‘What the hell else would he have anticipated?’ growled John Oakley.
‘He may not have expected things to go as they did.’
‘You think he’s some kind of idiot?’
‘No, John,’ said Livingstone, ‘I don’t think he’s some kind of idiot.’
‘Sounds like you do.’
Livingstone clenched his jaw. He hated dealing with Oakley. The defense secretary was a bully and was particularly aggressive towards him. Gary Rose, at least, would engage in a more or less civilized debate. Livingstone didn’t know why the president valued Oakley’s opinion so much.
‘Mr President,’ he said, ignoring Oakley, ‘I’ve had my people do some thinking on this. I hope you’ve had time to look at the paper I sent over.’
‘I looked at it,’ said Gary Rose. ‘I don’t think you can interpret Zhang’s actions as anything other than a purposeful decision to let this bank fail.’
‘I agree. What I’m saying is that he may not have anticipated the level of impact it’s created. His advisors may not have led him to expect it.’
‘But I told him,’ said the president.
‘And he may have thought you wouldn’t let it fail.’
‘I told him it was a final offer.’
‘Sir, we know he let it fail. The question is, did he do it in order to create the problems that he created, or did he do it thinking that whatever would happen, would happen, and it wouldn’t be too bad? That’s a subtle distinction but it’s an important one.’
‘Is it?’ demanded Oakley. ‘Even if it means screwing around with our election? Give me a break! He knew exactly what he was doing.’
‘Bob, what are you saying?’ said the vice-president. ‘This is some kind of Fuck You message from Zhang? The president of the United States gets on the line to ask for help and he’s saying Fuck You to him, whatever will happen will happen? That’s what you think he’s doing?’
Those weren’t exactly the words Livingstone would have used. ‘You could put it like that.’
‘Hell.’ Stephenson glanced at the president. ‘What the fuck does he think he’s doing?’
‘If it’s a Fuck You message,’ said the president, ‘what’s it about?’
‘The usual things,’ said Livingstone. ‘Plus now there’s Uganda. Personally I think it may be South Africa. They’ve been asking us to give them time to work things out with the ANC but it’s pretty clear the Brits are going to push their resolution and we’re not doing anything to stop them.’
‘I’m not going to stop them now.’
‘Like we’d let them tie up South Africa’s resources for the next thirty years,’ said Rose.
‘Exactly. Like I’m going to let him get what he wants after all this.’
‘The other possibility,’ said Livingstone, ‘is that this is playing to some kind of internal, domestic agenda of Zhang’s we’re not aware of. I’ve covered some possibilities in the paper.’
‘Why now?’ said Gary Rose.
‘Something many have happened.’
‘Do you know of anything?’ asked the president.
‘Not specifically.’
‘Ryan?’
The director of national intelligence shook his head. ‘As I said, we haven’t got any information about a change from the status quo. It’s all stable as far as we’re aware. Zhang, Fan, Xu. It’s the usual setup.’
‘What if this is part of some kind of power struggle between them?’
‘What difference would it make?’ said Rose. ‘Even if Zhang is playing to an internal agenda, or if Fan’s constraining him, what they’ve done amounts to interference in our political process and a huge disruption to our economy. We can’t allow other leaders to do stuff like that for their own domestic purposes. And remember, Mr President, you talked to him. It wasn’t like he had no idea.’
‘With respect, sir, the motives matter,’ said Livingstone.
‘Not from where I sit,’ said Opitz. ‘Whether he purposely wanted to crash our markets, or whether he was saying Fuck You for the hell of it, or whether he was doing some internal maneuvering for whatever reason, the market’s made up its mind. All they care about is the fact that the Chinese government made a choice to let Fidelian fail. With a bailout on the table, they interpret that as a financially irrational decision, therefore it must be political. If the market thinks it’s political, it is political. Which means we need to deal with this politically. And right now it doesn’t matter what we say. We won’t be believed. There’s only one person who can put this thing to rest. The markets are not going to settle until they hear from Zhang’s own lips that he’s not going to mess with them again.’
There was silence.
Knowles looked around the room. ‘Do we agree with that?’
‘I think we do want to understand what he was trying to do,’ said Livingstone.
‘I’m not saying we don’t,’ said Opitz. ‘But that’s secondary, Bob. The primary thing now is we have a bunch of markets that, frankly, are as skittish as a cat on a hot tin roof and there’s only one thing that’s going to calm them down.’
Tom Knowles drummed his fingers on the table. He had already been dependent on Zhang once and look where that had got him. He didn’t feel much like giving him a chance to say Fuck You again.
‘How do we go about doing this?’ he said curtly. ‘Do I have to talk to Zhang again?’
‘Sir, Zhang already knows your concerns on this,’ said Rose. ‘Possibly we may have more effect if he gets some advice coming to him from another direction.’
‘I could talk to the Chinese finance minister,’ said Opitz.
‘I think this should come from State,’ said Livingstone.
‘Mr President,’ said Rose. ‘It’s really a financial issue. I think advice coming from the finance minister would be a better idea.’
‘I know Bai,’ said Opitz. ‘I can talk to him. Zhang depends on him for his economic advice. If Bai tells him it’s important to say it, there’s a good chance he will.’
‘I think they’d expect it to come from State.’
‘We can’t have two of you talking to them,’ said Knowles impatiently. ‘Susan, you do it. See what happens. That alright with you, Bob?’
‘I do really think this should be something that comes out of State.’
‘Well, get coordinated. Susan, you talk to their finance guy. Bob, make sure Susan knows what she has to know from State. What we’re looking for is a statement from Zhang that they had nothing to do with the bankruptcy of Fidelian. Something like that? Is that what we want?’
‘Something like that, sir,’ said Opitz. ‘Something about not doing anything in the future. We’ll figure it out.’
The president shook his head. ‘I don’t like going to them like this. I don’t like it one little bit. Anyone think there’s another way? John, what do you think?’
Oakley shrugged. ‘We can ask him, but I wouldn’t bet too much on the chances that he’ll help us. Still, it’s useful to the extent that it’ll flush him out. I don’t know what you’re going to say to him, Susan, but whatever it is, let’s not leave any room for him to miscalculate. Then if he makes the statement, fine. If he doesn’t, we know what he’s really doing, and all this stuff Bob’s been saying about Zhang miscalculating, we know it’s wrong. But we’ve got to do this quiet. Hell knows what it’s going to look like if some reporter gets hold of this and says we went begging to Beijing for Zhang to say it ain’t so.’
Knowles nodded. ‘Can we do something about these damn leaks?’ He glanced impatiently at his chief of staff. ‘Roberta? Huh? Can we do something about it?’
‘We’re looking into it.’
‘This stays quiet,’ said Knowles, looking around the table. ‘This stays dead quiet. Bob, you work on this directly with Susan. I don’t even want your staffs involved. And Susan, be careful the way you talk to the Chinese. Let’s not look like we’re begging. If we get into a situation where we have to release a statemen
t of what you said, let’s make sure it looks strong. We need to make it look like we’re giving them a chance to say no.’
‘Like we’re doing them a favor,’ said Oakley. ‘Which we are, because after what they’ve done, they don’t even deserve that.’
The president nodded. ‘So Bob’s going to work with Susan and she’s going to talk to whoever it is …’
‘Bai, sir.’
‘Susan’s going to talk to Bai and get something out of that bunch of fraudsters in Beijing to say they didn’t set this up. Is that right? And if they don’t say anything, then like John said, we know they did.’ Knowles paused. ‘Okay. Anything else? Thank you.’
He got up. Ed Abrahams walked out by his side.
‘This is a godawful situation,’ he muttered when they got in the elevator. ‘Just a godawful damn mess.’
‘I think we’re on the way to getting it under control,’ said Abrahams.
‘I hope we are.’
He marched back to the Oval Office. About five minutes after he sat down there was a knock on the door and his personal secretary came in. Oakley and General Hale, who had both been at the National Security Council meeting, were outside.
‘I just left them,’ said Knowles.
‘They say it’s urgent.’
‘How long have I got?’
‘Your next meeting’s not for another ten minutes, sir.’
‘Okay, send them in.’
Knowles waited. John Oakley and Mortlock Hale came in.
‘I thought we dealt with everything,’ said Knowles. ‘Is there something else you want to say?’
‘It’s not about that,’ said Oakley. ‘There’s some news from Uganda.’
Knowles smiled. ‘About time. We need something to knock this stuff off the front page.’
‘Actually, sir,’ said General Hale, ‘it’s not so good.’
32
THE HELICOPTERS HAD gone in at dusk in Uganda, 10am in Washington. An attack force of nine Apaches flew in low over the LRA base that had been identified in the jungle south of the Sudan border. What happened in the ensuing engagement was still confused and military debriefers were trying to put together the sequence of events. What was clear was that two of the Apaches were down and their four crew members were down with them.
‘This happened five hours ago?’ demanded Knowles incredulously. ‘Five hours and no one told me?’
‘I only just found out after the meeting, sir,’ said Oakley.
‘What the hell? What–’ The president stopped. He looked at Hale. ‘When did you find out, General?’
‘I’ve been aware since last night that the operation was imminent. This was the operation you authorized yesterday, Mr President.’
‘And were you aware that this had turned into this … I don’t know what you’d call it. This goddamn fuck-up! Is that what you’d call it?’
‘I think it’s a fair description, sir. We’ve been trying to recover our pilots.’
‘Can we find out what the situation is? Can we at least get that?’
Hale nodded. ‘I’ll get Admiral Pressler.’
They waited while Hale made some calls. Finally a call came back on the president’s phone.
‘Admiral,’ said Hale into the speakerphone, ‘I’m here with the president and Secretary Oakley.’
Pete Pressler was on the line from the command room of the Abraham Lincoln and there was a kind of low, whirring sound in the background.
‘Admiral,’ said Knowles, ‘can you tell me what’s going on?’
‘We have two Apaches down, sir.’ The admiral’s voice was terse. ‘The circumstances aren’t clear yet. We believe one of them hit the tree canopy and brought the other one down. On the plus side, we believe we killed upwards of fifty LRA fighters possibly including some of their senior leadership. From that perspective it was a high-impact mission but we have four men down. We believe one of them died on impact.’
‘Pete, do we know that for certain now?’ said Hale.
‘I believe we now have the body, sir.’
‘Do we have men on the ground?’ asked the president.
‘Yes, sir. We do. We’ve secured the downed Apaches but there’s no sight of our guys or any of their fighters. Just a bunch of LRA bodies in pieces. We didn’t have men on the ground at the time of the incident. It was a purely aerial assault in keeping with your wishes, sir.’
‘Admiral Pressler,’ said Oakley, ‘operational decisions are yours, as you know. The president doesn’t intervene.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Pressler brusquely. ‘Anyway, I’ve got three of my guys still alive down there in enemy hands and right now that’s all I’m worried about. Hold on, please.’
They heard something being said in the background and the admiral replied sharply. Then he came back on the line.
‘Admiral,’ said Oakley, ‘how long after the incident did you get men on the ground?’
‘As soon as we could. We’re in darkness here now. We have drone surveillance in operation but at this point it’s all infrared and the jungle comes alive at night. There’s a lot of noise. We think we’re tracking a number of groups that headed out in different directions after the attack. Which of them have our men is impossible to say. There’s nothing I’d like to do more than take them out but if we go after them from the air we risk killing our own guys.’
There was silence. The whirring noise from the Abraham Lincoln filled the room.
‘Admiral,’ said the president, ‘what’s your plan?’
‘At this stage we’ll continue tracking them. At sunrise the guys on the ground will do a wider surveillance. With the drones, if we can get sight of the groups and if our guys aren’t with them, we’ll take them out. If we can locate our men I’ve got Chinooks ready to scramble out of Lodwar.’
‘Any chance of our men on the ground getting taken?’
‘There’s always a chance of some kind of firefight.’
‘We can’t have any more casualties,’ said the president.
‘‘I don’t want them any more than you do, sir. But we’ve taken this action, now we’ve got to clear it up. Our men may not be far off, especially if they’re injured. They may have been dumped.’
The president glanced at Hale and nodded.
‘Pete, anything else?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Okay. Thank you.’
The line went dead.
Tom Knowles threw himself down on one of the sofas in front of his desk.
‘So far,’ he said, ‘no one knows about this?’
Hale shook his head. ‘Not from our side, but the LRA can get to the outside world if it wants to. We know they can get messages onto the net. Taking out even one American soldier is going to be a victory for them. We should assume that right now they’re trying to get the message out. It’s only a matter of time.’
‘And we haven’t heard that they want anything for our guys?’
‘Not yet. Again, that might be a matter of time.’
John Oakley doubted it. ‘They’re not that kind of operation. They’re basically killers. They have no program.’
‘There must be something,’ said Knowles. ‘Prisoner swaps? Supplies?’
‘We’ve said our mission is to eliminate them. Look at it from their side. Unless we say that’s not the case any more, what’s the point of anything we could give them?’
‘Could be that some of them might see the end’s coming and might want to use our guys to cut a deal for themselves.’
Oakley looked at the general. ‘Any indication of that?’
‘No, sir. But it’s very early.’
‘Would we do it?’ said the president.
‘Cut a deal with them if they want to come in?’
The president nodded.
‘I’d rather kill ’em,’ said Oakley.
‘If we have to,’ said Knowles impatiently.
Oakley shrugged. ‘We’d have to say they’d have to stand trial. I guess we cou
ld guarantee they won’t get the death penalty. We could send them to the Hague. They don’t do the death penalty there.’
The president looked at Hale. ‘Are we going to need a negotiating team?’
‘We’re pulling one together in case we do. The longer we can keep this quiet, the better. Gives us the maximum freedom of action.’
‘You just said we have to assume the LRA’s going to publicize it.’
‘That’s true, Mr President. I’d assume they’ll do it as quick as they can. They’ll minimize their casualties and talk up our losses.’
‘I’m no press secretary,’ said Oakley, ‘but we don’t want to be chasing that story. We want to be in front.’
‘So we need to get some kind of a statement out?’ The president grimaced. ‘This is going to look bad. This is going to look like one hell of a fuck-up. This is like Clinton in Somalia.’
‘We’ve had a success here, Mr President. Let’s not forget that.’
‘Doesn’t sound like it.’
‘Fifty-plus enemy dead against four of our men.’
‘There shouldn’t have been one of our men, General. These guys are stone age.’
‘I’ll release a statement,’ said Oakley.
‘Do we acknowledge we’ve got a man dead and three men captured?’
‘I wouldn’t,’ said Hale. ‘Operationally the less we say about what’s going on there until this is over, the better. I’d like to say we’ve had a successful operation, fifty enemy dead, and we’ve got men on the ground in the area. That gets our facts out there. That establishes how many of the enemy got killed before they get their version out. Then let’s see what they come up with.’
Knowles frowned. ‘I need to talk to Ed and Dean about this. John, hold off with a statement until I do.’ He looked at Hale. ‘General, I want to know exactly what’s happening, whenever it happens. I don’t care what time of night it might be. We get any information on our men, I want to know.’
‘Yes, sir.’
The president stood. The others stood as well.
There was a knock on the door.
Dean Moss was standing there, ashen-faced.
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