Last few days had been really hard on the CIA chief. His eyes, now encircled by dark circles showed that the man had not been able to catch up on sleep for quite some time. He was dragging his feet through the corridors with slumped shoulders and lost expression. The situation for rest of CIA personnel in the office was made worse by his increasingly irritable temper. His subordinates wanted him to doze off for a few hours and get some much needed sleep, both for his sake as well as their own. But nobody was willing to make the suggestion to his face, not at this time when yellow matter had not only hit the fan but also got splashed the people passing by the windows.
Those normally predictable Indians had proved to be really unpredictable when they needed to behave the most. Not only they had nuked the hell out of one of the most vital US “allies” in South Asia, but had also picked up a fight with US' biggest trading partner. The stock markets had tanked all over the world while the fuel prices had sky rocketed to $ 220 a barrel within two days. Governments in numerous countries had been forced to shut down trading in stock markets after stock worth hundreds of billions had evaporated in a matter of hours. Already, self-styled analysts and experts were shouting themselves hoarse claiming all kinds of consequences, ranging from alien intervention to a nuclear world war. Some of the more colourful “experts” were playing on the much hyped date of 21/12/2012 predicting end of the world. The result was a wave of mass panic and hysteria spreading all over the world which the governments had been unable to subdue. Riots had broken out in many cities causing even more panic and destruction.
Cosby was sitting on his chair staring at the documents containing all the details while a small army of agents and analysts ran around bringing even bigger piles of papers to him and other senior officials in the room. He felt drowsy staring at the sheets and felt himself drifting towards sleep. Even the strongest coffee was proving useless in keeping him awake and he inched closer and closer towards blessed oblivion, even if it was for a few minutes. His trance was very rudely broken by the three star Admiral who had been shouting on phone earlier.
“Hey Cosby! Cosby, wake up buddy. We are officially in deep shit now.” Admiral Adams bellowed while trying to shake the dozing spook awake.
In spite of his best efforts to sound alert and in control, Cosby could only manage a sniffled yawn, “Uh…what?”
Admiral jumped up and down excitedly “Have you been sleeping all this while now? Those damned Chinese have downed a Taiwanese F-16 over Taiwan Strait!”
All the traces of sleep immediately vanished from Cosby's eyes. “What the hell are you talking about Admiral? Why'd Chinese do such a thing? “
Adams just exploded, “You are the intelligence guy here Cosby. You figure it out. We had no information when Pakistanis launched that nuke on India. None when they tried to launch another one and absolutely no clue when Indians took the decision of nuking the cursed place off the world map. Do we run the biggest and most advanced intelligence setup in the world or what? Now one of my guys in Taiwan phones and tells me that Chinese have picked up a fight with Taiwanese, and you ask me such questions! ”
Cosby rubbed his head tiredly and groaned pitifully, “Fuc*! “
Admiral Adams looked at the exhausted man sympathetically, but there was too much shit going on for him to be nice, “First Indians destroy Pakistan, now Chinese are about to do the same thing with Taiwan. At this rate, we'll have no allies left in that part of the world.”
This time, a two star Army General, General Matthews spoke up, “He is right Cosby. We got to do something. Losing the service of those terrorist Pakis is one thing, but loss of Taiwan will really screw things up for us in that part of the world. We have to have Taiwan intact and on our side.”
Adams nodded vigorously and added, “If Taiwan is lost, we can say goodbye to all the oil in Spartly Islands. Not to mention what it's going to cost us when people all over the world see us humiliated by loss of our allies while we keep twiddling our thumbs.”
Cosby stared at the pile of papers in front of him while speaking, “True. First Taiwan, then South Korea, then Japan. These greedy Chinese will never stop. “
Adams lit a cigar and puffed on it, “For Chinese, it was Tibet first. We did nothing then either.”
Cosby retorted “Neither did Indians, who had most to lose. After Tibetans of course.”
Matthews who had been pacing the room impatiently interrupted, “Gentlemen, this is no time to discuss history. The point is the fight between India and China needs to be broken off before it gets too serious. Much before Chinese uses it as an excuse to solve their Taiwanese problem once and for all. That means right now. Every single second counts.”
Adams nodded, “You are right General. But how do we do it? I have just two Carrier Battle Group (CBG) in near area. One is on the eastern coast of Japan which was supposed to conduct the joint exercises with Japanese. The second is in Guam for resupply and repairs. We can't intimidate either China or India with what we have.”
Cosby who had been silent all this while gave no indication that he heard anything that the two men had been discussing. He picked up a sheaf of papers and waved it, “These intelligence reports say that a full scale rebellion has broken out in Tibet and Xinjiang.”
Matthews waved away the information dismissively, “That's not important right now. Chinese always had that problem “
Adams disagreed at once. “We need to utilize whatever we can General. Have you gone through the reports yet? Tibetans claim that they've blown up a nuclear missile base.”
Cosby interrupted, “It's just not their claim Admiral. We know for sure that they are telling the truth. But the reprisals by Chinese have been very brutal. PLA has wiped out dozens of villages for revenge, Surviving Tibetan rebels are fighting with all they have, but they wouldn't last much long unless they get more help.”
Meanwhile in Xinjiang, Uighur Muslims have declared a war on Chinese Han settlers. Approximately 8 hours ago, a mob of Uighurs laid siege to a Han settlement, burnt down dozens of houses and took nearly 200 Hans hostage. Not even one survived when the rescue operation launched by Chinese blew up. Whole province is on fire as Uighurs are fighting pitched battles with Chinese military as well as civilians.