Unable to communicate with the outside world from the submarine, Cole was left to wonder if they had been successful. But time would tell, and all would be revealed when Cole finally got to Beijing.
But there was also a lot to worry about before he even got there, and so Cole decided to do the most sensible thing he could under the circumstances.
Within thirty seconds, he was sound asleep.
7
‘I’m sorry Prime Minister,’ Ellen Abrams said evenly, ‘but we cannot help at this moment in time.’
Abrams knew the response this would elicit from Toshikatsu Endo, Japan’s deeply worried chief politician; he would be angry, incensed, furious that American promises were being reneged on.
But Abrams simply couldn’t inform him of what was going on. If she was to tell him — or even hint at the fact — that a covert mission to kill Wu and rescue the communist Politburo was actually already in the process of being carried out, then it wouldn’t remain a secret for long.
Toshikatsu’s colleagues — and enemies — in Japan’s Diet were both waiting for any sort of news, any indication that the Americans were doing something to help. If Toshikatsu even suspected that this was the case, he would be hard pressed to keep it to himself in the face of such cross-party pressure. And that wasn’t even to consider the Japanese public itself, which was clamoring for answers, and which Toshikatsu had a responsibility to pacify.
And if Toshikatsu told anyone, the news would spread like wildfire, and would soon make its way to General Wu and China’s new military government. It was better to keep everyone completely in the dark on this one, Abrams realized. If she told Japan that America was unwilling to help her, then that would also get back to General Wu, and he would subsequently have his thoughts about American weakness confirmed. Such arrogance would be the man’s downfall.
‘You cannot help?’ Toshikatsu said breathlessly. ‘That is your final word on the matter? Despite Anpo?’
Anpo jōyaku was the common Japanese term for the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan, a version of which had existed since as far back as 1952. It pledged US assistance in the case of an attack on Japan, territory which President Barrack Obama had confirmed included the Senkaku Islands back in 2014.
Abrams quietly cursed her predecessor for his commitments to those bits of rock; life would have been so much easier if he had not been quite so explicit.
As it was, Abrams was in direct breach of that agreement, and could see no way around the situation given the current conditions on the ground.
‘I’m afraid that the reality is that this entire situation is volatile and unstable; if we get involved directly, Wu might just decide to launch his nukes, we have no idea just what kind of man he is. And who do you think his first target is going to be?’
Abrams let that hang in the air for a moment, so that the terrifying notion could ingrain itself in Toshikatsu’s consciousness.
‘If you think that is a risk,’ Toshikatsu said reasonably, his composure regained, ‘then surely you simply can’t afford to stand back and do nothing. If he launches missiles at us, who is to say that you will not be next? And then where does it end?’
This was the time when Abrams wanted to reassure him, to offer him the small mercy of telling him about the Force One mission, however indirectly. We are not standing back. We are not ‘doing nothing’. Right now we have our best people infiltrating the Chinese mainland itself. If they succeed, then this thing might soon be over.
But she knew she couldn’t. America had to be seen to be reluctant to act, to want to avoid conflict; then Force One’s attack on the system would be all the more effective.
‘Prime Minister Toshikatsu,’ Abrams said resignedly, ‘I think you are going to have to accept the fact that you have lost the Senkaku Islands. It seems that the main reason that Wu wanted them was only to use them as a base for military action against Taiwan — a situation that we have no reason to get involved with. Our analysts suggest that Wu will curb his behavior after incorporating Taiwan back into the People’s Republic of China, and I tend to agree with them. He will want the PRC to be accepted by the world at large, so that he has a greater chance of staying in power.’
Toshikatsu was silent for a moment as he thought about what Abrams had said. Although it wasn’t true — that wasn’t what US intelligence analysts thought at all — she thought that it at least sounded reasonable.
‘That is not what my own people have concluded about the man,’ Toshikatsu said eventually. ‘They believe that Wu is a megalomaniac who wants to create a new Chinese empire — first in East Asia, then heading west. They think that the less we interfere now, the more we allow him to get away with, the bolder he will become. The policy of appeasement was — with hindsight — hardly the best way of dealing with Nazi Germany, wouldn’t you agree?’
Abrams fought hard to remind Toshikatsu that his country had fought with Nazi Germany; he was hardly in any position to lecture on the issue, even if he was right.
And, Abrams could admit, appeasement wasn’t the way to combat men like General Wu; taking the fight to them was always the better option, and the one she followed, despite her leading Toshikatsu to think the contrary.
‘I am confident in our position on the issue,’ Abrams said, wishing to bring the conversation to a close. ‘It is our belief that the trouble will end with Taiwan.’
‘And if it doesn’t?’ Toshikatsu pressed her.
‘Then,’ she allowed, ‘we will have to just cross that bridge if we come to it.’
She knew it wasn’t what Toshikatsu wanted to hear, but it was what she needed to tell him.
Now she could only wait and hope that the Force One mission was successful; because if it wasn’t, then a lot more people would have to die before this thing was over.
General Wu De swung his corpulent body off the four poster bed which took up nearly half of the chamber located in the basement rooms of the Presidential Office Building in Taipei. He was amused that it was all too similar to rooms that could be found under the Zhongnonhai government compound in Beijing, the Communist Party headquarters nestled right next to the ancient walls of the Forbidden City.
Perhaps communists and nationalists were not so very different after all, he mused, when you got right down to it.
Wu ignored the sleeping bodies of the three girls who lay next to him — secretaries from the presidential office — and strode naked to the telephone which rested on the credenza near the gilt-edged door.
Wiping the sweat from his face, he dialed a number which was answered immediately. ‘Update?’ he asked.
Wu listened as the report came through from the operations briefing room further down the subterranean corridors, and was pleased to hear that everything was still going well. Ports had been secured, along with airfields and ground force bases. Civilian deaths and casualties were still minimal — well below the threshold his advisers had said would precipitate an international backlash — and the only real problem now was what to do with all of the military personnel who had been forced to surrender.
The will to fight had deserted the Taiwanese military at almost the exact same moment that Rai Po-ya and the rest of his government had hightailed it to Australia. With no political leadership left to steer the ship, and in the face of overwhelming odds — Wu had sent a force of half a million across the water to reclaim Taiwan, assisted by the most sophisticated vehicles, weapons and equipment in the region — the Taiwanese generals had no wish to sacrifice their soldiers in a war that was unwinnable, and had stood down.