Franks and Ritchie exchanged a quick, wordless glance. They had their own angle on the French troubles but it was not something they could discuss, even in this forum.
‘Thank you, Colonel,’ said Franks. ‘It’s fascinating, even a little satisfying, but we need to move on. You have a quick run-down on the Russian situation?’
Maccomb nodded. ‘Russian military forces either remain at the highest level of alert or, in cases such as Georgia and Chechnya, have been deployed on active duty. None of the deployments raise any threat to American forces or interests, however, and the Russian Defence Ministry has been assiduous in keeping us informed of any developments that might impact upon our interests. They are treading very carefully around us, and trying hard not to generate too much friction along the Chinese border…’ He glanced up at Ritchie before continuing. ‘Which brings us to the Pacific Command.’
There was a noticeable shifting of postures around the table. PACOM was home. At least half of the officers in the conference belonged to Admiral Ritchie’s theatre command.
‘There are two serious flashpoints within PACOM,’ Maccomb went on. ‘I would have said three until recently, but the Korean peninsula is one of the few areas where tensions seems to have decreased in the last month, most likely due to the volume of aid shipments heading north from Seoul. For now, the bribes are working. For now, as well, there have been no calls from the north for the withdrawal of US forces. However, there will be an emergency session of the National Assembly in two days, to discuss an urgency motion requiring the withdrawal of all foreign forces from the Republic’
Ritchie knew it was coming, but most people in the room did not. And, as much as a tightly controlled group of professional officers could descend instantly into uproar, they did – which is to say, an air force general swore under his breath and a Marine Corps colonel banged his water down a little too loudly.
‘Get over it, people,’ barked Franks. ‘If they don’t want us, we can’t stay. They’re already picking up our drinks tab and they can’t afford it – their economy has imploded. Vote or no vote, we’d be leaving. Go on, Colonel. Give us some bad news for a change.’
Maccomb essayed a slight twitch of the mouth that may have been the ghost of a grin. ‘India and Pakistan,’ he said. ‘The probability that one or the other will attempt a pre-emptive strike is approaching certainty. Their conventional forces have already clashed seriously on three occasions in the last month, and all cooperation with Islamabad over the Afghan situation has effectively ceased. Both sides have carried out proxy terror attacks approaching mass-casualty levels, and satellite cover indicates that each country has stepped up the readiness of its nuclear forces.’
‘Jesus wept, did they learn nothing?’ exclaimed the same Marine Corps officer.
‘You can skip the details of any likely exchange, Colonel,’ said Franks. ‘We know what one of these wars looks like now, and how it affects the rest of the globe. Admiral Ritchie, what’s our Uplift status for the subcontinental region?’
Ritchie didn’t need to consult his notes or an aide. He’d been living Operation Uplift for nearly three weeks. ‘Ninety per cent complete, General,’ he answered. ‘TRANSCOM has moved eighty-three thousand US citizens from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh to reception facilities in Australia and New Zealand. We’re still shifting up to a thousand a week, but the flow has really tapered off.’
‘Anybody who’s not out soon is going to get turned into an x-ray,’ said Franks. ‘We’ve done what we can. I don’t want our people there in large numbers when one of those fools presses the button. I think we might put a deadline of this Friday local time for Uplift. After that, anyone dumb enough to hang around will be on their own. That timing sound right to you, Maccomb?’
‘It’s tight,’ replied the briefer. ‘The Indians have begun to prepare their launch sites. A lot of embassies are already shutting up and getting out. The Brits and Aussies have upgraded their travel advisories to the highest level, warning of immediate interstate conflict.’
‘Okay. Wednesday – midnight. That’s the end of it for us. Go on.’
‘China.’ Maccomb paused briefly as if that was all that was needed on the subject. ‘While the People’s Republic does not suffer from some of the ethnic division present in France, on our reading of the current situation its future is just as bleak. The economy hasn’t imploded, it just ceased to be. There were already imbalances and rigidities building up before 14 March. Thousands of state-run enterprises were being propped up just to keep the rural poor fed and housed. Now, hundreds of millions of people have no income, and in the cities, no means of supporting even a subsistence level of existence. China was a net food importer when the Disappearance hit. It cannot feed itself. The PLA, which had begun to deploy some force projection assets around the Taiwan Strait, is now fully engaged within the country’s borders. The government has imposed a media blackout and expelled all but a handful of foreign journalists, and their movements are tightly controlled. Most of our in-country assets were managed from CONUS and are of little use now. But we do have some access to British and Russian intel, and they are convinced that a schism has opened both between the army and the Communist Party, as well as within those institutions. At 0230 hours this morning, the FSB’s Beijing station was reporting that major combat had broken out within the city between elements of the People’s Armed Police and at least two divisions of Army Group 6, including armoured and artillery units. Admiral Ritchie will have more on this, in a few minutes.’
Ritchie felt the weight of everyone’s attention fall on him.
Franks met the admiral’s gaze. ‘Very quickly, Jim. You think they’re going to turn this inwards, or out, on the rest of us?’
‘Inwards,’ he replied without hesitation. ‘At least in the short term. Command and control of the Chinese state is failing – has failed. This is about re-establishing that control, but it won’t be simple or easy, or something that happens very quickly. Like the colonel said, they have hundreds of millions of people who might well starve to death in the next few weeks. Jumping across the Taiwan Strait will not change that. It’ll simply make dealing with it all the more difficult, and at any rate, the chain of command is broken. They can only fight among themselves, for now.’
‘Okay,’ said Franks. ‘That’ll do for the wrap-up. Let’s start grinding our way through the to-do list, shall we?’
They met privately during a break in the all-day conference, Franks joining Ritchie in his office to share a cup of powdered coffee. There wasn’t a drop of the real stuff to be had on the islands.
‘This French business, we’re gonna have to do something about it,’ Franks told him. ‘I wouldn’t have believed it when you first told me, but this latest intelligence from the Brits nails it. We have to get that girl out, Jim.’