The Elephant Game

by Andrew Watts

  Natesh’s expression grew more positive the longer Tetsuo spoke. David could see that the Japanese-American man clearly knew his craft. He had simultaneously injected Natesh with a boost of confidence and begun the interrogation process.

  Natesh said, “Plans. I know what Jinshan intends to do. I know where they plan to strike, what their strategy is. Excuse me for saying this, but Jinshan is way ahead of you. And if you are going to stop him, you’ll need what I have.”

  David glanced over at Tetsuo, who kept staring at Natesh.

  “Of course. We recognize your value. What…”

  Natesh kept talking, looking down at the table, thinking while he spoke. “I suppose it would be impossible just to go back to my old life. I don’t think any of us will be able to do that. I just want to be cleared of any wrongdoing. I want immunity in the United States. When this is all over, I mean. I’ll feed you what I have. And you promise me that I can live in peace and quiet when I’m done. I’ll just go somewhere in the countryside and live my life alone. I’ve made a mistake. An unforgivable one. I realize that now. And I’m trying to make amends. The only way I know how—by giving you the secrets that you need. By giving you the plans that I helped—that I am helping to design.”

  “You’re still working for him now? In Japan? What are you doing here?”

  Natesh said, “Do we have a deal?”

  “Yes. We do. You start working for us, and we have a deal. I can get you immunity. We’ll place you in the witness protection program or something similar. You’ll live in the middle of nowhere, and no one will ever be the wiser. But you need to stay in place for now, here. We need you to continue your work for Jinshan and provide us with insider information. Now, what are you doing in Japan?”

  “Logistics planning. I’m helping to manage all of the people, parts, fuel, and food that will need to transit the Pacific in order for Cheng Jinshan to wage war on the United States.”

  The two men stared at him, unable to speak for a moment. “So, Jinshan is still planning to go to war with the US?” Tetsuo asked.

  Natesh nodded. “Yes. Of course. Nothing has changed for him.”

  David cleared his throat. “Why are you doing that out of Tokyo?”

  “Jinshan told me to. I believe he wanted to create separation between the people American intelligence was monitoring and the work that needed to get done.” Natesh’s expression changed. “There’s something that you need to know. Something immediately important, that I overheard when I spoke to Jinshan last.”

  “What?”

  Natesh was biting his lip, his eyes shifting around nervously. “North Korea is going to test-fire an ICBM.”

  “Don’t they do that all the time?”

  “This time will be different.”

  17

  Jinshan sat at his desk, reading through his daily reports.

  His assistant knocked at the door.

  “Sir, the Americans are asking to set up a phone call between you and the American president.”

  “Are they?”

  “I assume you want me to turn it down?”

  Jinshan looked down at his notes.

  “No. Let us speak with the Americans. Perhaps we can use it to our advantage.”

  “They can meet anytime, sir. What should I say?”

  “Tomorrow morning, our time.”

  The timing would be just before the fun started. It would be the middle of the evening in Washington.

  When the time came, Jinshan looked at the screen, a dark blue background with the American presidential seal. Then the screen changed to a view of the American president. He was sitting at the head of a long conference table. The view was zoomed in so that only he was visible, but there must have been advisors there. He wouldn’t take a call of this importance without them.

  Jinshan had a similar setup. He kept his gaze on the screen, the tiny camera above it capturing him unfiltered. Jinshan noted that his own image made him look tired. He felt tired, too. Just a little longer, he told himself. Then this whole endeavor would be self-sustaining.

  “Mr. President,” Jinshan said.

  “Hello, Mr. Jinshan. Thank you for agreeing to speak with me this evening. I felt it urgent to hold this conversation face-to-face.”

  “I understand, Mr. President. How can I help you?”

  “This conversation might not be easy, Mr. Jinshan. But I feel that it is necessary. I must strenuously object to your recent undemocratic ascendancy to the leadership position of the Chinese people. A week ago, you were on trial. We have evidence that you were involved in planning military action against our country. Now I must ask formally what your intentions are, and make my own intentions known.”

  Dark lines of fatigue lay under Jinshan’s eyes. He coughed into a gray handkerchief, the deep, full cough of a sick man.

  Jinshan began. “I understand that you did not expect to see me here today, Mr. President. Let us dispense with any diplomatic pretense of pleasantries. To be frank, I just don’t have the time.” He paused, then looked thoughtful. “Do you know what the biggest threat to the well-being of a society is?”

  The president was thrown off by Jinshan’s conversational tone. He frowned but remained silent.

  “I will tell you. It’s the proliferation of a free and open Internet. As the saying goes—the pen is mightier than the sword. A free and open Internet places pens and audiences in the hands of the entire global population. The consequences of which would be the undoing of modern civilization, if left unchecked.”

  “Mr. Jinshan, I would like to discuss—”

  Jinshan cut him off with a held-up hand and spoke over him. “You can see the symptoms of this spreading disease in developed countries around the world. As more and more people use the Internet and social media to gain their information, democratic governments and large media companies are no longer capable of shaping the opinions of their populace. This is a dangerous thing.

  “Information was once controlled by the powerful few. Words were carefully crafted to convince people to believe what we—the elite—wanted them to believe. But if the elite—the great thinkers within a state—cannot shape the opinions of their simple-minded citizens, as they have done for ages, it will lead to the absolute worst form of government. Irrational, uninformed democracy.

  “I have seen it happen in your country. Your citizens pick their poison—sources of information that serve to reinforce what they already believe. Your citizens are herded by paid manipulators and forced to the polar extremes.”

  The American president finally bit. “And you think this is worse than your propaganda machine? Citizens who must get their information from a state-run news channel? At least Americans can see all sides…”

  Jinshan scoffed. “You think that they see all sides? They see two sides. A bipolar choice. Why? Because every vote in your congress can only have a yes or a no. So, your lobbyists and marketing machines get to work, coming up with campaigns to motivate the masses to serve their own purpose, and fill their own coffers.

  “We’re both manipulating people, Mr. President. I don’t deny it. But in America, you are tearing yourselves apart. And the rest of the democratic world will follow. All because you have armed your citizens with a free and open Internet. But I won’t let that happen to my country.”

  The American president said, “Americans are free thinkers. You have too little understanding of or faith in humanity if you think that my countrymen are such sheep as you describe.”

  Jinshan said, “If that is what you really think, then you are more naïve than I thought. Your country is becoming more and more polarized. You can’t deny that. This leads to gridlock in the best of cases, and civil war in the worst. It is your American-run social networks that tailor algorithms to show people only what they want to see. The echo chamber of ideas, bouncing around cities with only like-minded people hearing them. Meanwhile, a frenzy of anger wells up on the outside of your city walls.

  “Both sides ar
e being misled, Mr. President. You know this. Politicians and businessmen, marketers and lobbyists—they’re all manipulating the opinions of the Western populace just like we in China have shaped the opinions of our own citizens. But in China, the thought manipulation—let us call it what it is—is orchestrated by leaders who generally have the country’s forward progress in mind. In the West, that is not the case. In the West, anyone can put out polluted information, regardless of its consequence.”

  “In the United States, we value free speech.”

  Jinshan scoffed. “You must see what is happening, Mr. President. Your institutions were once trusted. Just like feudal kings once were, before the printing press. But then ideas spread. Uncontrolled, unfiltered, diseases of ideas. These ideas infected the populace like a plague. These ideas spread throughout the countryside, attaching themselves to anyone who was searching for a reason to believe them. The ideas become reinforced with strings of intellectual thought. They gain rabid followings and evangelists. Before you blink your eyes, Mr. President, the ideas have taken over your kingdom. And the rioters are at your door, calling for your head. Now I ask you, what does this phenomenon remind you of?”

  The president frowned. “I don’t know, what?”

  “Religion. An institution where people believe not in fact, but based on faith in the institution itself. Its followers need security and reassurance. In their crumbling world, they want to know that their time isn’t wasted—that they are serving a higher purpose. And the ideas that have spread like a virus throughout society have morphed into just the religion that they desire. They would worship anything, as long as it supports them and reassures them. These religious groups have leaders that make proclamations, and soon after, the fervent followers will recite these words by heart, or perhaps act out violently on their behalf. Your religious leaders are no longer clerics—they are political talk show hosts and writers. But the end result is the same. Destruction. Free speech is a virus, Mr. President.”

  “Well, Mr. Jinshan, we value morality in America.”

  “Don’t lecture me about morality. You Americans would bankrupt millions to save the life of one. And what good is that? I choose victory over morality.”

  The president said, “Mr. Jinshan, I need you to discuss our current crisis.”

  “I assure you, Mr. President, there is no crisis. The crisis has been averted. I have prevented it.”

  A moment of silence.

  “I don’t follow.”

  “I wouldn’t expect you to. But I’m afraid this meeting must come to a close.” Jinshan looked at his watch. “You are about to have a busy night, Mr. President. Good luck.”

  The screen switched to the Chinese flag. In the White House, a group of military officers entered the president’s room.

  “Mr. President, we have an emergency.”

  18

  The North Korean missile launch was detected right away, with multiple countries tracking it. US reconnaissance aircraft and Korean human intelligence sources had provided notice that it was coming. The single missile had taken off from a mobile launcher.

  Chinese intelligence agents and their nuclear weapons experts had helped train the North Korean crew manning the weapon. One of the Chinese agents had even helped to evaluate the missile’s central processing unit…and made a few adjustments.

  One of the Chinese Ministry of State Security operatives had thought of the plan. Jinshan had loved it. It would ratchet up tensions between North Korea and the West and shift away attention from China. As was typical during North Korean missile tests, all Chinese involvement was kept secret. The Chinese didn’t want anyone to know. And the North Koreans didn’t want to look like they needed any help.

  The North Koreans only knew that they were to test-fire a missile at the precise time provided by the Chinese. They thought that the ICBM was supposed to fly more than two thousand miles before it was to land harmlessly in the water. That was what the North Koreans expected, because that was what they had programmed into the navigational computers.

  But Jinshan’s team of operatives had reprogrammed them, unbeknownst to the North Koreans. It was not programmed to fly over Japan.

  It was programmed to hit Japan.

  There was no warhead in the missile. After all, it was only meant to be a test. To show off the military might of North Korea’s strategic missile force. But it didn’t matter that there was no warhead. The Chinese team “helping” the North Koreans had placed a small explosive charge on board. When the device exploded, the ICBM was traveling at over ten thousand miles per hour.

  Some of the debris burned up in the atmosphere. But the larger pieces didn’t. They fell on mainland Japan.

  If the North Koreans had meant to be provocative, they had exceeded their wildest expectations. No one was hurt. The pieces of the missile landed in Japan’s unpopulated mountain terrain. But the political damage had been done.

  “Natesh provided us with good information. That much is confirmed.”

  Susan sat in the director’s office with General Schwartz. The director had just been briefed on the North Koreans’ ICBM test.

  The director said, “So this missile broke up over Japan. And we’re saying that it was intentional? Part of a Chinese plan?”

  “That’s correct, sir.”

  Director Buckingham said, “This Natesh Chaudry told us to expect this before it happened?”

  General Schwartz said, “From what Susan just briefed me on, Natesh Chaudry told our team in Japan only hours ahead of the launch. He didn’t know the details of how it would happen, but he knew that the North Koreans were going to test-launch an ICBM, and that it would break up somewhere over Japan. He wasn’t sure if any pieces of the missile would actually land on mainland Japan or not. But he says that it was part of Jinshan’s strategy.”

  “Part of his strategy? What the hell does that mean?”

  Susan said, “We’re told that Jinshan wants to shift our focus away from China to a more belligerent North Korea.”

  Director Buckingham said, “Well, it’s working! The president is demanding response options from the Pentagon tonight. He wants immediate action. They crossed the line this time.”

  “Sir, if we escalate, we would be doing exactly what Jinshan wants us to do.”

  “I understand the game, Susan. The question is, what is our best next step?”

  “If Jinshan was hoping that this would take pressure off China, maybe we need to do the opposite.”

  “I don’t want to tip our hand that we knew this was going to happen. That needs to stay in this room, for now. We can’t afford to expose Chaudry. He may be our best new source of information.”

  “Yes, sir. I’m not suggesting that we need to risk compromising our source. Just that it may be in our best interests to…well, I assume that the president will make a statement on this? In response to North Korea’s missile test? What if he were to announce demands on China at the same time? Linking the two nations’ recent hostile actions together?”

  The director frowned. “I like it, but in my experience, the White House communications office doesn’t take it well when we suggest what comes out of their mouth.” He rubbed his chin. “But hell, I’ll offer it anyway. It’s not a bad idea.”

  General Schwartz said, “Please tell the director what else Natesh said.”

  Susan said, “Jinshan was—as we suspected—actively engaged, even from prison. Natesh says that there was a power struggle going on in the Chinese Politburo, with Jinshan on one side and Secretary Zhang on the other. But now Jinshan has imprisoned Zhang—or worse—we don’t have confirmation. It’s meant to send a message to anyone looking to oppose him.”

  Director Buckingham said, “Does Natesh know if Jinshan intends to attack the United States?”

  “He says that preparations are still in the works, yes.”

  “Can we trust him?”

  “Like you said, sir, his information on the ICBM was accurate. Tetsuo’s gut is
that Natesh is being open and honest with us now. He wants out.”

  The director said, “The president’s advisors are urging him not to escalate. Some are calling our warnings about war overblown. A lot of intel supports that assessment.”

  General Schwartz nodded. “Their military activity on the coast has died down. And the most recent military communications intercepts show a drawdown of PLA activity. Recruitment is up, though. And some of their inland units—their strategic bomber units and several army divisions in particular—have continued to drill like crazy.”

  Susan said, “Without more reconnaissance satellites, it’s been harder to get good data. Air Force reconnaissance assets are stretched thin right now.”

  “When are we supposed to have more satellites up?”

  “The National Reconnaissance Office has fast-tracked its launches. They’re saying another week and they’ll have two more up that we’ll be able to use in that area.”

  “Okay. I’ll talk to the president. Susan, I think you’re right. I think that he needs to lay down the law to China. Any new information on Chase Manning and his team?”

  “They’re on Guam. Chase and the Delta team have been training for their assignment there. He says they’re ready to go, if needed. Also, we heard from GIANT.”

  “And?”

  “GIANT had a conversation with Secretary Zhang before he disappeared and got approval to go inspect the Liaoning camp. Apparently, Zhang confided in GIANT that whatever Jinshan was working on there, it was the key to his strategy in attacking the West.”

  “How would Zhang know something like that?”