He had wondered, idly, about sending another DF-26 ‘carrier killer’ to finish the USS Ford off for good, in retaliation for the US attack. Two things had stayed his hand in the end — he could still not be one hundred percent sure that it had been an American attack, and he really didn’t want to risk US reprisals as a result. He was willing to nuke the United States off the face of the planet, but really didn’t want to let it get to that stage. After all, America was a huge market for Chinese and Japanese goods, and her continued existence made sound financial sense.
‘How can I serve you, my master?’ Zhou said, and Wu couldn’t quite tell if he was being made fun of; Zhou had a peculiar sense of humor. Wu didn’t like Zhou’s tone, but was hardly going to tell the man; despite his own elevated rank and position, he didn’t dare offend the ex-monk. The man was unbalanced in more ways than one and — while it made him an incredibly effective enforcer — it also made him a shade too unpredictable to argue with over such trivialities.
‘We are leaving,’ Wu said simply.
‘Leaving?’ Zhou asked in surprise. ‘Where are we going?’
Wu smiled. ‘To lead the fleet into Japanese waters,’ he said proudly. ‘Our helicopter leaves in twenty minutes, we should land on the Liaoning within four hours.’ The smile spread underneath his well-oiled mustache. ‘Just in time for our appearance on the radar screens of the Japanese dogs.’
Zhou shook his head. ‘Surely it is too dangerous for you to be there?’
Wu shook his own head. Did the man not understand?
General Wu De was not like those other world leaders, those cowardly and idle politicians who sent others into battle while they stayed at home and drank tea.
No, Wu was a military man, and combat was in his blood. It was his dream to lead the forces in against his enemies, to lead the Chinese in their quest to expand the empire.
He had deeply regretted getting to Taiwan so late, had always wondered what it would have been like to lead the attack himself.
He wanted to be seen as a vibrant, active, courageous man by his people, a man who could lead by example, to motivate and inspire the Chinese people into following him towards their true destiny.
He was the Genghis Khan of his times, and he knew he had to be seen as such.
He had lost his opportunity in Taiwan, and the chance to impress the public at the Dragon Boat races had also been lost the day before; he would be damned if he was going to lose such an opportunity again.
Common sense — and the direct advice of his many aides — warned against his actions, but Wu knew what he wanted, and he was going to do it.
And Japan of all places — how could he miss watching the invasion of Japan, that most hated of nations, first hand? He had dreamt of conquering that nation, of crushing it, since boyhood.
He had fought with himself, the sensible side of his personality warning against it, telling him that as the paramount leader of China he should remain where he was, all the better to monitor all of the things that had to be monitored within a country as vast as China.
But the day-to-day trivialities of running a nation held no interest for him — they were merely hindrances which stood in the way of the expansionist war-mongering that he desired, that he loved, so much.
The actual, mostly mundane running of the country was why he had so many aides and assistants, why he had kept so much of the communist bureaucracy in place after the coup.
His purpose in life was to lead the nation into war, and he was damn well going to do it.
4
‘Welcome aboard the USS John C. Stennis,’ the naval captain said with a broad smile. ‘My name is Captain Dan DeLuca, and we’re all happy to have you here.’
The captain gestured to one of his officers, who saluted smartly. ‘Lieutenant Henning will escort you to your quarters, and then we’ll need the Vice Premiers to come back up to the flag bridge to liaise with Admiral Charleston, the commander of the Stennis battle group. Then we’ll see about getting a link up to the White House.’
There were mumbled assents from the exhausted Politburo members, Kang Xing among them.
It was truly a relief to be aboard the Stennis, one of the older Nimitz-class aircraft carriers but a formidable weapons platform all the same.
It was sailing just outside the range of the DF-26 anti-ship ballistic missiles of the Second Artillery Regiment, about sixteen hundred kilometers from the Chinese coast, in the western Pacific Ocean to east of the Ryukyu Islands, and it was accompanied by its full carrier battle group, ready to go into action at a moment’s notice.
Kang accepted that it was a good place to take them, and recognized the slick, professional job done by the submarine captain on getting them here in the first place. He’d had to slip the Texas through several bodies of Chinese-controlled water before reaching the relative safety of the Pacific, and he’d done so quite expertly.
They would be quite safe here, Kang was sure; and it would also provide them with direct communication with President Abrams and the White House, the next best thing to being in DC themselves.
And this way, still close to the action, they could be seen by the people to be courageous, not running all the way to America; they were still in-theatre, able to return home at any moment.
Kang wondered if General Wu had launched his attack on Japan yet; for that was surely the man’s next major move. And what would the Stennis carrier battle group do then?
Kang smiled as he wondered if the Stennis was indeed the safest place for them; they might well be pulled into the war with Japan, to see it with their own eyes first hand.
Kang wouldn’t mind that at all.
But first things first, he decided; he had to speak to Chang Wubei, make him understand the opportunity he had to impress Admiral Charleston, and then the Americans at the White House. If it could be decided that Chang would take the lead in negotiations over the First Vice Premier, Liang Huanjia, then his protégé would definitely be on his way to claim the leadership upon the Politburo’s return to the People’s Republic.
And that, at the end of the day, was a large part of what this had been about all along.
‘You’ve found the Liaoning?’ Ellen Abrams asked with trepidation.
The president was in the Oval Office in a meeting with her National Security Adviser when the call had arrived from Bud Shaw, the director of the NSA.
Eckhart looked across the polished wood desk at her with interest and alarm in equal measure.
‘I’m afraid so,’ Shaw said as Abrams clicked him onto speakerphone. ‘The Japanese have just tracked her passing out of the East China Sea around the southern tip of Kyushu. The Liaoning, with an entire carrier battle group.’ He paused, took a breath. ‘In fact, it seems that most of China’s East Sea Fleet has passed into Japanese waters. Some elements are already stationing themselves off around the lower areas of Japan, the carrier group is still headed north.’
‘To Tokyo?’ Abrams asked.
‘We have to assume so, yes,’ Shaw confirmed. ‘And it will be sitting outside the Japanese capital within the next few hours. But that’s a purely psychological gesture — it’s already close enough to launch its planes.’