Now she sat in the Oval Office with her tablet in front of her on the Resolute desk, Celia the First Coon Cat warming in a splash of sunlight in the middle of the rug and her three top foreign policy experts in their customary seats around the room. These included Secretary of State Tanner Woodbridge on the sofa, National Security Advisor Josh Urias in the leather armchair to Fucillo’s right, and the NSC’s Indo-Pacific Affairs Coordinator Yen Lee Greenberg parked at a wing table to the left of the fireplace. All had phones and headsets. As usual, Greenberg’s laptop was on the table so she could take personal notes. The rough memcon—or memorandum of telephone conversation in unabbreviated English—would be written by professional notetakers down in the Situation Room, then combined with a transcript generated by the White House computer servers for a single document exclusively available to CIA Intelligence and the director of national intelligence. Also in Sit was the communications staffer who had made the actual phone connection, for a grand total of thirteen officials and White House aides placing or listening in on the call.

“Madam President,” Urias said, “we expect PPRC Tsao on the phone in three minutes.”

Fucillo gave him a vague nod while looking down at her tablet. She was reading over the talking points that Greenberg had drafted as part of her call package and that she’d already discussed with everyone in the room in a caffeine-fueled six o’clock prebrief. Besides being known for her all-night work marathons, Fucillo was legendarily big on prep.

The goals of the call were clear and fundamental. The US chartered CS Stalwart had vanished in the South China Sea along with its crew of seventy-seven. In calm weather. Near reefs and islands over which the Chinese were asserting territorial claims beyond any sane or reasonable limits. With satellite data indicating the waters had teemed with Little Blue Men, a maritime militia that Tsao refused to admit was anything more than a civilian fishing fleet.

It wasn’t just baffling. It was suspicious in the extreme. Tsao had claimed to know nothing about what happened to the Stalwart through diplomatic channels, and maybe he didn’t. Fucillo was not one to jump to conclusions. But she wanted to put him on notice that she expected his government’s cooperation and had no threshold for its typical secretive bullshit when it came to American lives.

“Thirty seconds,” Urias said.

Fucillo nodded. She lifted her coffee cup to her mouth, sipped, lowered it back onto the saucer and grabbed the phone.

SECRET/ORCON/NOFORN

EYES ONLY

DO NOT COPY

OFFICIAL MEMORANDUM OF TELEPHONE CONVERSATION

SUBJECT: Telephone Conversation with President Tsao He Feng of People’s Republic of China

PARTICIPANTS: President Annemarie Fucillo of USA, President Tsao of PRC

Notetakers (Situation Room): Shawn Heyward, Carmen Seager, Andrew DeVito

DATE, TIME: April 15, 2024, 10:07—10:27 a.m. EDT

PLACE: White House Oval Office