Luis had an answer. ‘The jet that dropped the bomb came from a Chinese aircraft carrier called the Fujian. We have ship-killer missiles that could destroy it.’
‘That’s true,’ said Bill Schneider. ‘Just one of our long-range anti-ship stealth cruise missiles can sink a ship, although we would fire a whole bunch of them to make sure of something as big as an aircraft carrier. The range is three hundred and fifty miles and we have plenty closer than that. They can be fired from ships and planes and we have both available.’
Luis said: ‘If we do this, we should let it be known that we will respond the same way to any similar attacks. Madam President, China can’t afford to see its aircraft carriers destroyed. We have eleven but they have only three, and if we sink the Fujian, that will leave two. And they can’t easily replace them. Aircraft carriers cost thirteen billion dollars each and take years to build. It’s my judgement that sinking the Fujian, combined with the threat of sinking the other two, would have a massively sobering effect on the Chinese government.’
Chess said: ‘Or it might drive them to desperate measures.’
Pauline said: ‘Can we get the Fujian on camera?’
‘Of course. We have planes and drones in the air nearby.’
Within a minute the vast grey ship was on screen, seen from above. Its shape was distinctive, with a curved ramp at the front end like a ski jump. Half a dozen jets and helicopters were on deck, clustered near the superstructure, with a few men busy around them, looking at this distance like ants feeding larvae. The rest of the enormous deck was all bare runway.
Pauline said: ‘How many crew aboard?’
Bill answered. ‘About two thousand five hundred, including flight staff.’
Nearly all of them were below decks. The ship was like an office building, almost nobody visible from outside.
The blast would kill some, Pauline thought; a few might survive; most would drown.
She did not want to end two thousand five hundred lives.
Luis said: ‘We would be killing the people who killed those Japanese sailors. The numbers aren’t proportionate, but the principle is fair.’
‘The Chinese won’t see it that way,’ said Pauline. ‘They’ll retaliate.’
‘But they can’t win that game, and they know it. Played to the end, there’s only one possible result: China becomes a nuclear wasteland. China has about three hundred nuclear warheads; we have more than three thousand. Therefore at some point they’ll negotiate. And if we do them serious damage now, they’ll sue for peace sooner rather than later.’
The meeting went quiet. This is how it is, she thought: all information is available, everyone has an opinion, but in the end one person makes the decision – and that’s me.
It was the Chinese threat that made up her mind: Foreign armies that violate Chinese territory will all suffer a similar fate. They would do it again. That, combined with the treaty that obliged the US to defend Japan, meant that a token protest would not be enough. Her response had to hurt.
‘Do it, Bill,’ she said.
‘Yes, Madam President,’ Bill said, and he spoke into the phone.
A woman in kitchen whites came in carrying a tray. ‘Good morning, Madam President,’ she said. ‘I thought you might like some coffee.’ She set the tray down next to Pauline.
Pauline said: ‘It’s very good of you to get up in the middle of the night, Merrilee. Thank you.’ She poured coffee into a cup and added a splash of milk.
‘You’re welcome,’ said Merrilee.
There were hundreds of people waiting to fulfil the president’s slightest wish, but for some reason Pauline was moved by Merrilee making her coffee in the middle of the night. ‘I appreciate it,’ she added.
‘Please let me know if you need anything else.’ Merrilee left.
Pauline sipped coffee and looked again at the Fujian on the screen. It was a thousand feet long. Was she really going to sink it?
A longer shot showed that the carrier was accompanied by several support vessels. Pauline said: ‘Can any of those smaller ships deflect incoming missiles?’
Bill Schneider said: ‘They can try, ma’am, but they won’t get them all.’
There were some pastries on the tray. She picked one up and took a bite. There was nothing wrong with it, but she found she could barely swallow it. She drank coffee to wash it down and put the pastry aside.
Bill said: ‘The cruise missiles are ready to launch, Madam President. We’re firing them from planes as well as ships.’
‘Go ahead,’ she said, with a heavy heart. ‘Fire.’
A moment later Bill said: ‘The first salvo has been launched from the ship. They have fifty miles to go and should hit in six minutes. The plane is nearer and will launch in five minutes.’
Pauline stared at the Fujian. Two thousand five hundred people, she thought. Not thugs or murderers, mostly just youngsters who chose to join the navy, a life on the ocean wave. They have parents, brothers and sisters, lovers, children. Two thousand five hundred families will be stricken with grief.
Pauline’s father had been in the US navy before he married Mom, she recalled. He had read all of the Canterbury Tales in Middle English, he said, knowing that he would never again have so much spare time.
A helicopter lifted off the deck of the Fujian. That pilot escaped death by minutes, Pauline thought. Luckiest person in the world.
There was a flurry of activity around what looked like a gun emplacement. Bill said: ‘That’s a short-range surface-to-air missile launcher. It’s loaded with eight Red Banner missiles, each six feet long, able to fly just above sea level. Its purpose is to intercept incoming fire.’
‘So a Red Banner is an anti-missile missile.’
‘Yes, and this activity tells us that the Chinese radar has seen our ship-killer missiles coming.’
Someone said: ‘Three minutes.’
The on-deck launcher swivelled, and a moment later a burst of smoke from its snout indicated that it had fired. Then a high-level shot showed the vapour trails of half a dozen or more incoming missiles approaching incredibly fast, on course to hit the Fujian side-on. The on-deck launcher fired again, rapidly, and one of the approaching missiles broke up in pieces that fell into the sea.
Then Pauline noticed another clutch of missiles approaching the Fujian from the opposite direction. These had come from the plane, she assumed.
Some of the smaller ships escorting the Fujian were now firing, but there were only a few seconds left to impact.
On deck, sailors raced to reload Red Banners, but they could not move fast enough.
The impacts were almost simultaneous. The hits were concentrated amidships. There was a huge explosion. Pauline gasped as the deck of the Fujian seemed to lift and snap in the middle, sending all the aircraft sliding into the sea. Flame erupted from within and smoke poured out. Then the two halves of the thousand-foot deck collapsed slowly downwards. Pauline watched in horror as the giant ship broke into two halves. Both halves upended, the central parts sinking while the bow and stern rose into the air. She thought she saw human figures, tiny at this distance, flying through the air and into the water, and she whispered: ‘Oh, no!’ She felt Gus’s hand touch her arm, squeeze gently, then withdraw.
Minutes passed as the wreckage slowly filled with water and descended deeper. The stern went under first, leaving a brief crater in the sea that immediately filled and spouted foam. The bow sank soon after, with a similar effect. Pauline stared at the surface as it returned to normal. In a while the sea was calm. A few motionless bodies floated amid bits of wreckage: timber, rubber and plastic. The escort ships lowered boats, doubtless to pick up survivors. Pauline thought there would not be many.
It was almost as if the Fujian had never existed.
*
The men who led China were in shock.