Third World War (35 page)

'Andrei,' said West. 'You're Vasant's main ally.'

'We support,' said Kozlov bluntly, 'no question, whatever India believes it needs to do.'

'Taru?'

Sato shrugged. 'You have the moral right, Vasant. But if you go in, it will end in nuclear war. Therefore, we need to look forward and get a guarantee from the other nuclear powers that they will not intervene. If it is to happen, it must be confined.'

'You're telling us to plan for nuclear war?' exclaimed West.

'If we had planned for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, our casualties would have been far less.' He took a quick look towards West. His eyes, caught in the light of the room, were at first angry, but became enveloped in a huge sadness.

'If you two want to do it,' said Nolan, 'we'll commit, and I'll bring some of Europe with me. Britain could draft a resolution that Pakistan is a failed state, etcetera, etcetera.'

'Jamie?' asked West.

'I'm not convinced I could bring the military with me,' said Song, avoiding the direct explanation he had given West earlier. He smiled, mocking himself. 'The president of such a powerful nation is not always in charge. It would take time to persuade them, and Vasant says he doesn't have time.' He looked across to Nolan. His expression was the most youthful and relaxed of anyone there. 'Stuart, if you want to put forward a UN Security Council resolution, for US or European intervention in Pakistan, China will not veto it. Depending on the wording and depending on my own political opposition we will either support it or abstain. If the invasion is successful, then China will be happy to provide engineers, technocrats, whatever is needed to rebuild the nation again.'

'Will Pakistan fight, Vasant?' asked Nolan, pouring himself a coffee.

'They'll fight,' said Mehta. 'And they'll go nuclear if they can.'

West's eyes shifted to Brock, and the table fell quiet as the atmosphere suddenly changed from discussion to decision-making. 'Draw up a plan, Peter,' West said in barely a whisper. 'And Mary, the usual on the diplomatic front. We need as many countries with us as we can get.' West reached across Kozlov to take the coffee pot from in front of Nolan. 'Vasant, can you bear with us while this works its way through?'

Mehta nodded, lightly putting his hand on Newman's as a gesture of reassurance. 'A few days, yes, but not much longer.'

A gust of wind caught the door, making it rattle, and swathes of misty drops blew against the glass. West glanced behind him at the thermometer which recorded the outside temperature. It had risen enough to replace snowfall with rainfall.

'There is another issue, about which something has cropped up only today,' said West. 'We believe that North Korea has procured a particularly lethal form of smallpox through a theft at a laboratory in Australia and from your labs, Andrei, at Pokrov. We believe that it is experimenting with the stuff on human beings and trying to set up a system through which it can be delivered.'

Kozlov gave West a sidelong, shrewd glance. 'From Pokrov. Yes, I can confirm that. Whether it went to North Korea or not, I can't say. But that it is missing, yes, that is true.'

'All our intelligence points to North Korea,' said West. 'Andrei and Jamie, can either or both of you handle it?'

'You make it sound so simple,' Kozlov said, his head down, concentrating on pushing the edge of the tablecloth with his fingernail. 'What do you mean, handle it?'

'Ensure that North Korea does not have this weapon,' said West.

Kozlov shook his head mournfully. 'I told you, our days of empire are over. I am sorry about Pokrov, but it was an American plan to seal our laboratories, and the plan--'

'The virus should have been destroyed long ago,' said West brusquely. 'Smallpox is banned - the 1972 Convention - and Moscow knows it. Within months of signing it you set up Biopreprat, hired thousands of scientists and violated that treaty.'

Kozlov threw up his hands in mock surrender. 'I apologize, Mr President. Russia apologizes on behalf of the late Soviet Union.'

'We can help on North Korea,' said Song quietly. 'But it will not be through force. And we will not do it under threat from the United States. If Park Ho has this smallpox virus, we will take it from him. We will also seal his missile silos. But it will not be known what we have done.'

'Not even by us?' asked Sato.

'Not even by you,' said Song, his face masked and unreadable as he answered. 'But let me tell you this. Andrei is right. One day far in the future China will want to be a superpower. Whether it is a hundred or two hundred years from now does not concern any of us. It is far from the crises that face us today. We have been working at modernizing our country for sixty years and still have twenty million people living in poverty and forty million illiterate and uneducated. Why should we be interested in expanding our borders and colonizing new territory? We believe we do have the right formula for dragging a nation out of poverty, and some might think us successful. But by no means are we there yet. So it is in our interests to stay on good terms with the United States, and to build our friendship with Russia and India. Our closest rival - if you want to use that word - is you, Sato. But we should not let history get in the way of what we can achieve together.'

For a moment, Song, whether deliberately or not, let his cover slip. He looked up at Sato, with a burning appeal in his eyes, then he settled on West. 'If you go it alone, Jim, you will unleash forces in China that I may not be able to control. If you hold back, Park Ho will be removed from power. The status quo will be restored. On that you have my word.'

West didn't speak. He was intent on what Jamie Song had said, unsure of whether to read it as a threat or an offer. Brock ended the silence with a question to his wife. 'How long, Caro, would Park Ho need with his tests, and how long to deliver it?'

'The worst-case scenario--' She tapped her cheek while thinking. 'A couple of weeks. But he's not going to deliver this by missile. The virus wouldn't survive that. He'd have to have some other system ready. The best of which would be another human being.'

'A couple of weeks,' muttered West, pushing back his chair and putting both hands on the table. 'We're with you for a couple of weeks, Jamie. Let's talk after that.'*

*****

One by one, Jim West delivered his guests into the hands of secret service agents who escorted them the short distance to their chalets. He turned back into the room, grateful to see Mary Newman and the Brocks helping themselves to a nightcap and settling down on the sofas away from the dining table. He hadn't looked forward to being left at Aspen with just the shuffling feet of the staff clearing the table. West stood by the dying fire, rubbing his hands, then turned and took the whisky Peter Brock had poured for him.

Newman was close enough for him to catch her perfume. For the first time he noticed how she had dressed for the dinner - a beige cashmere pullover and camel-colour pants with a pair of brown suede ankle boots. She had begun pulling the left boot off, but remembering where she was, and catching the disapproving eye of Brock, she stopped. West grinned and moving across to the huge window slid it open a bit to let the night air cool the room.

'Kick 'em off if you want, Mary,' said West. 'You guys were quiet, but great. So I want to know what you think.'

'On North Korea, Jim,' said Caroline Brock, 'my two-week scenario was very much worst case. You could have much longer. He's got to work out a way of getting IL-4 to react with smallpox and achieve the maximum infection. Given his technology, I'd say we're not in any immediate danger. But if it isn't fixed within six months to a year, start worrying.'

West stuck his hand out into the weather to check for rain and brought it back covered in glistening drops. The moon was consumed by dark clouds and the mountains forged harsh black rims across the skyline. 'Pete, you'll check things with Tom and Chris, before you turn in?'

'Sure will,' said Brock. He glanced at Caroline. 'We'd better get going anyway.'

Mary cupped her hands around her whisky glass. 'You know--' she began. Then seeing the Brocks get to their feet, she halted herself. West looked sharply in from near the window. Brock helped Caroline on with her coat. Two waiters began removing the glasses from the table. A gust of wind broke a branch from a tree and lifted it up to crack against the window glass.

'What are you cooking there, Mary? You got something on your mind, tell us.'

She smiled uncertainly, took another sip of whisky, put the glass down and got to her feet. 'It's a long, rambling academic analysis, best saved for the morning, I guess.'

Caroline buttoned up her coat. Brock wrapped a scarf around his neck. 'I'm seeing Caro home. Then I'll check the communications room, and drop back by in five or ten minutes,' he said, looking at Newman. 'Why don't you tell Jim what you're thinking, Mary? We can chew it over when I get back.'

As the Brocks closed the door behind them, the cold through breeze it had caused in the room stopped, and the warmth of the fading fire returned to the area around the sofa. West, still standing up, wasn't sure where to sit, until Newman patted the cushion next to her. 'Don't worry, Mr President,' she said, quietly so the waiters wouldn't hear. 'I'm not going to pounce.'

West smiled gratefully. 'Thanks, Mary. It's been one hell of a day.' For a moment, they each took refuge in their nightcaps, letting the sudden quiet of the Aspen living room seep through and change the atmosphere. West threw Newman a sideways glance. 'Do you miss David?' he asked, catching her eyes, then looking away. Newman didn't answer immediately, letting the question hang until West broke the silence: 'You don't mind me asking, do you?'

'Not at all.' Newman tilted her head towards him. 'It's not nice being betrayed. But do I miss having someone around? Sure, I do. It has to be someone who doesn't lie to you, which David did, so no way do I miss that.' She smiled. 'I won't ask about Valerie. It's written all over your face, every minute of the day.'

'That obvious?' sighed West.

'I'm afraid it is, Mr President.'

West laughed softly. 'Shall we make a new rule?' he suggested. 'When we're out of the White House and it's just the two of us, or even Pete and Caro, Jim's fine. It doesn't have to be--' He took another sip of whisky, letting the sentence finish itself.

Newman gave him a quizzical look. 'Jim's fine, is it?' she said, running her finger down the arm of the sofa. 'Any other occasions?' she teased. 'Or just when it's like this?'

'Well, what I can do is draw up a list,' began West, rolling his eyes sarcastically. He was about to go on when Newman jumped to her feet. 'You guys,' she shouted at the waiters. 'Can you just leave it all there, and excuse us for a moment.'

The waiters slipped away, and Newman walked over and studied the glasses and crockery on the table, her hand cupped pensively under her chin. She took off her spectacles and adjusted her focus to what she was examining. 'Just what I was thinking,' she said, pointing to Kozlov's place.

'The wine in his glasses, both red and white, is hardly touched. He swayed in before dinner, asking for sparkling mineral water and claiming he had been drinking with Yushchuk. Only after the meal, when the trolley came round, did he ask for a vodka. While talking to us, he filled it three times, which for a Russian is the equivalent of a teaspoonful.' West was standing next to her. She put her hand on his elbow to emphasize her point. 'He needed to show the vodka to give his speech the aura of a soul-searching, vodka-soaked Russian intellectual. But Andrei Kozlov was stone-cold sober throughout.'

'That doesn't mean he was lying,' said West.

'No, it doesn't,' agreed Newman slowly. 'In fact, far from it. He was sending you a message when he talked of freeing the serfs by not embracing NATO, the IMF and American values. Then, take what Kozlov said with this strange fish,' she said, pointing at the place where Song had been sitting. 'He's the one who really worries me. Not an ounce of humour in him all evening, then threatening us with forces he might not be able to control.' She leant against the table. 'He said there were twenty million Chinese living in poverty, in a population of what--'

'A billion, just over,' said West.

'Do you know how many live in poverty in America?'

'More than thirty million according to the US Census Bureau,' said West. 'Just over 16 per cent of all Americans. Any American aged twenty has a 60 per cent chance of spending at least one year living in poverty at some point in the future. I've just been in Detroit delivering a speech on it.'

'Exactly.' Newman went back to the sofa and waited for West to join her. 'We have thirty million out of what - a total population of 300 million. Jamie Song has twenty million out of 1.1 billion. Who's doing better?'

'Different kind of poverty.'