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She nodded sombrely. ‘This could be our last day on Earth.’
They sat down again.
Tamara said: ‘Maybe we should do something special.’
Tab looked thoughtful. ‘I have a suggestion,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘It’s kind of off the wall.’
‘Spit it out.’
‘We could…would you…what I mean to say…Will you marry me?’
‘Today?’
‘Of course today!’
Tamara found herself unable to speak. She was silent for a long moment.
Tab said: ‘I haven’t upset you, have I?’
Tamara found her voice. ‘I don’t know how to tell you how much I love you,’ she said, and she felt a tear run down her face.
He kissed the tear away. ‘I’ll take that as a yes, then.’
CHAPTER 41
Information began to flood into the Situation Room at Zhongnanhai, and Kai took it in while fighting off a feeling of dazed helplessness. In the next few minutes the whole world was shocked. This was the first time nuclear weapons had been used since 1945. The news travelled fast.
Within seconds, stock markets in East Asia went into free fall. People cashed in their shares, as if money would be any use to them in a nuclear war. President Chen closed the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges, an hour before the regular time. He ordered the Hong Kong market to close too, but Hong Kong refused, and lost 20 per cent in ten minutes.
The government of Taiwan, an island that had never been part of Communist China, issued a formal statement saying that they would attack the military forces of any country that violated Taiwanese airspace or surrounding waters. Kai immediately understood the significance of this. For years Chinese jets had buzzed Taiwan, claiming they had the right because Taiwan was really in China, and in response the Taiwanese had repeatedly scrambled planes and deployed launchers – but had never actually attacked the intruders. Now, it seemed, that had changed. They would shoot down Chinese planes.
‘This is nuclear war,’ said General Huang. ‘And in a nuclear war it is better to strike first. We have land launchers, submarine launchers and long-range bomber aircraft, and we should deploy them all right from the start. If we allow the Americans to strike first, much of our nuclear ordnance will be destroyed before it can be used.’
Huang always spoke as if stating irrefutable facts, even when he was guessing, but in this case he was right. An American first strike would cripple China’s military.
Defence Minister Kong Zhao wore a despairing expression. ‘Even if we strike first, bear in mind that we have precisely three hundred and twenty nuclear warheads, and the Americans have something more than three thousand. Imagine that every one of our weapons destroyed one of theirs in a first strike. They would still have plenty and we would have nothing.’
‘Not necessarily,’ said Huang.
Kong Zhao lost his cool. ‘Don’t try to bullshit me!’ he shouted. ‘I’ve seen the motherfucking war games and so have you. We always lose. Always!’
‘War games are games,’ said Huang contemptuously. ‘War is war.’
Before Kong could reply, Chang Jianjun said: ‘May I suggest how we might fight a limited nuclear war?’
Kai had heard his father talk about this before. Kai himself did not have faith in limited war. History showed that it rarely stayed limited. However, he remained silent for the moment.
Jianjun said: ‘We should make a small number of early strikes on carefully selected US targets – no major cities, just military bases in thinly populated areas – then immediately offer a ceasefire.’
Kai said: ‘That might work, and it would certainly be better than all-out war. But isn’t there something else we can try first?’
President Chen said: ‘What did you have in mind?’
‘If we can restrict the fighting to non-nuclear weapons, we can defeat all these raids on our territory. We could even push the South Koreans out of North Korea, eventually.’
