Executive Intent (13 page)

“The nukes are a problem, Mr. President—a very big one,” Vice President Ken Phoenix said. Gardner gave him a fleeting warning glance but let him speak. “China is deploying
nuclear
-capable antiship missiles? What if they start deploying them in large numbers? Are they trying to restrict our movements or exclude us from certain areas?”

“The problem is targeting, sir—finding and tracking an aircraft carrier,” Carlyle said. “Oceans are big, especially the western Pacific and Indian oceans, which the Chinese would want to patrol, and carriers move pretty quickly and unpredictably. But if you spot one and pass the location to the launch site, the situation quickly turns critical.”

“Do the Chinese have that ability?” Phoenix asked.

“In certain regions, yes, sir,” Vista said. “The South China Sea, East China Sea, and Yellow Sea are quickly becoming Chinese lakes, like the Gulf of Mexico is to the United States—open to all, but definitely under our direct control. Straits of Malacca, Java Sea, eastern Indian Ocean, the most important sea-lanes from Asia to the Middle East and Europe—not so much yet, but building quickly. They have three satellites in circular equatorial orbits specifically tasked for surveillance of the Indian Ocean and South China Sea, and they operate large fleets of manned and unmanned patrol aircraft to monitor seas closer to the mainland.”

“Well, that's an awful big chunk of the Far East, and nukes in open ocean can be pretty devastating even if you miss your target,” Phoenix offered. “It's a serious situation. We should demand they remove the nuclear warheads from those missiles immediately and allow verification inspections.”

The president took a sip of orange juice and thought for a moment; then: “Putting nuclear warheads on missiles out in the open
is a big deal, Ken, I agree,” he said, “but Stacy Anne is handling China right now, and I think she's doing a good job. She closed the book on the
Bush
incident, so now we can turn to Hainan Island and those missiles.”

He thought for a while longer, then went on: “We let them know that we know they're there, period. If China wants to put missiles there, let 'em; if they want to do some test launches, we'll collect even more data on what they have. Now that we know they're there, we'll be keeping an eye on them even more closely, and at the first sign of any conflict, we'll take 'em out.” He noticed Phoenix wanted to say something, and gave him another warning glance. “I'm not going to do anything that will make the Chinese think we're scared of their missiles.” He nodded toward the screen. “What about that big-ass rocket out there?”

“That's their new heavy-lift booster, the Long March-5, sir,” Vista said. “It's an enlarged Long March-3 rocket with four solid-fuel motors strapped to the outside. It can haul twenty-five tons into low Earth orbit, fifteen tons to geosynchronous orbit, or ten tons to the moon—not quite Saturn-5 class, but still impressive. The Chinese have already announced they're going to use it to insert the new crew habitation module of their space station, Shenzhou-7. The launch is scheduled for May first. Their first lunar mission—orbit the moon, then return—is also scheduled for this year.”

“China is really going full throttle on their space program, aren't they?” Vice President Phoenix remarked.

“Let's talk about our own space program—namely, Armstrong and those weapon garages,” the president interjected. “Get Page and that general in here.” A few moments later, Ann Page and Brigadier General Raydon were escorted into the Situation Room, along with Secretary of the Air Force Salazar Banderas. Stacy Barbeau did a double take when Kai Raydon entered the room—obviously she liked what she saw. “Take seats, folks, and let's talk,”
the president said. He waited until the newcomers had seated themselves, then said without preamble or pleasantries, “If I didn't know any better, Secretary Banderas, I'd say you sneaked those Thor's Hammer things on those space platforms, disguised as antiballistic-missile weapons or space experiments. Am I wrong?”

“Mr. President, I didn't try to conceal anything,” Banderas said. “We revealed everything in our budgets and research plans.” He glanced at Secretary of Defense Turner. “I briefed SECDEF myself on every aspect of Kingfisher.”

“Miller?”

“I'd have to check my records, sir,” Turner said uneasily. “Kingfisher I recognize. I remember something last year about a successful test of a space-launched surface-attack weapon, but I didn't know it had been deployed as part of the space-based antiballistic-missile system.”

“I recall getting a briefing, Mr. President,” Phoenix said. Gardner ignored the remark.

“Mr. President, it was a successful employment,” Ann said. “A crisis was averted. We should—”

“Dr. Page, I'll get to you in a second,” the president said, holding up a hand. “Secretary Banderas, I feel as if I've been deceived. I've got to explain to the world what we did in Pakistan, and I don't know enough about these space weapons to do that. That's my fault and my problem. The question is: What do we do from here?”

“Mr. President, I recommend accelerating deployment of the full Kingfisher constellation,” Banderas said. “They proved they work. We were lucky we had a weapon platform in position to strike. Now that the world understands what we have, they can time their strikes to take advantage of coverage gaps. We need to fill those gaps as quickly as possible.”

“Do you read the papers, Mr. Secretary?” the president asked irritably. “Do you watch the news? Pakistan is accusing us of at
tacking them with a conventionally armed intercontinental ballistic missile! We killed
dozens
of civilians. Pictures of that crater are being shown on TV every hour of every day. And I can't tell the world that we stopped a Pakistani missile attack—India and probably Russia would attack in a heartbeat.”

“Sir, all of the nations in the region are manipulating the events in this incident to suit their own political agenda,” Banderas said.

“China has a space tracking facility in Karachi, and Pakistan has dozens of long-range radars; India and Russia have them, too, in India. They all know Pakistan launched a ballistic missile at India and that we intercepted it, but that hasn't hit the news yet.”

“What's your point, Mr. Secretary?”

“My point is, sir, that we can't respond to international criticism and fear because people aren't being told the whole truth,” Banderas went on. “The only thing we can do is make the system completely operational and respond to the next emergency as appropriate.”

“And you don't feel this will cause a new arms race?”

“Sir, the race is already on,” Banderas said. He motioned to Kai Raydon, who opened a folder and dropped a photograph on the conference table before the president. “Does that look familiar, sir?”

President Gardner glanced at it, then nodded and slid the photo to his national security adviser. “They look like the missile shelters on Hainan Island in China,” he said.

“They are missile shelters for DF-21 missiles, sir—but they're located in Karachi, Pakistan, not China,” Kai said. “We photographed them just a few hours ago. It looks like China is deploying DF-21s and probably KT-3 antisatellite missiles in Pakistan.”

“That's ridiculous,” National Security Adviser Conrad Carlyle said. “China deploying missiles designed to attack American warships—in
Pakistan,
an American ally?”

“China is a Pakistani ally, too, Mr. Director, as you know,” Ban
deras said. “We've been drifting apart from Pakistan for quite some time, since Predator drone sorties were stepped up in the Afghan-Pakistan border region, and at the same time China has been increasing economic and military aid to Pakistan.”

“We're scanning other Chinese-allied nations looking for more of these DF-21 launch sites,” Kai said. “I'll bet we'll soon find them in Africa, the Pacific, South America, and Southeast Asia—everywhere they have military cooperation agreements or have bought basing rights.”

“Again, they can build all the launchpads they want—we'll have to keep track of them and make a plan to take them out if necessary,” the president said. Kai noticed the uncomfortable set of the vice president's jaw—obviously he didn't agree with that tactic. “Making this situation even more complicated was the attack from space. Why should the Chinese give up their missiles while we have orbiting killer meteoroids?”

“Sir, it's obvious China has been working on deploying these DF-21s and KT-3s around the world for quite some time—probably since we first started inserting the interceptor garages into orbit,” Banderas said. “Now those things are out in the open, possibly with nuclear warheads. And remember, sir, that the DF-21 is at first a surface-to-surface missile as well as an antiship and antisatellite one—from Hainan Island they can reach as far as Guam and Okinawa and hit all of the transit routes between the Pacific and Indian oceans. The only weapon system we have right now to hit those launchers in a timely manner is Mjollnir.”

“I think a sea-launched cruise missile could do the job adequately as well, Sal—let's not lose perspective here, okay?” the president said. “I know you're an air-and space-power advocate, but let's not forget the big picture.” He turned to Secretary of State Barbeau. “Stacy…”

She smiled and held up a hand. “I know, sir, I know…back to Beijing.”

“I need to learn more about what the Chinese intend to do with these DF-21s,” the president said. “I'm not going to force the issue or demand removal—yet—but I want to get a statement from them.”

“I think I know what they'll say: It's to protect vital Chinese shipping lanes and the free flow of commerce around the world,” Barbeau said. “They'll openly cite Somali and Philippine pirates; less overtly, they'll say that American domination of the world's oceans is a threat.”

“Get it firsthand, and then we'll hold their feet to the fire,” Gardner said.

“Yes, Mr. President,” she said, taking that opportunity to look Raydon up and down again. He did the same to her, but more discreetly.

The president turned to Ann Page. “Dr. Page, you have a long and distinguished career, but to me you seem to take great delight in shaking up the system. As an engineer and former member of Congress, that's probably a good thing—but as a member of my administration, it most definitely is
not
.”

“Mr. President, it's not my intention to shake anything up,” Ann said. “We had the technology to build an entirely new defensive and offensive weapon system and take the U.S. military to the next level. The technology may be immature and imperfect, but as we saw, it's viable.”

“Viable? You missed the target and killed a lot of civilians, Dr. Page.”

“I'm sorry about that, Mr. President,” Ann said sincerely. “While I don't believe that the ends justifies the means, we
did
stop the Pakistanis from launching any more rockets.”

The president closed his eyes and shook his head. “I'll tell that to the United Nations: We put out a house fire by blowing up the dam and flooding the town,” he said. “So we have an immature and unreliable weapon system that is controversial to say the least,
incomplete, and bound to cause a major outcry if not an outright global arms race. What do you propose I do about this?”

“Resolve to win the race, sir,” Ann said immediately. “With current funding, it will take another fifteen to twenty-four months to complete the Kingfisher constellation. We have a plan to draw on Air Force and Navy budget resources and complete the constellation in ten months or less, along with making improvements in detection capabilities, self-defense to counter the growing Russian and Chinese antisatellite threat, and weapon accuracy.”

“Navy budget resources, eh?” Secretary of Defense Turner asked. “Such as?”

Ann looked at Secretary Banderas. When he hesitated, she replied: “BAMS and ForceNet, Mr. Secretary, among others.”

“What?”
Turner exclaimed. His astonished expression slowly turned into one of amusement. “You want to downsize two of the biggest and most cutting-edge naval surveillance and information networking systems?”

“We don't want to downsize them, Mr. Secretary—we want to
cancel
them,” Banderas said.

“
Cancel
them?” Turner asked incredulously. “They're not even fully implemented yet!”

“Exactly why they should be canceled, sir,” Banderas went on.

“The Broad Area Maritime Surveillance program is based around old technology—”

“Global Hawk may be old, but it's proven technology.”

“Global Hawk is proven, but compared to emerging space technology, it's slow, vulnerable, costly and difficult to sustain and support, limited by availability of shore facilities, and in its current configuration has no strike capability, sir,” Banderas went on.

“ForceNet is seven years in the making but is far over budget, is still not fully operational, and isn't fully integrated into other services' computer network systems. For network systems managed by major non-Navy commands such as U.S. Strategic Command,
ForceNet will demand an upgrade of
their
network infrastructures to mesh, with the costs estimated in the tens of billions of dollars and another ten years. That means that ForceNet would probably never be tied into other networks as it was designed to be.”

“Once completed, Kingfisher can act as a global fleet communications-and-reconnaissance system,” Ann jumped in. “Our systems are already tied into several services' reconnaissance and surveillance networks, including the Navy's, along with Strategic Command, the National Reconnaissance Office, and even the CIA. Everyone in Washington has accessed our imagery, used our communications relays, and taken advantage of our global Internet access and secure data network—and the system is only half finished.”