The Third World War: A Terrifying Novel of Global Conflict

39

Camp David, on the Catoctin Mountain in Maryland, was a thirty-minute helicopter journey from Washington. In winter Aspen, the presidential lodge, a single-storey, four-bedroom stone-and-timber building, sat on a bed of snow amid clusters of stark, leafless trees. It was created by Franklin Roosevelt and over the years each president had added his own touch. Jim West had yet to do so.

Their first winter in office after the inauguration was so harsh that the Wests never made it to Camp David. The mountains kept the temperature five to ten degrees colder than in Washington, and snowstorms made helicopter landings precarious. Then, in the spring, Valerie was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Secondary cancers were found in the lymph nodes. As she became more ill and exhausted from chemotherapy, the constant presence of the secret service began to irritate her. Rather than rest in unfamiliar surroundings, Valerie chose to stay either in the White House or go to their family ranch in Virginia.

As West changed out of his suit in the bedroom with its spectacular winter mountain views, he was glad of his decision to bring everyone down here for the summit. Valerie's voice and presence was everywhere in the White House. During their long marriage, they had talked constantly about the presidency. As a young politician, he had taken her around the White House rooms and, as he became more successful, they frequently found themselves as guests there. Her death, sudden but painful as it was, had probably affected him more than he allowed himself to examine. To lose a soulmate of more than thirty years had to change a man. Was it madness when he found himself making a cup of coffee for both of them, or when he spoke aloud while reading a newspaper article on something that would have interested Valerie? Was it forgetfulness? Or was it wishful thinking?

Whatever the answer, he felt the unfamiliarity of Camp David was helping. There was a sense of stepping into a hotel more than a home. They had never slept together in this bedroom. Her clothes had never hung in the wardrobe. He had never watched her walk around after an evening with guests, smelling her perfume and watching her slip off her dress and kick off her shoes. Perhaps, he thought, he would note in his diary that the summit of world leaders at Camp David would be the weekend that he was able to move on; not to forget, nor to end the love, but to stop grieving and start living again.

He opened the door and stepped into the narrow, short corridor down to the long reception room, elegantly but sparsely decorated by his predecessor, with its floor-to-ceiling windows and freshly fallen snow on the patio outside.

The small, energetic figure of Toru Sato was bent over a telescope as Mary Newman explained quietly in his ear the history of the Monocacy Valley spread out in the national park below them.

'Prime Minister,' said West, speeding up his step and stretching out his hand. 'I do appreciate your coming. I hope it's not too cold for you.'

If Sato retained any ill will from their earlier blunt exchange, he didn't show it. 'Japan has inhospitable winters as well,' he replied, taking the President's hand. 'But I do not have any place as beautiful and as close to Tokyo to retreat to in times of crisis.'

'Come,' suggested West, ushering Sato to a sofa and taking the one at right angles to him. Newman quietly slipped away leaving the two men together, having made sure pots of tea and coffee had been delivered to the table, together with a jug of water and notepads and pencils.

'I wanted to have a private word before the others arrive, Prime Minister,' said West. Sato had not invited him to use any other more familiar term of address, so West stuck to the formal approach. 'India and Pakistan are on the verge of war. We believe Pakistan has some kind of new practical support coming from North Korea, but we have no idea what it is. We do know, however, that both countries are under new military rulers.'

'And North Korea has killed fifty-eight of your citizens by firing a missile on to Japanese soil,' reminded Sato.

'Correct,' said West. 'In complete confidence I tell you that Jamie Song, having agreed to our carrying out pre-emptive strikes on North Korea, has now said we cannot strike above the fortieth parallel which would leave many of the launch sites intact. You know that Vasant Mehta has thrown out a challenge to us — either go in and take Pakistan or he's going to offer it to the Chinese.' West, his brow deliberately furrowed and his hands clasped together, looked straight at Sato. Newman had advised him to express humility. West hoped it was showing through. 'Prime Minister, I need your advice and your help. This is why I have come to you first.'

For a long time, Sato sat upright, looking out the window and saying nothing. He leaned forward and poured himself a cup of green tea from a pot. He drank it slowly, holding the cup precisely by the handle and keeping it close to his lips for each sip. When he had finished, he returned it to the saucer and wiped his mouth with a paper serviette.

'Really, you are talking to me about China, Mr President,' he said. 'If China was our ally, we could close down North Korea tomorrow. But it is not and that is where the problem lies. If China was our ally, in that it had the same goals as us, we could have negotiated an end to its military support for Pakistan and none of this terror culture would have been able to grow. But China is not our ally. In all my time in politics, Japan's relationship with China has remained haunted by the past. Our nationalist politicians continue to visit the Yasukuni Shrine, which honours men who were war criminals. We have had issues with our history books which sanitize the brutality of our occupying forces in China and elsewhere in Asia. But they are no different from American history books which gloss over your government's treatment of the native Americans, or the British who glorified their era of colonization.'

He stood up and moved to the window, then turned to face the room, showing an alertness in his eyes and remarkably swift movements that belied his age. West watched, but stayed silent.

'There is nothing we can do to rid ourselves of our history. China knows that, which is why it is using it,' said Sato, flipping his hand over as if to dismiss that section of his argument. 'But there is something far deeper and far more dangerous. We have a profound mutual distrust for each other because we are rivals for regional leadership. In the past century, with China's weakness, this has not been an issue. But she is no longer weak, and never in our history have both Japan and China been so powerful at the same time. China is wary that we are building a stronger military and that we are planning to project power again. It is also concerned about our alliance with the United States, our technology exchanges, our joint missile programme. It is suspicious of anything that would help Japan rid itself of shame. Yes, China and Japan have common ground, but it is limited. We are all part of the global economy. We are both big players in it. We both want stability on the Korean peninsula, but I doubt we will ever agree on how it is to be accomplished. Neither of us want nuclear war between India and Pakistan, but again, will we ever agree on how to create peace there?'

Sato paused again, wiping his finger down the condensation on the window, and touching his face with the cold moisture.

'What would you do if you were Jamie Song?' prodded West.

Sato laughed softly, glanced at West and then concentrated back on the window. 'A statesman has to decide who he is. Is he a statesman? Does he protect the interests of his state? Is he a philanthropist? Does he hand out largesse to societies less fortunate than his without asking for anything in return? Is he a humanitarian? Does he cast a searchlight around the world and find societies that need saving from their own stupidity or lack of luck? In order to recover from the loathing showered upon us, Japan has been both philanthropic and humanitarian. But I believe, Mr President, we should accept that all of us ultimately are simply statesmen. Therefore the bedrock of our interest is what is best for our nation, and,' he added with a quick smile, 'our own reputations.'

'I'm not sure you have completely answered my question,' said West.

Sato returned to the sofa and leant on the arm, bringing himself closer to the President. 'Yes, of course. You want me to read the mind of Jamie Song. If I were him, I would do everything to drive a wedge between the US and Japan,' he said, pointing his finger back and forth between the two of them. 'If he breaks that, he breaks everything that has underpinned our success since the Second World War. Also, if I were Jamie Song, I would calculate exactly when the conditions would be right for China to make the move to be the top dog in Asia. Is it now, when India is weakened by Pakistan, and Japan and the United States are threatened by North Korea? Or should China wait another fifty years, when he is long dead and the next opportunity arises?' He shrugged. 'Would I, if I were Jamie Song, make a move now? Of that I am not sure, as I suspect he is not sure.'

'And what would you do as Prime Minister of Japan?' nudged West.

'A good statesman will take any opportunity to make his nation great. I am an elderly man now, Mr President, and I know my people. I sense perhaps they feel that they cannot rid themselves of the legacy of the bad war of the last century without fighting a good one. There is an idea among us that we have to become a complete nation once again and put the spectre of our brutal past behind us.'

'By fighting another war?' asked West sceptically.

'Our economic success didn't do the job,' Sato answered with a regretful smile.

'And in order to stop that, I have to go to war with North Korea?' said West, his voice hardening.

'And take us as your ally. Yes. But China will never allow it.' Sato shook his head and clasped his hands together. 'I cannot tell you how to run your foreign policy,' he said. 'I am only telling you the pressures on me.'

'I'm not sure exactly what you are implying, Prime Minister,' said West, holding Sato's gaze.

'I'm implying that Jamie Song might have won already, and Japan might soon have to act on its own. Sitting in the security of Camp David is very different from sitting in Tokyo where a missile could strike us at any time. Don't forget, Mr President, that the Japanese are the only people who know what it is like to be on the receiving end of a nuclear explosion.'

Sato's eyes bored into West, sending a chill through the room that made the ravaging cold outside a more hospitable place to be.

'Where's Sato now?' asked Stuart Nolan, making sure no more than three drops of water fell into his glass of malt whisky to release the peat aroma. He took a sip, cupped his hands around it and leant back on the sofa.

'We put him in Birch,' said Newman, referring to one of the guest chalets. 'He has a young assistant with him by the name of Kiyoko Miyake. She's in Dogwood. Both chalets have just been done up and are a few yards apart.'

Nolan chuckled. 'No wonder the wily old bastard looks so young.'

'I hope you have the finer brain,' said West. 'Tom Patton's running late. Something's cropped up, and the Homeland Security Secretary is one person even the President doesn't prise away from his job.'

The US President and the British Prime Minister sat at opposite ends of a long sofa. John Kozerski and Charles Colchester had taken hardback chairs side by side in front of the window. At a dining table at the other end of the room, Brock, Newman and Pierce, who had just arrived from the Pentagon, worked on office papers, while occasionally chipping into the conversation. A faint smell of wood smoke wafted through the room from a log fire in the stone grate at the end.

'While we're waiting for Tom, tell me what you make of Sato,' said West.

'From the way you told it, Jim,' replied Nolan, 'I think he was giving it to you pretty straight. He's giving you a choice between Japan and China, and he's saying that, if needs be, Japan has the wherewithal and political motivation to go it alone.'

'What do you mean by wherewithal?' said West uneasily.

'Military muscle. That's what underscores it all.'

'Sato was talking about their nuclear capability,' said Brock from behind them. 'Declaring nuclear weapons has been linked before to the line about the bad war-good war.'

'That's all we need,' said West. 'India and Pakistan blowing each other up and China and Japan doing the same so they can become "complete nations" again. I've never heard so much bullshit.'

'If he sees it through, Mr President, it could mean an end to our bases in Japan,' said Chris Pierce. 'Anyone wants to weaken our presence in Asia, the Japanese only have to throw us out.'

'Would they ever do that?' wondered West aloud.

'The Philippines did,' said Nolan, pushing tobacco down into his pipe with a broken match, but not seeming to want to light it yet.

'We got thrown out of Vietnam. But it didn't make a damn bit of difference,' growled West.

'Good point,' muttered Nolan, interested as much in his pipe as in the conversation.

West cocked his head and turned round to look behind him. 'Chris, what's your take on what would happen if they threw us out?'

'It wouldn't be good, but we would manage,' said Pierce. 'We went back into the Philippines during the War on Terror. The Vietnamese would be happy to have us. We could increase our presence in South Korea. We've got ship repair facilities in Singapore. It wouldn't be the weakening blow the press would make it out to be.'

'Do you agree with that, Mary?' said West, squinting against a shock of sunlight which had broken through the thick blanket of snow falling on the lodge, spilling light on to the President's face.

'Our trade and diplomacy would continue,' said Newman, 'But our relationship with Japan would be more bland. I imagine our natural emphasis would shift to China.'

'Pete?'

'When New Zealand refused us ship visits in the 1980s, we cut them out of the intelligence loop. We would do the same with Japan. If they threatened to go nuclear, we would stop dual-use technology transfers. There's a heap of things which would run against them. I can't see what they would gain from it, frankly.'

'Let me say this,' said Nolan, putting his pipe face up in the clean ashtray. 'If we threw you out, closed the airbases, mothballed Menwith Hill and Fylingdales and all that, Britain as a nation which punches above its weight and — if I may say so — so skilfully provides that bridge between America and Europe, would be stuffed. The only reason to do it would be ideological, not pragmatic. In Britain, we were driven by ideological strains in the sixties and seventies. I was a young politician then and, believe me, you ignore them at your peril. Japan is suffering the same fate now. What I might suggest, Jim, is that you challenge Sato to say exactly where his leadership lies on this. If it's a case of him facing down his electorate and the Young Turks in his party, he must do that. If he himself is leading a pro-nuclear, pro-military, anti-American movement, then you must find another ally.'

'Well put, Stuart,' congratulated West, turning back on to the sofa again. 'Now in your inimical and avuncular style, tell me what was said between you and Andrei Kozlov on your trip down.'

'Marine One is not the quietest of aircraft,' replied Nolan. 'He had Alexander Yushchuk, his intellectual muse, with him. Charles dealt with Yushchuk mainly.'

'Yushchuk kept his own counsel,' said Colchester. 'The most I got out of him was a comparison of winter temperatures between Washington and Moscow.'

'And the only nugget of interest Kozlov said,' continued Nolan, 'was — and I'll quote him directly — "Have we been summoned because Jim West realizes his country's superpower shelf life is almost over?"' Nolan picked up his pipe and flicked on his lighter. Just as he was about to touch the tobacco with the flame, he flicked it off again. 'That from a man whose nation has seen its empire come and go a couple of times. So I replied — and what a pompous ass I am sometimes. I said, "Democracies are like rechargeable batteries, Andrei. There's no such thing as a shelf life."'

He lit his pipe, drawing on it as a blast of cold air swept through the room, blowing around sheets of paper from Colchester's file.

Tom Patton appeared before the staff could close the outside door of the lodge, bringing the rush of weather inside. The Filipino butler helped him off with his coat and shook the melting snow on to the stone tiles in the hallway.

'Sorry I'm late, Mr President,' said Patton, brushing down his lapels. He ran his hand through his hair, shaking the water on to the floor tiles. He turned to look behind him and stepped to one side to let through a less ruffled Caroline Brock. Peter Brock stood up, eyebrows raised. He had had no idea his wife was coming to Camp David in an official capacity. The others, including West, Nolan, even Newman, were all on their feet. Caroline Brock often had that effect on a room.

'Stuart, Charles,' said West, 'Tom Patton you may know from his regular television appearances. Caroline Brock is the better half of Pete over there. But I suspect her being here is to do with something altogether more sinister.'

Patton put his briefcase by the side of the coffee table and took a seat next to the President. For a moment Caroline was left unsure of where to sit until Nolan said, 'Mrs Brock, it would be my pleasure to have you next to me.'

'Is Campbell here yet?' asked Patton.

'On his way,' said Brock.

'Good. And Mason?'

'If it's Mason, the Australian virologist, you're after,' replied Brock, looking to Pierce who nodded his confirmation of what he was about to say, 'he's still at Guantanamo Bay under interrogation.'

'Tom,' suggested West gently, 'why don't you settle and tell us what all this is about. Join us in a Scotch.' He jerked his thumb behind him. 'They're not drinking because they're meant to be in their offices. But on this side of the room, the whisky's free and you look as if you could do with one.'

Patton let the President pour a glass and accepted the cubes of ice taken out of the holder and dropped in by hand. 'I don't think any of us are going to want to hear this,' he said, pulling a file out of his briefcase. He opened it on the coffee table, and glanced over to Brock. 'Lee Jong-hee, the South Korean officer who shot the North Korean in Panmunjom.' Patton took a sheet from the file and looked around the room, checking that everyone knew what he was talking about. 'Well, the NSA have intercepted three calls in the past day. One to his home phone number in Seoul. One to the barracks pay phone. And one to his cell phone. They were made one after another and came from a landline at a Korean community centre in Canterbury City, near Sydney, Australia. When Lee didn't answer, the caller hung up. It was the same number which Mason himself called from a phone box near his laboratory before the theft of the IL-4 agent.'

Patton handed the President a classified log sheet bearing the white-headed eagle logo of the National Security Agency. He patted down his hair, still wet from the snow. 'We have established a link between Mason and a Korean organization. The action of Lee Jong-hee at Panmunjom indicates there could be — and I don't want to sound over-dramatic — but there could be North Korean sleeper agents like him embedded in Korean communities all over the world. I hope to hell I'm wrong, but my job is not to take risks.'

He stopped to take a long drink of his whisky. West had appointed Patton because of his legendary list of contacts on Capitol Hill and throughout the state legislatures. He was the only candidate who West knew would smash down, physically if necessary, the walls that America's numerous security agencies built around themselves. Word had it that Patton was owed more favours than any other player in Washington, and could bully like no other man around.

'I need to get inside the Korean community in the United States,' Patton continued, keeping the glass in his hand. 'And we need to begin immediate work on a new smallpox vaccine, one that takes into account the IL-4 agent.'

West looked sceptically at Patton. 'What you're saying is that we have to revive our own biological warfare programme in order to combat this new threat.'

'Nixon's 1969 ruling did not prohibit work on offensive applications necessary to develop defensive measures,' said Patton. 'We would not be breaking the law. I've already spoken to Matt Lemont at Fort Detrick and Claire Glasse at the CDC in Atlanta. I explained the urgency. On your word, Mr President, they'll get to work.'

'How will we know if a vaccine will work?' said West, glancing towards Caroline.

'When it's tested on a human being with smallpox,' said Caroline. 'And since smallpox has been eradicated, the answer is we won't. Ideally, the tests should be ethnically categorized. The immunization system of a Caucasian is different from that of an Asian-American, African-American or Hispanic. If Park Ho has indeed obtained the IL-4 from Canberra and smallpox virus from Pokrov, he would be well under way with tests. Let us assume those tests began immediately, and that they have been conducted on human beings — which we can't do. Then they're already way ahead of us, Mr President.' She covered her face with one hand and shuddered. 'It's frightening. It's really frightening,' she whispered.

West handed back the NSA log to Patton. 'Go ahead,' he said softly.

The noise of a helicopter sounded over the lodge, the machine's searchlights flashing from the skids and lighting up the snow. Newman stood up, gathering her papers together but leaving them on the table. 'That's Marine One,' she said. 'I have to go meet Jamie Song.'

'Song,' mused West. 'North Korea's his turf and it's running out of control.'

'If you would like me to go instead and read him the riot act, I'd be more than happy,' said Nolan.

'Nice suggestion,' smiled West. 'But I feel Mary might be a touch more diplomatic.'

The helicopter became less audible, as it climbed to avoid a hazardous peak, its lights fading, then the noise was full on again as it came down on the helipad not far from the lodge.

'Lizzie's not going,' said West to no one in particular. The decision was personal. It didn't need explanation. 'And Mary, nothing of this at all. Everything's fine between us. Talk about ice skating in China. The World Trade Organization. The latest coup in Africa. But not a word about this or anything to do with North Korea.'

'Yes, sir,' she said, putting on her coat, slipping a woollen hat on her head and pulling the flaps over her ears. Her cool blue eyes smiled at him, but her face was serious. He could trust her. He should have trusted her before and, for a moment, as the enormity of what Patton had told him began to sink in, he thought himself unchivalrous for not going with her.

'Mrs Brock talked about ethnicity,' said Nolan, as Newman left. 'Charles, I might be completely wrong, but remind me of that scrap of intelligence on the disappearance of the Air Koryo flight.'

'A photograph in a North Korean newspaper showed an engine casing which was meant to be from the crash site,' said Colchester. 'One of our aircraft buffs simply spotted that it was not from a Tupolev, more likely one of their Ilyushin 62-Ms, which have the engines mounted at the back and the high tail fin.'

Nolan drew on his pipe and looked straight past the President to the views of the valley. 'So that's it. What a bloody monster! The Caucasian passengers on board have been harvested for biological weapons testing.'

'And we ignored it all the time,' muttered West, looking towards the door through which Newman has just gone. Among all of them, Mary had understood the danger.

'Caroline, how long to get a vaccine?' asked West

'Six months at the earliest. We'd be building on what we've got.'

'Do we have this IL-4 agent to work with?'

'We got some flown up as soon as the theft was reported,' said Patton.

'Chris, is our strike plan ready to go?'

'Any time, Mr President,' said Pierce.

'Land invasion, too?'

'Correct.'

'John, make sure Tom gets whatever he needs,' he instructed Kozerski. 'No leaks. No hint of what we're doing to anyone.'

Camp David had two helicopter landing sites, one which brought Marine One down inside the camp itself, and another at a lower altitude some miles away used when the weather was particularly bad. West had chosen to deliver Jamie Song to the lower one and was waiting on the helipad, snow sweeping across his face, wondering if the pilot would judge the weather too harsh and return to Washington. He stamped his feet against the cold and slapped his gloved hands together, but he stayed in the wind chill from the rotor blades as he watched Marine One inch its way to the ground. Jamie Song stepped out with Mary Newman by his side; then Newman, as pre-arranged, excused herself, ducking under the front of the aircraft to a car waiting on the other side. Jamie Song looked taken aback, but West gave him a friendly slap on the back and guided him by the elbow to the waiting car. There was a bulletproof screen between them and the driver and the secret service agent in the front. They took off their hats and gloves and loosened their overcoats, enjoying the immediate warmth from inside the car.

'Mary look after you OK?' began West affably. 'I had meant Lizzie, my daughter, to be there to meet you as well, but she got tied up.'

Song folded his gloves together and patted them down. 'I appreciate it, Jim. And I appreciate you coming out here to meet me. The pilot said something about this being an emergency landing site.'

West didn't pick up on Song's conversation. As the car pulled out, the crew of Marine One battened the aircraft down to keep it there until the weather improved. He let the Chinese President look out of the window where there was nothing to see except snowflakes falling so fast that the windscreen wiper had trouble moving them.

'I wanted to get you alone, Jamie, to ask if Mehta has talked to you yet?'

'Yes, he has. He called me shortly before I left — that is, if you're referring to his suggestion that we secure Pakistan's nuclear arsenal.'

'That's the one,' said West lightly.

'Yes,' said Song pensively. 'I've thought a lot about it. It's not just a matter of sending some guys in to take out some nuclear detonators, as you know.'

West nodded. 'If you want to do it, Jamie, you have our support. That's all I wanted to say.'

Song glanced sharply over with an expression of surprise, as if he had anticipated opposition, when West hadn't even wanted discussion.

Song tucked his gloves into his fur hat and loosened his coat further against the warmth of the car. 'I can't see it working. Mehta wants a whole package: the neutralizing of the nuclear weapons and the rooting out of the terror networks. We can't even do that in Tibet. So he knows we won't succeed in Pakistan. Then, when the next terror attack strikes India, Mehta sends in his troops without fear of a nuclear reprisal.' Song shook his head and smiled. 'I'm not even sure if it's a clever suggestion.' He spoke not like a man who understood the knife-edge of military brinkmanship, but as a boardroom negotiator who believed that, whatever the outcome, he did not stand to lose everything.

'It'd be helpful if we could find a way through,' said West softly.

Song didn't look at him. His eyes were staring straight ahead. 'The way through is to restrain Mehta and let Pakistan destroy the cancer within it.'

'Musharraf promised that and it didn't work.' West turned in his seat to face Song. 'Mehta's the one with his home blown up. Does he not have some right of retribution?'

'You don't get it, do you, Jim?' said Song, unwilling to hide his exasperation. 'If we go after the terror groups in Pakistan, they will target our western border area in Xinjiang. If that happens, we could throw away thirty years of economic growth to fight a damn civil war.' He slapped his hand on the door of the car, his eyes red from the jet lag and the cold. 'India, Pakistan and Kashmir are living examples of what we should not do. Now, I will help you if I can, but I will not jeopardize China's national interest in order to protect your own. If Mehta wants to start a war with Pakistan, then it's up to him. If you want to try and stop it, it's up to you—'

'Because it's in your interests that it does happen,' whispered West, barely able to conceal his anger. Song had his gaze focused out of the window, watching evergreens hanging thick with snow as the car slowly climbed a steep hill.

'I'll forget I heard that,' retorted Song brusquely.

The car slowed to take a sharp upward curve, the heavy armoured chassis handling it clumsily. The back wheels spun, slewing the car across the road, until the four-wheel drive locked in and the front wheels pulled it out of the ice patch.

Song turned back inside the car. 'Do they have a spare couple of presidents in Camp David in case we roll down the mountainside?' he quipped, as if their irate exchange had never taken place.

'A heap, Jamie,' said West tiredly. 'There's no one more easy to replace than a national leader.'

Mary Newman kicked off her shoes, opened a small bottle of Chardonnay from the minibar in her chalet, took a pad of Camp David notepaper from the desk, dropped down into the small sofa and picked up the phone. 'Lizzie, you want to come over now?'

Five minutes later, Lizzie West knocked, poked her head round the door, then held it open for Meenakshi to wheel herself inside as well, bringing a burst of weather behind her.

'Now, before we start, Meenakshi and I are pulling out of the dinner,' said Lizzie. She and Newman helped Meenakshi out of the wheelchair, and steadied her while she took off her coat.

'Right by the fire, and I'll be fine,' said Meenakshi, pointing to a Native American woven rug which lay in front of the hearth. Newman put out a couple of cushions for her, and they lowered Meenakshi down. Lizzie hung their coats on the door. Both women were dressed in heavy natural-wool pullovers and jeans. Managing to kneel, Meenakshi stoked the fire and put on another log. The flames caught its edges and flared up.

'I love this place,' she said, staring into the glow. 'It reminds me of a holiday home we used to use in Darjeeling, before my mother went chasing richer men.' She lay down, propping up her head on her elbow. 'There's something about mountain air — it does calm the troubled mind,' she said dreamily. 'Some day I'll write a medical paper about it.'

'How long are you in bandages for?'

'Don't tell anyone, but it's not as serious as it looks.' Meenakshi winked playfully. 'The key is to keep the weight off my legs. In a week or so, I should be fine.'

'Then you have no excuse to run away from our dinner,' said Newman, who had looked crestfallen at Lizzie's announcement. She had come back from walking the paths of Camp David, sorting out her thoughts, enjoying a few moments alone and away from her job. Meenakshi was right. The weather and the mountain air were having an effect and for some crazy reason she had been looking forward to an informal Camp David dinner hosted by Jim West. She had planned to be womanly again, and think of clothes, food and small talk instead of matters of state.

'I saw Dad after he got back with Jamie Song. He looked like thunder,' said Lizzie, sitting on the edge of the sofa. 'He told me a bit about what went on earlier. I wouldn't go near a meal like that if you paid me a million dollars.'

'Then I'll be the only woman there,' said Newman, tucking her feet under her on the sofa.

'Caroline Brock's still here.'

'Is she going?'

'Dad's expecting her.'

Caroline's presence at the dinner, without Lizzie or Meenakshi present, meant West planned to broach the topic of the smallpox. With Lizzie and Meenakshi there, Newman could have passed as another civilian family member, but the conversation would be bland, the occasion would be one of bonding, not substance.

'I'm sure it'll prove more useful for us to stay away,' said Meenakshi, with a suspicious lilt in her voice. She kept her eyes towards the fire, drawing shapes with the poker in cold ash fallen from the grate.

'Have you two got better offers?' asked Newman curiously.

'Depends how you look at it,' said Lizzie. 'When I told Dad Meenakshi and I wouldn't be joining him this evening, that cunning fox of a father of mine insisted on an alternative arrangement. He has set us up with Miss Kiyoko Miyake, the stunning personal assistant to Prime Minister Sato.'

'Who speaks three European languages, Chinese and Hindi,' added Meenakshi admiringly.

'And a rather sullen character called Alexander Yushchuk who looks like a reincarnation of Dostoevsky,' said Lizzie. 'The Brit, Charles Colchester, who's far too old and stuffy for any of us. And the rather dashing and mysterious Lazaro Campbell, who seems to have a soft spot for our very own Meenakshi.'

Meenakshi turned away, instinctively lowering her eyes at Lizzie's teasing. But she quickly recovered. 'Quite rightly so,' she countered, tearing herself away from the grate to make her point 'But he'll have to do a lot more than save my life to win my affections.'

'And why so?' persisted Lizzie, watching a smile spread over Meenakshi's face with a glacial slowness.

'A touch too arrogant, for a start.'

'I rather like him,' said Newman, laughing.

'Doesn't mean I have to.' She turned her smile into a captivating grin, then dropped it immediately and returned to the fire.

'But it doesn't stop you from fancying him,' teased Lizzie.

'Now that's different,' replied Meenakshi, who at first seemed to be focused entirely on the flames, then was struck by another thought altogether. 'Mary, how come Jamie Song doesn't have anyone with him?'

Newman shrugged. 'Jamie probably knows America better than he does China. I suspect he feels more relaxed when he's not being watched by one of his own staff.' She tore a sheet off the pad and handed it to Lizzie. 'What do you think? Casual and rough enough for our distinguished guests?'

Lizzie quickly read through, glanced in surprise at Newman who raised her eyebrows and nodded. Both women burst out laughing.

'Dad asked you to do this?' gasped Lizzie.

'He did. But I'm not too familiar with his tastes.'

Lizzie read out loud. 'Pumpkin soup; pan-fried veal in red wine sauce; boiled new potatoes with asparagus tips, and soft Camembert cheese souffle for dessert. Apart from the cheese souffle that sounds like Jim West through and through.'

'Should I change it?' asked Newman tapping her pen against her chin.

Lizzie shook her head and handed the list back to Newman. 'No way. He asked you. You deliver. Mum was always at him to widen his culinary tastes. But she never dared go against him.'

Silently, Newman folded the notepaper. As she was contemplating her forthcoming role as presidential hostess, the telephone rang. Reluctantly, she picked it up.

'Secretary of State,' she said.

'Mary, it's Pete. Can I drop by?'

'Sure,' said Newman with breezy sarcasm. 'This is what down-time is all about.'

Not until the cheese souffle had been finished, praised and cleared away, a coffee pot brought out with a cheeseboard, crackers, a bowl of fruit, and a trolley of liqueurs, brandy, vodka and whiskies offered around, did Jim West carefully turn the conversation by asking Vasant Mehta when Meenakshi would be out of her wheelchair.

It was an odd-looking dinner table, with West at one end and Newman at the other. The President had Caroline on his left and Andrei Kozlov on his right. Next to Kozlov was Stuart Nolan, then Peter Brock, with Toru Sato on Newman's left. Jamie Song faced Stuart Nolan across the middle of the table with Caroline on his right and Vasant Mehta on his left.

Chris Pierce had intended to be there, but was working on intelligence coming in on Patton's bioterror sweep. So there was an extra place on Song's side. When West spoke, therefore, it was right down the table to Mehta, a question thrown out in such a way that the side conversations between Brock and Sato and Song and Caroline tailed to a halt.

'Thankfully, she'll make a full recovery,' said Mehta. 'They managed to put a tourniquet on the artery, and get out most of the shrapnel.' He didn't mention that it was Campbell who had applied the tourniquet as his daughter's blood turned the back lawn from green to red.

Mehta said no more, and West looked silently down the table, straight past Newman and through the window beyond, chewing cheese and a cracker. He was throwing open the floor to whoever wanted to take it. This is why they were all there, and a daughter's injury was as good a starting point as any.

'Perhaps, Mr President,' said Kozlov formally, 'I can contribute.' He shrugged and sipped his vodka. 'Let me say this: Russia is resting now. You, all of you,' he waved his hand around the table as if the host and guests were a family of adolescents, 'you have decisions to make that Russia has made over the past few centuries — and mainly got wrong — which is why we have chosen during this cycle of global change to take a break.'

He pushed back his chair so that it was apart from the others, clasped his hands together and stretched them cracking his knuckles. 'Each nation, as it develops, has choices. It is torn between the inner soul of its villages and the riches outside its borders. In eighteenth-century Russia, Peter the Great turned his back on the east and chose St Petersburg as the capital to force our country out of its stagnation and embrace western culture. We became a nation where we only spoke Russian to our servants, and spoke French among ourselves. Not like you, Vasant,' he stressed, waving a finger at Mehta. 'You had a language imposed upon you by a colonizing power. No, we decided that our own language should be deemed socially inferior. So what happened? It created huge resistance flowing from the intellectuals and the artists down to the villages. No wonder Alexander Pushkin sought out the Russian village life. No wonder Ivan Shishkin ended up despising his foreign teachers in Europe, and only felt artistic freedom when he returned home to Russia. No wonder, on finishing with their universities, thousands of students abandoned St Petersburg and Moscow and headed deep into the countryside — and no wonder they were disappointed, as they discovered that despite their idealism, the reality of village life was a small-minded brutality, and that the poverty was endless.' Kozlov paused for a moment, allowing his thoughts to be absorbed. Then he lowered his voice and spoke more slowly. 'They discovered that finding Utopia is never easy, just as this evening we will find that politics are never tidy. Jim West has brought us together in midwinter in an idyllic mountain setting. Our minds may be clear, but the way through is not.'

Kozlov, the stubborn intellectual, had turned up unshaven for dinner, openly telling all that he had spent the afternoon drinking with his soulmate Alexander Yushchuk. He took centre stage now as the man who had endured years of condemnation by family and colleagues, a man who published his bank statement in the Russian press each month to avoid allegations of corruption, whose past gave him the credentials to hold the floor. He stood up, walked to the end of the table, stepped past Newman and poured himself another vodka from the trolley.

'Vladimir Putin took the same gamble as Peter the Great,' said Kozlov, walking back to his chair and sitting down heavily. 'There was resistance. My election has been the result. I happen to believe that Russia's future does lie in empowering the villagers, freeing the serfs if you like, and not in embracing NATO, the IMF, Hollywood and all your American values. If our love-in with America over the past twenty years had managed to seep wealth deep into the countryside, then perhaps I would not now be in office. But it didn't. Perhaps, after so much suffering, the Russian people are too impatient. Perhaps they know I will return a little bit of their own soul to them. They don't want tsarism. Nor do they want Marxism, but they want to feel they can create their own way and not copy that of another country. Of all of you here, I am the most neutral. Russia at this time is neither empire-building nor are we vulnerable and lashing out. We are here because of a series of terrible events. None of us planned them, I am sure. But each of us has chosen a career which means that we must decide how we will deal with them for the sake of humanity.'

Kozlov drained his vodka and stood up again, steadying himself on the back of his chair. He stepped round, putting both his hands on West's shoulders, then took them off, shaking his head. 'No,' he said, laughing to himself. 'I will leave you until last.'

Mehta looked up to see Kozlov heading towards him. But Kozlov ignored him. He gave Newman a wide berth, rested a hand on Caroline's shoulders, brushed passed Jamie Song, then stopped behind Sato, who remained rock steady, his face unreadable. Caroline glanced across the table at Newman, then back again to West, who was watching, fascinated at the Russian President's mix of drunkenness and insight. The Japanese Prime Minister flinched as Kozlov's clumsy hand rested on and squeezed his shoulder.

'Prime Minister Sato, you are an old warrior, indeed,' said Kozlov. 'In the evening of your political life, you find the younger generations restless. Uncle Sam defeated you and recreated you, but has never allowed you to forge your own path.' He pointed across the table to Jamie Song, who returned Kozlov's look quizzically with a thin, amused smile. 'Now, the Dragon awakes and threatens. If you leave things as they are, Japan will shrink in stature. How can it do anything else? So what do you do, Prime Minister?' he challenged, slapping Sato on the back. 'Preside over your nation's decline or fight for its future?'

Kozlov poured himself another vodka, drained the glass and left it in front of Sato, then walked round to Song, who turned round in his chair to face Kozlov. 'And what of the Dragon himself, who has so cleverly taken in McDonald's and American Express, but retained his authoritarian and Confucian way of life? You, Mr Dragon President,' he emphasized, jabbing his finger playfully at Song, 'are the envy of the developing world. The talk in the markets of Delhi and Moscow is "How can we do what China did? What is the formula? Will it work for us?" Your success is your own. Your vision is understood. Why should you stop? Would we if we were in your position?'

Again, Kozlov walked around to the other side of the table, stopping briefly behind Nolan, who paused in the packing of his pipe: 'And what about me, Andrei? Am I an old warhorse like Mr Sato?'

'Yes, both you, Stuart, and your nation,' said Kozlov. 'Britain is like Russia. We have fought, conquered and retreated. You now happily play under the umbrella of Uncle Sam. Having created America, there is no shame for you in its success. And those of us still out in the cold find your history comforting.'

'Bravo,' mumbled Nolan, looking back and squeezing the Russian's hand, as Kozlov walked unsteadily back round to settle on Mehta. He leant lightly on the table, between the Indian Prime Minister and Newman, looking at her as much as Mehta when he spoke. 'And you, Vasant, are bruised. Your nation is strong, yet it feels it is a victim. What has India done wrong? It has retained its democratic institutions. It allows its citizens to vote. It does not send people to labour camps. It gives us literature, films, music, software technology and chicken tikka masala. Of all of us, India is the most complete society. Yet also, perhaps, it is the most innocent. Who is to blame for what has happened to you? Your finger might point to Jim West for negligence; to Stuart Nolan for the sins of his colonial ancestors; to the uninvited Qureshi, dictator of a country whose regimes have kept you weak over the past half-century. But of those of us at the table, your finger points to Jamie Song for supporting your enemy and ensuring he survives. You could walk into Pakistan tomorrow. You could bomb it into oblivion, as Jim West's predecessors did to Toru Sato's predecessors. But the rising Dragon will do all it can to protect Pakistan and to ensure the failure of your mission.'

He stepped back, steadying himself with the back of Song's chair, and tapping a finger lightly on the Chinese President's shoulder. 'Yet we are here tonight to tell India to hold back. Do not attack. Become a victim again. All right, you say, I won't attack, but neutralize my enemy, once and for all. And on hearing that, we retreat, don't we, afraid of the monumental task you have set us?'

As he walked slowly back to his own seat, Kozlov's mottled face arranged itself into a bemused smile all of its own. Nolan lit his pipe. The smoke, pulled by a draught from the window, drifted across the table. Kozlov examined the glasses in front of him and chose the one with mineral water. 'And, Jim,' he said slowly, 'you are also a victim, having buried fifty-eight of your citizens from the tragedy at Yokata. Like Vasant, you would dearly like to march into North Korea. And who do you blame, apart from yourself? The Soviet Union, of course, but it is a generation since it was defeated. No, Jamie Song is where your finger also points, and it is Jamie who is telling you to be restrained and not attack, for it is China, and China only, which holds the power to do that. So what do you do to create the face of your great nation for the next generation? Do you take charge, yet again, or do you take note of the backlash against you from Iraq and the War on Terror, and hand the mantle to China — or, dare I mention, Japan — and do what Britain did last century?'

Kozlov leant forward on the table, his head lowered, tapping the tablecloth with a single finger. 'You, Jim,' he said softly. 'The shots are yours to call.'

West leant across and laid his hand on Kozlov's elbow. 'Brilliantly put, Andrei. Brilliantly put,' he said, his fingers toying with the base of a wine glass. The lighting around the table was dim enough to get a sense of the night outside, where snow had stopped falling and a small half-moon had risen into view, surrounded by ragged clouds.

'Vasant,' said West, looking over to Mehta. 'As Andrei said, you're the victim. Tell us what you want, and we'll see if we can do it.'

Mehta looked up with a sharp, sombre expression. His face was weathered and tired, and he spoke with his fingers entwined, resting on the table. 'I am tired with argument. I said what I had to say at the United Nations. Either of you, and I don't care which, must end Pakistan's terror. What you did with Musharraf was a joke,' he said accusingly to West before turning his eyes just as fiercely to Song. 'And you, Jamie, you gave them the bomb, and don't you dare deny it around this table. Now it's your responsibility to take it away from them. Or get Jim West to do it. Or I'm going to do it. Pakistan needs to be dismembered as a nation and put back together again. Nothing less will suffice.'

'Andrei,' said West. 'You're Vasant's main ally.'

'We support,' said Kozlov bluntly, 'no question, whatever India believes it needs to do.'

'Taru?'

Sato shrugged. 'You have the moral right, Vasant. But if you go in, it will end in nuclear war. Therefore, we need to look forward and get a guarantee from the other nuclear powers that they will not intervene. If it is to happen, it must be confined.'

'You're telling us to plan for nuclear war?' exclaimed West.

'If we had planned for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, our casualties would have been far less.' He took a quick look towards West. His eyes, caught in the light of the room, were at first angry, but became enveloped in a huge sadness.

'If you two want to do it,' said Nolan, 'we'll commit, and I'll bring some of Europe with me. Britain could draft a resolution that Pakistan is a failed state, etcetera, etcetera.'

'Jamie?' asked West.

'I'm not convinced I could bring the military with me,' said Song, avoiding the direct explanation he had given West earlier. He smiled, mocking himself. 'The president of such a powerful nation is not always in charge. It would take time to persuade them, and Vasant says he doesn't have time.' He looked across to Nolan. His expression was the most youthful and relaxed of anyone there. 'Stuart, if you want to put forward a UN Security Council resolution, for US or European intervention in Pakistan, China will not veto it. Depending on the wording and depending on my own political opposition we will either support it or abstain. If the invasion is successful, then China will be happy to provide engineers, technocrats, whatever is needed to rebuild the nation again.'

'Will Pakistan fight, Vasant?' asked Nolan, pouring himself a coffee.

'They'll fight,' said Mehta. 'And they'll go nuclear if they can.'

West's eyes shifted to Brock, and the table fell quiet as the atmosphere suddenly changed from discussion to decision-making. 'Draw up a plan, Peter,' West said in barely a whisper. 'And Mary, the usual on the diplomatic front. We need as many countries with us as we can get.' West reached across Kozlov to take the coffee pot from in front of Nolan. 'Vasant, can you bear with us while this works its way through?'

Mehta nodded, lightly putting his hand on Newman's as a gesture of reassurance. 'A few days, yes, but not much longer.'

A gust of wind caught the door, making it rattle, and swathes of misty drops blew against the glass. West glanced behind him at the thermometer which recorded the outside temperature. It had risen enough to replace snowfall with rainfall.

'There is another issue, about which something has cropped up only today,' said West. 'We believe that North Korea has procured a particularly lethal form of smallpox through a theft at a laboratory in Australia and from your labs, Andrei, at Pokrov. We believe that it is experimenting with the stuff on human beings and trying to set up a system through which it can be delivered.'

Kozlov gave West a sidelong, shrewd glance. 'From Pokrov. Yes, I can confirm that. Whether it went to North Korea or not, I can't say. But that it is missing, yes, that is true.'

'All our intelligence points to North Korea,' said West. 'Andrei and Jamie, can either or both of you handle it?'

'You make it sound so simple,' Kozlov said, his head down, concentrating on pushing the edge of the tablecloth with his fingernail. 'What do you mean, handle it?'

'Ensure that North Korea does not have this weapon,' said West.

Kozlov shook his head mournfully. 'I told you, our days of empire are over. I am sorry about Pokrov, but it was an American plan to seal our laboratories, and the plan—'

'The virus should have been destroyed long ago,' said West brusquely. 'Smallpox is banned — the 1972 Convention — and Moscow knows it. Within months of signing it you set up Biopreprat, hired thousands of scientists and violated that treaty.'

Kozlov threw up his hands in mock surrender. 'I apologize, Mr President. Russia apologizes on behalf of the late Soviet Union.'

'We can help on North Korea,' said Song quietly. 'But it will not be through force. And we will not do it under threat from the United States. If Park Ho has this smallpox virus, we will take it from him. We will also seal his missile silos. But it will not be known what we have done.'

'Not even by us?' asked Sato.

'Not even by you,' said Song, his face masked and unreadable as he answered. 'But let me tell you this. Andrei is right. One day far in the future China will want to be a superpower. Whether it is a hundred or two hundred years from now does not concern any of us. It is far from the crises that face us today. We have been working at modernizing our country for sixty years and still have twenty million people living in poverty and forty million illiterate and uneducated. Why should we be interested in expanding our borders and colonizing new territory? We believe we do have the right formula for dragging a nation out of poverty, and some might think us successful. But by no means are we there yet. So it is in our interests to stay on good terms with the United States, and to build our friendship with Russia and India. Our closest rival — if you want to use that word — is you, Sato. But we should not let history get in the way of what we can achieve together.'

For a moment, Song, whether deliberately or not, let his cover slip. He looked up at Sato, with a burning appeal in his eyes, then he settled on West. 'If you go it alone, Jim, you will unleash forces in China that I may not be able to control. If you hold back, Park Ho will be removed from power. The status quo will be restored. On that you have my word.'

West didn't speak. He was intent on what Jamie Song had said, unsure of whether to read it as a threat or an offer. Brock ended the silence with a question to his wife. 'How long, Caro, would Park Ho need with his tests, and how long to deliver it?'

'The worst-case scenario—' She tapped her cheek while thinking. 'A couple of weeks. But he's not going to deliver this by missile. The virus wouldn't survive that. He'd have to have some other system ready. The best of which would be another human being.'

'A couple of weeks,' muttered West, pushing back his chair and putting both hands on the table. 'We're with you for a couple of weeks, Jamie. Let's talk after that.'

One by one, Jim West delivered his guests into the hands of secret service agents who escorted them the short distance to their chalets. He turned back into the room, grateful to see Mary Newman and the Brocks helping themselves to a nightcap and settling down on the sofas away from the dining table. He hadn't looked forward to being left at Aspen with just the shuffling feet of the staff clearing the table. West stood by the dying fire, rubbing his hands, then turned and took the whisky Peter Brock had poured for him.

Newman was close enough for him to catch her perfume. For the first time he noticed how she had dressed for the dinner — a beige cashmere pullover and camel-colour pants with a pair of brown suede ankle boots. She had begun pulling the left boot off, but remembering where she was, and catching the disapproving eye of Brock, she stopped. West grinned and moving across to the huge window slid it open a bit to let the night air cool the room.

'Kick 'em off if you want, Mary,' said West. 'You guys were quiet, but great. So I want to know what you think.'

'On North Korea, Jim,' said Caroline Brock, 'my two-week scenario was very much worst case. You could have much longer. He's got to work out a way of getting IL-4 to react with smallpox and achieve the maximum infection. Given his technology, I'd say we're not in any immediate danger. But if it isn't fixed within six months to a year, start worrying.'

West stuck his hand out into the weather to check for rain and brought it back covered in glistening drops. The moon was consumed by dark clouds and the mountains forged harsh black rims across the skyline. 'Pete, you'll check things with Tom and Chris, before you turn in?'

'Sure will,' said Brock. He glanced at Caroline. 'We'd better get going anyway.'

Mary cupped her hands around her whisky glass. 'You know—' she began. Then seeing the Brocks get to their feet, she halted herself. West looked sharply in from near the window. Brock helped Caroline on with her coat. Two waiters began removing the glasses from the table. A gust of wind broke a branch from a tree and lifted it up to crack against the window glass.

'What are you cooking there, Mary? You got something on your mind, tell us.'

She smiled uncertainly, took another sip of whisky, put the glass down and got to her feet. 'It's a long, rambling academic analysis, best saved for the morning, I guess.'

Caroline buttoned up her coat. Brock wrapped a scarf around his neck. 'I'm seeing Caro home. Then I'll check the communications room, and drop back by in five or ten minutes,' he said, looking at Newman. 'Why don't you tell Jim what you're thinking, Mary? We can chew it over when I get back.'

As the Brocks closed the door behind them, the cold through breeze it had caused in the room stopped, and the warmth of the fading fire returned to the area around the sofa. West, still standing up, wasn't sure where to sit, until Newman patted the cushion next to her. 'Don't worry, Mr President,' she said, quietly so the waiters wouldn't hear. 'I'm not going to pounce.'

West smiled gratefully. 'Thanks, Mary. It's been one hell of a day.' For a moment, they each took refuge in their nightcaps, letting the sudden quiet of the Aspen living room seep through and change the atmosphere. West threw Newman a sideways glance. 'Do you miss David?' he asked, catching her eyes, then looking away. Newman didn't answer immediately, letting the question hang until West broke the silence: 'You don't mind me asking, do you?'

'Not at all.' Newman tilted her head towards him. 'It's not nice being betrayed. But do I miss having someone around? Sure, I do. It has to be someone who doesn't lie to you, which David did, so no way do I miss that.' She smiled. 'I won't ask about Valerie. It's written all over your face, every minute of the day.'

'That obvious?' sighed West.

'I'm afraid it is, Mr President.'

West laughed softly. 'Shall we make a new rule?' he suggested. 'When we're out of the White House and it's just the two of us, or even Pete and Caro, Jim's fine. It doesn't have to be—' He took another sip of whisky, letting the sentence finish itself.

Newman gave him a quizzical look. 'Jim's fine, is it?' she said, running her finger down the arm of the sofa. 'Any other occasions?' she teased. 'Or just when it's like this?'

'Well, what I can do is draw up a list,' began West, rolling his eyes sarcastically. He was about to go on when Newman jumped to her feet. 'You guys,' she shouted at the waiters. 'Can you just leave it all there, and excuse us for a moment.'

The waiters slipped away, and Newman walked over and studied the glasses and crockery on the table, her hand cupped pensively under her chin. She took off her spectacles and adjusted her focus to what she was examining. 'Just what I was thinking,' she said, pointing to Kozlov's place.

'The wine in his glasses, both red and white, is hardly touched. He swayed in before dinner, asking for sparkling mineral water and claiming he had been drinking with Yushchuk. Only after the meal, when the trolley came round, did he ask for a vodka. While talking to us, he filled it three times, which for a Russian is the equivalent of a teaspoonful.' West was standing next to her. She put her hand on his elbow to emphasize her point. 'He needed to show the vodka to give his speech the aura of a soul-searching, vodka-soaked Russian intellectual. But Andrei Kozlov was stone-cold sober throughout.'

'That doesn't mean he was lying,' said West.

'No, it doesn't,' agreed Newman slowly. 'In fact, far from it. He was sending you a message when he talked of freeing the serfs by not embracing NATO, the IMF and American values. Then, take what Kozlov said with this strange fish,' she said, pointing at the place where Song had been sitting. 'He's the one who really worries me. Not an ounce of humour in him all evening, then threatening us with forces he might not be able to control.' She leant against the table. 'He said there were twenty million Chinese living in poverty, in a population of what—'

'A billion, just over,' said West.

'Do you know how many live in poverty in America?'

'More than thirty million according to the US Census Bureau,' said West. 'Just over 16 per cent of all Americans. Any American aged twenty has a 60 per cent chance of spending at least one year living in poverty at some point in the future. I've just been in Detroit delivering a speech on it.'

'Exactly.' Newman went back to the sofa and waited for West to join her. 'We have thirty million out of what — a total population of 300 million. Jamie Song has twenty million out of 1.1 billion. Who's doing better?'

'Different kind of poverty.'

'Sure, but he wasn't citing statistics just for the hell of it.'

'I'm not sure I'm with you, Mary.'

Newman leant back and stretched her arms behind her head. 'I said it was a rambling academic analysis, and to be honest I don't know where it leads us, but my gut instinct is that we have to read underneath what both those guys said. I wouldn't trust them to stay with us on this one inch.' She brought her right hand down in front of her face. 'Not even one inch. Not even a millimetre,' she said, moving her thumb and forefinger closer and closer together until they touched.

'You know what they were saying,' she said, not bothering to hide her tiredness. 'Song was saying: "We're better than you." Kozlov was saying: "If you make us choose, we're with China."'

'And what about Mehta, his great ally?'

Newman laughed coldly. 'Mehta's in a quagmire, isn't he? He's expendable. Let him be our great twenty-first-century nuclear weapons experiment. No one wants to touch him.'

The words of Jamie Song in the ride back from the helicopter returned to West, echoing from Song's unreadable oriental face in pure Bostonian English. You don't get it, do you, Jim? Song speaking as if he was addressing an American simpleton.

'Thank you for frankness, Mary, however unpalatable it might be,' said West, shooting a look towards the door as it opened, light spilling in from the hall. Brock stepped in, followed by Pierce and Patton, who was speaking on a mobile phone. 'Do we have thirty minutes?… Good… I'm with the President.' He closed the call, flipped shut the phone and said, 'I'm sorry, Mr President, but I need an instruction on this now.'

Patton pulled up a hard chair. His heavy chin jutted forward and his eyes flickered across a file he rested on his lap. The others found seats around the room. Newman fetched a fresh bottle of water from the kitchen and poured them all a glass.

'I want you to bear with me, Mr President,' said Patton. 'I'll tell it straight through. We have time. Then you can decide.'

'Very well,' said West. The room had been transformed. For a moment it had been a sanctuary, but now it had suddenly exploded back into reality. He would have much preferred to have listened to Newman's late-night theories. Instead, he had Tom Patton with a new and real threat to America.

'Two days ago, a Cuban fishing boat landed at Key West,' began Patton. 'The skipper was found tied up in the cabin. Straight away the coastguard recognized it as anything but a routine alien-smuggling run. It was a hijacking — something completely different. On the boat were three Cuban fisherman, four if you count the captain. Their fishing permits and licences were in order. There were also two defectors, a husband and wife. Until a couple of weeks ago, Ernesto Tomas Morera, aged forty-eight, ran Cuba's air traffic control service. The wife, Elena Blanco Morera, aged forty-two, was a fairly high-ranking officer in Cuba's intelligence agency, Direccion General de Inteligencia or DGI. Both of them check out with our records. Elena's job was China.'

West, suddenly alert, looked across at Patton. 'Go on.'

'Why did they want to defect?' asked Patton rhetorically. 'Because suddenly the government had asked them to do things they knew they couldn't. Ernesto was told he had to go head up a neighbourhood committee in some place called Campechueta right at the other end of the island. Elena walked into work one day to find her in-tray filled with visa applications from West Africa.'

He paused for some water and drained the glass. West refilled it for him.

'It was Elena who spotted what had happened. A completely coincidental oversight had linked her job with Ernesto's in an area so sensitive that the DGI decided they would have to be separated. Over the next week, Elena dutifully issued visas for Africans. Ernesto made a show of preparing to take up his new job. But they also tracked down a boat crew, paid them some money and arranged the boat to get out. The crew omitted to let on that they would have to overpower the skipper.' He shrugged. 'But that's by the by. At the weekend, they made their escape and I've just come from hearing and corroborating their story.

'Over the past two weeks, according to Ernesto, there've been two flights by Chinese transport aircraft into Havana, using the Russian-built Antonov 225 — the biggest mother of a transport aircraft — flying across the Atlantic from Dakar in Senegal. Elena's China desk had been handling a deal, struck about ten years ago, that gave Cuba medium-range Chinese missiles in exchange for electronic eavesdropping facilities to listen in on the eastern American seaboard. If you remember, the Russians made a final pull-out from Cuba as part of their new relationship with us after Nine Eleven. The Chinese moved into the vacuum. The missile part of the deal has begun to be implemented now.'

Patton stopped for a moment to make sure that West and all in the room understood what he was saying. 'The missiles, according to Elena, include the DF-15, the DF-3 and the DF-21. Which ones are actually there now, she doesn't know.'

'You got any corroboration?' asked West. Patton took out of his briefcase a sheaf of photographs stamped with the circular logo of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency which handled satellite and surveillance imagery. 'As soon as we heard, we bought in the latest commercial satellite imagery over Cuba,' he said.

'We didn't have our own?' queried West.

'Most of it's tasked over Asia,' said Brock.

'The Ikonos satellite came up with this. It only has 0.75 metre resolution,' explained Patton, handing a photograph to West. Newman leant over to see. Brock and Pierce looked from over the back of the sofa. 'Our analysts reckon this is the Antonov 225 at Havana's main civilian airport. It's the only one that will take an aircraft so big. Now see this—' He pointed to a blurred oblong shape by the side of the aircraft. 'We believe this is a missile container. See its size against the aircraft. It's big. Very big.' Patton pulled out another image. 'We sent up the Global Hawk. It works with images like a computer search engine works with words. We told it what we were looking for, and a few hours later, after mapping the whole of Cuba, it came up with this. The main road between Havana and Pinar del Rio. See here. The road is closed for repairs. A convoy of three trucks: on the back of each is the same image picked up by the Global Hawk, matching the container seen by the Antonov 225.'

Even in a room of close friends, Jim West wanted to give nothing away about the thoughts running through his mind. The heated air in the room suddenly felt oppressive, and a sense of dread, like when his wife had bravely told him the diagnosis of her impending death, spread through his whole body, until it swept across his face and settled into a grey, controlled dullness emanating from his eyes.

'Someone fill me in on what these missiles do.'

Chris Pierce stood up and walked round to the window. Realizing that the President was looking at him against the backlight of the wall lamp, he moved further in and stood with his back to the fireplace. 'The DF-21 has a range of about 1,200 miles; the DF-15, 400 miles; and the DF-3, about 2,000 miles, which produces an arc to Tucson, Denver, Minneapolis/St Paul, Chicago and the eastern seaboard. The Chinese themselves can hit Los Angeles, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, so they've got us on both sides, covering the whole of the United States.'

West shook his head in disbelief. 'They're doing under our noses what we went to the brink of nuclear war to stop the Soviets doing in 1962? Did they believe we wouldn't find out?'

'According to our defectors, the deal was struck in January 2002,' said Patton. 'Elena Morera confirms that the first missiles only arrived two weeks ago. What we don't know is why has it taken so long to put it into action — and given the strengthening of our relationship with China, why now?'

'It's in blatant violation of every arms proliferation agreement,' said Newman.

'Pakistan, Korea, now China and Cuba,' said Pierce. 'I can give you military plans and scenarios, Mr President, but what's really needed is heavy diplomacy. We've just got too many fronts coming in on us.'

Patton cleared his throat. 'Except, right now, there's a Chinese transport plane on its way to Havana. It's halfway across the Atlantic, three hours from landing.'

'Bring it in,' said West without hesitation. 'Land the son of a bitch down into Guantanamo. Strip it out. I want to know every nut and bolt that it's carrying.'

Outside, away from the lit pathways between the chalets, Jamie Song and Andrei Kozlov trudged through rain which fell in fine drops, slicing into the snow. They meandered through shrubs and clusters of trees, their shapes softened by streaks of light refracted through rain splashing on to pathway lamps. Sometimes they disappeared altogether, absorbed into an empty, sooty darkness in the woods.

On the Camp David surveillance video, they were only filmed properly when they greeted each other on the crossroads of two paths and Jamie Song said, 'When I talked of us meeting soon, I didn't expect it would be in the grounds of Camp David.' That was according to experts who later read his lips. They pulled up the collars of their coats, lifted the earflaps of their hats, and headed off, heads lowered, away into the grounds where no one could know what they were saying and only occasionally would their hunched, slow-walking figures be caught on camera.

Had the night been clear and cold with white falling snow, it might not have been unusual to walk off a good dinner. But this was a damp, windy and unpleasant night, where two men would only be out talking if they felt nowhere else was safe to do so.

In the morning, a Lincoln Town Car limousine pulled up outside Jamie Song's chalet. The Chinese President gave his hand luggage to the driver who put it in the boot. Lying on the back seat was a copy of the Washington Post, with a brief final-edition front-page story about a US air and naval military exercise in the Caribbean. As the limousine pulled out away from the trees around the chalet, Song had a long, clear view of the mountains. The wintry morning light had brought a drop in temperature, and fresh snow covered the dirt which had been brought in by the rain. Song's overcoat was still damp.

The limousine did not head out towards the main gate but swung round to Aspen where Jim West raised a friendly hand in greeting. When the car stopped, he opened the back door himself and got in. Secret service chase cars pulled out in front and behind the Lincoln and motorcycle outriders flanked the convoy as it set off.

'Thought I'd ride with you,' said West, with a brief smile. Unlike Song who wore his coat, West was dressed only in a dark-blue denim shirt and jeans. 'Something's cropped up which I thought we could sort out.'

'I hope it's a pleasant surprise,' said Song, moving the newspaper to clear the seat for West.

'We'll see,' said West, looking at Song curiously. Here was a man who had been educated in America, had become rich through America, who spoke and maybe could think like an American, but who was turning against everything American. West couldn't bring himself to believe Jamie Song would authorize sending missiles to Cuba. What he needed to know was whether Song had the power to stop it.

'Last night, after you had left,' said West, 'Chris Pierce, my Defense Secretary, dropped by. We've been carrying out military training in the Caribbean over the past couple of days with live firing and all that. A Chinese transport plane flew right into the exercise area. Unfortunately, the pilot didn't answer our radio signals. He claims he doesn't speak English or French, if you can believe that, considering the plane had come from Senegal. So we sent up some fighters. It got a little dangerous for a while, but eventually we brought the plane down into Guantanamo Bay.'

Song glanced across sharply, but didn't say anything. West looked straight ahead at the bullet proof screen sealing the back seat from the driver and bodyguard in front.

'You guys did a similar thing some years back, I remember, with one of our EP-3 surveillance planes.'

'Before my time,' said Song dryly. His hands were on each knee and he kept his eyes on West.

'The crew is fine. Nobody's hurt. No equipment is damaged. But we did look inside the plane.' West stopped there. Song appeared completely secure in what he was hearing, his eyes fixed unfalteringly on West.

'And what was the plane carrying, Jim,' he asked softly, 'that has brought you into my car on this cold morning?'

'A missile that could strike the United States,' said West, his deadpan delivery matching Song's. He detected a flicker of reaction. It could have been shock, possibly anger, but it was suppressed immediately with a quick, thin smile and a slight shifting of the hands. From the top pocket of his shirt, West pulled out a sheet of folded paper, unfolded it and passed it to Song. The photograph had been taken inside the plane, showing a case prised open, its wrapping unfurled, and the fin of a rocket.

'I'm told it has a range of 400 miles,' said West, 'and that three other types are on order. The most powerful has a range of 2,000 miles.'

'This isn't the anti-Castro lobby playing games?' asked Song, offering the picture back.

'Keep it,' said West, shaking his head. 'We've got plenty more. And no, this is not Miami propaganda.'

'I see,' said Song, lowering his head and looking away from West for the first time since the accusation. 'So we have two issues to deal with. One is the confirmed hijacking of a Chinese aircraft by the United States and the kidnapping of the crew—'

'Jamie, don't go down this road,' said West, not hiding the exasperation in his voice.

'… The second is the allegation that we are supplying offensive missiles to Cuba.'

The limousine's engine whined as the driver changed from automatic to a low gear to handle the curves in the road to the helipad. West wound down his window, sending a beam of sunlight across Song's face, causing him to squint. Cold air rushed in. The snow had stopped and apart from the crunch of the tyres on the road and the low purr of the engine the huge silence of the mountains bore down on both of them.

'You've got to be straight with me, Jamie. I can't mess with the safety of the US. You know that. Just tell me what the hell is going on.'

Song, irritated by the sun, let his eyes flare. 'Don't push.'

'Then don't fuck around.' West snatched the picture from Song's hand and rattled it in front of his face. 'Did you know about this?'

'No.'

'Do you have an explanation?'

'I'm not in Beijing. How can I have?'

'I want your word. Then I'll tell you what I'm going to do.'

Song shook his head. 'You have my word, and I'll tell you what I'm going to do.'

West twisted in his seat so he was now face to face with Song. 'Any Chinese aircraft heading for Cuba will be shot down.'

Song shook his head. 'You can't—'

'I can, and I will. I was restrained over your buddies in North Korea. I've kept my patience with your buddies in Pakistan. But you screw us in Cuba—' West shook his head and swallowed hard. 'Goddamn it, Jamie. We're both old enough to have been alive in '62. Maybe I'm a sucker, but I don't think you know it's happening. So help me on this, or I won't be able to help you.'

As the limousine straightened out for the last mile to the heliport, Marine One passed overhead, casting a quick flickering shadow over them. Song buttoned up his coat and took his hat and gloves in his hand. 'You will return the plane and the crew within forty-eight hours,' he said. 'If there is a missile inside, you can keep it. If any of this leaks out into the public domain, by whatever means, I will be unable to do anything to help you. If these conditions are not met, I cannot help you either in Korea or Pakistan. If they are, I will try my utmost. On that you have my word.'

The car drew to a halt. The motorcycle outriders stopped further ahead, their blue lights flashing. The riders dismounted, took off their helmets and stood at attention on either side of the red carpet furled out for the Chinese President. A secret service agent opened Song's door. West let himself out on the other side. On his signal, just before Song boarded, the White House photographer recorded the scene of West and Song at the steps of Marine One, one in an open-neck shirt, the other in the formality of a woollen overcoat, the pair of them shaking hands, then embracing each other, and West staying, unflinching in the icy mountain crosswinds, both hands raised and waving, as the helicopter lifted up and vanished through the winter clouds towards Washington.

By mid-morning it turned out to be a bright winter's day. Jim West asked for coffee to be served on the patio. The sun was bright, although Patton was working in an overcoat and Mary Newman and Caroline Brock were wrapped in colourful Gore-tex jackets. They all wore shades to ease the violent reflection from the snow. West, Brock and Kozerski sat with their backs to the light, looking into Aspen's reception area where staff were rebuilding the log fire and polishing the table after the previous evening's dinner.

'Chris, you need to get to New York tonight. I want you face to face with the Cuban ambassador to the UN, but not in the UN building. Go to the Waldorf or something. Give him seven days for us to get full access to those missiles.'

'You sure you want me for this?' asked Pierce, glancing over at Newman.

'Sometimes I wonder if I gave you two the wrong jobs,' said West, his face enveloped in a cloud of his own breath. 'This will not be a diplomatic meeting. So yes, Chris, I want you because you're the man who's going to order the strikes the second the Cubans go past that deadline. That's why I'm giving him a week — because there's no negotiation. Your job is to get that message through their thick Marxist skulls.'

Pierce nodded contritely. West cupped his hands round his mug of coffee for warmth. 'Tom, I want you to put everything into cracking any North Korean cells in this country. Anything it takes. And if there's a single case of any suspicious disease, I want to know about it.' He glanced across at Kozerski. 'John, if Tom's got something to tell me, make sure he can get me wherever.' The table was alive with sunlight and the dancing fog of coffee steam and human breath.

'Mary and Pete,' continued West, 'I want you both to go flyabout. Mary, follow up on the diplomatic side by calling in on Sato, Song and Kozlov — as soon as they're back. By the time you're with Song, Chris's deadline on Cuba should have four days to run. If Jamie can't sort it in that time, he won't be able to.'

'What about the media?' said Newman, pulling up her collar against a gust of wind cutting round the edge of the lodge.

'Tell the press, but don't take any of them with you. Only deal with heads of government. I don't want any mixed messages. Call me any time. But I want you to start in South Korea — with Pete.' He glanced across to his National Security Advisor, letting everyone guess that he and Brock had hatched the plan earlier that morning. 'You'll both be flying out separately. Hopefully, your trip, Mary, will attract the press coverage and Pete will get away quietly. You're to go to Panmunjom, stand with the binoculars, reaffirm US commitment. Pete's going to be tapping our security allies — Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, the governments we can really trust — for a loan of intelligence agents.'