Balboa nodded. That was true — he would probably be giving the briefing in a couple hours anyway. Fie took a deep breath. “Two nuclear explosions have occurred near the Formosa Straits,” Balboa said breathlessly, as if wanting to get it all out as fast as he could. Crane gasped in surprise again; Finegold remained impassive. “Both were low-yield devices. One occurred at high altitude near the island of Quemoy, which is a Taiwanese island near the coast of mainland China; the other occurred at sea level in the Formosa Strait, about sixty miles south of Quemoy.”
“My God,” Crane muttered. “Are we at war with China?”
“The detonations occurred during a naval skirmish between a Chinese carrier battle group and a couple of Taiwanese warships,” Balboa went on. He fidgeted nervously, which told Finegold that he was concealing some other tidbit of information, probably something about American military units involved in the skirmish. “Both Taiwanese vessels were destroyed. No word yet on the Chinese ships.”
“And what about the American forces?” Finegold asked. Balboa began to look like a fish out of water — he realized, as if waking up from a bad dream, that he had said too much. “What happened to the American subs?”
Finegold saw the hint of relief in Balboas face — she had guessed wrong. “All four subs shadowing the Chinese fleet are safe,” Balboa said.
“Thank God,” she replied. Time to take a chance, roll the dice, Barbara Finegold told herself. She leaned toward Balboa, turning him away from Joe Crane so it felt as if they were talking alone and confidentially, and asked, “What about the stealth bombers? Did they make it out? Hopefully they were far enough away when the nukes went off.”
Balboa looked into Finegold’s eyes, searching to see whether or not she knew or was just guessing. In response, Finegold gave him her sternest, most confident expression, not breaking lock with his eyes even for a moment. Balboa asked himself the question, Does she know about the bombers? and his tortured mind answered, Obviously so.
“They’re safe,” Balboa said. “They weren’t involved in the nuclear explosions — in fact, they probably shot down other Chinese missiles and may have even intercepted the missile that exploded over Quemoy, resulting in only a partial yield. They’re safely on their way back.”
“Good… that’s damned good news, Admiral,” Finegold said. Outside, she appeared relieved, but inside, her brain and her guts were leaping. The President sent stealth bombers over the Formosa Strait— bombers that could apparently fire anti-missile weapons? In the face of harsh congressional investigations that he might have illegally used stealth warplanes to bomb Iran, the President actually dared to use them again, just a few weeks later, in the middle of a China-Taiwan conflict? It was absolutely amazing, incredible, unbelievable! And now the “skirmish” was blowing up into possibly a full-scale nuclear war, one in which the United States was obviously going to get involved — and the President’s hands were in deep, deep, deep shit, up to his armpits. The new President of the United States was possibly illegally involved in precipitating a nuclear war. “This information will go no farther than this room.” “Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Crane gasped, finally getting up to speed with the others. “You’re saying that…?”
“Let’s drop it, Joe — we’re not here to pump the admiral for information,” Barbara Finegold said, although she wanted nothing more than to do just that. “This conversation didn’t take place. It did not take place. All we needed to know was that the evacuation was precautionary, and that no American forces have been mobilized.”
“Yes, completely precautionary — definitely not a prelude to war, and no American forces are on alert,” Balboa verified. “Our guys may have fired some weapons in self-defense…”
“The bombers?”
Balboa nodded as he continued, “… but no attack orders were ever issued by the President. None.”
“We can support self-defense,” Finegold said. “Even helping to protect innocent lives and property, especially if we knew the Chinese might use nuclear weapons. That action is acceptable.”
“That’s all that was used,” Balboa added, looking as if a huge weight had been lifted from his chest. As long as he believed this conversation was off the record, Finegold thought, he felt confident in saying just a little bit more. Of course, she never said it was off the record, just that it never took place — which, of course, it obviously did. She took one more flyer: “You should be proud of your guys out there, Admiral.”
His relieved expression hardened into a dark scowl, and Finegold was afraid she had said too much — or maybe she had hit the nerve that had been jangling in Balboa’s brain all this time. He said fervently, as if pleading with her, “Don’t look at the Navy, Senator. Not our ballgame.”
“Jesus,” Finegold gasped with as much sympathetic horror as she could summon. “You mean, the President shut your boys out again in favor of some other secret no-name sandlot pickup team?”
“You got it,” Balboa responded bitterly, now convinced that the Senate Majority Leader really did know the entire score. “You got it.”
That was all he had to say — but Barbara Finegold’s heart was leaping in pure, abject joy. He had already said quite enough — and it might be enough to bring down a president.
CHAPTER THREE
“When men have minds set on victory, all they see is the enemy. When men have minds filled with fear, all they see is their fear.”
“You have thirty seconds to explain,” Chief of Staff General Chin Po Zi- hong thundered, “why you ordered this insane, monstrous attack. I have already ordered that you be dismissed as my chief deputy. Your response will determine whether or not you spend the rest of your life in prison for what you have done — or if you are executed as a traitor! ” The Minister of National Defense, Chi Haotian, waited for the response as well, hands on the armrests of his chair, watching Chins deputy — rather, exdeputy—Admiral Sun Ji Guoming, with a sagging, tired grimace.
“Our carrier and its escort ships were under attack by rebel Nationalist naval forces, assisted by an unknown force launching anti-radar and anti-ship missiles, sir,” Admiral Sun responded, his voice loud, steady, and assertive. “I suspected a stealth aircraft attack, based on the same type of reports during the recent United States-Iran conflict, and I immediately ordered a full-scale counterattack.”
“You ordered? You are just a deputy, Sun, not a commander!” Chin thundered. “You have no authority to launch a strike mission or countermand my orders!”
“I beg your understanding, Comrade General,” Sun said, with as much sincerity as he could muster, keeping his eyes averted, “but there was no time. Our forces were being decimated by the rebel warships and the American B-52 bomber. If I had gone through proper channels, the American aircraft would have wiped out our battle group.”
“A B-52 bomber!” Minister of Defense Chi exclaimed. Chi knew well the power of the American B-52s — he had been in power during the abortive attack on the Philippines. “This is incredible! Are you sure, Sun?”
“The Nationalists used an American stealth aircraft to support an illegal intercept on the high seas against our warships, sir,” Sun retorted. “The fighter pilots from the carrier Mao confirmed the sighting before they were shot down — another act of war. I used my judgment and ordered our battle group to commence their attack against Quemoy from long range—”