“Bob,” Ryan said. “What’s the latest?”
“The Philippines say there were twenty-six sailors on the boat that sank. They are fishing some out of the water alive, but there will be fatalities. There are other Philippine warships in the area, but they are heavily outgunned and probably won’t engage the Chinese.”
“And Chinese troops are on Philippine soil?”
“Yes, sir. We have satellites overhead, and we’re collecting images. The engineering battalion will already be fortifying positions.”
“What do they want with the shoal? Is there any military objective at all, or is this about fishing rights?”
Mary Pat Foley said, “It’s simply to increase their footprint in the South China Sea. And to gauge reaction, Mr. President.”
“My reaction.”
“Indeed.”
President Ryan thought for a moment. He then said, “We need to send an immediate message, let them know we aren’t wringing our hands just watching their actions over there.”
Scott Adler spoke on the monitor across the room. “The submarine that made the call in Subic Bay a couple of weeks ago. The Chinese will claim that provocation had something to do with this.”
Jack said, “I do not believe for a moment that we are the ones driving this thing. Short of us opening fire on the Chinese, they are going to make their moves on their time frame.”
Adler said, “But we don’t want to fall into the trap of giving them an out. An excuse to inflame the situation.”
“Point taken, Scott, but no response is also an out. That will look like an all-clear from us. I’m not giving them an all-clear.”
Ryan looked to Burgess. “Suggestions, Bob?”
Bob turned to Admiral Jorgensen on the monitor. “Admiral, what assets are we prepared to move quickly into the area? Something to show them that we are serious?”
“The Ronald Reagan is in the East China Sea, heading up Carrier Strike Group Nine. We can move it and its elements west today. Put it off the coast of Taiwan by the end of the week.”
“I recommend against that,” said Adler.
Arnie van Damm seconded that motion. “I do, too. You’ve been getting hammered in the press for antagonizing the people who own our foreign debt.”
Ryan reacted angrily. “If Americans want to subjugate themselves to the Chinese, then they need to put somebody else in here to oversee that.” Jack ran his fingers through his gray hair as he calmed himself. He then said, “We aren’t going to war over the Scarborough Shoal. The Chinese know that. They will expect us to move carriers closer to our allies. We’ve done it before. Do it, Admiral. And make sure the carrier group has everything they need.”
Jorgensen nodded, and Burgess turned to one of the other Navy officers against the wall and began conferring.
Jack said, “This is not the endgame. This battalion taking the shoal is just one tiny step. We protect Taiwan, we reach out to our friends in the SCS, and we stress to China that we aren’t going to take anything lying down. I want information about their intentions and their capabilities.”
The men and women in the Situation Room conference room had their instructions. It was going to be a long day.
Valentin Kovalenko liked Brussels in the fall. He’d spent a little time here when working for the SVR, and he found it beautiful and cosmopolitan in a way London could not quite reach and Moscow could not even imagine.
When Center ordered him to Brussels he’d been pleased, but the reality of this operation had kept him from enjoying the city.
Right now he sat in the back of a hot van full of crypto gear, looking out the rear window, watching well-heeled lunchtime patrons enter and exit an expensive Italian eatery.
He tried to stay on mission, but he could not help but reflect back to a time in the not-too-distant past when he would have been inside the restaurant, enjoying a dish of lasagna with a glass of Chianti, and he would have made some other bastard sit in the van.
Kovalenko had never been much of a drinker. His father, like many men of his generation, was a world-class consumer of vodka, but Valentin preferred a glass of fine wine with dinner or an occasional aperitif or digestif. But since his experience in the Moscow prison and the pressure of working for his shadowy employer, he’d picked up the habit of having a few beers in the refrigerator at all times or a bottle of red that he tipped each evening to help him sleep.
It did not affect his work, he reasoned, and it helped keep his nerves settled.
Valentin looked over at his partner today, a sixtyish German technical assistant named Max who had not said one word all morning that was not mission-critical. Earlier in the week, when they met in a parking lot at the Brussels-Midi train station, Kovalenko had tried to draw Max into a conversation about their mutual boss, Center. But Max would not play. He just held up a hand and said he’d need several hours to test the equipment and their safe house would need to have a garage with ample electrical outlets.
The Russian sensed the mistrust in the German, as if Max thought Valentin somehow would report whatever he said back to Center.
Valentin assumed Center’s entire enterprise maintained organizational security on the principle of mutual distrust.
Much like Valentin’s old employer, the SVR.
Right now Valentin could smell the garlic wafting out of the entrance of the Stella d’Italia, and it made his stomach rumble.
He did his best to push it out of his mind, but he hoped like hell his target would finish soon and head back to his office.
As if on cue, just then an impeccably dressed man in a blue pinstripe suit and cherry wingtips stepped out through the front doors, shook hands with two other men who’d come out with him, and then began heading to the south.
Valentin said, “That’s him. He’s heading back on foot. Let’s do it now.”
“I am ready,” confirmed Max with his typical brevity.
Kovalenko hurriedly crawled past Max, through the van and toward the driver’s seat; around him electronics buzzed and hummed and warmed the still air. He had to push himself all the way against the wall for part of the crawl, as a metal pole jutted up into the ceiling of the van. The pole contained wiring that attached to a small antenna that extended out over the roof, and could be directed by Max in any direction.
Valentin made his way behind the wheel and began following his target at a distance down Avenue Dailly, turning slowly behind him as he made a left on Chausée de Louvain.
The man, Kovalenko knew, was the acting assistant secretary for public diplomacy of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO. He was Canadian, in his mid-fifties, and he was in no way, shape, or form a hard target.
Though he worked for NATO, he possessed no military bearing. He was a diplomat, a suit, a political hire.
And though Valentin had not been informed of this by Center, the assistant secretary was about to be Center’s access into NATO’s secure computer network.
Kovalenko did not understand the technology humming and buzzing in the van behind him; he had Max for that. But he did know that the tiny roof antenna could pinpoint and then receive leaking radio signals off a mobile phone or, more specifically, the chip in the mobile phone that performs the encryption calculations that make the device secure. By taking these leaked signals, received initially as a series of peaks and valleys in the radio waves and then converted by the computer in the van into the 1’s and 0’s that make up any electronic signal, the phone’s encryption key could be deciphered.
As they followed the assistant secretary, Kovalenko was happy to see the man pull his phone from his jacket pocket and make a call.