“Anyway, it started a minor fire, but hit a big diesel-gas tank on the way through and tons of ice-cold fuel cascaded out and extinguished the fire. That’s how it works. And that’s what caused the explosion in this latest tanker. The gases going up with a major bang.”
“Thank you, sir. Nicely explained. What do you think caused it?”
“I’m afraid to think about that right now. But I know one thing: It’s not another minefield. Both Singapore and Sumatra get rich on the pilotage fees through the Malacca. They’re high and getting higher. Last thing they want is a blockade. The Chinese would get no help from them. That means we’re looking for something else. But not tonight. We’re having a quiet dinner…then I’m not going to save the world, and we’ll go to bed quietly together.
“Tomorrow will be different. I’ll be in the office early. So will you. And Admiral Borden wants to fasten his goddamned safety belt.”
“I’m just beginning to feel a teeny bit sorry for the poor Admiral.”
“Well, don’t be. He’s a negative guy. Which is bad in Intelligence. In Fort Meade, you gotta stay right on top of the game. Also Borden’s obviously been very awkward with the excellent Lieutenant Ramshawe. I don’t like that. Young men that sharp ought to be encouraged — not made to feel frustrated, so they have to phone the goddamned White House in order to get someone to pay attention.”
“Well, you were pretty short with him when he did make the call.”
“Kathy, there are formalities of command in the United States Navy, and they have to be observed at all times. And quite often they soothe troubled waters, even soften the truth. What they never do, howevever, is hide the truth. Jimmy Ramshawe knew that when he called. He probably knew I’d be kinda dismissive. But he also knew I’d hear him. That’s why he called. He never had to tell me his boss was being pigheaded stupid. He didn’t have to. He knew I’d get it. And he was right…more goddamned right than even he knew at that point.”
“I guess it was pretty impressive how he got onto the Chinese involvement?”
“Sure was. He was a couple of jumps ahead of me, and we were running on the same track. I’m not real used to that.”
“Do you feel a little resentful…someone that young?”
“Hell, no. I was pleased. Saved me a lot of thinking time. That boy just laid it right out…almost.”
“What d’you mean, ‘almost’?”
The Admiral leaned back in his chair, and took a deep sip of Meursault. “Kathy,” he said, “there’s something real strange about this whole damned thing. Lemme ask you a question. What’s the first thing any halfway decent detective wants to know about a murder?”
“Whodunit?”
The Admiral chuckled, leaned over, took her hand and told her he loved her. Then he stopped smiling and said, “Motive, Mrs. O’Brien. Motive. Why was this crime committed?”
“Okay, Sherlock, go for it.”
“Kathy, I cannot go for it. Because I cannot for the life of me see one motive the Chinese may have had for getting heavily involved in a blocklade of the Gulf of Iran. I have wracked my brains, and every time we make a big move to protect the mine clearance, I get a damned funny feeling about the entire scenario.”
“You do?”
“Well, we got a Navy that has to protect the Indians’ ships. But right now we got battle groups standing by to relieve battle groups. We’ve even got battle groups coming out of the Med in order to get into the Arabian Sea.
“Kathy, do you know how many ships that is — in the five U.S. battle groups?”
“What are they, a dozen each? So I guess around sixty?”
“Kathy, that’s enough Naval hardware to conquer the world about three times over. That’s more U.S. warships grouped together than there’ve been since World War Two. So what the hell’s going on? There’s no hostile threat. The mines that blew three tankers are essentially passive, just sitting there in the water, and the Pondicherrys are quite steadily getting rid of them.
“Neither China, nor Iran, has opened fire on anyone. Christ, we just banged a hole in China’s most important destroyer and they never even fired back, never even protested.
“I just got an awkward feeling I might be missing the big picture right here. Seems to me we got too much Naval hardware in one place. And I know that’s because we’ve also got a President whose only real concern is the price of gasoline at the American pumps.
“And I’m wondering if we’re overreacting to the oil threat to civilization. Could someone be very seriously yanking our chain?”
The streets were always crowded at this time in the ancient harbor town that lies 120 miles due south of Shanghai across the great Bay of Hangzhou. Ningbo traces its roots back to the Tang Dynasty, through more than a thousand years of trading, and every day in the early evening a commercial stampede seems to break out, as if the entire population was racing, to sail before the tide.
Throngs surged across the old Xinjiang Bridge in the main port area. Traders bought and sold all along the old central throughway of Zhongshan Lu. And yet, it was a curious place to see a senior Naval Officer, in uniform, hurrying through one of the oldest parts of town, along Changchun Lu.
Nonetheless, moving swiftly between the merchant houses along the crowded sidewalks was the tall, lean, still-upright figure of the Commander-in-Chief of the Peoples’ Liberation Navy, Admiral Zu Jicai. He was no stranger to this city. He had been born here more than 60 years ago, and his Naval career had begun in the dockyards of Zhejiang Province and ultimately, before he was thirty years old, in Shanghai.
Following him closely among the shoppers were four uniformed Navy guards, with sidearms. Even for a mission as unorthodox as this, Admiral Zu was not permitted to travel so far from the dockyard without protection.
He reached a building on the left-hand side of the street, and paused briefly to confer with his guards, instructing them to wait outside, and to have a staff car ready in 45 minutes.
Then he walked up the steps, and entered through one of the wide, folded wooden screen doors of the Tianyige, the oldest private library in all of China, dating back to the sixteenth century, at the height of Ningbo’s prosperity during the Ming Dynasty. A member of the family bowed formally to him, and the Admiral returned the courtesy, before he was led through the book-filled, paneled main room into a smaller inner sanctum, dimly lit and plainly designed for thought and as a home for reference books.
There was one single table in the room, and it stood beneath a deep, paneled, beamed ceiling, divided into wide squares, each one decorated with intricate inlays of light wood and ivory, each one of an entirely different pattern. Seated at the table, in the shadows beneath this great mosaic of ancient Chinese art, was the powerful figure of Admiral Zhang Yushu, senior Vice Chairman of the PLAN’s Council.
“Ah, Yushu, you found my childhood hideaway,” said Admiral Zu.
“Hello, Jicai. You were right. One of the most secretive rooms in China. We can talk here. But we must be swift and careful…and so, quickly, what can you tell me about the destroyer?…”
“Very little. The Americans warned her away from the area of the minefield, which she ignored, as agreed. And then one of the American ships opened fire and essentially crippled her. Blew both shafts, both props and rudder. There was no way of returning fire, and in any event she could not really see her assailant. Which makes me think they may have hit her from a submarine.”