by Unknown
First was the island of Basilan. Then came Jolo and Tawitawi, all almost completely under Moro control. The Philippine marine contingents were confined to barracks and could only resupply by helicopter. A short boat ride from the edge of the Tawitawi Islands was the eastern tip of Sabah, governed by Malaysia, but deeply infiltrated by Islamic fighters. If things worked as planned, the insurgency would take hold in Sabah, move across Sarawak, then into the Sultanate of Brunei itself, so that the whole of the north Borneo coastline would have fallen. There was also the oil.
Just as CNN broke into its programming to report an outbreak of Muslim guerrilla attacks against military installations throughout the southern Philippines, Memed heard the distant hum of a helicopter.
'Hassan,' he shouted, although there was no one else in the room. 'Hassan.'
The CNN presenter, reading from copy just dropped on her desk, updated her report with news that guerrillas had destroyed helicopters and attack aircraft at bases in Zamboanga, Cotabato City, Dipolog and Pagadian. Senior military officers had been captured, their bodies booby-trapped with explosives. Radio and television stations had been taken off the air. Highways between major cities had now been cut. Armoured vehicles sent to confront the guerrillas were ambushed, the soldiers killed, with no prisoners being taken. It was impossible for Memed to know how many would die in those first hours. There had never been an offensive like it in modern guerrilla warfare. But Memed had estimated 20 per cent of his 100,000 fighters would not live to see the next dawn.
Outside, a round of automatic gunfire shattered the quiet of Memed's compound. He heard shouts and the heavy boots of Philippine marine commandos stomping through the courtyard outside. Memed's bodyguard burst into the room.
'Quick, Hassan. Quick,' snapped Memed. More gunfire erupted below.
Memed turned over his laptop, clipped off the base and took out the hard disk. Hassan Muda was on the balcony with an M-16 rifle and a flashlight, its beam shutting on and off, pointing towards the helicopter, but hardly visible against the morning sun which blazed into their eyes.
Three armoured vehicles were lined up outside the compound. A dead guard lay in the dust, a pool of blood soaking into the dirt beside his head.
Muda raised his weapon to fire down on the soldiers. Memed knocked the barrel down. The roar of the helicopter engine now drowned out everything. They both looked skywards. A black silhouette came towards them out of the sun. The tops of the palm trees blew backwards and forwards, as if there was a typhoon. The helicopter swooped in low, and Memed saw the dry soil of the compound, kicked up by machine gun fire, spraying around the Philippine troops who were moving in. They scattered and the helicopter turned to come round, its bullets firing in a straight line towards the verandah where chunks of concrete flew out and a window shattered. Then the helicopter was gone over the roof.
It appeared again, its nose lowered. Memed saw leaves flutter down from the trees, and small branches, too, as bullets cut through them. The soldiers below crouched in cover, as the helicopter slowed and hovered. A cable from the winch was lowered.
Muda stepped back to let Memed go first, but the older man pushed his bodyguard forward. 'You are needed more than I,' he shouted. 'Take the cable, and hold me, too.' Muda strapped himself into the harness. He held out his arms and took Memed like a child, his tunic flapping around his legs in the gale created by the rotor blades. The pilot lifted them away, swinging precariously, but Muda held on.
Yes, Memed had been right in his choice of bodyguard. And he had been right in judging the weaknesses of a Philippine army colonel who, faced with a threat and a sum of money, had sent in the helicopter to save Memed's life.
****
Washington, DC, USA*
The US President's limousine drew up outside Peter Brock's Georgetown house. Casually dressed in a pair of jeans, his hair wet from the shower and with a towel slung around his neck, the National Security Advisor greeted Jim West.
'Glad you managed to get away, Jim,' said Brock.
'If I couldn't have, I doubt you could,' joked West lightly, taking off his overcoat and scarf and hanging them over the banister of the staircase. 'Khan's funeral is a private affair. Mary says even our ambassador has not been invited.'
'Not a happy situation at all,' mused Brock thoughtfully. 'Riots in Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines.'
It was early evening, and a smell of spice and seafood came from the kitchen. Brock took the President through to where Caroline, wearing a bright, floral apron, was whipping up supper, with a salad fork in one hand and a glass of Californian Merlot in the other. West knew and appreciated Caroline's skilful acts at distancing herself from the political issues of the day.
She kissed West on both cheeks and poured a glass for him. 'Here, Jim. Taste the work in progress and tell me what you think.' She held out a spoon, sauce dripping over the edges on to a small plate. West blew to cool it and as soon as he had some in his mouth, Caroline said: 'More rumours in the papers about you and Mary, Jim. All of it true, I hope?'
West fanned his mouth with the back of his hand. 'It's unfair to ask a man such a question with hot sauce in his mouth,' he managed, swallowing it and washing it down with the Merlot. 'Your sauce is delicious, Caro, and Mary and I are just good friends - at least when we're not fighting it out in meetings.'
Brock grinned. 'I'll put on a shirt and be back in a couple of minutes.'
Since losing his wife to cancer, West had treated the Brocks' rambling Georgetown house as a second home. The death of a First Lady in the White House was almost unheard of. The last had been Caroline Harrison in 1892, and modern America, when it was told that Valerie West had passed away after her sudden diagnosis, had not known how to react.
For some weeks, the media had asked if West would remain up to the job. His background was forensically re-examined, with questions raised about the psychological strength of a man who had married his childhood sweetheart and now had to live without her. West's eldest child, Chuck, was married with two boys and a girl. But his work kept him in Oakland where he had started an interstate trucking company. His daughter, Lizzie, was an international economist specializing in the developing world. She accompanied her father to public functions when she could. But often it was tense because, politically, they did not see eye to eye.
Peter Brock was Jim West's best friend and most trusted political sounding board. In public, Brock's view would be the view of the President, and if ever there was a disagreement only he and Jim West would know about it.
They had trained and served as navy pilots together, dated their wives together, married within a month of each other and now pretty much ran the country together. West measured six foot two, with a lean frame, a mane of sandy hair and an ability to match his face to any political occasion. Brock was short and stocky, with the prominent chin of a man not to be messed with. His nose was slightly skewed after being broken in a mess-room brawl. But his eyes revealed both vulnerability and curiosity. A generation earlier, West had told Brock his expressions were so transparent that he would never make it as a front-line politician.
It was unspoken, but the Brocks had taken it upon themselves to make sure their friend would pull through. West was a man with dark mood swings, chased by fear of failure. There were demons, which, by his own admission, chased him and had motivated him all the way to the White House.
Caroline rinsed a baking tray under the tap and wiped her hands on a dishcloth. 'All right, then,' she said with a mischievous smile. 'If I told you I had asked her to drop by tonight, would your spirit soar or would it plunge?'
West chuckled. 'As a companion, there is no one living I would rather have dinner with than Mary Newman. She is attractive, amusing, attentive and intelligent. But, let me tell you, in the Principals Committee, Mary's a pain in the ass, and tonight, Pete and I have to chew over events as only old friends can.'
Caroline reached up into a cupboard above the sink, her hands just managing to touch the d
inner plates. West stepped forward. 'Here, let me do that. I must have six inches on you and it's not often that a US President has the privilege of laying a table.'
'Thanks, Jim. The side plates are right next to them. They can come down, too.' Caroline pulled open a drawer and took out three sets of knives and forks. West glanced down at her. 'Only three?' he asked lightly.
Caroline grinned. 'Don't worry. I'd never pull one like that.'
West separated the dinner plates and put them on the table. Caroline collected them up again. 'Not so fast. I need to warm them. But the side plates can go on.'
'Maybe one day I'd welcome it,' said West. 'A surprise date arranged by my closest friends.'
Brock, in a fresh short-sleeved red shirt, stood at the doorway. 'She may be right, you know, Jim.'
'About me?' joked West. 'That I know.'
Brock poured himself a glass of the Merlot. 'She called about half an hour ago - about poor old Asif Khan.'
'Khan, eh?' said West, leaning against the kitchen dresser and sipping his wine.
'She doubts it's a one-off.'
'The thing about Mary is that she never gives off smoke without knowing there's a little fire burning away somewhere.'
Caroline stepped quietly to her husband's side and put her arm around his waist. They had met the year before Brock joined the navy when they were both students at Georgetown University. They now lived across the road from its campus. Caroline had remained in academia, rising to head her department, specializing in international studies and non-proliferation.
Tonight, her husband was trying to show a light-hearted face, but Caroline detected that he was distracted by Khan's assassination. The Gulf War, the Kosovo War, the War against Terror, Iraq, each one started by a single incident, a bomb, a border invasion, a massacre, an assassination. You never knew what could flare up and turn your life upside down.
'Why don't you two go through, while I finish off getting this ready?' she said, slipping her arm away. 'Hopefully, issues of state will be done with by the time we eat.'
Inside the study, Brock brought down the The Times Atlas of the World from a shelf filled with large, unwieldy reference books, ran his finger across the inside cover page to find the map he wanted, opened it up on page nineteen and laid the atlas down on his desk. It was a high-ceilinged corner room, furnished with two leather armchairs and a swivel chair at the desk. This was Brock's sanctuary, a masculine room of dark textured colours, mementos and photographs with international figures, which themselves told part of the story of how he had transformed himself from an impoverished navy pilot to the National Security Advisor to the President.
'Khan gets killed here,' he said, flipping over to page eighteen and brushing his finger over Penang on the north-eastern coast of Malaysia. He flipped the page back. 'The first reported act of violence after that was here, a military airfield in Dipolog in the southern Philippines.' Brock loudly snapped together his finger and thumb. 'Then, too quickly for anyone to keep count, the whole damn region is on fire, Malaysia, Indonesia, even Brunei which must be the most tranquil place in the world.'
He picked up the remote and turned on the television. The first channel to come up was BBC World, which Caroline enjoyed watching. Its reporter was speaking from the roof of a Manila hotel. 'The Philippine military has lost contact with its bases on Basilan, Jolo and Tawitawi. In Zamboanga City, General Fidel Ocampo is being held hostage, and all assaults on guerrilla positions there have been suspended.'
'John, thank you,' said the presenter in London. 'Before we let you go, could you give us a picture of what is behind all this, and whether this has any wider political implications?'
The screen dipped back to the reporter, forehead creased and eyes squinting against an overhead sun. 'Susannah, one theory, and I stress this is only a theory, is that there was an attack by the Philippine military on a rebel Muslim camp. The rebels decided to hit back with a vengeance. But there is a question of coordination and planning. An operation like this must have been ready to go for some time. Something happened last night that made them unleash their forces.'
'And, John, is it linked to the assassination of the Pakistani President?'
'Conspiracy or coincidence, Susannah. No one yet knows.'
Brock muted the television. 'Whenever we think Asia is a model of development it blows up in our damn faces.'
West pointed at the maps. 'Let's send the Kitty Hawk,' he said. 'We got involved down there in 2001. If it's unfinished business, let's see to it.'
Brock nodded. 'No harm in it. She's in the South China Sea at the moment. She could be off the coast of Mindanao in a couple of days.'
The door opened without a knock. Caroline stepped in first, but behind her was Mary Newman, freshly fallen snowflakes on her coat, which was unbuttoned. She pointed to the television set. 'Has it been on yet?' she said, short of breath.
'The Philippines?' said Brock, turning up the volume again.
'No,' said Newman, loosening her Paisley-patterned silk scarf and putting on her glasses. 'Worse. Much worse.'
****
Yokata airbase, Japan*
Thousands of miles away, a few minutes earlier, massive engines had blasted into the reinforced-concrete base hewn into a mountain side. A North Korean medium-range, three-stage, solid-fuel Taepodong-2 missile had roared into the morning sky. While West and Brock had been discussing the turbulence in South-East Asia, every satellite camera and listening post in the region had picked up the launch and traced it to Manchon County, North Korea, 500 miles from the western Japanese coastline and 700 miles from Tokyo.
Just outside Tokyo, in an aircraft hangar at the US Yokata airbase, maintenance engineers and their families were having morning coffee together to bid some colleagues goodbye. Friends were reading out goodwill emails from those who could not be at the party. There was cheering, laughter and not a lot of concentration on what was going on around them. It was a tight cluster of people, a cross-section of American family life and ethnicity, including children who had been given a special late start to school for the event.
The Yokata US military airbase had a responsibility for forward projection and crisis response. It would be the primary supply base for troops fighting a war on the Korean peninsula. As many as 14,000 people lived there at any one time, and, most symbolically, it was less than thirty miles from downtown Tokyo - the military installation closest to the metropolitan area.
The missile flew over the glittering Tokyo skyline and across the northern Kanto Plain at the foothills of the Okutama Mountains before smashing through the roof of the aircraft hangar.
The roof split in two and the head of the missile crashed into the fuselage of a transport C-130 Hercules plane undergoing routine maintenance. The fin snapped on impact and flipped over on to the wing of a C-21 Learjet with such force that the wing broke off, letting vapourous aviation fuel into the atmosphere.
They were gathered at one end of the hangar near a stack of oxyacetylene welding tanks when the missile struck.
The electrical systems on the two aircraft shorted, throwing out sparks which ignited the aviation fuel, blasting a hole in the wall between the hangars and sending a fireball towards the welding tanks. The youngest child to die was eleven-year-old Carrie Berlin. Both her parents and older brother, Richard, died, too. Her younger twin brother and sister, Paul and Rebecca, were orphaned.
By dawn the fires were out, the body bags organized, the missile identified and the grieving had begun. Fifty-eight Americans were dead.
****
Washington, DC, USA*
'The North Koreans say it was an accident,' said Newman.
'I don't give a damn what they say,' retorted West. 'They've killed Americans.' West was on his feet, pacing the Oval Office and finding it too small. 'What the hell were they doing flying a missile so close to Tokyo? Because if you tell me it was deliberate, this time next week there won't be any North Korea left.'
Newman grimaced. 'S
omeone had to tell you what they said,' she said, standing up. 'As Secretary of State, that job falls to me. If you want to hear the rest of it, I'll continue. If you don't, I'll shut up.'
West reached for the window behind his desk, pressed his forehead against a chilled pane, tapped his fingers on the glass and listened.
At forty-two, Newman was one of the youngest secretaries of state ever. She could even have passed for ten years younger, with plenty of brown hair, cut back to just below the ears. She wore a fringe that managed to hide her high forehead and a pair of steel-rimmed glasses that made her poker-playing eyes even more difficult to read. She kept her own counsel, yet spoke her mind forcefully when called upon.
West had first noticed her when she was a new, young entry to the House of Representatives. He had been in the Senate. Fifteen years on, she was divorced, from a Washington lawyer who had swapped her for a younger blonde lobbyist at precisely the time when Newman's career started outpacing his.