“You’re talking about military action?” Kyra asked.
“Possibly,” Jonathan observed. “Military exercises along the coast opposite Taiwan are always a favorite way to send a message.”
“What about an invasion?” Cooke asked.
Jonathan shrugged. “There has always been a debate about whether the PLA has the capability to invade Taiwan proper. But that kind of yes-no argument discourages thinking about scenarios that don’t fit neatly at the poles, which is foolish. History proves that there is such a thing as limited war for limited gains. So a few years ago I drafted a Red Cell paper positing a limited war scenario in which the Chinese moved across the strait in stages. It took five years, but the ‘incremental moves’ view has become accepted now, not that APLAA is happy about it.”
“They disagree?” Kyra asked.
“Actually, no,” Jonathan responded. “They just dislike the fact that I and not one of their own wrote the paper. That group holds grudges and has long memories.”
“I’ve had to stop them from ordering a hit on you more than once. You’re welcome, by the way,” Cooke said. “How will Tian play this?”
“Passive-aggressive at first, to see if Liang will cave,” Jonathan said. “He’ll start with the usual public speeches, editorials in the People’s Daily, that sort of thing. Keep track of what the People’s Daily is saying. It’s the Chinese Pravda, controlled by the party, so the editorials are official announcements. On the diplomatic front, Tian doesn’t see Liang as an equal. He’ll suggest negotiation in public, but privately he’ll expect all the compromises to come from Liang.”
“Good enough to start.” Cooke stood and nodded at Kyra. “Send me that invasion plan of yours by close of business. And put this young lady to work.”
“If I must,” he said. He turned to Kyra. “How long will you be staying?”
“Ask her,” Kyra said, pointing at the director.
“Undetermined,” Cooke said.
“So helpful.” Jonathan pulled a pad across the desk and wrote out the titles and publication dates of several intelligence papers, all inked in neat block letters. “The China analysts keep hard copies of past research papers in their vault. Fifth floor.” He ripped the paper out and handed it to Kyra.
The titles were boring but the publication dates were not. “Some of these are as old as I am,” Kyra said.
“I wasn’t going to mention it, but that’s true,” Jonathan replied. “It’s a common error of the young to mistake the recent for the important.”
“You’re too kind,” Kyra said.
“Without question,” Jonathan agreed.
“Five bucks says you’ve got Asperger’s,” Kyra said.
“You’ll have to raise your bribe to find out,” Jonathan said.
“What if they won’t let me have these?” she asked, holding the paper up.
Jonathan raised an eyebrow. “If you have to ask permission before taking things, you’re working for the wrong Agency.”
Jonathan waited until the door closed behind Kyra before moving to the manager’s office. He threw himself into a chair while Cooke stopped at the doorway and leaned against the metal frame.
“I presume that she’s the reason you asked me to come in today?” he asked.
“She is,” Cooke answered. “Thanks for doing this.”
“I know an order when I hear one.”
“Still, you could have made this much more unpleasant,” Cooke said.
“The day is still young.”
The CIA director allowed herself a smile. “How’ve you been, Jon?” she asked.
“Well enough,” he said. “And you?’
Cooke shrugged. “Well enough,” she answered back.
“Are you still smoking Arturo Fuentes?”
“Only at home,” Cooke said. “I can’t change the no-smoking policy. It’s a federal law, after all.”
“It was bad enough when George Tenet walked around here chewing those things,” Jonathan said. The former director’s love for cigars had been so famous that his official portrait in the Agency gallery showed one sticking out of his coat pocket.
“George had impeccable taste in tobacco,” Cooke observed. “And he had the king of Jordan slipping him Montecristo Edmundos from Havana. I still have a few in the humidor at home that he gave me. You should come by and light one up with me sometime.”
Jonathan either missed the hint or ignored it, and Cooke couldn’t tell which. “No, thank you,” he said. “I’m on good terms with my lungs and I want to stay that way.”
“Your loss,” Cooke said. “You seeing anyone?”
Jonathan cocked his head and his mouth twisted into a wry grin. “Hardly. I’m an acquired taste,” he said. “You?”
“The job keeps me busy. And there’s not much privacy at home with all the SPOs running around.”
“No doubt.”
“It won’t last forever, Jon,” Cooke told him. “Tread lightly with Stryker. Sending her up to APLAA by herself was throwing a Christian to the lions.”
“I don’t believe in teaching analysts to swim in the shallow end of the pool,” Jonathan said.
“What do you think of her?”
Jonathan shrugged. “She’s too young for me.”
“Not what I was asking,” Cooke said, her voice taking on a slightly cold edge. “She’s a case officer. Her first tour lasted six months. We had to pull her back from the field.”
“She blew an op?” Jonathan asked.
Cooke shook her head. “In a manner of speaking. She crossed paths with a station chief who’s personal friends with the director of national intelligence. He sent her to meet with an asset who turned out to be a double. She suspected it going in, and so did we, but the station chief ignored her. Gave her a direct order to go. She got burned and was almost picked up by the locals.”
Jonathan considered the answer for a second. “Venezuela?”
Cooke nodded. “The DNI was basing his advice to the president on a double agent’s reports. He needed someone to blame and was close friends with the station chief, so the hammer wasn’t coming down there,” she told him. “She needs a safe harbor.”
“The rest of the DI doesn’t like me, and the NCS doesn’t like the DI as a whole. You just put her in the one place where she’s guaranteed to be hated by everyone.”
“Not your problem. If she’s smart, she won’t let it become her problem either.” Cooke pushed herself away from the doorframe, turning to leave. “By the way, Liang is going to give a statement to his press corps at twenty-thirty. I’ve told Open Source Center to make sure it runs on the internal network. State Department says that he’ll be talking about the arrests.”
Jonathan checked the wall clock and corrected for the time zones in his head. “Is that solid or a rumor some junior diplomat heard over drinks?”
Cooke shrugged. “Neither? Both? The arrests are the only thing going on over there worth a press conference. Anything else you need to get started on this?”
“A transcript of that Politburo Standing Committee meeting in Zhongnanhai.”
“That’s what you call a hard target,” Cooke said, smiling. “It would be like trying to plant a bug inside the White House.”