by Unknown
'Should we detect any new threat from Pakistan - even an aircraft flying towards our border - we will carry out a full strike, meaning we will take out their major cities and military installations. The exceptions will be Islamabad and Rawalpindi because the prevailing winds would take the radioactive debris across into India. For the same reason, Lahore is also safe. Once our nuclear weapons are in place, our conventional forces will move into Pakistan across the Wagah border to Lahore, from Fazilka towards Multan, and from Jaisalmer across from Rajasthan to Sukkur. We will also put a naval blockade around Karachi. Once we are certain that Pakistan's nuclear weapons are under international control and the military is put under an interim UN command, we will withdraw our troops from Pakistan. If that does not happen, we will conquer that nation and reintegrate it back into India.'
'You will be fighting for a hundred years,' said West softly.
'We've been fighting for sixty already,' said Mehta.
'Have you found the pilot?' said West.
'Yes. It was Tassudaq Qureshi. We shot his plane down. He ejected, landed safely and shot himself in the head before our rescue teams got to him.'
'Qureshi?' repeated West, looking over towards Patton and wishing that Brock was there to guide him. He wished he had not sent Newman and Pierce away. They might never have agreed with each other, but they showed a perfect path towards the middle ground.
'Exactly,' said Mehta. 'Qureshi led the coup against Khan. He was on a mission to carry out a nuclear attack on India, changed his mind and instead dropped the bomb on Kahuta - a target rich in symbolism. What that means, Jim, is that whoever has power in Pakistan now is more extreme than Qureshi and more than willing to use a nuclear weapon against us.'
A red light flashed silently on a telephone on West's desk. Kozerski stood and picked it up. West and Patton watched as Kozerski's face dropped into an expression of complete astonishment.
'What is it, John?' asked West. 'Sorry, Vasant, can you hold for just a moment?'
Kozerski cupped his hand over the receiver and looked first at Patton, then at West. 'North Korea has launched a missile. It's already flown over Japan and is heading out across the Pacific.'
****
45*
****
Islamabad, Pakistan*
Ahmed Memed sat in the corner of the room and heard the music, tinny and mournful, drifting up from the market below. He spread his hands, momentarily seeming unsure where to put them, before resting them on his knees. Muda sat next to him, his eyes cast down on the carpet. Across the room, also on the floor, but sitting more awkwardly, were Brigadier Najeeb Hussain and General Zaid Musa. They had the power of Pakistan's armed forces behind them, but they deferred to Memed because he was their legitimacy.
'I will tell you some truth,' said Memed. 'It should not have happened like this, but it has.'
For a few moments, he let a silence grow. His eyes were on Hussain, the man who last saw Qureshi alive and who should have read his mind. Muda, the assassin, was motionless. Hussain glanced towards Musa, but Musa's eyes were on Memed.
'War always contains bad things,' continued Memed, shifting his look to Muda, then down to his own hands. 'One way or another that is what happens. If we have resolve, we will win.'
Musa shifted to a more comfortable position. 'We will have your support?'
'They are not Pakistan's only weapons. They belong to the war. We must not lose the weapons we have. If we use them, it will show our resolve.'
Memed stood up. Muda was on his feet too, the bulge of his weapons showing through his loose, cotton shirt. 'You must work with our allies and you may have a problem with China,' said Memed, smoothing down his robe. 'I will help you.'
Musa and Hussain listened to the cleric and his assassin walk down the wooden stairs of the run-down tenement block in Rawalpindi. Hussain got to his feet and watched them emerge into the crowded, ragged streets where they would not be recognized. He felt Musa at his side, watching as well. Their figures in the window darkened the room.
Musa shook Hussain's hand. 'We've won,' he said, smiling. He slapped his hand against the window frame. 'We've bloody won.'
****
46*
****
Washington, DC, USA*
'It's come down north of Wake Island,' said Kozerski, his ear still to the receiver, with Mehta listening on the line which had remained open to India. Kozerski recited the information as he was hearing it from the Pentagon, 'That's midway across the Pacific to Hawaii. The wind is prevailing to the north-east. One freighter and one oil tanker are in the vicinity. We're checking their registration and the nationality of the crew.'
'Wake Island is a US airbase,' said Patton. 'The only one around for miles.'
'Was that the target?' asked West, perching on the edge of the desk and addressing the speaker phone to Mehta. 'Are you hearing this, Vasant?'
'Yes, Jim,' said Mehta. 'Keep the line open. We'll talk it through when all the news is in.'
West pressed the button on his intercom. 'Jenny, can you break the Defense Secretary out of his meeting in New York? I need him in Washington now.'
'Yes, sir,' said Rinaldi with the same calmness as if West had asked for a resupply of paper clips.
'And where is Mary?'
'In the air, sir. Three hours out of Tokyo.'
'Get her on the phone for me, please.'
'I want complete surveillance of all the Koreans on our lists,' said Patton, talking into his mobile, and getting up to find a clearer signal near the window. 'Cancel leave. The four at the top of the list, move the SWAT teams in to hit them at any time I say-- No, I don't give a damn about warrants. On my word, you move in. And I'm not going to ask if my orders are clear, because the President is right here with me and is witness to them.'
'F-16s with biodetector apparatus are three minutes from the target area,' said Kozerski. 'Mr President, do you want to hear this?'
'Patch it through,' said West, glancing at the speaker phone, and wondering if perhaps Mehta should not hear such highly classified primary intelligence. 'Vasant, who have you got with you there?'
'Deepak Suri and Ashish Uddin,' said Mehta. 'That's it and the line is secure.'
'OK. We'll keep you on.'
'Mr President, this is Squadron Leader John Tucker. We are about to enter the target area. I will relay directly--'
'Target location 29.15 North, 175.23 East,' said Kozerski. 'That's about three hundred miles north of Wake Island.'
'Nuclear radiation: negative,' said Tucker. 'Anthrax: negative. CX: negative. Sarin: negative. I'm through the target area, turning back and descending to one thousand feet.'
'What was the range of the launch?' asked West.
'Ball park, two thousand miles,' said Kozerski, studying a map draped over the coffee table in the middle of the room. 'Launch site is Chunggang-up, 41.46 North, 126.53 East. That puts it above the fortieth parallel.'
'If you're referring to Jamie Song's condition of no strikes above the fortieth,' said West, 'that's become immaterial.'
'The base was designed in 1990, specifically to target Okinawa,' continued Kozerski, relaying information from his earpiece. 'It was modified in 2005 to take the long-range Taepodong-2--'
'Variola major detected,' said Tucker.
'Smallpox,' whispered West.
'Liquid form, with stabilizing additive,' continued the pilot. 'There's an unidentified agent. We're bringing it into the aircraft and hope to hell it survives enough to find out what it is.'
'Smallpox,' repeated West to himself. God, how he missed Peter Brock.
'Mr President, I have the Secretary of State on the phone for you, sir.'
'Thanks, Jenny. Can you find Caroline Brock and ask her to come here right away?' His hand hovered over the speaker phone. 'Vasant, you still there?'
'Yes, Jim, I heard.'
'I'm cutting the line now. I beg you, don't do anything until we've talked again. We've got smallpox dropped in the middle
of the Pacific and a home-goal nuclear strike on Pakistan. So far there aren't many casualties. Let's keep it that way.'
'Mary,' said West, cutting the line to Mehta. 'North Korea has launched a missile carrying the smallpox virus. Have you got enough fuel to go straight to Beijing?'
'I'll check.'
'The Secretary of Defense will be with you within the hour, Mr President,' said Rinaldi over the intercom.
'Get him on the line.'
'Anybody with any suspect disease, I want to know,' said Patton. A second mobile was ringing in his jacket pocket. He brought it out and flipped it open. 'Tom Patton,' he said. 'Tell the Surgeon General I want a report every six hours that we have no outbreak of any bioweapon-related disease. Six hours until I say it stops. Just hold a second.' He shifted his concentration to the incoming call. 'Sorry . . . he says he wants to defect . . . A MiG-29 . . . No. He does not come to the mainland. He wants to defect, he can fly into Guantanamo . . . fine, then he can ditch and we'll pick him out of the sea. No alien aircraft is coming near the US today.' Patton switched back to the second phone. 'No, every hospital. I don't care how small it is. Every goddamn hospital in this country.'
'Tucker, how long before you can identify that agent?' said West.
'I'll be back at Wake Island in five minutes, Mr President,' said Tucker. 'They should have something ten minutes after that. We've a plane standing by to fly the samples to Hawaii.'
'Do we have everything we need in Hawaii?'said West to no one in particular.
'John, can you get me Matt Lemont at Fort Detrick?' said Patton to Kozerski. Then he turned to West. 'I'll get you an answer to that in a couple of minutes, sir.'
'The Secretary of Defense, sir,' said Rinaldi.
'Chris,' said West, picking up the phone. 'North Korea has released the smallpox virus from a missile launch in the Pacific.'
'Dear God!' said Pierce. 'Where has it landed?'
'In the middle of nowhere. Three hundred miles north of Wake Island. A Taepodong-2 launched from a base near the Chinese border.'
'Mary was right.'
'And you're a gentleman to acknowledge it. Are we ready to strike?'
'We are, but--'
'I don't see any buts, Chris.'
'We're ready to attack, sir,' said Pierce. 'I'll put through the call.'
'When can you move?'
'Missile strikes could begin within the hour.'
'Put them on standby, then get yourself here. I need to hear your objections face to face.' He was about to switch lines with the button on the receiver, but stopped, with his finger hovering. 'Chris, what did the Cubans say?'
'They deny it. I don't think the ambassador himself knew.'
'You gave them the deadline?'
'I sure did.'
'Can we handle Cuba and Korea at the same time?'
'We can, sir. But not much more, particularly if handling Cuba means handling China.'
'Thanks. On second thoughts, Chris, hold there. I'm bringing Mary in. I need both your views on where we go next.' West switched lines to a conference call. 'Mary. You there?'
'Yes, Mr President,' said Newman. 'We can get to Beijing without refuelling.'
West saw Patton signalling from across the room. 'A team from Fort Detrick is leaving now for Hawaii,' said Patton. 'Roughly, twelve hours and we'll have all the answers.'
'Any preliminaries from Wake Island?'
'Tucker's just landed. We should have something in a few minutes.'
'Mary, Chris. Are you both across the line?'
'Yes, Mr President,' said Newman.
'I'm here,' said Pierce.
'In twelve hours, if the tests on the samples are conclusive,' said West, 'I plan to strike every military installation in North Korea. The strikes and bombing will go on until Park Ho and his cronies surrender. Chris?'
'I would like to have China and Russia onside,' said Pierce. 'I would like to have our troops away from the ceasefire line. Right now, Mr President, we don't have new casualties. I don't think any of us want to wake up tomorrow morning to find the first body bags of 37,000 Americans being zipped up and loaded on to transport aircraft home.'
'Point taken,' said West, softly, realizing that Pierce's argument was exactly the one that he had put to Mehta. 'Mary?'
'First, and I hate saying this,' said Newman. For some reason, her line carried the roar of the aircraft, making some of her words difficult to distinguish. 'But better the casualties are among troops than among the civilian population in the US, which is what it would be if the smallpox virus was released there.'
'But it's not been released in the US,' broke in Pierce.
'Second,' said Newman, ignoring the interruption, 'I have a hunch Park might not attack across the border.'
'Was that a "might not"?' said West.
'Exactly, Mr President,' confirmed Newman. 'Park Ho might not attack across the border. And if our troops were withdrawn, I'm pretty certain he wouldn't.'
'Where the hell you get that from, Mary?' said West. Newman's deep intake of breath was audible over the line. West remembered the meeting, not that long ago, when he had snubbed her in favour of Pierce. If they had hit Park Ho then, perhaps he would be neutralized by now. Jamie Song would have taken it on the chin. Toru Sato would be satisfied for the time being, kicking his heels until another opportunity arose for him to fight the 'good war' he was seeking. Cuba would have been sorted out as a single issue, unconnected to wider events. Song, Kozlov and he could have found a way through with India and Pakistan, and most important of all, Peter Brock would still have been alive. The past was a slippery thing, and difficult to balance. What Mary had suggested then had been too dangerous. Just as right now what she was saying seemed to be completely off the wall. 'Go ahead, Mary,' said West gently. 'We're listening.'
'Cho's view is this,' she said. 'Park Ho wants to kick American butts. He wants to be hailed as the man who threw the US out of Asia and brought Japan to book. If he ends up fighting fellow Koreans in the south, he will have failed. If we launch air strikes on North Korea, he will retaliate against our bases in Japan, and he probably has a handful of missiles with a range to hit our western seaboard. But we have the defences to handle that. The only motive for him to attack the South is to defeat the US troops holding the front line. If they are removed, his motivation is removed as well.'
'Do you believe him?' said West, pensively, 'when he said he had developed a nuclear capability?'
'I do, Mr President,' said Newman. 'There is no point in declaring a nuclear weapon to an ally unless you propose to use it to help them. Cho's reading of Park's mind is better than any of us can have.'
'If we let Cho do that,' said Pierce, 'then Japan is bound to follow.'
'OK, thanks, Mary,' said West, in a manner that indicated the conversation was closing. 'I'll think about the balance between 37,000 dead Americans and two new nuclear states. Mary, if we go ahead with the strikes, I want you in Beijing, preferably standing right next to Jamie Song. Chris, see you here shortly. And I need to talk to you both again when you're not in airplanes. So Mary, get yourself to the embassy as soon as you arrive.'
West closed the call and spoke to Rinaldi. 'Jenny, get me Jamie Song, right away.'
Kozerski caught West's attention. 'Caroline Brock is on her way up.'
'Four hundred million doses are fine,' said Patton bluntly into one of his mobile phones. 'But we need them disseminated . . . No . . . get them to distribution areas which are within two hours of any hospital in the US . . . Yes, now, but no vaccinations without my . . . OK, service personnel, I'm not talking about . . . No, firemen, doctors, nurses . . . OK, take your point, draw up a list of who has and who has not been vaccinated.'
As soon as he flipped shut the phone, Rinaldi's voice came through on the intercom. 'Secretary Patton, the US Coastguard needs to talk to you.'