“Actually, I doubt they ever truly intended to take out a carrier when this all started. I suspect they just wanted to test the stealth against our radar systems, but Pollard’s little furball caught them by surprise and suddenly they had more on their plate than they were ready to handle. Or maybe they did intend to fire on a carrier all along. If they’d hit Lincoln, and President Stuart had ordered the Navy to pull back, there’d be a really nasty power shift going on right now in this part of the world. Maybe Tian Kai really was gambling for high stakes.”
“The Navy wouldn’t have seen it coming if you hadn’t told them to look for it.”
“Our saving grace is that the Chinese don’t know that,” he said. “They might think Nagin and his boys got lucky. And I could have been wrong.”
Kyra stared into the craters and watched as two men struggled to lift some twisted metal — part of the cockpit frame? — where others could secure it to another harness. “There’s your smoking gun,” Kyra said.
Jonathan shifted his feet and kicked a piece of metal a few inches toward the crater’s rim. “Nagin said it was beautiful. It’s a shame he had to tear it up.”
“It tried to put a missile into the ship we were on. I’m not sorry,” she said. “You sound surprised.”
“I suppose I am,” Jonathan said. “The Chinese have a wonderful sense of design in many specialties, but military hardware isn’t one of them. The PLA has never paid much attention to the aesthetics. They’ve had a hard enough time making their homegrown gear work, much less make it pretty, not that we always do a great job of that either, I suppose. They didn’t build this thing alone.”
“You think the Russians helped?”
“They would be the most likely candidates.” Jonathan nodded. “But the Chinese are trying to innovate. They’ve had to steal technology to get to the point where they could do that, and buy what they couldn’t steal. But they’re turning a corner. They’re showing ingenuity.”
Kyra shrugged and stared into the hole. “I’m sure we’ll see another one of those.”
“No doubt,” Jonathan said. He paused to watch the portable crane deposit its load on the flatbed. The wing section scraped across the metal truck bed with a painful screech and the workers began to chain the debris down. “Still, by the time they’ve perfected it for manned fighters, we’ll be coming at them with unmanned fighters.”
“They’ll try to steal those too,” Kyra said. “Maybe we should be stealing more of their gear.”
“You really were born to work for NCS, weren’t you?” Jonathan asked. Kyra smiled and said nothing. He removed his hand from his coat pocket and put a small device in her hand. “Have a souvenir.”
Kyra turned the unit over in her hand. It was a gauge with cracked glass over a sphere lined with horizontal markings and Chinese characters. “What is it?”
“The plane’s attitude indicator, I think.”
“The PLA still uses mechanical gauges in their planes?”
Jonathan shrugged. “For that one they did. I guess they haven’t mastered the art of designing an all-glass cockpit.”
“Won’t they want this?” Kyra asked, nodding her head in the direction of the recovery team in the hole.
“Every plane in the world has one, so it wouldn’t tell them anything about the plane’s capabilities,” Jonathan said. “When they don’t find it, they’ll just assume it was there.”
“Isn’t that stealing?” Kyra asked, smiling. “I told you before, if you have to ask before you take something, you’re working for the wrong agency.”
“You missed your calling,” Kyra said. “You should come work for us.”
“Thank you, no,” Jonathan said. “I assume that Seahawk is waiting for us?”
“Yeah.”
“A shame,” Jonathan said. “All we get to see of Taiwan is a smoking hole.” He turned and began to climb the hill. Kyra followed and tried to keep her footing in the loose dirt and metal shavings.
Dunne was not nervous about meeting with Tian. He’d been demarched too often in his life for that and even Tian couldn’t rouse those feelings in him anymore. He was just tired of dealing with such men. They were pure political animals for whom every encounter with the US was a personal test, and Dunne was tired of the diplomatic bloodletting. Hearing too many lies and telling too many of his own had worn out his soul; he needed to go home and heal. It was time to let younger men with more fire in their soul for dealing with hypocrites and confrontations take his desk.
This meeting, though, he was looking forward to. It had been a long time since he’d felt that. This meeting would be different. For once, it would be about the truth. Diplomats got to talk to chiefs of state like this maybe once in a career.
“Ambassador Dunne, would you like some tea?” Tian asked. He was unmoved, as though the Battle of the Taiwan Strait had never occurred, much less gone against him.
“No, thank you, Mr. President.”
Tian nodded. “Zeng, leave us,” he ordered in Mandarin. “This meeting will be private.”
Zeng bowed and left the room. Tian turned away from the counter and teapot and returned to the chair behind his desk. Dunne didn’t sit. This wasn’t the time for it.
“I would have Zeng stay to translate,” Tian said, switching back to English, “but I believe this discussion will be less pleasant than our past meetings.”
“I don’t doubt that, Mr. President,” Dunne said. “I’m sure your English will be more than suitable.” If nothing else, Dunne was sure that Tian knew enough English curse words. Most of the foreigners he’d ever met did.
“Ambassador Dunne, your country has interfered in Chinese internal affairs,” Tian announced. “It will not happen again.”
“With respect, the United States will always stand by her allies,” Dunne replied.
“And your commitment to the ‘One China’ policy?”
“Our commitment has never been absolute, sir,” Dunne admitted. “We acceded to it to keep the peace in the hope that China and Taiwan could work out a peaceful settlement. If China is determined to go to war instead, President Stuart might have to reconsider his position on the issue.” Dunne was perilously close to overstepping his bounds as a diplomat by talking about a president’s future actions, but this was one time that he was willing to go to the edge.
Tian looked at the ambassador and Dunne saw a flash of rage behind the man’s eyes, but his face never moved. “There can be no other position now. The United States and Taiwan have lost. Surely you see it.”
“Quite the contrary,” Dunne told him, surprised. “From our point of view, it is China that has lost… lost a great deal more than you realize, I think.”
“Your blindness surprises me, Aidan. I have always considered you to be an insightful person. I think it is very clear what we have gained,” Tian said. “We control Kinmen. Its release will come at a steep price to both of your countries. Part of that price will be the return of the traitor your officers helped escape during these events.”
“I have no knowledge of any such escape,” Dunne said. It was not a lie. He had tried very hard to stay out of Mitchell’s affairs, but he had to restrain a smile at the thought that the chief of station had found a way to twist a knife in Tian’s ribs.
“I believe you. But President Stuart surely knows about it, or will, and I will make the same demand in a few days. If he concedes, we will get our traitor back and his execution will be made public. Your CIA will have shown itself to be feckless again. If not, and he refuses, then Kinmen will remain under our control and Taiwan will blame you for the loss. Your alliance with the island will be strained, and they will be the weaker for it,” Tian said. He sipped his tea and set the cup on the desk. “It would be better to return him, but I don’t expect that President Stuart will do it. It has always been a failing of your country that you will not sacrifice a few lives for the greater good.”