The Mandarin Club (39 page)

“The worst of what?”

“The annual war games the Chinese have launched against Taiwan are bigger than ever. That’s probably what the Chinese over-reaction is about in the first place. It’s just for cover. They aren’t going to start a war over a custody dispute.”

“Great frickin’ timing. They roll out the big war games the day we leave.”

“Could be they were waiting for something to distract people, to use as a smokescreen. They always have their ‘summer games.’ They’re called the ‘Jiefang Live Fire Combined Services Training Drill.’ But they’re usually later, in July or August.”

“Right.”

“My sources say this year it’s different. Appears they’ve cooked up something major, building on the joint maneuvers they’ve been doing with the Russians. They’re using all the new hardware their military’s been importing—the destroyers, the new Russian Sovremenny. Testing their amphibious assault groups. The whole works. They’ve even announced a test firing of their new Ju Lang missiles, the submarine launched ones. They could trigger something much, much bigger here.”

She stood now, bouncing nervously on her toes. Alexander’s report was sobering, and she wanted to get the blood flowing again—anything to jump start her foggy brain.

“Hey, since we’ve been talking, there’s an MSNBC crawler saying the U.S. has just expelled three Chinese diplomats in retaliation.” “Unbelievable,” she mumbled. “It’s all BS. They’ve had this war game stuff planned for months. The Chinese
always
like to say they’re provoked. Goes back to the Opium Wars and their nineteenth century blame-the-foreigners game. The Pentagon correspondent says the Chinese are announcing live fire missile tests on targets in the Pacific east of Taiwan. That’s clear across the island!”

“There goes the summit.”

“You’re probably right. They must’ve wanted an excuse. This stuff they’re doing is so
calculated
, like it was sitting on the shelf ready to go.”

Rachel was gazing out the window, sliding open the curtains with the back of her hand. The sunlight was brilliant, and the scene she viewed was impossibly green, almost jungle-like, compared to the barren urban landscapes of Beijing. The impatiens were tucked into their shaded beds, none the worse for the oppressive July heat. The Japanese maple was stretched out full, leaves covered with a soft sheen. Geraniums stood in pots lining the back porch. Barry had kept the yard well watered. She’d meant to thank him for it.

“Beijing seems like some apparition to me now,” she said. “As if we just made it up that there’s this big country far away that wants to go to war over some sixty-year-old misunderstanding.”

“Right.”

“Do you really believe we’re going to get into a military confrontation over where Mickey’s kids spend their summer vacation?”

“I think you need some breakfast,” said Alexander, laughing, and she welcomed the sound.

“And a bath. I need a bubble bath. I want to wash it all away.”

Monday morning proved equally sobering. There were reporters in the TPB lobby. Talbott had closed the curtains to his rebuilt, behind-the-reception-area office, and laid on extra security. The boss awaited her in the boardroom.

“Jonathan, why on earth is all the press here?” she began, feeling confused after nearly two weeks away from the office.

“Sit down, my dear.” Even in his worried state, he was formal, pulling at his fingers. “I’m afraid we have a bit of a situation.”

“A situation? You mean the stakeout? Is that for you—or for me?”

“Actually, it’s for our client, Mr. Dooley. That’s who they’re looking for.”

“Mickey? He got off the plane in Alaska.” She was watching Talbott now, as if he knew something she didn’t. She sat and sighed. “Why do I feel like a spectator again? I mean,
is
he? Is Mickey here in Washington?”

“We don’t know. I have sought clarification from some of our friends in the State Department. It’s just that Mr. Dooley has been a very prominent client of our firm, and our role appears to some to be quite suspicious.”

“Telstar is our client. Mickey is just—wait a minute. What are you implying about ‘our role?’ That getting his kids out of China was some TPB operation?”

“Actually, that is what the Chinese press has been reporting this morning.”

“Really?” Rachel was shaking her head, bewildered.

Talbott waited for the information to sink in. “There is something I need to ask you, Rachel. Man to woman, partner to partner, or however one should put it.”

He was patronizing her again, but she didn’t mind. She could hear the enormous grandfather clock ticking in the corner.

“Rachel, the question I must ask you is this. . .” Talbott paused, earnest to the point of awkwardness. “Did you have knowledge of this planned activity
in advance
?”

She felt like mush. She hadn’t read a newspaper in several days. Her brain was still somewhere over the Pacific, and her feet were not yet settled in her heels.

“Oh, Mr. Talbott,” she replied, “I suppose so.”

“You ‘suppose’?” He folded his hands, his displeasure evident. “And did you ever consider the consequences of this planned activity, for your colleagues here at TPB?”

“Well, to be honest, no. But I knew about it only because Mickey and I have been friends since I was in college. He just sort of spilled it out. It was personal stuff he was sharing, out of friendship.”

“I see.”

“Oh, I’m not sure you do, Jonathan. It was just a fluke. Mickey was scared, he was troubled, and he just blurted it out. He said some things he shouldn’t have. Now that I think about it, I suppose Senator Smithson knew, too. I don’t think they could take that sort of risk without his permission.”

She paused, straightening herself, then continued. “But I. . . I really have no idea who they had arranged it with, Jonathan. I don’t want to know. It was just a family issue as far as I was concerned.”

“Do you have any idea what this so-called ‘family issue’ has unleashed, Rachel? Its impact on us? The expulsion of an ambassador? The accelerated military maneuvers. The—”

“Jonathan, with all due respect, that’s just bull. The Chinese are playing with our heads. It’s just for show. They have these war games every year. They’re still trying to punish Taiwan for having the temerity to hold free elections. First, the voters elected a native Taiwanese, then they elected a human rights lawyer who favors independence. The PRC is just using this latest incident as an excuse. They have another agenda here.”

“It appears quite grave this time. And our business has suffered.”

“It’s just a
game
.”

“Hardly.”

“It’s just a game of chicken. Like when they rammed our spy plane, and tried to make us apologize.”

“Rachel, I don’t think you can compare—”

“Beijing and Taipei have been playing this game for sixty years. Don’t you see?
They
know the rules. China does. Taiwan does. We’re the only ones who don’t.”

“But
we
are the ones to suffer, here at TPB. Rachel, I must tell you that Telstar terminated their contract with us.”

“
What?”

“Right after they fired Mickey Dooley, that is. O’Neill Aerospace is also balking at their scheduled renewal. Those are two of our biggest retainers.”

“Why did they cancel the—”

“I don’t need to tell you, the team leader on both accounts, that this constitutes a very substantial revenue loss for which you must bear considerable responsibility.”

“Why did they cancel?” Rachel was thoroughly confused. She couldn’t keep up, though she could already see how the office would be buzzing with gossip. She had stumbled again.

“They both do considerable business with China. The Chinese maintain that TPB employees and clients helped ‘kidnap’—their word—and—”

Talbott was interrupted by a sharp knocking on the boardroom door. His secretary appeared, looking stern, a folded note held at arm’s length for the boss. Through the open doorway, Rachel could hear commotion from the press gaggle out in the reception area.

“Thank you, Marian,” Talbott said, folding the note neatly and placing it in his coat pocket as the heavy door clicked shut.

He walked toward the wall and pressed a button, sliding a paneled section back to reveal an enormous flat screen TV. The firm gathered here to watch major congressional votes upon which they had all worked. They had watched the impeachment speeches here, once upon a time, as well as the ghastly developments of 9/11. Otherwise, the screen stood dormant, used only for the occasional sports playoff game over an evening session, with pizza and beer.

“What is it?” she asked.

Talbott had his back to her. He was fumbling under the console for the remote control gadgets. He held the two clickers, cradling them gingerly, as if they were live grenades, while he tried in vain to coordinate their functions.

“‘Things fall apart. . .’” he began to recite, “‘the center cannot hold.’”

“Yeats.”

“You’re well read.”

“Stanford does that.”

He managed finally to click the TV on, but got only some cartoons on the local Fox station. “Damn. Here, can you get CNN for us, please?”

Talbott waited as Rachel pointed the VCR remote, then continued matter-of-factly. “Marian says the networks are reporting missile strikes against Taipei.”

Rachel found Channel 12. As usual, Marian was correct.

There was a voiceover from the Pentagon correspondent, and live footage from the Taipei nighttime sky, smoke spiraling up from a distant hilltop.

“Yes, Dave, we’ve lost our audio connection with Taiwan right now, and have just this picture. But U.S. intelligence sources are reporting that the likely target was the Yangmingshin Mountain facility of the Taiwan Ministry of Defense—excuse me, that’s Yangming
shan
. It’s a major signals intelligence facility said to be operated jointly by Taiwan’s MOD, the super-secret U.S. National Security Agency, and the CIA.”

“And what would be the purpose for targeting this facility?” the studio anchor was asking now. “It’s in the suburbs, outside the capital, is it not?”

“Yes, Dave, it’s outside the capital city of Taipei. A big military compound in the foothills, quite noticeable for its many giant satellite signal-receiving disks. It’s called a ‘data processing facility’ because supposedly the U.S. doesn’t have military personnel in Taiwan—that might upset Beijing. But actually, it’s known to be a giant signals intelligence center, a spying facility where the U.S. and Taiwan cooperate in sifting through intelligence captured from the Communist-led government in Beijing.”

“And the Chinese justification for such a strike?”

“Well. . .”

“I mean, so many issues are out there now. . .”

“To be sure. The allegations by some that Taiwan is developing nuclear weapons capability—the so-called krytron smuggling case.”

“Yes, and more immediately, the bizarre allegations they have made that the CIA allegedly ‘kidnapped’ two Chinese-American boys. The unrelenting Chinese missile buildup, and their provocative military maneuvers. The expulsion of the U.S. ambassador, the refusal by Taiwan to agree to a timetable for reunification talks. There’s quite a list of grievances.”

“Yes, Dave. It certainly calls into question the Seattle summit.”

“Or if the summit will even take place.”

“It has certainly been a long and tortured road that has brought us to this juncture, to a military confrontation. What we are picking up here from our sources at the Pentagon is speculation that recent events caused the Chinese to ramp up their annual military exercises opposite Taiwan. But with the new military hardware the Americans have provided Taiwan—the Kidd destroyers in particular—Taiwan’s radar systems may have been ‘locking on’ Chinese fighters. These radar locks are quite readily mistaken for a preparation to fire on—”

“Oh my!” Both of the TV voices shouted as there was a flash of light on the screen so bright it seemed to penetrate even the darkest corners of the TPB boardroom. Then the screen went blank for a moment, punctuated by the disembodied voices of American reporters talking excitedly over each other.

Rachel stood as several colleagues raced in.

“The market’s frozen!” Wally Ashburn, a senior partner exclaimed. “What the hell’s going on, Rach? You startin’ World War III?”

Braden Sechrest was with them now, too, a tall woman in a lilac suit with a ream of papers in hand. “Lloyd’s has pulled insurance on all shipping in East Asia. NASDAQ suspended trading—off ten percent already. The Tokyo markets are going to go bananas.”

“Uh, Dave, that was quite a strike!” Now they had a live picture of the Pentagon correspondent standing before a podium in a briefing room in Virginia. ‘We are getting speculation here of EMP weapons being used.”

“EMP?”

“Electro Magnetic Pulse bombs. Kind of like the old neutron bombs designed to kill people, but leave the buildings standing. These EMP weapons are likely designed to knock out all the communications systems—the electronics and avionics the Taiwanese are using for battle management.”

Soon enough, the TV news whip-around came to the North Lawn of the White House, where the CNN correspondent was speaking grimly of possible American losses at the intelligence-gathering facility in Taipei. Most of the senior members of the TPB firm crowded in to watch it all on the big screen TV.

After a time, Rachel slipped out of the board room, feeling like the walking dead. Everything seemed to be happening on her watch. Somebody sets off a bomb beneath their lobby—naturally,
she
gets hit. Mickey causes an international incident—and
she
gets blamed. She felt like a modern day Typhoid Mary.

She retreated back to her private office, viewing the space as if through some distant lens. Her routine day was waiting in front of her. Her desk was covered with neatly piled papers, the Washington detritus from two weeks away. Her dutiful assistant had opened all the mail and sorted the folders. Her “Action” files were neatly stacked. The one marked “Fundraising Invitations” was thick—no doubt in anticipation of the fall rush, trying to get Rachel and TPB calendared well in advance. “Client Correspondence” was thinner—the volume of e-mail traffic and voicemail would be far greater than the snail mail here. The bulging travel file full of business expense receipts from her Asia trip was waiting to be processed.