Stuart ground his teeth together. “That sounds familiar.”
“Yes, it does,” Cooke agreed. “And if Taiwan surrenders at any point, so much the better. Stage One calls for an assault on Kinmen. Stage Two is a push on the Penghu.” The CIA director took Showalter’s grease pencil and tapped another landmass in the Strait, this one more than halfway to Taiwan. “The Pescadores are a natural staging point for a full-on invasion of the main island. Sixty-four islands, but the largest one, Penghu, has air- and seaport facilities that would let the PLA resupply its biggest transports, and it’s less than fifty miles off Taiwan.”
“Why not increase the pressure by taking the Matsus or some of the other smaller islands closer to the mainland?” Stuart asked. “Easier to grab, fewer casualties.”
“They’re not in the direct path of an invasion like Kinmen. And if the PLA seizes control of Taiwan, Tian will get them all anyway,” Showalter answered.
“And your people don’t think Liang will back down?” Stuart asked Cooke.
“Nobody is optimistic,” Cooke said. “He’s too corrupt to care about the soldiers on Kinmen, and he’s no strategic genius. If his party loses the election, he loses all protection from prosecution on corruption charges. He needs friends in power, so he was desperate enough to light this tinderbox in the first place. He wanted the Taiwan public focused on an external threat. They’re focused now, but if Liang shows weakness and backs down, he loses everything. And Tian’s right. Liang is almost certainly banking on you to stop the PLA and get Kinmen back for him.”
“So where does this hit on the Ma Kong fit into this?” Stuart asked, waving the paper in the air.
“The Red Cell has a theory, but I’m not prepared to explain it in detail—” Cooke started.
“Then give me the short version,” Stuart ordered.
“Yes, sir,” Cooke said. She hated to share unproven theories, but an order was an order. “It was a weapons test.”
Stuart stared at the CIA director, surprised. “What kind of weapon?”
“We don’t know exactly, but something designed to kill an aircraft carrier.” She spent less than a minute on the history of the Assassin’s Mace project. “Basically, if this ‘assassin’s mace,’ whatever it is, can take out a Kidd-class destroyer, then it might be able to take out a carrier.”
Stuart rolled his eyes, dropped the paper on the table, and slumped back into his chair. “So the Chinese think they have a way to kill carriers. No wonder Tian was shoving it all in my face.”
“We don—,” Cooke started.
“‘We don’t know,’ yes, yes,” Stuart cut her off. He sucked in a deep breath in frustration. “Lance, could Taiwan defend the Pescadores without our help?” Stuart asked.
“No,” Showalter said. The man’s response was quick and final. Cooke raised an eyebrow. “But if you want, we can draw a line in the sand there. There’s fifty miles of South China Sea between Penghu and the mainland coast. With Taiwan’s support, we can make it feel like fifty thousand. Lincoln and Washington are both en route. Lincoln is sailing south, three days out of Yokosuka. Washington is one day east of Guam. We can back them up with the air wing at Kadena, and if you want to start hitting some ground targets, we can start flying the B-2s out of Kansas.” He considered knowing the position of all twelve US carriers a basic function of his job.
“But we could lose a carrier to this… thing, whatever this thing might be,” Stuart said. He sounded more tired than before.
“Harry, you could lose a carrier even if they don’t have this thing,” the SecDef said.
“Sir, if I may?” Cooke interrupted him.
“Yes?”
“In my job, I’m not supposed to recommend policy. I’m just supposed to give you the intelligence and the analysis. But I can tell you what the likely implications of any course of action might be. Sir, if you turn those carriers around, it will send a very loud message to every one of our allies on the Pacific Rim and a louder one to our enemies everywhere else. And I don’t believe I have to spell out to you what that message is. But it will be final and irreversible, and the United States will never recover the influence we will lose. You’ll change the world and not in a way you will like, sir.” Cooke sat back and realized that her heart was pounding harder than she could ever remember.
“That was bold,” Stuart said quietly.
“Yes, sir. I’ll understand if you want me to—”
Stuart cut her off once again, this time with a wave of his hand. “I like bold. And it helps that I agree with you.” He left the implied consequences of disagreeing with her unsaid. “Any ideas about what story I should feed the press about the carriers going in?”
“You could make a statement that the carriers are there to protect the right to free maritime passage through international waters during hostilities,” Showalter offered.
“You wouldn’t even be lying,” Cooke said in agreement. She pointed at the map and traced a line. “Taiwan sits in the Luzon Strait connecting the Pacific with the South China Sea north of the Philippines. That is the major shipping lane linking Japan and the Koreas to Indonesia and the Indian Ocean. If Tian takes over and creates a Kinmen — Pescadores — Taiwan line under one flag, he could close off access to commercial shipping at will through both the Taiwan and Luzon Straits.”
“I like it.” The president of the United States smiled and nodded. “Lance, pull the plans off the shelf for defending the Pescadores. And send that Red Cell report to the carrier groups. If that’s the PLA’s playbook, I want them to know it back and front.”
Barron had a whole pot of coffee waiting in Cooke’s office this time when she came through the door. The CIA director downed two mugs of it to give herself some time to think and she drew a third before sitting down.
She opened the file and pulled out a research paper. “The Red Cell came up with this a few years ago. I just shared it with the president.”
Barron took the paper and scanned the abstract. “That’s not bad,” he said. “If they’re right, Penghu and the rest of the Pescadores are next on the menu.” He dropped the paper on the table.
“The president liked it,” Cooke said. “We need to get an idea of when the PLA could make a run on the Pescadores. What’s the holdup with Pioneer?”
Barron sucked in a deep breath and Cooke felt her intuition scream. She said nothing. The NCS director needed the chance to break the news in his own way. “Chief of station says that Pioneer’s been burned,” he said, sotto voce. It was the worst thing he could have said at that moment and he knew it.
Cooke closed her eyes, covered her face with her hands, and gritted her teeth so hard she was afraid she was going to break her jaw. “What happened?” she asked slowly, her voice controlled.
“We don’t know,” Barron admitted.
“Do we know how long he’s been under surveillance?” Cooke asked.
“No.” Barron had done nothing, but felt incompetent all the same.
“I assume Mitchell has an exfiltration plan?” asked Cooke.