Dragon Fire

The Situation Room, The White House, Washington, DC

‘We’re exchanging real-time SIGINT and ELINT with Taiwan,’ said Tom Bloodworth. ‘We’ve identified targets along the eastern coastline for cruise missile attacks. We have an Arleigh Burke-class cruiser within range and a first strike of Tomahawk cruise missiles is ready to go. The Japanese have picked up ELINT that the Chinese may deploy a SATCOM jammer against the US NAVSTAR Global Positioning System.’

‘They’re that sophisticated?’ said Hastings.

‘We don’t know. They may try. But anyway we’ll be deploying the TLAM Block III system which incorporates jam-resistant GPS receivers. It will also mean we don’t have to use the terrain features to guide the missile to target, which would take time to prepare. That’s why we’re ready to launch now.’

‘I suppose it’s no good me suggesting we don’t,’ said Joan Holden.

Ennio Barber answered before Hastings could. ‘We have to go to the American people with at least one strike, Mr President. The polls want us to hit much harder. The talk shows are full of retrospective stuff about us being soft on China and coddling dictators. If we don’t hit back at them we lose it all.’

‘Ennio has a point,’ said Alvin Jebb. ‘Although I admit it reluctantly. A superpower which fails to use that power in time of crisis is no longer a superpower.’

‘And we’ll lose the election,’ added Barber.

‘I understand the domestic political angle,’ said Holden. ‘I disagree with Alvin about losing superpower status, and I am not sure what we will achieve with one missile strike.’

‘We force through a ceasefire. It’s a message of force,’ said Jebb.

‘Tom,’ said Hastings, ‘what is your view?’

‘It won’t force a ceasefire,’ he said. ‘The Chinese will not back down, because if they do they will be embarrassed. But I don’t see that we have an alternative. If we strike over Taiwan, we might send a message to the Indians that we’re out there and that they don’t have to nuke China to survive. That’s what we’ve got to keep our eye on. After all these years, Taiwan is turning out to be a sideshow to the real conflict.’ Bloodworth suddenly became distracted by new information on his computer screen. ‘Sorry, but we’re getting reports of unusual deployments around the nuclear missile silos in Russia. Mr President, I think you had better talk to Gorbunov.’