— the armed guard force deployed in two groups, one running to the front of the building on the first floor, the other coming up the back on the second, led by a major who thought to evacuate the ministers. The entire thing had developed much too quickly, with virtually no warning, because the city police had dropped the ball rather badly, and there was no time to call in armed reinforcements. As it played out, the first-floor team ran into a wall of students, and while the captain in command had twenty men armed with automatic rifles, he hesitated to order opening fire because there were more students in view than he had cartridges in his rifles, and in hesitating, he lost the initiative. A number of students approached the armed men, their hands raised, and began to engage them in reasonable tones that belied the wild-eyed throng behind them.
It was different on the second floor. The major there didn’t hesitate at all. He had his men level their rifles and fire one volley high, just to scare them off. But these students didn’t scare. Many of them crashed through doors off the main corridor, and one of these was the room in which the Politburo was sitting.
The sudden entrance of fifteen young people got every minister’s attention.
“What is this!” Zhang Han Sen thundered. “Who are you?”
“And who are you?” the engineering student sneered back. “Are you the maniac who started a nuclear war?”
“There is no such war-who told you such nonsense?” Marshal Luo demanded. His uniform told them who he was.
“And you are the one who sent our soldiers to their death in Russia!”
“What is this?” the Minister Without Portfolio asked.
“I think these are the people, Zhang,” Qian Kun observed. “Our people, Comrade,” he added coldly.
Into the vacuum of power and direction, more of the students forced their way into the room, and now the guard force couldn’t risk shooting-too many of their country’s leadership was right there, right in the field of fire.
“Grab them, grab them! They will not shoot these men!” one student shouted. Pairs and trios of students raced around the table, each to a separate seat.
“Tell me, boy,” Fang said gently to the one closest to him, “how did you learn all this?”
“Over our computers, of course,” the youngster replied, a little impolitely, but not grossly so.
“Well, one finds truth where one can,” the grandfatherly minister observed.
“So, Grandfather, is it true?”
“Yes, I regret to say it is,” Fang told him, not quite knowing what he was agreeing to.
Just then, the troops appeared, their officer in the lead with a pistol in his hand, forging their way into the conference room, wide-eyed at what they saw. The students were not armed, but to start a gunfight in this room would kill the very people he was trying to safeguard, and now it was his turn to hesitate.
“Now, everyone be at ease,” Fang said, pushing his seat gently back from the table. “You, Comrade Major, do you know who I am?”
“Yes, Minister-but-”
“Good, Comrade Major. First, you will have your men stand down. We need no killing here. There has been enough of that.”
The officer looked around the room. No one else seemed to be speaking just yet, and into that vacuum had come words which, if not exactly what he wanted to hear, at least had some weight in them. He turned and without words-waving his hands-had his men relax a little.
“Very good. Now, comrades,” Fang said, turning back to his colleagues. “I propose that some changes are needed here. First of all, we need Foreign Minister Shen to contact America and tell them that a horrible accident has occurred, and that we rejoice that no lives were lost as a result, and that those responsible for that mistake will be handled by us. To that end, I demand the immediate arrest of Premier Xu, Defense Minister Luo, and Minister Zhang. It is they who caused us to embark on the foolish adventure in Russia that threatens to bring ruin to us all. You three have endangered our country, and for this crime against the people, you must pay.
“Comrades, what is your vote?” Fang demanded.
There were no dissents; even Tan and Interior Minister Tong nodded their assent.
“Next, Shen, you will immediately propose an end to hostilities with Russia and America, telling them also that those responsible for this ruinous adventure will be punished. Are we agreed on that, Comrades?”
They were.
“For myself, I think we ought all to give thanks to Heaven that we may be able to put an end to this madness. Let us make this happen quickly. For now, I will meet with these young people to see what other things are of interest to them. You, Comrade Major, will conduct the three prisoners to a place of confinement. Qian, will you remain with me and speak to the students as well?”
“Yes, Fang,” the Finance Minister said. “I will be pleased to.”
“So, young man,” Fang said to the one who’d seemed to act like a leader. “What is it you wish to discuss?”
The Blackhawks were long on their return flight. The refueling went off without a hitch, but it was soon apparent that almost thirty men, all Russians, had been lost in the attack on Xuanhua. It wasn’t the first time Clark had seen good men lost, and as before, the determining factor was nothing more than luck, but that was a lousy explanation to have to give to a new widow. The other thing eating at him was the missile that had gotten away. He’d seen it lean to the east. It hadn’t gone to Moscow, and that was all he knew right now. The flight back was bleakly silent the whole way, and he couldn’t fix it by calling in on his satellite phone because he’d taken a fall at some point and broken the antenna off the top of the damned thing. He’d failed. That was all he knew, and the consequences of this kind of failure surpassed his imagination. The only good news he could come up with was that no one in his family lived close to any likely target, but lots of other people did. Finally the chopper touched down, and the doors were opened for the troopers to get out. Clark saw General Diggs there and went over to him.
“How bad?”
“The Navy shot it down over Washington.”
“What?”
“General Moore told me. Some cruiser-Gettysburg, I think he said-shot the bastard down right over the middle of D.C. We got lucky, Mr. Clark.”
John’s legs almost buckled at that news. For the past five hours, he’d been imagining a mushroom cloud with his name on it over some American city, but God, luck, or the Great Pumpkin had intervened, and he’d settle for that.
“What gives, Mr. C?” Chavez asked, with considerable worry in his voice. Diggs gave him the word, too.
“The Navy? The fuckin’ Navy? Well, I’ll be damned. They are good for something, eh?”
Jack Ryan was about half in the bag by this time, and if the media found out about it, the hell with them. The cabinet was back in town, but he’d put off the meeting until the following morning. It would take time to consider what had to be done. The most obvious response, the one talking heads were proclaiming on the various TV stations, was one he could not even contemplate, much less order. They’d have to find something better than wholesale slaughter. He wouldn’t order that, though some special operation to take out the Chinese Politburo certainly appealed to his current state of mind. A lot of blood had been spilled, and there would be some more, too. To think it had all begun with an Italian cardinal and a Baptist preacher, killed by some trigger-happy cop. Did the world really turn on so perverse an axis as that?
That, Ryan thought, calls for another drink.