Razing Beijing

by Sidney Elston

  “Deng confirmed a connection to the GW Bridge attack?”

  Stuart eyed him with contempt. “I wouldn’t say he explicitly confirmed it.”

  “That’s inconsistent with the rest of your story.”

  “I told you, I didn’t have enough time to delve into their operational details.”

  “I had warned you about the time.”

  “And I’m warning you about the time. Forty-nine hours, Sam—twenty-five orbits. That’s how long Deng said it takes their satellite to re-charge before another attack.”

  “We’ll keep going over this until it’s as solid a transcript as we would’ve gotten had you not dropped the wire.”

  98

  “I’M CONVINCED SHE HAD NO IDEA where Stuart is,” added Devinn. “I did figure out where Stuart sent his daughter. So...what technology do these people think was stolen, anyhow?”

  “Never mind that,” Devinn heard Lance Lee insist. “You’ve got a few years of corporate bureaucracy under your belt. Wouldn’t the lawyer be involved in formulating the company’s response to intellectual property theft?”

  “Undoubtedly.”

  “Yet she claimed the company was doing nothing about it?”

  “She said their efforts were focused on combating some government legal maneuver to yank funding for Stuart’s project.”

  “Did she indicate Stuart’s project was taking a new direction?”

  “I grilled her specifically about that. The only redirection she seemed aware of took place some time ago as a result of Stuart’s return to CLI.” In fact, Devinn recalled the woman had barely finished her third confirmation of that point before her words were choked by a surge of vomit.

  Devinn heard sounds in the background that he associated with the movement of traffic. “I’ve got a proposal that perhaps you could help with. One thing certain to flush Stuart out would be for me to make a clean grab of his daughter. That way—”

  “You just don’t get it,” his handler interrupted. “Your raping this woman only elevated our risk. I’m disturbed by the fact that you appear to be driven by some sort of sick personal vendetta with Stuart. Is that what this is?”

  “She was lying to me right off the bat. I didn’t have any choice. I got you the information you wanted, didn’t I?”

  “And you really believe she won’t be able to provide any leads?”

  “So far as she’s concerned, I might as well have just appeared on the planet. I blindfolded her. Not a chance.”

  There was a long silence. “The problem isn’t where Stuart is. The problem is what he and others may be directed to do. Forget about the daughter. Just lay low, disappear, somewhere not far from where you are right now. Wait for my call.” The line went dead.

  Devinn swore and slammed down the payphone.

  99

  THE TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY glanced up from reading aloud the hastily prepared report, thrust into his hands thirty minutes earlier. The White House Situation Room was for him an unfamiliar venue; his audience did not typically include the nation’s top military brass and heads of intelligence.

  “So, the explosion essentially demolished the entire refinery. Fire has consumed almost everything left behind.” William Tyson closed the folder. “On my way over I managed to get in touch with the CEO. His folks confirm the accounts that conditions preceding the blast created the equivalent of a massive fuel-air bomb.” Tyson swallowed hard.

  “Our Newark Office fielded a team to begin poring over what they can find,” said FBI Director Dave Dolan, “which we’ll follow up with a CIRG outfit.” Everyone knew they were already spread pretty thin. “They’ll determine what type of detonation technique the terrorists used, although I have to say the devastation they described to me over the phone sounded like a scene from Dante’s Inferno.”

  President Denis had this morning glimpsed his own vision of hell. While hosting a Sierra Club fundraiser, his Secret Service detail had brusquely and without explanation whisked him away from the Rose Garden and into the subterranean presidential bunker. They quickly learned that a geostationary SBIRS High defense satellite registered what had initially appeared to NORAD as being a low-yield nuclear detonation on the mid-Atlantic coast, promptly triggering a critical alert to the White House. “I imagine this will take some time to repair,” said the President.

  “Oh, it’s a total loss,” Tyson corrected him. “A new petrochemical refinery that size, including half the tank farm that was destroyed...you’re talking several billion dollars and a few years to bring back on-line. It’s been forty years since such a facility was licensed and built in North America. Perhaps if you granted the waiver of certain environmental—”

  “What’s this mean for gasoline prices?” President Denis asked, deferring Tyson’s bureaucratic tedium for others to deal with.

  “Yes, uh, Woodbridge represented roughly 14% of East Coast refining capacity—we’ve been closing down refineries in recent years. Good news is, if you can call it that, with the current depressed oil supplies we can probably make up the production loss elsewhere, assuming that plant’s heavy crude process doesn’t create feedstock problems. This does leave the industry with effectively zero margin. Whenever any of these plants has to shut down, say, for scheduled maintenance, we’re going to see price spikes in gasoline and heating oil, jet fuel, fertilizer—”

  “Not if I cap the prices,” said the President matter-of-factly. “Perhaps it’s time I did that.”

  Tyson fingered the briefing folder. The President had been circulating to him, the energy secretary and others, some intriguing memoranda lately. Despite their carefully crafted words, it was clear the Denis administration was contemplating their next step toward fully nationalizing the country’s petroleum industry. The refinery incident would certainly increase whatever pressure they were under regarding an energy policy.

  President Denis looked to his FBI Director. “I understand you’ve identified these men?”

  “Their names are Mohammad Mousavi and Salman Ehteshari,” Director Dolan confirmed, both of whom were already suspected of being involved in the GW Bridge attack. “They appear to have current visas, an H-1B and a student, issued to their aliases.” The Director briefly summarized the arrests, citing the luck of a survivor having witnessed both suspects and a guard in a tussle near one of the exits just moments before the alarm. Widespread grief and anger over news of another two-hundred thirty-one casualties—following the hundreds lost to the Hudson River—had been partially buoyed by word of the FBI’s dual apprehension.

  “There can be no doubt this was a long-term operation,” Dave Dolan said. “One of the terrorists held a job at the security firm for over three years. According to his employer he was a model employee. Both men are well educated, degreed engineers.”

  “When you describe them as terrorists,” Thomas Herman said, “exactly what kind of evidence are we talking about?”

  “Eyewitness accounts place these men at both attack sites—I mean, they were apprehended in the process of fleeing the refinery. I’ve got teams of agents dedicated to gathering more evidence. Their whereabouts since entering the United States are being chronicled. We already think we can link Mousavi circumstantially by way of sick leave and vacation time to other attacks—including the Holocaust Museum.”

  The President asked for an executive summary as soon as one could be pulled together.

  “Does the Attorney General agree with your assessment?” Herman asked.

  The Director cocked an eyebrow. “I really haven’t had a chance to review it with her. This security firm thinks they can produce evidence that the refinery service call was bogus. I guess their supervisor claims not to have approved it. If so, that should clinch the indictments.”

  President Denis grimaced. “Is this really where we are? Granted, the case against these two is important. But doesn’t the issue of who they represent make the issue of legality moot?”

  “I don’t believe so,” Herman said. �
�We’re going to need to justify before the court of the world any unilateral American response. Especially in the case of a state-sponsored attack.”

  Secretary of State Laynas reacted as if poked in the ribs. “Who said anything about acting unilaterally?”

  The President allowed his eyes to drift over his various advisors.

  Walter Laynas sensed the President’s uncertainty. “We need to set an example of good global citizenship. If we come off as heavy-handed, we’re liable to increase the number of terrorists who view us as a global menace.”

  “Point made,” Denis said. “Let’s not get too hung up on that right now.”

  “But the issue of evidence has already become pertinent,” Laynas gently disagreed. “The Iranian consulate in Ottawa wants one of their representatives to privately meet with the men taken into custody.”

  The President’s eyes lit up. “How goddamn brazen. Have they indicated why?”

  “They say because we refuse to share our evidence against them. Tehran insists that we’re conspiring to wage a campaign against Islam.”

  “Really? Like, we’re staging these attacks on ourselves as a ruse?”

  “We could attempt to find out if they really believe that, maybe have our own representative present, that is if we decide to allow it.”

  “Dave?”

  Dolan didn’t have a ready position. “There’s precedent with prison detainees passing operational intelligence to visitors. I suppose the legal downside ought to be limited. I can’t speak to the politics.”

  Denis shifted his glance between his two advisors. “Then what seems to be the problem?”

  The Secretary of State responded by way of a glower toward the FBI Director.

  “Unfortunately, firemen on the scene worked these Iranian guys over pretty hard,” Director Dolan admitted. “One of them has yet to regain consciousness.”

  “What, vigilantism? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “I’m saying a few frustrated firemen took matters into their own hands. They had just lost their colleagues to a secondary explosion.”

  President Denis leveled his finger at Director Dolan. “We cannot descend into anarchy, not on my watch. I want those cowboys arrested!”

  “Sir, they uh...technically speaking, they were defending themselves. If I understand, the terrorists were attempting to overpower two men with the intent of seizing their fire-fighting attire.”

  “That’s reason to bludgeon them? With the eyes of the world community upon us?”

  * * *

  HIS CLOSEST ADVISORS waited as the President contemplated the various theatre engagement plans and scenario models. It was obvious the commander-in-chief was comfortable with none of them.

  CIA Director Lester Burns read similar sentiments in the faces of the other members of the President’s cabinet. They had failed, all of them, to nudge the President from his view that U.S. retaliation with Iran be moral and therefore limited. Accordingly, Iran was to be shown they were at risk of being knocked out of the petroleum business altogether, the bulk of which no longer served Western economies in any case. The first wave of cruise missiles and bombers would target the heart and soul of Iranian industry, striking the Kharg Island refinery and Ahwaz oil tanker loading facilities, as well as the huge Abadan refinery complex on Shatt al-Arab, once the largest of its kind in the world. The objective handed down to Defense Secretary Daley was to neutralize over four million barrels per day of refining capacity—roughly a third of Iran’s total—and disable virtually all of the Islamic Republic’s busiest tanker terminals. In the process of striking this blow to the heart of the Iranian economy, the President was firm on his edict that direct engagement with the Iranian military be held to an absolute minimum.

  “Beyond the impact on world oil markets, there is tactical risk associated with immolating their petroleum infrastructure,” the defense secretary proceeded to caution his boss. “Imagine if this were to become a protracted conflict, and here we’ve effectively starved their ability to fuel a conventional war. Tehran would recognize this, perhaps immediately. If so, their strategy might then be to seize assets from one or more neighboring oil producing entity states—those surrounding the Caspian Sea come to mind. That theatre of operations might be problematic for our carrier groups in both the Gulf and the Med. Such a response also might threaten to draw the Russians into the fray. But nothing—nothing—troubles me more than a doctrine that has as its basis the attack of a nation-state, on this scale, while intentionally leaving their military unscathed and capable of counterattack. Sir, this isn’t Afghanistan—Iran has a modern military.”

  The defense secretary’s words ‘conventional war’ hung in the air as one-by-one the advisors chimed in with their dissent.

  CIA Director Burns looked over the conformal conic projection maps spread out on the table. The original mission of the carrier groups most recently sent to the region was to thwart any more shipments of North Korean ICBMs from reaching Iranian ports. Neither the CIA nor Mossad had any idea how many others had already arrived, and whether or not any were fully operational. Neither they nor Mossad were certain of the origin of the uranium isotopes released from the so-called Pakistani nuclear test in the Indian Ocean—so called, because Mossad believed that the test actually had been conducted on an Iranian device, using Iranian enriched uranium. It was no half-baked theory, Burns thought. A known nuclear power, Islamabad, secretly teams with an aspiring nuclear-tipped missile power, Tehran. They conspire to produce a reduced throw-weight nuclear warhead, and a mutually beneficial objective is achieved with the least international reprisal. But the President was aware of all of this, and Burns saw no benefit repeating it for a third time in as many hours.

  Lester Burns watched the President’s detached stare drift over the scribbled maps of Central and Middle East Asia. The fact of the matter was, bitter irony of ironies, missile defense had increasingly become their only ace in the hole. But the SBIRS Low satellite constellation remained incomplete, and Congress was balking on the final two Vandenberg launches, without which even Aegis warships had no guarantee of detecting a ballistic missile launch in time for boost-phase intercept. Sure as hell Secretary Daley and the military brass were attuned to this. There were also more than nuclear warheads to worry about.

  Burns cleared his throat. “Mr. President, I remind you that we currently have no dependable means of defending against an ICBM missile launch.”

  “Neither do they,” President Denis observed, much to the surprise of more than one or two in the Situation Room. “Neither do they, and I have this feeling we simply cannot sit idly by in the face of repeated attack.” Denis let out a sigh. “Our only moral recourse is an eye for an eye. They’ll at least understand that, even though it is probably not legal.”

  In a display of angry frustration, Secretary Daley’s face turned red. “This is kicking open the proverbial hornet’s nest,” he said to the President. “It’s chances of success are questionable, to say the least.”

  “Then we’ll try something else. I’m not interested in throwing our weight around. But I can deal with the consequences of our own behavior, so long as it’s moral behavior.”

  Seated beside the President was Aaron Davi, Chief of Staff, a quiet and thoughtful man, aware of his limitations to contribute to such debates. Davi was a veteran of three presidential campaigns and an accomplished speechwriter after the second, a successful election. For years he had harbored ambitions to seek elected office himself, in Congress, maybe even the senate. But in deciding he hadn’t the stomach for unabashed personal conflict, Davi realized his strength was securing office for others.

  “Mr. President, the American people smell blood,” Davi said, sensing in the lull an appropriate time to mention results of his poll. “There should be ample maneuvering room for whatever you decide.”

  100

  THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES paused in order to flip a page of his pre-written speech. Returning his eyes to
the teleprompter, his expression took on a perceptibly harder edge; jaw muscles flexed, the deep-set eyes narrowed, right slightly more so than left—those the world over whose profession rewarded the practiced control and interpretation of such gestures admired the subtle theatrics.

  “One cowardice looms larger than even that of the zealots who commit these acts. I speak of the masterminds who we now know are behind them, the leadership of Iran. For a time, strides had been made improving the historically strained relations between our two nations, notwithstanding their collusion with other OPEC members to wage economic war by manipulating oil markets—a violation of laws which govern international trade. Yet we Americans rise to meet any challenge, whether by innovating means of defending ourselves and our allies, developing new technologies for preserving our climate or, yes, extracting energy resources from within our own borders. Energy is the lifeblood of our economy, the source of our American dream, which has for generations captivated the hearts and minds of all in the world who yearn to be free. And so we are left to conclude these violent acts are merely the latest in a broad and deliberate assault. Acts of terrorism on American soil will not go unpunished.” The President brought clenched fists down onto the desktop in tempo with his remark.

  “I call upon all principled Iranian leaders to discard their hollow, theocratic invective and seize this opportunity. Banish cowardice among your ranks. Elevate statesmanship in its place. Both the Iranian President and Supreme Spiritual Leader have the moral duty to denounce these violent acts by a handful of deranged zealots. Support our efforts to bring justice to these individuals before the International Criminal Court. Finally, once and for all, embrace the community of nations in their efforts to eradicate any and all terrorist organizations. A civil society such as exists in Iran should recognize these for the reasonable requests that they are. These requests are consistent with the laws and religions of both our great peoples.