Tom Clancy - Op Center 12

by War of Eagles

“True.”

  “And there’s something else,” Rodgers said. “There are two reasons to trigger an explosive.”

  “One of them I know. What’s the other?” Hood asked.

  “As a distraction,” Rodgers replied.

  “Are you referring to the attack on Chou Shin’s plane?”

  “No,” Rodgers told him. “I’m talking about the rocket. What if there is a plot to blow it up, but it’s Tam Li’s operation? Something to make Beijing focus its attention here while he does something else.”

  “Such as?”

  “I’m not sure,” Rodgers said. “General Tam Li is supposed to be here. He is in Zhuhai. Why?”

  “That is his command post. He told Le Kwan Po he was getting set to fly over when Chou Shin arrived.”

  “So he won’t be coming.”

  “No,” Hood said.

  “Why would Chou Shin go all the way to the airfield when he and Tam Li would have seen each other here?”

  “Not to reconcile, I’m guessing,” Hood said.

  “A confrontation would be more likely. Maybe the Guoanbu found out something, and Chou was going to investigate.”

  “Chou would not have gone there personally unless he was pretty sure of what he was going to find,” Hood said.

  “That’s right. The question is, what did he find out?”

  “I can ask the prime minister to check when we reach the space complex,” Hood said.

  “No. That doesn’t leave us a lot of time,” Rodgers said.

  “The good news is we only need to focus on the space complex,” Hood said. “If Tam Li is planning a diversionary strike and we can stop that, whatever else he has in mind may not come to pass.”

  “The material I looked at with the marine leader was tactics from the Guoanbu playbook,” Rodgers said. “We have their MO from past operations, including intel from the Taipei police on the nightclub hit. I have nothing here on the PLA’s covert military actions. Getting anything useful from G2 or Op-Center would take more time than we have.”

  “We may not need any of that,” Hood said. “Get your people into position. I’ll call you in about a half hour, after I’ve had a chance to speak with the prime minister.”

  “What have you got in mind?” Rodgers asked.

  “A low-tech remedy that may be exactly the one we need,” Hood replied.

  FIFTY-ONE

  Xichang, China Thursday, 10:31 A.M.

  The procession to the space complex consisted of seven cars. The only limousine was the one used by the prime minister and his daughter. Everyone else was put in a clean but inelegant military vehicle.

  That was what had given Hood his idea for intercepting a potential bomber.

  The space center was shaped like a Y. The caravan drove in through the stem of the Y, then turned west. They drove past the low-lying Communication Center, past the Tracking Station, to the Technical Center. That was where the vehicles stopped and let them out. The launch pad was situated four kilometers to the north. The rocket was clearly visible as the guests stepped out. It stood gleaming white against the silver and black girders of the gantry. Smoke plumed from the three stages, dissipating quickly against the pure blue sky. Heat rising from the field between them caused the rocket to ripple slightly, like a mirage.

  Xichang did not have a public relations organization. Security personnel in severe, dark blue uniforms took charge of the visitors. There was one guard to each carload. Interpreters who had traveled with them from Beijing translated the guards’ instructions. Anita had joined them from her father’s car. The prime minister himself did not emerge as the groups moved toward the Technical Center.

  “There is a basement beneath the facility,” Anita said for the benefit of the English-speaking group. “We will be observing the launch from there.”

  “I need to see your father,” Hood said, sidling over to her.

  “He will be out in a moment,” she said. The prime minister’s daughter was wearing an official face and talking in a very official voice. Hood liked the woman better when she was slightly uncertain, pressing him for information.

  “I’ll wait for him,” Hood said.

  “I think he would rather you go with—”

  “Listen to me,” Hood said. He leaned closer. “You’re concerned about appearances. I’m worried about his life.”

  That got her attention.

  “His life?”

  “I will wait for him here,” Hood said, leaning away.

  “Then I will have to wait with you, to translate,” she said. “What do I do about the other English-speaking guests?”

  “They know what they are here to see,” Hood replied. “They will manage without you for a while.”

  Anita looked concerned as she went off to tell the others she would join them downstairs. She returned just as her father stepped from his car.

  “Do you have new information?” she asked Hood.

  “Some.”

  The prime minister walked to where Hood was waiting. He looked from Anita to Hood.

  “We have confirmed the destruction of the aircraft,” Le said through his daughter.

  “So have we,” Hood told him.

  “But you have more,” Le said.

  “A question. Is there any reason the general might have for wanting—or rather needing—to stay in Zhuhai?” Hood asked.

  “I asked the defense minister a similar question,” Le admitted. “He said there is nothing unusual going on in that region.”

  “Do you trust the minister?”

  “I have no reason to distrust him.”

  “Excuse me. Is that an endorsement or diplomacy?”

  “It is my answer,” Le replied.

  “Let’s try this, then,” Hood said with a trace of impatience. “Who will appoint Chou Shin’s replacement?”

  “The president,” Le answered. “I was just conferring with him on that very subject. There is nothing in the appointment that benefits Tam Li. His replacement will be a Communist, not an ally to Tam Li.” Le glanced toward the rocket. “I am beginning to wonder if this is about nothing more than the rivalry between the two men. With Chou Shin gone, perhaps this facility is no longer in danger. Perhaps it never was.” He looked back at Hood. “You do not share that sense?”

  “No, sir,” Hood said. “Allow me one more question. Are there any men from Tam Li’s command on the base?”

  “Why?” the prime minister asked. “Do you now suspect that he may be planning an attack?”

  “General Rodgers and I were wondering if an attack here might serve as a diversion that benefits Tam Li somehow,” Hood said. He used Rodgers’s title to remind the prime minister that there was a military voice in his reasoning.

  “What could Tam Li gain by that?” Le asked.

  “We don’t know. But he is sitting on top of a fat arsenal. And an attack on the rocket might be the trigger he needs to launch it.”

  “Again, for what reason?” Le asked.

  “Ambition?” Hood asked. “I don’t know the man. But we think the explosion at the airfield occurred beneath Chou’s jet, not on it. That could be a singular incident. Or it could be the start of something larger.” He looked at Anita. “A purge of government leaders, perhaps. More than a few are here now.”

  The translator’s slightly angry expression suddenly grew more concerned. She finished translating and looked at her father. His own features were still neutral. He was, above all, a good politician.

  “The guards are drawn from different branches of the military and rotated every six months,” Le said. “I will find out who may have come from the Zhuhai command.”

  “Thank you,” Hood said.

  Le excused himself and went back to his car. Anita and Hood remained behind.

  “Your concern is for the rocket,” she said.

  “And our lives,” Hood told her.

  “Why don’t you leave the complex? We can search for the general’s personnel, if there are any.”
r />   “I don’t like the idea of running,” Hood said.

  “So you are staying to be manly?” she asked. “Like James Bond?”

  He could not tell if she were kidding or not. “I am doing my job,” he replied.

  She smiled. “That is a very responsible answer. It is also very Chinese.”

  So, apparently, is megalomania and murder, Hood wanted to tell her. He refrained. The woman had her own definition of the Chinese character. It was about industry and honor, very much a reflection of how she saw her father. He would let her have that. He suspected that only events would rewrite her definitions.

  Le returned. His expression bore a touch of gravity it had not possessed before.

  “A unit was recently rotated in from Zhuhai,” Le said. “I have asked that those individuals be brought to the Command and Control Center. I am going to meet them there now.”

  “Where were they stationed?” Hood asked.

  “Originally, they were checking passes at the front gate.”

  “Originally?” Hood asked.

  “Three weeks ago they were relocated at the request of the general himself,” Le said. “He said this rocket was important to his base. He wanted to make sure the boosters were being watched by people he had trained and whom he trusted.”

  “I would like to go with you,” Hood said.

  “No. I will let you know what I find out. You can wait in the Technical Center if you wish. I will contact you there.”

  “Sir, we have less than ninety minutes to launch—”

  “All the more reason for me to get to the command center,” the prime minister said as he turned and left.

  Hood started after him. “Anita, please ask him to wait.”

  “My father has told you what he plans to do,” Anita said.

  “Yes, but I have experience in this area—”

  “Not here,” she replied. “You don’t even speak the language.”

  “I can read expressions, body language.” Hood stopped. He looked back at the woman as Le got in the car. “Dammit, everything—anything—might help.”

  “If my father wants help, he will ask for it.”

  “When?” Hood asked. “After the rocket is destroyed?”

  “My father knows what he is doing,” Anita said. “He is an able man.”

  “But not infallible,” Hood snapped. “He let the entire situation with the general and Chou Shin get away from him—”

  “Mr. Hood, we are quite finished.”

  “No! You’ve stopped listening, which is not the same thing. The stakes are high here, Anita! This is not a time for ego.”

  “For once I agree with you, Mr. Hood. He told you where to wait, and I suggest you go there. Now, please excuse me. I, too, have a job to do.” The woman strode toward the Technical Center.

  Hood raised his hands in exasperation. But anger was not going to help, and he lowered them. He remained beside the wide asphalt road that ran through the complex. The cars were still parked by the side of the building. A guard at the door of the center watched Hood but did not move from his post.

  The rising sun was hot, and Hood was perspiring. Only the slightest breeze moved across the field. Hood pulled his cell phone from the loop on his belt. He wanted to call Rodgers and tell him what he had learned about a squad from Zhuhai. At least he knew where the general’s team had been. It would allow the marines to narrow their patrol zone.

  Unfortunately, the communications at the complex interfered with the signal. He would have to find some other way to get this information to Rodgers.

  Quickly.

  FIFTY-TWO

  Zhuhai, China Thursday, 10:49 A.M.

  Before leaving his post, one of the soldiers in the booster security detail sent an E-mail message to Zhuhai. It read:

  Team recalled by PM.

  It was not the kind of message the general wanted to receive. There was slightly more than an hour until launch. If the device he had planted were discovered and the rocket took off safely, the rationale for what he was planning to do next would evaporate. Without the explosion, Tam Li could never convince the surviving president that Taiwan had used the disaster—perhaps even caused it—to press a military advantage, and only the quick action of the general had thwarted a major strike against targets along China’s eastern coastline.

  It was dramatic action that would merit the general’s appointment as the new minister of defense, or perhaps even as the prime minister. Since it was no longer necessary to attach suspicion to the late Chou Shin, Tam Li could concentrate on the purely military aspects of the action.

  As long as the rocket blows up. Without that, he had nothing.

  Tam Li sat alone in his office, staring out the window and thinking. He was not a man prone to displays of anger or frustration. He preferred to use his energies more effectively. Every problem had at least one solution, often more. It was simply a matter of finding the right one. The general had spoken with the white team officers when they came in from extinguishing the fire. They were loyal soldiers who understood why he had destroyed the aircraft. They were also well-paid members of Tam Li’s black market gang. Explaining to Beijing what had happened on the airfield would not be a problem. Chou Shin’s explosives-laden jet had blown up. The pulling of his rocket team was a greater concern, especially if the prime minister suspected an attack. A new security crew might find what had been done to the rocket.

  The irony was that when they were called in, the Xichang team had been getting set to pull back and leave the space complex. They did not want to be within fifty miles of the facility when the plutonium core exploded. Tam Li could not count on them remaining silent as the countdown progressed. If they were still in the complex, chances were good they would die.

  And then it occurred to him, a way to fix this situation. Tam Li would use the hide-in-plain-sight scenario.

  He pressed the intercom on his telephone.

  “Yes, General?”

  “Get me the Xichang space center,” he said. “I want to speak with the prime minister at once.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Tam Li would tell the prime minister why he had assigned those men to the boosters, and why he must let them finish their job.

  It was important, he would say, to protect them from the attack Chou Shin had been planning.

  FIFTY-THREE

  Xichang, China Thursday, 11:00 A.M.

  The voice on the loudspeaker was confident and proud.

  “Launch minus sixty!”

  Hood did not need a translator to know what he was saying. The digital countdown clock on the wall had just slipped under an hour. Not that he had a translator. Anita had gone downstairs with the rest of the observers. Hood had gone into the reception area as Le had suggested. There was a guard seated behind a gunmetal desk. There was no one else in the room. Hood had indicated to her that he wanted to use the phone, but she shook her head. When he tried to use it anyway, she rose and called someone’s name. The other guard entered. Hood backed off.

  The launchpad was too far away, or he would have run over and attempted to find the marines himself. He tried his cell phone again. Then again. As the seconds slipped away, the only option Hood seemed to have was getting a ride to the gate to try to find Mike somewhere around the perimeter. But even if he succeeded, that left very little time to actually locate a potential problem.

  “Hood.”

  Hood turned to the desk. The woman was addressing him. She held the telephone toward him. Perhaps Rodgers had found him.

  “Yes?” Hood said as he snatched the phone.

  “Sir, this is Dr. Yuen, a fuel specialist on this project,” he said. “I am translating for the prime minister. He says that he spoke with the general and is satisfied with the conversation.”

  “He is? What about the individuals he spoke with?”

  Hood waited while the scientist translated. Either Tam Li was very convincing, or the prime minister was extremely gullible. In any case, ther
e was one way to know for certain.

  “The prime minister has allowed them to return to their duties.”

  “Ask him if he is sending men with them,” Hood said. This was insane. The guy they were investigating vouches for himself, and Le accepts that?

  Hood waited again.

  “Mr. Hood, the prime minister is coming to the Technical Center,” Dr. Yuen informed him. “He will be there in five minutes. He said he will talk to you there.”

  “Right,” Hood said. “More time wasted.”

  “Sir, we invented rockets,” the scientist said. “We were going through these trials centuries before your ancestors were born.”

  Hood did not respond. Built into that statement was the prerogative to venture and to fail. There was no way to argue with that kind of thinking.

  Hood hung up. He needed to get in touch with Rodgers now. He smiled at the guard and reached for the keypad. The guard laid a hand across it.

  “Le Kwan Po,” Hood said with authority.

  The woman replied with equal authority. She rose and did not remove her hand. She gestured toward a seat and then toward the stairs leading to the bunker. Obviously, those were the only options Hood had.

  Hood held up an index finger. “One call. One. Please.”

  The guard shook her head and, pointing, repeated the options. Hood was about to pull her hand from the phone.

  “Who do you wish to call?”

  Hood turned at the familiar voice. Anita was standing at the top of the bunker staircase.

  “I need to talk to an associate,” Hood said. “Please.”

  “Apparently, my father was right.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “He was afraid his decision might bother you,” she said.

  Hood walked toward her. “He was right about that, yes. I am not so sure he is right about the rest. I need to talk to someone for just a moment,” Hood said calmly, evenly.

  “Mr. Hood, I do not wish to be unreasonable, but we are here to witness a launch—”

  “And I pray that is what I see,” Hood told her. “I need to ask an associate just one question, Anita. We are desperately short of time, and you have nothing to lose. I promise, this will be brief.”