by Jeff Edwards
In a matter of seconds, the sky above the Bay of Bengal was a snarl of crisscrossing exhaust trails, as Chinese surface-to-air missiles climbed toward the Indian Navy MiGs, and the Indian pilots unleashed their own Switchblade anti-ship cruise missiles.
By the time the first missiles struck their targets, another flight of MiGs was launching from the deck of INS Vikrant.
The entire engagement lasted less than twenty minutes. When it was done, all three warships of the Chinese surface action group were on their way to the bottom of the bay. Seven aircraft of the Indian Navy were destroyed, and three others were able to limp back to their carrier with varying degrees of damage. The sea was littered with the bodies of dead and injured Sailors.
The First Battle of Bengal was over. The true carnage was yet to come.
CHAPTER 11
WHITE HOUSE SITUATION ROOM
WASHINGTON, DC
SATURDAY; 22 NOVEMBER
6:21 PM EST
President Dalton Wainright trailed a Secret Service agent through the door into the Situation Room. As the president walked to his traditional seat at the head of the long mahogany table, the agent stepped deftly aside, taking up a position in the corner to the right of the door, where he could survey the entire length of the room without moving.
In the past, when the primary display screens had depended on ceiling-mounted LCD projectors, the Situation Room had been kept in semi-darkness. But the projector screens were gone now, replaced by six large flat screen televisions along the side walls, and an enormous flat screen master display covering the entire wall opposite the president’s chair. With the projectors gone, there was no reason to dim the lights, so the room was well lit.
Although President Wainright would not admit it to anyone—including himself—he would have preferred the semi-darkness of the old days. It wasn’t the mystique of the old lighting scheme that he missed; it was the anonymity, the false but reassuring sense of invisibility that sometimes comes from watching a movie in the cozy gloom of a public theater.
Dalton was not at all comfortable in his job. He was certainly not the first holder of the office to experience that particular feeling, but his own brand of discomfort didn’t stem from the traditional source. More than one politician had spent an entire career angling for the Oval Office, only to discover that the job was too large, too challenging, and too thankless to reward the effort.
That wasn’t the case for Dalton. Like most people who dabble in politics, he had sometimes flirted with dreams of the presidency, but those had been idle fantasies. He had never harbored any thought of trying to make them real, and he was not a bit surprised to find out that the presidency was completely out of his depth.
He had been quite happy as the Junior Senator from Maine, content in the belief that his political career had reached its peak. The invitation to join Frank Chandler’s dark horse bid for the presidency had come as a surprise. Dalton had accepted the role of vice-presidential running mate, not because he believed that Chandler could win the election, but because it seemed like a logical way to bring his career in politics to a close.
With the possible exception of Frank himself, no one had been more shocked than Dalton when their Republican opponent’s campaign had disintegrated in the wake of a well-publicized sex scandal. The resulting backlash in public opinion had propelled Frank Chandler into the Oval Office, with a rather dazed Dalton Wainright clinging to his coattails.
Now Frank was gone too, driven out of office by the public uproar after the fiasco in Kamchatka and the missile attack on Pearl Harbor. His departure had made Dalton Wainwright only the second vice-president in American history to ascend to the Oval Office through the resignation of a sitting president.
During his tenure in the Senate, a Washington Post reporter had once described Dalton as ‘competent and dedicated, but undistinguished.’ Under the undimmed lights of the White House Situation Room, Dalton wondered if even that scrap of left-handed praise might be an overstatement of his abilities. Despite his lack of flamboyance, he’d been qualified for his seat in the Senate. He’d known what he was doing, and he had been equal to the challenge.
The presidency was another matter. He could still lay claim to the words ‘dedicated’ and ‘undistinguished,’ but he had serious doubts that he was competent to hold the highest office in the land.
* * *
According to protocol, the half dozen people gathered around the long table were standing at attention. Dalton waved for them to take their seats, as he settled into his own chair.
The Sit Room Duty Officer, a hard-faced Air Force Colonel with steel-rimmed glasses, remained standing near the far end of the table. He nodded briskly toward his commander-in-chief. “Good evening, Mr. President.”
Dalton opened the blue-jacketed briefing folder on the table in front of him, and glanced up to meet the colonel’s eyes. He returned the man’s nod with an equally abrupt gesture. “Proceed.”
The Duty Officer pointed a slender remote toward the enormous screen opposite Dalton’s chair. The blue background and presidential seal vanished from the wall-sized display, replaced by a regional map of Asia, overlaid with hundreds of cryptic-looking tactical symbols. The six smaller flat screens along the walls were instantly populated with images of ships, fighter aircraft, submarines, helicopters, and missile systems.
The Sit Room Duty Officer turned toward the master display, and thumbed a button that turned the remote into a laser pointer. The red dot of the laser came to rest in the body of water to the east of India, the Bay of Bengal, where a jumble of colored symbols seemed to indicate a concentration of ships and aircraft.
“Mr. President,” the officer said, “the conflict between China and India is escalating rapidly. Both sides are mobilizing military assets across the board, and both countries have clearly demonstrated that they are willing to engage in direct combat action.”
Secretary of Defense Mary O’Neil-Broerman spoke up. “The situation over there is going to hell in a hand basket, sir.”
“I can see that,” Dalton said. “I want to know why.”
He instantly regretted the sharp tone in his voice. He had a tendency to become brusque when he was unsure of himself, and right now he was very unsure of himself.
Since the day he’d inherited the presidency, he’d begun every day with a simple prayer, or perhaps it was just a plea to the universe, since it wasn’t directed toward any particular deity. Please do not let anything happen today that I can’t handle.
So far, he’d managed to muddle through without disaster—largely because Frank Chandler had left him with a staff of capable people who were skilled at helping him navigate difficult situations. But he’d also been lucky. Fate had not yet thrown him a problem that was beyond the scope of his abilities.
Dalton’s string of good fortune couldn’t last forever. He knew that. Sooner or later, it was bound to happen. He would run into some challenge or some catastrophe that was too big for him. Then the people of the United States would find out how horribly things can go wrong when the guy sitting in the big chair is not up to the job.
“Mr. President, we can only partially answer that question,” the Sit Room Duty Officer said. “The trigger seems to have been that train wreck in Tibet on Tuesday, the rocket attack on the Qinghai Railroad. The Chinese began calling it an act of terrorism before the smoke had even cleared. They apparently traced the terrorists to the Village of Geku, on the Indian side of the Himalayas. The People’s Liberation Army retaliated with a massive cruise missile strike that pretty much wiped the village off the map.”
“That can’t be right,” the president said. “The Chinese are not stupid, and that’s too much of an overreaction. You don’t retaliate for a localized act of terrorism by launching a large scale missile attack against another country.”
The Secretary of Defense leaned forward in her chair. “With all due respect, Mr. President, that’s not necessarily true. The U.S. has done it more
than once. The first example that comes to mind is August of 1998, when President Clinton ordered the launch of Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles at targets in Afghanistan and the Sudan. It was in retaliation for the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. We simultaneously launched about 75 cruise missiles against countries on two different continents.”
The National Security Advisor, Gregory Brenthoven, shook his head. “Granted that your basic premise is true, but your example is not exactly parallel to the current mess in Asia.”
He turned his gaze toward the president. “When former President Clinton gave the order to launch, he knew that both Afghanistan and the Republic of Sudan were a nice comfortable distance from the United States. About six or seven thousand miles. President Clinton also knew that neither country had the firepower or the logistics to bring the fight back to American shores. In other words, the risk of escalating to all-out war was just about zero.”
Brenthoven gestured toward the big map of Asia on the master display. “That’s not the case with this China-India thing, sir. China didn’t launch their missiles against some third-world country on the other side of the planet. They provoked a major military competitor, a nuclear power no less, sitting right on their own southern border. And that doesn’t make any sense. As you said, Mr. President, the Chinese are not stupid. If somebody punches India in the nose, you can bet your last dollar that India is going to come out of the corner swinging with both fists. The Chinese know that. But they did it anyway.”
The president looked at the map. “Why would they do that? Why would they take such a stupid risk?”
“We don’t know yet, sir,” the National Security Advisor said. “But right now, we’ve got a bigger question. What are we going to do about it?’
“I’ve spoken to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs about this,” the Secretary of Defense said. “He’s preparing a full tactical briefing now. He can go over the details then, but in broad strokes, he recommends that we get an aircraft carrier on scene up there as quickly as possible. The idea is to establish a presence, and—hopefully—to act as a stabilizing force in the region.”
The president nodded slowly. “Who’s in the best position?”
The Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Robert Casey, cleared his throat. “Mr. President, that would be the USS Midway strike group, based out of Yokosuka, Japan.”
The president turned to look at the CNO. “And the Midway is ready to deploy?”
“Yes, sir,” the CNO said. “The Midway is our ready-carrier at the moment. She’s got a full complement of escorts, and they can be underway in a matter of hours.”
“Alright,” the president said. “Do it. Get those ships moving. We’ll figure out the details while they’re on the way.”
He stared at the wall-sized master display screen with its overwhelming array of strange symbols, and he began to wonder if this would be the day that everything came apart.
CHAPTER 12
BARKHOR SQUARE
LHASA, TIBET
SATURDAY; 23 NOVEMBER
9:24 AM
TIME ZONE +8 ‘HOTEL’
No matter what the Chinese government or news services might say later, it was not a riot.
Reverend Bill McDonald watched from the window of his second story hotel room, as people began gathering in the square below. At first it was a small group of purple-robed monks, and he wondered if they had come to pray, or meditate, or simply to meet and talk near the gates of the famous Jokhang temple.
But the monks were soon joined by people dressed in street clothes, and more people were streaming into the square, appearing from alleys and side streets. The small group quickly grew to a large group; and the large group blossomed into a burgeoning crowd. Still, the flow of humanity showed no signs of diminishing. As the throng continued to swell, the red, blue, gold, white, and green colors of the Tibetan snow lion flag began to appear—sometimes held overhead as a banner, sometimes draped around someone’s shoulders like a cloak.
When the flags were revealed, McDonald knew that he was witnessing something unusual. The snow lion flag was a symbol of Tibetan independence and a rallying point for the separatist movements.
Introduced by the 13th Dalia Lama in 1912, the flag had remained the official banner of Tibet until the 14th Dalia Lama had escaped from the Chinese occupation in 1959, and fled to India. Now, more than a half-century later, the flag was an emblem of Tibetan sovereignty—a reminder of the days before the Chinese invasion, and a token of the freedom that might lie in the future.
The Chinese treated the Tibetan flag as an insignia of terrorism and anarchy. They had outlawed possession of the flag by anyone within the borders of Chinese-controlled territory, including all of Tibet. Public display of the flag was punishable by imprisonment, or worse.
But Bill McDonald could see at least fifty of the forbidden flags from his window. The crowd in Barkhor Square was openly defying the longstanding ban. This was turning into a major act of protest. There must be nearly a thousand people in the square by now, and still more were coming.
His window was closed, but he could hear the crowd now, hundreds of voices chanting in unison. Not ranting or screaming. Not shouting ultimatums. Chanting together in one voice, like an oddly disharmonic choir, all singing from the same sheet of music. It was eerie—mournful and powerful, but utterly peaceful.
McDonald’s presence in Tibet had nothing to do with politics or journalism. He had not come to document the conditions of the Tibetan people, or even to question the continuing Chinese occupation of the once-independent nation. Beyond expansion of his own consciousness, he had come with no agenda at all. He was here simply to study with the Buddhist monks, to learn how (and if) their path to enlightenment could shed any illumination on his own spiritual journey.
During the Vietnam War, he had served as a door gunner and Crew Chief in the U.S. Army’s 128th Assault Helicopter Company. He’d flown more combat missions than he could count, usually perched in the open door of a Huey gunship with an M-60 machine gun between his knees. He’d been shot down twice, wounded once by enemy fire, and—of greater importance than either—he had been transformed.
Bill McDonald had come out of Vietnam with a Distinguished Flying Cross, a Bronze Star, fourteen Air Medals, and a Purple Heart. But on his flight back to the United States, he had carried something much more important than the medals stowed neatly in his Army duffle bag. He had carried a profound sense of his personal spirituality.
Amid the horror of war, he had discovered his own connections to the mystical forces of the universe. He had become what he liked to call a ‘spiritual warrior.’ He no longer thought in terms of victory over military enemies. Instead, he concentrated on mastering his own mind, and exploring his place within the spiritual realm.
The events unfolding outside his window were at least partly—if not mostly—political in nature. If he knew anything at all about the mindset of the Chinese government, the reaction of the local authorities would be both rapid and brutal.
He’d spent the last several decades trying to avoid politics and violence, and he now had an unwitting ringside seat to an event that threatened to hold both of these corruptive influences in large measure.
Part of him was tempted to turn away from the window, and not allow himself to be drawn into the coming clash, even as an onlooker. But another part of him knew that the search for enlightenment is also the search for truth. Whatever happened in Barkhor Square this morning, the Chinese government would apply its colossal influence to controlling public opinion after the fact.
Like it or not, Reverend William H. McDonald was about to become the witness of history. If any truth at all was going to emerge from today’s events, it would be up to him to draw it forth.
Bill fumbled with the window latch, and then spent several seconds wrestling the balky window open a few inches. As the gap widened, the chanting voices of the crowd became louder and easier to make out.
He found hi
s cell phone, and scrolled through the icons until he located the one that activated the phone’s video camera. Even through the window panes, the images on the screen of his phone were sharp and clear. He wasn’t sure if the phone’s tiny built-in microphone was sensitive enough to record the sounds drifting up from the street below. He didn’t know how to check, or how to adjust the audio levels (if such a thing were possible).
He decided to add a bit of personal narration, to provide some context for the video, in case the audio was too low or muffled to be intelligible.
“My name is William H. McDonald,” he said. “It’s approximately nine-thirty in the morning, on Saturday the twenty-third of November. I’m standing at the window of my second story room, in a guest house overlooking Barkhor Square, in the Tibetan city of Lhasa.”
He panned the camera phone right and left, taking in as much of the crowd as he could manage. “As you can see, a large group of people—I’m guessing that it’s somewhere between several hundred and a thousand—are gathered in the square. They are chanting, but I only know a handful of Tibetan words, so I’m not sure what exactly they’re saying. But I want to make it perfectly clear that this is a peaceful gathering. There have been absolutely no signs of violence or unruly behavior. This is not a mob. If this is a rally or a protest, it’s calm and orderly.”
He paused for several seconds, trying to decide whether or not to add anything else.
“I don’t know if my camera is recording their voices,” he said. “I hope it is, because this chant, or song… whatever it might be… is beautiful. I’ve never heard anything like it.”
His voice fell silent again, but he continued to move his little camera around to cover the crowd from every angle he could get from his limited vantage. He thought about going down into the square, to capture some of this from street level, but he decided against it. He probably had a better view of the crowd from up here, and if the police showed up—when they showed up—they would take away his phone the instant they recognized it for what it was. If he stayed up here, out of the way, he thought he had a fairly good chance of getting his phone and the video recording out of the country intact.
