Rigged

by James Rosone

  Chapter 4

  Unconventional Warfare

  January 2019

  Dalian, China

  Dalian Shipbuilding Industry Company

  Vice Admiral Hu Zhanshu stood silently on the bridge of the massive freighter, mesmerized as hundreds of workers swarmed over the center of the ship. The entire cargo hold had been removed and was being retrofitted with a series of vertical launch system pods. Once the conversion was complete, the cargo hold would carry fifteen VLS pods, each pod containing ten cruise missiles.

  The shipyard manager broke his trance. “It was difficult enclosing the construction cranes and the ship, but I believe we’ve sufficiently shielded our activities from the prying eyes of satellites and the casual observers outside the shipyard,” he explained.

  Hu nodded. He had to admit, it was a clever idea to cover the ships being converted to mobile missile platforms. It did, however, limit the number of ships they could retrofit at one time. With the current schedule, they’d only have twelve of the ships ready when the time came.

  “What are we doing about the troop compartments?” Hu asked.

  “Those are on schedule as well,” said the shipyard manager. “Right now, we’re converting shipping containers to act as bulk housing units for the soldiers. They aren’t going to be the most comfortable living conditions, but they’ll get our soldiers transported across the Pacific.”

  Hu rubbed his neck, deep in thought. Several of the older military commanders had died recently. A few of the deaths had been deemed heart attacks, and one had been found with a pile of empty bottles of Baijiu all around him, reeking of alcohol. One of Vice Admiral Hu’s personal friends had been found hanging from a staircase by a noose—Hu was certain that his “suicide” had not been by choice. Someone was consolidating power. Hu hoped that what he was working on would be sufficient to keep him out of the crosshairs of whoever was culling the herd.

  *******

  Washington, D.C.

  Harry S. Truman Building

  Secretary of State Haley Kagel shook her head in frustration as she read the latest cable from her ambassador at the UN, which explained that they were still going to move forward with their permanent UN peacekeeping force.

  Well, good luck funding it, because we sure aren’t, she thought.

  Gary Hammil, her Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs, poked his head into her office. “I see you’re reading the cable from New York,” he commented. He showed himself in and took a seat in the chair across from her desk.

  She frowned. “What are your thoughts on it, Gary?”

  He sighed. “I see the merits in such a resolution. I also know the optics of it won’t sit well in America and a lot of other countries. The conspiracy folks are going to go nuts with it, and so will a handful of folks in Congress, I suspect.”

  Haley bit her lower lip. “The President isn’t going to support it,” she asserted. “He already sees the UN as a parasitic leech just sucking us dry of money while bashing us and our allies at every turn.”

  Gary snickered. “The UN is what you make it. You know and I know that if you put more money in, you get more say in how it’s run.”

  “If that was the case, the UN would be doing our bidding instead of insulting us at every turn,” Haley insisted. “We already contribute 15 percent of the UN budget.”

  “And that’s down from the 22 percent we used to contribute,” Gary countered. “Nations like China, India, Saudi Arabia, Germany and France have all stepped in to fill that financial void.”

  “You sound like you want this new peacekeeping force,” Haley retorted.

  Gary held up his hands up in mock surrender. “Whoa, that’s a big allegation to make,” he replied with a big grin on his face. “All I’m saying is there have been a lot of problems with the peacekeeping force in the past. If creating a standing army and establishing rules, training and procedures will help make them more efficient and let them handle peacekeeping operations better in the future, maybe the US won’t have to get involved nearly as much.”

  Haley sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe you’re right. It could work. I seriously doubt the President is going to authorize any US forces to participate in it, though. Once this official treaty with North Korea gets signed, he wants to do a rapid drawdown of forces over there and bring them back home.”

  Gary nodded. “If the President is really able to secure this deal with North Korea, he should get the Nobel Peace Prize for it. But yeah, it makes sense to pull those troops back to the States.” He leaned forward. “Honestly, my bigger concern is the series of base closures in Europe and the Middle East he’s recommending to the Pentagon. We saw what happened when we pulled out of Iraq in 2011. If we pull out entirely from Europe and the Middle East, we’ll leave a power vacuum that others will fill.”

  “I’ve been cautioning him on that. I’ve gotten him to agree not to close Ramstein and to leave at least two of our facilities open in the UK. The rest of the German bases, though, are going to the BRAC on this next defense spending bill.” Whenever a base went to the base realignment and closure board, it was very likely to get closed down. Then the powers that be would determine where those units would be relocated.

  “What about our bases in Italy and Spain? He’s not recommending we close them, is he?”

  Haley crossed her arms. “He’s wanting to keep the Italian bases in Sicily, but he is going to close the other ones. As to Spain—yes, Rota will stay, though he’s moving to sign a new deal with the UK to set up some new facilities in Gibraltar…so that could complicate things in Spain if he does.”

  “What the heck is he wanting to put in Gibraltar?” Gary asked, left eyebrow crookedly raised.

  “I was told it was going to be some sort of NSA facility and a repositioning of the SEAL teams that are currently stationed in Germany. They’re also going to move more of the support functions from Naples to Gibraltar,” Haley explained.

  “He’s really going to upset the apple cart in Europe, isn’t he?”

  “Eh, it’s been a long time coming, though,” she said with a wry smile. “I mean, he’s not cutting ties with NATO, just shifting forces around. It does look like we’re going to expand our footprint in Poland and Romania, if that makes you feel better.”

  Gary tilted his head to the left. “OK, well, that’s outside my purview,” he said with a chuckle. “So, back to this UN force—from what I’ve been told, they’re planning on hosting their first joint training exercise in October of 2020 to flesh out the details of how the force will work. In a way, they want to essentially create two combat brigades: one that will be in a training, dwell-rest time, and one that will be deployed to various hot spots around the world. They’re actually modeling it on how our force structure and the Canadian force structure work.”

  Crinkling her brow, Haley asked, “Where is this new army going to be based out of, and where are they going to host this exercise? I didn’t see those details in the cable from New York.”

  “OK, before you bite my head off, I’m just the messenger,” Gary said, putting his right hand over his heart. “Canada has offered their military facilities to be used by this new UN force, and the exercise is slated to take place in Ontario and Vancouver.”

  Haley’s mouth dropped open in surprise. “What?” she managed to gasp. “Don’t they know how this’ll affect NATO and our various joint facilities? We can’t have Chinese—or worse, Russian—peacekeepers roaming around on Canadian facilities that are also tied into our own early-warning system.”

  “Hey, I’m just bringing you the facts,” Gary insisted. “It’s that new Canadian PM. He’s a real globalist.”

  “Petulant boy king,” Haley retorted. “He talks a big globalist game because he knows he doesn’t have to implement half of that crap, because Sachs keeps him from doing it.”

  Gary sighed. “My suggestion, Madam Secretary, is that you convince the President to at least contribute a token militar
y element to be a part of this new UN force, even if they’re just planners or something. This way we can keep tabs on their activity and have some observers report back to us on what they’re seeing. It’s better than being frozen out of it entirely.”

  Haley nodded. She had to agree with the logic.

  Hopefully, I’ll be able to get the President and the Secretary of Defense to see the same thing, she thought.

  *******

  Washington, D.C.

  US Supreme Court Building

  Anna Cho poured coffee for Chief Justice Mark Lighthouse, who graciously smiled and accepted the piping-hot java. “Thank you, Anna. I must say, I love this new brand of coffee you’ve found. What is the name of it again?”

  She smiled. “It’s that Hawaiian Kona coffee—you know, the one Justice Keaton was raving about. She asked me to order some for you guys—something about how it would make you more agreeable with her positions,” she replied with a wink. Then she moved to fill the next justice’s cup.

  Justice Lighthouse nodded. “Ah, yes. Barbara is quite the coffee connoisseur, isn’t she?” he said as if suddenly remembering a key detail. “It’s not my Jamaican Blue, but it’s pretty darn close,” he replied.

  He lifted the coffee to his lips and took in a deep breath of the aromatic blend before taking his first sip. “Mmm. That might actually be better than my Jamaican blend,” he admitted quietly.

  “Of course, it’s better than Jamaican Blue,” retorted Justice Barbara Keaton. “This stuff is grown in the soil of volcanic ash, giving it deep nutrients and minerals from within the bowels of the earth.”

  Her comment elicited a few laughs from the other justices as they prepared themselves to hunker down in their deliberation room to hash over a decision on a particularly thorny case they’d heard at the start of their fall session.

  “If you could, Anna, close the door on your way out. We’ll page you if we need another pot brought in,” Chief Justice Lighthouse said as he raised his coffee mug toward her in a sort of cheers motion.

  He turned back to face his colleagues. “Well, I suppose we should get back to it,” he announced.

  *******

  Returning to the kitchen, Anna went ahead and prepared another pot of coffee, knowing all too well that they would be ringing her for a refill within another thirty minutes. The justices were, if nothing else, predictable in what they liked to eat and drink when in deliberation.

  While Anna was getting the coffee ready, her cell phone buzzed, letting her know she had received a message. She pulled it out of her pocket and saw the image of her and her parents when they’d visited Beijing a couple of years ago. She smiled but felt a twinge of sadness. While her parents had immigrated to America when she was just a young child, many of her relatives still lived in China. She wished she could visit them more often.

  “Are you still going to Niagara next month?” asked one of her coworkers.

  She nodded.

  “I still can’t get over the fact that you’re going to Canada in the winter, on purpose,” he said jokingly.

  “I know, my boyfriend wasn’t so easily convinced, but the photography opportunities for me will just be unbelievable,” Anna explained. “Just wait until I come back with amazing shots of frozen swirling ice sculptures.” She was really looking forward to having this adventure and spending time alone with her boyfriend, too.

  “I still think you’re crazy,” her coworker retorted with a chuckle.

  *******

  Two weeks later, Anna and her boyfriend were enjoying themselves at the Casino Niagara after a full day of touring the falls and snapping endless photos. The cold temperatures had created beautiful formations of ice that looked like they had been designed by glass blowers. The light refracted off different parts of the structures, releasing beautiful blues and greens. At times, it was like walking through a castle of ice crystals made by Jack Frost himself. It was truly beautiful.

  When Anna had taken enough pictures to feel like she had made the trip worthwhile, she suggested to her boyfriend that they check out the all-you-can-eat buffet at the casino in town and have some fun gambling at some of the tables. Throughout the evening, the two of them tried their luck at blackjack, craps, and a few slot machines.

  Anna had just hit the bonus games at one slot machine, and she felt a rush as the bright colored lights flashed on the screen. She’d been down until then, and she felt the adrenaline course through her as she suddenly hoped to win big.

  Suddenly, a man sat down next to her. Without looking at her, he placed a small L’Oréal lipstick tube on a ledge right between their two machines. Anna saw it and gave the man a slight nod of acknowledgment just as he got up and left. Then she opened her clutch like she was looking for something, and without a second thought, she reached down and grabbed the lipstick tube and quickly placed it inside. She waited until the machine stopped tabulating her wins and then she cashed out her money on the slot machine and moved over to a nearby bar.

  Getting the bartender’s attention, she ordered a martini. While the bartender was fixing her drink, another man walked up to her, a drink already in his hand.

  “When the time comes, all you have to do is pour it into their drinks, and it’ll do the rest,” he said casually, quietly, and without making eye contact.

  “How will I know when I’m supposed to do it?” she asked.

  “Someone will reach out to you. For right now, find a safe and discreet place to hide it. When you’re told to act, you’ll have forty-eight hours to follow through.” With that, the man stood up straight and walked over to the craps table he had passed up just a few moments earlier.

  “Here you go, ma’am. That’ll be eight dollars,” the bartender said as he handed her the martini, oblivious to the conversation she’d just had.

  Smiling, Anna pulled a ten out from her clutch and handed it to him. “Thank you so much. Please, keep the change.”

  She grabbed her drink and went to go join her boyfriend, who was somehow killing it at the blackjack tables. Then again, he was a bit of savant when it came to numbers. Maybe that was why she’d latched onto him. He was a brilliant programmer at the NSA, though she had yet to determine exactly what he did there.

  The rest of their trip went by uneventfully, though she believed her boyfriend was starting to develop a real attachment to her.

  A few more months and I’ll have him spilling his guts to me on what he does at work, she thought mischievously.

  *******

  New York, New York

  United Nations Headquarters

  Johann Behr was elated. Not only was he the new Secretary-General of the UN, but in his first six months, he’d managed to get a resolution for a new permanent UN peacekeeping force passed. Albeit the Americans vetoed his first attempt, but he eventually got it passed in the general assembly and put it into effect. The Prime Minister of Canada, Felix Gagnon, had even volunteered Canada to host the newly created force and offered their military bases and facilities to help train and mentor it. Things couldn’t be going better for Johann. Now, he just needed to rally the rest of his supporters to identify who could replace Sachs and steer the American government back into the UN fold.

  A knock at the door brought him back to the current moment. Looking up, he saw an old familiar face and waved for his friend to come in.

  “Lance, it’s good to see you again,” Johann said. He moved around his desk to shake hands with Lance Solomon, the new head of Goldman Sachs.

  Johann and Lance had been friends for decades. While Johann was not a member of the secretive Skull and Bones Society like Lance was, he knew his friend represented not just the super wealthy and powerful within America, but also the secret organization itself. When Lance called for an appointment, Johann knew better than to make the man wait.

  “Johann, it’s good to see you as well, my friend,” Lance said warmly. “I’m so glad you are taking charge here at the UN. We’ve needed a strong man in this position for
some time.”

  Smiling at the compliment, Johann replied, “I agree. I’m just glad we were able to make it finally happen.”

  “Now that this resolution to create a permanent peacekeeping force is in place, it’s time we moved forward with some of the other pieces to this grand strategy, don’t you think?” Lance asked cryptically.

  “I agree,” Johann responded. He walked back around his desk and pulled a small electronic device out of a drawer, showing it briefly to Lance before he switched it on and placed it on the coffee table. “I want to make sure this conversation stays private, so I’ve brought out the trusty electronic jamming device,” Johann explained. “You can’t be too careful these days.”

  Lance nodded but didn’t say anything. He actually looked a bit calmer with the device running.

  Johann cleared his throat. “I believe we now have a field of candidates starting to form to replace President Sachs. Do you have a particular person in mind?” he asked, waiting to see who Skull and Bones would be backing.

  “We do,” Lance said with a smile. “I’m sure you’ve heard of him. He’s actually one of your strongest supporters in the US Senate.”

  “Marshall Tate?”

  “Yes. He’s been selected by the Society to be our next president,” Lance said matter-of-factly.

  Johann’s forehead scrunched up a bit. “I would’ve thought you guys would have backed the woman senator from California or the governor of New York.”

  “Marshall’s a Skull and Bones, the others are not. It’s time we put one of our own back into the office again. We need to get the world’s trade policies back on track. This current ‘America Alone’ policy is wreaking havoc on things, and it has to be corrected.”

  “You know, some of the others had a different candidate in mind, Lance,” Johann said.

  Smiling, Lance responded, “I’m sure the others do have a different name in mind. But the others don’t understand American politics like we do. They also don’t know which candidate will be able to obtain the popular support needed to pull this off. Marshall isn’t just a member of Skull and Bones; he’s also been a mayor of a working-class city and a congressman of a working-class district before he became a senator. He’ll resonate with the type of voter we’re going to need to win over if our Chinese friends fail on their end.”