Farshad’s patience was running low, but he gathered up enough composure to accept the invitation. Somehow, despite himself, he trusted this old admiral. Patel disappeared into his kitchen and returned with the pot of tea. He sat next to Farshad on the love seat, their knees almost touching as Patel prepared Farshad’s cup and then his own. Patel exhaled heavily. “A tragedy, this.”
Farshad frowned. “Inevitable,” he replied, and then blew curlicues of steam from the surface of his cup.
“Inevitable?” asked Patel. “Really? You don’t think this could’ve been avoided?”
As he thought of the annihilation of two American cities, Farshad considered the ancient antipathies that existed toward the United States, deep antipathies, not merely those of his own nation but those of all the world. It was America’s perpetual overreach that had led to today’s events. How long could one country continue stoking up resentment before someone eventually struck a mortal blow? His word choice had been correct: inevitable.
He checked his watch and again asked about the cab. Patel ignored the request. “I can’t say that I agree with you,” he began. “This conflict hasn’t felt like a war—at least not in the traditional sense—but rather a series of escalations, each one greater than the last. But a single break in this chain of escalation could defuse the entire conflict and halt this cycle of violence. That’s why my word is tragic, not inevitable. A tragedy is a disaster that could otherwise have been avoided.” Patel took another sip from his tea, and Farshad could feel the old admiral’s gaze from over the rim of his cup. If Patel was searching for agreement, he would have none. Farshad sat rigid in his seat, his shoulders swept back, his hands in his lap. His face expressed nothing. Patel continued, “You above all others should know that today could have been avoided. You were on the bridge of the Rezkiy when the Russians sabotaged the undersea cables. The Americans never would have launched at Zhanjiang had that accident not occurred. That’s another word for you: accident.” Instead of three syllables Patel spoke it in one, spitting it out, its falseness in his mouth like a bite into spoiled fruit.
Farshad became defensive. He offered other words, like miscalculation and unintentional, to describe what the Russians had done in the Barents Sea. But he knew they were lies and soon retired them, drawing silent and resigning himself only to, “How did you figure out that I was on the Rezkiy?”
“You just told me,” Patel replied.
Farshad smiled. He couldn’t help it; he liked this wily old man.
Placing Farshad on the Rezkiy was a simple act of deduction on Patel’s part—Farshad had flown through Moscow, and how many Iranian liaison officers did Tehran have assigned to the Russian fleet? Not many. Patel now asked his Iranian counterpart to engage with him in a similar deductive exercise. The Indian government, Patel explained, wanted its ship back from the Revolutionary Guards. Patel understood that unlike the Russians in the Barents Sea, the seizure of the privately owned tanker was an actual miscalculation that had led to an impasse between their two governments. After laying out the facts as he saw them, Patel expounded on “the unique position of our two countries.”
According to Patel, arbitration of the Sino-American War now fell to India. Among the nations of the world, events had conspired to make New Delhi the best interlocutor between Washington and Beijing, and it would take Iranian cooperation as well. Only their countries had a chance of ending the hostilities. He alluded to “sweeping actions” his government might be called upon to take in the coming days. “Without our intervention,” Patel explained, “the Americans will counterstrike, and the Chinese will counterstrike the counterstrike. Tactical nuclear weapons will turn into strategic ones. And that will lead to the end. For all of us. . . . But our intervention can work and will only work if it’s allowed to unfold freely, if no other nation interferes.” Patel turned to Farshad. Like a spouse begging their partner to give up a lover, he said simply, “When I say interference, I’m talking about the Russians.”
Farshad understood. He knew that Patel saw the Russians clearly, just as he and his government saw them clearly. Farshad found himself thinking of Kolchak, who could trace his lineage to the Imperial Navy, his ancestors having served on both the tsars’ dreadnoughts and on the Soviets’ guided missile cruisers. Within four generations Kolchak’s family had veered from imperialist to communist to capitalist—at least the current Russian version of capitalist. Did this mean that Kolchak’s character, and that of his ancestors, was unprincipled and opportunistic? Or did it simply mean that he came from a people who had always done what they must to survive?
“The world is in disarray,” said Patel, who took another sip of his tea, placing the cup delicately on its saucer. “Do you think the Russians won’t continue to take advantage of that? Do you think they’ll stop with a ribbon of land in Poland?” Patel didn’t wait for an answer; instead, he began to shake his head at Farshad. “You’re next. The Strait of Hormuz is next.” Patel then explained, in great detail, a Russian plan to seize Larak and Hormuz Islands, two rocky, treeless outcroppings strategically positioned in the center of the strait. “From those islands, their fleet could close down all maritime traffic. They could choke off the export of oil from the Gulf, skyrocketing the price of Russia’s own oil. A nice little piece of extortion, don’t you think?”
Farshad had drawn silent. Eventually, he asked, “Why are you telling me this?”
“I thought you’d be grateful,” scoffed Patel. “You should be.”
Farshad allowed the silence to return between them, and in that silence was an affirmation that he, like Patel, understood that nothing was granted for free. If this information was true, there would be a price associated with it. If it were a lie, Patel wouldn’t ask him for a thing. Farshad sat on the love seat and allowed the old admiral to make his request. “We need your help,” Patel eventually said. “First, we need our tanker released. Its seizure has caused quite a stir here, and that has been, well . . . embarrassing for us. However, and more importantly, when our government takes decisive action, it’s very probable that the Pakistanis might use that as an opportunity to stir up trouble, perhaps an attack on Kashmir, or some domestic terrorism sponsored by one of their ISI surrogates. When it comes to the Pakistanis, emotions run very high in our country. Perhaps you can understand how this would prove a—how shall I put this?—a distraction.”
Farshad understood. Certain national identities were defined by certain national antipathies. What was more Persian than hating an Israeli? More American than hating a Russian? Even if Patel wouldn’t divulge what “decisive action” his country was planning to take, Farshad understood that like a pack of distracted children swarming a soccer ball, a crisis with the Pakistanis might prevent the politicians in New Delhi from acting strategically. What Farshad didn’t understand was how he and his country were in a position to forestall Pakistani aggression.
“The Pakistanis won’t move without Beijing’s approval,” Patel stated flatly. “You’ve got the ear of the Chinese. Convince them to keep their Pakistani allies on a leash. That shouldn’t be too difficult, should it?”
“And the Russians?” asked Farshad.
Patel gathered their two empty cups of tea and disappeared into the kitchen. When he returned, he was carrying a thick manila folder. “Our intelligence services have intercepted their plans,” he said. “It’s all here.” Patel handed over the folder, which detailed how a Russian Spetsnaz division, supported by a carrier battle group, would seize the two lightly defended Iranian islands in the strait. The entire operation would take a single day. Farshad skimmed the documents with a growing sense of alarm. There wasn’t much time to avert this disaster, a week at best.
The doorbell rang. It was the taxicab.
“The driver will take you to the airport,” said Patel.
“The airport?”
“I imagine you want to get back to Tehran, to speak with General Bagheri. We’ve booked a flight for you. Pass along my regar
ds. Tell him that we’re happily anticipating news that our freighter has been released and that we’re very much looking forward to our partnership.”
Outside the window, the driver stood by his taxi.
“What is this ‘decisive action’ you keep referring to?” Farshad asked. “General Bagheri is going to want to know.” Farshad remained on the sofa, cemented in place as if his returning to Tehran might be contingent on this last piece of information.
Patel gave Farshad a long, appraising look. “What we’re going to do next will be dramatic,” he answered. “But it will end this war. Will you trust me?” Patel placed his hand on Farshad’s arm.
* * *
12:07 July 20, 2034 (GMT+5:30)
New Delhi
Over and over again, Chowdhury kept calling her. Sitting in the back of the taxicab on the way to the embassy, he was in a panic. Samantha wouldn’t answer her phone. He kept dialing and dialing.
Nothing.
His former mother-in-law, that Texan WASP Chowdhury had never felt any affinity for, lived in Galveston, her health failing, her only enjoyment the ocean air and those periodic visits from her daughter.
As he crossed from the east to the west bank of the Yamuna River, Chowdhury tapped out an email to Samantha: Have tried you many times. Please call -Sandy
A new email popped into Chowdhury’s in-box, an out-of-office reply from Samantha. I will be away from my desk and in Galveston on a family matter until Monday, July 24th. If the issue is urgent, please try my cell phone.
Like that, she was gone.
The grief Chowdhury felt wasn’t for the loss of her; the two hardly had a relationship. It was for his daughter—their daughter. How many times over the years had he secretly hoped that Samantha, his stalwart antagonist, might vanish in such a way? Lost in a plane crash. Incinerated in a fire. Killed in a car wreck. He had, guiltily, harbored such fantasies. However, had any of these fantasies proven true, it would’ve left Ashni motherless. And now that Samantha was gone, his guilt was as acute as if he’d killed her himself. In fact, he couldn’t quite convince himself that he hadn’t.
When he arrived at the embassy, it was eerily quiet. He had expected to find a hive of activity as the ambassador responded to this crisis. Instead, the halls were mostly empty. Here and there, clusters of staff gathered around one cubicle or another. From the hushed tones of conversations, Chowdhury assumed the cubicles’ occupants had lost a loved one in the attack. Otherwise, the mood was stunned silence.
Chowdhury shut the door to the temporary office he’d been assigned. Though he didn’t wish to admit it, he, too, was stunned. As he logged into his email, he hoped to find something that might recall him to his senses. At the top of his in-box there was a message from Hendrickson. The subject line was empty, and even though they were communicating on a classified system, the text was cryptic: Our orders arrived. What do you hear? -Bunt
Chowdhury knew those orders were for a counterstrike led by the Enterprise. It would be against the Chinese mainland. The days of indirect strikes—at power grids, or disputed territories like Taiwan—were over. The counterstrike would follow this pattern of escalation. Zhanjiang had led to San Diego and Galveston, so the next logical step after the destruction of two American cities would be the destruction of three Chinese ones. The only question was which cities, a detail that Hendrickson had no doubt received in the recently arrived “orders.”
While Chowdhury sat in front of his screen struggling to compose a response, his cell phone rang.
It was his uncle. “Our Iranian friend just left.”
“To where?”
“Home,” said Patel. “Are you at the embassy?”
Chowdhury told him that he was.
“Nothing’s going to get accomplished there,” said his uncle. “I’m on my way to the Defense Ministry. Come meet me.”
Chowdhury made a half-hearted protest; he wasn’t in New Delhi on an official diplomatic mission and a meeting at the Defense Ministry broke any number of protocols; he would first need to secure the appropriate authorizations. His uncle listened, or at least the other end of the line fell silent, before he said, “Sandeep, we know the Enterprise has its launch orders . . . and I know about Ashni’s mother. For that, I am sorry; we can tell her together if you like. But first, we need you to come to the Defense Ministry.”
Chowdhury glanced out his window, to the vacant corridors of the embassy. He knew his uncle was right. Nothing was going to happen here, or at least nothing that might avert a counterstrike by the Enterprise. We’ll take out three of their cities for our two. Then what? They’ll take out four of ours. Then we take out five more. Then come the doomsday weapons. . . . He could feel his loyalties shifting, not from one nation to another, but between those who wanted to avert an escalation and those who believed that victory, whatever that meant, could exist along this spectrum of destruction. Receiving the appropriate authorizations to visit the Defense Ministry suddenly seemed like an irrelevance. He increasingly felt as though his allegiance didn’t reside with any government but with whoever could reverse this cycle of annihilation.
“All right,” said Chowdhury, returning to his desk. “I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”
His uncle hung up.
Chowdhury couldn’t help but wonder how the Indians knew that the Enterprise had received their launch orders. It could have been a myriad of intercepts made by their intelligence services, but Chowdhury suspected they’d intercepted his correspondence with Hendrickson. If they had, their ability to hack into his classified email demonstrated a level of cyber sophistication beyond what he and his country had previously thought them capable. When Chowdhury crafted his reply to Hendrickson, he now did so with the knowledge that others might be reading it. In response to the question What do you hear? he wrote: The Indians might do something.
* * *
15:32 July 23, 2034 (GMT+8)
South China Sea
It was perhaps the loneliest moment of her life. Hunt stood on the bridge overseeing flight operations, but what she was really there to observe was Hendrickson departing to Yokosuka, then on to Honolulu, and finally back to Washington, where he’d been recalled via an immediate action request, originating from the White House. When Hendrickson received the message, he’d crumpled the sheet of paper, tossed it in a burn bag, and muttered, “Fucking Wisecarver.”
Hendrickson had come to believe that he hadn’t actually been sent to the Enterprise to check up on Hunt; he had been sent to the Enterprise so he would be out of the way when Wisecarver crafted the orders for the nuclear counterstrike. Now that the White House had dispatched those orders, he wanted Hendrickson back in Washington to keep an eye on him. He explained his theory to Hunt.
“But I thought I was the one they didn’t trust?” she asked.
Hendrickson replied, “They don’t trust you. It’s just that they might not trust me either.” In this way, by both being untrustworthy to the same authority, they were once again confederates in the hours that remained before Hendrickson’s departure.
This may have been why, watching his plane dwindle into a speck on the horizon, Hunt felt so spectacularly alone. She returned to her flag cabin. The orders for the counterstrike were locked in her safe, whose combination she struggled with, preoccupied as her mind was. She couldn’t quite bring herself to focus on the detailed planning that would be required of her. Before he’d left, Hendrickson mentioned that he had it “on good authority that the Indians might intervene.”
“Cut the shit. On whose authority?” she’d asked.
Hendrickson would only answer, “A contact of mine from Washington.”
The fantasy of the Indians—or of anyone—intervening proved such an escapist distraction that it took her four attempts to unlock the safe. Then at her desk she unfolded the orders, which totaled three pages, one for each of the targets, coastal cities that read from south to north: Xiamen (population: 7.1 million), Fuzhou (population: 7.8 million), a
nd, lastly, Shanghai (population: 33.24 million).
To both Hunt and Hendrickson, the inclusion of Shanghai seemed chillingly disproportionate. It was China’s most populous city. A strike on Shanghai would assure a counterstrike on New York, Los Angeles, or even Washington. Which wasn’t to say that the staggering number of lives lost in a place like Xiamen or Fuzhou wasn’t grim enough, but it would be difficult to imagine a scenario in which a strike on Shanghai wouldn’t result in an escalation from tactical to strategic nuclear weapons. It was, Hunt thought, a suicide mission. Not that the pilot wouldn’t make it back, though that was unlikely enough. No, it was a suicide mission in the broadest sense. Its accomplishment assured the suicide of much, if not all, of mankind.
As that thought lingered, there was a knock at the door. “Come in,” she said. Wedge stepped across the threshold, wiping some grease from his hands with a filthy rag. He then tucked the rag into the pocket of his flight suit and presented himself to Hunt, snapping to attention. “Christ, at ease,” she said. “I’ve told you that you don’t have to do that.”
Wedge again took the rag from his pocket, working the grease from his palms and beneath his fingernails. “Customs and courtesies, ma’am. A simple sign of respect.”
Hunt held the three pages of the order in front of her. “I appreciate that, but I don’t need the extra deference.”
“It’s not specific to you, ma’am. It’s respect for your rank.” He tucked the rag back into his flight suit. Hunt couldn’t help it; she had come to like Wedge. He was insubordinate. But his insubordination didn’t manifest itself in a refusal to follow orders, or disrespect for his superiors. He was, instead, insubordinate in the broadest sense. He was insubordinate to the time in which he lived. He refused to give up the old ways. Or, put differently, he refused to stop believing in them. Where did Wedge think all this would lead? wondered Hunt. Did he imagine that a bygone order would one day reassert itself? That he could somehow fly through the fabric of time to arrive in a different, better, and older world? Perhaps his insubordination was a form of denial, a rejection not only of the present but of all that was to come.
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