Threat Vector

by Tom Clancy

  While the PLAN immediately declared the attack a defensive response to India’s attack on the submarine earlier in the day, it became abundantly clear to the world that China had determined that the South China Sea was worth killing for.

  —

  Valentin Kovalenko rented a white Nissan Maxima from a rental lot near Ronald Reagan Airport and drove it north over the Francis Scott Key Bridge and into Georgetown.

  He was on yet another milk run for Center, or so he deduced from the instructions that Center gave him the evening before, shortly after his face-to-face introduction to Crane.

  Kovalenko did not imagine today’s work would be as dramatic as last night’s events. He was to pick up a car, and then conduct surveillance on a location just two miles from his flat.

  As usual, Kovalenko did not know a single thing about his operation past his instructions.

  He drove through Georgetown for a few minutes before he went to his target location, just to make certain he had not acquired a tail. It was good tradecraft, of course, but Valentin was not just looking for enemy surveillance. He spent as much time keeping his eyes peeled for Center, or someone from the organization he worked for, as he did for the local police or American counterintelligence operatives.

  He turned off Wisconsin and onto Prosper Street, a quiet two-lane row of big Federal and early Victorian homes with tiny front yards, as well as an elementary school and some small retail shops. Kovalenko kept just slightly below the speed limit as he scanned for the address he was looking for.

  3333.

  He found it on the right. It was a two-centuries-old two-story home on a small piece of hilly land hemmed in tight on both sides by a redbrick school and a two-story duplex. A black wrought-iron fence surrounded it, and the front of the house was covered in leafy trees and bushes. It looked like a zero-lot haunted mansion. There was a garage down at street level, and winding stone steps led from the gate at the sidewalk in the front of the property to the home above.

  Valentin drove around the corner, pulled into the small parking lot of a dry cleaner’s, and here he used a digital audio recorder to help him remember as many details about the property as possible. When finished, he drove around back and looked at the street to the north of 3333 Prosper. Here he found that a back alley went behind the property, between the two streets.

  For his third pass he went by on foot, parking his car on Wisconsin and doing a full circle of the block, taking time to look over many different properties, not just his target location.

  He walked down the back alleyway, past the school grounds, and he found there was a small gate that provided access to the target location.

  In all his passes on all sides he did not see any hint of movement in or around the home, and he noted there were dry autumn leaves on the steps leading to the front door that looked like they had been there for a while. While he could not see inside the garage, and he had no idea if there was direct access to the house from inside the garage, it was his best estimate that the property was not occupied at the moment.

  He could not possibly fathom what Center wanted with this location. Maybe he was looking for some local real estate. As vague as his handler had been about what he needed to know about the place, Valentin wondered if all his subterfuge was unnecessary.

  Maybe he should have just walked up to the front door and knocked and asked for a tour of the place.

  No. That was not Kovalenko’s style. He knew the best thing for him personally was to keep his interactions with others to a minimum.

  He returned to his car on Wisconsin and headed back to the airport to return the rental. He’d go home, report his findings to Center via Cryptogram, and then get good and drunk.

  —

  John Clark stood still as a stone on his back pasture, and a cold autumn wind blew oak leaves across his field of vision, but he did not focus on them as they passed.

  Suddenly he moved; his left hand whipped across the front of his body, to his waistband under the right side of his leather bomber jacket, and then it drew back out, pulling with it a black SIG Sauer .45-caliber pistol with a short, stubby silencer attached. The pistol rose to John’s eye level, centered on a steel disk the width of a grapefruit that hung from a metal chain at chest level ten yards off, just in front of a backstop of hay bales.

  John Clark fired one-handed at the small target, a double tap that cracked the cold air despite the suppressor.

  A pair of satisfyingly loud metal “pings” echoed across the pasture as the bullets exploded against the steel.

  All this took place in under two seconds.

  John Clark used his right hand to move his jacket aside, and then he resecured the pistol back in his cross-draw appendix holster.

  Clark had come a long way in a week of daily handgun drills, but he was not satisfied with his performance. He’d like to cut his time in half. And he’d like to achieve his hits from twice this distance.

  But that would take both time and commitment, and though John had the time—he had nothing but time these days—for the first time in his adult life he wondered whether he really had the commitment he needed to achieve an objective.

  As disciplined an individual as he was, there was something about a strong likelihood that you would need your gunfighting skills to save your own life in the future that tended to focus your energies into being an excellent student.

  And John knew he would not be shooting his gun in anger anymore.

  Still, he had to admit, the movements and the gun smoke and the feel of the weapon in his hand—even in his left hand—felt damn good.

  John reloaded a magazine on the small wooden table next to him, told himself he’d run through a few more boxes of ammo before lunch.

  He had nowhere else to be today.

  FORTY-NINE

  President Ryan felt like he was spending as much time in the Situation Room as he was in the Oval Office.

  The usual suspects were there. Mary Pat Foley and Scott Adler on his right. Bob Burgess and Colleen Hurst on his left. Filling the rest of the table were Arnie van Damm, Vice President Pollan, Ambassador Ken Li, and various high-ranking generals and admirals from the Pentagon.

  On the monitor at the far end of the room, Admiral Mark Jorgensen, commander of the Pacific Fleet, sat at a conference table with a laptop open in front of him.

  Ambassador Li’s visit to Washington was the main reason for the meeting. The day before, he had been summoned by China’s foreign minister and given a message to be hand-delivered to the President of the United States.

  Li had flown through the night, arrived the next day, and done as China asked.

  The message had been succinct. China was directly warning the United States to move its Ronald Reagan carrier group three hundred nautical miles from the coast of China or risk “accidental and regrettable incidents.”

  At present the Reagan was ninety nautical miles northeast of Taipei, meaning it could easily send its aircraft into the strait on patrols. Pushing it back to three hundred miles meant that the strait would be out of range for most regular flight operations.

  Ryan did not want to do it, he wanted to show support to Taiwan, but he also recognized the Reagan was in the line of fire of virtually hundreds of missiles as powerful as, or more powerful than, those that had hit the Viraat in the South China Sea.

  Secretary of Defense Burgess started the meeting by first updating everyone on Chinese aggression in the South China Sea in the days since the attack on the INS Viraat. PLAN warships had been seen as far south as Indonesian waters, and small landing parties had come ashore on several unoccupied islands in the Philippines. China’s one aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, set sail from Hainan into the South China Sea, surrounded by a full complement of missile frigates, destroyers, refuelers, and other support ships.

  The
secretary of defense said, “This is a flexing of muscle, but it is a pretty pathetic show.”

  “What’s pathetic about it?” asked Ryan.

  Burgess said, “The carrier doesn’t have any airplanes.”

  “What?” Jack asked in astonishment.

  “It’s carrying about twenty-five attack and transport helicopters, but the Chinese don’t have even one squadron of jets that are carrier-qualified. This cruise by the Liaoning is . . .” He hesitated. “I was going to say it was just for show, but I can’t say that. They will likely go out and attack some things and kill some folks. They just aren’t operating it like a real aircraft carrier, because they don’t have the capability.”

  Ryan said, “I have a strong suspicion that China state media will forget to mention that the carrier isn’t operating with fixed-wing aircraft on board.”

  Kenneth Li said, “You can take that to the bank, Mr. President. Most of China will react with fierce pride that, as far as they know, the Liaoning has set sail to claim the SCS.”

  Ryan next asked, “Have there been more attacks over the Strait of Taiwan?”

  “Not since the attack on the Viraat, but don’t expect that to hold. There has been some bad weather over the strait; that’s probably got more to do with it than any feeling by China that they have gone too far,” Burgess replied.

  Ryan turned to Ambassador Li. “What does your gut tell you about what is going on, Ken?”

  The Chinese-American ambassador said, “The attack on the Viraat had very little to do with the conflict between China and India, and much more to do with the conflict between China and the United States.”

  Ryan said, “It was a signal to our Navy. A signal to me.”

  Li nodded and said, “A signal that said, ‘Stay away.’”

  “As messages go, killing two hundred and forty-something souls is pretty loud and clear.”

  Li agreed.

  Ryan said, “Wei singles us out, tells us not to meddle in affairs that don’t concern us. What specific thing are they pointing to when they threaten us like this? Just the carrier?”

  “Partially they are pointing to our increased engagement in the region. But much of it is guilt by association, Mr. President. The countries there that are our allies, and that is virtually everyone in the SCS region, are hyping their relationship with us, insinuating that we will protect them in any conflict with China. This doesn’t help matters over there. Standoffs between Chinese and Philippine vessels have been increasing. Ditto with Indonesia and Vietnam.”

  “The Chinese really feel the entire South China Sea belongs to them?”

  “Indeed they do,” Li said. “They are doing everything in their ever-expanding power to extend Chinese sovereignty. They are pushing the Navies of Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, and India out of what they see as their own territory, and they do not care about international law. At the same time, they are doing their best to foment armed conflict in the strait with the air-to-air attacks.”

  Li paused, but Ryan could tell he had something else he wanted to say.

  “Speak up, Ken. Your input is very valuable to me.”

  Li said, “China’s hegemonic aspirations are not the only reason for the current conflict. The thing is, Mr. President, you can’t underestimate the strength of the animosity against you personally in the top echelons of the military.”

  “You are saying they hate my guts.”

  “I . . . I am saying that. Yes, sir. They were humiliated by the war, and if you read the statements by the Chinese generals that are made for local consumption, you will see that they want glory against the United States.”

  Ryan looked to Admiral Jorgensen on the monitor. “Admiral, what do you think about the message from the Chinese? Do we move the Reagan back to three hundred miles?”

  Jorgensen, of course, knew he would be asked the question. His answer was measured. “Mr. President, the Chinese have been acting irrationally for the past month. I think it would be suicide for them to attack the Reagan or any of its support ships, but I am not going to say that I don’t think they will do it. If you had asked me a month ago whether the PLAAF would fire on U.S. Navy and Marine fighters flying over international waters, I would have said that I regarded that as incredibly unlikely.”

  “Do they have the capability, technology-wise, to hit the Ronald Reagan?”

  Without an instant’s hesitation Jorgensen said, “Oh, yes, sir. It can be done. We have anti-missile defensive measures, and they are effective, but not against a sustained barrage of ballistic and cruise missiles fired from the land, air, and sea. If the Chinese really want to sink the Reagan, I am not going to tell you we can prevent it.”

  Jorgensen continued, “But if they wanted to affect our capability to stand and fight on their turf, they would not have to hit the Reagan. They could much more easily take out crucial support ships that are not as well protected.”

  “Explain.”

  “Our nuclear-powered carriers and subs can operate for years without refueling, but the rest of the fleet, all those support ships, they are all being fueled by only six tankers in the Pacific Ocean. It would not be impossible for the Chinese to target those tankers and severely degrade the mobility of the Seventh Fleet. Our ability to project power would be limited. We will be like a bear chained to a tree. The tree would be Pearl Harbor, and we would not be able to venture very far. We have two hundred eighty-five ships deployed around the world, and fifty percent of them are in the Western Pacific. These anti-ship missiles China possesses are a real danger.”

  Mary Pat Foley said, “With China’s anti-access/area-denial capabilities, the balance of power has tilted away from the U.S. and our allies in the region, and they know it. They think we would be idiots to challenge them in their territory.”

  Burgess said, “We are thinking that that is what is going on here. Getting us into a short, intense fight on their turf, bloodying our nose, so that we will go home and stay home.”

  Ryan said, “Then they make a play for Taiwan.”

  Mary Pat said, “That’s the golden ring, isn’t it? The Chinese are trying to destroy the Taiwanese government. They do that successfully, and then they move in and pick up the pieces.”

  “You don’t mean literally move in?”

  “No, not immediately. They will not invade Taiwan. Instead, they want to put their own people in positions of power, weaken the anti-PRC parties, damage the economy and the island’s political relationships with its allies. They do that, and they don’t have to invade. They just have to mop up. They think they can end the ROC by slowly, over time, reabsorbing it into the PRC.

  “They have been accepting more risk in Taiwan lately. Pulling out all the stops in getting informants and spies. Buying off politicians sympathetic to the PRC.”

  President Ryan discussed the matter a few minutes more, and then he sat quietly at the end of the table for a moment. Finally he looked up at Jorgensen. “Push the Reagan back to three hundred miles exactly, but also bring the Nimitz battle group closer. Move her into the East China Sea.

  “Send a message that we aren’t going to play into whatever the hell they are trying to goad us into doing at the same time, but we are not running away.”

  Burgess said, “If we pull the Reagan out to three hundred miles, Mr. President, we won’t be able to patrol the Taiwan Strait. The ROC will be on its own.”

  Ryan’s eyes settled on Bob Burgess. “Is there any way we can covertly move air support to Taiwan?”

  “Covertly?”

  “Yes.”

  Foley spoke up: “Espionage cases out of the ROC have shot through the roof in the past couple of years. China is now dumping money into its spy services, bribing everyone with access to political or military information who will play with them. It’s a tough place to do anything withou
t the PRC knowing about it.”

  Jack said, “‘Tough’ means it will be difficult. That was not my question. My question was: Can it be done?”

  Burgess said, “There are contingency plans worked up. We have a plan to put in limited numbers of Marine fighter pilots, outfitting them in ROC aircraft. We aren’t talking about large numbers. But it would be a show of support for the ROC government.”

  President Ryan nodded. “Do it. But do it right. Don’t just throw a couple of guys out there without cover or support. If they are detected by the PRC, it just might be the provocation they need to attack Taiwan.”

  “Yes, Mr. President. I understand the stakes.”

  Jack Ryan stood and ended the meeting by saying, “Send in the Marines.”

  FIFTY

  Su did not like the way Wei had summoned him today. He had meetings scheduled all day at Zhongnanhai, but shortly before noon his office contacted him and told him President Wei demanded his presence in his living quarters at lunch.

  Su bristled at the intemperance of his coequal demanding anything of him, but he cut short his noonday meeting and went to Wei’s quarters without delay.

  It was not as if he needed time to prepare for the conversation with the president. He knew exactly what the man would say.

  The men embraced and called each other Comrade and asked after their family members, but these pleasantries were dealt with in seconds, not minutes.

  In short order, Wei sat down with Su and spoke in a concerned voice. “This is not at all how I pictured events unfolding.”

  “Events? I take that to mean events in the South China Sea and the strait?”

  Wei nodded and said, “I feel like you have manipulated me to some degree, taking my initial program for economic improvement and folding it into your own agenda.”

  “General Secretary, we have a saying in the military: ‘The enemy gets a vote.’ What you have seen over the past weeks—the aggression by India despite our clear warnings, aggression by the United States as we executed carefully calculated maneuvers in the Taiwan Strait to display our readiness to act against any show of force by the ROC—these situations were brought on by our adversaries. Of course, if all my . . . excuse me, if all our forces stayed at their bases or in their ports, well, then certainly none of this would have happened, but in order to achieve our territorial objectives, which will, in so doing, help us achieve our economic objectives, we had to make these forays into contested areas.”