“I would guess these are fake. Both were issued in Shenzhen.”
Weir set them aside to more closely study the photos. “Physically fit, aren’t
they? Look at the posture—erect discipline of the military.”
“PLA.”
“But Shenzhen does not issue to military personnel. What’s
the building?”
Ben-Yezzi believed Nahman Weir to be the most savvy of
directors under whom he had ever had the privilege of serving. “Sir, the
building is inside the Bushehr nuclear compound. Among other government
regulatory functions, it houses the local Intelligence & Security office. The
actual identity of the man carrying the briefcase is Chen Ruihan. They were
also sighted inside more highly inaccessible areas of the facility.”
“Oh?”
“We were tipped-off to their presence by our agent while
scouting the inside of what we’ve confirmed is the enrichment facility.” Ben-Yezzi
paused to study his superior’s reaction to the unexpected discovery. Rarely had
they documented intelligence contact at so high a level between these two
particular nations. The potential relevance to current global affairs could not
be discounted. “If I may, sir, you are to be congratulated. Our files first
begin tracking Chen Ruihan’s career in the Second Directorate as second
lieutenant in charge of naval intelligence. Most recently he was recruited from
a civilian stint to his current, number two post in State Security.”
“Hmm...so this is their new deputy minister.” Weir tossed
the photographs aside. “What’s their business inside Iran’s nuclear plant? I
doubt they were there to buy.”
“It’s perhaps unfortunate this sighting occurred incidental
to our other objective. At the time, I was concerned that steering the agent in
that direction would jeopardize our priority.”
“And yet you deem it important enough that the Americans be
informed?”
Privately, Ben-Yezzi had formed his own opinion of what
should be done with the information. Russia had always adamantly denied
assisting Iran with weapons-grade uranium enrichment—a quick check at
headquarters that morning confirmed neither he nor any other Institute source
had collected intelligence to counter that claim. Was it
China
who had
been providing Iran with the technical assistance, after all? Might that explain
China’s ready access to importation of oil from Iranian and Arab OPEC
producers? “I would think that’s strictly a decision for you to make,”
Ben-Yezzi replied.
“Well, you were right to kick it up to me.” Weir held the
folder open and contemplated its contents for several minutes. Without a word
or flicker to betray his intentions, he plucked the Chinese photographs and
related documents, slid open a drawer in his desk, and dropped them inside.
“For now, I’m sure your American intelligence colleagues do
not need yet another distraction to further complicate their lives.” Weir’s
stare was unwavering. “Best keep this to yourself.”
“Understood, sir.”
Both men stood, and for at least the third time that
evening, the director congratulated him. “Our country survives, Ben-Yezzi, on
the resourceful fortitude of patriots such as yourself.” Weir handed back the
folder containing the revered
katsa’s
final report, minus the
Chinese-related documents. “Unfortunately, I must convey your rather disturbing
news regarding the radioisotope match.”
Weir was later able to place his overseas call on Sunday
morning, such that the secure telephone rang immediately upon the DCI’s arrival
home from the National Cathedral. “Good to hear from you, Nahman,” he heard Lester
Burns say.
“I’m not so sure you will think so,” Weir began, setting
the tone for the call.
107
Sunday, July 12
7:20 A.M. Spratly Islands Local Time
PETER CAMPBELL STOOD
BEFORE
a console of relay switches and flat panel displays, his eyes
trained far beyond the window glass of the control tower. Out past the tops of
palm trees jutting up between the small island’s highest knoll and a narrow
beach, the petroleum engineer’s vista from his air-conditioned sanctum captured
the whole of Little Ninh Hoa Harbor. The orange glow of morning bloomed above
the horizon, and soon the pipe-laden deck of the
Exxon Duchess,
an oil
supertanker moored a half-mile away, would be visible without the aid of
high-intensity lamps. He discerned from the ship’s silhouette that her gunwales
were riding low to the water, a sight becoming routine, and one Peter Campbell
could gaze upon with justifiable pride. With a year of hard work overseeing the
depot’s construction, preceded by long months leading the design team for the
corporation’s Vietnamese customer, his assignment on the narrow crescent of
coral atoll would soon be complete.
Another familiar sight was the Vietnamese gunboat, a
Tarantul
class corvette anchored just inside the mouth of the harbor. Angry territorial
disputes over the sparsely populated archipelago—with its vast oil and gas
reserves—were far from being resolved. Indeed, tensions had only risen since
the company first bid on the project. The crew of the military vessel drank
heavily but pretty much kept to themselves, watching from the deck and through
portholes the dozens of contractors, engineers, locals, and government
inspectors moving about the construction sites. The only hint of conflict
occurred whenever the gunboat roared over the horizon to ward off another
flotilla from Greenpeace, who had sought to protest everything from dredging
the harbor to Vietnam’s tanker escorts into the tiny tropical islet. Five
months ago a formation of MiG fighter jets, red Chinese stars resplendent upon
camouflage-gray livery, roared by fast and low beyond the mouth of the harbor. Otherwise,
the most conflict that Campbell encountered had been with the food.
He turned his attention to the assorted gages and levers
inside the tower. Together with the facility computer, the instruments allowed
control of temperature, viscosity, and flow rate of crude oil pumped through
pipelines from the island’s storage facility, which in turn was fed by the
shallow water drilling platforms ‘7 Seas’ and ‘President Minh!’ located some eight
nautical miles to the east. Moored at the crude oil’s intermediate destination,
Duchess
was like all modern dual-hull tankers of the day. Individual
bulkheads partitioned her vast interior into multiple tanks, and the reading
level for the current compartment being filled indicated close to topping off. Campbell
prepared to disengage the gas turbine-driven pumps, in order to allow the
tanker crew to re-deploy the hose gantry to the remaining empty tank. He
reached out with both hands and slowly retarded two stainless-steel levers. A
buzzer on the annunciator panel signaled the temporary halt of oil flowing to
the harbor.
Out of nowhere and barely clearing the treetops, two jets
appeared as a blur—a sonic shock wave ripped across the control tower and
cracked the window glass. Neither he nor the Vietnamese navy had time to react
before both jets unleashed air-to-surface missiles and the gunboat’s conning
tower disappeared inside an orange ball of flame. The waterline erupted in a
foamy spray before the forward gun crew had even managed to chamber a round. The
jets roared off in full afterburner and snap-rolled into hard left banks. The
crew of the listing gunboat scrambled to extinguish the fire.
Campbell spun around and his jaw fell open. Two black
helicopters rose from the ocean surface heading directly toward the control
tower, proboscis-like appendages slung beneath their fuselages—these the
civilian engineer sensed could only mean trouble. Stunned as the choppers beat
directly toward him, Campbell finally dropped to the floor. They split around
the tower with their gatling guns raining a fusillade down on the harbor.
Campbell poked his head over the console. He stared in
disbelief at the ominous mass of ships and aircraft blotting out the northern horizon.
Already the facility crew were dashing half-dressed out of
their double-wides, running frantically in every direction, some away from the
harbor while others rushed to man emergency equipment and extinguish the fire
from a ruptured pipeline. Campbell’s responsibility was to safeguard the
facility. Stooped in a crouch, he reached out and stop-cocked the turbines,
slued shut the emergency stops and opened pressure relief valves on top of the
storage tanks. Then he hit the emergency switch and every alarm on the island
started to wail. A staccato of automatic weapons fire from the mouth of the
harbor signaled the desperate attempt by the Vietnamese to retard the attack. The
crew of the
Duchess
stood by as two MiGs boomed past overhead, their
pilots apparently content to have the helicopter gunships finish their work.
Campbell grabbed the telephone—but who to call? He tore
open a book of emergency numbers. Penciled in at the bottom of a page he found
the company’s central telephone number and dialed the operator in Corpus
Christi, Texas. He waited for a voice on the other end when the door behind him
burst open. Four shouting Asian soldiers stormed the control room. Machine gun
muzzles swept for signs of opposing force before being leveled at his chest.
“Wo!” Campbell shouted, his hands overhead. “I am
unarmed!
”
The last soldier to enter the room appeared to be their
leader. His eyes narrowed at the sound of the civilian’s words. “American?”
asked the officer, barely intelligible. He gazed with interest at the telephone
Campbell gripped in his hand.
“Yes, yes, American!” Campbell was reasonably certain by
the sharp red stars adorning helmet and shoulder epaulets that the men were
Chinese.
They’ll lower their muzzles any moment now.
The cropped-hair older man issued a series of terse
commands to his men, who further terrified their captive by responding with
grunts of laughter. The officer stepped toward him, and the submachine gun in
his grip swung loose on its shoulder strap. Campbell’s momentary relief
vanished when the man reached for the semi-automatic on his hip.
The People’s Liberation Army sergeant worked the action,
and leveled the pistol in front of him. When the round exited the barrel the
expected blast within the confines of the tower jarred even his men. The bullet
struck the telephone on the windowsill next to Campbell, sharp bits of plastic
shrapnel piercing the skin under his arm.
The governments of Vietnam, the Philippines, Brunei, and
Malaysia were soon to discover similar scenes playing out at nine other
installations in the South China Sea. But the Battle of Spratly was already
over.
108
“YOU’D BEST READ THIS NOW, SIR.”
Howard Denis looked up from the unopened binder on his desk
at the sheet of paper held out for him by his chief of staff. He was about to
protest when the dark circles surrounding Aaron Davi’s eyes reminded him that
the Iranian conflict was taking its toll on all of them. The President glimpsed
the Chinese embassy letterhead and plucked the sheet from Davi’s fingers.
Denis mouthed the words as he scanned the document. “We
regretfully take this action in response to United States aggression, which now
threatens equitable distribution of the world’s energy resources...blah blah,
cannot stand by and allow the gangster logic of hegemonism to bully the
struggle, work, and efforts of the Chinese people...and continue to encourage
that all parties return to a peaceful status quo as such opportunities present
themselves. We urge the U.S. to sit down calmly and to sensibly solve their
disputes, through negotiation...blah, blah,
blah
...”
Denis finished reading and handed it back. “So, now I’m the
hegemon. When did they seize the Spratly oilfields?”
“We’re still receiving reports that aren’t very clear. Our
first came by way of a phone call to the State Department operator at about
five-thirty this morning. I guess a corporate executive suspecting trouble at
one of their sites made the call. He wanted to know if he had reason to worry because...”
Denis was shaking his head.
The President’s eyes landed on the portfolio binder wedged
beneath the chief of staff’s armpit. “What else have you got?”
Davi presented the only qualifying documents yet available
on the Chinese assault, rushed to him by an NRO staffer. Denis stood to lean
over and examine four separate satellite images of China’s coastline, taken at
noon Hong Kong time Friday and twenty-four hours later on Saturday. Both sets
depicted a different river tributary, but common to each was a complex of
railways, harbors, ships dockside and large, rectangular buildings surrounded
by ancillary roads and circular storage tanks. The photographs were labeled,
‘Guangdong Province west of Macau,’ and ‘Shantou, southern Taiwan Strait.’
“I’m told we don’t have anything yet as far south as the
Spratlys,” Davi explained.
Denis squinted hard to discern the certain glint of
revelation that he was apparently missing. “And what do these tell me?”
“Well, these show two of their naval ports. The absence of
any vessel in the more recent photographs has to mean that all their ships have
taken to sea.”
Denis looked up. “Aaron, I might have found this
enlightening on Friday. Today’s Sunday. Is this all?”
“Morning,” said Thomas Herman, entering the Oval Office in
time to catch the President’s comment. “I guess they’re spread a little thin
over there. I spoke to Burns about it.” Herman’s expression conveyed annoyance
with the DCI’s insufferable failings. “I finally convinced him that he’d better
have something together in time for tonight’s briefing. Umm, he wanted you to
know Beijing’s got students blockading our embassy.”
“Blockading?”