“I want to be absolutely clear about this,” Bill said without any preliminaries. “I want to know, with absolute clarity, if there is any way that the invasion can be averted?”
Han shrugged and arched his brow. “There might, dare I say, be one way,” Han replied before pausing to study his old friend. In the end, Han just smiled. “But you would never agree to conditions!” Han waited. Bill’s eye twitched, as did his pinched lips a moment after. “Certainly not with me across the table!” Han finally continued. “How preposterous!” Han loosed a good-natured laugh at the thought.
Bill couldn’t force his lips into a smile. He wore his hatred on his sleeve.
You’re really new at this, Han thought, studying Bill’s pale face. Han took a sip of coffee and sweetened it by stirring a tiny pastry in the warm liquid. He popped the soggy, saccharine dough into his mouth and mumbled, “Now I have a question for you.” Han wiped his mouth with a napkin. “If we invade America, will you resort to nuclear weapons?”
One corner of Bill’s lips turned up as if to leave implicit some vague and sinister threat.
Clint Eastwood, Han thought, almost laughing out loud. He shook his head. “You see, don’t you, Bill, that your answer is ‘No.’”
“I have not given you an answer,” Bill stonily objected.
Han shook his head. “But you have! You have! Don’t you see? This is not the time for an ambiguous reply unless your answer is no.”
“If we use tactical nuclear weapons,” Bill changed the subject, “will you retaliate with strategic weapons?”
Han frowned and shook his head again, hinting that this was not a productive use of their meeting. “Do you remember the old skit on the television show we used to watch? The night that Rachel’s friend brought the marijuana over to our apartment?” He sat up and held his hands out to his sides as if ready to draw his six-shooters. “The imbecilic gunfighter, you remember, whose practical joke it is to pretend to draw his weapon in the gunfight, but in fact he doesn’t really draw.” Han quick-drew his fake gun in the shape of a finger and a thumb. “Don’t you remember? How many times did we reenact that skit? It was so humorous, of course,” Han said in a flat and humorless tone, “because the joke was on the jokester, who got shot and killed by his opponent.”
“This is different,” Bill said.
Han nodded and smiled, wistfully recalling those days when he and Bill were inseparable friends. “Yes, it is,” Han admitted. “Everything is different.” He popped another micro-pastry into his mouth and laughed. “But I always thought that skit was hilarious. It was such a stupid mistake for the gunfighter to pretend to draw when both sides were so tense and ready to kill each other.” Han paused to ensure that Bill understood his warning. There was no evidence on Bill’s face that he did understand, so Han frowned and said, “If you intend to launch nuclear weapons at China if we invade your shores, Bill, it would be imbecilic not to say so clearly and without qualification or hesitation.”
“If we use tactical nuclear weapons,” Bill asked in exactly the same words as before, “will you retaliate with strategic weapons?”
“Of course not!” Han replied firmly and unequivocally. Bill’s eye twitched again. At least he saw through that, Han thought. He’s totally transparent! “If, Bill, we are ever, say, allied against Europe, let me do all the negotiating,okay?” Han laughed, but he never took his eyes off Bill, searching for a glimmer of comprehension of what Han was proposing.
“I will never be your ally,” Bill replied in an acid tone.
At least he picked up on the offer, Han thought.
“Is the prime minister now firmly in command of China’s nuclear arsenal?” Bill asked.
Han smiled to mask his anger at Bill’s question. “Firmly,” Han replied clearly in case the Americans had bugged the room. His sweeper was only certain of detecting Chinese military listening devices.
“How firmly?” Bill prodded, annoying Han further, widening his smile. For it had, after all, been Han’s job to wrest complete control of the weapons from the military. The minor exception to which he had agreed, for engineers’ nuclear demolition munitions, had been Han’s mistake and Tel Aviv’s tragedy. It was to cover up for that mistake that thirty-seven of Sheng’s officers had been executed. It was to vent Han’s intense anger at the potential career setback — narrowly avoided — that Han had done the killing himself. “Does the prime minister have sole possession of the launch codes?” Bill persisted, finally cracking what looked like a smile.
“Launch codes!” Han blurted out before reining in his anger and smiling pleasantly. “What do they matter? Codes can be changed. The prime minister has much more effective ‘people’ controls.”
“You mean that he holds military families hostage to the secret police,” Bill interpreted.
“Yes,” Han confirmed simply, directly, and this time truthfully. “And as you know, the prime minister has publicly warned of the dangers of nuclear escalation and is committed to avoiding any such terrible outcome.”
Baker looked Han straight in the eye and said, “Bullshit! You don’t give one shit about the lives of your troops or my people! All you care about is power! And your power would be enhanced by a nuclear war, wouldn’t it, Han? The people of China would turn against the military, and they have nowhere to turn but to you!”
Han smiled, took a deep breath, and sighed. “Let me put this simply so that you will understand — with no games — what I’m saying. You must very soon make your choice whether to use all weapons at your disposal, or to rely on your army,” Han laughed, “against ours.”
Bill Baker sat there eyeing him for a moment, then stood. “Fuck you,” he said, and headed for the door.
Rain, Stephie thought as she gazed up at the starless sky. There’s a storm coming.
Their platoon was on its first patrol since the mauling on the beach. Their second patrol — for real, not in training — ever. At night. One hundred and twenty miles north of the Gulf Coast. Seventy-five miles south of friendly lines. Through a neighborhood filled with dark windows and a hundred hiding places.
Stephie was petrified. They had replenished their platoon with replacements for the casualties they’d taken, but Stephie had no confidence anymore that their unit could do the job, that they could survive again the kind of fire they had received on the beach. Plus, the invasion could come anytime and anywhere, and yet they sent them into abandoned Montgomery at night! What were they thinking?
The only light visible in the Alabama state capital was the brilliant sparkling of an engineer’s torch as she cut down a street sign and her comrade tossed it into the back of their truck. A dog barked here and there. Occasionally, tires squealed and engines revved in the distance. The city wasn’t totally empty. There were still tens of thousands of civilians holed up in the two hundred-mile Exclusion Zone. Some — stubborn and old — just stayed put. Others were unofficial defenders of America. They would be out on a night like this carrying M-16s just like Stephie. Stephie’s unit had been warned to take no chances. It was a free-fire zone. They were to shoot anyone they saw on sight.
Stephie lay in the overgrown front lawn of a modest home, swatting at the occasional mosquito. Her squad was set up in a protective screen to refuse contact from all sides with the street corner where the two engineers worked in the middle. The woman with the torch made short work of a metal signpost. The other combat engineer tossed it into their truck. The female engineer wheeled her bottle off toward the next intersection, leaving one less directional aid to guide the Chinese.