Piranha: Firing Point

Chapter 6 Monday November 4

It was a few minutes past two in the morning. A few miles out to sea from the shimmering lights of Shanghai, the Shining March cruise missile’s onboard computer noted the stars’ positions overhead, giving it a stellar fix.

It was time to turn back west, in accordance with the mission profile. The fins in the aft part of the ten-ton missile rotated, putting the weapon into a two G-force turn. The onboard gyro rotated through the numerals, the stars spinning overhead. The lights of the city appeared in the nose-cone camera, the reflections glittering on the black water five meters below as the missile sailed west, throttling up to attack velocity. The airframe shuddered momentarily as the unit passed through sonic velocity on the way to MacH 1.2. Over the water, the sonic boom was unnoticed. The city lights grew brighter as Shanghai approached.

The target was within the city center. A palace surrounded by rows of fences, patrols of security troops, and airborne helicopter patrols. The missile was designated as unit number one, its target considered the highest in priority for its mission planners. Along with another three missiles cruising under the detection altitude of the fourteen air-traffic-control radars and the occasional military air-search radar, there was a squadron of Mig-51 Flicker fighters, four of them assigned the same target as missile number one.

The attack would be coordinated. The missiles were arriving from the four points of the compass, missile number one to hit first, the north, west, and south units to come in at 1.5-second intervals afterward. The Flicker squadron aircraft assigned to the palace would come in two waves, the first ten seconds after the last missile, the second thirty seconds after that. In order to accomplish this pinpoint timing, the missile required exact navigation aids. The star fix obtained before was sufficiently imprecise as to mandate another fix on the shoreline.

The coastline approached rapidly. The throttles on the turbojet engine slowed, descending back below sonic velocity.

The weapon was slightly ahead of schedule, and the mission profile called for it to fly slowly past its initial navigation aids. A casino building, the Spade Palace, came into view. The edifice was lit up brighter than a lighthouse, lights of every color shining from each facet of the crystal facade, blinking lights outlining the planes of the soaring skyscraper. Chinese and English signs invited gamblers to enter, even at this late — or early— hour. The casino was the first of three way points the missile needed. It aimed south of the building. The shoreline passed beneath the fuselage as the missile headed over dry land.

Within a hundred meters of the Spade Palace, the missile turned north-northeast, speeding up to approach the second way point, a monument erected to General Wong Chen, who had beat back the Red Chinese during the civil war and was a founding father for White China.

The Wong Monument was in the form of a giant military sword, anchored at its base and soaring two hundred meters above the seaward approach to the bay. The entire carved blade was illuminated by harsh floodlights, with a single red aircraft-warning strobe bulb flashing at the very tip of the sword. Missile number one flew around the Wong Sword at its base, carving a tight circle around the statute, then throttled up the engines. The mission profile called for a swift approach to the Presidential Palace.

The third way point was the Hilton Hotel, soaring over four hundred meters into the night sky. The grandiose monstrosity had been built in the year after White Chinese independence, another tribute to capitalism.

The shining lights of the hotel were visible for dozens of kilometers to sea, the giant English block letters spelling hilton down the seaward edge of the black cylinder.

The missile had been directed to pass three blocks west of the Hilton, sufficiently far that its windows would not shatter from the low-level sonic boom. Reaching MacH 1.2 again, the missile shot toward the Presidential Palace.

As the missile flew over the thirty-meter high whitewashed wall of the palace complex, it was a full twenty-three milliseconds behind schedule. Less than twenty percent fuel remained in the reinforced tanks of the missile’s belly, making the missile lighter, and as the throttle valves opened fully, the missile was able to speed up slightly, flying in at MacH 1.24. It sped toward an inner wall. As the missile flashed overhead, several black dogs below barely had time to begin to curl their lips, their heads just beginning to turn upward, the first growl emerging from their throats a tenth of a second later, which would prove to be forty-five milliseconds too late.

The outer ring of buildings flew under the fuselage next, the three rows of office buildings and housing facilities laid out in an ornate geometry. The central row came by next, the buildings dark with the sleeping staff members. Finally the inner ring of buildings slipped past, surrounding a beautiful open courtyard, arranged with several dozen fountains spurting water illuminated by spotlights. Exotic landscaping divided the open space into at least three dozen different conversational areas.

Ahead, unlit except by the wash of lights from the courtyard’s fountains, the Presidential Palace loomed.

The palace was a mere three stories tall, but was over a kilometer wide. The facade was made of Italian marble with carved pilasters, a columned entrance to a high rotunda leading up steps to ornate bronze carved doors.

In the north wing, on the third floor, the president’s living quarters overlooked the greenery of the courtyard and the majesty of the inner palace complex. The living quarters had soaring plateglass windows, framed by heavy curtains, fronted by a small tiled deck filled with outdoor furniture, potted trees, and a fair-sized swimming pool.

The nose cone of the Shining March missile impacted the thick bulletproof plate glass of the president’s bedroom suite. The glass blew outward toward the deck.

That was the signal to the fuse software to detonate the explosives. A charged capacitor sent out an intense electrical pulse, lighting the fuse blasting cap. The cap flared into incandescence, setting off the primary explosive train deep in the heart of the warhead.

In a few milliseconds the missile passed all the way into the cavernous bedroom, under the carved marble ceilings almost fifteen meters above the polished hardwood floor. By the time the tail fins — sheared off by the shattering glass of the window — disintegrated, the explosion train was half through detonating. The secondary explosive train temperature rose to that of a bonfire.

Three missile lengths into the room, the weapon still five meters from the sleeping president’s bed, the tertiary explosive train ignited. Still no trace of the interior heat was visible on the dark skin of the missile, though the tertiary explosives raised the temperature of the high-density molecular explosive to that of the surface of the sun.

At last the skin of the missile vaporized as the detonation blew outward from it. The warhead turned into a fireball of pure plasma energy, the atoms and molecules of what had been solid matter turning to liquid, then to vapor, then to gas. As the temperature rose to thermonuclear range, the atoms’ electrons spun off into space, leaving their nuclei in a high-energy glow. The plasma expanded outward, the radiant heat of it turning the flesh of the president immediately to superheated gas, an expanding cloud that blew away from the plasma ball at sonic velocity. His bones liquefied next, then vaporized, joining the plasma front as the volume of energy expanded, now encompassing the entire room. All that had been solid microseconds before had all become glowing photons and spheres of protons and neutrons, electron waves flashing out into the abyss.

In the 1,500 milliseconds before the second missile entered the presidential palace, the plasma expanded outward, the flame front ahead of it blowing the walls and ceiling of the surrounding rooms away, until the upper floor within one hundred meters of the presidential living quarters was completely eliminated, burned cleanly off in a black arc.

Missiles two, three, and four flew in next, their detonators going off more by timing than by impact, and the remainder of the palace grew more insubstantial with each hit. By the time missile four’s explosion had become nothing more than an orange mushroom cloud flaming and rising above the courtyard where the palace had once been, the first wave of Flicker fighters streaked overhead. Detaching their bombs, the fighters pulled hard to the right and left to avoid the missile explosions.

Twenty Cultural Revolution bombs tumbled into the black and orange fireball of the palace, all of them detonating into white-hot fury in the already hellish conflagration.

The initial twenty-five seconds of the Shanghai attack had vaporized the primary target, and the second wave of Flicker fighters pulled up and turned away to their secondary targets.

Two minutes after the first missile’s detonation, there was a black carbonized crater, fully thirty meters deep, where the palace, courtyard, and inner circle of palace complex buildings had once proudly stood. The center row of buildings was little more than piles of rubble, bricks and marble and electrical wire, mournful fingers of steel-reinforcement rods sticking into the fiery night, melted glass resolidifying in ugly pools at the bases of the rubble. The outer ring of buildings, the few that were still standing, were in flames, fire pouring from the windows and rooftops. The two circles of walls, built to hold off terrorists and truck bombers, had crumbled but for a few uneven remnants.

In the city, 125 other Shining March cruise missiles had hit their targets. The 100 Flicker fighters sent in as backup had added to the chaos, making the previous century’s destruction of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden, Tehran, and Cairo seem minor by comparison. The Hilton hotel was blown to its foundation, the only thing recognizable the three-meter-tall red block letter H lying on top of what once had been a glass elevator, the glass shattered, half molten and black. Nothing was left of the Sword of Wong except granite dust, lying in a pile at the site.

Cargo ships were burning in the harbor, and one supertanker laden with crude oil exploded in a kilometer-wide fireball, the shock wave of it blasting through a city where almost five hundred shock waves had already passed.

No building taller than three stories stood. There was not a recognizable car left in the city, all the iron and steel and rubber that wasn’t crushed having burned in the city’s massive fires. Not a single tree or blade of grass within tens of kilometers was left.

And not a single person within twenty kilometers of the Presidential Palace survived. Those in the circle inside ninety kilometers walked through burning streets, their clothes sooty, their eyes glazed, tears streaming down their cheeks. A father stumbled through the gutted streets, silently crying, carrying two young daughters, their legs as thin as twigs, their pajamas burned off in sections. Both children were dead, the small one’s face burned off, the other’s intact with her small eyes staring unblinkingly into space.

Capturing the scene was the lens of a Satellite News Network camera, the images transmitted to the backpack of the sooty-faced cameraman, from the antenna on the backpack to a transmission van a kilometer away, and from there to the SNN orbiting communications satellite, relayed from there to SNN’s network news center in Denver, Colorado, and from there to television and Writepad receivers all over the globe.

Two in the morning on a Monday in Shanghai was two o’clock in the afternoon on Sunday, November 3, on the U.S. East Coast, week ten of the season of the National Football League. The quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys took the snap in the shotgun formation, pulled his arm back, and fired off a bullet-trajectory pass to wide receiver Kevin McConkey in the Redskins’ end zone. The football was spiraling through the air when the screen flashed, fading into the face of a reporter.

The legend at the bottom of the screen read: breaking news — white china firebombed. The image of the reporter vanished, replaced by the scene of the crying father holding two dead and burned children in a Shanghai street.

“We interrupt this program to bring you breaking news from Shanghai, White China, where only minutes ago an incendiary bomb attack leveled the city. These images, courtesy of the Satellite News Network, show the incredible carnage as—”

In front of the widescreen television. National Security Adviser Stephen Cogster clanked his beer bottle on the coffee table and pulled his satellite phone from his belt. He punched a single button on it before lifting it to his ear.

“Code seven, NSA for number one. Get her on the phone now. I repeat, code seven.”

It took less than ten seconds for her voice to come through the phone. And when it did, the voice of President Jaisal Warner was furious.

She was wearing a black miniskirt, holding the ten-foot handle of a paint roller, her feet bare on the wooden platform of a scaffold. It was Eileen. Her blond hair cascaded down past her shoulders as she dipped the roller in the red paint. She arched her body, rolling the red paint onto a curving wall above her, a few paint drops falling on the dress. Suddenly she looked over at him. Her face was a shattered and bloody pulp. He felt a desire to go to her, to hold her, but somehow knew she was angry. He wondered if she was angry at the loss of her face. She seemed so serious, not like herself, as she painted the curving wall in swift yet careful strokes.

Before he could open his mouth, she spoke to him without creating sound, without moving her lips.

Red subs, Mikey. You’re up against the Reds.

She started fading into the distance, the curved wall above her becoming a cylinder, a rudder appearing in the foreground, stern planes, a propulsor-turbine shroud. The floating dock around the hull. It was the SSNX, its lower stern section now a gleaming red. Eileen still painted as she drifted farther away. She turned to him and shouted.

Hurry, we’ve got to go!

“What?” he said, his voice still a phlegmy croak.

“Hurry, sir, we’ve got to go!” The voice wasn’t Eileen’s anymore. It belonged to a man…

“Sir, O’Shaughnessy’s plane is waiting. They said they’d call you — dammit,” Paully White said, picking up the dead phone, tossing it across the room. His voice became high and whining, filling with frustration. “Sir, what are you doing asleep at two-thirty in the damned afternoon? Christ.”

Pacino sat up, looking dazedly at his wrist. His Rolex was gone. He found it on the nightstand. “What are you doing here, Paully? What the hell is going on?”

White had found a remote control and clicked the widescreen to life. Pacino rubbed his hair as the reporter came up in mid-speech.

“… armored divisions crossed the White Chinese border at Zhengzhou and occupied the city within an hour. Meanwhile several tank divisions have crossed the northwest border in what seems to be a rush toward the central city of Xuzhou. In the south, several hundred infantry divisions crossed the border at Quangzhou in what appears to be a march toward Hong Kong. In the central regions, a mountain crossing has been accomplished by a dozen armored and infantry divisions in an attempt to cut off the north of the country from the south. The infantry and tank troops have been supported by hundreds of bombers, fighters, and helicopters of the Red Chinese People’s Liberation Army. Details from the central campaign are sketchy, but so far White Chinese forces seem to have been completely surprised and overwhelmed, falling back and absorbing tremendous losses as the Reds advance toward the shores of the East China Sea. This is Christie Cronkite reporting for SNN, Tsingtao, White China. Back to you, Bernard.”

“Thank you, Christie. We turn now to Brett Hedley in Hong Kong, which in the last few minutes has come under air attack. Brett, can you tell us what’s going on? Brett? Brett? We seem to have lost Brett due to technical difficulties; we’ll return to him in a moment. For those of you just tuning in, again, Red China has attacked White China in what looks like the biggest land offensive since the Battle of Iran. We go now to our presidential correspondent outside the president’s compound at Teton Village, Wyoming. Diane—”

White clicked off the widescreen and tossed the remote onto the bed. Pacino stared at the blank screen for a moment, his eyes wide, then looked at Paully White.

“What the hell…?”

“We can watch more of that on O’Shaughnessy’s 777.”

Pacino rose to his feet, walking to the bathroom.

“We’re due at Andrews Air Force Base in an hour.”

The water of the shower came on, and Paully called over it. “That gives you about eight minutes to shower and pack.”

White found the remote and turned the TV back on, staring at it, barely blinking.

The Lincoln staff car rocketed ahead at 135 miles per hour.

This time the state police had not been notified, because the phones and radios and Writepad links were otherwise occupied. When a Maryland trooper’s cruiser came up behind them, beacons flashing, the staff driver ignored him. Eventually the cruiser pulled up alongside the Lincoln, waving to pull over. Paully White, on the satellite phone, pushed a button to make his window clear. The black polarization vanished, and the intense afternoon sunlight streamed into the car. Still barking orders into the phone, he held up a sign, handmade by the aide riding in front, reading ANDREWS AIR FORCE BASE.

The sign and the emblem of the Unified Submarine Command on the car’s door must have suddenly made sense, for the trooper saluted and sped ahead, turning on his siren.

“You heard me,” Paully White said, again blacking out the window. “Defcon one, all Pacific Force submarines. You’ve got two hours to recall the crews and load up with food. Forget the fresh stuff, canned goods only. Start the reactors now. Divorce them from shore power and get them to sea. Yeah, we’ll tell them when they clear restricted waters. Yes, you can guess all day if you want, but the skippers will hear it direct from Admiral Pacino. Got that? See you.”

“Atlantic Force?” Pacino asked.

“We can mobilize them, but that would leave the Atlantic uncovered, and it will take three weeks for them to get to China. Look, Admiral, this is a blitz. The Reds will be on the East China Sea in a week, maybe less. Then it’ll be over. Warner’s gonna have to strike goddamned fast.”

“China’s a damned big place, Paully. No way they can do this in a week. Even if they were up against minimal resistance, it would take a month to get to the coastline and consolidate. White resistance could blow the Reds back to Beijing. Plus, they weren’t able to kill Wong Chen. The general, fortunately, was hanging out with his mistress outside town. And Warner’s got the Rapid Deployment Force loaded up into the Navforcepacfleet ships.”

“True. The RDF and the Navforcepacfleet is casting off now.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Read the message yourself, sir. The ships are putting to sea, assembling off Shikoku, Japan. The escort in begins in about six hours. They’re on their way.”

“Sounds like Warner learned her lesson,” Pacino said, remembering her vacillation before the Japanese blockade.

“So what do you want with the Atlantic Force?” White asked.

“Defcon one, load up, set sail. Norfolk squadron goes under the polar icecap. Kings Bay squadron through the canal. First ship to the East China Sea wins dinner on me. And we’ll see who’s right about how long this thing takes.”

“Admiral, Captain White?” aide Kathy Cressman called from the front. Pacino’s assistant from his Norfolk days, she was now working for his number two man, Admiral Kane. “Warner’s on SNN, making a statement. I’ll patch it to your screen.”

The peaks of the Tetons, the “American Alps” that appeared on all the postcards and prints and oil paintings, were ten miles to the north. Teton Village was located near the border of Teton National Park, a ski town not unlike Vail or Aspen, with a double mountain marked by bare swaths cut through the fir trees for ski slopes. The supports of the chair-lift cables and tram climbed up the mountain like rungs of a ladder. Skiers crowded the slopes, hundreds of colorful dots on the white field in the bright November sunshine.

At the base of the slopes was what once had been a sleepy, quaint town, but three years before, it had been overrun by photographers, newsmen, transmission vans, black limousines, helicopters, Secret Service agents, and tourists who had never strapped on skis and never planned to.

Jaisal Warner’s presidential complex, on the south side of the village, was more of a large, rambling log lodge. On the upper story, under a gently sloping, peaked roof a wall of windows looked down on the village to the north; another wall of glass on the other side peered up the mountain. Between the two glass walls were several sitting areas and a dining area, marked by stone fireplaces. On the lower two levels were guest rooms and spas, an enclosed swimming pool, a pub with several pool tables. The Secret Service took up the rooms of the lower level, the press corps and visiting cabinet members the second floor, leaving the president to her master bedroom suite on a level above the peaked roofline, a son of cabin-above-the-cabin that had a view of most of the valley.

She stepped out of the front entrance of the lodge and walked down the steps hewn from twenty-foot-long logs.

She wore ski pants, a sweater, and her fur warmup boots, her hands ungloved. In her hair she had put her Raybans. Her hair, though golden, had become streaked with gray over the last two years, but the gray was a silvery tone that blended well with the blond. Her skin remained unwrinkled despite her skiing tan, her startlingly blue eyes shining out over her high cheekbones, royal nose, and strong chin. She was tall, her figure slim as a thirty-year old’s, though the birthday cake from number thirty had crumbled to dust almost two decades ago. She held the distinction of being the first female American president, having won a surprise landslide that brought her to power from the governorship of California.

The blockade of Japan turned out to be her first international crisis. From a combination of hesitation and bad luck, the U.S. Navy suffered losses so severe that the conflict was almost lost. Late in the game the tide turned, and Warner took control and changed it into a victory. Though three carrier battle groups had been sunk, with thousands lost at sea, it never damaged Warner politically. If anything, the setback rallied the nation around her, the underdog. At the close of the conflict she had the highest approval ratings since George Bush’s after the close of the first Persian Gulf war.

Ratings had remained high until Eve Trachea, her National Party opponent in the coming election, spoke up about waste in the Department of War, particularly the trillion-dollar NSSN submarine program. Political cartoons showed Warner in a clown outfit peering through a broken periscope, water leaking in past crooked valve handles. Warner and her staff had come to Wyoming, away from the hassles of the Beltway, to brainstorm a strategy for her reelection. She was walking off the tram at Apres Vous mountain when she’d been waved over by a satellite phone toting staffer.

It was the secretary of war, down in the lodge. As she listened to him, standing there with her skies in one hand, the phone in the other, a thundercloud formed on her face.

The Reds had come over the border into White China, not just killing troops and attacking military installations, but massacring civilians, firebombing the most populated cities with plasma weapons. Tens of millions of people had been killed at the time of the call, which was only minutes into the attack. When she had disconnected, she was asked to take the phone again. This time Stephen Cogster was calling from the White House, her National Security Adviser having stayed after the Donchez funeral to get a few days of work done before returning.

“You wouldn’t believe what I just saw,” Cogster said in his trademark gentle voice. His easy manner was deceiving.

His nickname among his staff was “the Blowtorch” due to his raw E-mails and voice mails to subordinates and peers alike.

Ninety minutes later, the press had assembled around a podium set up for her at the base of the steps to the lodge. The stone foundation and log steps made for an unmistakable background. She stepped up to the podium, gripping it with both ungloved hands.

“Good afternoon, Americans,” she said, glaring at the cameras. “Members of Congress, the press. Except that it isn’t a good afternoon at all for those who cherish peace and freedom. Less than two hours ago Red China attacked the free and peaceful nation of White China, our friend and ally, brutally killing hundreds of thousands — perhaps millions — of civilians, innocent men, women, and children, in their sleep, with firebomb attacks on thirty-four major cities. The Presidential Palace in Shanghai was obliterated, and we believe that the remaining leadership of White China was murdered in their sleep. In the government we have received reports of death camps being formed” — newsmen gasped, the last fact previously classified top-secret release 24, Warner letting it slip almost casually — “for the founding up of all political enemies of the Red Chinese. Our estimates are sketchy, but even with conservative estimates we believe that in the last ninety minutes more Asians have died than in all of World War II.”

Warner let that sink in for a moment, the only sound that of camera shutters flickering as photos were taken.

She looked at the crowd, her jawline straight, her eyes blue and cold as the snow at her feet. Her fingers formed fists on the clear Plexiglas podium.

“It is clear that the United States cannot and will not sit idly by as our ally is bombed out of existence. Accordingly, I have ordered the Army’s Rapid Deployment Force and the Naval Pacific Force Fleet to mobilize to the waters off White China. The RDF, as we speak, has departed and is in the Pacific, well on its way. It is the intention of the United States to counter this cold-blooded invasion with all the might of the U.S. military. Within the hour I will address, by Intertel, a special joint session of Congress, where I will ask for enhanced powers as the commander-in-chief to employ full military force against Red China. In the coming days the ground, air, and sea forces of America will be deployed against the atrocious monsters of Red China in defense of the Whites. To our friends in White China listening to me now, I say, hold on, the cavalry is coming. To those in Red China I say, leave now. Leave White China now or die.”

Warner glared into the camera again, then looked from left to right as if she were a professor ensuring each pupil had received the lesson.

“To all Americans I say, with Gods’ help, White China and America will prevail. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, that is all.”

All hell broke loose, cameras thrust toward the president, a thousand voices shouting a thousand questions, some barely heard, some phrases echoing out over the snow:

“What about the allies?”

“The European Union president talked to you by—”

“Will you be attacking Beijing—”

“—Russian Prime Minister in London—”

“—air raids—”

“—nuclear weapons?”

“—Madam President, what about Japan—”

“—declaring war?”

“—Madam President!”

Warner ascended the steps of the lodge deliberately, unhurriedly, the slim woman looking almost regal as she walked in the open door.

Chapter 7 Sunday November 3

Pacino stared out the window as the barren scenery slipped below, the aircraft climbing steadily to its cruising altitude.

His thoughts had turned to Dick Donchez, missing him, wondering what he would make of this situation.

He shut his eyes, leaning against the window, and thought about Eileen, missing her too, but feeling a guilt that he missed her — was it possible? — less than Donchez.

It occurred to him that Dick’s death was moving him into the next sphere of his life, where Donchez and Eileen no longer existed. Was that possible? Would the pain of missing them ever not exist…?

Hell, he thought, this was all part of the craziness of losing Uncle Dick. He must still be in a kind of shock. A shock he had to shake off if he was to keep his stars.

A half-remembered dream came back to him, something about Eileen with no face and the SSNX. And what Donchez had said about Red subs. Now that the Reds were attacking, he wondered, could Donchez have been trying to tell him something? Up to now he’d dismissed the rambling speech, assuming it to be part of the old man’s delirium. Maybe he should reconsider.

A knock rapped on the door of the office cabin he’d been assigned with Paully White and Kathy Cressman while they waited for O’Shaughnessy to call the staff meeting in the forward cabin. Cressman looked at him, and he nodded. “Come in,” she called.

The door smoothly opened, revealing a figure standing in the doorway with a half smile on his face. Pacino stood, thinking the man lost. He looked somewhat familiar, but Pacino was certain he’d never met him. He was as tall as Pacino, but without his gauntness, the man conveying a sense of solidity and certainty, a sort of body confidence, as if he were a professional ballplayer.

He seemed to be in his mid-thirties, yet didn’t seem young. His hair was long, slicked back from his forehead to his neck. His features were Irish but seemed almost too large, his eyes light green over a protruding nose, his mouth smiling over a strong jaw with an indented chin. He wore a dark sports coat over a linen shirt, the kind that buttoned at the throat like a choker collar, no tie, khaki chinos, and after-ski hiking boots.

Pacino was about to tell the man he was lost, when normally reserved Kathy Cressman leapt to her feet and threw her arms around the big man, squealing, “Jack! Jack Daniels, you son of a bitch! Where have you been?”

“Golfing, mostly,” the dry reply came.

Pacino shot a look at Paully, who looked back with a raised eyebrow. Cressman pulled away, smoothing her dress and her hair, her face red.

“Sorry, Admiral. You know Jack Daniels?”

“I need the admiral alone,” Daniels muttered to Cressman. Just like that she seemed to disappear into thin air. Daniels looked up, extending his big hand, his smile from before looking like more of a snarl. When he spoke, his voice wasn’t friendly. “My name is Daniels. Mason W. Daniels the fourth. Director — temporary director — of the National Security Agency. Everybody just calls me Jack.”

Pacino held out his hand tentatively. “What do your friends call you?”

“Frequently,” Daniels said, dropping his hand before Pacino gripped it, an edge to his voice. “What the hell, Admiral. I’ve put in no less than eighteen requests to talk to you on your goddamned Writepad. Dick Donchez says, ‘Oh, yeah, you call Mikey, he’ll get right with you.’ Well, bullshit. Kathy ought to be asking where the hell you’ve been. Admiral, not me.”

“Pleased to meet you too,” Pacino said. “It’s been wonderful, really, but I’m sure you’ll excuse us if—”

“I was trying to reach you for a reason. Then I tried to get you at Dick’s funeral. You were a zombie, so I left you alone. Then I rang you at your Annapolis house, where Kathy said you were staying. No answer. I rang it off the hook.”

Pacino wasn’t surprised. He’d unplugged the main connection to the phone center after the funeral, assuming the calls were coming from reporters. He sat down, waving Daniels to a seat.

“So, what’s on your mind?” he said, his voice authoritative but feeling uneasy in the presence of the angry agency head.

“Who’s he? Captain White?”

“Meet Paully White, my chief of staff,” Pacino said, giving White a conversational promotion. “He’s cleared for everything I’m cleared for.”

“How the hell do you do. Okay, I’ll just get right to it, then, gentlemen. On October 23 six Japanese Rising Sun-class submarines went on sea trials—”

“I know all about that,” Pacino said. “I know Tanaka at the MSDF.”

“So you know why they sank?”

“What? What are you talking about?”

Daniels sniffed, blowing his nose into a handkerchief.

“Sorry, that’s why I didn’t shake hands. I’m going under to this goddamned cold. Yeah, all six subs were in a videoconference with your man Tanaka when they sank. I’ve got it all on disk.” He put the handkerchief away and tossed a disk at Pacino, who caught it in midair.

A half dozen questions vied for attention in Pacino’s mind.

“Why wasn’t I briefed on this?” he asked.

“Jesus, why wasn’t he briefed on it. Where were you on October 24? When Kathy tried to schedule you for that urgent secure videoconference?”

Pacino bit his lip. He’d skipped it, saying he was too busy at the shipyard, taking a meeting with Colleen O’Shaughnessy instead as the Cyclops system bugs grew worse. Fine, he thought to himself angrily. That was then, this is now.

“I’ll tell you where you were. You blew it off. Just like you blew off my messages. So what’s your next question?”

Pacino shot a glance at White, who shrugged.

“Okay, next is how you got the video disk. Tanaka?”

“No,” Daniels said. “We’re the NSA, remember? We intercept, record, and decode transmissions? Hello?”

“I read you,” Pacino said, wondering when Daniels would drop the attitude.

“Okay, so what happened on the disks?” Paully asked.

“They just disappeared one by one. This was after their sea trials. Dick thought that was significant. They vanished at periscope depth. Dick also thought that was significant. Said I should get with you immediately.”

“So why didn’t you?”

“Aside from my secure videolink and the eighteen call requests?”

“You could have gotten with David Kane or Paully White, or Kathy, for that matter.”

“Could have. Didn’t. Donchez was too sick to talk. Don’t know if you knew that. I was helping him run the show at the time, and he refused to go to a hospital, refused to leave his office. He kept telling me you’d call us, but you never did, and hell, I was just a slight bit busy with this Red Chinese stuff.”

“The Reds. Did we have any warning?”

“Sorry. Can’t tell you. You’re not cleared.”

“Donchez would have told me,” Pacino offered. Obviously Daniels was struggling with himself, as if following orders he didn’t agree with.

“Okay. We had lots of comms. We were breaking them almost in real time. We knew about the mobilization of troops, moving the aircraft around. Three days before the invasion the PLA pretty much went offline. They shut up completely. It was scary. Nothing, not even orders back to Beijing for more toilet paper.”

“Were you jammed?”

“Nope. There were just no tactical communications. Nothing but entertainment television, computer network transmissions — again, entertainment, all White Chinese— and radio talk shows and rock’n’ roll. Then on Sunday, bang.”

“They had a prearranged operational order,” Pacino said.

“Exactly, Admiral,” Daniels said, a false smile curling across his face. “Donchez said you were smart, but he never said you had a flair for the obvious like this.”

Pacino frowned, ready to launch into the agency director when the younger man stood.

“Well, I’ve done my duty for today. Donchez said you’d need to know this stuff. Now you do. And here’s my card.” Daniels produced a business card, the electronic scan strip on the back ready for the receiver to insert into his Writepad. “If you need me, just call. I’m sure by the eighteenth or nineteenth message I may call you back.”

The door slammed behind him.

“Nice guy,” White said.

“Pissed-off guy,” Pacino replied. “Get the file on him.”

“Already on it,” White said, scanning through his Writepad. “Not much here. Mason W. Daniels IV, Princeton grad, class of ‘01, English major. Harvard Law, Law Review, graduated ‘04, initial service in the National Security Agency, special deputy to the director.”

“Who was the director then?”

“General Mason W. Daniels III.” White looked up. “Jesus, he’s Mason Daniels’ son.”

“Wow,” Pacino said. General Mason Daniels, Donchez’s predecessor, was a legend in the intelligence community, having saved the NSA from the razor of intelligence consolidation, and being credited with numerous intelligence coups, such as the initial warning on the Chinese Civil War.

“Now what, sir?”

“Get Kathy back, and put that disk in.”

The eight black Land Rovers crunched through the packed snow at the rear entrance to Warner’s ski lodge.

Pacino bit his lip, wondering what the meeting was going to be like. The staff meeting on O’Shaughnessy’s 777 had never happened, even though they had been flying in with half the Washington establishment due at Warner’s meeting coming up. After Daniels had left the cabin, Pacino had sent Kathy forward to see what was up, but she said the CNO, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and the Army Chief of Staff were closeted behind O’Shaughnessy’s door. They didn’t emerge until the plane was descending for the airport.

The other Land Rovers ahead of them contained the entourage they’d flown with but hadn’t seen. In the front was the truck for Stephen “Blowtorch” Cogster, the National Security Adviser, and his personal staff. Behind him, Freddy Masters, the Secretary of State, his staff members crowded in with him. Then came the Director of Combined Intelligence, Christopher Osgood. Number four drove Mason “Jack” Daniels. Next the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Bill Pinkenson, followed by General James Baldini, the Army chief, then Admiral O’Shaughnessy, and finally Pacino and White.

The next minutes were a blur as Secret Service agents and armed Marine Corps guards crowded around them, taking their bags, passing them through metal detectors, hustling them in the double wood doors to the lower level, then taking them to their quarters. Pacino was led down a hall walled by heavy wood logs chinked with beige mortar. Doors lined the corridor, one on the right marked with a sign showing three gold stars on a blue field, the letters below spelling adm m. pacino, cmdr. unified sub cmd. Looking at it, he felt a vague unease.

Why had he been selected to accompany O’Shaughnessy on this errand, when the chief hadn’t spent a single minute with him since his coming-to-Jesus talk on Saturday?

His instincts told him O’Shaughnessy liked him and would help him. And Warner obviously had spoken to the chief, asking him to bring Pacino along. But why?

This was a ground war going on in White China. Sure, there would be airlift and sealift coming from the Navy, and certainly a Marine invasion with close fighter air cover from the carriers, but all those functions resided with other officers. He was a submarine officer. The only action he’d see in this was detailing the two 6881-class ships to go with the Navforcepacfleet and the Rapid Deployment Force out of Yokosuka. The subs were the Annapolis, SSN-760, and the Santa Fe, SSN-763, both of them modernized within eighteen months, both admitted to drydocks after the Japanese blockade. They would act as an escort for the carrier battle group into the East China Sea ensuring no cheap diesel boats or robot mines got in the way.

Unless, all that considered, he was here because he was a submarine officer. Hadn’t Jack Daniels mentioned the loss of the Japanese submarines? Was there some connection he was missing? Was there something Donchez’s deathbed soliloquy had meant to tell him?

He cursed under his breath as he was led into the room. An oversize bed was placed against the left wall, flanked by two oak nightstands, and a large window spanned the opposite wall. Pacino glanced out the window at the view of the village below, the busy ski slopes beyond, then dug out his Writepad from his briefcase on the bed. Furiously he clicked through the menus, selecting a chart of the waters off China, ordering the software to display for him water depth.

Just as he’d remembered, the entrance to the East China Sea was guarded by a long arc of islands, the Ryukyu chain. The water there was around a thousand fathoms, but a hundred miles west, the entire East China Sea became shallower than a hundred fathoms — six hundred feet. A true littoral water, where sonar sounds would carry for miles, bouncing off the sandy bottom.

For a submarine, that was both good and bad news. Good, in that a sub could hear a surface ship coming hundreds of miles away. Bad, because the sub itself would find it hard to hide out in a thermal layer. It took stealth away from the sub, its best weapon.

If the surface forces were up against subs in the East China Sea, they’d have an easy time of it. The frigates and antisubmarine helicopters would quickly sort out any bad guys.

His thoughts turned to Jack Daniels, who had worked for Donchez at NSA. Daniels had wanted to reach him about the sinking of the Japanese Rising Suns, the information seemingly worth eighteen urgent phone calls, yet anticlimatic when he finally delivered it. Donchez had thought the facts that sea trials were over and that the Rising Suns being at periscope depth was significant.

Jesus, Donchez and his babbling nonsense, talking about Red subs that Pacino would be “up against.” What was that all about? Was it possible that the Rising Suns hadn’t gone down, that the Red Chinese somehow had gotten their hands on the top-of-the-line advanced-technology vessels? Could Nagasaki Mod II plasma torpedoes in the bows of Rising Sun submarines be aimed at the Rapid Deployment Force? Was that the reason the Reds had chosen now as the time to attack the Whites, because they had a silver bullet in the East China Sea?

Donchez, Pacino thought, had had lung cancer. The Bethesda attending physician had said the cancer had metastasized to Donchez’s brain. Pacino had heard about brain cancer, from old Master Chief Gambini, the sonar chief of the Piranha. His wife, Maureen, had died of brain cancer, and for the last year of her life had barely recognized her own family, yelling at friends she adored, spitting at her cherished black lab. The brain cancer had turned her inside out. Had Maureen’s logical process changed, or just her emotions? And even if she could remember, would that have any bearing on Donchez? Was all this about the Red subs a sign of senility or loss of brain function; a grand fantasy?

And if so, should he give voice to that fantasy when Warner was charged with making a decision? If he told her the East China Sea was potentially unsafe, and she pulled the carriers and troop transports back while his subs scoured the area, what would happen then? Two escort subs would take months to sanitize the East China Sea. And the Pearl Harbor boats would take a week to get there, a week lost, and even with all twelve Pearl ships, it would still take a month to search the operational area. If they delayed by a month. Red China would win. Warner, as Paully had said, needed to strike now. And what of the political damage to her administration? Hadn’t she just said: To our friends in White China, I say, hold on, the cavalry is coming? What should he tell her? That the RDF and the Navforcepacfleet was standing into danger, he thought. That some one hundred ten ships stood a good chance of never making it to the beach. So could he really tell her to turn the RDF around?

Warner would have to wonder about him. Yes, he’d got the Navy Cross for bravery, but he’d also had two submarines shot right out from under him. Would she think he was gunshy? After all, the ships of the fleet were armed to the goddamned teeth with antisubmarine frigates, antisubmarine destroyers, both carrying depth charges and smart torpedoes. They had variable-depth sonars and towed linear sonar arrays, plus there were Seahawk V antisubmarine helicopters bristling with antisub sonars and more sonobuoys and smart torpedoes of their own. Above all that, the three aircraft carriers had their three squadrons of Blackboard S-14 slow-flying antisubmarine jets, each with over a thousand sonobuoys, a magnetic-anomaly detector, and a couple sub-killer torpedoes, not to mention the ten P-5 Pegasus patrol planes waiting on the runways in Japan. Each one was bigger than a 757, with more sub detection gear than you could put in a warehouse, and deep-diving antisub torpedoes, eight apiece.

So what had Donchez been worried about? He walked to a table by his couch, picked up the phone, consulted a list done in calligraphy under the seal of the president, searching for Paully White’s number, then punched four buttons.

“Captain White.”

“Paully, it’s me. Get in here.”

“Admiral Pacino, the president requests your presence at the meeting,” the staffer said, discreetly shutting the door after herself.

“Boss, I’m dying to know what’s going on,” White said.

“Sorry, Paully, no staff allowed,” Pacino said, annoyed.

The meeting had been going on for three hours already, well past sunset, and he had not been invited.

When he had called the chief of staffs office for word, the secretary had indicated he should stand by until the president needed him.

He and Paully had spent most of the evening looking over the videodisk of the Tanaka videoconference.

They’d made some progress, but not much. They had decided to go through it frame by frame, but so far it all looked normal, as normal as it could in Japanese with the NSA translation in captions at the bottom of the screen. During breaks in the examination of the disk, they’d put on the news. The Satellite News Network had the best coverage, but eventually even SNN’s reports became stale and repetitive. The Reds were still pushing in the center, consolidating in the north, and attacking Hong Kong by air. The firebombing of Hong Kong had killed SNN correspondent Brett Hedley, a reporter of some notoriety. The video of the fuel-air explosive that had killed him was played several times before SNN decided it was too gruesome to air.

Meanwhile, Pacino had called for his staff aircraft, a supersonic Grumman SS-12, which had been put back together at Norfolk Naval Air Station’s maintenance section. The jet was due by half past midnight, and the pilot had been given instructions to stand by at the plane rather than drive out to the village.

“Keep going through the disk, and stay on top of the SS-12. And, Paully, my guess is we’ll be getting out of here soon — Warner doesn’t seem in the mood to play with this thing. So keep your things packed. If it comes to it, we’ll sleep on the plane.”

“Aye-aye, sir. Good luck.”

Pacino walked down the log-lined hallway to the end, where half-log steps rose to the upper level. The suit-clad staff woman was waiting with her ID tags around her neck and a radio in her hand. She mumbled into it as he approached. She led him up two nights of stairs to the huge main level. Pacino emerged in a large open area, near a window wall overlooking the twinkling lights of the village. Two stone fireplaces were lit in the open area across the way, framing an arrangement of furniture.

The fireplace hearths were each big enough to roast a pig in, and the massive logs in them filled the room with warmth. In the center of the sitting area was a coffee table as big as a queen-size bed, cluttered with Writepad computers and printouts, old-fashioned colored paper maps, and coffee cups. Gathered around were four long couches and four deep easy chairs. To the side of the room two pine dining tables had been moved together, their surfaces covered with large notepad computer displays, charts of the East China Sea, and maps of White China. Tacked to the wall was a huge, twenty-foot-tall colored map of all of White China and the East China Sea.

The first thing Pacino noticed about the men gathered in the room was how casually they were dressed. O’Shaughnessy wore jeans and hiking boots with a ski sweater; James Baldini, the Army chief, looked like he was ready for a cocktail party, wearing a designer sports jacket and gabardine pants; the remainder were wearing ski pants and long-sleeved T-shirts or turtlenecks, after-ski boots. The only exception was Lido Gaz, the Secretary of War, who looked like he was back at the Pentagon, wearing an Armani three-piece suit over a starched white shirt and red-patterned tie. Dressed in service dress blues, Pacino felt like a fish out of water.

“Admiral, make yourself comfortable,” Jaisal Warner said. She was standing by the fireplace slim and shapely in her ski pants and boots, her hair tucked behind her ears. She held a steaming mug of coffee in one hand, a small Writepad in the other.

Pacino smiled at her. “Thank you. Madam President.”

He removed his service dress jacket and placed it on the back of the one empty easy chair, near the window side of the couch arrangement. Warner nodded to the seat, and he sat in it.

To Pacino’s right was O’Shaughnessy, James Baldini seated on the couch next to him. On the right corner easy chair was Jack Daniels, and in the couch to his right, facing the window, was Chris Osgood and Stephen Cogster. Warner returned to her easy chair in the midst of all of them. On an opposite couch, between Secretary of State Freddy Masters and Vice President Al Meckstar sat the Secretary of War, Lido Gaz. He was of medium height, slightly thick in the middle, in his late fifties, with silver hair and a craggy, coarse-featured face, and usually the best-dressed man in any room. Gaz would impress people on his initial meetings with his charm and his intelligence, but in the Pentagon E-Ring suite where he held his offices, he was moody, explosive, sarcastic, and bombastic. Pacino was careful around Gaz, and that approach had seemed to pay off. Gaz had always treated him with respect and courtesy.

Between Gaz and Pacino was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Bill Pinkenson, who shot Pacino a dazzling smile. Pinkenson always seemed like a favorite uncle, telling stories and talking to the troops. Yet when he focused on the task at hand, his judgment was sound and invariably on target.

As Pacino settled into his chair, he found every eye in the room looking at him. A bad taste rose to his mouth, a pool of bile forming in his stomach. This was not the kind of meeting where he would sit in and watch the debate go back and forth. He’d been called to give his opinion. For the tenth time that day, Pacino wondered why he was there, and why O’Shaughnessy had yet to talk to him.

“Admiral Pacino, I want to thank you for coming out with Admiral O’Shaughnessy.” President Warner smiled.

“I know we’ve kept you downstairs while we went through some things, but believe me, it was all boring stuff.” At that Lido Gaz frowned, as if saying Warner was going overboard. She sat back, gesturing with a laser pointer to the map. “I’m sure you gentlemen will correct me if I mess up this explanation to Admiral Pacino, and forgive me, Admiral, if I get any of this wrong, but here is how I understand this. You can see on the map, the big board, that our Rapid Deployment Force will be going in with the transport ships of the Naval Pacific Force Fleet. The target, and this is release 24, will be Wangpan Yang, the bay south of Shanghai. The generals think we have a good landing zone there. Our forces will fight their way to Shanghai and take this whole area. We’ve been discussing that for quite some time, so I’ve spared you about two hours of our deliberations. Once the beachhead is secure, our forces will move farther out to here, while we land more troops by airlift and sealift. Although the RDF will be striking quickly, our main force will be landed over the next weeks and months. Meanwhile we are planning to insert the 82nd Airborne Division here, deeper behind the lines, with the Seals and Green Berets here, the Joint Special Forces Brigade. As you may have suspected. Admiral, the key to this entire operation is the sealift and invasion from the sea. Our question to you centers on the East China Sea.”

Pacino swallowed. Here it comes, he thought. She’ll want to know if they can be assured that the sealift operation would be safe, even though the East China Sea would be an ideal hunting ground for submarines.

“Our three aircraft carriers of the Navforcepacfleet have two escort nuclear submarines, as I’m sure you’re aware. Admiral,” Warner continued, smiling slightly at him. “They, and the surface force, will be escorting nearly seventy ships, loaded with the Marines and the RDF. Now, you remember the discussion we had before the Japanese blockade, I assume.”

“Yes, Madam President,” he said, looking her in the eye.

“As I recall during that discussion, you were critical of the employment of our armed forces. And, as I recall, you were completely right.” Warner eyed the other men in the room. “Which is one reason you see so many new faces at this meeting that weren’t here last time.”

She was warning them, Pacino thought. It was no accident that O’Shaughnessy, Baldini, Pinkenson, and Gaz had come to power over the last eighteen months. Now that the pre-Japan crew had been fired, this group was being told that their decisions here had better work, or these men would also be sent packing. He glanced quickly at the four Pentagon leaders, and saw four poker faces.

“And that is one reason you’re here. Admiral. Consider yourself my rabbit’s foot.” The men laughed shallowly, and Pacino shifted in his seat. He was no Pinkenson, able to schmooze with the president and members of Congress, laughing and drinking with people who pushed the buttons on the future of the world. He could never do for a living what Dick O’Shaughnessy did, commanding the Navy on one hand, on the other glad-handing politicians. All he could do was speak his mind, tell his bosses what he thought. Yet here, he was speaking to a commander-in-chief in the face of three levels of his chain of command, any one capable of putting him in charge of paper clips in the Aleutians. He focused on Warner, waiting for her question.

“Since you were so right last time, this time there is one thing I want to know.” She looked at him, her blue eyes wide, her smile encouraging. “And that is, will this fleet be safe in the East China Sea? Can your two escort submarines keep them out of trouble? From any Red diesel subs, or mobile mines, or robot mines, or manned minisubs, or any other threats that the Reds may have? Are we doing the right thing here? If we’re putting our force in jeopardy, to hell with what I said to the press, I’ll backpedal like crazy if you tell me to. Is the fleet safe? You spoke up last time, and I should have listened. Now, please speak your mind, I guarantee I’ll listen.”

So will the rest of the room, he thought.

What did Pacino’s gut tell him? Daniels had proved to him that six Rising Sun submarines had sunk — say, disappeared. The Reds had jumped over the line into White China. They had done so without fear of reinforcements from the East China Sea. A senile old man had said that Pacino would be up against Red subs. For all Pacino really knew, Donchez might have been telling him he’d be standing against the red anti-barnacle paint of his own SSNX. But he was being too cerebral, he told himself. The real question was, What did his gut say?

“Madam President,” Pacino heard himself saying, his voice miraculously level and deep. “I would never presume to come into this group and think out loud. I would very much like to issue an opinion in two sentences that everyone here nods at, and you send me on my way. But before I give you my opinion, I just want to say a few things first.”

He had their complete attention. Daniels had raised an eyebrow. O’Shaughnessy had gone into his zombie stare. Baldini frowned, as did Lido Gaz, lines furrowing into his forehead. Pinkenson smiled encouragingly, though the smile was strained. National Security Adviser Cogster was leaning far back in his couch seat, his hands behind his head, his eyes half shut behind the wire-framed glasses.

“As a submarine admiral, I have some concerns about the East China Sea.”

“Now you tell us,” Gaz spat, only half under his breath.

“Madam President, gentlemen, this invasion was sudden. I know you stationed the RDF over in Yokosuka for just this contingency, Madam President, and I agreed with your decision to do that. I also fully support the speech you gave today. But, gentlemen, we need to recognize the risks. And one thing we’re risking is a submarine attack in the East China Sea.”

“What?” Cogster sputtered. “What the hell you talking about?”

Baldini joined in, peeved. “Pacino, what is this?”

“Admiral,” Lido Gaz said slowly, drawing out the first syllable, “do I understand you to say there are enemy submarines in the East China Sea?”

“I said we are taking risks,” Pacino continued, iron in his voice. “I didn’t say those risks were unjustified. But I have to tell everyone in this room, I’m worried about something. Number one, eleven days ago six frontline Japanese attack submarines disappeared.”

“Sank, you mean,” Cogster said.

“Did they?” Pacino shot back. “No emergency buoys, no black-box transmissions?” He was out on a limb, he knew, but Cogster had gotten his blood up.

“Let’s ask Chris Osgood what he thinks of that statement,” Gaz said in his peculiar lisping manner.

The CIA chief looked up, sitting straight. He shot a look at Pacino, and Pacino was sure there was an almost imperceptible nod behind it. Osgood put on reading glasses, half frames like O’Shaughnessy’s, and read through his Writepad. “Admiral Pacino is correct. There were no black-box buoys found at the wreckage sites. And no black-box transmissions recovered at NSA.”

“Well, okay,” Gaz said slowly, doubtingly, “I guess if you say that, Chris, we’ll all just have to accept it.”

“Is that true, as far as NSA knows?” Cogster said, shooting a glance at Daniels.

“We didn’t get anything from any transmitter at the Pacific wreckage sites,” Jack Daniels said, addressing Warner, turning to Osgood and Gaz.

An odd thought occurred to Pacino. “Any salvage vessels at the wreckage sites?”

Osgood nodded, looking down at his Writepad. “Matter of fact, quite a few,” he said.

“Anything that can haul up a sub hull?” Pacino asked.

“Only one. Two ships went out there, each one with a surveillance minisub, robot operated. The salvage ship that can haul up floor debris jumped around from site to site. We never saw them bring up anything, but then we weren’t watching them carefully. We figured any information on this would come through more official channels. Your contact at the MSDF, Tanaka, did you speak with him. Admiral?”

“Not yet,” Pacino said, hating the way his priorities could become crystal clear in hindsight, yet so murky in real time.

“Please,” Gaz said in disgust. “Those subs sank. What are you saying. Admiral, that six captains faked their deaths so that they could link up with their revolutionary comrades in the Red PLA? Like my grandmother used to say, ‘Maybe so, sonny, but I kinda fuckin’ doubt it.’”

“Worry number two,” Pacino drove on, fighting for his credibility, “we’ve never secured the East China Sea, not the first sonar surveillance, not the first SSN patrol.”

O’Shaughnessy sat up straight, his face forming into lines of thought, the zombie look dissolving.

“If there is anything there, from whatever source, we’d best get on it now. Get the Seahawks and the Blackboards and the Pegasus planes out over the water now and get the dipping sonars wet, get some sonobuoys out there. And for God’s sake, get the Annapolis and the Santa Fe, the 6881’s attached to the fleet, out ahead of the carriers and scour the lane from Japan to Shanghai, clean it completely up. And one other thing, let’s get the fleet on a random antisubmarine warfare zigzag pattern immediately. It’s damned hard to shoot at a serpentine target, especially if the zigs come randomly. And let’s form the fleet into an antisubmarine formation, destroyers and frigates in front, troop ships spread out, high-value aircraft carrier targets — I mean, ships — coming in three separate task forces, far apart, each carrier surrounded by its close-in-radius destroyers with a roving destroyer-frigate force combing the waters ahead. And finally, if Shanghai is the target, let’s set up a feint for someplace else, Tsingtao or Lian-yung-ang, and then zig our way to Shanghai.”

Pacino looked at the faces in the room. For a moment he was about to launch into a speech about Dick Donchez’s premonition, or vision, or hard intelligence, about Red subs, when Gaz asked him straight out: “Admiral, does your excessive caution here have anything, anything at all to do with Dick Donchez?”

Pacino glared at Gaz, trying not to blink. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see O’Shaughnessy’s head looking downward, slowly shaking from side to side.

“No,” Pacino said. “I hadn’t spoken to Dick in weeks, maybe months. When I got to the hospital, he was in a coma. He died within hours.” He felt like he’d just betrayed his own blood, his ear almost waiting to hear a rooster crow three times. Uneasy, he decided to press Gaz in return, to see what was going on. “Why? What’s the deal with Dick Donchez? Why did you ask me that, Mr. Secretary?”

Gaz waved the question away, as if it were insignificant, yet he was flustered.

“Admiral, we all know how you felt about Director Donchez,” Warner said to him, her face serious, looking him in the eyes. “Toward the end he was saying some odd things, some, well, quite frankly, some very wild things.” Pacino shot a look at Daniels, whose eyes were on the rug. “And he was convinced that the Red Chinese had plans afoot to obtain submarines.” She looked at Pacino even harder.

“Madam President, I appreciate your concern.” He was about to mention that he’d only been briefed on the Japanese subs that very day, but decided that, as John Paul Jones had said, discretion was the better part of valor, and said instead, “I don’t have anything from Donchez on this. I’d have to ask Director Daniels his opinion on this subject. He was closer to Donchez than anybody here.”

The focus of the room immediately turned from Pacino to Daniels, as if in the lions’ den he’d thrown a raw T-bone steak at the young NSA director. Warner stood and walked around the back of O’Shaughnessy’s and Baldini’s couch to Daniel’s chair.

“Well, Jack?” she asked. “What’s your report?”

“Well, Madam President, at NSA we’re running a code-breaking shop, not a naval intelligence task force. We were busy intercepting the Japanese comms coming down on the loss of the Rising Suns and the Red Chinese as they mobilized. I never saw Donchez discuss this or give any evidence. And frankly, Dick was busy himself.”

“Doing what?” Warner asked.

“Dying,” the outspoken agency chief shot back.

Warner sighed, walking back to the fireplace. “Admiral Pacino, your advice on taking cautions with the fleet is duly noted. And we sincerely appreciate your input I assume you’ll be returning to Norfolk now?”

“No, ma’am, I’ve got work in Peari Harbor.” He didn’t feel like mentioning the SSNX, a sore subject with the president.

“Have you got a ride?” she asked, gesturing with her chin toward the window. Snow had begun falling, driven by a slight wind, the flakes large in the gable’s spotlights.

“Staff plane’s at Jackson Airport,” he said, looking at her, standing up and buttoning his service dress blue jacket.

“Well, then, good luck. Admiral. Thanks again.” With that she came over to him. He tensed for a moment unsure of what was going on. Over a head shorter than him, she put her arms around him, hugging him slightly, and gave him a brush on his cheek with her lips, the gesture a sister would give him.

He felt the heat on his face, sure he was blushing, as he turned to the room, nodding to Warner and his Pentagon bosses. “Madam President, Mr. Secretary, Generals, Admiral.” He spun on his heel and followed the staff woman quickly down the log stairs, exhaling in relief as he hit the bottom step.

The Land Rover Warner had lent Pacino spun its wheels, finally digging into the fresh, powdered snow and bouncing down the road leading to Route 390.

Pacino had changed into working khakis, wearing an arctic parka over the light uniform. While he had been changing, back in the room, Paully had given him a sardonic look.

“You been kissing the Secret Service girl?”

“What?”

“Your cheek? Lipstick? Honestly, I leave you alone for a half hour, and look what trouble you get into—”

“Shut up,” Pacino said, grinning. Wiping off Warner’s mark, he felt an odd guilt that he was finding humor in what had been the bleakest period of his life since his divorce. Something came back to him, something one of his submarine skippers, Bruce Phillips, had said to sonarman Gambini, the one who’d lost his wife — he’d said, “don’t feel bad about feeling good.” A seemingly obvious comment, but perhaps only those who’d lost a close loved one knew how tough it was to do just that.

Yet perhaps that was the meaning of the dream he’d had, at least what he could remember of it, that he should do whatever he could to move on, and the past would forgive him for moving on.

It would be just Pacino and White on this flight, Paully having sent Cressman back east with a Writepad full of instructions for Admiral Kane. As the Land Rover arrived at Jackson Airport, the wind was blowing the quarter-sized snowflakes at a gentle angle. The SS-12 could be seen behind the small general aviation building. Pacino directed the driver to pull up to it. The lights inside were a warm gold color, viewed in the darkness. As the Land Rover screeched to a halt, the hatch forward of the swept wing opened, a ladder extending downward to the snow. Pacino ran up and in, greeting the pilot, spinning his finger in a “start-engines” whirl Paully had barely shut the hatch behind them when the turbines came up in a moan, then a shriek.

“You know the airport’s closed, right, sir? The weather’s not good enough to take off. Admiral,” the pilot called back. He was well versed in the admiral’s disregard for most civil aviation weather restrictions.

“Of course it isn’t — because we’re in a hurry. Now, get this damned thing in the sky before it gets any worse.”

“If the FAA comes, it’s your ticket.”

“Haven’t paid those guys yet.”

The jet arrived at the end of the runway. The snow had been cleared off an hour before, leaving plenty of time for more snow to accumulate and drift from the wind. The pilot throttled up slowly, allowing the plane to accelerate gently on the slick surface, then, as the midpoint of the runway approached, he gunned it. After a tense moment of bouncing down the snowy runway, the supersonic transport rocketed skyward, engines howling.

Pacino took off his arctic parka and threw it on one of the seats up front, then burrowed into his seat. He turned on his Writepad, deciding to see the latest upload from Satellite News Network on the Chinese Civil War.

As he flashed through the magazine-style articles, the unit began to flash — urgent E-mail coming in.

He looked at his Rolex. The last thing he felt like doing after that hairy meeting at the Western White House was work, but he decided he might as well get the E-mail out of the way. After meeting Jack Daniels and getting confronted with his lack of attention to routine administration, Pacino had cleared his entire electronic desk off on O’Shaughnessy’s 777, so this would be the only E-mail. As he opened up the system, he saw it was top-secret release 24, the highest Pacino’s system could accept. He went through the software, validating his identity, even putting his thumb on the scanning sector so that he could make sure he was Michael A. Pacino before it downloaded.

He read the summary line, listing the date and time of transmission, the classification, the subject, and the sender. He looked at the summary, blinking in astonishment The line read:

A message from a dead man? Pacino felt a shiver crawl up his spine.

She stood at the window and looked at the black Land Rover that drove Admiral Michael Pacino back to his staff plane. Now her RDF had set sail for White China, and her mind whirled with all the policy meetings she’d had in the week before, as Red China mobilized, and how they had been filled with guessing and unanswered questions, with the wild speculation of NSA Director Donchez before his collapse in his office last week, and with Lido Gaz’s exasperation with the idea of Red Chinese submarines in the East China Sea.

In Warner’s customary attempt to flush out the opinions of her cabinet, she went around the room. The results were predictable. Al Meckstar, the easygoing VP, voted with Pacino, remembering for the room the devastation last time after the loss of the surface battle fleet to the Japanese. Lido Gaz was disgusted. He insisted the fleet hit the beach after all his work to get it underway fast, and then accused Pacino of failing to finish the SSNX, embarrassing the administration. General Pinkenson, consummate politician, chose a middle ground, suggesting the Japan-based aircraft deploy while the fleet steamed on. O’Shaughnessy voted with Pacino, enraging Gaz, who had to be canned by Warner. Finally Chris Osgood, CIA director, weighed in, gently disagreeing with O’Shaughnessy and voting for the present timeline.

Blowtorch Cogster, the National Security Adviser, attacked Pacino personally, calling his mental clarity into question. Finally she turned to the Secretary of State.

“And so now it comes to you, Secretary Masters.”

Masters drew himself up in his seat, puffed out his chest, and stuck his lower lip out.

“Madam, if you want my opinion, you’ll just have to hear it in private. I’m not rendering it here.”

Warner looked at him, one of the most levelheaded, intelligent, and clear-thinking cabinet members she had ever had, but also one of the most pugnacious, far outdoing Gaz on that score. She knew better than to order him to speak — he’d resigned on her too many times for her to do that now. And she needed his opinion. Besides, it was late, far after midnight, and she needed to make a decision.

“We’ll recess again,” she said to the room. “Secretary Masters, please stay. Everyone else, please leave the room, but don’t leave the building and don’t fall asleep. I’ll reconvene this meeting soon.”

The men filed from the room. When they had gone, talking amongst themselves, Masters’ expression softened. He joined her at the coffeepot, putting his hand on her shoulder in a fatherly gesture.

“How you holding up, Jaisal? You okay? Anything I can do?”

She put her hand on his, grateful for the support, feeling all the stress and pressure hit her at once. What she wouldn’t give for a real skiing vacation, not one of these winter nightmares.

“I’m fine, Freddy. Thanks. Now give it to me straight. What the hell do we do?”

“You mean, what are you gonna do? Because after I give you this advice I’ll deny I said anything. Seriously, though, you don’t have time for all this submarine nonsense. You gotta go straight on till morning. None of this zigzag stuff. Just keep plowing.”

“What about the airborne patrols?”

Masters sighed. “If we do all that flying around with antisubmarine planes, those sharp-cookie Pentagon correspondents will shout to the world that we’re flapping about enemy subs. It’s a loser.”

“And what about the fleet formation?”

“We’re showing the flag here. Half the reason SNN is onboard the Webb is that they’re unwittingly campaigning for us. We need a background with cruisers and destroyers and all seventy troop transports. We need to look good out there. You ever think about why they used to have parades, showing the troops? Check out your history. Back in the days when the infantryman was the ultimate weapon, countries thought that if they paraded their soldiers with guns, other countries would count the men and say, whoa, too much, we ain’t messing with them. Well, this is a parade, except we’re doing it at sea. We need to march across that East China Sea like it’s a parade ground. We’re the cavalry, so we gotta ride high in the saddle with flags flying, guns blazing.”

“But what about the risks Pacino mentioned? And what about the Japanese subs that vanished?”

“Oh, please, they sank, Jaisal. Don’t give in to Donchez’s senile drama. Let’s keep our heads on. There ain’t no ghosts and there ain’t no Rising Suns flying Red Chinese flags. Now, can I please go to bed? I’m telling you, you and your damned five-hour encounter sessions, I’ve gotta sit on my fat butt and listen to your political appointees try to find their butts with both hands. Christ, what the hell do you think I was doing with my time, planning my investments? No, I’m covering your pretty little rear end and thinking this thing through. The sad thing is, I feel like I’m the only one thinking it through. Everyone else is looking for the political answer, all afraid Iron Jaisal Warner’s gonna fire them and send them home like you did the Japan crew.”

“Okay, okay, enough, Freddy. That’s my style, and those are my advisers, each of them as handpicked as you are. They just see reality differently, that’s all.”

“I think they’re blind.”

“Freddy, my daddy said something to me I’ll always remember. You know the story of the elephant and the blind men? Well, reality is an elephant, and we are all blind. So, Freddy, you want to know reality, you’ve got to interview every blind man who’s touched the elephant.”

“Do me a favor, Jaisal? Just don’t seat me next to the blind man who tried to find out about the elephant’s asshole, okay?”

Warner laughed. “Carol, get the advisers back!”

“What’s your decision?”

“Patrol planes from Japan. Escort subs go on ahead to sweep the sea. Otherwise, damn the Red subs, full speed ahead, parade field formation. Let’s make it look good, and get the hell to the beach. We’ll know by dinnertime tomorrow if it works.”

“Attagiri. You explain that to the blind men. I’m going to bed.”