Pirate

Chapter Fifty-five

The White House

“MR. PRESIDENT?”

Jack McAtee looked up from his desk in the Oval Office to see his longtime secretary, Betsey Hall, standing in the doorway. She had the look. Something was up. It was nearly ten o’clock at night and he was only now getting around to reading his goddamn PDB. The president’s daily brief was so sensitive only a dozen people shared it. He was bone-tired. Dr. Ken Beer, his newly appointed White House physician, had told him just this morning that he needed to get more sleep and more exercise. And cut down on the cigars. The bourbon and branch water. And that golf didn’t count as exercise and—

“Mr. President?”

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry, sir. It’s apparently urgent.”

“Who?”

“Mr. Gooch and General Moore to see you, sir. Assistant Secretary Baker from the State Department is in the Roosevelt Room, if you need him.”

“Please show them in, Betsey,” McAtee said.

His national security advisor, John Gooch, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Charlie Moore, walked in. He closed his PDB file and pushed it aside. Maybe he’d get to it before tomorrow’s report arrived on his desk at 6:45. He got to his feet and moved over to the sofa near the fireplace. Might as well be comfortable. The two men filed in and took the two chairs opposite him.

“Let me guess,” McAtee said, smiling at each of them in turn, “Something troubling is afoot.”

Gooch, a tall, thin Boston Brahmin, St. Paul’s and Harvard, spoke first. This was not at all unusual. The NSA talked and the JCS chairman listened. Moore would hold his fire until he heard something he and the president would construe as actionable. Sometimes this happened and sometimes it did not.

“Mr. President,” Gooch said, riffling through a sheaf of reports, “I don’t like what I’m seeing here. There are patterns here that—”

“Tea-leaf reading again, John?” McAtee said, firing up his Partagas Black Label despite doctor’s orders.

“I’m afraid it’s a bit more than that. We’ve got French naval assets—here, have a look at the overheads. Time-sequenced satellite imagery shows French assets moving rapidly out of the Indian Ocean into the Gulf of Oman…go ahead, sir, take a look.”

“What am I looking at?”

“That’s the nuclear carrier Charles de Gaulle, sir, their flag vessel, and—”

“Just last month you—or someone—told me the de Gaulle was laid up in dry dock for repairs,” McAtee said. “Her reactors were throwing off too much radiation. The crews were getting sick and suing the goddamn French government.”

“They’ve apparently repaired her, sir. At least temporarily. Here you’ve got tankers, destroyers, frigates, subs…”

“Goddamn it, this is an offensive configuration—or am I wrong?” McAtee said, holding up a photo for closer inspection. “These smaller boats here and here are amphibious landing craft, right?”

“Indeed they are, sir.”

“So they’re going ahead with this damn thing, John, this invasion.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Goddamn it! Are they fucking nuts?”

“Not all of them. You can point the finger directly at this man Bonaparte, sir. He’s going to have to be dealt with, sooner rather than later. We’re building the Interpol file now. It’s only a matter of days before we go public with the patricide story.”

“Guy murdered his own father to get ahead in the Union Corse. At sixteen. You believe that, Charlie?”

“From what I’ve heard about him, yes, it’s believable.”

“He’s guilty of homicide and we can prove it, sir. We’ve got an eyewitness to that crime. I just got a call from Captain John Mariucci, NYPD. He and a Scotland Yard man named Ambrose Congreve located a witness in New York.”

“I know Congreve. Through Alex Hawke. Any news from him, John? Hawke, I mean.”

“As you know, Hawke is involved in an arm’s-length operation to get the sultan out of Oman alive, Mr. President.”

“Right. Put him in front of a camera. Have him tell the truth about Oman asking France to invade. France has pulled the wool over the world’s eyes for long enough. Suppress an insurrection, my ass. They’re going in for oil to sell to China.”

“Our team is inside the fortress on Masara Island now, Mr. President. They went in to pull the sultan out at 1140 hours EST. About twenty minutes ago. We are monitoring real-time.”

“Hawke and I go back a long way. Not the kind of man who’ll let us down. But the sooner we get Sultan Abbas out of that hellhole, the better. Do what you have to do, John.”

“We’re on it, sir.”

“All right, Charlie. What do you make of this French navy in the Arabian Sea bullshit? All this faux muscle-flexing?”

“It may be just that, Mr. President,” General Moore said. “The CNO has been on the horn with Frank Blair, who commands the Sixth Fleet now…they’re trying to get a read on it, sir.”

“Is the fleet moving?”

“Yes, sir. The Pentagon confirmed that Admiral Starke’s lead units entered the canal at 1700 hours. They’re positioning for a holding action. Assume we control the canal at this point—no one in, or out, unless we give the word.”

“Good! Now that’s thinking ahead.”

“That is good,” Gooch said, “but we haven’t heard from the Egyptians, or the Chinese, or the rest of the ‘striped-pants’ crowd yet.”

General Moore leaned forward in his chair. “Frankly, Mr. President, the French are overextended and they know it. Probably a little tension in the dialogue back in Paris. They know we could take them down in about four hours.”

“I know we could. We could, but we won’t. Because France, as we all know, is just a goddamn shill for the Chinese, a prophylactic in this whole thing. Hell, if China wasn’t involved—let’s talk seriously about this China gambit. Where are we with them? John?”

“Certainly, sir,” Gooch said. “Here’s where we are now. There are—”

“Don’t tell me. Two schools of thought,” the president said with a wry smile. He’d been down this well-traveled road before.

“Exactly,” Gooch said. “That much hasn’t changed. On the one hand, the State Department’s position. State says don’t rock the boat. We can go along to get along. Because we have to.”

“On the other hand,” General Moore said, “there’s my position. Send a signal to the French and the Chinese that we won’t tolerate interference with our oil supply in the Gulf. The kick-ass-and-take-names position.”

The president smiled and waited for Gooch’s reaction.

“Mr. President,” Gooch said, “we probably ought to round-table this in the morning. Get a fresh look at it from State, the Pentagon, and the Agency—especially if you are considering a policy change. I have to tell you I firmly believe we can get along with China once we move past this situation in Oman. We have to, sir. In all honesty, we’re in a very tight spot with Beijing.”

“You mean we find a way to get along with them or we’ll tank our own economy.”

“Exactly my feeling, Mr. President.”

“John, the bullet points. Just briefly.”

“There are two pressure points with China, sir. Our economy and Taiwan. The one that concerns me most right now is the former.”

“Because?”

“Because if we lean on China about the OOTB in Taiwan or their little misadventure in Oman, we run the risk of an economic—”

“OOTB? What the hell is that? Why does everybody who comes in this office have to sound like a walking Tom Clancy novel?”

“Mr. President,” General Moore said, “It’s an acronym for ‘out-of-the-blue.’ It’s a top-secret plan on the Chinese books to use wargames in the Formosa Strait as a cover for a general invasion of Taiwan. It looks like typical peacetime maneuvers…until the troops involved suddenly move. China’s got over six hundred ballistic missiles and several hundred warplanes stationed within range of Taiwan. Launch in the predawn hours and, well, it could be nasty. You’d catch most of the Taiwanese troops in their barracks and their ships, tanks, and warplanes lined up like ducks. We don’t necessarily believe that—”

“Wait a minute!” McAtee said, stubbing out his cigar. “Hold the phone. Didn’t Brick Kelly say in our morning briefing three days ago that they are in the goddamn Taiwan Straits? The Chinese fleet?”

“Yes, Mr. President,” Gooch said. “They are.”

“Holding joint exercises with France, if I’m not mistaken. A shakedown cruise for that new Russian carrier they bought.”

“That’s correct, sir. Although France has now shifted the bulk of her assets to the Arabian Sea.”

“And you two are concerned with the economy?”

“He is. I’m not, sir,” General Moore said.

“No grandstanding in here, Charlie,” the president said.

“Okay, John and I are concerned about the economy in varying degrees.”

“Much better.”

“Damn right I’m concerned about it,” Gooch said. “Mr. President, if what Assistant Secretary Baker says is correct—”

“Who?”

“Anthony Baker. NSC staff member, sir. East Asian Affairs. He’s across the hall in the Roosevelt Room if we need him.”

“Go ahead.”

Gooch cleared his throat and adjusted his pale-blue Hermès tie. “We push France, in effect, China, on this Oman thing and China pushes back, big time, economically. As you are only too aware, sir, they are the largest holders of U.S. Treasury bonds in the world. Which keeps our interest rates low. China gets pissed off, sir, and stops buying U.S. bonds—well, I don’t need to tell you what happens.”

“Tell me anyway.”

“What happens is, to get new buyers, Treasury has to increase interest rates they pay on bonds. Ripple effect—everyone’s interest payments go up. Next, China stops selling cheap goods. The average American’s cost of living shoots up, China’s unemployment spikes, their export sector shuts down. U.S. inflation goes through the roof and so does everybody’s mortgage and credit card charges.”

“A lose-lose situation for both of us. Charlie?”

“I’m far more concerned about Taiwan, sir. What John says about the economic implications of any showdown with China is indisputable. Currency is the most decisive factor in foreign affairs. And they can sink our currency. But, here’s the thing. And, this point is nonnegotiable. China must have oil. It is absolutely essential. Everything else is bullshit. Push them and they will, Mr. President, I repeat, they will play the Taiwan card.”

“They’re doing just fine without Taiwan. Double-digit growth. Why are they so goddamn obsessive about it?”

“Because they’re not too keen on having a model of democracy just off their coast and they don’t particularly like us using Taiwan as our personal naval air station.”

“General Moore, put this whole goddamn thing in English for me.”

“If we order France out of Oman, China will push back using Taiwan. And I’m not talking about rampant U.S. inflation or goddamn spiking credit card charges. I’m talking about a nuclear confrontation that could change the quality of American life, sir. They will put Taiwan on the table because they have no choice. They will make that move.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it for me, Mr. President,” Moore said.

“John?”

“I’ve been saying this for four years, Mr. President. We’re vulnerable where China is concerned. But it’s a perfectly balanced symbiotic relationship, sir. They need us every bit as much as we need them. Economically. They won’t touch Taiwan. It would destroy everything they’ve worked to build. Wipe it out. They won’t do that.”

“Thanks for stopping by, gentlemen. Charlie, could you stick around for a couple of minutes? I’ve got something else.”

As the president got to his feet, the two men were already up. As they turned to leave, the president put his hand on General Moore’s shoulder. Gooch kept moving. As he left, the president took the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff by the arm and guided him over to the bourbon decanter. He poured each of them a healthy one.

“If you think they’ll move on Taiwan, Charlie, that’s good enough for me.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

“So, we damn well better be ready for them. Operation Wild Card.”

Moore looked at the president. Those were the three words he’d been dreading.

“We will be ready, Mr. President,” Moore said.

“Harry Brock’s working directly for you on this, right? Not CIA?”

“I sent him to China. I sent him to Oman, sir.”

“You getting any direct word from Brock or Alex Hawke? This whole Gulf thing gets a lot less nerve-wracking if we can point the finger directly at France. At this fucking Bonaparte.”

“Not a word since they went in. We should know within the hour, sir.”

“You’ll let me know as soon as you’ve got something?”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“Cheers.”

“Cheers.”

“Mr. President?” Betsey Hall had reappeared in the doorway.

“Yes?”

“Sorry, sir. Mr. Gooch would like to—”

Gooch brushed past her and came into the room, his face drawn.

“I’ve just received word, sir. French troops and armored vehicles are landing on the Omani coast. They’ve opened up a naval bombardment of the capital of Muscat and certain important coastal cities. Paratroops are on the ground at the airport.”

“Jesus,” McAtee said. “Any word from Hawke?”

“Just now, sir. He’s safely out.”

“Did he bring Sultan Abbas out with him?”

“No, sir. The sultan is dead. He was killed during the rescue attempt.”

“Goddamn it.”

“There is some good news. Hawke’s got it, sir. He’s got the sultan on tape pointing the finger straight at France. Denouncing Bonaparte. Denying that he invited France in.”

“Thank you, John. Call the networks and get that tape on the air immediately. CNN, FOX, Al Jazeera.”

“Done.”

“And get Mr. Bonaparte on the phone. It’s time I had a little têteà-tête with this asshole.”