April 5: A Depth of Understanding (34 page)

"I'm getting an automated text message that communications from our entire domain are blocked," Louis said quickly.

"Well, it's not like they list their numbers in the public directories. We tried," Jeff said.

"If I may suggest..."

Everybody turned and looked at Chen.

"I can call somebody inside the state security apparatus," he offered, reversing his previous desire for anonymity.

"Be my guest," Jeff said moving his chair away from the com console, he was still moving carefully and favored his hurt shoulder. Louis quickly did the same and allowed Chen room right in front of the camera. He brought his chair along, half folded because the room was that crowded and made himself comfortable, hesitating thoughtfully and then cutting the camera angle down to just himself.

He set the board up for a telephone conference, with the video on. In the upper left of the screen it showed 011-86-137-999-5151 as he typed from memory. There was a short wait while it was answered. The man who came on was a bit older than Chen and in a uniform. He was in a vehicle, they could see the edge of a headrest behind him. He appeared to be talking to them on a larger tablet form computer instead of a smaller phone, both arms coming in on the edges of the picture to hold it. He obviously had pulled over and parked to answer.

"Haaa! You have lot of nerve to show your face, impudent dog! The translation program scrolled in English captions on the bottom edge. "Aren't you afraid I'll back trace your location?"

"Go ahead," Chen invited. "You can't reach where I am."

The fellow scowled and must have split his screen, one hand working the touch screen just below the narrowed camera view.

"OK, you are off world. That doesn't surprise me. What possible business do you have with me? Do you really imagine there can be any forgiveness? Are you looking for a pardon?"

"Not at all. I have intelligence. You always treated me fairly, I'm going to give you a free tip. The young fellow on Home, Singh? I assume you are aware of the short statement, call it a manifesto he published?"

"Yes. It wasn't made public here of course. Why publish slander? But the higher authorities are aware of the threat."

"Are you aware the Sovereignty of Central on the moon destroyed all but one of the fleet sent against Home? And that lone survivor surrendered?"

"No, but as you know I am not involved with space operations. Why would I be informed?" he said with an indifferent shrug. But his eyes were not indifferent.

"You wouldn't I suppose. But in my new life, in my new career, I am associated with a new intelligence network, which looks into matters in a number of nations. I am very aware and certain, that if there is no response to that manifesto, then China will receive another blow just like was directed at Jiuquan, within the hour."

"This is known already at the highest levels. Why tell me what is already known?"

"But do they believe?" Chen asked.

"I have to assume so. The capacity was as you say, demonstrated. But do you really expect them to capitulate over such a threat? They can drop another or ten more and China will still be here. It is vast and can sustain much loss. Whereas Home is small and when we finally strike and get through, the matter will be settled, permanently. That is how my superiors view matters. They have been candid about it. I agree with them actually. If Home can kill half our nation and we kill three thousand of them, we still win. They will not be turned away from their resolve by any punishment this
boy
can inflict. I'll not pass on a threat they already know. It might make me appear to be wavering and not have the confidence or resolve they do."

"I have nothing to add then. Are you in Beijing, Li?"

"Yes, are you going to urge me to flee?" he asked with a sneer.

"Not at all. This
boy
has made promises to others not to destroy the treasures of the city by completely destroying the city, the whole district really, so I encourage you to stay there. It will prove much safer than anywhere else. I have no idea what his targets will be, but Beijing is safe."

"I'm so glad I have your permission to stay. If you have nothing further, I have a meeting to attend and traffic is abominable. I may be late even without talking to you."

"I thank you for taking time then, to listen. Perhaps we'll speak again. Good-bye." He disconnected and returned the board to the previous state and moved his chair back.

"Well you read the translation I believe. It seemed accurate enough. Any questions?"

"No. Thanks for trying Chen, Jeff said."

"That's OK, it was kind of fun. He was squirming a little. You'd have to know him and the language to recognize it, but he isn't as hard line party supporting as his demeanor suggested. He has to talk like that knowing everything on his state issued phone is monitored and analyzed.

"OK, I'm going to drop one large weapon on a very sparsely populated area in south western China. However, if I am right it will have a far ranging effect." He brought a map up on the screen, zoomed in a little and put a cross hairs on the edge of a body of water.

"This is the Liyuan Dam, right on the edge of Tibet. I'm dropping a weapon in the reservoir, to the back, away from the dam. Water being incompressible it will transmit the blast all across the concrete face of the rock filled dam. If it does what I expect, it will take the entire dam down.

"Is this a dam that produces electric power?" April asked.

"Yes, it is but that wasn't my primary reason for picking it. I expect the wall of water headed down stream will take out the Ahai Dam down river. When that goes it should take down the Jinanqiao and Longaikou Dam, which in turn will overwhelm the Ludila Dam and the Guanyingyan Dam. Then the Wudongde, the Baihetan, the Xiluodu, the Xiangjiaba, the Three Gorges Dam and lastly the Gezhouba Dam."

"Oh..." Chen started and cut off what he was going to say. "You are going to strip out the entire Yangtze River basin, clear to Shanghai."

"Basically, yeah, if it works."

"How many tons, how many cubic meters of water are we talking here?" April asked, remembering how much water they were getting back from the Snowball mission.

"You are asking the wrong question," Chen answered before Jeff could respond. "You need to ask how many cubic
kilometers
of water."

April just looked dazed. You could see the mental wheels turning as she absorbed that.

"They say they can absorb the damage," Jeff reminded them. He seemed sad.

"What if they refuse to surrender?" Gunny asked.

"They have other rivers. I doubt they can suddenly install high level ballistic defenses on all of them quickly. Or I may chose a target that will have defenses. I'd have to use up some rods and secondary warheads to get through, but it
can
be done."

"What sort of a target would be worth doing that?" Chen asked Jeff, worried.

"Qingdao , home of the North Fleet occurred to me. Home I understand, to the most advanced submarine forces, so it is a legitimate military target." Jeff could see Chen was distressed. "Do you want to call back and tell your old boss what will happen, more specifically?" Jeff asked. "Do you think it would make any difference?"

Chen thought on it a minute. "No, it would trouble him more, I'm sure. It's troubling me. But for him to react and send the warning on would still be suicide. Not just to his career, but literally. They would put him against a wall and shoot him. Charged with undermining morale."

"I understand," Jeff said. He looked at the cross hairs on the water, the image from a geostationary satellite leased and placed for this one purpose. It was early morning at the dam. He typed in a sequence that displayed on the screen as a line of asterisks and hit Enter without drama or hesitation. He didn't look happy at all.

"How long will this take?" April asked. "Chen said to Shanghai. That's on the coast isn't it?"

"Yeah, well over three thousand kilometers to the east. I'm not sure. If it takes over a day to get all the way to where it discharges into the sea it won't surprise me."

"Are you going to sit and watch it until night?" Gunny asked.

"No. Once I see it takes the first couple dams out I'm going to go eat and sleep and just check back now and then. Louis will be here until Martin Broman relieves him later. When we went through this with Jiuquan I tried to stay up for days and got so tired I didn't have good judgment. I'm not going to do that again, but I'll keep the office open for anybody that wants to follow it. The satellite can still see in infrared at night, even through a moderate cloud cover. So night is no impedance."

There was a flash that dimmed the screen out in overload for an instant. The a spreading cloud that obscured what was happening underneath. Nobody said anything. Louis adjusted the view zooming back a little and shifting it north east. Eventually there was a white line that crept out from under the cloud of steam and debris. It didn't look like anything of consequence. I thin white cord, crawling like a snake along the river course. They didn't ask for Louis to zoom in again. He might be able to zoom so close in apparent height they'd see too much.

"I'm sorry," Jeff said. He didn't turn his head or address anyone by name, not even Chen, just sat looking at the screen. After a bit they figured out he wasn't talking to them.

* * *

Their satellite wasn't the only one that could see China. When Jeff had confronted China before over the seizure of
Eddie's Rascal
, it had stayed private until he struck their spaceport to destroy the vessel. He'd communicated with their military, but this time it was entirely a public matter, news organizations having received his notice openly. A lot of people were watching to see what would happen at the end of Jeff's forty eight hours. Some expected a massive strike or at least an attack on a prominent military base or city.

The few surveillance satellites free for hire were leased and retasked as soon as the manifesto went out. They weren't as good as military models, but there were still more of them, since so many military sats had been destroyed during the Home – North America war. They were still somewhat down in number due to reduced launch capacity.

Commercial satellites with a resolution under twenty centimeters were uncommon and expensive. There just wasn't much need for them to justify the cost. However, you didn't need one of that sort to see a wall of water a hundred meters high, sweeping both banks of the flood plain bare on both sides of the normal river channel. Several spotted the detonation in the reservoir and followed the flood downstream. After the next two dams went down with no discernible hesitation on being overwhelmed and just added their volume, it was obvious nothing would stop the flood short of the sea.

China immediately attempted to call an emergency session of the Security Council to protest this attack and to ask for action against Home. Even while cities downstream were being ineffectively evacuated and before the wall of water reached the sea. The only way such a counter attack would take place was if North America was forced by international pressure to supply the ships to carry it out. No other countries had ships that could reach L2, conduct operations and return to Earth orbit without docking and refueling.

The problem was there was no President of the Council to preside and when they called a meeting to elect one, nobody responded. Where they would have met would have been a serious problem too. Offering to host them made your building a target. The fact nobody stepped forth to assume the vacant offices of the UN or a call to meet was a temporary problem. Most of this became apparent within a day and China did not have time for a leisurely resolution to deal with Home.

 The longer term problem was member dues stopped flowing in. There was no discussion on it. Transfers just stopped being made. So the support people who actually made the decisions of the Executive happen, stopped coming to work. They didn't receive a pay check when the infrastructure and bureaucracy for issuing it was destroyed and funds dried up.

Also, as lesser facilities such as storage depots for the light armor UN Peacekeepers used in their missions were identified and bombarded in the night, it became clear it wasn't safe to show up to work for the organization. Even if you weren't an executive.

The various small offices and warehouse facilities for UN charities and enforcement in poorer nations didn't have to be bombarded. When the employees missed one payday and saw they'd likely never get paid, that the organization was powerless, they stripped the facilities to the bare walls and in some cases burned the buildings after looting them.

* * *

Jon appeared on Jeff's screen, scowling, not angry, but concerned. "I have reports of an earthquake in Chongqing. You aren't using your stepmom's gravitational weapon on them are you? A lot of people know or suspect we caused the Great San Diego earthquake during the war. I'd hoped not to do that again since the first time was accidental. It's an extreme and very imprecise weapon. We usually know when we are shooting into fault lines."

"No, you can check the logs. I haven't got access to the militia platforms and none of our ships have been in position to use them. It's probably my fault though, pardon my pun..."

"How would it be your fault then?" Jon asked honestly puzzled.

"Well, when you suddenly release hundreds of millions of tons of water the land has become accustomed to supporting, quickly add to it, until literally billions of tons are moving across the bedrock as fast as a ground car, it can provoke a fault slip. Especially if it's been awhile since the last earthquake and the stresses have built up again, ready to be triggered."

"Thank you. I'm sorry if I seemed confrontational."

"I wouldn't step things up a notch and punch holes in a fault line without telling you and consulting with my mom," Jeff promised.

"Thank you. I'll repeat that about the weight of the water if anybody asks me."

* * *

"You look so serious this morning," Deloris accused him.