and Beijing promised to maintain the rule of law. And by occupying the South China atolls, aren’t we the real aggressor?”

  Talmadge started to say something, probably his story about his face-off with Carter back in ’79, but Blair jumped in first. “The question’s bigger than that, um … Hu. You could have argued for a peaceful turnover when China was evolving toward democracy. But after Zhang’s crackdown on dissidents, his attack on India … we have to defend our national interests. If they take Taiwan, South Korea’s encircled, Japan’s threatened. We lose everything we won in 1945: a stable Pacific, trading relationships, dependable allies.”

  “And if we lose?”

  “I can’t believe we can be defeated. We can give up, but that’s not the same thing.”

  Kuwalay glanced at Talmadge, eyebrows lifted. “We keep getting calls. Longtime supporters. They’ve sustained huge losses in the downturn. And they’re pointing out, we actually don’t have a defense treaty with Taiwan. Like we have with Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines.”

  Blair suppressed a sigh. “We already covered that. Once we throw the Taiwanese to the wolves, why should our other allies trust us? China will dominate the Pacific.”

  “That’s the Pentagon talking, Ms. Titus.” Kuwalay smiled loftily. “Not the Hill. We answer to our constituents. And they don’t see why they should go without cheap goods from Walmart, and do without the Internet, and pay fourteen dollars for a gallon of gas, just so we can keep some distant island—”

  “No!” She leaned forward, rapping the table. Mindy flinched. “Don’t you get it? We’ve been through this before. The Civil War. Pearl Harbor. This isn’t the time to buckle, Bankey! This is when you channel Abe Lincoln. Winston Churchill. Rally the country!”

  Talmadge glanced at the liquor cabinet again. He tried to make a fist, but his hand shook. “I hear ya, honey, but … I may be getting a little too tired for a big old fight. Missy, I’ll level with ya. Used to be, it took two, three years for the members to get restless with a war. Way it was over Vietnam. Or Iraq. Now it’s two weeks in and they’re talking compromise. Like Hu here says.

  “We’re gonna see a peace move. One way or another, I’m gonna have to take a position. Can I take a hard line, without the back bench bailing on me? And, hell, have we still got what it takes to fight for four, five years the way we used to? Spend trillions, and take casualty figures in the thousands, the way we did in Korea? Do we have the production advantage we used to? This isn’t the same country it was when I was a kid.” He fiddled with a small donkey figurine. “Question is, which side do we come down on?”

  “He also means, which side do you come down on,” Kuwalay told her. “The senator has to take a position, eventually, but you’re the one who’s up for election now. Pro-war, antiwar—that’s what they’re going to ask on the campaign trail.”

  “Nobody’s pro-war,” Blair said. She started to finger her ear, but forced her hand down, casually, into her lap. “I certainly am not. But I don’t think we’re starting from a disadvantageous position. We have strong allies. Zhang faces internal resistance. And the blockade’s got to hurt, sooner or later. No economy can run without oil, and the Navy has its foot on the hose.”

  “Oh, right.” Talmadge looked confused. “Wasn’t that your husband who testified? I read about that—”

  Kuwalay cut in, “Of course, Blair, everything you say is true. From a strategic point of view. What I mean is, if the party chooses to oppose the administration on this war, it could cost you our support for your run.”

  The senator cleared his throat. Gazing dreamily at the ornate molding over his head, he tapped his fingers together. “Here’s what we can do, Blair. I’m committing five million dollars to your campaign. Run on that platform you just gave us. Kick the Chinks in the balls. Teach ’em not to mess with Uncle Sam. If you can carry Maryland with a hard line, I’ll have a feel for how far I can drag the rest of
the party. But you gotta hammer the administration, too. They’re goin’ nuts on the executive side. Attacking. Invading. Land war in Asia. That’s crazy.”

  She thought it over. “It’ll be a tough sell.”

  “If anyone can do it, you can. Still got contacts across the river?”

  “Actually, I still consult.”

  “During your campaign?” Mindy looked disapproving. “Is that wise?”

  “It’s within the guidelines.”

  “That doesn’t mean you can’t be criticized.”

  “Oh, you’re always gonna take flak.” Talmadge flipped a hand. “Blair can take it. Put her in a cage with whoever, I’m bettin’ she’s the one walks out. Who is it now, Missy? Who ya up against? The incumbent?”

  “No, he died. My opponent is one Gregory Beiderbaum. Ford dealer, state senator. Openly gay.”

  Talmadge looked startled by the last adjective, but recovered. “Uh-huh. That’ll make it interestin’. Get you some coverage, right? Well, good. I guess we’re—”

  “Just a minute, there, Bankey.” Blair laid a finger on his sleeve. Leaned in close. Be his canary in the coal mine? Fine, but this was the time to name her price, and a dose of her perfume had always seemed to jog his memory. “And if I don’t win? What then?”

  “Why, then … then I give Claire a call. She listens to old Bankey. You know Claire, right? You’ll be back in the Pentagon in no time.”

  “I’ll hold you to that, Senator. I know your word is good.”

  “Allus has been. Well then … Give Mary your finance manager’s name, she’ll make the calls. Okay … we good?” He hoisted to his feet heavily, orienting toward the cabinet. “Anybody want anything…?”

  “Bankey, it’s only nine o’clock,” Mindy said primly.

  “Honey, at my age, Jim Beam’s the only way I keep that old blood pumping around.” He squeezed Blair’s arm. “That sailor-boy husband of yours don’t know what he’s missin’. Lettin’ you run around loose.”