The new President of the Philippines, seventy-year-old Arturo Mikaso, changed the Malacanang Palace back into a historical landmark that his people could be proud of, as well as a livable residence for himself and a workable office complex for his Cabinet. The style and grace of the precolonial Philippines were restored, the heavy security barriers were removed, and, like the American White House, large portions of Malacanang Palace were now open for tours when they were not in use by the President. In time the palace again became a symbol for the city of Manila itself.
But now, in the growing summer dawn, the palace was the scene of a hastily arranged meeting of the President’s Cabinet. In Mikaso’s residential office, where the President could see the Pasig River that wound through northern Manila, President Mikaso sipped a cup of tea. Mikaso was the elder statesman, a white-haired man who was taller and more powerful-looking than most Filipinos, a wealthy landowner and ex-senator who was immensely popular with most of his people. Mikaso had been elected as President of the nation when Corazon Aquino’s second four-year term came to an end. He won the election only after forming an alliance with the National Democratic Front, the main political organ of the Communist Party of the Philippines; and the Moro National Liberation Front, a pro-Islamic political group that represented the thousands of citizens of the Islamic faith in the south Philippines.
“How many were killed, General?” Mikaso asked.
“Thirty men, all civilians,” the Chief of Staff of the New Philippine Army, General Roberto La Loma Santos, replied somberly. “Their barge came under full attack by a Red Chinese patrol. No orders to surrender, no quarter given, no attempts to offer assistance or rescue after the attack. The bastards attacked, then slinked away like cowardly dogs.” A tall, dark-haired man, standing alone near the great stone fireplace, turned toward General Santos. “You have still not explained to us, General,” Second Vice President Jose Trujillo Samar said in a deep voice, “what that barge was doing in the neutral zone, anchored to Pagasa Island…”.
“And what are you implying, Samar?” First Vice President Daniel Teguina, who was seated near the President’s desk, challenged. Teguina was politically an ally of Samar but ideologically a complete opposite. Part of the coalition formed during the 1994 elections was the appointment of forty-one-year-old Daniel Teguina. Much younger than Mikaso, Teguina was not only a vice president, but also the leader of the Philippine House of Representatives, an exmilitary officer, newspaper publisher, and leader of the National Democratic Front, a leftist political organization. With General Jose Trujillo Samar — who besides being the second vice president was also governor of the newly formed Commonwealth of Mindanao, which had won the right to form its own autonomous commonwealth in 1990 — these three men formed a fiery coalition that, although successful in continuing the important post-Marcos rebuilding process in the Philippines, was stormy and divisive. “Those were innocent Filipino workers on the barge…” said Teguina.
Samar nodded and said, “Who were illegally drilling for oil in the neutral zone. Did they think the Chinese were going to just sit back and watch them work?”
“They were not drilling for oil, just taking soundings,” said Teguina.
“Well, they had no business there,” Samar insisted. “The Chinese Navy’s actions were outrageous, but those workers were in clear violation of the law.”
“You’re a cold bastard,” Teguina cut in. “Blaming the dead for an act of aggression…”
“Enough, enough,” the elderly Mikaso said wearily, gesturing for the men to stop. “I did not call you here to argue.” Teguina glared at both men. “Well, we can’t just sit back and do nothing. The Chinese just launched a major act of aggression. We must do something. We must—”
“Enough,” Mikaso interrupted. “We must begin an investigation and find out exactly why that barge was operating in those waters, then…”
“Sir, I recommend that we also step up patrols in the Spratly Island area,” General Santos said. “This may be a prelude to a full-scale invasion of the Spratlys by the Chinese.”
“Risky,” Samar concluded. “A naval response would be seen as provocative, and we have no way of winning any conflict with the People’s Liberation Navy. We would gain nothing…”
“Always the general, eh, Samar?” Teguina asked derisively. He turned away from him to the President. “I agree with General Santos. We have a navy, however small — I say to send them to protect our interests in the Spratlys. We have an obligation to our people to do nothing short of that.”
Arturo Mikaso looked at each of his advisers in turn and nodded in agreement. Little did he realize the extraordinary chain of events he was about to set into motion with that slight nod of his head.
2
With his boyish face, long, gangly arms and legs, his baseball cap, and his thirty-two-ounce squeeze bottle of Pepsi-Cola — he drank five such bottles a day yet was still as skinny as a rail — Jonathan Colin Masters resembled a kid at a Saturday afternoon ball game. He had bright-green eyes and short brown hair — luckily, the baseball cap hid Masters’ hair, or else his stubborn cowlicks would have made him appear even younger, almost adolescent, to the range officers and technicians standing nearby.
Masters, his assistants and technicians, and a handful of Air Force and Defense Advanced Research and Projects Agency (DARPA) officials were on board a converted DC-airliner, forty-five thousand feet over the White Sands Missile Test Range in south-central New Mexico. Unlike the military and Pentagon officials, who were poring over checklists, notes, and schematics, Masters had his feet up on a raised track in the cargo section of the massive airliner, sipping his cola and smiling like a kid who was at the circus for the first time.
“The winds are kicking up again, Doctor Masters,” U.S. Air Force Colonel Ralph Foch said to Masters, his voice one of concern…
Masters wordlessly tipped his soda bottle at the Air Force range safety officer and reached to his control console, punched in instructions to the computer, and studied the screen. “Carrier aircraft has compensated for the winds, and ALARM has acknowledged the change,” Masters reported. “We got it covered, Ralph.”
Colonel Ralph Foch wasn’t mollified, and being called “Ralph” by a man — no, a kid — twenty years his junior didn’t help. “The one-hundred-millibar wind patterns are approaching the second-stage ‘Q’ limits, Doctor,” Foch said irritably. “That’s the third increase over the forecast we’ve seen in the past two hours. We should consider aborting the flight.”
Masters glanced over his shoulder at Foch and smiled a dimpled, toothy smile. “ALARM compensated OK, Ralph,” Masters repeated. “No need to abort.”
“But we’re on the edge of the envelope as it is,” Colonel Foch reminded him.
“The edge of your envelope, Ralph,” Masters said. He got to his feet, walked a few steps aft, and patted the nose of a huge, torpedo-shaped object sitting on its launch rail. “You established your flight parameters based on data I provided, and you naturally made your parameters more restrictive. ALARM here knows its limits and it still says go. So we go.”
“Doctor Masters, as the range safety officer I’m here to insure a safe launch for both the ground and the air crews. My parameters are established to—”
“Colonel Foch, if you want to abort the mission, say the word,” Masters said calmly, barely suppressing a casual burp. “The Navy doesn’t get their relay hookup satellites on the air until tomorrow, you can spend the night at the Blytheville, Arkansas, Holiday Inn again, and I can bill DARPA another one hundred thousand dollars for gas. It’s your decision.”