The Scorpion's Gate (5 page)
the shop.” The car stopped outside an awning-covered set of double doors that led to the basement, or ground level, of the West Wing. “You’ll be amazed at how small everything in the West Wing is. It’s a one-hundred-year-old building that hasn’t been enlarged in half a century.
“This street, West Executive Avenue? It’s the most sought-after parking lot in town. Tourists and local residents used to walk down it whenever they wanted to. Now it’s behind three layers of security. Most of the White House staff is actually in this big building behind us,” he said, pointing at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, the EOB. “At one time, the entire Departments of War, Navy, and State fit into the EOB. That was when an Army general named Dwight Eisenhower would go get a voucher to pay for the trolley ride to Capitol Hill when he had to brief the Senate Armed Services Committee.”
As MacIntyre spoke of the military leadership of seventy-five years before, the motorcade of the current civilian leader of the Pentagon screeched to a halt in front of the West Wing awning. Surrounded by civilian and military aides with briefcases and binders, Secretary of Defense Henry Conrad alighted from his armored Lincoln Navigator and strode through the open doors with barely a glance at MacIntyre and Connor, all the while jabbing his finger at another man.
“Well, hello to you, too,” Susan snorted. “Who was the horse’s ass on the receiving end?”
“That was the go-to guy, by far the most important of the many faceless princelings who do the bidding of the great one,” MacIntyre said. “Sorry. I mean, that was Under Secretary of Defense Ronald Kashigian, getting reamed out for something by his highness, the National Command Authority.”
Connor shot her boss a glance. “I thought the President was the National Command Authority.”
“Half right. The President and the Secretary of Defense are both the NCA. Either can give orders for the use of force, including nuclear force.” Seeing Susan screw up her face in doubt, Rusty explained, “It’s meant to make a decapitation attack difficult, and also to prevent a slow response as someone tracks down the President while he’s getting his picture taken with the Red Sox again. Let’s go in.”
Once inside the ground level of the West Wing, Susan was surprised that the hallways were dark, with low ceilings. A Secret Service guard in a blue blazer asked to see their badges and checked their names on a computer as young White House staffers breezed by with food trays. MacIntyre continued his tour-guide role. “The White House Mess is down the hall. It’s a Navy-run restaurant that also does take-out for busy staffers who prove their importance by eating at their desks. Navy does the Mess, Air Force flies
Air Force One
, the Marines fly the chopper, and the Army runs the comms.”
Air Force One
, the Marines fly the chopper, and the Army runs the comms.”
“You worked here once, didn’t you?” Susan asked her boss.
“Clinton National Security Council Staff for three years,” Rusty whispered.
“I won’t tell a soul,” Susan whispered back.
They walked down a few steps and turned to face a wooden door, a television camera, and a telephone. On the door was a large colored plaster-of-paris Seal of the President of the United States and a brass plaque reading, “Situation Room, Restricted Access.” Rusty picked up the phone and looked into the camera. “MacIntyre plus one.” The door buzzed and they walked into a cramped anteroom.
Off the anteroom was a small, wood-paneled conference room. Ten large leather seats were forced in tightly around the solid, onepiece wooden table. A brass sign holder sat in front of every seat with a name of a principal, or member of the Cabinet-level National Security Council’s Principals Committee. A dozen smaller seats lined the walls. On the wall above the chair at the head of the table there was another presidential seal. In one corner Susan noticed a closed-circuit camera behind a darkened glass globe. A door with a peephole was in another corner. A large white phone console sat on a sideboard near the head of the table. The far wall had three digital clocks: “Baghdad,” “Zulu,” and “POTUS.” Zulu, Susan knew, was military speak for Greenwich Mean Time, or London. Doing the math quickly, she realized that today POTUS was Los Angeles time, the President of the United States was on a West Coast swing. POTUS time was whatever time zone the commander in chief occupied. “I never saw the final talking points for your boss’s meeting with the Chinese Premier,” Defense Secretary Conrad was complaining as he leaned over the table across from Deputy Secretary of State Rose Cohen. “You guys have to be tough with those bastards. They are after the same oil we are.” Cohen was sitting in for the Secretary of State, who was in Asia. Before she could even start to respond, Dr. William Caulder, the National Security Advisor, moved quickly into the room and sat at the head of the table, under the President’s seal.
“Let’s begin. This is mainly about China, but we will do some current odds and ends as well.” He opened a loose-leaf binder to the agenda. Reading aloud, he ticked off the business at hand. “China: strategic assessment and then Chinese missiles in Islamyah, MacIntyre, IAC; bombings in Bahrain, Peters, National Counterterrorism Center; Bright Star Exercise, General Burns, and then you wanted to raise a restricted item, Henry?” The National Security Advisor looked above his half-glasses at the Secretary of Defense, who nodded back.
Like Deputy Secretary of State Rose Cohen, MacIntyre was also standing in for his bosses, Sol Rubenstein at the IAC and Anthony Giambi, the Director of National Intelligence, both of whom had begun skipping more and more of the contentious sessions. Rusty had, therefore, briefed the Principals Committee many times before. The PC, as it was known, was all the National Security Council members except for the President and Vice President. If the national security departments and agencies made up one big conglomerate, then the PC was their board of directors.
“Okay, first, the summary of the latest intelligence estimate on China, a briefing from the Intelligence Analysis Center, Mr. MacIntyre,” the National Security Advisor intoned, sounding as though he were chairing someone’s Ph.D. oral exam.
As MacIntyre opened his briefing book, a wooden panel receded into the wall, revealing a large plasma screen. On it flashed the first slide of his briefing, “China Emboldened by Economic Power.” He began, “The stunning economic growth that China experienced over the last decade has enabled it to modernize its cities, create a domestic automobile industry that is now successfully exporting here, develop its own impressive technological research capability, and deploy a potent, although smaller, military.” Pictures of the Beijing Olympics venues, the Gwangju skyline, and a research park appeared on the screen, followed by charts showing China’s dramatic economic growth.
“With this progress has come the usual downsides of modernization, including social disruption, particularly in rural areas and in the old industrial cities, industrial and vehicular air pollution, and, most important, a growth in their oil and gas requirements. As you can see from this chart, China is now a close second to the United States in oil and gas imports. It may surpass us in the next two years. They are still well below us in electricity generated per capita, so we can expect the import curve to continue up as they will need more gas to generate higher amounts of electricity.
“This makes China dependent, again, on Russia and the former Soviet states in central Asia, from which they get the bulk of their oil and gas imports. Intelligence sources report that the Chinese leadership does not like that dependence and is seeking to diversify its sources. That may be why we see their new presence in Islamyah, which I will get to in a minute.” MacIntyre realized he had their rapt attention.
As Rusty was about to launch into the military brief, Treasury Secretary Fulton Winters seemed to awaken and broke the trance Rusty had induced on the Principals. Winters usually stopped rolling his tie up and down long enough to deliver one delphic pronouncement per meeting.
“Usually people talk about the Chinese military threat to America,” Winters began. “There really isn’t one. The Chinese economy is tied completely to ours. We are their market. Now, it’s true that they hold most of our government debt through purchases of T-notes and, theoretically, they could sell them or stop buying them. That would spike inflation here and probably burst the real estate bubble. But they won’t”—Winters smiled—“because an economic divorce would hurt them much more than it would us.”
No one commented. Winters returned to rolling his tie.
Rusty continued, “Well, actually, one of the more surprising strategic developments has been the growth of the Chinese navy. For decades, they had utilized Soviet castoffs and small, lowtechnology coastal ships such as frigates and destroyers. Then they bought some modern cruisers and primitive aircraft carriers from Ukraine and Russia. Now, within the last five years, they have put into service three modern, indigenously designed aircraft carriers with strike and fighter aircraft, the
Zheng He,
the
Hung Bao,
and the
Zhou Man.
They also built a port at Gwadar in Pakistan, at the mouth of the Persian Gulf.
Zheng He,
the
Hung Bao,
and the
Zhou Man.
They also built a port at Gwadar in Pakistan, at the mouth of the Persian Gulf.
“They have also launched their own air defense cruisers and nuclear-powered submarines. The visit of their
Zhou Man
carrier battle group to Sydney last year gave us a good chance to take a closeup look in many ways, and these are impressive ships,” MacIntyre said, showing photographs of the Chinese ships at port in Australia.
Zhou Man
carrier battle group to Sydney last year gave us a good chance to take a closeup look in many ways, and these are impressive ships,” MacIntyre said, showing photographs of the Chinese ships at port in Australia.
“
Zhou Man
sounds like something my fourteen-year-old son would say,” General Burns joked.
Zhou Man
sounds like something my fourteen-year-old son would say,” General Burns joked.
“Actually, General, Zhou Man was a Chinese admiral whose fleet explored Australia and much more around 1420,” MacIntyre replied. “The other carriers are also named for admirals from the 1400s whose fleets explored the Pacific and Indian oceans. The message in the names is that the Chinese navy once ruled the world’s seas supreme and may again. But enough about the Chinese navy: to more immediate matters . . .” MacIntyre said, hitting the clicker that brought up a new image on the flat screen.
It was a stunningly vivid picture of the missile base in Islamyah. Rusty began his presentation. “IAC analysts discovered this new Chinese-made missile complex in Islamyah two days ago. It appears ready to go operational. In 1987 the Saudis secretly acquired Chinese medium-range missiles. Confronted by the Reagan administration, they pledged that the missiles would not be nuclear-armed. The CEP of those missiles was such that they could have done little damage to anyone, except perhaps their own launch crews who handled the liquid fuel in the aboveground launch facilities.”
The National Security Advisor, who was reading his briefing book, looked up above his glasses. “CEP?”
“Circular error probability, Billy. It’s their accuracy,” the Secretary of Defense chided. “Go on, go on,” he said, flicking his wrist at MacIntyre.
“Now, two decades later, replacement missiles show up. Some mobile missiles on trucks and some silo-based, solid-fuel, highly accurate. In the Chinese strategic forces, they carry nuclear weapons, three per missile. Intelligence indicates that there are twenty-three hundred Chinese personnel at the main base, in the middle of the Empty Quarter. We estimate twenty-four missiles on launchers, probably some reloads.
“Beyond their military value, this secret deployment indicates that the Chinese have a much closer relationship with the revolutionary regime in Riyadh than we had earlier estimated. Although the missiles were originally ordered by the al Sauds, the delivery and deployment went ahead in secret after the revolution. We believe that the cash-strapped Islamyah government, suffering from our sanctions, is paying in oil.
“There is no indication yet from a variety of special intelligence programs and sources, nothing that indicates the presence of any nuclear weapons. We estimate that China would be reluctant to provide such warheads in violation of the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty and that the accuracy of these weapons is such that...”
“Bullshit, MacIntyre!” Secretary of Defense Conrad interrupted, leaning forward once again, his scowling face and dark eyes focused like a laser on Rusty. “What the fuck do you think they bought these things for, Chinese fireworks for Ramadan?” The Situation Room was suddenly still; all eyes were on the SECDEF, who continued his tirade.
“I’m telling you that these al Qaeda murderers in Riyadh are out to get nuclear capability. Maybe Beijing won’t give them the bomb, maybe. But they can get it from the nuts in North Korea or their al Qaeda East buddies in Pakistan. You mean to tell me those guys in Islamabad won’t sell their ideological brethren a few of their bombs? Hell, A. Q. Khan was doing it a decade ago out of the Pakistani larder.” No one spoke as Conrad shook his head and pursed his lips. “IAC just doesn’t understand the threat these regimes pose.”
Finally, MacIntyre raised his hand with two fingers up and spoke slowly but forcefully. “I disagree, for two reasons. First, these weapons were clearly ordered by our friends the al Sauds while they were in power. The lead time is such that they could not have been both ordered and delivered in the year since the Sauds were thrown out. Second, only a Chinese-made warhead could be mated to these missiles. You can’t just take a big Pakistani aerial bomb and fit it on a CSS-27. These things are precision weapons. I think for now what we have is a very accurate, high-explosive delivery system, a blockbuster in the original sense of the term, a weapon that has been brought in to deter Iran by bringing downtown Tehran under range of conventionally armed missiles.”
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