War of Eagles o-12

by Tom Clancy

  Carrie was feeling more than a little hostility from Herbert. She did not know him well enough to determine whether it was her, the pressure, or overwork that was bringing it out.

  “What’s the problem?” she pressed.

  “I know what we’re looking at,” Herbert told her. “I don’t know what we’re looking for.”

  “Pertaining to what? The bombings?”

  “The trail from Charleston to Xichang,” Herbert said.

  “You assume there is one.”

  “No, that’s just something I have to consider,” he told her. “Putting aside the satellite launch for a moment, we seem to have this tit-for-tat struggle taking place between two men, a general, Tam Li, and an intelligence officer, Chou Shin. What we do not know is why. It could be nothing more than personal animus, manifested as attacks on their reputation, sovereignty, or economy. But there is also the possibility that it’s a proxy war between those two groups.”

  “That’s unlikely,” Carrie said. “A struggle between the military and intelligence communities would be counterproductive. It’s also rare. Intramural wars are usually fought between rival intelligence units or military divisions.”

  “A fight for funding or the ear of the leaders,” Herbert said.

  “That’s a simplified view, but yes.”

  “I agree,” Herbert said. “It does not appear as though the general wants to take over Chou’s position, or vice versa. There is nothing in their backgrounds to suggest that kind of personal ambition or professional interest.”

  “So where does that leave us?” Carrie asked.

  “With a prize that we have not yet identified,” Herbert replied. “To try to find that, we have to take a large step back and look at the picture of China overall. Before they went home, Ron Plummer and his hardworking assistant Robert Caulfield shot me a State Department bullet-point overview on China. What they are about, where they are going. One thing stands out, what State calls the Hong Kong Factor.”

  “Which is?”

  “The success of democracy as an economic spur,” Herbert said. “Since the Chinese takeover in 1997, Hong Kong has underscored the lie that Beijing has been promulgating for over sixty years, that Communism works.” Herbert scrolled to some figures. “Hong Kong has six million extensively educated citizens. The society is multilingual and highly Westernized, with a low crime rate. Here’s the fascinating part, though. At $24,750 in per capita annual income, the citizens of Hong Kong are twenty-five times wealthier than mainland Chinese.”

  “Has Beijing tried to explain the discrepancy?” Carrie asked.

  “They say that Hong Kong is not a fair laboratory for China,” Herbert said. “It is small and relatively homogeneous. China is too vast, too uneducated, and too culturally diverse to embrace the kind of democracy that has worked in Hong Kong and, of course, in Taiwan.”

  “All true.”

  “As far as it goes,” Herbert said. “It’s also true that if people got to vote, most of them would probably toss the Communist leaders.”

  “Which would result in a fracturing of China in much the same way that the Soviet Union came apart,” Carrie said. “Every province would vote for policies that brought industry or agriculture to it.”

  “Or new military bases,” Herbert said. He looked at Carrie for the first time. “That would give young people jobs, and older folks would run the support services that feed and equip it.”

  “Perhaps,” Carrie said. “For China to build and modernize its military would require the kind of economy it simply does not have. We studied this at G2, extensively. It’s one of the great problems of our age. If the different regions are not held together by force, or do not get an across-the-board influx of prosperity, we will have another Africa or Middle East or Pakistan with warlords and tribal leaders coming to power and fighting one another. No one wants to see one-fifth of the earth’s population pitched into that kind of chaos.”

  “Which is what puzzles me,” Herbert said. “Apparently, someone in China has figured out another way.”

  “The Mob,” someone said from the hall.

  Carrie turned. Darrell McCaskey was behind her. His eyes were half-shut and his five o’clock shadow had become a thicker-looking five A.M. shadow.

  “You’re cracking your head on this, too,” Carrie said.

  “It’s what we do, Bob and me,” McCaskey said. “Ron sent me the same data. We review it separately. If we come up with a lead or idea that matches, chances are it’s worth following.”

  “So which mob are you referring to?” Carrie asked.

  “The one with a capital M,” McCaskey replied, moving into the doorway. “The Cosa Nostra, ‘Our Concern.’ The one that runs its organization, its empire, just like China.”

  “I didn’t think of that one,” Herbert said.

  “You weren’t a G-man,” McCaskey said. “That’s why I was coming over to talk about it. The Mob has a bloated hierarchy, just like China. And how do they support it? By constantly moving into new businesses. They leave it pretty much alone and shave cash from the top. Then they plug that cash into diverse new businesses, some of them legitimate, so they can stay afloat in any economy.”

  “I’m not getting your point,” Carrie said.

  “It’s the other Hong Kong Factor,” McCaskey said. “China took the colony over, learned some new tricks about running a capitalistic society, and put some of the profits into the Bank of Beijing. What’s the next logical step?”

  “Expand that into China, except—” Herbert said.

  “That would not work,” McCaskey said. “The process would be too slow and too jarring to the current system, as you’ve said.”

  “So you need more of the same,” Carrie offered.

  “If you’re going to grow, yes,” McCaskey said. “But if you’re an old-school Red like Mr. Chou, you are going to resist that.”

  “I wonder how he stood on the Hong Kong takeover,” Carrie said.

  “He was for it, but with deep, deep reservations,” McCaskey said. “He sent a very detailed white paper to the National People’s Congress and to the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party warning against allowing more ‘water under the foundation,’ as he put it.”

  “Do we have a copy of that paper?” Carrie asked.

  “A summary,” McCaskey said. “The FBI has a listening device at the NPC. Chou read excerpts pertaining to intelligence issues pertinent to folding a British colony into China.”

  “The success of that merging, which relies on a handsoff policy, would obviously not sit well with him,” Carrie said.

  “To say the least,” McCaskey agreed. “He would watch it closely, and he would also watch for other signs of erosion. He would use the system to provide funds for his own purposes, as in South Africa, but he would not want to see that free enterprise concept expand.”

  “Especially among the people who are sworn to uphold the old ways,” Carrie added.

  “We can be pretty sure his concerns about the slave trade have nothing to do with humanity,” Herbert observed. “Not with the way he has been blowing people up.”

  “Which leaves us, still, with no idea what the endgame is,” Carrie said.

  “I wouldn’t say ‘no idea,’ ” McCaskey said. “Getting back to the Mob analogy, if skimming off one society works, what is the next step?”

  “Take another, as long as you think no one can or will stop you,” Carrie said. It was not so much an answer as the general thinking aloud. “Take another” was not just the approach of Mafiosi but of greedy heads of state. It was the way Saddam Hussein had taken when invading Kuwait. All the research G2 had conducted suggested that if it came to building or saving face — either because they were challenged or because they wanted something — China would not hesitate to stand up to the United States. The U.S. military could blockade the Chinese coast and enforce no-fly zones for a time, but what would we do if two or three million men suddenly moved into Burma or Laos? Fight anothe
r Vietnam War?

  “The region is full of tempting targets,” McCaskey went on. “South Korea, Taiwan, Japan. Even Vietnam is coming back, thanks to us.”

  “But taking them over would further pollute the system, at least in Chou’s eyes,” Herbert said. “He would never stand for it. Presumably, he has allies in the Communist Party.”

  “There might even be enough support that he might attack the interests of someone who was promoting the idea of territorial expansion,” McCaskey said.

  “Support or arrogance,” Herbert said. “The Chinese Reds don’t lack for that.”

  “Darrell, I assume you’re referring to the interests of Tam Li,” Carrie said.

  McCaskey nodded.

  “What I don’t get is, where does the rocket tie in to all this?” Herbert asked. “Assuming it does.”

  “I don’t know,” McCaskey said. “That’s got me puzzled.”

  “The satellite will serve a military function,” Carrie said. “It also represents a foreign foothold in China. Chou would want to undermine both of those.”

  “Do you really think he would compromise Chinese security to make a point?” McCaskey asked.

  “Not security. Prestige,” Carrie said. “And socialists don’t really care about that. Look, Chou has the same intel we do. He knows that China will not be attacked militarily. What he fears is the end of China as a philosophy. He would risk a great deal to preserve that.”

  “But Chou has to see that Communism is a losing battle,” McCaskey said. “If he keeps a market economy from the mainstream, it will flourish underground.”

  “Maybe not, if Tam Li loses,” Herbert said. “It will be nickel-and-dime trading at most. People will go back to selling cigarettes and DVDs from trucks instead of slaves from boats.”

  “Besides, no extremist ever sees a battle as lost,” Carrie said. “And this struggle is far from over. The Chinese Communist Party still controls the apparatus of government and, as far as we know, most of the military. A decisive defeat of Tam Li would enhance Chou’s standing.”

  “I still say there’s a lot of guessing going on,” McCaskey said.

  “Hopefully, Paul can find out more,” Herbert said. The intelligence chief regarded Carrie again. “Of course, all of this would go counter to what we were saying about a struggle between the intelligence and military factions.”

  “It would,” Carrie replied.

  “Maybe there’s a new world coming, one with new alliances, new rivalries, and new rules.”

  “It’s possible,” the general agreed. “Is this going anywhere?”

  “Just thinking out loud,” Herbert replied.

  “The military frowns on too much thinking,” she said. “I guess that’s something I’ll have to get used to.”

  “Unless the rules change,” Herbert said.

  Carrie was not entirely sure what he was getting at, and she was too tired to deal with it in any case. “I’m going home,” she said. “Call if you have anything solid before the morning.”

  Both men said they would.

  Carrie left, wondering if she had just gotten a taste of her own little Chou-like rebellion.

  Maybe it’s just the man’s exhaustion and the regime change talking, she thought.

  General Carrie hoped that was the case.

  Bob Herbert would be a difficult man to replace.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Washington, D.C. Wednesday, 2:16 A.M.

  “What the hell was that all about?” McCaskey asked when General Carrie had left the floor.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Please, Bob. This is me you’re talking to—”

  “We were just having a discussion,” Herbert insisted.

  “You were baiting her.”

  Herbert said nothing for a long moment. Why bother? Herbert did not see challenging the general as a bad thing. This was not the military. He had a right to question his superior. But he did not want to debate that with McCaskey. Not at this hour with all they had to do.

  “Shouldn’t we be more concerned about the other general?” Herbert asked.

  “Yeah. We should.”

  “If Tam Li has got some kind of expansionistic ideas in his head, we need to gather intel on him. We should also figure out who to support in this showdown.” Herbert snickered. “Some choice. An aggressive general or a backward-looking Commie.”

  “You know, we could use a little military-style discipline here,” McCaskey went on.

  The former G-man was obviously not ready to talk about Tam Li.

  “What makes you say that?” Herbert asked. “Not just my big mouth—”

  “Someone slipped us an e-bomb a couple of months back,” McCaskey said. “Maybe that would not have happened if we had been sharper.”

  “That was done by a CIA-connected son of a bitch,” Herbert said. “He had the resources and credentials to put that baby wherever he wanted.”

  “He put it here.”

  “Do you think General Carrie or anyone could have prevented that?” Herbert asked.

  “I don’t know,” McCaskey said. “Since yesterday I’ve been thinking about what Op-Center would be like under the military.”

  “Blindly aggressive,” Herbert said.

  “Bullshit,” McCaskey said.

  “You think so? I’m not a big Paul Hood fan right now. I don’t like what he did to Mike, and I did not appreciate a lot of the crap he brought to his relationships with Liz, Martha, and Ann. Hell, he didn’t get along with women in general. But apart from the e-bomb, the roughest times we’ve ever had involved operations that were under the command of Mike Rodgers, Charlie Squires, and Brett August. All military personnel.”

  “That’s what happens when you get things done,” McCaskey said. “There’s a price.”

  “A higher price when you rush in without sufficient intel,” Herbert said. “You know me, Darrell. I’m not against kicking ass. What I don’t like is doing it without forethought. I think a lot of what Mike did was knee-jerk. It was his way of carving a corner of Op-Center independent of Paul. One of his earliest missions, to North Korea, was undertaken without an okay from Paul.”

  “They both had issues,” McCaskey agreed. “And they’re both gone. We’re starting fresh. And the question is, what’s the best way to deal with crises today? Not five or ten years ago, but now?”

  “And your solution is what? Shoot first?”

  “More like fire first,” McCaskey said.

  “You lost me.”

  “When we sense a crisis coming, we should ignite it in such a way that we’re able to direct the flow,” McCaskey said. “It’s like smoke eaters who set backfires to control bigger ones.”

  “Which they do in conjunction with using water and flame retardant,” Herbert pointed out. “Sometimes those backfires get out of hand.”

  “That’s where intel comes in,” McCaskey replied. “We look at a situation and determine which tactic will work best. Sometimes, the fire-first method is the best. To date, Op-Center has been like the forest ranger in a tower who sees the smoke, watches the wind, observes the flames, sends out warnings, and finally acts. By that time you can lose half the forest. You know what all this keeps slugging me back to, Bob? When we were kids and there was all of the information about how life would be under Communism.”

  “That was propaganda,” Herbert said. “It was in the comic books I read, it was even in the goddam World Book Encyclopedia, little cartoons of Stalin controlling people like puppets.” He moved his fingers as if he were playing with marionettes. “It was shameless overkill, Darrell.”

  “No. It was education. A crash education in a real danger.”

  Herbert shook his head. “That’s like calling segregation a means of classification. Yes, the Reds were a danger. But so were the witch hunts, and they were happening right here! The cure was worse than the disease. We were being frightened, Darrell. On purpose, by those in power so they could remain in power.”

  �
�We have a major disagreement there, friend. There were opportunists and tyrants, but most of the people I knew were patriots. Veterans of World War II and Korea who knew firsthand that Communism was a threat. They were the reason I became an FBI agent. I was scared by the thought of being manipulated and cornered, and I wanted to fight it. The operative word is fight, Bob. We went against the Chinese and their agents in Korea, in Vietnam, and we scraped to a standstill. We outspent the Soviet Union on an arms race until they imploded. But never once have we taken the war to them. We parry. We react. We don’t put anyone on the defensive. I get the sense General Carrie will do that. She was here less than a day, and she fielded a Special Ops team.”

  “Great. So we become ‘Ops-Center,’ with a little Stalin controlling the strings of her agents and sleeper cells.”

  “I don’t quite see General Carrie as Joseph Stalin.”

  “Yet. Or maybe Stalin is waiting in the Joint Chiefs.”

  “Bob, you are way overreacting,” McCaskey said.

  “I’m way tired,” Herbert said. “Maybe that has something to do with it.”

  “I hope so, because we are only doing what our enemies are doing,” McCaskey said.

  “That’s a moral strike against it.”

  “It’s an amoral world!” McCaskey replied. “Either we become part of it or we take more and more hits. Bob, these marines are no different than the regional Op-Center we tried to get going a couple of years ago, except that the troops are mobile and stealthy. Their job is to gather information and act if they have to. Set backfires. You’ll see, Bob. This is going to work.”

  “You’re aware that backfire has another meaning,” Herbert pointed out.

  McCaskey frowned. “Now you’re just being ornery.”

  “I prefer realistic.”

  “You can prefer what you want. You’re cynical and pessimistic. I have more faith in our system than that.”

  “Oh, I have faith in the system,” Herbert replied. “It’s some of the people who scare me. You know what’s the weirdest thing of all?”

  “I’m afraid to guess.”