Pauline felt sickened by what she had seen and by the pride the Chinese evidently felt. ‘That’s awful,’ she said.
Luis Rivera said: ‘That threat at the end suggests that one ring of steel would not be enough. There are other disputed islands. I’m not sure we could ring them all.’
‘Okay, but I’m still not going to overreact,’ Pauline said. ‘Give me something that’s more than a ring of steel but less than a missile onslaught on mainland China.’
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?’