Sword of Shiva - Страница 27

Before he could continue, Ambassador Shankar spoke again. “With all due respect, Mr. President, you do not understand our concerns. If the United States truly understood the cultural and political tensions in our portion of the world, you would not be so quick to sell weapons to Pakistan, or to back up the regime of terrorists who sit in power in Islamabad. Nor do you understand our concerns about China. I turn your attention to the so-called Sino-Indian War of the early 1960s. My people know what it is like to have the People’s Liberation Army come crashing across our borders. Your country, I am pleased to say, has never had such an experience.”

“For us, this is not an exercise in foreign policy,” she said. “It is not political theory. We are faced on two sides by enemies who have historically demonstrated their will to destroy India, and are currently taking actions which are directly hostile to my country. We will not show weakness. And if that means that the Three Gorges Dam must be destroyed, then such is the price China will pay for massacring our villages without warning or provocation.”

The president shook his head. “Madam Ambassador, I beg you not to do this.”

Ambassador Shankar sat for several seconds before speaking. “Can you offer us an alternative? Will you align your military power directly with ours, and signal to China and Pakistan that to fight India is to fight the United States of America?”

The president said nothing.

The ambassador smiled sadly. “There is your answer, Mr. President. If you will not stand with us, then we will defend ourselves without your help. And we will use whatever means are at our disposal.”

“What if your projections are wrong?” the president asked again. “What if China retaliates with nuclear weapons?”

Ambassador Shankar sighed. “Then they will discover that India also has such weapons, and — if we must — we are not afraid to take the war to our enemy’s doorstep.”

CHAPTER 28

CNN CENTER

190 MARIETTA STREET

ATLANTA, GEORGIA

SATURDAY; 29 NOVEMBER

10:19 AM EST

The video came to an end, and Irene Schick immediately hit the play button again. She had watched the clip five times in a row, and she still couldn’t believe it. She fast-forwarded to the point where the assault rifles started firing into the crowd, and the bodies began hitting the ground.

The audio was muffled and nearly unintelligible, but the video footage was amazing… Chinese troops gunning down peaceful protestors with no visible provocation of any kind. Blood. Raw panic. The terrified crowd stampeding like cattle.

Tibetan activists had been accusing China of similar atrocities since the 2008 riots, but the evidence — what little there was — had nearly always been lacking in quality or persuasiveness.

But the scene unfolding on her computer monitor was the real deal. As tactless as the cliché sounded in this context, this footage looked like the proverbial smoking gun. Not just one or two rioters fired at under questionable conditions, but a hundred people dead or injured. Maybe more. She’d have to assign a crew to analyze the video frame-by-frame, count the bodies, and pull up subtle details that might be overlooked without meticulous study.

According to Byron Maxwell at Amnesty, the recording had been shot from a cell phone. Judging from the quality of the video, it must have been a good one. Even when expanded to full size on Irene’s 25 inch LCD monitor, the images were clear and well-defined. Far short of professional quality, but more than good enough for broadcast.

The video would lose some detail and pick up some digital artifacts when it was enlarged for A-roll, but that would only add to the drama, and confirm the authenticity in the minds of the viewers.

They could get the tourist guy who shot it into a local affiliate studio in California, or maybe just do a voice interview while his video ran in the background. They’d also have to let one of the Amnesty International spokespeople sneak in some air time, as payback for the tip and the video. Irene was already starting to plan the first segment in her head. This was going to be the lead story for days. She could already feel it.

She picked up her phone, punched a number, and started talking as soon as the call was picked up on the other end. “Roger, this is Irene. How long will it take to get Tom Gwinn or Kelly Spencer into Tibet with a full crew?”

There was a half second pause before Senior Producer Roger Calloway spoke. “Are you serious?”

“Damned right I’m serious,” Irene said. “We’re going to need one of the headliners on the ground in Tibet fast.”

She looked at the slaughter playing out on her computer screen. “Hang on to your ass, Roger. I’m about to drop a stick of dynamite in your lap.”

CHAPTER 29

USS CALIFORNIA (SSN-781)

NORTHERN BAY OF BENGAL

SUNDAY; 30 NOVEMBER

1824 hours (6:24 PM)

TIME ZONE +6 ‘FOXTROT’

The Sonar Supervisor’s voice came over the net, “Conn — Sonar. Sierra One Five bears zero-three-niner. Contact shows slow right bearing drift.”

Captain Patke touched his Officer of the Deck on the shoulder. “Let’s come a couple of degrees to starboard, and keep as close to the center of his baffles as we can.”

The OOD nodded. “Aye-aye, sir.” He began issuing quiet orders to the helmsman.

Sierra One Five was the current sonar tracking designator for a Chinese Shang class nuclear attack submarine. USS California had been trailing the Chinese sub for nearly twenty-hours, and now they were about to follow it past the perimeter ships of the Indian aircraft carrier strike group.

Patke and his crew had performed a similar operation five days earlier, when they had slipped past the defensive ring of ships surrounding the Chinese aircraft carrier, near the southern end of the Bay of Bengal. Then, they had received orders to break off their surveillance, to locate and trail this Chinese attack submarine. And here they were at the northern end of the bay, following the sub as it tried the exact same maneuver against the Indians.

There was a good chance they would succeed, too. The Chinese sub skipper was skillful and cautious, and his boat was reasonably quiet. As quiet as Chinese submarines ever got, at any rate.

Captain Patke glanced at the master dive clock. It was coming up on 1830 hours. Above the surface, the world would be experiencing that strange period of illumination known as nautical twilight, when the sun was below the horizon, but its rays continued to light up the sky. The surface of the sea would be too dark to make out visual details, and the still illuminated sky would be too bright to allow the human eye to properly acclimate to the darkness.

This was the time of day when aircrews and shipboard lookouts would have the hardest time spotting the silhouette of a submerged submarine, or the feather of an exposed periscope.

Patke nodded. The Chinese sub commander was doing it right. If the noise of his boat’s reactor plant didn’t give away his position, he would make it past the defensive ring of Indian destroyers and frigates, and into the heart of the aircraft carrier’s screen.

* * *

A half-hour later, it was clear that the skipper of Sierra One Five had succeeded in his objective. His boat was well inside the screen of the Indian aircraft carrier, INS Vikrant. Patke’s own boat, the California was still trailing silently behind, using the screw noise and reactor plant noise from the Chinese sub as a mask against detection.

Contact Sierra One Five, the Shang, was one of China’s second-generation subs, and its acoustic signatures were significantly reduced from the older Han class boats. But there was a world of difference between less noisy, and silent. Despite the skill of her commander, Sierra One Five might be just a smidge too noisy to escape detection by the sonar operators in the Indian battle group. And given the close trailing-distance, that would probably mean detection of the California as well.

Patke pulled off his wire rimmed glasses, and rubbed the bridge of his nose before returning his glasses to their usual perch. Following close on the ass of a potentially hostile submarine was risky on the best of days. Doodling around inside the defensive perimeter of another navy’s aircraft carrier brought an entirely different order of risk. Now, the California was suddenly doing both at once. If anything went wrong at all, it would take about three seconds for this entire situation to go straight down the frigging toilet.

Patke took at last look at the tactical plot, and then strolled over to the accordion door that led to Sonar Control. He leaned against the door jam, and stared into the dim interior of the sonar compartment. The boat’s leading Sonar Technician, Chief Petty Officer Lanier Philips, was the Sonar Supervisor on duty.

Captain Patke caught the eye of the sonar man. “How’s it looking, chief?”

The sonar chief looked up, his African American features intense with concentration. He shifted his headset far enough to the side to expose his right ear, and used his left palm to press the remaining earphone tighter against his other ear. “We’ve got a solid track on this guy, captain. You know that weird little low frequency flutter that the Han class boats make in their second-stage heat exchangers? Looks like the Shang class has a similar design. The dB level is a lot lower on these boats, but the tonal is still there.”