The Mandarin Club

by Gerald Felix Warburg

  “Right.”

  “Do you really believe we’re going to get into a military confrontation over where Mickey’s kids spend their summer vacation?”

  “I think you need some breakfast,” said Alexander, laughing, and she welcomed the sound.

  “And a bath. I need a bubble bath. I want to wash it all away.”

  Monday morning proved equally sobering. There were reporters in the TPB lobby. Talbott had closed the curtains to his rebuilt, behind-the-reception-area office, and laid on extra security. The boss awaited her in the boardroom.

  “Jonathan, why on earth is all the press here?” she began, feeling confused after nearly two weeks away from the office.

  “Sit down, my dear.” Even in his worried state, he was formal, pulling at his fingers. “I’m afraid we have a bit of a situation.”

  “A situation? You mean the stakeout? Is that for you—or for me?”

  “Actually, it’s for our client, Mr. Dooley. That’s who they’re looking for.”

  “Mickey? He got off the plane in Alaska.” She was watching Talbott now, as if he knew something she didn’t. She sat and sighed. “Why do I feel like a spectator again? I mean, is he? Is Mickey here in Washington?”

  “We don’t know. I have sought clarification from some of our friends in the State Department. It’s just that Mr. Dooley has been a very prominent client of our firm, and our role appears to some to be quite suspicious.”

  “Telstar is our client. Mickey is just—wait a minute. What are you implying about ‘our role?’ That getting his kids out of China was some TPB operation?”

  “Actually, that is what the Chinese press has been reporting this morning.”

  “Really?” Rachel was shaking her head, bewildered.

  Talbott waited for the information to sink in. “There is something I need to ask you, Rachel. Man to woman, partner to partner, or however one should put it.”

  He was patronizing her again, but she didn’t mind. She could hear the enormous grandfather clock ticking in the corner.

  “Rachel, the question I must ask you is this. . .” Talbott paused, earnest to the point of awkwardness. “Did you have knowledge of this planned activity in advance?”

  She felt like mush. She hadn’t read a newspaper in several days. Her brain was still somewhere over the Pacific, and her feet were not yet settled in her heels.

  “Oh, Mr. Talbott,” she replied, “I suppose so.”

  “You ‘suppose’?” He folded his hands, his displeasure evident. “And did you ever consider the consequences of this planned activity, for your colleagues here at TPB?”

  “Well, to be honest, no. But I knew about it only because Mickey and I have been friends since I was in college. He just sort of spilled it out. It was personal stuff he was sharing, out of friendship.”

  “I see.”

  “Oh, I’m not sure you do, Jonathan. It was just a fluke. Mickey was scared, he was troubled, and he just blurted it out. He said some things he shouldn’t have. Now that I think about it, I suppose Senator Smithson knew, too. I don’t think they could take that sort of risk without his permission.”

  She paused, straightening herself, then continued. “But I. . . I really have no idea who they had arranged it with, Jonathan. I don’t want to know. It was just a family issue as far as I was concerned.”

  “Do you have any idea what this so-called ‘family issue’ has unleashed, Rachel? Its impact on us? The expulsion of an ambassador? The accelerated military maneuvers. The—”

  “Jonathan, with all due respect, that’s just bull. The Chinese are playing with our heads. It’s just for show. They have these war games every year. They’re still trying to punish Taiwan for having the temerity to hold free elections. First, the voters elected a native Taiwanese, then they elected a human rights lawyer who favors independence. The PRC is just using this latest incident as an excuse. They have another agenda here.”

  “It appears quite grave this time. And our business has suffered.”

  “It’s just a game.”

  “Hardly.”

  “It’s just a game of chicken. Like when they rammed our spy plane, and tried to make us apologize.”

  “Rachel, I don’t think you can compare—”

  “Beijing and Taipei have been playing this game for sixty years. Don’t you see? They know the rules. China does. Taiwan does. We’re the only ones who don’t.”

  “But we are the ones to suffer, here at TPB. Rachel, I must tell you that Telstar terminated their contract with us.”

  “What?”

  “Right after they fired Mickey Dooley, that is. O’Neill Aerospace is also balking at their scheduled renewal. Those are two of our biggest retainers.”

  “Why did they cancel the—”

  “I don’t need to tell you, the team leader on both accounts, that this constitutes a very substantial revenue loss for which you must bear considerable responsibility.”

  “Why did they cancel?” Rachel was thoroughly confused. She couldn’t keep up, though she could already see how the office would be buzzing with gossip. She had stumbled again.

  “They both do considerable business with China. The Chinese maintain that TPB employees and clients helped ‘kidnap’—their word—and—”

  Talbott was interrupted by a sharp knocking on the boardroom door. His secretary appeared, looking stern, a folded note held at arm’s length for the boss. Through the open doorway, Rachel could hear commotion from the press gaggle out in the reception area.

  “Thank you, Marian,” Talbott said, folding the note neatly and placing it in his coat pocket as the heavy door clicked shut.

  He walked toward the wall and pressed a button, sliding a paneled section back to reveal an enormous flat screen TV. The firm gathered here to watch major congressional votes upon which they had all worked. They had watched the impeachment speeches here, once upon a time, as well as the ghastly developments of 9/11. Otherwise, the screen stood dormant, used only for the occasional sports playoff game over an evening session, with pizza and beer.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  Talbott had his back to her. He was fumbling under the console for the remote control gadgets. He held the two clickers, cradling them gingerly, as if they were live grenades, while he tried in vain to coordinate their functions.

  “‘Things fall apart. . .’” he began to recite, “‘the center cannot hold.’”

  “Yeats.”

  “You’re well read.”

  “Stanford does that.”

  He managed finally to click the TV on, but got only some cartoons on the local Fox station. “Damn. Here, can you get CNN for us, please?”

  Talbott waited as Rachel pointed the VCR remote, then continued matter-of-factly. “Marian says the networks are reporting missile strikes against Taipei.”

  Rachel found Channel 12. As usual, Marian was correct.

  There was a voiceover from the Pentagon correspondent, and live footage from the Taipei nighttime sky, smoke spiraling up from a distant hilltop.

  “Yes, Dave, we’ve lost our audio connection with Taiwan right now, and have just this picture. But U.S. intelligence sources are reporting that the likely target was the Yangmingshin Mountain facility of the Taiwan Ministry of Defense—excuse me, that’s Yangmingshan. It’s a major signals intelligence facility said to be operated jointly by Taiwan’s MOD, the super-secret U.S. National Security Agency, and the CIA.”

  “And what would be the purpose for targeting this facility?” the studio anchor was asking now. “It’s in the suburbs, outside the capital, is it not?”

  “Yes, Dave, it’s outside the capital city of Taipei. A big military compound in the foothills, quite noticeable for its many giant satellite signal-receiving disks. It’s called a ‘data processing facility’ because supposedly the U.S. doesn’t have military personnel in Taiwan—that might upset Beijing. But actually, it’s known to be a giant signals intelligence center, a spying facility where the U
.S. and Taiwan cooperate in sifting through intelligence captured from the Communist-led government in Beijing.”

  “And the Chinese justification for such a strike?”

  “Well. . .”

  “I mean, so many issues are out there now. . .”

  “To be sure. The allegations by some that Taiwan is developing nuclear weapons capability—the so-called krytron smuggling case.”

  “Yes, and more immediately, the bizarre allegations they have made that the CIA allegedly ‘kidnapped’ two Chinese-American boys. The unrelenting Chinese missile buildup, and their provocative military maneuvers. The expulsion of the U.S. ambassador, the refusal by Taiwan to agree to a timetable for reunification talks. There’s quite a list of grievances.”

  “Yes, Dave. It certainly calls into question the Seattle summit.”

  “Or if the summit will even take place.”

  “It has certainly been a long and tortured road that has brought us to this juncture, to a military confrontation. What we are picking up here from our sources at the Pentagon is speculation that recent events caused the Chinese to ramp up their annual military exercises opposite Taiwan. But with the new military hardware the Americans have provided Taiwan—the Kidd destroyers in particular—Taiwan’s radar systems may have been ‘locking on’ Chinese fighters. These radar locks are quite readily mistaken for a preparation to fire on—”

  “Oh my!” Both of the TV voices shouted as there was a flash of light on the screen so bright it seemed to penetrate even the darkest corners of the TPB boardroom. Then the screen went blank for a moment, punctuated by the disembodied voices of American reporters talking excitedly over each other.

  Rachel stood as several colleagues raced in.

  “The market’s frozen!” Wally Ashburn, a senior partner exclaimed. “What the hell’s going on, Rach? You startin’ World War III?”

  Braden Sechrest was with them now, too, a tall woman in a lilac suit with a ream of papers in hand. “Lloyd’s has pulled insurance on all shipping in East Asia. NASDAQ suspended trading—off ten percent already. The Tokyo markets are going to go bananas.”

  “Uh, Dave, that was quite a strike!” Now they had a live picture of the Pentagon correspondent standing before a podium in a briefing room in Virginia. ‘We are getting speculation here of EMP weapons being used.”

  “EMP?”

  “Electro Magnetic Pulse bombs. Kind of like the old neutron bombs designed to kill people, but leave the buildings standing. These EMP weapons are likely designed to knock out all the communications systems—the electronics and avionics the Taiwanese are using for battle management.”

  Soon enough, the TV news whip-around came to the North Lawn of the White House, where the CNN correspondent was speaking grimly of possible American losses at the intelligence-gathering facility in Taipei. Most of the senior members of the TPB firm crowded in to watch it all on the big screen TV.

  After a time, Rachel slipped out of the board room, feeling like the walking dead. Everything seemed to be happening on her watch. Somebody sets off a bomb beneath their lobby—naturally, she gets hit. Mickey causes an international incident—and she gets blamed. She felt like a modern day Typhoid Mary.

  She retreated back to her private office, viewing the space as if through some distant lens. Her routine day was waiting in front of her. Her desk was covered with neatly piled papers, the Washington detritus from two weeks away. Her dutiful assistant had opened all the mail and sorted the folders. Her “Action” files were neatly stacked. The one marked “Fundraising Invitations” was thick—no doubt in anticipation of the fall rush, trying to get Rachel and TPB calendared well in advance. “Client Correspondence” was thinner—the volume of e-mail traffic and voicemail would be far greater than the snail mail here. The bulging travel file full of business expense receipts from her Asia trip was waiting to be processed.

  Rachel, her routine shattered, sat regarding it all. Her hip was vibrating, the Blackberry gone mad again, with the zapping of yet another someone trying to reach her. Her phone lights were flashing. Her voice mail light was illuminated, with a red indicator on: it was full. The computer was beeping, hailing incoming e-mail behind her. Outside, below a cerulean sky, a jackhammer was pounding staccato-like on F Street.

  She walked slowly to her door and closed it. Then she sat back at her desk and began, for the first time since April, to cry, the salty tears flowing freely. She wanted to let go with one great wail. She could not find the voice to call out, however—not here, not now.

  How have I come to this place? She wondered at it all, at the long journey from her Wyoming childhood. The work started out as a challenge, a cause to pursue, an intellectual frontier to conquer, a climb up the economic ladder. Too soon, the career became its own end. Then, as if in the third step of grieving, the job became a definition of self. You were your job. It defined you—she realized now—especially in this city where status and access meant everything. Your vocation became your entire identity. You clung to it, terrified of the day when they would have to pry the desk from your desperate hands.

  She had seen it. She had seen the utter defeat on the faces of aging TPB officers—the ones let go quietly after lunch on Fridays. Their building access keys were seized. Their computer network passwords were suddenly denied. Some escort from Personnel loomed close by to practically frog walk them off the premises.

  She struggled in vain to rally, to climb beyond the chaos breaking all about her, to make sense of the world events and to figure out her proper role in them. There was a knock at her door; then her secretary’s head appeared.

  “Oh, there you are, Rachel,” she said, relieved. “It’s Alexander Bonner. He’s holding on line one. Say, are you feeling OK?”

  “Sure,” Rachel said, “thanks, I’m just kind of spaced out again today, I’m afraid.”

  “You need some coffee or something?”

  “Maybe something stronger.”

  Rachel stared a moment longer, even after the door was closed, then found Alexander on her private line.

  “So, I guess maybe the summit is off,” Alexander began.

  “No kidding.”

  “Are you watching?”

  “I was. I mean, it’s kind of buzzing all around me, like Sensurround. The TV, Internet, the phones. I can’t really process it all.”

  “I know,” he said.

  “I mean, I’ve already done this. My goddamn office got bombed to start this season—and I’m still not sure we know the who and why of that.”

  “Hey, believe it, girl.”

  “But a war? With China?”

  “You think all those RAND studies were just academic exercises?”

  “It’s just so. . . so surreal. It feels like a stupid video game. The news stations have all become Entertainment Channels. Except today, they keep playing some new horror film.”

  “Welcome to the twenty-first century.”

  THE E-WAR

  The war unfolded very much the way Booth and Branko had foreseen: cyber warriors ruled the field. It was all over in less than thirty-six hours. But the repercussions of Beijing’s technological blitzkreig promised to be felt for generations to come. The Communist goliath humiliated the nettlesome island democracy with remarkable ease, while a confused world watched on satellite TV.

  From the very outset, Alexander was embarrassed to find that the conflict was tailor-made for his coverage. It was a perverse reward for years of developing unique China sources. He had cell and home phone numbers for virtually every Western policy-maker responsible for managing the conflict—from Langley to the Pentagon, from the White House to Honolulu’s Pacific Command. Even amidst the electronic chaff hurtling about, he managed to get direct calls through to a number of key players in Beijing and Taipei, yielding some brutally blunt on-the-record quotes.

  Alexander was appalled. He could sit at his desk and witness devastation raining down on familiar avenues twelve thousand miles away. Yet, he could not suppr
ess his fascination. It was like that horrible September morning, watching those damn planes sail into the Twin Towers over and over again—only this time, it fell to him to explain it all to the reading public. This was his story; he felt like the assigned witness to the macabre.

  Branko had long ago warned that the financial markets were the West’s most vulnerable point. That is precisely where the Chinese military had wittingly designed their early blows to strike. The prospect of the U.S. being drawn into a shooting war with China provoked panic among global investors. In its earliest hours, the conflict halted commercial shipping throughout the East Asia region. The possibility of losses drove insurance rates through the roof, effectively shutting down trade in the region, halting ships at sea. Critical communications with many Fortune 500 companies’ overseas production facilities—especially the legions of chipmakers on both sides of the Taiwan Strait—were crippled. Capital investments froze. Share prices plummeted around the globe.

  Once the shooting stopped, Branko explained to Alexander just how the Chinese government could credibly allege that Taiwan had initiated the hostilities. “Planes go up and troll for targets every day. That is what they’re supposed to do. The problem comes when adversaries detect a ‘radar lock,’ even from fighters on routine patrol. It appears like the headlights of an onrushing train; a pilot has only seconds to react, or risks losing the plane and being killed. When that happens, orders are to shoot first and ask questions later.”

  The Chinese accusation that Taiwan had started it all was thus difficult to refute, especially amidst the chaos of the ensuing conflict. The reality was that such radar-lock incidents happened all too frequently. Alexander’s analytical stories accurately noted that the justification was the same used after the first Gulf War by the Americans, when they continued to assault random Iraqi targets throughout the 1990’s. Perhaps Taiwan’s fighters had provoked Beijing by using radar in a hostile fashion. If so, Taipei was guilty of escalating above a clear threshold—an indisputable provocation.