by Unknown
'Thought I'd ride with you,' said West, with a brief smile. Unlike Song who wore his coat, West was dressed only in a dark-blue denim shirt and jeans. 'Something's cropped up which I thought we could sort out.'
'I hope it's a pleasant surprise,' said Song, moving the newspaper to clear the seat for West.
'We'll see,' said West, looking at Song curiously. Here was a man who had been educated in America, had become rich through America, who spoke and maybe could think like an American, but who was turning against everything American. West couldn't bring himself to believe Jamie Song would authorize sending missiles to Cuba. What he needed to know was whether Song had the power to stop it.
'Last night, after you had left,' said West, 'Chris Pierce, my Defense Secretary, dropped by. We've been carrying out military training in the Caribbean over the past couple of days with live firing and all that. A Chinese transport plane flew right into the exercise area. Unfortunately, the pilot didn't answer our radio signals. He claims he doesn't speak English or French, if you can believe that, considering the plane had come from Senegal. So we sent up some fighters. It got a little dangerous for a while, but eventually we brought the plane down into Guantanamo Bay.'
Song glanced across sharply, but didn't say anything. West looked straight ahead at the bullet proof screen sealing the back seat from the driver and bodyguard in front.
'You guys did a similar thing some years back, I remember, with one of our EP-3 surveillance planes.'
'Before my time,' said Song dryly. His hands were on each knee and he kept his eyes on West.
'The crew is fine. Nobody's hurt. No equipment is damaged. But we did look inside the plane.' West stopped there. Song appeared completely secure in what he was hearing, his eyes fixed unfalteringly on West.
'And what was the plane carrying, Jim,' he asked softly, 'that has brought you into my car on this cold morning?'
'A missile that could strike the United States,' said West, his deadpan delivery matching Song's. He detected a flicker of reaction. It could have been shock, possibly anger, but it was suppressed immediately with a quick, thin smile and a slight shifting of the hands. From the top pocket of his shirt, West pulled out a sheet of folded paper, unfolded it and passed it to Song. The photograph had been taken inside the plane, showing a case prised open, its wrapping unfurled, and the fin of a rocket.
'I'm told it has a range of 400 miles,' said West, 'and that three other types are on order. The most powerful has a range of 2,000 miles.'
'This isn't the anti-Castro lobby playing games?' asked Song, offering the picture back.
'Keep it,' said West, shaking his head. 'We've got plenty more. And no, this is not Miami propaganda.'
'I see,' said Song, lowering his head and looking away from West for the first time since the accusation. 'So we have two issues to deal with. One is the confirmed hijacking of a Chinese aircraft by the United States and the kidnapping of the crew--'
'Jamie, don't go down this road,' said West, not hiding the exasperation in his voice.
'. . . The second is the allegation that we are supplying offensive missiles to Cuba.'
The limousine's engine whined as the driver changed from automatic to a low gear to handle the curves in the road to the helipad. West wound down his window, sending a beam of sunlight across Song's face, causing him to squint. Cold air rushed in. The snow had stopped and apart from the crunch of the tyres on the road and the low purr of the engine the huge silence of the mountains bore down on both of them.
'You've got to be straight with me, Jamie. I can't mess with the safety of the US. You know that. Just tell me what the hell is going on.'
Song, irritated by the sun, let his eyes flare. 'Don't push.'
'Then don't fuck around.' West snatched the picture from Song's hand and rattled it in front of his face. 'Did you know about this?'
'No.'
'Do you have an explanation?'
'I'm not in Beijing. How can I have?'
'I want your word. Then I'll tell you what I'm going to do.'
Song shook his head. 'You have my word, and I'll tell you what I'm going to do.'
West twisted in his seat so he was now face to face with Song. 'Any Chinese aircraft heading for Cuba will be shot down.'
Song shook his head. 'You can't--'
'I can, and I will. I was restrained over your buddies in North Korea. I've kept my patience with your buddies in Pakistan. But you screw us in Cuba--' West shook his head and swallowed hard. 'Goddamn it, Jamie. We're both old enough to have been alive in '62. Maybe I'm a sucker, but I don't think you know it's happening. So help me on this, or I won't be able to help you.'
As the limousine straightened out for the last mile to the heliport, Marine One passed overhead, casting a quick flickering shadow over them. Song buttoned up his coat and took his hat and gloves in his hand. 'You will return the plane and the crew within forty-eight hours,' he said. 'If there is a missile inside, you can keep it. If any of this leaks out into the public domain, by whatever means, I will be unable to do anything to help you. If these conditions are not met, I cannot help you either in Korea or Pakistan. If they are, I will try my utmost. On that you have my word.'
The car drew to a halt. The motorcycle outriders stopped further ahead, their blue lights flashing. The riders dismounted, took off their helmets and stood at attention on either side of the red carpet furled out for the Chinese President. A secret service agent opened Song's door. West let himself out on the other side. On his signal, just before Song boarded, the White House photographer recorded the scene of West and Song at the steps of Marine One, one in an open-neck shirt, the other in the formality of a woollen overcoat, the pair of them shaking hands, then embracing each other, and West staying, unflinching in the icy mountain crosswinds, both hands raised and waving, as the helicopter lifted up and vanished through the winter clouds towards Washington.*
*****
By mid-morning it turned out to be a bright winter's day. Jim West asked for coffee to be served on the patio. The sun was bright, although Patton was working in an overcoat and Mary Newman and Caroline Brock were wrapped in colourful Gore-tex jackets. They all wore shades to ease the violent reflection from the snow. West, Brock and Kozerski sat with their backs to the light, looking into Aspen's reception area where staff were rebuilding the log fire and polishing the table after the previous evening's dinner.
'Chris, you need to get to New York tonight. I want you face to face with the Cuban ambassador to the UN, but not in the UN building. Go to the Waldorf or something. Give him seven days for us to get full access to those missiles.'
'You sure you want me for this?' asked Pierce, glancing over at Newman.
'Sometimes I wonder if I gave you two the wrong jobs,' said West, his face enveloped in a cloud of his own breath. 'This will not be a diplomatic meeting. So yes, Chris, I want you because you're the man who's going to order the strikes the second the Cubans go past that deadline. That's why I'm giving him a week - because there's no negotiation. Your job is to get that message through their thick Marxist skulls.'
Pierce nodded contritely. West cupped his hands round his mug of coffee for warmth. 'Tom, I want you to put everything into cracking any North Korean cells in this country. Anything it takes. And if there's a single case of any suspicious disease, I want to know about it.' He glanced across at Kozerski. 'John, if Tom's got something to tell me, make sure he can get me wherever.' The table was alive with sunlight and the dancing fog of coffee steam and human breath.
'Mary and Pete,' continued West, 'I want you both to go flyabout. Mary, follow up on the diplomatic side by calling in on Sato, Song and Kozlov - as soon as they're back. By the time you're with Song, Chris's deadline on Cuba should have four days to run. If Jamie can't sort it in that time, he won't be able to.'
'What about the media?' said Newman, pulling up her collar against a gust of wind cutting round the edge of the lodge.
'Tell the press, but don't t
ake any of them with you. Only deal with heads of government. I don't want any mixed messages. Call me any time. But I want you to start in South Korea - with Pete.' He glanced across to his National Security Advisor, letting everyone guess that he and Brock had hatched the plan earlier that morning. 'You'll both be flying out separately. Hopefully, your trip, Mary, will attract the press coverage and Pete will get away quietly. You're to go to Panmunjom, stand with the binoculars, reaffirm US commitment. Pete's going to be tapping our security allies - Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, the governments we can really trust - for a loan of intelligence agents.'
****
40*
****
Chungchongnam-do, South Korea*
From the window of what was called her yogwan or wayside inn, Mary Newman looked out at the battleship-grey mass of the Yellow Sea and the estuary of the Kum River running into it. Outside the compound, stretching down to the water, was flat land of endless rice paddies where patches of shallow water, broken up by the crops, reflected sunlight like fractured mirrors.
Her room was magnificent. She walked into a comfortable area of minimalist beige furniture decorated with Korean porcelain and calligraphic scrolls. Along the whole front was a balcony with gas heaters attached so that guests could sit outside on a sunny winter's morning. A dining table was set in an alcove. Two sharp brass candleholders sculpted in the shape of naked, but graceful women were the only objects on it. A short corridor led round first to a second room, which was kitted out with video link, satellite phone, computer, multichannel television and short-wave radio. A printed note gave a number to call for technical or secretarial assistance.
Further down was a set of double doors made up of small frosted glass panes. Through them lay the high-ceilinged master suite, with a low and hard king-sized bed and a view out on to the mountains. The bathroom was almost as big again, with a double-sized tub and a discreet card laid on the sink with a number to dial should a guest wish to be hand-rubbed by a blind Korean masseur.
Newman was exhausted after her visit to the Kunsan air-base. She was still wearing the souvenir combat flying jacket given to her when she had stood in an aircraft hangar, flanked by two F-16 fighter aircraft, and ringed by 1,500 service personnel listening to her brief address. She had reminded them of the history of the Eighth Fighter Wing, known as the Wolf Pack, and of their duty - as the mission statement read - to deliver lethal airpower, to defend the base and to take the fight north, if ordered to do so.
After reading from notes prepared for her, Newman had dropped her hand by her side, taken off her spectacles, and brushed back her fringe. 'Look, I don't know if I'm meant to say this, but I will,' she said, lowering her voice and bringing her mouth closer to the microphone. 'I've just flown down from Camp Bonifas and Camp Liberty Bell up by Panmunjom. Before that I was in Washington and Camp David. The last couple of weeks have been like I've never known before. All you guys are in the front line, and I mean that in the very real sense of the words. Some of your grandparents might have fought in the Korean War, and the reason you are here is because that war has never really ended. A lot of people died, but there was a stalemate and no glory, and things pretty much went back to what they would have been if it had never happened. The reason I am here is that we're closer to war on this peninsula now than we have ever been in the past half-century. The President is working his damnedest to make sure it doesn't happen. But if it does, I know you'll serve your country and that you'll win. God be with you.'
In her lavish suite, with those words reverberating around her jet-lagged mind, she hung the jacket in the wardrobe, slipped out of her clothes, ran the shower, smelling the hot springs sulphur in the stream of water and stepped under it.
Since David had walked out on her, Newman had learned to relish her time alone. She enjoyed the luxury of letting her mind wander without interruption, and as the water cascaded down her back, it took her back to the start of the long day. After flying into Seoul from Washington in the early morning, she was taken straight from the airport to the newly opened rail link to Panmunjom, along a line which, hopefully, one day would run uninterrupted between North and South Korea. She had laid a wreath at Panmunjom in the Military Armistice Commission hut where Lieutenant Lee Jong-hee, sleeper agent, had murdered an unknown compatriot and fled to the North. She had lunched just south of there at Camp Liberty Bell, making the same speech as she had at Kunsan. Her visit was so last-minute that only local stringers and wire agencies were able to shout questions at her - and she had answered none, promising a full statement at the end of her visit.*
*****
From Panmunjom, a helicopter had taken Mary Newman to the presidential palace in Seoul, a cavernous blue-roofed building known as the Blue House, where the diminutive and highly intelligent President Cho Hyon-tak stood at the massive open doors to greet her. Even Newman, who was only five foot five herself, stood an inch above Cho in the photo-call handshake. But what he lost in height he made up for in hyperactivity and blunt talking, with idiosyncrasies of accent and mannerisms picked up from his years at Columbia Business School and living as a student in the rougher areas on the West Side north of Central Park.
When Cho guided her into the meeting room, she found Peter Brock already there, and papers spread out on a conference table among a scattering of coffee cups. Also there were Cho's advisers, two young men and a woman, and also an older man whom Newman recognized as an intelligence chief from the Agency for National Security Planning, one of the umbrella intelligence agencies. Clearly, they had been at it for some hours.
'Let's leave it, Peter, for a moment and see if Mary can knock some sense into us,' said Cho with a smile, clapping his hands for the coffee pot to be refilled. 'Coffee OK with you?' he asked, beaming at Mary, who hesitated just for a second, but it was enough. 'Bring some tea, ginseng and water, still and sparkling,' he added. Tentatively, he pushed open another door in the opposite wall and peered round to see if the room behind it was occupied. He glanced back at Mary conspiratorially. 'It's empty,' he said. 'Let's sneak off in here.' As his advisers lined up to join him, he held out a hand. 'Just the three of us,' he said, winking at Brock. 'Then I can speak my mind.'
On the surface, Cho acted like an overgrown kid, nervous and mischievous. But as soon as they had sat down, with a refreshments trolley in front of them, Newman saw at least one layer of the mask peel away. Cho became even more American, slipping into the role of a Bronx street fighter.
'I was telling Peter,' he said, breaking off to wave his hand at the trolley. 'Help yourselves. Let's be in the trenches for a bit.' Newman had expected the quip to be followed by a smile, but Cho's expression was sombre. 'I'm in a fucking dilemma, Mary, like I was telling Peter. Jim doesn't know about it. But then I didn't know the stakes until Peter got here this morning. The bottom line is this. We hate the fucking Japanese. All right? They came here in 1910 and they fucked us over and we haven't got through the counselling yet. Everyone in Asia hates the fucking Japanese - except the Taiwanese and that's because they hate the fucking Chinese. And maybe the Indians, because they live too far away. "So what?" you say.' He sipped his coffee, put the cup on the table next to his chair and stood up. He looked around for a window and, finding there wasn't one, he paced the room, head lowered and hands behind his back. 'If it comes to a fight with North Korea, you're going to be using your bases here and in Japan. That makes us allies with the Japanese while we bomb the shit out of our brothers north of the border.'
He stopped, looked up at Mary and shook his head. 'No. No. No. No fucking no, if you get my message.' He stabbed his finger in the air to make his point. 'I've got a new fucking generation of troublemakers to deal with. The last generation, they wanted democracy. They hated the fucking dictators. And they won. This new lot, they love their brothers across the border. You get it? If they love their brothers, they hate you. I know it sounds crazy. Here we are, a living example of how the developing world can become the developed world, the fuck
ing miracle which has escaped most of the rest of the Third World, how South Korea, battered and pummelled by war, used the American security umbrella to pull itself up and succeed, and the young kids don't appreciate it at all and want to fuck it up.' He clasped his hands in front of him and lowered his voice. 'You get my drift, both of you?'
'Cho, there's nothing I like more than a straight talker,' Newman smiled. 'Even if your language leaves something to be desired.'
'Good,' said Cho, putting his chubby hands on his small hips and leaning forward before beginning his pacing again. 'So, second point. What happens if that shit Park Ho loses and North Korea collapses?' He stopped in front of Brock and shook his finger. 'I'll tell you what will fucking happen. For three months, you'll all be in there, China, Russia, you guys, the damn Europeans with their blonde aid workers and their strapping lovers, Australian backpackers and their home-grown dope plants, the huge goddamn white bandage of the UN, their Toyota Land Cruisers, their 192 fucking languages. And you'll all fuck it over, just like everywhere else. And you'll say to me: "No, Cho, it's too sensitive for South Korea to be seen in there right now. Give it time. Let the international community handle it."'