Like his famous great-great-great-great-grandfather, the President was a bull-nosed, laissez-faire bureaucrat who’d done well as president because of his quiet, hardworking, rock-steady style. And like his ancestor, Taylor was an ex-Army general and judge advocate who had retired to enter politics at age fifty-one, soon after pinning on his first star. Taylor had, above everything else, a keen sense of history — and his place in it.
He knew, even as he entered the Situation Room and everyone stood up, that he was the first American president to have to deal with a nuclear weapon crisis since John F. Kennedy.
And he was determined to handle it better than Kennedy did.
He had not been in the Situation Room five minutes when he had his men on the griddle — even as phones rang constantly in the background. His eyes wandered around the table to each and every adviser: Tom Preston, his Secretary of Defense and an experienced politician; General Wilbur Curtis, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Kenneth Wayne, Director of the CIA; and Frank Kellogg, his National Security Advisor.
His eyes settled on General Wilbur Curtis, chief military officer of the United States and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He was the President’s principal military adviser but a holdover from the last administration. Unfortunately, he was so well respected on the Hill and at the Pentagon that Taylor knew he couldn’t get rid of him even if he wanted to.
“General Curtis, even though you got us in this DEFCON Three posture — and I wish I had been in on that decision from the start and not after your commanders went ahead and did it themselves — the ‘bolt from the blue’ theory of strategic warfare has been dead for almost a decade.”
Curtis could see this was going to be a long, difficult meeting.
“Sir, we were following the OPLAN — the operations plan — established and authorized by you in case of an emergency of this magnitude. DEFCON Three is a very secure posture right now. We’re—”
“If there was no apparent attack in progress, then you had time to notify me and let me make the decision,” the President interrupted. “That’s what I expect. We will need to change the OPLAN after this to rectify it.”
“Yes, sir,” Curtis acknowledged.
“What else have you got for me, General?”
Curtis cleared his throat. “Our strategic forces are in full readiness, so if this is some sort of prelude to an all-out attack against the United States, we’re ready, sir.” Curtis glanced at the Navy captain seated near the door, keeping the “football.”
The President disliked having the football around — he had once told the press that he likened it to the Grim Reaper, with scythe in hand, following him everywhere he went — but in this he had no choice.
“Well,” Taylor grumbled, “I guess the question of whether this is a prelude or not will be answered once we have more information, won’t it, General? This PACER SKY thing saw who launched the missile, didn’t it?”
“Not exactly, sir,” Curtis replied. “The NIRTSat — part of the PACER SKY program — saw the nuclear explosion, but we’re trying to keep a lid on that. As you know, we’ve been monitoring the situation between the Chinese and the Philippines since that original skirmish. But because of our past association with the Philippines, we didn’t want it to appear as if we were monitoring anyone — or feeding anyone intelligence information. Still, we do know, thanks to PACER SKY, exactly which ships were in the area. SAC analysts have concluded that only the Chinese could have launched the weapon.”
“Well, then, that brings us to the bigger picture, doesn’t it?” the President said. “I’ve been briefed on the shit going down in the Philippines for some time. And you people tell me the Communists are running rampant in the outlying provinces and that if Mikaso kicks the damned bucket we could lose all ties to the Philippines — our stopover and resupply privileges, our radar sites, our listening posts, our practice bombing ranges. I was also briefed on the skirmish a few months ago between the Chinese and the Philippines, but it was characterized as nothing more than a little tiff. When a fucking nuclear bomb goes off, gentlemen, it’s not just a little tiff. Now what the hell is going on here? Is it the start of a major war, an illegal test by some country, or an accident?”
Director of Central Intelligence Kenneth Wayne said, “An accident, sir, seems the only plausible explanation. The Chinese Navy could certainly overtake the Philippine Navy without having to resort to nuclear weapons. Also, we’ve detected only one explosion, which tells us there was no nuclear exchange. Of course,” the CIA director said, lighting a pipe, “it also could have been a military response by the Chinese, but a response by… say, a lone wolf, and not necessarily the Chinese government itself.”
“Lone wolf?” the President asked, raising his eyebrows. “You mean some nutjob in command of a ship?”
The CIA director shrugged his shoulders. “Entirely possible. Not a nutjob, per se, but simply a commander who panicked. But I’d put my money on it being a simple accident.”
“JCS doesn’t agree with the DCI’s estimation, sir,” Curtis said. The look the President, as well as Wayne, gave him could have chilled a polar bear. “We don’t discount the DCI’s theory, but we have evidence of another possibility that I feel it would be more prudent to act upon.” The President had a very slight — but very noticeable — exasperated frown — he didn’t like being told that he was wrong. He rolled his hand as if to say, “Get on with it.” Curtis said, “My staff feels that this attack may be a prelude to an all-out attack and invasion of the Philippines by China…” Everyone in the room sat up. Voices started coming at Curtis and at President Taylor all at once.
“Ridiculous…”
“Totally off the mark…”
“They’d never try it…”
Curtis pressed on. “All I have is speculation, sir, but we’re forgetting China has long historical claims to many of the Philippine Islands and the fact that ethnic Chinese make up a great majority of the Philippine population. Couple that with someone like Daniel Teguina, who has strong Communist ties, and you’ve got the makings of a real land-grab.” Voices of dissent were heard from the CIA director, the Secretary of Defense, the National Security Advisor. The President cleared his throat — loudly. All heads turned to him. “Look, we can speculate all we want, but without any information, speculation’s not going to do us a damned bit of good.” He turned to the DCI. “No word from Manila yet? Or Mikaso?”
“All lines are still jammed, sir. Satellite and HF networks are still down.”
This got a grunt from the President. “And what about China? Have we heard what they think about all this?”
DCI Kenneth Wayne said, “We’ve got calls in to everyone, sir, including Premier Cheung.”
The President turned to Tom Preston, his Secretary of Defense. Preston had been silent so far. “Thomas, what do you think?”
“Well, this is an extremely vulnerable region, sir. And we’ve lost a lot of influence there since… leaving. So I think we’ve got to do at least an on-site military inspection. A task force sent from Hawaii or Japan would be sufficient and,” in partial acknowledgment to Curtis, he added, “would deter any possible aggression, if that were going to happen.”
“Uh-huh.” The President nodded. “We do have ships patrolling the area all the time, right? So we send a few in, check it out, keep them on station for a while, and get the CIA in as well. Meanwhile I can sell everyone — for the time being — on this being an accident.”