“They're already in,” President Weed growled. “Diego Garcia's in range; I want a B-1 strike on the Chinese bases as soon as possible.”
TEN
30 July 2029: Juba, South Sudan
“How bad was it?” Bill Honnecker asked. A stateside politician rather than a career diplomat, he'd nonetheless learned enough in two years as US ambassador to South Sudan to know what questions to ask.
“Bad.” The CIA station chief, Stanley Fukuyama, gave his head a sharp little shake. “They nailed one of the Chinese bases pretty hard, but mostly missed the others—without full satellite data, they were flying half blind, and they had to dodge the Chinese air defense systems, which are as good as ours. At least a dozen bombs hit the town of Torit.”
“Casualties?”
“Media's saying at least a hundred dead.”
“Shit.” Honnecker got up from his chair. “There's going to be trouble over that.”
“I know. I've told my people to be ready to evacuate.”
Outside the windows, the sky was still dark—maybe half an hour left until dawn. Honnecker considered the options, then picked up the telephone on his desk and punched an internal number. “Manny? It's Bill. I want helicopters on standby to get the rest of us out of here. Yeah, everyone. Let me know when they're ready. Thanks.” He hung up.
Down below, in the embassy's communications-intercept center, staffers monitoring local radio broadcasts heard accounts of the bombing of Torit get worse with each retelling. When word spread that the president of South Sudan had called an emergency meeting of his cabinet, that got sent up to Honnecker in a hurry. It wasn't until just after dawn, though, that the Marine sentries on duty reported the thing Honnecker feared most: people beginning to gather in the streets around the embassy, shouting angry words up at the embassy windows.
The embassy compound was for all practical purposes a fortress, designed to withstand anything short of a military assault—most US embassies outside of Europe, and some even there, had been built or rebuilt that way over the previous decade. Even so, defending the compound against an armed mob couldn't be done without civilian casualties, and on hostile territory, that choice had risks that Honnecker wasn't willing to take. Within minutes he was on the phone with the American consulate in Kisangani, safely over the border in the Republic of the Congo, making arrangements to evacuate the embassy staff as soon as helicopters could get there.
He was barely finished with the call when a frosty message arrived from the South Sudanian government, breaking off diplomatic relations with the United States and demanding that Honnecker and his staff leave the country at once.
The next two hours were chaos, as everything that had to be kept out of hostile hands was destroyed, and whatever other packing could get done took place in the brief gaps between that urgent duty. By the time that was finished, the first of the choppers had touched down on the embassy roof, and people were scrambling aboard. Nobody had any illusions about what would happen to any American left behind.
It took four choppers in all to carry the embassy staff to safety. Honnecker was on the third. As it took off and the fourth circled in to get the Marine guard and the last civilian employees, he looked at the mob—tens of thousands of them by then, filling the streets around the embassy compound. Staring down at them, shaking his head, he found himself wondering whether Washington might just have unleashed something it couldn't control.
30 July 2029: United Nations headquarters, New York City
Staff members at UN headquarters liked to joke about the way that the US ambassador to the United Nations, Jeremiah Parks, turned red whenever he got angry. Since he did that as often as anyone contradicted the official positions of the United States, the effect was hard to ignore, and had been a common topic of late night discussions in thirty or forty languages since the early days of the Weed administration. Still, even experienced diplomats were impressed by the shade Parks turned as he listened to the third African ambassador in a row denounce the United States in heated terms for the previous night's air strikes on South Sudan.
“Three hundred twenty-two civilian deaths, your excellency,” said the ambassador from Tanzania, a dignified gray-haired woman in bright-colored traditional clothing, with a voice that cut like a lash. “Why? Have the people of South Sudan engaged in acts of war against the United States? Have they attempted to destabilize the government of the United States? Have they set out to steal America's oil, your excellency? Or is it another country who has engaged in all those actions, against a nation whose only crime was to have something the United States wants?”
Parks said nothing. Only those sitting close to him could see that his beefy hands were clenched into fists at his sides.
The real action had already taken place earlier that day in the Security Council. There were two competing resolutions about the East African crisis—one introduced by the United States, condemning China, and one introduced by China, condemning the United States—and the US resolution had come out second best. Of the permanent members, Britain and France supported the US, though with no great enthusiasm; Russia supported China, and so did India and Brazil, who had gotten permanent seats in the big 2025 reorganization of the UN; only one of the eight non-permanent members had sided with the US. Since it took a unanimous vote of the permanent members to adopt any resolution, technically speaking, neither side won, but the balance of world opinion was clearly not in America's favor.
“If an ally of the United States were attacked by a hostile power,” the Tanzanian ambassador went on, “the United States would send planes and weapons; has Tanzania not the same right? If that ally had a friendly country near its borders who offered the United States the use of air bases on its territory for that purpose, the United States would gladly have accepted; has South Sudan not the same right? If the nations of some region of the world friendly to the United States—there must be such a region left somewhere, your excellency, though I confess I cannot name one—were to see a hostile power attacking one of their number, no one would challenge their right to join together to drive out the aggressor; have the nations of East Africa not the same right?
“I want to hear the United States explain to me why its actions in this crisis are justified and the actions of my nation are not. I suspect a great many people around the world want to hear that. Perhaps you'll favor us, your excellency.”
She was facing Parks as she said that last sentence, daring him to meet her gaze. He looked steadily at the floor in the center of the General Assembly chamber. Weed's instructions that morning had come by phone, and were set in rock: introduce the resolution in the Security Council, Weed had said, and don't respond to anything anyone says. This will be settled on the plains of East Africa, not in the United Nations.
The ambassador from Tanzania waited for a few more moments, and then sat down. “The ambassador from Zambia,” the speaker said, and Parks grimaced and braced himself for the next round.
30 July 2029: The Presidential Palace, Nairobi, Kenya
“It is my unwelcome duty to deliver this,” said the Tanzanian ambassador.
“Of course.” Mutesu Kesembani, President of the Republic of Kenya, waited while the ambassador took an envelope from his portfolio and placed it on the desk between them, then returned to his place at the far side of the room.
“I was not instructed to wait for a response,” the ambassador added then.
Kesembani considered that, waved a dismissal. The ambassador bowed, turned and left the room. Only then did Kesembani open the envelope, extract the paper inside, and read:
To the Honorable Mutesu Kesembani, President of the Republic of Kenya:
As the Republic of Kenya has chosen to allow a hostile power to use its territory and airspace to launch an unprovoked military assault on the United Republic of Tanzania, it is therefore necessary to declare that a state of war now exists between our two countries.
Below that was a familiar scrawled signature, a
nd then:
Elijah Mkembe, President
United Republic of Tanzania
Kesembani shook his head and reached for his telephone. “Latifa? I want Nobrike and General Kashila here in my office this afternoon. No, I don't care if they have something else to do. And contact the Americans; I want to talk to General Seversky as soon as convenient.”
He listened for a long moment, then, and his eyes widened. “You may tell the Zambian ambassador,” he said finally, “that he may see me at four o'clock this afternoon.”
He put the phone back into its cradle, stared at the declaration of war on the desk in front of him. Zambia, too—and that meant China's other allies in East Africa might join in. Not that they would dare to do much, not with the Americans already here on the ground, but it would make for difficulties once the war was over. He shook his head, wished for the tenth time that afternoon that he had never agreed to the American plan in the first place.
31 July 2029: Lunga-Lunga, Kenya
The coast road from the port cities of northern Tanzania to Mombasa, Kenya's second city and largest port, was usually thronged with trucks at every hour. Since the riots started in Tanzania, though, traffic had dropped away to a trickle, and those mostly refugees with family north of the border; since the war started, even that had all but stopped. The soldiers at the Kenyan Army base outside Lunga-Lunga and the border guards further south had little to do but try to get enough connectivity on Kenya's notoriously shaky cellular network to surf the internet, or sit back and watch birds and monkeys flit through the jungle.
The latter wasn't an option at night, and as Corporal Hassan Omumberi tapped at the cheap Chinese tablet he'd bought the month before and watched the signal bars flicker, it was pretty clear that this night, the internet wasn't going to be an option either. He sighed, put his feet up on the rail of the watch station and waited for the hours to pass and his relief to show up.
Just as his watch beeped 3 am, something like thunder rolled in the distance, off to the south. That puzzled Omumberi—the weather forecast had been for clear weather for days to come. He tapped at the tablet again, hoping to get a signal.
He was still tapping when the parade ground to his right blew up.
Stunned by the blast and the clouds of dust and smoke, Omumberi staggered over to the emergency box and pressed the switch. Overhead a siren began to wail. Moments later, another blast ripped through one end of a barracks building a hundred meters away; a little later, a third blast erupted in the middle of the compound where the company stationed at Lunga-Lunga kept its technicals.
The thunder to the south was still rumbling. It was only when he noticed this that Omumberi realized that the base was under artillery bombardment.
He left the watch station then, sprinted across what was left of the parade ground. Another shell shattered a nearby patch of jungle as he ran. Soldiers were spilling out of the barracks, some of them still pulling on their uniforms; Omumberi ducked past them, headed for the old headquarters building. If the land line still worked—.
He reached the locked door and kicked it in. Nobody used the old building except when a VIP came to visit, but it had the one landline phone on the base, and orders were to use that in an emergency so that the message couldn't be intercepted. He found the thing, nearly dropped the handset, got it to his ear, and waited for a long and terrifying moment until the dial tone sounded.
It wasn't until then that he realized that he had no idea who to call. For want of anything better, he dialed an Army friend with a desk job in Mombasa. The phone rang once, twice, a third and fourth time, and finally was picked up; a groggy voice answered, “What?”
“Nkundu, this is Hassan—”
“At three in the morning? Can't—”
“Listen to me! The base at Lunga-Lunga's being bombarded by artillery. We've taken five or six shells. I couldn't find any other number to call.”
The friend was silent for a long moment, then: “God help us all. Stay on the line; I'll see who I can get at headquarters.” He crossed the room, turned on a light, found his cell phone, and came back. “Hassan?”
The line was dead.
31 July 2029: Camp Pumbaa, Kenya
“Sir?”
Seversky woke slowly out of murky dreams. It took a long moment for the blur looming over him to turn into his orderly.
“Sir, there's an emergency call from Nairobi.”
He blinked, sat up. “Who is it?”
“President Kesembani, sir.”
“I'll take it, of course. Thank you, Sherman.” He threw on a bathrobe and followed the orderly out of the bedroom, picked up the telephone in the room just outside. “This is Seversky,” he said. “What can—”
“Kenya has just been invaded, General.” Kesembani's voice sounded unsteady. “That was not part of the bargain I made with your government.”
“What?” Seversky blinked, tried to clear his mind. “What's happening?”
“Yesterday,” said Kesembani, “I received declarations of war from Tanzania, Zambia, and Mozambique. We talked about that and you insisted nothing would come of it.” Seversky tried to say something, but Kesembani raised his voice and went on. “This night I am told that three of our bases and our border checkpoint along the coastal highway have been bombarded by artillery and Tanzanian forces have crossed the border.” The president's voice rose further, shaking: “I trust you are going to do something about this.”
“Of course,” said Seversky. With no time to come up with a plan of action, he did the next best thing. “I'll meet with my staff right away, we'll get a plan in motion, and—” If Kenya was being invaded, he realized, the Kenyan Army could be brought in. “Can you meet with us this evening in Nairobi? You and your general staff. We'll get this fixed.”
“Thank you, General. That would be welcome.”
“Eight o'clock at the Presidential Palace? Good. I'll make sure you're informed if anything comes up before then.”
Once the call was finished, Seversky broke the connection, then called the HQ building and had the night crew start calling his staff. He went back to his bedroom and got dressed, trying to think of something other than the obvious, trying to shake a growing feeling that the war he'd landed in was not the one he'd been sent to fight.
31 July 2029: The Presidential Palace, Nairobi
“What you are saying,” said President Kesembani, “is that the situation is far from good.”
They were sitting on three sides of a long table in a briefing room in the Presidential Palace: the president, four American officers, and six of their Kenyan counterparts. Up on the screen on the fourth side was a map of southeastern Kenya, with colored rectangles marking the positions of Tanzanian and Kenyan forces on either side of a line halfway between the border and Mombasa.
Seversky shook his head. “Not at all, your excellency.” He'd recovered his balance by sunrise, gotten new instructions from DC, and felt almost as confident as he made himself look. “With the help of your Army, we can handle this. I've talked to President Weed, and he's agreed to postpone the Tanzanian operation. Right now our top priority is the survival of Kenya and your government.”
“That is good to hear,” said Kesembani. “If I may ask, though—what is your plan?”
“Counterattack at once. Your troops are holding the Tanzanians—”
“For now,” one of the Kenyan generals said. “For three or four more days, maybe.”
“That'll be enough. We can have our entire force there in two. The working plan is to come straight down from Nairobi to Tsavo, then move south, closer to the border. We'll hit them on the flank, cut off their retreat, and take them out.”
The Kenyans looked at each other. “That seems sensible,” said the general who had spoken. “Besides holding the Tanzanians at bay, what can we do to assist?”
“You have equipment we don't,” Seversky said. “Technicals, especially, and artillery—until we get air superiority back and can start usin
g our planes for ground attack, that's going to be vital. Manpower's also an issue. We'd like as large a Kenyan force as you can assemble to join with us in the attack, push them straight into the sea, and then show the Tanzanians what an invasion looks like from the other end.”
“Let us talk of that when the immediate crisis is over,” said Kesembani. “For now, you have a workable plan to save us, and that is good. If the United States could bring more of its Army here, that would be better.”
“We're working on it,” Seversky said at once. “As soon as we regain air superiority, we can start an airlift down from the Gulf. If the Tanzanians think they can invade a US ally, they're going to be taught a very hard lesson.”
ELEVEN
3 August 2029: North of Ukunda, Kenya
The technical bounced and rattled through the darkness, part of a line of trucks pushing north into Kenya, raising billows of dust that could be smelled and tasted but not seen except where the headlamps shone into it. Perched in the back of the technical, Private Kwame Mtesi adjusted the bandana covering half his face, and tried to listen above the noise for another sound, more distant, more deadly.
The Americans were on their way. That had been the word in camp that afternoon, passed down from headquarters: There would be a battle soon, something bigger than the skirmishes and brief firefights they'd had so far with retreating Kenyan forces. The Americans were looking for a fight, and they had helicopters with them, maybe airplanes as well.
That didn't bother Mtesi. He'd served in the Congo in the last two wars, and dodged bullets and rockets from enemy helicopters more times than he could readily count. No, what bothered him was the weapon they'd given him. He liked to handle the .50 caliber machine gun perched up in the front of the bed, pump burst after burst into the cabin and the engine of a helicopter until it went down. Instead, the sergeant had handed him this Chinese toy—a stubby tube half his height with some kind of rocket in it, and a grip, a shoulder pad, and a screen for the guidance system sticking out at various angles.
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