They were up on the third floor. From here, the view took in one of the many green open spaces of the research campus. And in fact, if she slid as far as she could to one edge of the window…

Sam smiled to herself.

Yes. From one side, she had a partial view of the building she was most interested in.

The building she knew the least about.

The building where that fellow she’d noticed the night of the reception worked. That fellow who’d acted nervous. That fellow who’d left early.

From here, she could just barely see the building where Varun Verma worked.

And she’d be keeping an eye on it.

Yes she would.

46
Escalating Tensions

Monday 2040.11.26

Carolyn Pryce watched and listened as Admiral Stanley McWilliams, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, stood to give his portion of the briefing on the situation with China.

Alan Keyes, the Director of the CIA, had already given his part. And it was maddening, full of conjecture, gaps in the data, internal inconsistencies. The President had grilled Keyes on them.

Pryce had read all the reports already. Who was Bo Jintao? Was the State Security Minister really the man in charge of the country now? No, some reports said, Bao Zhuang was still Party General Secretary, still President of the state. That’s exactly what the Chinese Ambassador had told SecState last week.

Ignore that, other reports said, Bo Jintao was now Chairman of the Party Security Committee and suddenly Premier of the State Council. He was suddenly the number two man in the country, politically, but also retained his control of the police and now had control of the military, something almost unprecedented. And his rivals, like Sun Liu, were on the outs. Bao Zhuang had been the moderate, the neutral in those disputes between the pro-democracy, pro-advanced technology progressives on the one side, and the pro-Copenhagen, pro-control reactionaries on the other.

Now the progressives were suddenly off to ‘spend more time with their families.’ Under house arrest was closer to the truth, from what CIA was able to discern.

She stared at the pictures of the various Politburo members arranged across one side of the Situation Room. Which of these factions, which of these men, had ordered the attack on Barnes? And why? Just to distract the US? It still didn’t make any sense. Could it have been someone else inside China? A rogue unit inside their military or intelligence establishment? Could NSA be mistaken entirely? It wasn’t unknown.