Donchez had not heard the news. Maria DeLavelle had been the leading morning-show anchor woman for almost three years. It seemed inconceivable that she could be executed.
“In the meantime our human intelligence out of China, our HUMINT, has come to a dead halt. Our network of local agents dried up when we lost the embassy and the consulates. Many of them are rumored to have been taken by the Red Guards and executed. Six penetration agents were sent into China last month after we failed to hear from the foreign national agents we had previously placed in the Communist forces. All six of the penetration agents have disappeared. Intelligence, military and political, is nonexistent.”
“Mr. President,” Napoleon Ferguson said, his voice a grumbling growl, “I know I’ve said it before but one more time — isn’t this the time to come in on the side of the Kuomintang? They’re pro-democracy, they’re mostly financed by Japan, our ally. Both the Japanese and the NKMT are doing our work on the Asian continent, restoring a government with a human face. A democratic China would be an ally and trading partner. How can we sit out this war? History will condemn us. We already lost China once this century. It’s unthinkable for us to lose it again. With a small push from our forces the White Army could march into Beijing, neutralize the Communists and have free elections in a month…”
Dawson glanced at Eve Trachea.
“I can’t agree with you on this. Napoleon,” she said, using the first name Ferguson hated.
“Are we going to spill American blood again interfering in Asian self determination. We made that mistake in Vietnam. Iraq was not exactly a great victory. The new Kuomintang, the NKMT, look like they’re pro-democracy, but after they seize power they could become a dictatorship too. And as for making China a trading partner-are you sure you’re not more worried about money than, say, morality. Napoleon? Mr. President, I say don’t get dragged into a war in China just to change the name of the government. Reestablishing our relations with the government should be the main item on this agenda, not going to war against it.”
President Dawson looked from Ferguson to Trachea, as if they were trial attorneys approaching the bench.
“As far as committing U.S. troops to a ground battle in China, I have to go with Eve on this one, Fergy,” he said.
“When it’s clear who the NKMT are, and that they truly are the good guys, then things might be different. Until I get a different picture from Bob Kent we should stay out of this thing. I also don’t want to do anything now that would say to the world that we’re tilting in the direction of the Communists. I say we stay neutral, or at least look that way. For now let’s just stay focused on the immediate problem, which, if I read Bobby right, is that there’s no proper intelligence coming out of China. It seems like a powder keg behind a locked door, and, Bobby, I have to tell you, that’s just unacceptable. We can’t run foreign policy in a vacuum. We have to do something to get reliable information out of the area.”
“Sir, there are some additional things we can be doing to get intelligence out—” Kent began. Dawson cut him off.
“Wait a second, Bobby. I have a few questions for you. First, the Japanese are bankrolling the Kuomintang, presumably to eliminate a Communist presence on the continent and free up future markets for goods and a supply for raw materials. Right? Okay, so if the White Army is the agent of Japan, why don’t the Japanese just tell us what’s going down in this war?”
“Because they don’t know, sir. They’re supporting the White Army, but the NKMT generals are an independent lot. They take yen but not orders. There’s no real-time communication between Shanghai and Tokyo. I’d guess that most of Tokyo’s intelligence came from us in the first place.”
“So what about the U.N.? Why can’t a U.N. peacekeeping force be mounted, and the western contingent can get out eyewitness accounts?”
“That would never happen with the Communists on the Security Council, sir. They don’t want ‘peacekeeping,” they want to fight for their sovereignty. They’d veto a peacekeeping force immediately.”
“Eve?”
“Bob’s right. The Chinese have veto power over any resolution brought before the Security Council. And I agree they want to win the war, not stop it.”
“Bobby, any chance of this thing, you know, going nuclear? Where are the nuclear warheads the Chinese were destroying for the treaty? And do the White Army forces have any nukes?”
Kent turned to the chart.
“Here in the northern provinces of Kansu, Sinkiang and Heilungkiang are the principal locations of the ICBMs China used to have aimed at Soviet Russia. These were partially dismantled after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the rest were supposedly being disassembled per the provisions of the nuclear arms-reductions treaty. Unfortunately the process was not complete before the White Army’s arrival on the continent. There could be some remaining stockpiled warheads, but we are fairly certain that the delivery missiles are destroyed. We were hoping one of our penetration agents could tell us if there was any truth to the report that a Communist weapons depot had been sabotaged. That would have shown us whether the White Army is targeting any residual nuclear capability of the Communists. That’s the long answer, sir. The short answer is, again, we really don’t know.”
“What about the Kuomintang? Any nukes there?”
“The NKMT has publicly forsworn any use, first or retaliatory, of any kind of nuclear weapon, sir. This may be more than a play for world opinion — they expect to gain the support of the people in the countryside, and that promise will earn them the loyalty of both the peasants and the urbanites. Besides, nuking territory they hope to occupy makes no sense. But I can’t confirm any of this.”
“So what about all our KH-17 spy satellites, Bobby? Half a billion dollars a copy. What do they show?”
“Mr. President, we’ve used the KH-17s to the limit of their abilities, and all they’ve revealed are battlefields and ruins where the People’s Liberation Army, the Communist troops, have clashed with the White Army. The images don’t show who won. They don’t show troop strength. They give us enough data to be able to show you this,” Kent said, pointing to the slide showing NKMT occupation of roughly half of China, “but they can’t read the minds of the leaders of both sides.”
“What about the NSA outposts in Korea? Aren’t they intercepting radio transmissions?” The President was referring to the National Security Agency’s eavesdropping stations on the west coast of South Korea, Donchez knew. He himself had visited one of the complexes the year before; it was impressive, but Korea was too far away from China to receive the critical communications.
“Sir, not to go into the physics of radio transmissions, but if you’ll bear with me … most tactical transmissions are made on UHF. It’s for short-range secure communications, because it’s line-of-sight just like light waves. The radio waves go in straight lines. If you’re trying to listen over the horizon you don’t get it.”
“But the satellites would,” President Dawson said.
“Yes sir, but only for the few minutes the spacecraft is over the territory, which means we can’t intercept Chinese communications without using the military.”
“What about flying reconnaissance planes outside of China’s borders?” Dawson asked.
Kent seemed ready for the question.
“The P.L.A air alert radars would detect the planes and they’d deduce the reason for them. The result would be only that they’d get careful about their communications security. We’d gain nothing.”
“What about the recon Stealth fighters?”
“We only have one outfitted for eavesdropping and it has been having mechanical problems. We can get it up but we can’t keep it up, and that risks losing it over Communist territory. That leaves us the Navy.”