Again the skepticism crept into the president’s expression.
“You think I’m exaggerating,” Takahashi said. “That even with double our public budget, we could have never gotten this far ahead of you. What you don’t understand is that it’s not about budget.”
“It’s not?”
Takahashi shook his head. “The problem you have is that the purpose of the US military isn’t to win wars.”
“I think that would come as a surprise to the Joint Chiefs.”
“You’ll have to excuse my English, Mr. President. Perhaps ‘purpose’ was the wrong word. Let me change it to ‘priority.’ First and foremost, the US military is used to bolster employment through active military, support personnel, and so on. It enriches defense contracting companies. It gets politicians reelected through the acquisition and protection of projects in their districts. And admittedly, it strokes the egos and nostalgia of aging generals like myself. With all due respect, sir, you’ve pumped trillions into a military that hasn’t been able to deliver a clear win since you defeated us. Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam, Korea, Somalia. Your soldiers are courageous and well trained, but the motto of the US military-industrial complex seems to be, ‘If it hasn’t worked in the past, make it more expensive.’”
“But that’s not your motto.”
Takahashi shrugged noncommittally. “The US completely destroyed my country’s military capability during World War Two. It created a blank slate for us to work from. You, though, had created a massive military by the end of that war and it was in many people’s best interest to maintain and grow it. Your F-35 program is an interesting example. A trillion dollars for a fighter that has no clear mission, is nothing more than an incremental improvement over prior planes, and is so complex that it doesn’t even reliably fly. And then there are the billions in weapons that go straight from the factory into long-term storage because your military has no use for them. I’m buffeted by no such winds.”
Castilla picked up his tea, warming hands that had gone cold while listening to the man across from him. “Can I assume you’ll be publicly announcing what you’ve just told me and perhaps giving the world a demonstration? I suspect that you’d see a very quick change in attitude from the Chinese. And that’s your goal, right? Peace?”
Takahashi watched the man in front of him drink from his cup. He was surprisingly formidable, this politician. A worthy ally. Or a very dangerous enemy. “I’m not sure that would be in my country’s best interest, Mr. President.”
Castilla had obviously been prepared for this response, and no emotion showed on his face. “You want this war.”
“That’s a gross overstatement. But I think you have to agree that the Chinese present numerous challenges to both Japan and the world. They steal other countries’ intellectual property. They manipulate their currency. They use de facto slave labor to take critical manufacturing jobs from places like the United States. They are creating border disputes with virtually every country in the region and are building a military to press those claims. They protect the North Koreans. Their environmental problems are scaling to the point that they’re causing damage outside their borders. And their demand for resources is becoming almost limitless. Obviously, I could go on, but the basic point is that they aren’t contributors to the world. They’re leeches. A billion tiny leeches.”
This time Castilla was unable to hide his feelings: the blood drained visibly from his face. Takahashi leaned forward, putting his cup on the table and meeting the eye of the man who had once been the most powerful in the world. “I tell you all this as a courtesy, Mr. President. Japan neither wants nor needs your protection. Finish your summit if you must, but pull your carrier groups back and stay out of this. It’s none of your affair.”
“What if the American people are unwilling to just stand by while you perpetrate genocide?”
Castilla expected Takahashi to take offense at his characterization and his horror grew when the soldier’s expression didn’t even flicker. “Make no mistake, Mr. President. I will protect my country’s interests at all costs. And against all enemies.”
47
Northeastern Japan
Randi Russell ducked under the branches of a tree and continued upward toward the intermittent flashes of blue sky. The mountain was just one in the endless rolling carpet of green that covered this remote part of the island. The complete lack of trails was comforting from an anonymity standpoint, but not ideal for speed. The foliage was nearly as dense as she’d run into in Laos, though it wasn’t as hot, thank God.
She put her back against a tree and lifted the nozzle of her CamelBak to her mouth. Visibility was only about ten feet but she was confident she wasn’t being followed. In order to even approximate silence, someone would have to slow to a rate of no more than a couple hundred yards an hour, and that would have left them crawling along the canyon below.
She’d decided that plausible deniability was completely lost—no one was going to believe that an American bushwhacking toward a nuclear storage facility was a lost hiker. In light of that, Randi had equipped herself with ultralight hiking boots, fatigues dyed specifically for the environment, and a silenced Beretta with two spare clips. If anyone spotted her, there would be no doubt about her purpose, but at least there would be a reasonable chance for escape.
She started out again, weaving between trees and crawling under bushes as she made her way methodically to the summit. Hopefully, this one wouldn’t blow up like the last.
When the terrain started to level out, she dropped to her stomach and slid across the dead leaves and sticks, scanning for surveillance equipment and booby traps. Not that she really had any idea what to look for. Based on the latest from Fred Klein, goddamn space-based lasers and genetically modified, glow-in-the-dark rottweilers weren’t out of the question.
Randi slowed further, slithering through the tall grass until the slope turned downward. It took a few moments to mat down a hole sufficient to see though, but when she did, she was pleased to learn that her map-and-compass skills hadn’t entirely disappeared in the GPS era. Below, at a distance of about a mile, was exactly what she’d come to see.
It looked pretty much like the pictures she’d found on the Internet. The entrance was a natural cavern about twenty yards high and a bit less in width. According to the publicly available plans, it descended into the mountain for nearly two-thirds of a mile before dead-ending into a set of blast doors. Beyond those doors, the cavern was human made, leading into the main nuclear waste storage area.
There was one access road, paved to allow heavy trucks to travel along it safely. The entrance was ringed with a not particularly formidable-looking chain-link fence, creating a courtyard large enough for a semi to be unloaded in. Steel tracks were visible going into the cave entrance, but none of the transportation carts that traveled along them were in evidence. She guessed that they were stored just inside to keep them out of the weather. Other than that, there was nothing but a tiny guardhouse with a single guard.
Randi let out a long breath and retrieved her binoculars, studying the area in more detail. Even magnified, there wasn’t much to see. Or, more precisely, she was seeing exactly what someone would expect at this type of installation. Either Takahashi was as clever as he was given credit for or this really was nothing more than a radioactive trash heap.
Randi focused her lenses on the guard and felt a glimmer of hope for the first time in days. He looked too hard to be of the hourly variety. She waited for him to exit the guardhouse and watched as he walked the fence line, peering into trees that had been cut back about seventy-five yards. No gut hanging over his pants. No wheezing or waddling. He moved with graceful efficiency and was carrying a Belgian assault rifle. Not a particularly common weapon and one that she herself had taken a liking to a few years back.
Randi shifted her gaze back to the cavern entrance, but all she could see was darkness and shadow. Was Smith in there? Was he alive? And if so, what was
his condition?
Her gut told her that this was it. Takahashi was all about efficiency and it was a hell of a lot more efficient to commandeer an existing facility than to build one from scratch. Case in point: Fukushima’s Reactor Four. Add to that the decidedly non-doughnut-eating guard and she had a reasonable leg to stand on. A thin, weak leg to be sure, but there weren’t a hell of a lot of other options at this point.
Based on what she was hearing from Klein and what she was reading in the papers, there wasn’t any more time for hand-wringing. The shit was about to hit the fan in Asia and it wasn’t clear whether even the full diplomatic and military might of the United States was going to be able to do anything about it.
So, that left her. A lone woman lying in soggy grass. Outstanding.
She pulled back slowly, covering about fifty yards before she stood and started back down the way she’d come. What wasn’t she seeing? What had Takahashi’s scientists been doing for the past three decades? Sure, the nanotech, torpedoes, EMPs, and germs. But that was just the big stuff. What kind of defenses had he set up around that entrance? Had he built things that she’d never even dreamed of, let alone trained for?
And what about the nanotech? If it was indeed being developed and stored inside, was it possible that an assault on the facility could release it? According to Greg Maple, that had the potential to be an end-of-days scenario.
Bottom line? She was screwed. Takahashi had won.
Randi jumped off a boulder, dropping to the dirt five feet below. When she landed, she shook her head violently and forced a few deep breaths of the mountain air.
This wasn’t the time to start feeling sorry for herself. Nothing was impossible.
48
Outside Melbourne
Australia
Fred Klein moved across the carefully manicured lawn, following David McClellan as he skirted the mansion and tried to avoid the light bleeding from its windows. The rest of the president’s security detail had been pulled back for Klein’s arrival. It was well-known that he and Castilla had been friends since college and that they got together regularly based on that relationship. It also seemed likely that people assumed he gave the president occasional advice based on his background with the CIA and NSA. Showing up in Australia, though, would push those assumptions a little too far. Better to make his entrance and exit as quiet as possible.
McClellan pointed toward a set of stairs carved into the ground between two enormous flowering bushes. Klein could feel an uncharacteristic film of sweat forming between his palm and the handle of his briefcase as he descended toward an unlocked steel door.
The basement beyond was dim and only partially finished, a fittingly clandestine place for this particular piece of business. President Sam Adams Castilla sat alone at a folding table next to the wall, gazing into the crystal glass in his hand. He didn’t acknowledge his old friend’s arrival and Klein understood. The man was under almost unimaginable pressure. And it was about to get worse.
“I understand the negotiations are going well,” Klein said, deciding to try to start the meeting on a positive note.
“Doesn’t matter,” Castilla replied, continuing to stare at the two fingers of bourbon in his glass. Generally, the man was a force of nature. Now, though, something fundamental had changed. For the first time since they’d known each other, Castilla looked…broken.
Klein sat and slid a thick file marked “President’s Eyes Only” across the table.
“I don’t have the energy, Fred. Just hit me with the highlights.”
Castilla had given him a detailed account of his meeting with Takahashi and asked him to evaluate the man’s claims. As far as Klein knew, no one else was even aware that the meeting had taken place.
“In a nutshell?” Klein, said, reaching for the bottle of Black Widow and pouring himself a short glass. “Assuming thirty-plus years of research and development focused on the systems Takahashi told you about, my people think it’s largely doable.”
Castilla let out a long breath.
Klein opened the folder so he could go over the points in order. “Obviously, we know that the nanotech exists. We still aren’t sure that the control systems are robust enough to make it a viable weapon, though.”
“But you’re telling me they might be. That it’s potentially deployable.”
“I believe so, yes.”
Castilla took a healthy slug of his drink and then topped it off from the bottle. “Where do your people stand on tracking this thing down?”
“Randi is working on options, but they’re limited.”
“So you’re nowhere.”
Klein hated to fail his old friend but there was just no sugarcoating the current situation. “I’m sorry, Sam. My top man has been captured and I’m up against a brilliant general who’s been laying these plans since you and I were in school.”
“I’m not blaming you or your people, Fred. No one could do more. I know that.”
Klein gave a short nod, though the vote of confidence made him feel even more powerless.
“We’re convinced that he has the torpedoes he told you about. The technology’s been around since the Soviet era and the artificial intelligence needed to operate them isn’t that much more advanced than what we see in modern video games. Also, because this would have been a priority for him, we can assume that he’s deployed a significant number of them.”
“So tell me this, Fred. Why the hell don’t we have three-hundred-knot, artificially intelligent underwater missiles?”
“We’re actually working on the technology, but the program hasn’t seen much funding. We have a level of naval superiority that makes them a bit moot. Besides, as a country, we’ve shied away from putting life-and-death decisions in the hands of computers. Our strong bias is to have a human in the loop.”
“But the Japanese don’t have that bias.”
“No. What they have is a limited population base and limited resources. There are records of Takahashi’s predecessor talking about his philosophy of small, cheap, and independent. It seems like they’ve stuck with that.”
“How would they launch them? They don’t have much of a navy. I mean, I assume the intelligence community that I keep writing billion-dollar checks to would notice if the Japanese were building a fleet of submarines.”
“We assume that they reside on the bottom of the ocean, waiting for a go signal.”
“Great,” Castilla said.
“With regard to missile defense, my people also think Takahashi is telling the truth.”
“So, the US has spent God knows how much on our system and we can’t hit the broad side of a barn. But a little island in the Pacific has completely nailed it.”
“We’ve looked into a similar EMP-based shield in the past but decided not to pursue it. I don’t have to tell you that we have to tread carefully on missile defense in order not to skew the balance of power so much that it could prompt an attack. And to be clear, Sam, these are nuclear weapons. The US has never looked to acquire this kind of tactical nuclear capability. Once you start down that road, things can escalate pretty quickly.”
Klein flipped a page in the file. “The biological weapon is a simple matter. As you know we—”
“Have a moral objection to biological weapons,” Castilla said, finishing his sentence. “It’s unbelievable that we even have a defense industry with all these caveats.”
Klein leaned back in his chair, examining the side of his friend’s face. It would have been bad enough if he stopped there, but the president of the United States had to have the whole story.
“We also need to talk about what Takahashi didn’t say, Sam.”
Castilla finally looked directly at him. “What he didn’t say?”
“We have to assume that they have autonomous fighter drones based on their torpedo technology and that our planes would be no match for them.”
“It just keeps getting better and better.”
“We also have to assum
e that if they have nuclear defensive capability, they have nuclear offensive capability.”
“Missiles?”
“We don’t think so. It would be extremely hard to hide those kinds of installations. More likely suitcase nukes. My people believe that the Japanese could have easily developed something in the twenty-to-fifty-kiloton range.”
“Terrific.”
“Also, if they have a bioweapons program, I think it’s safe to assume that it’s not just defensive like Takahashi told you.”
“Any good news?” Castilla said. “Anything at all?”
“There is, actually. While we think they’ve developed the technology for all these weapons, manufacturing them in any large quantity would be extremely difficult. Not only because it would be hard to keep it under wraps, but because of the cost.”
Castilla suddenly stood and began pacing back and forth across the stone floor. “I sat three feet from Takahashi, Fred. I looked into his eyes. He didn’t build his army to defend Japan. He built it to annihilate China and to turn his country into a superpower. The government there will end up a military puppet and Takahashi will start his march across the East.”
He turned and looked back at Klein. “Wielding power is hard, Fred, but the US has struck a pretty good balance. Now, I’m not going to stand here and blow sunshine up your skirt. It’s true that some of our restraint has been because we have a strong belief in freedom—both our own and others’—but that’s not the whole story. A big part of it is that we live in a massive country blessed with enormous natural resources. For the most part, we haven’t had to go out and take what we need. Japan is different. It’s a small island with an aging population and a debt problem that makes ours look mild. Take my word for it—Takahashi wants to expand.”