by Unknown
'On his way,' said Brock.
'Good. And Mason?'
'If it's Mason, the Australian virologist, you're after,' replied Brock, looking to Pierce who nodded his confirmation of what he was about to say, 'he's still at Guantanamo Bay under interrogation.'
'Tom,' suggested West gently, 'why don't you settle and tell us what all this is about. Join us in a Scotch.' He jerked his thumb behind him. 'They're not drinking because they're meant to be in their offices. But on this side of the room, the whisky's free and you look as if you could do with one.'
Patton let the President pour a glass and accepted the cubes of ice taken out of the holder and dropped in by hand. 'I don't think any of us are going to want to hear this,' he said, pulling a file out of his briefcase. He opened it on the coffee table, and glanced over to Brock. 'Lee Jong-hee, the South Korean officer who shot the North Korean in Panmunjom.' Patton took a sheet from the file and looked around the room, checking that everyone knew what he was talking about. 'Well, the NSA have intercepted three calls in the past day. One to his home phone number in Seoul. One to the barracks pay phone. And one to his cell phone. They were made one after another and came from a landline at a Korean community centre in Canterbury City, near Sydney, Australia. When Lee didn't answer, the caller hung up. It was the same number which Mason himself called from a phone box near his laboratory before the theft of the IL-4 agent.'
Patton handed the President a classified log sheet bearing the white-headed eagle logo of the National Security Agency. He patted down his hair, still wet from the snow. 'We have established a link between Mason and a Korean organization. The action of Lee Jong-hee at Panmunjom indicates there could be - and I don't want to sound over-dramatic - but there could be North Korean sleeper agents like him embedded in Korean communities all over the world. I hope to hell I'm wrong, but my job is not to take risks.'
He stopped to take a long drink of his whisky. West had appointed Patton because of his legendary list of contacts on Capitol Hill and throughout the state legislatures. He was the only candidate who West knew would smash down, physically if necessary, the walls that America's numerous security agencies built around themselves. Word had it that Patton was owed more favours than any other player in Washington, and could bully like no other man around.
'I need to get inside the Korean community in the United States,' Patton continued, keeping the glass in his hand. 'And we need to begin immediate work on a new smallpox vaccine, one that takes into account the IL-4 agent.'
West looked sceptically at Patton. 'What you're saying is that we have to revive our own biological warfare programme in order to combat this new threat.'
'Nixon's 1969 ruling did not prohibit work on offensive applications necessary to develop defensive measures,' said Patton. 'We would not be breaking the law. I've already spoken to Matt Lemont at Fort Detrick and Claire Glasse at the CDC in Atlanta. I explained the urgency. On your word, Mr President, they'll get to work.'
'How will we know if a vaccine will work?' said West, glancing towards Caroline.
'When it's tested on a human being with smallpox,' said Caroline. 'And since smallpox has been eradicated, the answer is we won't. Ideally, the tests should be ethnically categorized. The immunization system of a Caucasian is different from that of an Asian-American, African-American or Hispanic. If Park Ho has indeed obtained the IL-4 from Canberra and smallpox virus from Pokrov, he would be well under way with tests. Let us assume those tests began immediately, and that they have been conducted on human beings - which we can't do. Then they're already way ahead of us, Mr President.' She covered her face with one hand and shuddered. 'It's frightening. It's really frightening,' she whispered.
West handed back the NSA log to Patton. 'Go ahead,' he said softly.
The noise of a helicopter sounded over the lodge, the machine's searchlights flashing from the skids and lighting up the snow. Newman stood up, gathering her papers together but leaving them on the table. 'That's Marine One,' she said. 'I have to go meet Jamie Song.'
'Song,' mused West. 'North Korea's his turf and it's running out of control.'
'If you would like me to go instead and read him the riot act, I'd be more than happy,' said Nolan.
'Nice suggestion,' smiled West. 'But I feel Mary might be a touch more diplomatic.'
The helicopter became less audible, as it climbed to avoid a hazardous peak, its lights fading, then the noise was full on again as it came down on the helipad not far from the lodge.
'Lizzie's not going,' said West to no one in particular. The decision was personal. It didn't need explanation. 'And Mary, nothing of this at all. Everything's fine between us. Talk about ice skating in China. The World Trade Organization. The latest coup in Africa. But not a word about this or anything to do with North Korea.'
'Yes, sir,' she said, putting on her coat, slipping a woollen hat on her head and pulling the flaps over her ears. Her cool blue eyes smiled at him, but her face was serious. He could trust her. He should have trusted her before and, for a moment, as the enormity of what Patton had told him began to sink in, he thought himself unchivalrous for not going with her.
'Mrs Brock talked about ethnicity,' said Nolan, as Newman left. 'Charles, I might be completely wrong, but remind me of that scrap of intelligence on the disappearance of the Air Koryo flight.'
'A photograph in a North Korean newspaper showed an engine casing which was meant to be from the crash site,' said Colchester. 'One of our aircraft buffs simply spotted that it was not from a Tupolev, more likely one of their Ilyushin 62-Ms, which have the engines mounted at the back and the high tail fin.'
Nolan drew on his pipe and looked straight past the President to the views of the valley. 'So that's it. What a bloody monster! The Caucasian passengers on board have been harvested for biological weapons testing.'
'And we ignored it all the time,' muttered West, looking towards the door through which Newman has just gone. Among all of them, Mary had understood the danger.
'Caroline, how long to get a vaccine?' asked West
'Six months at the earliest. We'd be building on what we've got.'
'Do we have this IL-4 agent to work with?'
'We got some flown up as soon as the theft was reported,' said Patton.
'Chris, is our strike plan ready to go?'
'Any time, Mr President,' said Pierce.
'Land invasion, too?'
'Correct.'
'John, make sure Tom gets whatever he needs,' he instructed Kozerski. 'No leaks. No hint of what we're doing to anyone.'*
*****
Camp David had two helicopter landing sites, one which brought Marine One down inside the camp itself, and another at a lower altitude some miles away used when the weather was particularly bad. West had chosen to deliver Jamie Song to the lower one and was waiting on the helipad, snow sweeping across his face, wondering if the pilot would judge the weather too harsh and return to Washington. He stamped his feet against the cold and slapped his gloved hands together, but he stayed in the wind chill from the rotor blades as he watched Marine One inch its way to the ground. Jamie Song stepped out with Mary Newman by his side; then Newman, as pre-arranged, excused herself, ducking under the front of the aircraft to a car waiting on the other side. Jamie Song looked taken aback, but West gave him a friendly slap on the back and guided him by the elbow to the waiting car. There was a bulletproof screen between them and the driver and the secret service agent in the front. They took off their hats and gloves and loosened their overcoats, enjoying the immediate warmth from inside the car.
'Mary look after you OK?' began West affably. 'I had meant Lizzie, my daughter, to be there to meet you as well, but she got tied up.'
Song folded his gloves together and patted them down. 'I appreciate it, Jim. And I appreciate you coming out here to meet me. The pilot said something about this being an emergency landing site.'
West didn't pick up on Song's conversation. As the car pulled out, the crew of
Marine One battened the aircraft down to keep it there until the weather improved. He let the Chinese President look out of the window where there was nothing to see except snowflakes falling so fast that the windscreen wiper had trouble moving them.
'I wanted to get you alone, Jamie, to ask if Mehta has talked to you yet?'
'Yes, he has. He called me shortly before I left - that is, if you're referring to his suggestion that we secure Pakistan's nuclear arsenal.'
'That's the one,' said West lightly.
'Yes,' said Song pensively. 'I've thought a lot about it. It's not just a matter of sending some guys in to take out some nuclear detonators, as you know.'
West nodded. 'If you want to do it, Jamie, you have our support. That's all I wanted to say.'
Song glanced sharply over with an expression of surprise, as if he had anticipated opposition, when West hadn't even wanted discussion.
Song tucked his gloves into his fur hat and loosened his coat further against the warmth of the car. 'I can't see it working. Mehta wants a whole package: the neutralizing of the nuclear weapons and the rooting out of the terror networks. We can't even do that in Tibet. So he knows we won't succeed in Pakistan. Then, when the next terror attack strikes India, Mehta sends in his troops without fear of a nuclear reprisal.' Song shook his head and smiled. 'I'm not even sure if it's a clever suggestion.' He spoke not like a man who understood the knife-edge of military brinkmanship, but as a boardroom negotiator who believed that, whatever the outcome, he did not stand to lose everything.
'It'd be helpful if we could find a way through,' said West softly.
Song didn't look at him. His eyes were staring straight ahead. 'The way through is to restrain Mehta and let Pakistan destroy the cancer within it.'
'Musharraf promised that and it didn't work.' West turned in his seat to face Song. 'Mehta's the one with his home blown up. Does he not have some right of retribution?'
'You don't get it, do you, Jim?' said Song, unwilling to hide his exasperation. 'If we go after the terror groups in Pakistan, they will target our western border area in Xinjiang. If that happens, we could throw away thirty years of economic growth to fight a damn civil war.' He slapped his hand on the door of the car, his eyes red from the jet lag and the cold. 'India, Pakistan and Kashmir are living examples of what we should not do. Now, I will help you if I can, but I will not jeopardize China's national interest in order to protect your own. If Mehta wants to start a war with Pakistan, then it's up to him. If you want to try and stop it, it's up to you--'
'Because it's in your interests that it does happen,' whispered West, barely able to conceal his anger. Song had his gaze focused out of the window, watching evergreens hanging thick with snow as the car slowly climbed a steep hill.
'I'll forget I heard that,' retorted Song brusquely.
The car slowed to take a sharp upward curve, the heavy armoured chassis handling it clumsily. The back wheels spun, slewing the car across the road, until the four-wheel drive locked in and the front wheels pulled it out of the ice patch.
Song turned back inside the car. 'Do they have a spare couple of presidents in Camp David in case we roll down the mountainside?' he quipped, as if their irate exchange had never taken place.
'A heap, Jamie,' said West tiredly. 'There's no one more easy to replace than a national leader.'*
*****
Mary Newman kicked off her shoes, opened a small bottle of Chardonnay from the minibar in her chalet, took a pad of Camp David notepaper from the desk, dropped down into the small sofa and picked up the phone. 'Lizzie, you want to come over now?'
Five minutes later, Lizzie West knocked, poked her head round the door, then held it open for Meenakshi to wheel herself inside as well, bringing a burst of weather behind her.
'Now, before we start, Meenakshi and I are pulling out of the dinner,' said Lizzie. She and Newman helped Meenakshi out of the wheelchair, and steadied her while she took off her coat.
'Right by the fire, and I'll be fine,' said Meenakshi, pointing to a Native American woven rug which lay in front of the hearth. Newman put out a couple of cushions for her, and they lowered Meenakshi down. Lizzie hung their coats on the door. Both women were dressed in heavy natural-wool pullovers and jeans. Managing to kneel, Meenakshi stoked the fire and put on another log. The flames caught its edges and flared up.
'I love this place,' she said, staring into the glow. 'It reminds me of a holiday home we used to use in Darjeeling, before my mother went chasing richer men.' She lay down, propping up her head on her elbow. 'There's something about mountain air - it does calm the troubled mind,' she said dreamily. 'Some day I'll write a medical paper about it.'
'How long are you in bandages for?'
'Don't tell anyone, but it's not as serious as it looks.' Meenakshi winked playfully. 'The key is to keep the weight off my legs. In a week or so, I should be fine.'
'Then you have no excuse to run away from our dinner,' said Newman, who had looked crestfallen at Lizzie's announcement. She had come back from walking the paths of Camp David, sorting out her thoughts, enjoying a few moments alone and away from her job. Meenakshi was right. The weather and the mountain air were having an effect and for some crazy reason she had been looking forward to an informal Camp David dinner hosted by Jim West. She had planned to be womanly again, and think of clothes, food and small talk instead of matters of state.
'I saw Dad after he got back with Jamie Song. He looked like thunder,' said Lizzie, sitting on the edge of the sofa. 'He told me a bit about what went on earlier. I wouldn't go near a meal like that if you paid me a million dollars.'
'Then I'll be the only woman there,' said Newman, tucking her feet under her on the sofa.
'Caroline Brock's still here.'
'Is she going?'
'Dad's expecting her.'
Caroline's presence at the dinner, without Lizzie or Meenakshi present, meant West planned to broach the topic of the smallpox. With Lizzie and Meenakshi there, Newman could have passed as another civilian family member, but the conversation would be bland, the occasion would be one of bonding, not substance.
'I'm sure it'll prove more useful for us to stay away,' said Meenakshi, with a suspicious lilt in her voice. She kept her eyes towards the fire, drawing shapes with the poker in cold ash fallen from the grate.
'Have you two got better offers?' asked Newman curiously.
'Depends how you look at it,' said Lizzie. 'When I told Dad Meenakshi and I wouldn't be joining him this evening, that cunning fox of a father of mine insisted on an alternative arrangement. He has set us up with Miss Kiyoko Miyake, the stunning personal assistant to Prime Minister Sato.'
'Who speaks three European languages, Chinese and Hindi,' added Meenakshi admiringly.
'And a rather sullen character called Alexander Yushchuk who looks like a reincarnation of Dostoevsky,' said Lizzie. 'The Brit, Charles Colchester, who's far too old and stuffy for any of us. And the rather dashing and mysterious Lazaro Campbell, who seems to have a soft spot for our very own Meenakshi.'
Meenakshi turned away, instinctively lowering her eyes at Lizzie's teasing. But she quickly recovered. 'Quite rightly so,' she countered, tearing herself away from the grate to make her point 'But he'll have to do a lot more than save my life to win my affections.'
'And why so?' persisted Lizzie, watching a smile spread over Meenakshi's face with a glacial slowness.
'A touch too arrogant, for a start.'
'I rather like him,' said Newman, laughing.
'Doesn't mean I have to.' She turned her smile into a captivating grin, then dropped it immediately and returned to the fire.
'But it doesn't stop you from fancying him,' teased Lizzie.
'Now that's different,' replied Meenakshi, who at first seemed to be focused entirely on the flames, then was struck by another thought altogether. 'Mary, how come Jamie Song doesn't have anyone with him?'
Newman shrugged. 'Jamie probably knows America better than he does China.
I suspect he feels more relaxed when he's not being watched by one of his own staff.' She tore a sheet off the pad and handed it to Lizzie. 'What do you think? Casual and rough enough for our distinguished guests?'
Lizzie quickly read through, glanced in surprise at Newman who raised her eyebrows and nodded. Both women burst out laughing.
'Dad asked you to do this?' gasped Lizzie.
'He did. But I'm not too familiar with his tastes.'
Lizzie read out loud. 'Pumpkin soup; pan-fried veal in red wine sauce; boiled new potatoes with asparagus tips, and soft Camembert cheese souffle for dessert. Apart from the cheese souffle that sounds like Jim West through and through.'
'Should I change it?' asked Newman tapping her pen against her chin.
Lizzie shook her head and handed the list back to Newman. 'No way. He asked you. You deliver. Mum was always at him to widen his culinary tastes. But she never dared go against him.'