Sudden Threat

by A. J Tata

  “What’re you thinking about?” Meredith asked. She could see lights in the small town of Stanards-ville about a mile to the south.

  “I want my brothers back,” she said softly, her voice floating into the night. Crickets chimed rhythmically. Two bullfrogs barked at each other in the pond.

  “I want them back too,” Meredith said, quietly. She had known Matt for one day, had never met Zachary and yet, strangely, she felt bonded to them. She found Matt to be one of the most interesting people she had met, and she wasn’t sure why. Perhaps there was a bit of electricity there when he had woken up and asked her if she was one of the virgins. She smiled at the thought.

  They watched the stars blink at them from the heavens and hoped that the Man in charge up there would be good to them. They believed in so many things. They had faith in God. They believed in their country, and they believed that people were basically good.

  “Thanks for all your help today. You really made a difference during a difficult time,” Karen said. After a pause, she said, “You see that light just beneath the moon?”

  Meredith looked, and said, “I think so.”

  “It’s blinking, sort of.”

  “Yeah. I see it,” Meredith said, leaning over to gain Karen’s perspective, her hair falling across Karen’s shoulder.

  “I read somewhere, can’t remember now, that you could see satellites in the sky. Never believed it, but that doesn’t look like a star, and it sure isn’t an airplane,” Karen said. Meredith didn’t respond. She just watched the dark sky flutter with millions of lights. She looked at Karen, still fixed on the bright moving object. Meredith felt a kinship to her. She was drawn to her strength. A man and a set of circumstances had brought them together.

  “You can sleep in Matt’s old room,” Karen said. “You shouldn’t drive back tonight. His old twin bed is still in there.”

  “Thanks. That’s sweet,” Meredith said, smiling and remembering her and Matt’s goofy conversation in Palau. It was unusual because Matt had been on heavy doses of morphine and Percocet. Rathburn had briefly joined them poolside and was playing the Rolling Stones’ “Beast of Burden” on his iPod loud enough for them to hear.

  “You, okay?” Karen asked.

  “Just thinking of Matt for some reason,” Meredith said.

  “He’s like that, Matt is. Whatever you do, don’t get hooked on him, he’s trouble.”

  Meredith smiled. She could see that in him, but there was something …

  “Thanks for the clothes,” she said, as they both stood and walked up the stairs. They hugged one another before retiring to their separate rooms. Meredith was lost in her thoughts, and Karen just needed to sleep.

  Sitting on Matt’s old bed, she studied the room. Half of it had an angled ceiling from the A-frame. The other half was flat. Pictures of Zachary and Matt hung on the knotty pine wall. Other than the bed with cowboy-and-Indian sheets, there were three boxes in the room. They stood stacked on the tongue-in-groove floor. She stood and looked in the top box, pulling back the cardboard flap. She saw a manila folder inside, labeled: what is going on?!

  She took the folder and sat back on the bed, opening it. Several pages of yellow legal paper were folded so they would fit in the undersized folder. Beneath them was a stapled packet of about fifteen pages, once again labeled: what is going on. Though this time there was no question mark or exclamation point. “Huh,” she said to herself as she began reading.

  Iraq and Afghanistan … I just don’t understand. We had just commandeered several mules from a local farmer and took the path just north of Torkum gate. We knew we were in Pakistan, but we had a solid lead on two specific persons of interest, shall we say. Then I’ve got the shot. Then someone is screaming at me denying my kill chain. Next thing we know a JDAM lands closer to us than to the AQ and we get the call on sat phone ordering us to turn around and come back. Less than two days later my team is in Iraq, and I’m on my way to the U.S. for a makeover to chase some phantom Predators in China. What the hell is going on?

  My thought is that these political appointees have their head so far up their asses they can’t see straight. We’ve got a clear mission in Afghanistan. With no forces to block the passes, though, as we requested, well, the big fish have trickled away downstream. This is personal for me, and it’s personal for the country. The one time the nation has asked for a head on a platter and we can’t deliver. Bin Laden and his cronies dealt us a sucker punch and we must destroy them.

  Where will this lead? There’s no question about the rightness of killing Saddam, but it’s a tougher problem than anyone can imagine. Hell, give me the mission and I’ll go do it. There is no question that a democratic Iraq may be a game-changing entity in the Middle East. Who wouldn’t want that? But is it feasible? They should take a look at the Balkans and all the warring factions there to see what might be in store for a fractured Iraq. Post–Cold War Yugoslavia is a good model to think about, but Iraq will be far more kinetic. One thing is for certain; we are treating Afghanistan and Al Qaeda as an economy of force mission. Maybe that’s the right thing to do, but I can’t see how.

  Even more, what happens if we get locked into major combat in Iraq and another country becomes a sudden threat? We will be caught flat-footed, for sure. Take a look at any of the regional contingencies: China-Taiwan; North Korea-South Korea; Iran-any neighbor; Russia-Georgia or any of its breakaway republics and there are other possibilities. The world is short on resources and long on demand. Water and oil will drive the next decade’s social and economic policies. What happens if a nation decides it must act for survival despite its impact on economies around its region or around the globe?

  Meredith dropped the paper in her lap and put her fingers to her temples. My God, what is he saying?

  She read on. Matt delineated several Pacific Rim regional threats, but drifted back to Islamic radicalism. He highlighted the Abu Sayyaf insurgent factions that were struggling for help, ripe for outside support. While philosophically aligned with Bin Laden, the Abu Sayyaf’s need for resources outstripped Al Qaeda’s ability to provide, Matt argued.

  She felt close to Matt reading his paper. Obvious to her, these were just thoughts typed into a computer through stream of consciousness. She closed the folder and sat still, looking through the window into the night. She turned off the light, still thinking, and let the darkness settle over her like a blanket.

  As she drifted off to sleep, in her mind a hawk circled, looking for prey. As her thinking processes shut down, there it was. Its talons clutched the rabbit, and her subconscious thought: It cannot be possible.

  CHAPTER 51

  The following morning, Meredith ate the good breakfast that Karen made for her, after which she printed out a MapQuest set of directions to the University of Virginia library. She sped down Route 29 into the heart of Charlottesville and found the library after a few wrong turns.

  Once she was parked and now in range of a decent cell tower, Meredith powered up her Blackberry, read her messages, and stared at the library for a minute.

  Energized, she barged in, showing the monitor her Department of Defense badge and asked if there was an office with a fax machine. Getting a good look at the blonde official, the student manager gladly let her use the librarian’s office. Meredith threw off her coat, still wearing Karen’s jeans and flannel shirt. She then walked quickly to the reference and periodical sections, spending nearly thirty minutes collecting country reports and studies on Japan and the Philippines. Then she punched up Google and she found the British “Economist Intelligence Unit” country reports to be the most insightful and comprehensive.

  She spun the mouse until the Japanese trade figures appeared. When she had read Matt’s monograph, she had not thought of the Philippines as an actor, but as a target. It was resource rich but infrastructure poor. It was a rabbit with no hole to hide.

  And Japan was a potential hawk. Circling, starv-ing, resource-poor Japan; its wings spread high into the strato
sphere of advanced nations, yet it had little bounty within its own territory.

  She studied the figures. Trade was declining with Europe and the U.S. Next, she looked at the demographics. There would be a manpower shortage in Japan in a couple of years. She looked at the energy reports. Japan’s coal production had fallen, and its alternative sources program had reached the point of diminishing returns. Gas prices were already exorbitant across the country. She read the EIU report that asserted that Prime Minister Mizuzawa was tiring of American claims of unfair play. Could she have stumbled onto something?

  She searched the documents, looking for a link between Japan and the Philippines. The revolution had happened, she knew that. She also knew that about two years ago, the Abu Sayyaf had announced their alignment with Al Qaeda, hoping to reach into Bin Laden’s deep pockets. She turned away from the computer and reached under the stack of books and papers, grabbing country reports from two years back. Tucking her hair behind both ears, she dug in. She read agricultural reports, manufacturing reports, trade figures, imports, exports. Nothing seemed unusual.

  Then she saw it.

  Buried in a “Recent Developments” paragraph of the two-year-old EIU report, she found the sentence, “Surprisingly, Japan has invested in construction on the island of Mindanao in the Philippines. That the Japanese would construct mines and mineral-gathering facilities on the island, which is riddled with Al Qaeda sympathizers, demonstrates the desperate lengths to which they will go to secure resources for their economy.”

  That was the link, but what did it mean? Maybe they were just getting resources. Think, Meredith, think. She stared at the wall, searching her mind for a clue. How would they transport the stuff? On ships. What kind of ships?

  She picked up the phone and called her office in the Pentagon. Mark Russell, a young intern, answered the phone. Perfect.

  “Mark. Listen. I want you to go to the guys at the Philippine desk and get reports for all shipping activity out of Mindanao. I need you to fax it to me in ten minutes,” Meredith demanded. She gave him the number.

  “Okay. But they’re pretty busy with this current sit—”

  “Listen!” she said loudly, “this current situation may be bigger than we think. Now do it. And tell them that Stone wants it.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” She hung up the phone. It was not a total lie. If she could prove a link between Japan and the Philippines, she would try to brief Stone that afternoon. The implications of fighting an insurgency, if that was what her country was going to do, would be vastly different if Japan was supporting the rebels for their own purposes. How had they gotten all the new weapons? How had they grown so fast in the past two years?

  Five minutes later, the fax machine jumped to life and began to spit out pages with the past year’s worth of shipping data from Davao City and Polomoloc, the two major port cities on Mindanao. She stacked them on the desk, cluttered with open books turned upside down to mark pages.

  It was monotonous, looking at the figures of ships and their names and the cargo that they hauled. The only Japanese ships she could identify that went into either port were some taking in consumer goods for the Filipinos, several ships carrying timber back to Japan, and ten oil tankers. Oil tankers? She checked the oil export figures for the Philippines. They don’t export oil to Japan!

  She called Mark back and asked him for some tracking data on the ten Japanese oil tankers that had left Davao City in the past six months. Once again the fax machine whirred to life.

  Those ships never off-loaded any cargo in Japan! They entered Davao City empty and left with their hulls deep in the water, the reports read. It looked like a routine oil pickup. While there might be oil reserves in Mindanao, the Philippine government had not invested any infrastructure in either finding or pumping the oil.

  By a process of elimination, she came to the conclusion that there were ten, possibly eleven, Japanese ships somewhere in the Pacific with something other than oil as cargo. She also surmised that whatever the Japanese had constructed, they were not gathering minerals. The mineral export-and-import data remained the same after the Japanese did the construction in Mindanao.

  She also noticed that the EIU reported that Japanese defense spending remained the same as a percentage of gross national product. But, she noticed that overall government spending had increased without accounting for the rise anywhere in any other line item.

  Convinced something was amiss, she gathered her faxes, purse, and coat, and sped out the door.

  CHAPTER 52

  Pentagon, Washington, DC

  Secretary Stone pulled a rumpled pack of Camels from his top desk drawer and shook it until two cigarettes revealed their crushed filters. He had been smoking like a fiend since the beginning of the crisis. Grabbing one butt with his large, fleshy fingers, Stone stuffed the white stick in his mouth and lit it with a shaky hand.

  Coughing smoke, he said, “It’s a different world, this post-Nine-eleven thing, you know?”

  “Yes, I know,” Kaitachi responded, watching the smoke billow from Stone’s rotund face. “But we need your help. Not only with the Philippines, and the China situation, as you might suspect, but with Korea as well—”

  “What the hell does Korea have to do with this?” Stone retorted, the cigarette jumping wildly in his mouth.

  “The North is playing with nuclear weapons and, we believe, is trafficking nuclear materials. How would it look for North Korea to be passing nuclear weapons to our enemies? And with Islamic fundamentalism threatening our sea-lanes, we now feel threats on all of our borders, so to speak,” Kaitachi said.

  Stone looked at the other man, Takishi. This should be good!

  “Mister Secretary, on behalf of Prime Minister Mizuzawa, I must also convey our deep concerns over the situation in Korea. He believes, rightfully so, that both countries on the Korean peninsula pose a significant threat to Japan. And we both know that we can have no satisfaction that way,” Takishi said.

  Diamond and Fox listened intently as Stone entertained the Japanese delegation. Fox’s years as an academic had prepared him for his vaunted position as the Deputy Secretary. That morning he sat quietly in Stone’s office, listening to a new Japanese argue about issues in the Pacific.

  Diamond and Fox were beyond concerned. With the nagging issue in the Pacific, their theories and musings about Iraq might not come to fruition, their quest for eternal fame left unrealized.

  “What are you talking about?” Stone responded. “We’re all part of the United Nations. We won’t let that happen anymore. Even with everything going on in Iraq and Afghanistan, we won’t let it happen, I’m telling you.” As Stone spoke, Kaitachi and Takishi looked at each other with reassuring eyes.

  “One final protest over Korea—”

  “Why the hell are you so concerned about Korea all of a sudden?” Stone demanded, his chin rattling around his neck and growing red where his shirt collar chafed. He looked at Diamond and Fox and shook his head. “Can you believe these guys?”

  “It is not a new concern of ours, and we have reason to believe China may be orchestrating the events,” Takishi said. He crossed his long legs as he spoke and used his hands to animate his point.

  “The Japanese people are beginning to feel increasingly threatened and confined. Almost surrounded, you might say. Without your help, we feel the region may grow unstable,” Takishi continued, doing nothing more than creating white noise. This scene was all being orchestrated by the dumb-as-a-fox Stone.

  Stone lit another cigarette and thought for a moment, then said, “Look, we’ve got hostages to get out of the Philippines, then we’re off to Iraq. We don’t have time to worry about some back-burner problem of yours.”

  “We can help with your hostage situation,” Takishi said. Kaitachi let the Prime Minister’s representative continue. “We have established contact with Commander Talbosa, the senior Abu Sayyaf commander, and can arrange for all Western and freedom-seeking peoples to depart the country by
way of Subic Bay Naval Base.”

  Stone leaned forward, acting almost jubilant, as if the albatross that had nested on his neck had flown out of the window and across the brown waters of the Potomac.

  “Are you serious? Why the hell didn’t you mention that first?” Stone said, smiling.

  “This would be huge,” Fox said, entering the conversation for the first time.

  “Timely,” Diamond concurred.

  “Yes, timely,” Fox added.

  Takishi and Kaitachi exchanged knowing glances; their approach was having the proper effect.

  “Wait,” Stone said, sitting back in his leather chair, suspecting something. “What’s it going to cost us? What’s the trade-off?”

  “Talbosa simply wants a guarantee of no American intervention in exchange for allowing anyone who wants to leave the country. He sees this as a domestic situation and claims there is no threat to United States’ interests. Of course, we have tacked on our interest in the shipping lanes to the negotiations,” Takishi said.

  “That sounds too easy,” Stone said. He was really thinking: That’s not part of the script. American intervention is the entire purpose, you moron, Charlie Watts.

  “It may be. We are still highly concerned about our shipping lanes, and as I mentioned earlier, all of the other threats we perceive,” Takishi said, increasing the level of static.

  “Yeah, okay,” Stone responded, confused. “One thing at a time.” Is Watts double-crossing me?

  “Of course. We need to close the deal with Talbosa, secretly. Give us a day, then you will need to start sending airplanes into Subic Bay and arranging for the withdrawal of your people. Talbosa has indicated he will give you two days,” Takishi said.