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East, North Korea, Africa, South America, horrible drug problems in their cities, an unarmed invasion of Mexicans … War with China is the last thing the Americans want. A complete break in relations would hurt them as badly as it would hurt us. We must arrange a situation that cuts the American fleet down to size—cuts it in half—yet gives us and them plausible deniability. They won’t like it, but all their alternatives are worse.”
    “Can it really be done?” the Paramount Leader asked. The chairman was a career party man, shrewd, unscrupulous, fashionably corrupt and extremely ambitious. To stay on top of the heap he had to keep the party’s members convinced he was going in the right direction. Wu tried to read his mood. Was he dubious, or did he like the proposal and want reassurance from Wu to swing the opinions of the other men in attendance?
    Wu went with his gut. “Yes, comrade, I believe it can,” he said positively. He well knew he was betting everything he had, his career, his position, his future, perhaps his life. Yet he believed he was right. Gambling was a way of life for many Chinese, Admiral Wu among them. When you have a good hand, you have to bet it. Shove everything you have onto the table.
    “That is what the Japanese thought when they sailed for Pearl Harbor in 1941,” the chairman shot back. “Gut the American fleet and all would be well. A short, fast war. A fait accompli. The Americans would soon plead for peace on terms favorable to Japan. So they thought. It didn’t work out that way.”
    “The Japanese made a surprise attack as they declared war,” Admiral Wu shot back. “We shall not declare war. The Americans may suspect we are responsible, they may even privately know, but the public will assume an American nuclear weapon exploded aboard a warship. We will be surprised and shocked and offer sincere condolences. Americans don’t trust their government, which has lied to them repeatedly. The decision makers will weigh the possible consequences of any response on the scale that measures human souls. Those decision makers will bow to public opinion and elect to follow the easy path.”
    Wu paused, then added, “ We shall reap the harvest.”
    He pushed another button on the projector, and a second map appeared, overlaid over the first. On this one was a red spot under the second carrier pier. It was at the center of a circle. The circle was large, encompassing the entire naval base, the runways, most of the city of Norfolk, much of Virginia Beach and, across Hampton Roads, the Newport News Shipbuilding Company.
    The men around the table looked at one another. “A chance of a lifetime,” one muttered, and his listeners nodded.
    “Tell us of your preparations, and how it can be done,” the Paramount Leader said.
    That was then.
    Today the plan was well along. If the enemy didn’t get wind of it.
    Wu stubbed out his weed and walked back to his desk.
    He thought about what the Americans knew, thought about bureaucracies, about the friction and jealousy and incompetence that infected them all, including the Chinese ones. Could the American intelligence apparatus, even if given a peek, understand its significance? Would they devote the time, energy and money necessary to derive more of the picture? Would they understand it even if they did? Or would the tidbits they knew merely become more noise in a noisy universe?
    Wu thought he knew the answer. But just in case, he would be ready. Enormous stakes required heroic efforts. He would leave nothing undone. Nothing!
    *   *   *
    Choy Lee lived in an apartment house on the seaward side of Willoughby Spit, a long arm of sand that stretched like a finger from the north side of the mainland that contained Norfolk out into the James-Chesapeake waterway. A crooked finger, because it was pointed northwest. The interstate highway ran along it and at the end, old Fort Wool, disappeared into the tunnel that led under Hampton Roads to