Brute Force by Marc Cameron

chairs to the right of the President’s desk. The two military men were among the few leaders not presently under investigation for some sort of graft. It was not the lack of technology, weaponry, or troops that threatened his country’s military. It was corruption.
    The presidential office seemed meant to make visitors feel small. There was nothing to clutter the center of the spacious room—no busy coffee table or cozy couches as in the American President’s Oval Office—just thirty feet of empty red carpet, plush and smooth but for the faint outlines of footprints that had stood in exactly the same spot in front of the President’s antique huanghuali wood desk. Wen found himself wondering about the fate of the men who had worn those spots in the carpet. To stand in front of the desk of a man as powerful as the President—who simultaneously held the offices of General Secretary of the Communist Party of China and Chairman of the Central Military Committee—seemed a perilous endeavor.
    As the leader of the Ministry of State Security—patterned after the former Soviet Union’s KGB—Wen had nearly unfettered power to jostle and manipulate the lives of a billion citizens if he’d had the notion to do such things—but President Chen Min could manipulate the lives of the manipulators themselves. And yet, the man appeared to like him, telling Wen he valued his “direct and unfiltered” counsel. Wen did not admit it, but when a wise man spoke to the paramount leader of The Peoples Republic of China, he always filtered his counsel. A consummate diplomat and spy, Minister Wen just did it better than the military men in the room.
    Both General Sun and Admiral Jiang nodded thoughtfully at each word Chen spoke, as if they could not have possibly said it better. The President paused for a long moment, looking at his counselors over pursed lips, as if he had a touch of indigestion.
    Taking the silence as a cue to speak rather than ponder, General Sun leaned forward in his chair to drive home his point. “My soldiers stand ready,” he said. A well-fed and jowly man, his thick fingers clutched a large dress hat above his belly, next to the ribbons festooning his chest. “As a proud nation, we cannot be expected to suffer the indignities and bullying from the United States.”
    The minister kept a file on all of the most powerful military leaders. General Sun had not always been so fat. Before being promoted to the Second Artillery, he’d been fit enough to lead the Southern Broadswords, an elite group of special operations commandos based in Guangzhou. The pampered living of a general officer may have softened his body, but Wen had no doubt the man had retained his flint-hard resolve and tactical sensibilities.
    “Perhaps,” Wen interjected from his spot across the room, “they mean to goad us into firing the first shot—to make us the aggressors in a devastating war.” He spoke to the President, unconcerned as to whether he convinced the general of anything or not. A sword, after all, was not meant to stay sheathed. Advice from the military would always contain a military option. It was the way of things.
    “ Zhxí Chen,” General Sun continued, using the word that had meant chairman during Mao’s day, but was now commonly translated as president . “The United States is well aware that it could not win a protracted war in our battle space. They are stretched thin with Korea and have neither the stomach nor means to occupy anything else east of Japan for any length of time, not with the world such as it is. They will try to utilize their carriers and submarine fleets to attack us from afar. So far, we have planned for little beyond denying them access to our waters. But Mr. President, national honor demands we take the fight—”
    The President raised his hand, waving away the assault of words. General Sun fell silent immediately.
    “I understand our national honor,” Chen said, more contemplative than angry.