Page 258 of Never
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 theFujianon 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 theFujian. 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 theCanterbury Talesin Middle English, he said, knowing that he would never again have so much spare time.
A helicopter lifted off the deck of theFujian. 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 theFujianside-on. The on-deck launcher fired again, rapidly, and one of the approaching missiles broke up in pieces that fell into the sea.
