‘To a certain extent, he’s an unknown quantity,’ she admitted, ‘which is one of the reasons he was able to take everyone by surprise. All we have at the moment is his military file, although we’re working hard to get more data. Fifty-six years old, born June fourth, nineteen sixty-four in Chengdu, Sichuan province. No information on parents or siblings. Joined the People’s Liberation Army at seventeen, reportedly fought well during several border clashes with Vietnam, which stemmed from the Sino-Vietnamese War in seventy-nine. Eventually led units as a captain against the Vietnamese in the late eighties before transferring to the Second Artillery Corps. You’ve heard of the Great Wall Project?’
Cole nodded. ‘I’ve heard about it, although I’m not sure if the rumors have ever been verified. Supposedly the Chinese have built a system of tunnels, thousands of miles long, underneath the Taihang Mountains, named after the Great Wall due to its size and the amount of work that’s gone into it. They’re apparently using the tunnel network to hide their nuclear stockpile — which is again rumored to be several thousand rather than the mere hundreds they claim to have.’
Olsen nodded. ‘That’s the rumor,’ he confirmed, ‘and that’s all it is really. But enough people seem to be telling the same story for us to at least give it some credibility. I know we’ve been defensive partners of the Chinese for over a year now, but that doesn’t mean they trust us any more than we trust them, and they’re not likely to have let us know about such a system, even if it exists.’
Dos Santos also nodded in agreement. ‘General Olsen’s right,’ she said, ‘it is just a rumor. But General Wu was posted to the Taihang region for several years, along with several battalions of engineers, thousands of men. A lot of tunneling could have gone on in that time, and Wu’s record indicates his elevation to general rank occurred about the same time the stories about the network being completed started to leak out. It’s been suggested by some of our analysts that it was a reward for his work on the Great Wall Project.’
Cole thought, grabbing his third sandwich. ‘I guess it explains how he could organize the use of the Dong Feng mobile units before he’d gone through with the coup itself — he would know all of the officers from the Second Artillery Corps, they’d all be loyal to him. If those stories about the Great Wall are true though, I guess that makes things even worse.’
‘Yes,’ Abrams agreed. ‘The possibility is that we now have a madman in control of the only country in the world whose military could give ours a run for its money — and he’s possibly the very man who helped design and engineer a nuclear missile network that could vaporize our own in an instant.’
‘Resources?’ Cole asked.
‘Anything you need,’ Abrams replied. ‘Pete and Cat have already opened up the channels, you’ve got full military and intel back-up. You come up with the plan, and let them know what you need.’
Cole nodded. ‘I’ll need a full intel dump,’ he said, turning to dos Santos.
The Director of National Intelligence nodded, smiling. ‘I’m already working on it, I’ll send you over everything we have to your office.’
Abrams sipped her coffee, then looked back over at Cole. ‘There is another aspect to the mission,’ she said.
‘The government officials?’ Cole asked.
Abrams nodded. ‘We suspect that Tsang Feng is dead already, and it’s a possibility that other government ministers might be next. We need to get them out before they’re targeted, or else we’ll have nobody left to run the country when Wu’s gone.’
‘Do we know where they’re being held?’
Dos Santos nodded. ‘We’ve got a contact in Beijing, he contacted us as soon as this thing broke out. Liu Yingchau, a captain in the Chinese Special Operations Command. Navarone knows him, I believe.’
Cole nodded. Jake Navarone was one of Force One’s best operatives, Cole having recruited him from SEAL Team Six after an operation at a North Korean prison camp the year before. Liu Yingchau had been one of two Chinese special forces officers seconded to JSOC for the mission, and had been the only one of the two to survive. Navarone had spoken very highly of him, and that was good enough for Cole.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘We can trust him. How’s his cover?’
‘Well, as part of the military, he’s supposedly behind Wu and the other generals. Luckily he was in Beijing to help train their armed police, and he’s been pulled in, ordered to help guard the government compound. He’s safe for now, as far as we know.’
‘Is that where they’re being held?’ Cole asked. ‘The Forbidden City?’
Abrams nodded. ‘Yes, although Liu is not inside and doesn’t know the exact location.’
Cole sighed. Beijing’s Forbidden City was enormous, an incredible architectural marvel that harkened back to the heady days of Chinese power, a vast imperial palace used as the center of the Chinese empire from the Ming to Qing dynasties. It covered one hundred and eighty acres, and housed nearly eight hundred separate buildings containing nine thousand rooms. Cole was going to need much more specific information before he could arrange any sort of rescue mission.
‘Will he be able to find out their exact location?’ he asked.
‘CIA’s handling him for now,’ dos Santos said. ‘I’ll try and find out, get you in the loop.’
‘I don’t want him to get caught, but we need more solid info.’ He paused, frowning, and finished his coffee. ‘And although I trust him, we can’t discount the possibility that he’s being played, and whatever he says is disinformation planted by Wu. We’ll need secondary corroboration at the very least.’
‘I know,’ Abrams said uneasily. ‘I know. But we need to act quickly, and you might have to act at a stage where other agencies wouldn’t.’
Cole shrugged. She was right, at the end of the day; if it wasn’t an emergency, if time wasn’t a factor, if there weren’t a hundred other issues, then other more conventional units could be used.
But in a situation like this, with next to no useful intelligence and the threat of four thousand US servicemen being killed, then Force One was the only option left.
‘How long do we have?’ Cole asked, his mind already going through plans and scenarios.
Abrams was about to speak when her phone rang. She held up a finger, asking Cole to wait, and answered; not many people were put straight through to the President of the United States.
Ellen Abrams listened to the frantic voice on the other end of the line, and felt her own pulse racing. Japanese Prime Minister Toshikatsu Endo was not given to overstatement or the crowd-pleasing boisterousness of many of his political rivals. He was a refined, quiet, thoughtful man who was a professional in every sense of the word. But the impression Abrams had now was different, and chilled her to the core; he was outraged, frightened, angry and uncertain all at the same time.
‘Madam President,’ she heard him say breathlessly, ‘it has already begun; Wu’s done it, he’s already done it!’
‘What?’ Abrams asked as calmly as she could. ‘What has he done?’
‘Invaded the Senkaku Islands!’ Toshikatsu exclaimed. ‘The Chinese Navy has blown one of our coast guard vessels out of the water, and then landed on the island. When challenged by the Okinawan prefectural police, our officers were shot dead! Dead!’
Abrams’ blood ran cold. It was happening fast, just too damned fast. She knew that the Japanese government had posted extra officers on the uninhabited islands, in case uninvited visitors should want to land there. But they had expected small recon vessels, not the entire Chinese Navy.