as mindless as those of their Nashville counterparts, though the stations were leaning more heavily to patriotic songs at the moment.
The same was noted at Fort Meade, Maryland. The National Security Agency had a lot of ferret satellites up and circling the globe, including two monster Rhyolitetypes in geosynchronous orbit over the equator, and all were tuned to Chinese military and government channels. The FM-radio chatter associated with military formations had trended down to zero in the last twelve hours, and to the uniformed and civilian analysts alike that meant just one thing: A quiet army is an army planning to do something.
The people at the National Reconnaissance Office had the main tasking in finishing up a Special National Intelligence Estimate, because people tended to believe photographs more than mere words. The imagery had been computer-matched with the radar-imaging satellites’ “take,” but surprisingly to no one, the assembly areas were mostly empty now. The tanks and other tracked vehicles had lingered only long enough to get reorganized after the train trip, and had moved out north, judging by the ruts they’d left in the mainly dirt roads of the region. They’d taken the time to spread their camouflage nets over the redeployed tanks, but that, too, had been a pro forma waste of time, because they could as little hide the track marks of hundreds of such vehicles as they could hide a mountain range. And scarcely any such effort had been taken with the hundreds of supply trucks, which, they saw, were still moving in tight little convoys, at about thirty kilometers per hour, heading for assembly areas just a few klicks south of where the shooters were. The imagery was printed up on six of the big laser printers custom-made for the NRO, and driven to the White House, where people were mainly sitting around in the Oval Office pulling a Presidential all-nighter, which was rather more special than those done by the deliveryman, an Army sergeant E-5 in this case. The civilian analyst who’d come with him stayed inside while the NCO walked back out to the government Ford sedan, having left behind a Newport hundred-millimeter cigarette for the President.
“Jack, you’re bad,” Jackson observed. “Bumming a smoke off that innocent young boy.”
“Stick it, Robby,” POTUS replied with a grin. The smoke made him cough, but it helped him stay awake as much as the premium coffee did. “You handle the stress your way, I’ll handle it my way. Okay, what do we have here?” the President asked the senior analyst.
“Sir, this is as many armored vehicles in one area as I have ever seen in China, plus all their equipment. They’re going north, and soon, in less than three days, I’d say.”
“What about air?” Jackson asked.
“Right here, sir.” The analyst’s finger traced over one of the photos. “Dedicated fighter base at Jinxi is a good example. Here’s a squadron of Russian-made Su-27s, plus a whole regiment of J-7s. The Sukhoi’s a pretty good fighter plane, similar in mission and capabilities to an early F-15. The -7’s a day-fighter knockoff of the old MiG-21, modified for ground attack as well as mixing up in the furball. You can count sixty-eight aircraft. Probably at least four were in the air when the satellite went overhead. Note the fueling trucks right on the ramp, and this aircraft has ground crew tinkering with it. We estimate that this base was stood-down for five days—”
“—getting everything ready?” Jackson asked. That’s how people did it.
“Yes, sir. You will also note missile noses peeking out under the wings of all these aircraft. They appear to be loaded for combat.”
“White ones on the rails,” Robby observed. “They’re planning to go do some work.”
“Unless our note gets them to calm down,” Ryan said, with a minor degree of hope in his voice. A very minor note, the others in the room thought. The President got one last puff off the purloined Newport and stubbed it out. “Might it help for me to make a direct personal call to Premier Xu?”
“Honest answer?” It was Professor Weaver, rather the worse for wear at four in the Washington morning.
“The other sort isn’t much use to me at the moment,” Ryan replied, not quite testily.
“It will look good in the papers and maybe the history books, but it is unlikely to affect their decision-making process.”
“It’s worth a try,” Ed Foley said in disagreement. “What do we have to lose?”
“Wait until eight, Jack,” van Damm thought. “We don’t want him to