by Bradley West
“That’s not strictly true, Comrade Secretary Yi.” Kaili was treading carefully. “The false information feeds aren’t in real time. In addition, SR-72 surveillance overflights will detect movements sufficiently far in advance to allow a preemptive strike even if the NGA is blind. The US may even have antiballistic missiles that can shoot down our ASBMs.”
“Not at the DF-21D’s newly doubled Mach 10 reentry speed,” Wang said.
Yi had been waiting for this moment. He opened up a spiral notebook and consulted his notes, polishing a speech meant for another audience. “The US is in terminal decline. It can’t afford the wars it’s already fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s too weak to honor its NATO obligations. Its president is indecisive. Meanwhile, China is the world’s most populous country. We are the largest trading nation and soon will be the wealthiest. But without control of the Near Seas—the Yellow, the East China and the South China—China cannot protect the ocean commerce that feeds us. Do you realize, Comrade Liu, that China imports half our oil, of which eighty percent passes through the Straits of Malacca? As long as the US and its proxies control these sea lanes, China’s prosperity is held hostage. This is the perfect opportunity to push back the US Navy and permanently alter the balance of power in the Western Pacific. Menander will blind the NRO satellites at this crucial moment. What the Americans cannot see, they cannot prevent.”
Liu found himself in the unusual position of being the dove at the table. “Treaties state that attacks on satellites are tantamount to nuclear first strikes.”
“And so they do, Comrade. Even so, Iran will launch the attack, leaving China blameless. Menander isn’t shutting down just the satellites over China. It will take out all NGA imaging processing servers globally.” Yi spoke with the assurance civilians assumed when they’d bought into a hypothetical chain of expected outcomes without having lived through the messy reality of war. Liu thought Yi’s lack of doubts almost as disturbing as his words.
The admiral weighed in, “China cannot become a global military power without a blue ocean navy. We can’t become that if we remain hemmed against our own coast. Implementing Polar Bear makes that goal possible after over a decade of preparation. China has built up our long-range precision missiles. We’ve invested billions to enlarge our submarine fleet and made our subs so quiet the Americans have problems tracking them. We bootstrapped our cyberwarfare expertise to where we stand alongside Russia and the US as global leaders. With these latest developments—the Dolphin deception and Operation Menander—the odds tip in our favor that Polar Bear succeeds.
Yi added his piece. “When the time is ripe, the Navy will provoke a confrontation with Japan in the largest of the Diaoyu chain, Diaoyutai Island. We will give Japan a bloody nose, land several dozen troops and create other provocations. By treaty the US is obligated to defend any attack on the Diaoyus. Even the indecisive Obama will be forced to act. We will lose some troops, but that is a small sacrifice measured against Polar Bear’s ultimate objective. Once the US strikes at our forces in and around the Diaoyus, we will respond by firing our ASBMs. With Operation Menander underway, the NRO satellites will be down. Our missiles will destroy or disable the nearest carrier. China will declare a unilateral ceasefire and bring in our friends at the UN to ensure it sticks. We might even agree to withdraw from Diaoyutai—at least for the time being.”
Wang’s grin signaled his agreement with Secretary Yi. Kaili thought them both war-mongering ideologues, and not very bright ones at that.
“You propose sinking a US nuclear aircraft carrier and then calling for a ceasefire? You think the UN will protect us? We barely have one functioning aircraft carrier. Japan has three. The US has ten Nimitz-class nuclear supercarriers. And we’re proposing to sink one and say we’re sorry? Admiral, I think the PLA leadership has been drinking maotai after breakfast. This is ludicrous.” Liu’s voice raised half an octave with the last phrase, and he slumped back into his chair.
Yi was waiting. “Comrades, this approach is not without risks, but the rewards are enormous. The US treats the Pacific as its private lake, keeping us pinned against our seaboard. The centerpiece of our naval strategy is to deny the sea to our US rivals while expanding our own Navy’s reach. Do you really think that Japan, Philippines, Korea and Taiwan will find solace in their current treaties when the US fleet is at anchor in Hawaii or Singapore? They will all have to accept China as the only legitimate guarantor of their security.
“Since the president took power, his all-encompassing goal has been for China to take its rightful place at the table of great nations. Comrade Gao is a student of US history and he knows the US needs but a small shove to send it tumbling off its lofty perch. The Tet Offensive in 1968 cost North Vietnam 110,000 dead, versus ten thousand for the US and South Vietnam. And yet the US troop withdrawals began soon after as public support for the war disappeared and never recovered. In 1993, the US suffered fewer than one hundred twenty casualties in Mogadishu versus over one thousand for the Somalis, yet these were sufficient to lead the US to pull out and never return. Neither the US public nor politicians have the stomach for prolonged bloody conflicts. Today, nothing has changed.
“Naval power shapes political and economic realities. Only when China pushes the US Navy away from the First Chain islands of Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Philippines will we become the dominant Pacific power. Did you know that a nuclear aircraft carrier costs thirteen billion dollars? That the US hasn’t had a carrier sunk since the Hornet in 1942? The psychological impact of losing an aircraft carrier would be so great as to immediately alter US strategy in the Pacific.”
“Or see China’s military destroyed and our country diminished to the point of regional irrelevancy.” Liu’s tone signaled that he didn’t expect anyone to heed the warning.
Yi continued. “President Gao and I believe the key to minimizing US military response is the isolation of Operation Menander from our other actions, particularly the invasion of the Diaoyu Islands and the ASBM firings. Therefore, it is imperative that Iran’s actions not be connected to China in any way.”
Liu’s tone was caustic. “So why are we here today if you’ve already made up your minds?”
Yi ignored the interruption. “Iran is always difficult to deal with. Persians are emotional, not practical. So after the Unit #61398 team concluded its work days ago, the Iranians refused to let them leave. The project team works out of an underground facility in a Hezbollah-controlled neighborhood in Beirut. This is where Iran headquarters its cyber army, so it was most convenient to them that our comrades be based there. The official explanation was that the Iranians may need help in implementing Menander, so they want our staff on-site. That was not only contrary to our prior agreement, but it was also a lie.
“Complicating matters, the Iranians next told us they wanted to wait until May to launch Operation Menander to coincide with an auspicious day on the Muslim calendar. Can you believe this nonsense? Last week, Menander’s architect Rear Admiral Zhao flew out to speak with them.
“Comrade Zhao arrived in Beirut on Tuesday. The Iranians were certainly not of the impression that they needed China’s assistance to initiate and manage Menander. There had to be other factors at work.
“Zhao rerouted to Tehran, where he learned in a series of ambiguous meetings that Iran would hold off initiating Operation Menander—and keep our staff locked up in Beirut—unless we helped them in some unspecified way. Thursday, Zhao left a short message with our embassy before boarding a flight to Bahrain. He seemed excited about a breakthrough and said he would explain everything Monday—that’s today—at this meeting. However, as he’s not here, I’m afraid we don’t know anything more.”
Liu roused himself one last time, knowing full well that he’d already torpedoed his own career. “How can the head of Cyber Warfare Strategy and Unit #61398 be permitted to travel under civilian cover on commercial flights to and from the Persian Gulf?”
The table fell silent. One of the u
nderlings walked to Yi’s side and handed the Comrade Secretary a folded piece of paper. Distracted, he opened it and read the message. Looking up, he spoke. “I thought Zhao was back from Iran and had spent the weekend at home in Shanghai. Instead it seems that Rear Admiral Zhao was on the Malaysia Airlines flight that went missing early Saturday morning. He’s vanished along with 151 other China citizens. Comrades, we are adjourned. We will reconvene when we have additional information.”
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CHAPTER FIFTEEN
QUESTION TIME
MONDAY MID-MORNING, MARCH 10, SINGAPORE
Chief of Station Singapore Richard Constantine was the reason Bob Nolan still had a job. In the dark days following Nolan’s whistle-blowing regarding Prentice Dupree’s faked suicide, he topped the Company’s enemies list. Sitting on the fence, Dick Constantine became a powerful ally by default. Constantine was pedantic, protective of his people and operated at arm’s length from the head office. The station chief’s passive-aggressive pantomime with Langley might have been out of high principle, or maybe the less lofty motive of avoiding setting a precedent whereby Tidewater bureaucrats could fire his people.
Constantine was the one who had come up with the idea for a Company-controlled, ostensibly freestanding software company that became Independent Programming Pte. Ltd. As the managing director and putative IPPL majority shareholder, Nolan passed his days outsourcing hacker scripts and giving the CIA slender deniability should any fecal matter find its way into whirling blades. Nolan and Constantine had kept their mutual distance even after Constantine’s rescue mission succeeded, exchanging no more than perfunctory nods when passing in the Agency's offices deep below the Singapore embassy office complex.
Nolan was nearly passed out with fatigue when Constantine swept in, nose up and chin out. Dick Constantine was an unimposing forty-one-year-old who looked a decade worse, as he was fat and sported thinning hair worn extra-long in the back, oiled ringlets spilling over his collar. His striped shirt, suspenders and garish tie were pure Michael Douglas in Wall Street. Nolan figured the hair was a certain sign of either an incipient midlife crisis or a recent divorce. It was the latter: Constantine’s pert wife had absconded with their gardener some months before, and the lovers were rumored to be fornicating in two-star squalor on a nearby Indonesia resort island.
Joining Constantine were Jerry Flynn, Nolan’s occasional drinking buddy and head of Singapore Agency security, and Lisa Finegold, who held a vague senior regional remit to monitor South Asia political and military developments. Working through two cups of black coffee, Nolan answered Lisa’s questions based on her notes from the tape of the Sunday morning ambassador’s briefing, and filled in Constantine and Flynn up to the airport detention and escape.
“You seem to attract trouble,” Constantine noted. “What’s the bigger picture that I’m missing? I’m not certain a sixty-seven-year-old ex-Ranger drug trafficker and the Russian mob are wholly responsible for this chaos.”
Constantine was too smart to lie to on multiple levels. Nolan ignored Hecker’s advice to leave Teller out of it. “You’re missing several things. Robin Teller was the cofounder of Double Llama Trading, a CIA-sponsored arms dealer that blew up in early 1985. I met Rob in Bangkok when I was brand new with the Agency. Teller disappeared in June 1985 and officially was never seen again, presumably living under a Company-supplied new identity. This guy’s ties to the CIA go back forty-five years. He was personally recruited by Bill Colby to run F-6, the illegitimate child-of-Phoenix Program from 1973 through the fall of Saigon. Teller had a very strong incentive to remain anonymous. He’d lived in Burma since 2007, working as the head of security for Opium King Khun Sa’s family. Now he’s come out in the open and is practically standing in the middle of the street saying, ‘Hey, fellas! Over here!’”
“Or it could be that he’s a drug smuggler and kills the people who interfere in his business. Ever hear of Occam’s razor? Posit the simplest theory that fits the facts,” Constantine said.
“There’s another part. MH370 landed on that airstrip south of Einme in the Irrawaddy Delta about 3 a.m. Saturday, March 8. Cargo and maybe people came off that plane before it took off again and vanished. Teller was the local handling agent. He’s right now moving the HVTs out of the country. The mayhem he’s wreaking is designed to distract. Based on how we’re responding, he’s winning.”
“Can you prove MH370 landed and took off?” Finegold’s tone revealed her skepticism.
“Not at the moment, but maybe within a day or two,” Nolan said.
“What does Matthews think of this grand conspiracy theory?” Constantine asked.
“I haven’t told him. Sam Hecker heads the DEA in South and Southeast Asia. He fronts as the number two bureaucrat in the Rangoon operation to keep a lower profile. Hecker and his team know what they’re doing. They’ve been helping me full time since Saturday night. Hecker’s view is that there’s no way Teller could have lived seven years in Rangoon hiding in plain sight unless someone in the CIA locally was covering for him. And what better candidate than the COS? Hecker wanted to put a lid on this until we can figure out who in Rangoon station is working with Teller.”
Constantine was no fan of Matthews, whom he suspected was angling for his job. He allowed this damning speculation to pass without comment, while Flynn and Finegold stared in silence.
“What does Hecker think about the MH370 angle?” Constantine asked, fingering his cufflink. Finegold looked up, gold ballpoint angled above a yellow legal pad. Until now she’d been scribbling like she was taking down a murderer’s confession.
“He’s halfway convinced, but started out like you in thinking that Teller is moonlighting, shipping drugs out and money or arms in at night for a few weeks before GE hands over Airstrip One to the buyer, presumably the Army. A plane landed on that phantom toll road early Saturday morning. The MH370 cargo manifest lists 5,500 pounds of mangosteens, and at least one crate of mangosteens was in the corrugated metal warehouse next to the runway that burned down. One of Teller’s gunmen was eating a mangosteen Saturday afternoon when I drove up to the runway’s main gate. I know it isn’t definitive, but there will be more evidence in the form of whatever, or perhaps whoever, came off that plane.”
“So how do the Russians fit into the picture?” Finegold said, ever the skeptic.
“I don’t have anything firm. I’m just working from the top down. Any three terrorists with box cutters can hijack a plane. Shooting a plane down takes a little more technology, but there are one hundred fifty countries and factions worldwide with surface-to-air missiles. If what I’m suggesting is true, the execution becomes exponentially more difficult. Someone hijacked MH370, removed objects and maybe people without anyone knowing, and flew the plane away, probably to be crashed with everyone aboard killed. Such a complicated project would have to have state or quasi-state backing.”
Nolan had their attention. “Let’s look at the suspects. First, China is Matthews’s favorite candidate, as it gives the PLA the pretext it wants to occupy northern Shan State.”
“Actually, that was my idea. I shared it with Lloyd Saturday morning.” Finegold’s voice was fingernails on a blackboard.
“Then you know more about it than I do,” Nolan continued. “My understanding is that Shan State is the natural place for the plane to come down if you subscribe to the China Bad Actor theory. As of yesterday morning, Matthews’s teams in from northern Shan or Kachin States hadn’t been heard from. What’s the latest?”
“By midnight everyone had reported in. We found several new drug labs, a freshly bulldozed dirt airfield and three militias running around where there hadn’t bee
n any before, but no credible place to land a 777 outside of existing military airfields. China wouldn’t hijack MH370 and land it at a Burma Air Force base. The only way China could be behind this is if their men flew the plane into southern Yunnan.”
“And why isn’t that plausible?” Constantine asked
Finegold ticked off her fingers. “First, it doesn’t support the principal rationale for China being behind a hijack. If MH370 doesn’t land in Shan or maybe Kachin, the PLA has no reason to invade. Second, it’s the same ‘loose lips sink ships’ phenomenon whenever military conscripts, factory workers or peasants see something they shouldn’t. Someone always talks unless they’re buried together in a mass grave. Third, we’ve reviewed two days of NRO sat photos of every base in Yunnan and they’re clean. Most of China’s strategic missile silos are in Yunnan, so we have birds overhead looking for heat signatures and listening for radio telemetry signals that indicate pending launches. Zero readings at the PLA air bases during the time window MH370 could have been in flight means nothing that fits our specification landed or took off. Thailand’s radar extends almost two hundred miles into Burma and their records are empty.”
“Point taken. It’s not in Shan or Yunnan.” Constantine waved his hand. “Let’s move on.”
Nolan replied, “The US would be the next suspect based on capability, if not motive. You could slice this two ways: authorized or rogue. If the president knew, this makes him a party to mass murder, and if—”
“Hold on! Mass murder? Where does that come in?” Flynn proved he was still awake.
“This plane, or pieces of it, will turn up soon with no survivors. The story will be that it crashed, or there was an aborted hijack attempt, or pilot suicide. If passengers were going to be found alive, they’d have turned up by now.”