They shared a bit of gossip about their Stanford friends. Branko’s wife had given birth to a fifth child. Mickey was facing a nasty custody fight with his Beijing-born wife, divorce Chinese style. Booth was gearing up for Senator Smithson’s long anticipated presidential primary campaign. Lee was riding herd on North American affairs at Beijing’s Foreign Ministry, trying to keep China’s bitterly divided factions in line.
There were few surprises. They were all living the lives they had charted so many years ago. Their prophecies were being fulfilled, their talents applied, their dreams realized—or so it seemed.
Alexander spoke of his latest writing project: an essay for the Sunday Books section about a recent work on the 1970’s legacy, of all things. “I’m trying to find some deeper meaning in a decade everybody files under ‘vapid.’”
“It’s true,” Rachel chuckled. “I always felt ripped off. Came of age in a time without a purpose. Kind of embarrassing. I mean, Disco Fever, indeed.”
“You aren’t alone,” Alexander continued. “People think of the Seventies as some leftover decade. Formless, without transcendent meaning. After the Cultural Revolution. Before Reagan.”
“They got teach-ins and free love and birth control pills. We got Watergate and sexually transmitted diseases.”
“Seriously, we came of age surrounded by kitsch. Like the author says: ‘How does one connect the dots from Jonathan Livingston Seagull to Jimmy Carter to the Captain and Tennille?’”
“Vapid!” She was giggling now. “You’ve got that right; the word is inescapable.”
“So I’m playing with this thesis,” Alexander continued. “I argue that this whole anti-ideological swing colored Washington’s foreign policy. Take our relations with China. Suddenly, it didn’t matter if they’re Maoists, if only they’d buy our Treasury bonds. I mean, today Home Depot and WalMart are bigger in Beijing than they are in Little Rock. We’re starting to believe they’re all just like us.”
“You’re right.” Rachel was nodding in agreement. “We just don’t want them buying Unocal or Maytag!”
“Anyway, it’s blinded us to all the contradictions,” said Alexander, barreling ahead, jabbing the air with his fork for emphasis, “and now we’re going to pay for it.”
“Pay for it?”
“Yep,” Alexander insisted. “Sorry to darken your morning, but I see real danger ahead.”
“You sound like we’re going off to war against the godless Commies. Seems to me we’ve still got our hands full draining the swamp in Baghdad.”
“You can dismiss it all as war-gaming theory. You forget that a lot of those guys in Beijing actually believe their own rhetoric—you know, kinda like Wolfowitz and all his former Pentagon pals. That’s what the whole fight is still about inside all the Chinese government factions.”
“Alexander, it is not going to happen.”
“When did your capacity to be surprised hit its limit?”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t mean to be alarmist, but look: in the last decade and a half, the Berlin Wall falls. The Soviet empire evaporates. A president gets impeached for lying about a blow job. The race for the White House ends in a tie. We see a million refugees flooded out of an American city. Not to mention 9/11, the holy wars with al-Quaida, and tracking Saddam down into some rat hole. What’s next—your guys gonna try to make Iraq the fifty-first state?”
Alexander was on a roll.
“So, you’d better be prepared to suspend disbelief all over again.”
“C’mon, you bleeding heart,” Rachel sighed, recalling all the anxious disappointments of those years. “I’ve got to make my nine o’clock, or I’ll be running late all day.”
As she stood, her cell phone rang: her secretary with an update. Mickey Dooley had just called in belatedly from San Francisco to cancel their morning meeting. Lee had bailed on his D.C. trip just last night—stuck in Beijing on some urgent matter, she said. A welcome hole now loomed in Rachel’s schedule and she breathed a bit more easily as they rose to leave.
Alexander walked her down Peacock Alley, the long mirrored hallway where, a century before, couples had once paraded in their elegant gowns. Neither Barry nor Alexander’s late wife, Anita, had ever been threatened by the friendship between their respective spouses. But then Anita had adored Alexander. She had nourished him, encouraging anything that brought forth his dry wit. Rachel assumed that Golden Boy Barry, the self-absorbed one, would never have noticed if another man had been sweet on his wife.
They reached the sidewalk behind the Willard Hotel and emerged into the sleet. Alexander was to turn right, to the Press Building on Fourteeth Street, Rachel to cross past the Borders Bookstore and the garage, into the beckoning oversized chrome and glass doors lettered “TPB.”
He offered a chaste one-armed hug again. But Rachel lingered, chin on his shoulder, her breath warm on his neck.
“You don’t like me as a lobbyist, do you?”
“It is not your best side, Rachel. But it’s a part of you.”
She pushed back, holding him at arm’s length.
“It’s all me, Alexander. The same old Wyoming cowgirl.” Then she kissed him in the center of his forehead, her fingertips soft and soothing at his temples. She kissed him so deliberately that he could feel both lips, moist and lingering.
A roar of sound erupted at that instant, accompanied by a flash of yellow light. The walls of the buildings shed a layer of brick and glass that began to cascade down from a darkening sky.
The concussive pulse staggered them. Shielded by Rachel’s frame, it felt to Alexander as if someone had blown out the windows of a car they had been racing. The force intensified, buckling their knees, shuddering all in its wake, like the earthquakes that used to rattle beneath his office high-rise in Taipei.
The FBI agent would later explain that the bomb was relatively small and amateurish. The poorly packed explosives, similar to those used at many construction sites, were consistent with the theory of a lone perpetrator—some disgruntled employee, some random anarchist with a cause.
Alexander remembered hearing a resonant series of thuds as he watched a wave of debris wafting above the avenue. From over Rachel’s shoulder, he viewed a riotous mix of yellow Post-Its and paper shreds suspended, icicles of glass and the casual vinyl flotsam of gravity-defying interiors, settling ever so slowly to the ground. The office detritus seemed herded in slow motion by the smoke, until hurtling at them south over F Street came a random section of window frame, striking Rachel squarely, slamming her on top of Alexander and pinning him to the ground.
DECIPHERING THE HUMINT
While Rachel was giving Alexander a good bye kiss, Branko Rosza was settling into his chair at the head of an oblong conference table on the seventh floor of the CIA headquarters building in suburban Virginia. Branko, the National Intelligence Officer for East Asia, was uncharacteristically jumpy this Monday, having begun his workday in Langley with a modest hangover of domestic irritation.
The First of April started disagreeably for Branko. Spontaneity did not come easily to him. Branko and his wife Erika shared a passion for ritual. Though not a particularly religious couple, they had an accumulation of modest ceremonies that brought rhythm and order to their family life. Their McLean home was a cheerful place; their kitchen refrigerator was decorated with a magnetic calendar highlighting future causes for celebration. Such days had come to provide the anchors for the busy household of seven, a certain center amidst the blizzard of after-school lessons and sports activities. Everything from obscure European saints’ days to Hallmark holidays yielded cards and special meals.
With five children under sixteen—and the twelve-year-old an especially creative prankster—breakfast this day had been an adventure. The milk was green. The orange juice had been spiked with Sprite. The car keys were hidden under the ice in the automatic dispenser. Branko was a notoriously deliberate person. The early games of the day proved burdensome, challenging his
compulsion for control.
A squat, dark-haired man with a wizened face, Branko moved forward with a sense of mission. He was playing a role that honored the brutal hardships his parents had endured. They were both Hungarian refugees and had met in a displaced persons camp in Europe in 1946. It was many years before they possessed enough faith in the future to start a family. Shortly thereafter, in 1956, Soviet tanks of occupation rolled past the Roszas’ Budapest apartment block, and the family fled across the border to Austria, then on to Liverpool, England, finally making it to Cleveland in the early 1960’s.
Branko was an infant when the Soviets invaded, and, ultimately, an only child. He was raised in an anxious home where frivolity was suspect, loyalty exalted. Branko, with his incongruous green eyes, would play chess for hours with his silent father, plotting elaborate stratagies, trained from a young age to think many moves ahead.
That the quiet boy had tested as a genius was no great surprise. His uncanny ability to assess motive and intent made him a brilliant analyst of information. He excelled, winning numerous academic scholarships and flourishing as a Chinese language specialist in Palo Alto, before moving seamlessly into his first government job in the intelligence business. He mailed in his thesis on Beijing decision-making, becoming the first of the Mandarin boys to secure his doctorate. Branko was a rarity, having worked his way through every significant Asia job at the Agency—in both analysis and operations. Now he sat, literally, at the head of the table for the intelligence community’s Asia work.
He ran this particular Monday morning 0900 exercise—still held in Langley pending a move to new facilities at Bolling AFB—like a refined tutorial. All opinions were welcome. Debate and dissent were expected. Sucking up to the professor—beyond the formalism of addressing him as “Doctor” Rosza (a vain indulgence he had subtly encouraged over the years)—would be punished. Blinding glimpses of the obvious were ruthlessly skewered. They earned taxpayer dollars for providing fresh thinking. He demanded no less from each of the staffers reporting to him, pressing them relentlessly for new insight.
“What do we make of the Nanping expansion?” Branko skipped the pleasantries, calling the meeting to order on the central issue of the day. “And what are the implications of this Chinese military move for U.S. and Taiwan response? James, let’s begin with NGA.”
James, a tall African-American official from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, responded, his hands gripping a thick red file of photographs. “The Nanping missile base in China’s Fujian Province has shown a significant increase in activity over the last three days. We believe this is beyond routine maintenance and suggests a further expansion of capabilities.”
“Significant increase defined by what standard?” Branko inquired.
“An additional deployment of phased array radar and site preparations for another two batteries of the CSS-6 missiles.”
“Which would bring total deployment to. . .”
“Nearly five hundred CSS-6’s and 7’s at the Nanping base. That would be a virtual doubling in size there.” James paused before anticipating. “You will recall, Dr. Rosza, that the first PRC medium range missile deployment during the 1996 Taiwan Strait crisis was accompanied by Chinese live-fire military drills.”
“Yes, I recall that the deployment attracted some interest here.” Branko allowed just a hint of a smirk. They all knew he had been the head of the Taiwan listening post at that time, closely following developments at the U.S. intelligence community’s signals intercept facility, Yangminshan, burrowed deep into the suburban hills outside Taipei. It had appeared then that China’s provocative move—deploying missiles for the first time along the Fujian Province coastline opposite Taiwan—might lead to a shooting war.
“My point being, sir, that we have been focusing our satellite photo work the last forty-eight hours on depots and roads which might confirm a third and fourth battery, another two hundred and fifty missiles.”
“Is the work at the Chinese base transparent?”
“Yes and no. It’s exclusively night-time activity. But they know when our birds fly over, and they know our satellites can pick up certain nighttime activities. So they must assume we’re getting some good pictures.” The folks at NGA were quite proud of their high-resolution photographs. “Telstar’s satellites even give us the Caterpillar logo on top of the backhoe.”
“NSA, what’s SIGINT allowing us to pick up from communications?” “Our listening stations in the region do not report anything unusual, sir.” A demure blond woman with oversized horn rim glasses responded without missing a beat. “The usual Chinese phone and fax traffic back to headquarters. Their e-mail volume is routine, though we did pick up some complaining about quality control.”
“Can we get more specific on that?” Branko pressed.
“Dr. Rosza, the transcripts suggest something beyond the usual complaints about the quality of the hardware. Apparently, the Fujian base is pushing for delivery of systems at a pace the production folks—this is all indigenous now, no longer Russian import—consider a little surprising. They seem to be shipping stuff to Nanping without requisite spare parts.”
“What is military intelligence saying about the haste?” It pained Branko to lean on the armed services. But the recent shake-ups in the U.S. intelligence community placed a premium on sharing nicely. Besides, Branko believed, it was better to find out what the competition had than learn it later, at some White House showdown with the Pentagon boys.
“Their conclusion parallels ours, sir.” It was Arthur Moffitt, his deputy. “It clearly suggests a hurry-up under orders from Beijing.”
“Arthur, what do we make of their failure to obscure these developments? They trying to send us a message?”
“Unclear, sir. Beijing has made some diplomatic commitments the deployments would appear to contradict.”
“Any evidence this might be a Second Directorate gambit? You know, provoke the Americans again and let the diplomats and the Politburo deal with the consequences?
“No, sir. Human Intelligence captures suggest that the military-civilian tensions continue to run high in Beijing. But HUMINT hasn’t turned up anything on the Nanping developments that suggest these don’t have top-down Party support.”
Branko pondered the implications a moment. “But they’ve still got deniability?”
“Right. And it is consistent with recent doctrine to challenge Taipei and Washington by presenting some new reality on the ground.”
“Indeed. Military threats don’t work unless people know they are being threatened,” Branko said, lapsing into pedantry—it was the instructor within who never passed up a teaching moment. Then he continued with his inquiry. “Anything we see in their haste to suggest it is all a mirage, a Potemkin Village made for satellite detection?”
“No sir. This looks like the real deal. With a two hundred kilometer range on the missiles, the latest move could push Taipei right over the edge.”
Branko started to ask a question, but paused to think. It was a measure of the group’s regard for their leader and his vaunted analytical skills that no one stirred while Branko fiddled with his pen. Another series of questions ensued to each intelligence division represented—fully twenty minutes of asked-and-answered—before he began to make valedictory remarks on the morning’s gathering, artfully employing the royal “we.”
“So the Nanping base is hot again—in contravention of explicit diplomatic pledges. The deployment of still more CSS-6’s means that Taipei’s margin of safety in the Taiwan Strait will soon disappear completely.” He had his colleagues’ undivided attention.
“We have good news for Beijing. Once again, they’ve rattled Taipei’s cage. The Taiwans will be under intense pressure to talk peace, love, and reunification with the Communists, starting tomorrow.
“The bad news,” he continued, “is that, with the Politburo politicians agreeing to more missiles, the generals will agitate even more to finally use a few of them. Furthe
rmore, Taiwan’s friends in Congress will be apoplectic over the White House reluctance to sell Taipei more sophisticated weapons for deterrence.”
“If Senator Smithson gets this. . .” Here, Branko paused to correct himself. His respect for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s chairman was well known to the group. “When he gets this, corralling Jake Smithson is going to keep the folks in Congressional Relations rather busy.”
“Of course, the Agency has no obligation to inform Congress,” said his deputy, Moffitt, who was quick to reassure him. “That threshold hasn’t been crossed.”
“Yes, Arthur, this is still preliminary,” Branko agreed. “And CSS-6 missiles aren’t new. The Chinese have had some for several years. But they deploy the missiles for effect. They push them to the seacoast just like pushing a pawn. Well, now there will be an effect in this town as well. We need to anticipate what the policymakers will be demanding from us.
“I want NGA to double our satellite surveillance of Taiwan’s air fields. See how the Taiwans will respond,” Branko continued. “Let our station chief in Taipei know we need capture on what kind of response they are planning in Taiwan—both political and military. And we may need to alert the Pacific Command team in Honolulu, in case the White House calls for them to crank up the engines for another U.S. carrier cruise through the Taiwan Strait. Anything else?”
The Mandarin Club Page 3