Overthrow: The War with China and North Korea

by David Poyer

  But sobered, disappointed, and angry. The most modern ship in the fleet. AI-enabled. With the newest weapons. But the software patches weren’t working, her tactical agent was trigger-happy, her lasers overheated, and the antitorpedo countermeasures were duds. How could she take a ship to war in this condition?

  She shuddered, fighting off memories of bodies in the passageway outside sick bay, of the screaming of the wounded, of the burned … She wasn’t going to go through that. Not ever again.

  “A word, XO.” She jerked her head toward the access door.

  In the passageway, she gave him instructions. “We’ll have to cancel liberty, Matt. I’m sorry, but there it is. We just aren’t ready. We have too much to do. Before going in harm’s way.”

  He sucked in air between those gorgeous white teeth. “I agree, but … crew’s not going to be happy.”

  “We’re going to war, XO. You remember how close we cut it last time. This ship’s built tougher, I think. But the enemy’s learning too. If we want to come back this time, we need all systems operational. Everyone at the pitch of training. Nothing left to chance.”

  “No argument, Skipper. Just pointing out … well, never mind.” He shook his head, looking away, obviously wondering how he was going to sugarcoat this one for the crew. “Maybe … pass it via the Goat Locker?”

  She grimaced. “It’s gotta come from us. We could let the department heads make exceptions, if there are really good reasons, and we don’t need that specific person to correct the casualties.” She sighed, giving in to the inevitable. “I’ll get on the 1MC, give them the word myself.”

  A few minutes later, as men and women left their citadels and Savo Island turned for port, the PA system crackled. They looked up, pausing in their work as their commander spoke.

  “This is the Captain.

  “Thanks, everyone, for your hard work getting ready for these exercises over the past weeks. There, and in the shipyard, you’ve given a thousand percent.

  “Unfortunately, today’s exercises uncovered significant shortcomings in several areas of material, training, and software. We have to correct them before we go to war. We must correct them, before we go to war.

  “Thus, I’m sorry to say, I’m canceling liberty in Pearl. I know it’s disappointing, but I have no choice. Once we make port, if everyone turns to with a will, I might be able to cut loose for one night’s Cinderella liberty. But that’s all I can promise. The Fleet needs us on the line when the big push comes. Which I understand is nearly on us.”

  She let up the button, wondering if there was anything else she should say. What would her old mentor, Daniel V. Lenson, have ended the bad news with? She hovered, licking her lips. Frowning.

  “Once again, thanks for your hard work. I’m sorry I have to call for more. I’d just rather we paid in sweat now, than in blood later.

  “This is your captain speaking.

  “That is all.”

  3

  The Pentagon

  THE lithe woman striding toward the river entrance wore a tailored gray suit and low gray suede heels. Night after night of exchanging sleep for toil had pressed creases into her forehead and left shadows under her eyes concealer didn’t hide.

  At the granite steps she touched her left ear, and pulled a lock of hair over it. Then halted, pressing a hand to her forehead.

  A momentary dizziness. The old sense of having been here before.

  No, not exactly déjà vu, Blair Titus thought, trying not to wince as she resumed climbing the broad staircase.

  Because, truly, she had been here many times. As defense aide to Senator Bankey Talmadge. As the staff director to the Senate Armed Forces Committee. As undersecretary of defense, her current position, with offices on the third floor in the E Ring. And for the twice-weekly meetings of the Joint Chiefs’ Pacific War Working Group.

  Uniformed guards inspected her ID, took temporary possession of her phone and briefcase, and pointed her through the security gate. It promptly warbled a warning.

  “Titanium, in my leg and hip,” she explained.

  The male sergeant nodded, looking only a little apologetic. “Still have to check you out, ma’am.”

  A thin female soldier wanded her in a side room as the others looked through her briefcase and scrolled through her phone. “Can you hurry?” Blair said at last. “I’m due in the Tank.”

  “Sorry,” the trooper said, but didn’t speed up her inspection any. She seemed particularly interested in the Manolo Blahnik kitten heels, and in Blair’s white silk blouse and thin gold torque. Blair pressed her lips together, holding back a sigh.

  Finally the guards seemed satisfied she hadn’t suddenly become a major threat to national security, instead of part of its defense. Blair took back her Coach briefcase and marched on up the ramp, heels clicking. Summer sun falling through thick safety glass windows made the polished floor tiles glow.

  She remembered all too well why the windows were shatterproof. Unfortunately, on that day years before in New York, she herself hadn’t been.

  At the next security station two staffers joined her. The older one carried a briefcase, the younger a tablet under one arm. When she veered into a corridor they wheeled with her, precisely, in step.

  * * *

  THE Blairs had been shakers in national politics since Francis Preston Blair had moved to Washington to start a pro–Andy Jackson newspaper. After being defeated in a bid for Congress two years before, Blair Titus had reluctantly accepted an offer from the opposition to help bridge the expertise gap as the country plunged into war. Now she was the undersecretary for strategy, plans, and forces at Defense. And deeply suspect to the peace wing of her own party.

  But the country needed her, as much as if she were in uniform. Like her husband, Dan.

  The second set of guards waved them through. “Go ahead, ma’am.” She smiled tightly, and went on in.

  * * *

  CONVENING today was what Dr. Edward Szerenci, the national security advisor, called the HTWG—the Hostilities Termination Working Group. Szerenci loved coining acronyms. Its task, as the name implied, would be to find a way to end three years of desperate conflict. She’d worked all this week researching history, pulling together alternatives, and going over the options with her staff and experts from academia.

  She wasn’t ready. But then, no one had been ready for this war, either.

  The meeting room, opening off the already highly secure Intel Center, looked like any bland windowless conference space, though newer and better furnished than anything at the White House. But it was even more heavily shielded than the West Wing. A scanning console would detect any transmitting devices. She helped herself to coffee at an urn, taking it black, but stirred in sugar as she surveyed the room.

  The operations deputies were ranked along the wall, as usual. And, as usual, looking even tenser and more sleep-deprived than their principals. They were there to listen, since they’d have to execute whatever was agreed on. She noted bulky, slow-moving Helmut Glee, the Army chief of staff. Gray, birdlike Absalom Lipsey, Joint Chiefs Operations. Rotund, pain-racked Dr. Nadine Oberfoell, from the Office of Cyber Security, in a wheelchair now—that was new. No sign of Nick Niles, Dan’s former CO, now chief of naval operations. Oddly, there seemed to be no one from Indo-Pacific Command, the main warfighting CINC, either. But there were reps from State and CIA. Good.

  “Blair, you look wonderful. As always,” said a professorial-looking fellow in a blue tweed jacket.

  “Hello, Kevin.” Dr. Glancey was a historian from Stanford.

  A cleared throat from behind her. “Kev. Blair.” Gray-suited, silver-haired, the national security advisor patted her shoulder.

  “Ed,” she murmured.

  Szerenci sighed, looked at the pastries, then back at her. “I like the gray. In the hair? Adds to the gravitas. Not that you didn’t have plenty before.”

  “Thanks,” she said reluctantly, brushing that rogue lock down over her misshapen ear
again. She and Szerenci had clashed more than once. But he kept her on the list for policy meetings. Maybe as devil’s advocate?

  Maybe.

  “How’s Admiral Dan doing? Any recent word?”

  “I don’t hear from him that often, Ed. I’ll probably learn more about what he’s doing here today, than what he can tell me.”

  Szerenci looked past her, and not for the first time. “There’s Rick. Guess we’re ready to start.”

  Husky, fiftyish General Ricardo Petrarca Vincenzo was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. In terms of protocol he and Szerenci were roughly equal, but here at the Pentagon, Vincenzo would chair the meeting while the security advisor sat to his right. Blair found her own place halfway down, between Glancey and the CIA rep, Tony Provanzano.

  Vincenzo poured himself a glass of water, and opened. “Welcome, everyone. The purpose of this meeting is to staff out options for the second Allied Heads of State conference in Jakarta. We’re going to scramble up the agenda today. First, overall picture. Then, enemy situation. I need everyone to keep your presentations brief. Eight minutes. No more. Then we’ll review the strategic balance. Finally, we have to staff out a way to end this thing. And it would be good if we could present it as a consensus.

  “Obviously, this is compartmented. There’ll be an official minute, but no personal notes can leave this room.” He waited a beat, then nodded to the first briefer.

  A screen lit at the end of the room. The first image was the JCS logo. Four swords behind a shield, surrounded by a laurel wreath.

  She knew the background, but forced herself to listen for any new developments. Vietnamese forces, backed by US airpower, had halted the Chinese south of Hanoi. A CIA-controlled Islamist rebel group had destroyed Jade Emperor, the main Chinese AI, ending cyberattacks on the US. The American artificial intelligence, Battle Eagle, was recovering the initiative. After being stymied for weeks in ferocious battles, the Marines and Army were finally making progress in Taiwan. A combined US/Indonesian force was readying for the invasion of Hainan, although a recent accident in Brunei would push back the date. Finally, and most critical for the future, Allied war production was rising.

  “So far, so good,” Vincenzo remarked. “And a long way from where we started. Especially in equipment and munitions. How about the enemy situation? Tony?”

  The CIA rep beside Blair clicked through several slides. Again, she knew most of what he presented. A major outbreak of a lethal influenza was decimating both the Chinese and Vietnamese armies. Beijing was reinforcing, but the new troops were poorly trained, hungry, sick, and ill-equipped.

  Provanzano said, “But we can’t underestimate the depth of sacrifice the Chinese may be willing to make. The leadership’s determined to hold out. Worst case, they can fall back on their nuclear retaliatory force. Which so far has kept us from escalating.”

  “We’ve been working to right that balance,” Szerenci put in.

  The chairman nodded. “Hold it there, Tony. Right, that situation’s evolving. I’d like to hear from STRATFOR next. Then MDA.”

  The general from Strategic Forces—nuclear weapons, both sea-, land-, and aircraft-delivered—took them though a sobering recap of Allied efforts to recoup a shortfall that had, Blair reluctantly admitted, probably been part of the reason for the war. Working in secret for a decade, and using nuclear material the North Koreans had traded for food and oil, the Chinese had built a large class of very heavy intercontinental missiles. In throw weight, accuracy, and number of independently maneuverable warheads, they were superior to anything in the American arsenal. Seventy MIRVed ICBMs had been targeted against major cities in the continental United States. Up to seven hundred warheads, though probably some were decoys.

  More than enough to kill a nation, according to the analyses.

  A bulleted slide flashed up. The general said, “Two points in Premier Zhang’s ultimatum bear repeating. First, US forces and nuclear weapons bases will be dealt with ‘by any means necessary.’ He’s proven that by taking out the FDR battle group and Pearl Harbor. Second, and most threatening: ‘Any aggression against Chinese soil will be answered by a similar level of destruction visited on the American homeland.’”

  “It’s always slippery judging intent,” said Provanzano, beside Blair. “But it’s a credible threat. That’s the consensus of the intelligence community.”

  “Which is why the administration never committed to retaliate,” Szerenci said. “I know it looked like cowardice, and it’s not how I would have proceeded personally. But it’s defensible. Withholding a response, trying to keep the war conventional as long as possible. Until we could regain parity, then superiority.

  “If we’d only built the force I kept recommending for years … well, water over the dam.” Szerenci took off his glasses, massaged closed eyes, then looked to Vincenzo. “Shouldn’t we clear the room now, General?”

  The chairman glanced at the staffers lining the walls. “Thank you, gentlemen. Ladies. Principals only from here, if you don’t mind.”

  * * *

  WHEN the room was cleared, Szerenci pointed to Strategic Forces again. “General, sorry for the interruption, but you understand why. Tell everyone what you’ve done to retrieve the balance for us.”

  The screen cut to a massive missile shouldering its way out of a silo. In the video, flame and smoke burst up all around it. It rose into the sky, trailing flame and a gigantic pillar of white smoke.

  “The biggest ICBM ever built. The Earth Penetrator Heavy,” the general said. “We started with a SpaceX heavy booster. Each missile packs a dispenser bus with four hardened earth-penetrating reentry bodies. Each reentry body carries an uprated W91 device with a total output of twenty megatons. The biggest warheads ever put on a missile.

  “But the real difference is, terminal velocity. Boosted by a modified Trident engine on the way down, the EP Heavy payload will hit the ground at twice the speed and with far more energy than any previous reentry body. The hardened penetrator can punch through two hundred meters of granite. Since the warhead energy couples to the target via seismic shock, the harder the rock and concrete they encounter, the more destructive the shock wave they generate.

  “These things will blast mountains apart.”

  Dr. Oberfoell stirred, straightening in her wheelchair. “I sent around a document about Battle Eagle’s recent compromise of the enemy’s command system. We may be able to cut their strategic response time by as much as eighty percent.”

  The general smiled at her, which Blair found ghastly. Considering what they were actually saying.

  Szerenci looked pleased too. “First we slow down their reaction times. Then hit them with a punch heavy enough to destroy their mobile launchers before they can leave their tunnels.” Somehow he’d taken the lead from the chairman. He pointed down the table. “But what if they manage a partial launch? Say we destroy eighty percent of their capability. Twenty percent of seventy is fourteen. Double that to be safe. MDA, can you stop twenty-eight missiles headed for American cities?”

  Blair sucked air, dizzy again. Not from déjà vu this time, but from disbelief. Rational human beings were discussing this? She started to speak, but the missile defense rep was passing around graphics showing intercept probabilities. She stared down at hers.

  “Bottom line, to answer your question directly, sir, we estimate twenty percent of the remainder will get through.”

  “That takes us down to two to three, right?”

  “Two to three on US cities. Yes sir. With several warheads each, though. Since they’re MIRVed.”

  Into a dead silence Szerenci said calmly, “Acceptable?”

  No one looked at anyone else for a few seconds. Across the table from Blair, Dr. Oberfoell reached for the water carafe. Filled a glass, and sipped from it.

  “Acceptable,” Szerenci concluded, this time with a falling inflection.

  Vincenzo leaned back in his seat. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come down to that. But it would be
great to regain dominance. The question I’d have is, does Zhang know the Heavy exists? If we’re talking deterrence, secrets don’t deter. Demonstrated capabilities do.”

  “We developed it in secret,” the STRATFOR general said. “Otherwise we risked a preemptive strike.”

  “Of course. Sure. But when do we tell them what we can do?”

  “We reveal it at Jakarta,” Szerenci put in. “At the Heads of State conference. The way Truman told Stalin at Potsdam.” He looked around. “Sense of the meeting?”

  Nodding. Murmured agreement. Blair felt numb, but finally forced herself to nod too. Maybe the fear factor would work. Maybe. Certainly handing the nuclear advantage to China hadn’t.

  If they could end the war at the price of three American cities …

  “Let’s take a break,” Vincenzo said, and got up. This time, none of them met the others’ eyes. And several lined up, gazes downcast, at the door to the little attached restroom.

  * * *

  SPEAKING slowly and heavily, Vincenzo reviewed strategy next. “The two-pronged plan we implemented last year is working. Uppercut and Causeway succeeded. At immense cost, but the troops came through. Taiwan will be ours shortly, if all goes as planned.

  “We brought forward our buildup this year. Stockpiled. Built a supply train. Secured replacement weapons and aircraft from Israel, Britain, and the EU, and reconstituted our own industrial base. The enemy’s penned in, and weakening.

  “Currently, a combined Vietnamese-Indonesian ground force, supported by the US, Vietnamese, Indian, and Australian navy and air force, is preparing to land in Hainan. Occupying that island will position the Allies to develop operations into Hong Kong. Up to now, I’ve resisted any suggestion we land on the mainland. But if the Indonesians prove as tough as they look, I might say yes. Drive a wedge into south China, and maybe the regime will fall.”