THE lithe woman striding toward the river entrance wore a tailored gray suit and low gray suede heels. Night after night of exchanging sleep for toil had pressed creases into her forehead and left shadows under her eyes concealer didn’t hide.
At the granite steps she touched her left ear, and pulled a lock of hair over it. Then halted, pressing a hand to her forehead.
A momentary dizziness. The old sense of having been here before.
No, not exactly déjà vu, Blair Titus thought, trying not to wince as she resumed climbing the broad staircase.
Because, truly, she had been here many times. As defense aide to Senator Bankey Talmadge. As the staff director to the Senate Armed Forces Committee. As undersecretary of defense, her current position, with offices on the third floor in the E Ring. And for the twice-weekly meetings of the Joint Chiefs’ Pacific War Working Group.
Uniformed guards inspected her ID, took temporary possession of her phone and briefcase, and pointed her through the security gate. It promptly warbled a warning.
“Titanium, in my leg and hip,” she explained.
The male sergeant nodded, looking only a little apologetic. “Still have to check you out, ma’am.”
A thin female soldier wanded her in a side room as the others looked through her briefcase and scrolled through her phone. “Can you hurry?” Blair said at last. “I’m due in the Tank.”
“Sorry,” the trooper said, but didn’t speed up her inspection any. She seemed particularly interested in the Manolo Blahnik kitten heels, and in Blair’s white silk blouse and thin gold torque. Blair pressed her lips together, holding back a sigh.
Finally the guards seemed satisfied she hadn’t suddenly become a major threat to national security, instead of part of its defense. Blair took back her Coach briefcase and marched on up the ramp, heels clicking. Summer sun falling through thick safety glass windows made the polished floor tiles glow.
She remembered all too well why the windows were shatterproof. Unfortunately, on that day years before in New York, she herself hadn’t been.
At the next security station two staffers joined her. The older one carried a briefcase, the younger a tablet under one arm. When she veered into a corridor they wheeled with her, precisely, in step.
THE Blairs had been shakers in national politics since Francis Preston Blair had moved to Washington to start a pro–Andy Jackson newspaper. After being defeated in a bid for Congress two years before, Blair Titus had reluctantly accepted an offer from the opposition to help bridge the expertise gap as the country plunged into war. Now she was the undersecretary for strategy, plans, and forces at Defense. And deeply suspect to the peace wing of her own party.
But the country needed her, as much as if she were in uniform. Like her husband, Dan.
The second set of guards waved them through. “Go ahead, ma’am.” She smiled tightly, and went on in.
CONVENING today was what Dr. Edward Szerenci, the national security advisor, called the HTWG—the Hostilities Termination Working Group. Szerenci loved coining acronyms. Its task, as the name implied, would be to find a way to end three years of desperate conflict. She’d worked all this week researching history, pulling together alternatives, and going over the options with her staff and experts from academia.
She wasn’t ready. But then, no one had been ready for this war, either.
The meeting room, opening off the already highly secure Intel Center, looked like any bland windowless conference space, though newer and better furnished than anything at the White House. But it was even more heavily shielded than the West Wing. A scanning console would detect any transmitting devices. She helped herself to coffee at an urn, taking it black, but stirred in sugar as she surveyed the room.
The operations deputies were ranked along the wall, as usual. And, as usual, looking even tenser and more sleep-deprived than their principals. They were there to listen, since they’d have to execute whatever was agreed on. She noted bulky, slow-moving Helmut Glee, the Army chief of staff. Gray, birdlike Absalom Lipsey, Joint Chiefs Operations. Rotund, pain-racked Dr. Nadine Oberfoell, from the Office of Cyber Security, in a wheelchair now—that was new. No sign of Nick Niles, Dan’s former CO, now chief of naval operations. Oddly, there seemed to be no one from Indo-Pacific Command, the main warfighting CINC, either. But there were reps from State and CIA. Good.
“Blair, you look wonderful. As always,” said a professorial-looking fellow in a blue tweed jacket.
“Hello, Kevin.” Dr. Glancey was a historian from Stanford.
A cleared throat from behind her. “Kev. Blair.” Gray-suited, silver-haired, the national security advisor patted her shoulder.
“Ed,” she murmured.
Szerenci sighed, looked at the pastries, then back at her. “I like the gray. In the hair? Adds to the gravitas. Not that you didn’t have plenty before.”
“Thanks,” she said reluctantly, brushing that rogue lock down over her misshapen ear again. She and Szerenci had clashed more than once. But he kept her on the list for policy meetings. Maybe as devil’s advocate?
Maybe.
“How’s Admiral Dan doing? Any recent word?”
“I don’t hear from him that often, Ed. I’ll probably learn more about what he’s doing here today, than what he can tell me.”
Szerenci looked past her, and not for the first time. “There’s Rick. Guess we’re ready to start.”
Husky, fiftyish General Ricardo Petrarca Vincenzo was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. In terms of protocol he and Szerenci were roughly equal, but here at the Pentagon, Vincenzo would chair the meeting while the security advisor sat to his right. Blair found her own place halfway down, between Glancey and the CIA rep, Tony Provanzano.
Vincenzo poured himself a glass of water, and opened. “Welcome, everyone. The purpose of this meeting is to staff out options for the second Allied Heads of State conference in Jakarta. We’re going to scramble up the agenda today. First, overall picture. Then, enemy situation. I need everyone to keep your presentations brief. Eight minutes. No more. Then we’ll review the strategic balance. Finally, we have to staff out a way to end this thing. And it would be good if we could present it as a consensus.
“Obviously, this is compartmented. There’ll be an official minute, but no personal notes can leave this room.” He waited a beat, then nodded to the first briefer.
A screen lit at the end of the room. The first image was the JCS logo. Four swords behind a shield, surrounded by a laurel wreath.
She knew the background, but forced herself to listen for any new developments. Vietnamese forces, backed by US airpower, had halted the Chinese south of Hanoi. A CIA-controlled Islamist rebel group had destroyed Jade Emperor, the main Chinese AI, ending cyberattacks on the US. The American artificial intelligence, Battle Eagle, was recovering the initiative. After being stymied for weeks in ferocious battles, the Marines and Army were finally making progress in Taiwan. A combined US/Indonesian force was readying for the invasion of Hainan, although a recent accident in Brunei would push back the date. Finally, and most critical for the future, Allied war production was rising.
“So far, so good,” Vincenzo remarked. “And a long way from where we started. Especially in equipment and munitions. How about the enemy situation? Tony?”
The CIA rep beside Blair clicked through several slides. Again, she knew most of what he presented. A major outbreak of a lethal influenza was decimating both the Chinese and Vietnamese armies. Beijing was reinforcing, but the new troops were poorly trained, hungry, sick, and ill-equipped.
Provanzano said, “But we can’t underestimate the depth of sacrifice the Chinese may be willing to make. The leadership’s determined to hold out. Worst case, they can fall back on their nuclear retaliatory force. Which so far has kept us from escalating.”
“We’ve been working to right that balance,” Szerenci put in.
The chairman nodded. “Hold it there, Tony. Right, that situation’s evolving. I’d like to hear from STRATFOR next. Then MDA.”
The general from Strategic Forces—nuclear weapons, both sea-, land-, and aircraft-delivered—took them though a sobering recap of Allied efforts to recoup a shortfall that had, Blair reluctantly admitted, probably been part of the reason for the war. Working in secret for a decade, and using nuclear material the North Koreans had traded for food and oil, the Chinese had built a large class of very heavy intercontinental missiles. In throw weight, accuracy, and number of independently maneuverable warheads, they were superior to anything in the American arsenal. Seventy MIRVed ICBMs had been targeted against major cities in the continental United States. Up to seven hundred warheads, though probably some were decoys.
More than enough to kill a nation, according to the analyses.
A bulleted slide flashed up. The general said, “Two points in Premier Zhang’s ultimatum bear repeating. First, US forces and nuclear weapons bases will be dealt with ‘by any means necessary.’ He’s proven that by taking out the FDR battle group and Pearl Harbor. Second, and most threatening: ‘Any aggression against Chinese soil will be answered by a similar level of destruction visited on the American homeland.’”
“It’s always slippery judging intent,” said Provanzano, beside Blair. “But it’s a credible threat. That’s the consensus of the intelligence community.”
“Which is why the administration never committed to retaliate,” Szerenci said. “I know it looked like cowardice, and it’s not how I would have proceeded personally. But it’s defensible. Withholding a response, trying to keep the war conventional as long as possible. Until we could regain parity, then superiority.
“If we’d only built the force I kept recommending for years … well, water over the dam.” Szerenci took off his glasses, massaged closed eyes, then looked to Vincenzo. “Shouldn’t we clear the room now, General?”
The chairman glanced at the staffers lining the walls. “Thank you, gentlemen. Ladies. Principals only from here, if you don’t mind.”
WHEN the room was cleared, Szerenci pointed to Strategic Forces again. “General, sorry for the interruption, but you understand why. Tell everyone what you’ve done to retrieve the balance for us.”
The screen cut to a massive missile shouldering its way out of a silo. In the video, flame and smoke burst up all around it. It rose into the sky, trailing flame and a gigantic pillar of white smoke.
“The biggest ICBM ever built. The Earth Penetrator Heavy,” the general said. “We started with a SpaceX heavy booster. Each missile packs a dispenser bus with four hardened earth-penetrating reentry bodies. Each reentry body carries an uprated W91 device with a total output of twenty megatons. The biggest warheads ever put on a missile.
“But the real difference is, terminal velocity. Boosted by a modified Trident engine on the way down, the EP Heavy payload will hit the ground at twice the speed and with far more energy than any previous reentry body. The hardened penetrator can punch through two hundred meters of granite. Since the warhead energy couples to the target via seismic shock, the harder the rock and concrete they encounter, the more destructive the shock wave they generate.
“These things will blast mountains apart.”
Dr. Oberfoell stirred, straightening in her wheelchair. “I sent around a document about Battle Eagle’s recent compromise of the enemy’s command system. We may be able to cut their strategic response time by as much as eighty percent.”
The general smiled at her, which Blair found ghastly. Considering what they were actually saying.
Szerenci looked pleased too. “First we slow down their reaction times. Then hit them with a punch heavy enough to destroy their mobile launchers before they can leave their tunnels.” Somehow he’d taken the lead from the chairman. He pointed down the table. “But what if they manage a partial launch? Say we destroy eighty percent of their capability. Twenty percent of seventy is fourteen. Double that to be safe. MDA, can you stop twenty-eight missiles headed for American cities?”
Blair sucked air, dizzy again. Not from déjà vu this time, but from disbelief. Rational human beings were discussing this? She started to speak, but the missile defense rep was passing around graphics showing intercept probabilities. She stared down at hers.
“Bottom line, to answer your question directly, sir, we estimate twenty percent of the remainder will get through.”
“That takes us down to two to three, right?”
“Two to three on US cities. Yes sir. With several warheads each, though. Since they’re MIRVed.”
Into a dead silence Szerenci said calmly, “Acceptable?”
No one looked at anyone else for a few seconds. Across the table from Blair, Dr. Oberfoell reached for the water carafe. Filled a glass, and sipped from it.
“Acceptable,” Szerenci concluded, this time with a falling inflection.
Vincenzo leaned back in his seat. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come down to that. But it would be great to regain dominance. The question I’d have is, does Zhang know the Heavy exists? If we’re talking deterrence, secrets don’t deter. Demonstrated capabilities do.”
“We developed it in secret,” the STRATFOR general said. “Otherwise we risked a preemptive strike.”
“Of course. Sure. But when do we tell them what we can do?”
“We reveal it at Jakarta,” Szerenci put in. “At the Heads of State conference. The way Truman told Stalin at Potsdam.” He looked around. “Sense of the meeting?”
Nodding. Murmured agreement. Blair felt numb, but finally forced herself to nod too. Maybe the fear factor would work. Maybe. Certainly handing the nuclear advantage to China hadn’t.
If they could end the war at the price of three American cities …
“Let’s take a break,” Vincenzo said, and got up. This time, none of them met the others’ eyes. And several lined up, gazes downcast, at the door to the little attached restroom.
SPEAKING slowly and heavily, Vincenzo reviewed strategy next. “The two-pronged plan we implemented last year is working. Uppercut and Causeway succeeded. At immense cost, but the troops came through. Taiwan will be ours shortly, if all goes as planned.
“We brought forward our buildup this year. Stockpiled. Built a supply train. Secured replacement weapons and aircraft from Israel, Britain, and the EU, and reconstituted our own industrial base. The enemy’s penned in, and weakening.
“Currently, a combined Vietnamese-Indonesian ground force, supported by the US, Vietnamese, Indian, and Australian navy and air force, is preparing to land in Hainan. Occupying that island will position the Allies to develop operations into Hong Kong. Up to now, I’ve resisted any suggestion we land on the mainland. But if the Indonesians prove as tough as they look, I might say yes. Drive a wedge into south China, and maybe the regime will fall.”
“Korea,” Szserenci prompted.
“That was my next sentence, Ed. That plan’s been looked at by the refugee government and approved by the interim head of state. Toppling one of the Opposed Powers will weaken morale of the others. Leading, again, to possible coups.”
The chairman steepled his fingers. He too looked sleepless and tormented. But also grimly determined. “We’ve come back from where we were. And we have a path forward, in the near term. But this war could still go either way, if home front resolve weakens and production drops, or there’s a major defeat on the battlefronts. Or if some unforeseen unknown clobbers us on the back of the head.
“That brings us to war termination. Which Dr. Szerenci and the SecDef are going to get asked about in Jakarta. I asked Dr. Glancey to give us the historical perspective first. Professor?”
Beside her Glancey stood. He cleared his throat, looking around. “As I’ve told many of you before, we’re in unexplored territory here.”
The professor locked each of their gazes in turn, as if at a graduate seminar. “Modern conflicts don’t terminate when both adversaries are balanced. Unless both are exhausted. Their economies wrecked. And usually, not even then. After lives have been sacrificed, atrocities alleged, populations propagandized and mobilized for total war.
“What’s worked before? Overwhelming force has to be demonstrated by one side. But that’s not all; a corresponding requirement is for the other side to accept the impossibility of victory. Operation Barbarossa demonstrated overwhelming force. But Stalin refused to accept defeat. So termination did not result.
“In World War I, termination occurred through a combination of military exhaustion, famine, propaganda, and psychological collapse. In World War II, pure military defeat and loss of territory, in the case of Germany, and blockade and bombing, including nuclear weapons, in the case of Japan. In the Cold War, economic collapse and a yearning for freedom.”
He sighed and looked away from them all. “Unfortunately, there will be no more one-sided nuclear wars. We’ve gamed this over and over, at the War College and at Stanford. In ninety percent of the runs, there proved to be no way to terminate hostilities short of a nuclear exchange.”
Blair leaned forward, so he could see her. “What happened the other ten percent of the time?”
He looked down at her. “A coup. Followed by total collapse.”
“A military coup. In China?”
Glancey looked away again. “Not always, Blair.”
She waited a moment, but apparently no one else was going to ask. “You mean … here?”
“Let’s not go there,” Vincenzo cut in. “We may not agree with the administration. But we still operate under civilian control.”
“The overthrow didn’t come from the top,” Glancey said. “We don’t see it, in this room. We have enough to eat, drivers, personal protection. But people are angry out there. They’re afraid. It only happened once in our simulations. But that one occurrence came from below. Something more like … a revolution.”
Murmurs of protest, shaking of heads. Vincenzo frowned. “So how do we end this, Professor? You keep telling us what we can’t do, how impossible termination is. But every war has to end. How the fuck are we going to tie up this one?”
Glancey spread his hands. “I could give you some song and dance, General. Or insist no one knows. But, really, I just told you how it ends. Ninety percent of the time, with central nuclear war.”
More silence. Blair shifted in her chair, only now acknowledging the ache in her injured hip. She caught Oberfoell’s eye across the table, and cleared her throat. “Nadine, can you help out at all? You said Battle Eagle could slow their responses. Can it possibly disable their heavy missiles completely, now Jade Emperor’s out of action?”
“We’re working on that,” the cyber director said. “Believe me. As I said, we can degrade their command. But we haven’t found a way in to the missiles themselves. Before it was destroyed, Jade advised them to isolate everything. But, as I said, we haven’t given up.”
“Cybersabotage is worth pursuing,” Szerenci said. “But if nuclear war is the foreordained end, we need to strike first. With EP Heavy, followed by a massive counterforce laydown from all three legs of the triad. All out. Nothing held back.”
Blair reached for the carafe, and sipped water with a suddenly dry mouth. “That’s a dark vision, Ed.”
“It’s not one I wanted, Blair. Contrary to what you seem to think.”
“Maybe now’s the time to make a peace offer, Ed. Ricardo. At Jakarta? Let’s at least … perhaps an armistice proposal. A cease-fire. There are elements that might respond.” She almost said I talked to them in Zurich, but didn’t. Only Szerenci knew that, and it would be all too easy to get branded as a traitor if that meeting became known.
But Szerenci shook his head. “No, Blair. I understand. Believe me. But it’s too late to talk peace.
“The Allies made that mistake in 1918. Letting the enemy survive, but humiliated, so he could come back twice as strong.
“It’s time to bring China to its knees, forever. Leave it a scorched wasteland. Like Sherman said, leave them only their eyes to weep with. Kill so many people they’ll never dare threaten us again.”
Into the shocked silence that followed he said calmly, “Does that sound ‘dark,’ Blair? We’ve known since the test at Alamogordo this moment would come someday. That’s how this war will end. The only way it can end.”
He reached for the carafe, and the chill tinkle of ice was the only sound in the room. “We can wish all we like,” he added, “But the only thing we can do now is make sure that when it’s over, more of us are left, than of them.”