by Marc Cameron
“Oh, no you don’t,” Callahan said. “No one messes with that phone before my tech guys get a look at it.”
Caruso gave her a passive look. “Afraid I’m going to have to pull rank on you there,” he said. “I’ll give it right back, though.”
Callahan waved him away. “Whatever.” She glared down at Clark. “Who are you?”
“John,” he said.
“John . . . ?”
“John,” he said again, as he winced at the pain in his leg. “. . . better go with Doe.”
54
The phone beside President Jack Ryan’s bed rang once, dragging him out of some dream that he could not remember. He rolled over, coughed to clear his throat, and squinted at the blurry numbers on the clock as he picked up the handset. He’d gone to bed early in anticipation of an early ride to Andrews and a seven a.m. wheels-up for Tokyo. Surely it couldn’t be that time already. Nowhere near it.
One forty-five a.m.
It was an accepted—and probably true—notion among White House staff that one could not get fired for waking the President. One could only get fired for not waking the President. Most would have erred on the side of caution, but Arnie van Damm had a pretty good handle on when events were important enough to rouse Ryan from his “much-needed beauty sleep.” Van Damm had witnessed so many national crises that he remained absolutely unflappable while so many others ran around with their hair on fire. Van Damm joked that he had no hair, so . . .
“Mr. President,” the voice on the other end of the line said.
“Good morning, Arnie.” Ryan stretched, fought the urge to say something flippant. No one called to joke at this ungodly hour.
“Sorry to wake you,” the chief of staff said. It was van Damm’s custom to engage in a few seconds of small talk before he got to the meat of the matter, to make certain his boss was thinking with some relative coherence.
“That’s fine,” Ryan said, coughing again and rolling onto his back. Out of habit, he reached out to the other side of the bed to see if the call had woken Cathy, but she was still in Nepal. “What’s up?”
“Typhoon Catelyn,” van Damm said. “There are some developments you’ll want to know about.”
“Who else is here?”
“Commander Forrestal and I,” van Damm said. “We have an Air Force weather guesser on his way over from the Pentagon.”
“Okay,” Ryan said. He was fully awake now. “Notify the Secret Service that I’ll be heading to the Oval in”—he put on his glasses and checked the clock again—“ten minutes.”
“Already done,” van Damm said. “I’m standing outside your door, speaking with the agent now.”
“That’s just creepy, Arnie,” Ryan said.
“I do my best, Mr. President.”
• • •
Posted outside the President’s bedroom door in the central hallway, Special Agent Tina Jordan lifted the small beige microphone on her surveillance kit to her lips. She hit the push-to-talk button to call the command post—and other Secret Service personnel on the White House campus.
“CROWN, CROWN, from Jordan,” she whispered. “SWORDSMAN is on the move in ten, en route to the Oval Office.”
• • •
Ryan was surprised to find the secretary of defense waiting for him in the Oval Office with van Damm and Commander Robby Forrestal. All three men stood when he stepped inside.
Apart from Forrestal, who was in his Navy uniform, the men were dressed as if they’d met for a poker game instead of to discuss world events. Ryan wore faded jeans and a light bomber jacket with the Presidential seal over the USMC T-shirt he’d been sleeping in. Van Damm was dressed similarly to Ryan, sans the Presidential seal. Bob Burgess was normally well coiffed enough to appear on the cover of Washington Life magazine, but his thick salt-and-pepper hair now stuck out in a dozen directions.
Ryan sat in his customary spot in front of the fireplace and motioned for the others to take the couches.
“Let’s have it,” he said.
Arnie glanced at Robby Forrestal and gave him a nod.
The deputy national security adviser opened a laptop and looked at the screen, apparently wanting to be certain he had the latest information. “Mr. President,” he said, “forty-five minutes ago, the Naval communications center at Sasebo, Japan, received a distress call from Research Vessel Meriwether, a converted eighty-nine-foot fishing trawler with a crew of ten. She is based out of the University of Hawaii but is on loan to Kyushu University’s Coastal and Ocean Engineering Department, ostensibly conducting fishing studies in the East China Sea—”
“Ah,” Ryan said. “But she’s not doing fish studies?”
“No,” Burgess said. “She’s towing a sonar array to study submarine traffic and communications.”
“Just so, sir,” Commander Forrestal said. “RV Meriwether has been seconded to the Defense Intelligence Agency for two years.”
Ryan rubbed his eyes, thinking this through. Virtually every nation with the capacity to launch a boat had some sort of spy ship. Some were overt about it, dragging sonars or flying masts to intercept foreign signal intelligence, but some were disguised. Chinese and Russian fishing vessels were often cover identities—and the United States had more than one such vessel of her own.
“Do we have open communication with the vessel?” van Damm asked.
“We do, sir,” Commander Forrestal said. “So far, everyone aboard is fine, but Meriwether has lost propulsion and Typhoon Catelyn is driving her directly toward China.”
“Lost propulsion?” Ryan asked. “What’s their position?”
Forrestal turned his laptop around so Ryan could see the radar image on the screen. “Approximately thirty kilometers northeast of Kuba-shima, one of the Senkaku Islands. This one is known as Huangwei Yu to the Chinese. At this moment, they’re in waters claimed by both Japan and China, but at their present rate of speed they’ll drift into undisputed Chinese territory in less than six hours. Chinese Coast Guard and fishing vessels are in and around the disputed islands almost daily when the weather allows. On a positive note, we’re not tracking any right now.”
Ryan shook his head. “How is this boat handling the storm if she doesn’t have an engine?”
“Not well, I’m afraid,” the commander said. “She is still ahead of the typhoon, but only just. Meriwether’s skipper, Captain Dave Holloway, reports seas in excess of thirty feet.”
Ryan exhaled slowly and leaned forward in his chair. He studied the red arrows behind a white swirl of clouds on the radar image. “I see the storm’s turned back to the west.”
“It has,” Forrestal said.
“Does anyone else find this situation odd?” Ryan asked, “Considering Meriwether’s location and everything else that’s been going on with China?”
Burgess nodded. Van Damm raised his eyebrows.
Forrestal said, “The events and proximity to the PRC are extremely coincidental, but Captain Holloway doesn’t believe this was sabotage. He’s reporting it as a crankcase explosion caused by a fire in the scavenge space.”
“Bad maintenance, then,” Burgess said, shaking his head.
“Scavenge fire,” Ryan said. “So it was something with the engine itself.”
“Correct, Mr. President,” the commander said. “Could have been caused by any number of things, like a buildup of carbon in the scavenge air space—basically the trunk that feeds air to the engine. The crankcase relief valve blew, and the resulting oil mist ignited inside the engine room. We’re fortunate the whole ship didn’t go up in flames.”
“Or not,” Burgess said. “Still sounds like poor maintenance.”
“Captain Holloway is new to the vessel,” Forrestal said.
“Not an excuse,” Burgess said.
“But it is a reason,” Ryan said. “Any casualties?”
“The mechanic su
ffered some burns,” Commander Forrestal said. “But the skipper reports nothing life-threatening.”
“There’s always some son of a bitch who didn’t get the word,” the SecDef said, obviously referring to then President Kennedy’s response when he was informed of the American U-2 pilot who, navigating with all he was given—a compass and sextant—inadvertently flew from Alaska into Soviet air space. It was the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the incursion very nearly pushed the already tense standoff into nuclear war.
“We can talk the blame game when everyone’s safe on dry land,” Ryan said. “Captain Holloway and his crew are out doing what we asked them to do. Let’s get him on the horn. I want to talk to him.”
It took ten minutes for the communications specialist on watch in the Situation Room to reach the research vessel Meriwether and connect the captain with the Oval Office. Ryan put the call on speaker.
“Captain Holloway, Jack Ryan here.”
A screaming wind moaned in the background. “Mr. President.” Holloway’s quiet voice barely cut through the static. He said something else, which was unintelligible.
Ryan fought the urge to speak louder over the phone. “Do you have injuries, Captain?”
“No, sir,” Holloway said. He was obviously trying to hear himself above the wind—and likely the thump of his own heartbeat in his ears. The hissing connection made it sound as if were speaking in a strained stage whisper. “We’re all uninjured and accounted for, Mr. President,” he said.
“Is there a way to repair the damage? Ryan asked.
“The fire was extensive,” Holloway said. “My engineer is working to fix the problem, but it doesn’t look promising. I want you to know we fully realize the gravity of this situation, sir. There are systems on the ship that cannot fall into Chinese hands.”
“That would be best,” Ryan said, wishing he could say otherwise.
“I have discussed using the life rafts and scuttling with the crew,” Holloway said. “They will obey the order without argument, Mr. President.”
“Hang on now, Captain,” Ryan said. “We’re not there yet.” He tried to imagine launching a rubber raft in gale winds and thirty-foot seas, let alone boarding the damned thing from a pitching ship. If the crew survived the deployment, and if the storm didn’t shred the inflatable rafts, then their best hope for survival was getting picked up by a Chinese patrol. “You take care of your people, Captain,” Ryan said. “We’ll get the cavalry heading your way with all possible speed.”
“Thank you, Mr. President,” the captain said. The strain in his voice made it apparent that he was experienced and realistic enough to feel grateful for the President’s outreach, without holding out some insane hope for an actual rescue.
Ryan ended the call and then looked at his watch. “All right, gentlemen,” he said. “It’s half past two. Let’s find out what we have in the way of a cavalry.”
Arnie stood. “We’ll have the NSC Principals Committee here inside the hour,” he said.
“Very well.” Ryan looked at the deputy national security adviser. “It’s early afternoon in Beijing. Robby, get with the duty officers downstairs and have them line up a Mandarin interpreter. Tell them we’ll just need one. It’ll be a fifteen-minute call at most. And get me the background sheet on President Zhao. I want you to set up a call with him as soon as humanly possible.”
“Right away, Mr. President.”
Van Damm’s head snapped around as if he’d been slapped. “Oh, I’d urge against that, Jack.”
“I agree with Arnie, Mr. President,” the SecDef said. “We’re not even sure the ChiComs know where this boat is.”
“And I don’t plan to tell them,” Ryan said.
Commander Forrestal was already out the door. He had his orders, and the arguments of two advisers shouldn’t slow him down. If the President wanted him to stop, the President would have to be the one to stop him.
• • •
Ryan was showered, shaved, and freshly suited in twenty minutes. Someone had rustled him up a cup of coffee and a Danish, and they were on his desk by the time he got back to the Oval. He took a bite and wondered idly what it would be like when he wasn’t the leader of the free world anymore and magic coffee fairies didn’t leave him pastries and Arabica roast when he most needed them.
It was just after four in the morning by the time USAF Major Jennifer Yi, the Mandarin speaker sent over by the Pentagon, entered the Oval Office ahead of Commander Forrestal. She was a tall, no-nonsense woman with a stern face that made Ryan think she probably voted for the other guy in the last election. Still, she was professional and looked him in the eye when she shook his hand. He didn’t have to ask about her credentials as a simultaneous interpreter or her clearance. The NSC guys in the watch center would have handled all of that. By necessity, interpreters got to be a part of conversations that only a select few were privy to. Intense and often delicate negotiations hung in the balance of an interpreter’s ability to pick up on what speakers meant to say and the words they chose to convey it.
Van Damm, Burgess, and Foley took seats on the couches while Major Yi moved her chair around behind the desk so she could be seated beside the President, closer to his ear. She would listen to the conversation via a headset, translating the Chinese president’s Mandarin almost simultaneously. The effort required intense concentration, and she situated her chair so she faced away from the others in attendance, close to Ryan’s ear but not looking at him. In addition to those in the room, the call would be recorded and monitored by a half-dozen aides and staffers.
Presumably, Zhao would have a similar situation on his end.
Forrestal picked up the handset on the President’s desk, spoke to someone on the other end of the line for a moment, and then handed it to Ryan, giving him a thumbs-up.
“Mr. President,” Ryan said. “Thank you for taking my call . . .”
55
Arnie van Damm sat back on the sofa in the Oval Office after the interpreter had gone. “I can’t believe he agreed to hold off.” He breathed an audible sigh of relief. The phone call with the president of the People’s Republic of China was straight from the Jack Ryan shoot-from-the-gut playbook. Unfortunately, that kind of shooting worked both ways, and brought with it the strong possibility of gut-shooting yourself in the process.
True to form, President Zhao had begun the call with an insistence that the United States affirm a one-China policy that denied the existence of Taiwan as an independent nation. It was a scripted verbal ballet, and once the two world leaders got past their respective parts, the call had progressed quickly. Ryan was his usual direct self, making statements that from the mouths of other men would have sounded like ultimatums but from him were just statements of cold, dispassionate fact.
It was apparent that Zhao already knew about the Meriwether’s predicament and geographic position. He had bristled at the incursion of yet another American vessel into Chinese waters at first. But in the end, he agreed to forgo intercepting Meriwether while she was in waters claimed by both China and Japan, adding, however, that his humanity necessitated that he “rescue” the hapless research vessel the moment it entered waters not also claimed by the Japanese.
“I know exactly why he agreed,” Mary Pat Foley said.
Ryan nodded. “The PLA Navy has already moved all their ships out of the path of the typhoon. He couldn’t board the Meriwether if he wanted to.”
Burgess looked at his watch. “That gives us roughly five hours,” he said. “You can bet the ChiCom Navy is steaming out now. An American spy ship would be a grand coup for them in the media, not to mention the technology they’ll glean if Captain Holloway doesn’t have the sense to destroy it. We could be looking at another Pueblo.”
The USS Pueblo was the only commissioned U.S. Navy ship to remain the captive of an enemy state. Many in the IC believed that the seizure of communi
cations gear when the Pueblo was captured in 1968 had allowed the DPRK and the Soviet Union to monitor U.S. Naval communications late into the 1980s. The Pueblo remained moored in Pyongyang at the Victorious War Museum.
Ryan looked again at the massive white vortex that was Typhoon Catelyn on Forrestal’s computer screen.
“Five hours,” he said. “That’s assuming the sea doesn’t take her first.”
• • •
The paramount leader of the People’s Republic of China, Zhao Chengzhi, ended the call with Jack Ryan and leaned back in his chair. The talk had left him exhausted, but he believed he was hiding it well from the two female interpreters and the dozen other staff members who surrounded his desk.
Colonel Huang stood in his customary spot beside the door, eyes glinting in the muted light, flicking hawklike glances around the room as everyone filed out the door. Admiral Qian, commander of the PLA Navy, was the last to leave. He was displeased with what he saw as the conciliatory tone of the phone call, but he had his orders, and would obey them.
“I plan to work a few more hours,” Zhao said to Huang when they were alone in the office.
“Very well, Zhao Zhuxi,” the CSB man said. “Major Ts’ai will remain outside while I will see to the transition of the evening shift. I will return shortly to check in before I make the final security checks prior to our departure for Tokyo.”
Zhao removed his glasses and set them on his desk. “I cannot help but feel that you would sleep here if I allowed it,” he said. “Perhaps your wife would be my greatest threat since I take you away from her so often.”
Huang blanched at the sudden familiarity. “My wife . . .”
“Forgive my candor, Huang Ju.” Zhao smiled. “I am only joking. Perhaps my discussion with the American has made me overly emotional.”
The colonel gave a curt bow, suppressing a smile himself. “If there is nothing else, Zhao Zhuxi.”
• • •
Colonel Huang knew each of the sixteen CSB protective agents on the oncoming shift by name as well as reputation. Fourteen good men and two equally stalwart women whom Huang had handpicked for the job from among hundreds of applicants. Each member of the detail had been working in their present capacity for over a year and the lack of new faces added a modicum of comfort to Huang’s attitude. The evening briefing was held in the cramped basement Central Security Bureau squad room two floors below the paramount leader’s office suite. Except for Huang, the rest of the day shift remained on station above until they were relieved. Huang relayed important logistical information about the early departure for the G20 and a number of protests that were expected in Japan regarding the Falun Gong and Tibet. Rules of engagement were reviewed, assignments discussed, along with a reminder that there would be cameras everywhere—and little ability to control the media.