"Exactly," Taft said slyly.
Benson looked into the camera, smiled, and nodded. "It just might work, Mr. President."
All were silent as the president thought. "Let's do it," he said seconds later.
"Absolutely, let's do it."
The army helicopter had just passed over Broomfield, Colorado, when Benson placed his hand over his briefcase phone and shouted over the din of the rotor blades across the cabin to Scaramelli.
"Is there anything else you can think of that you might need?"
"No, General, that should do it."
"That's all," Benson shouted into the phone.
Scaramelli scanned the neat rows of houses below. The people who lived below would be going about their daily activities without any notion of the discovery that had just been made. It was an eerie feeling for Scaramelli to have knowledge only a handful of people in the world knew existed. Rather than reassure him or fill him with pride, it made him feel uneasy, as if he were now a target, an unworthy recipient of information beyond his scope.
"What about the storm?" Benson asked.
Scaramelli misunderstood Benson's question. "I'm sure in time, when we have more experience with the formula and the power needed to scramble molecules, the storm can be reduced or even eliminated," Scaramelli said wearily.
"Don't tell me that now," Benson said. "We need a major typhoon out there. You can experiment with working the bugs out after this is all over."
"Don't worry, General Benson. So far that's all we know how to do. You can rest assured that the storm that hits the Taiwan Strait will be bad," Scaramelli said. "Very bad."
CHAPTER 49
It was late when Sun Tao burst into the office of the Chinese prime minister. The Carondelet is on fire. Our agents in Cuba just flew over the ship. They report smoke billowing from the stem, and the ship is stopped dead in the water."
"How long ago did this happen?" the prime minister asked.
"I just received word," Tao said.
"Did the crew escape?"
"The agents reported several rafts in the water," said Tao.
"Good, then we still have the papers." The prime minister paused to think. "Have the crew picked up immediately. We can still tell the Americans we have the papers."
"I have already taken care of that, sir. We have a submarine on exercises off Cuba. I have ordered her to surface next to the rafts."
"Excellent," the prime minister said, glancing at his watch. "It is time you caught a flight south to help orchestrate the beginning of the assault. It will take you time to find your ship and assume command. You cannot be late. Our first wave is scheduled to begin the liberation of Taiwan at exactly midnight, October 1st."
"To victory, sir," Tao said, rising to leave.
Carl Vickerson wrapped his arm tighter around his wife, Clara. At seventy-seven years of age, Carl no longer felt much need to rush. Still, the men in blue uniforms who were directing the tourists back to their buses seemed in a hurry, so he helped Clara along.
"Did they say why we had to leave, dear?" Clara said in a voice a few shades too loud. Carl had broad shoulders that spoke of a lifetime of work. Dresden-blue eyes looked out from a tanned face, and the hand that clutched Clara's arm and steered her around the F-105 fighter-bomber was large and meaty.
"No, honey. But it must be something serious," Carl said as he pointed to two tanks that had roared across the desert and stopped near the fence surrounding the base. Clara's face was taking on a red glow from the desert sun. Through her sunglasses she glanced across the hard-packed dirt and watched as several trucks stopped midway along the fence and troops climbed from the rear. The soldiers formed lines and set out down the fence line.
Carl Vickerson had spent his life in Iowa, first as a farmer, later as the owner of a feed store. His World War II service in the Army Air Corps took him the farthest he had ever gotten from home. The Vickersons were in Arizona now for a vacation and to attend a reunion of the surviving members of Carl's World War II squadron. Part of the reunion was a guided tour of the plane graveyard at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. Now the tour was being cut short by unknown events half a world away. Carl and Clara didn't worry much about the shortened tour. They were tired from all the excitement of the trip and seeing Carl's old friends. By the time the tour bus left the base and was on the blacktop leading back to Tucson, the two of them were asleep, their heads resting together, Carl's arm across his wife's shoulders.
Seconds later, the plane carrying Li Choi landed at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. Chutetski glanced across the round Chinese rescue raft, then out the side opening in the tent top to the water beyond. Oakes was speaking into a secure satellite phone, and the part Chutetski could hear was not reassuring.
"Roger that," Oakes said as he cut the connection.
Turning to the SEAL team in the raft, Oakes smiled. "Start preparing, men. We are about to capture a Chinese submarine."
Chutetski stared at Oakes. "What could possibly happen next!"
"Don't worry, Chutes," Oakes said. "We'll have some help." Inside the command center set up in a hangar at Davis-Monthan, Taft wiped his brow on his sleeve. The next to the last day of September 1999 was blistering hot in southern Arizona. The air conditioning inside the hangar building was working overtime. The stitches in Taft's shoulder itched, and he was reaching inside the sling to scratch them as Martinez walked toward his desk.
"Choi tells me they have finished the installation. He had the air force hook directly into a high-power transmission line, so we have plenty of juice when we need it," Martinez said.
"Good," Taft said, "our end is handled."
"Exactly," Martinez said wearily.
"It's hard to believe these planes are going to war again. Some of them were built before I was born," Taft said.
"From mothballs and parts planes to smack dab in the middle of the Taiwan Strait," Martinez said quietly. "Isn't technology amazing?"
Carl Vickerson sat on the edge of the bed in the hotel room in Tucson. He flicked through the television channels with the remote control. Landing on CNN, he watched the broadcast with interest.
"Hey, Clara," he yelled toward the bathroom, where Clara had gone as soon as they entered the room.
"Yes, dear," Clara said through the closed door.
"CNN is reporting that the navy has sent ships into the sea between Taiwan and China. They're calling it 'Showdown in the Strait.'"
"That's nice, dear," Clara noted.
"It doesn't sound so nice to me," Carl muttered.
"What, dear?' Clara asked through the door.
"Nothing, honey," Carl said.
But it was far from nothing.
The water near the rescue raft carrying the navy SEALs began to boil like a pot of water left too long on a stove. "Here they come!" Oakes shouted, peering through the canvas.
"I hope your Chinese is as good as you claim, Chutes."
Chutetski glanced at his commander. "It's quite good, sir," he said easily, "as long as the crew speaks Mandarin Chinese. Otherwise, of course, we're screwed." The conning tower of the Chinese sub broke the surface of the water, and almost instantly the hatch in the conning tower popped open.
In the city-class nuclear attack submarine Phoenix, Commander Eric Devers glanced to his helmsman. "Blow the tanks."
Oakes paddled the raft a few feet closer to the submarine then motioned to Chutetski, who shouted across the water.
At just that instant, below the raft in the water, Commander Steve Thompson of the ballistic missile submarine John Paul Jones said to his sonar man, "Ping them." In position just behind and in back of the Chinese submarine at a depth of seventy feet, the John Paul Jones sounded its presence just as the conning tower of the Phoenix broke the surface of the water.