Three days later the three officers stood in his office. He bade them be seated and passed around the intelligence report. And he asked, “What made the Americans order a search of satellite records of this ship? Why did they do this?”
When no one had an answer, or even a guess, Admiral Wu questioned Zhang closely. He had, he said, chosen the captain, mate and passengers partly because they had no family ties. It was possible they had lied to him, but unlikely, he thought.
Wu led Zhang though the mission, which was documented in his report, day by day after the yacht reached American waters. The question-and-answer session took an hour. Zhang was frank with the admiral — all had gone as planned. There wasn’t a single incident he could point to that would arouse the slightest suspicions.
Seemingly satisfied, Wu began on Captain Zeng. “Were any ships or submarines in the rendezvous area?”
“No, sir.”
“Were you intercepted and trailed by an American submarine?”
“No, sir.”
Wu raised his eyebrows. “You mean, not to your knowledge.”
“No, sir,” Zeng said stoutly. “I took every precaution. My boat was not followed. We never came up to periscope depth and used the scope or the radio during the entire voyage, which was made submerged except for the rendezvous at the prearranged place and time. Our sonar functioned as it should. We had our best sonarmen in the submarine force on board for the voyage. No, sir. We were not followed.”
“Rear Admiral Sua, have any of your boats ever been followed while at sea?”
“The conventional diesel-electric boats have, sir. But none of our nuclear-powered boats have, to the best of my knowledge.” Wisely, the sub admiral used the caveat. He continued, “We even surfaced a boat in the middle of an American carrier task force conducting flight operations, to their consternation. The incident was reported worldwide. The Americans were completely surprised, shocked and embarrassed by our capabilities. They lost much face.”
The question-and-answer session went on for another twenty minutes, then the officers were sent to an outer office. Admiral Wu wanted some time alone to mull his choices.
He got out of his chair, went to a window and lit a cigarette.
That Sua had mentioned the Americans losing face was interesting. Sua couldn’t prove a negative, of course, but the fact that the Americans were grossly embarrassed had impressed him, convinced him that what he wanted to believe was indeed true. Never would he have willingly suffered such a humiliation. So he offered it as proof, which, of course, it was not.
Wu well knew the ingrained inability of Orientals to admit mistakes or embarrass their superiors, to lose face. Some of them would defer to erroneous decisions made by their superiors even if it cost them their lives. This cultural attitude was so ingrained that huge mistakes in the Chinese military acquisition process cost untold billions of yuan and long delays. Wu had fought this cultural foible his entire career, trying to get ships, submarines, missiles, aircraft and, finally, China’s sole aircraft carrier designed, built and operational. At times he thought the shipyards, engineers and naval officers would rather build it wrong and pretend it worked than admit a mistake.
Zeng’s and Sua’s careers were in submarines. Nuke subs were the future. If they were already vulnerable to American submarines … well, in a shooting war they wouldn’t last long.
Zhang — he had been entrusted with a great mission. Would he admit a mistake or an unforeseen glitch? Probably not.
Ultimately, Admiral Wu decided, how the Americans got interested in Ocean Holiday didn’t matter. Today. What mattered was whether they knew her mission.
The Beijing politicians wanted the fish in the Yellow, East and South China Seas, and the Gulf of Tonkin and, someday, the Philippine Sea. The latest surveys suggested that huge oil and natural gas deposits could be there. Using stolen American technology, the locked-up petroleum could perhaps be captured in huge, economical quantities. In the years ahead an assured source of petroleum at a reasonable cost would be vital to fuel China’s growing industries. Imports cost great wads of foreign currency and were subject to the vagaries of Middle Eastern politics, which in turn were driven by religious feuds and racial dreams. China’s politicians also wanted to take over Taiwan, a goal that was popular with the Chinese masses. The politicians used the media to stoke the fire, to feed Chinese nationalism and justify military expenditures; and indeed, they would get Taiwan sooner or later. But first, the Yellow and China Seas. To intimidate the other nations around this basin, Korea, Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam, China needed a navy that looked impressive. Not a navy that could win World War III, but a navy that could cow the neighbors. And the United States, whose navy ruled this ocean.
As Wu analyzed the problem, it really didn’t matter if U.S. submarines had a technological edge on Chinese submarines. What mattered was that Chinese ships and submarines were better than those of any of China’s neighbors who might be inclined to fight for their rights. The Americans — well, they had sold their souls for cheap Chinese goods for Walmart. American corporations were investing billions in China. The Americans would not go to war over Vietnam’s or the Philippines’ rights in the China Sea. Probably. The trick was to raise that probability to a certainty, and the way to do that was to weaken the United States Navy, to do it in such a way that it could never be proven who was responsible. Japan made that mistake when they attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941; the Americans knew precisely who was responsible and vowed revenge, which they took in full measure.
The admiral finished his cigarette and lit another. He stood at the window with unseeing eyes, thinking back.
“You have the floor, Admiral,” the Paramount Leader had said. The Central Military Commission met behind locked doors in an underground conference room deep inside the August 1st Building in Beijing. The Paramount Leader was also chairman of the CMC, general secretary of the Communist Party of China and president of the People’s Republic of China. He was a technocrat, one of the new generation, ten years younger than the admiral, and a politician to the core. A champion of the military, he gave them the money they needed to build weapons for the twenty-first century. Consequently the military were among the chairman’s most ardent supporters. But support was a two-way street: The military needed the party, and the party needed the military to enforce its will upon the people. Neither could exist without the other.
Admiral Wu recalled that he had pushed his chair back and stood. Every eye in the room was on him. He had made a bold proposal ten days before. That day was the time for decision. Yes or no.
The admiral was the senior officer in the People’s Liberation Army Navy. He knew that the Central Military Commission had already met and discussed this matter. That this item was on today’s agenda meant they hadn’t yet said no.
“Comrades, we have before us a historic opportunity, one presented to us by the vagaries of American budget politics and the excellence of our cyber-espionage program. There are risks, which I will discuss, and yet great rewards if this thing can actually be accomplished.
“As you know, the United States heavily influences events and politics in the western Pacific and the countries around its rim, including China. Especially China. America cannot be ignored or disregarded because of the power and might of the United States Navy. That navy keeps the puppets on their throne on Taiwan. That navy prevents China from claiming the oil it needs from the seabeds of the China Sea. Lower-cost domestic oil would stimulate our economy, slow the drain of foreign exchange. Our future rests on our economy. We must control the China Sea. The American navy lowers our influence with all our neighbors, except, of course, the one we wish we did not have, the People’s Republic of Korea.”