Since the nuclear device had been detonated, things had still not cleared up. If anything, save for the fact that no other devices had gone off, the situation was worse.
“The Chinese government continues to deny any knowledge or claim any responsibility for the nuclear blast,” Rodgers told the assembly. “The official announcement from Beijing stated that People’s Liberation Army Navy Forces came under sustained and unprovoked attack by Philippine naval and air forces, and that an F-4E attacked their flagship in the vicinity of ground zero before the blast. They claim that the attack was a retaliation by President Mikaso for the patrol action against the so-called illegal oil-drilling platform in the Spratly Island neutral zone. The Premier denies that Chinese warships carry nuclear devices, but they do point to the presence of nuclear weapons at several former American bases in the Philippines…”
“That’s bull,” General Falmouth of the Air Force retorted. “We took all special weapons out of the Philippines years ago.”
“I know, Bill, I know,” Curtis said. “We’ve got inspection records from the United Nations and from the Soviet START Treaty inspection teams to verify it — the President will authorize disclosure of those inspection reports soon. Let Captain Rodgers finish.”
Captain Rodgers continued. “ASEAN, the Association of South East Asian Nations — the Philippines, Brunei, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, and most recently Vietnam, who are, in effect, a counter-Chinese economic and military coalition — have not made a comment on the disaster. But they are meeting tomorrow in Singapore in emergency session to discuss the issue.”
While the Joint Chiefs weren’t surprised at China’s denial of launching the warhead, they were surprised how readily others in power, namely the President and his advisers, were willing — for the time being — to accept it.
Whatever was going on, and whoever was behind it, one thing Curtis knew without a doubt was that the situation was going to escalate. In fact, it seemed to have already…
Captain Rodgers, standing at the end of the triangle behind the podium, kept going. She informed the Joint Chiefs that in accordance with the 1991 START Treaty, the Soviet Union had activated six mobile ICBM battalions in Central Asia, a response to the United States’ DEFCON Three status. Along the Chinese and Mongolia borders, the Soviet Union had activated four missile battalions, equaling forty missiles, and were generating nuclear-capable forces at four bomber bases in south-central Russia. Although eleven hundred other known main, reserve, dispersal, rail-mobile ICBM, and cross-country road-mobile ICBM sites were under manual or satellite surveillance, it didn’t appear that the USSR was gearing up for a major counteroffensive — at least with long-range nuclear forces.
Rodgers switched to an enlarged chart of the mainland of China. “The source of continuing tensions in the past forty-eight hours continues to be the buildup of Chinese tactical forces in deployments along the Mongolian and Soviet border,” Rodgers said. “This is being done, according to the Chinese, as a response to the Soviet buildup.”
General Curtis and the others listened as Captain Rodgers rattled off the Chinese deployment numbers: nineteen total active divisions, four reserve divisions, four hundred thousand troops along a two-thousand-mile front in the north and north-central provinces. The units included twenty-one infantry divisions, seven mechanized divisions, one heavy missile division, four air defense divisions…
There was an uneasy rustle among the Joint Chiefs. Captain Rodgers was talking about a force that was almost as large as America’s and the Soviet Union’s combined.
General Curtis was shaking his head. Thirty-three divisions — over one-half of China’s ground forces and one-third of their total military, and what had the President of the United States given him?
Two aircraft carrier groups and the STRATFOR.
Worse, the President later cut Curtis and the Joint Chiefs out of the loop by insisting that Admiral Stoval, the Commander in Chief of Pacific Command, who was responsible for the carrier task force moving to the South China Sea, report to Thomas Preston, the Defense Secretary, through the National Security Council. That left Curtis not only seething, but in a rather embarrassing position with the other Joint Chiefs, who knew what the President had done.
Rodgers switched her electronic screen to a zoomed-in view of the South China Sea region. Specifically, the Spratly Island chain.
“The Chinese are moving half their fleet into the area,” Curtis observed with some alarm. The other Joint Chiefs murmured in agreement. “Captain, I want to know what ships they’re moving in there and why. I also want a letter from State spelling out precisely what the Philippine government has authorized the Chinese Army Navy to do. This makes me pretty damned uneasy.”
“Well, it should,” Chief of Naval Operations Randolph Cunningham grumbled. “We don’t have diddly in the area and the damn Chinese know it. They set off a nuke, then rush in and claim it’s a major threat to their sovereignty. They’re taking over the South China Sea faster than you can blink — and we’re just sitting here. This is bullshit.”
It certainly was, but what could Curtis do?
He answered his own question thirty minutes later, after the briefing, when he got back to his office. His aide, Colonel Wyatt, entered and said, “Sir, you have a scrambled phone call from CINCSAC — General Tyler. He says it’s a conference call.”
“Conference call? With who?”
“General Brad Elliott and a Doctor Jon Masters…”
Elliott? A smile came across Curtis’ face. He took a sip of the coffee Wyatt had just brought in. He hadn’t seen Elliott in months, even though he was one of his favorites. Elliott had had some up and down times — first as Deputy Commander of SAC, then as Director of HAWC, then as head of the government’s Border Security, only to be fired and bounced back to HAWC, again.
And Masters?… Of Sky Masters, Inc.? The NIRTSats? Curtis took the phone call. After pleasantries were exchanged all around, Elliott and Tyler got right to the point: “General Curtis, we need clearance on something we think we’re going to need down in the Philippines.”
Curtis’ ears picked up. “Go on…”
“We want to deploy the NIRTSat recon system that Doctor Masters has built, with a few of my Megafortress escort bombers that are out at the Strategic Warfare Center. We also want some on a few of the RC-135s that’ll be deployed for STRATFOR. We need your blessing, though.”
Curtis thought about the briefing he’d just come out of. Two carriers in the face of a possible Chinese land-grab. The President had authorized STRATFOR into position on Guam. They’d have to be ready. “Doctor Masters,” Curtis said, “you can really put that reconnaissance system on tactical aircraft?”
“You bet I can, General,” Masters said over the pop of the scrambled line. “We can make the Megafortress the most high-tech flying machine this side of Star Trek.”
“Plus I’ve got a B-2 Black Knight bomber equipped the same way, except with even more surprises,” Elliott said. “They’ve all been tearing up the Air Battle Force in exercises out at Jarrel’s SWC, and if we have to go out against the Chinese in the Philippines, I think you’ll want them out there.”
Curtis smiled. “Do it, you old warhorse. You just made my day.”
Daniel Teguina was ushered into President Mikaso’s residence by a Philippine Presidential Guard, then left alone in front of the door to Mikaso’s office. Teguina straightened his tie and his shoulders, cleared his throat quietly, then knocked on the door. After receiving a curt “Come,” he entered.