Life as a New Hire Ch. 42

'It has to do with giving something to the Khanate if you expect them to do anything for you.'

Tony: 'You can't appreciate how that is going to look. Besides, that is a political decision -- way above your pay-grade.'

[Not a good time to remind him that he didn't pay me.]

'What precisely do you want us to do? Please be specific.'

Tony: 'How is the Khanate going to react to an intervention on the part of the United States?'

'They will ignore you.'

Tony: 'What if the President makes public statement.'

'What is he going to say?'

Tony: 'That the US is dedicated to a peaceful resolution of the unrest in Thailand.'

'They won't care. They truly believe that actions speak louder than words. If Thailand requested our intervention, or was a client state ...'

Tony: 'A what?'

'Client state -- a country beholding to the US, or UK for their external security.'

Tony: 'I know what client state is. That is 20th Century Imperialist thinking. No one does stuff like that anymore. Besides, the UN is responsible for the external security of its member states -- which Thailand is.'

'The Khanate doesn't see it that way. We won't let them into the UN, so they see no reason to play by the UN's rules. The President can evoke the UN Charter all he wants. Unless he makes UN acceptance dependent on their cooperation, they will see no reason to cooperate.'

Tony: 'That's not going to happen.'

'What part of that won't happen?'

Tony: 'The President is not going on international television and endorsing the Khanate as a prospective UN member. What happens if we imply through back channels that the President will support such an action at a later date?'

'You want us to lie to them? Do you have any idea how badly that will compromise our working relationship with the Khanate?'

Tony: 'We will deal with that later. Would they accept such a bargain?'

'So you are going to lie to them ... Mr. Blinken, they will NEVER forgive this act of treachery.'

Tony: 'No, you are going to lie to them.'

Addison: 'I will resign. I suspect that the rest of the team will quit as well.'

Tony: 'What is wrong with your team, Ms. Stuart (Addison)? Can't anyone over there do their damn jobs?'

'We are doing our damn jobs, Mr. Blinken. We are telling you this is a diplomatically fatal move that will not only reduce this taskforce to uselessness, it will have long term consequences for all future Khanate-American relations.'

Tony: 'That is a ridiculous assessment.'

'That is our experienced assessment. They believe treachery is only forgiven by death. They do believe in loyalty and keeping one's word. In our country, perjury is an unfortunate side effect of the judicial progress. To the Great Khan, it is reason enough to cut your head off.'

Tony: 'Fine. I am ordering you to open back-channel talks with the Khanate concerning their admittance to the UN contingent on them taking a reasonable course of action.'

'Even if we were to do such a moronic thing, the Great Khan will ask Cáel directly to verify this. It is that important to him and his state.'

Tony: 'Okay.'

'Perhaps you could suggest to me what form of coercion I should employ to make Cáel to commit such a blasphemous act?'

Tony: 'Tell him to do it. That is what we pay him for.'

'Mr. Blinken, Mr. Nyilas is an unpaid consultant. At the job he is on sabbatical from, he makes more money than I do. He has an Irish diplomatic passport, been nominated to be the Prince of Albania, Georgia and Armenia, been proclaimed a warrior-prince of Transylvania and is a hero in both Hungary and Romania. He has no brothers, or sisters. His parents are both dead. His only surviving kin are people he is not particularly close to. Since economic and social blackmail are off the table, I am asking you if you are ordering me to use enhanced interrogation techniques to exacting his cooperation in this foolhardy endeavor.'

Tony: 'You mean torture him?'

'I would never go on the record using that word. I don't advise you to use it either.'

Tony: 'What kind of people are you?'

'The kind you engage to take on a mission of this delicate nature. You honestly don't want to know what we've done in the name of our constituent national bodies. You employ us so that you don't have to know. As you said, we 'get it done'. Until now, you have never asked us 'how' we got things done. You wanted the intelligence so we got it for you.'

Tony: 'No member of this administration ever asked you to violate US, or International Law.'

'Which is precisely why the government employs me, so that you can keep your hands clean while mine are steeped in blood. Nothing our team has done will ever blow back on you, so don't worry about that. Why don't we get back to our current dilemma?'

[I think until that moment Tony had convinced himself that Addison was another civil servant drone and people like her only existed in the 'black bag' fantasies of conspiracy theorists, hackneyed movie scripts and questionable 'true' spy novels. People like Addison and Lady Fathom weren't standard issue intelligence officers by any stretch of the imagination. They were almost unique in that they did what they did for the very beliefs they had sworn an oath to uphold -- to serve their countries.

There were no personal vendettas going on. No slush funds were vanishing into Cayman Island accounts. Neither had a God Complex. There was no desire for personal power, career advancement, or fame. I was beginning to think that was why Temujin used them, and me -- because we could be counted on to do the right thing when required and only when required. Addison and Fathom had damned themselves forever because someone had to pay the price and get the job done. I imagined they really felt blessed for the opportunity. I worked with maniacs.]

Tony: 'Thailand -- yes. What if we put troops on the ground in Thailand?'

'How many?'

Tony hummed and hawed so we had to guess.

'A Marine Expeditionary Unit? If that is all, they better have an exit plan. Sir, if you want to impress the Khanate with the White House's resolve, you need to start landing troops from the Rapid Deployment Force starting tomorrow. Base aircraft out of Thai air bases. Threaten to ram any Indian Naval vessels that get in your way.'

Tony: 'Is that what it would take?'

['Yes. It would take the US to growing some balls, damn it!' was not the diplomatic reply though it desperately needed to be said. Hey, I could be a bit of a jingoist when I feel the lives of my loved ones are in danger.]

'That is our current assessment of the situation. The Khanate has no reason to take any American threat of force seriously. They won't see anything short of a full-court press as nothing more than posturing for the home audience and what allies we have left.'

Tony: 'What does that mean?'

'It means you are taking the cooperation of Taiwan and Philippines for granted. Our people tell us they see American influence in the region waning and we have been letting the Chinese push them around. Now the Khanate appears and knocks the Chinese back three decades on the World Stage. The Khanate is trying to create a ring of allies around the PRC and a few of them are curious why the US is dragging its heel about such a critical regional issue.'

Tony: 'You don't dictate US foreign policy.'

[No, we simply enacted foreign policy without your knowledge.]

There were probably a large number of Special Forces operators who would be shaking their heads in bewilderment when they found out the US was trying to face down the Khanate over, of all places, Thailand. Hadn't they just busted their humps trying to make the Great Khan see their nations (the US and UK) as potential worthy allies?

Working with the Khanate had been 'interesting'. If you asked them for ANYTHING, they got it for you, danger and consequences be damned. They'd try anything for the men they considered 'brothers in the struggle'. If you were pinned down by fire from a hillside and asked for fire support, they would napalm the whole damn mountain if that was what it took. The man/woman on the other end of that radio cared for your life, not the human rights of the scumbag shooting at you, or any of the people they might be hiding behind.

You also know if they couldn't get it done, it was only because the resources didn't exist. The Khanate Special Forces hadn't acted like co-belligerents, or allies. They treated you like their own kin. They would and had died to make sure some of them got home to their families. If ordered to, they would definitely take the fight to the Khanate. I believed many of them would be asking what had it all been for.

'We wouldn't dream of it,' Addison lied.

'Good. You have your marching orders. Now get to it,' and Tony hung up on us. Everyone in the room was looking around. What exactly were our marching orders? Had I'd missed that part of our conversation?

"Well," Fathom sighed, "there is only one thing we can do." I seriously prayed she would ask me to lie to Temujin.

"Understood," Mehmet nodded. "Somehow we get the Khanate to launch their offensive into Thailand in three days."

"Can they do that?" I blurted out.

"They do it, or everyone in this room is in a shitload of trouble when they get around to it next week," Addison grinned. "The Khanate high command isn't going to back down just because we ask them to. I wouldn't if I were them."

"What happens if they can't make the three day window?" I asked.

"Then you call up your blood-brother and ask him to fuck over his nation to save us from lengthy prison sentences, or outright assassination," Fathom smirked.

"If he says 'no'," I looked into her eyes.

"That's the real tragedy in all this -- he won't," she gave me a comforting look. "He isn't going to leave you hanging in the wind. He'll call off his attack dogs because he isn't the kind of man to fuck you over because it is politically expedient. I'm staking all our lives on that. I always have."

The Black Lotus? We'd explain to them the ugly reality that neither of us could afford to be painted into a corner over this Thailand issue. We were doing our best, but our political masters were dead set on making a colossal error and we had to follow through with those directives. The Khanate would do everything in their extensive power to support the Black Lotus and if they could invade in three days with some nebulous chance at success, they would go.

The Black Lotus -- the entire 9 Clans knew JIKIT had no power except what we finagled from the US and the UK. We had borrowed their resources to accomplish what we'd done. The Black Lotus had profited from some of those operations and both the Khanate and JIKIT would owe them big, but we were good for it. That truism was why they worked with us.

My personal problem was that I knew the Great Khan would not forgive, or forget this interference by the US. It wasn't in his nature. Worse, the politicians and bureaucrats in Washington would see this as a victory and an expression that the US remained the globe's premier super power. Too few would remember the price of this sense of superiority would be born on the back of Thailand's masses. The revolution would fail after a short, brutal civil war. The tyrant would remain in power and the voice of the Thai people would be stilled.

The end result of that late night phone call? We weren't told.

What follows is pure conjecture on my part, fueled by intelligence information provided by other JIKIT resources and knowledge about how much the political landscape of Southeast Asia had been transformed by the PCR being driven back to their own coastline, leaving a power vacuum India, Vietnam and the Khanate were eager to fill.

The Republic of China/Taiwan --

'Aren't you the same people who said only a week ago that sending more weapons into the region would only escalate tensions? And now you want to use our airbases against our latest ally in the region? Do you understand how much internal political turmoil this will cause? Half of us are jumping for joy that someone big and fierce embraces our independence. The other half think it is time to retake China.

Yes, we mean the territory currently under the oppressive yoke of the People's Republic of China. Yes, the China the Khanate just kicked the crap out of. The nation that might not be able to protect say ... Zhusanjiao. That would be the Pearl River Delta to you Westerners ... that huge area on the mainland adjacent to Hong Kong. Hainan is looking pretty ripe for conquest as well. That would be that big island off the coast of ... yes, we have indeed suspected you could read a map.

At the moment we are expecting the permission of the Khanate to use Woody Island as a forward staging area and logistic base to help us do just that. Take Hainan ... yes ... that large island currently, and temporarily, under the illegal occupation by those illegitimate bastards in Beijing.

What do you mean 'don't declare war on them'? We've been at war with the People's Republic since 1945. No, we are pretty sure we would recall signing a Peace Treaty with them. No, we can't 'get over it' either. Why are you even asking us that? Don't you know our history?

Anyway, if we help you, can we expect the same level of cooperation from you as we are getting from the Khanate? In case things go sour ... Yes, a shooting war would qualify. See, your people at JIKIT have been helping the Khanate and us ... your people .... at JIKIT ... we are pretty sure it is made up of Americans and British personnel. Why would we think that? Are you serious? Because that's what your governments told us, that's why. Besides, why are you asking us what your people have been doing? Don't they work for you?

Speaking of the US government helping us out ... what progress is there on the Taiwan Relations Act Affirmation and Naval Vessel Transfer Act of 2014 ? We sure could use those vessels. While we are at it, how about sharing some of the technology used in the F-35. We'll build our own, or a model vaguely similar to it. We value your friendship and know you will help us out in a pinch.

Right?'

The Philippines --

'Sigh. If you really think this will help. By the way, aren't your fighters going to need some in-air refueling? What are you going to do if the Khanate engages them over Philippine airspace? What are you going to do if you get into a shooting war with the Khanate? Will you defend us from their ballistic missile threat? We have a long history as your allies, but the Khanate is totally ruthless ... and they scare us. Can you hold our hand ... say for the next twenty years?'

[The Philippines rolls out their Wish List]

Maybe you could give us some advanced fighters?

We are a poor country and can't afford to buy any before 2018.

We are not greedy -- 72 F-16s will do and you are upgrading to the F-35 anyway so we know you have some lying around. Could you also help us with the maintenance cost? We are a poor country, but very large.

Some of your decommissioned naval vessels would go a long way in showing us some love. One of those Tarawa-class amphibious assault ships would be really nice and you've got the USS Peleliu decommissioned and about to be scrapped. We have hundreds of islands in our Republic so moving stuff around is pretty tough. Can you help us out?

If you could toss in the ship's complement of 20 AV-8B Harrier II and 12 V-22 Ospreys with a fifteen year maintenance package that would be even better!

We are a poor country. We could never afford to buy any of that stuff.

Maybe a frigate, or three? You have a dozen Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates sitting around. We can finally retire some of our World War II relics and make one our new flagship.

We know you aren't going to give us one of those powerful nuclear submarines, but maybe you could secure a few loans so we could buy some of those nifty German-made, diesel-powered Type 214's. We hear they are pretty cool, very silent and practically a steal at $330 million per boat! We love you guys! And, we are poor.

Oh, and some helicopters!

We were going to refurbish some Vietnam-era Iroquois, but since your Marine Corp is retiring the far superior Bell AH-1 SuperCobra, can we have a dozen of those instead?

We were going to fix up some of our aging Sikorsky S-76s as air ambulances. Getting new ones would be far superior, don't you think?

You also have those cool Blackhawks. You have so many. Could you spare us ... say twenty? You're the best!

And some guns. And artillery. And some APC's.

Did we mention we are a poor country going through an expensive force modernization program?

Got any amphibious vehicles lying around? We could use a few of more of those small unit riverine craft (SURC)'s we bought from you recently. They are excellent counter-insurgency tools. You want us doing well fighting the War on Terror, don't you?

Did we mention that we are a poor country? And we love you guys!

The Federation of Malaysia --

We like this idea. Give us say a week to ten days and we can jump right in.

You want to go in four days? With what precisely? Compared to the force projections you have been providing us ... Who? JIKIT, of course. Who else would you send us to when we requested intelligence on Khanate activities from you? Did we believe them? Why wouldn't we? They are your people ...

When do you think Thailand will let us intervene? We've asked the Prime Minister if he needs our assistance and he politely declined. Apparently he thinks he's got things well in hand. He does retain command of over 200,000 troops and the opposition is much smaller. I hope you have better luck than we did in convincing him he's in serious trouble.

Also, what do you plan to do about the Indian Navy's South China Sea taskforce? It is pretty big -- not something we can tackle on our own.

Yes, we kind of need to know what you are doing before we decide what we are doing. You do realize that the Gulf of Thailand is currently under the complete domination of the Indian/Khanate/Vietnamese Axis, right?

48 combat aircraft? What gave you that idea? The Vietnamese have been refurbishing their Mig-21's like crazy, using Khanate stockpiles, plus there are nearly a 150 Su-22's. Sure, they are both older than manned flights to the Moon, but they can drop bombs, fire rockets and launch ground attack missiles with the best of them. They are still jet aircraft.

Worried? You are aware that those antiquated pieces of crap can bomb the northern part of my country, aren't you? So 'yes', we are worried about those 300 flying deathtraps being more than a 'manageable' nuisance.

What about our air force? I imagine it will be doing what we trained it to do -- defend Federation air space because I doubt those relics will be coming at us unescorted. We can already tell you that the Mig-29's and Su-30's the Khanate and Vietnamese will be flying are excellent aircraft. We fly them too, just not as many.

Of course you can base your F-22's out of Sultan Ismail Petra Airport as long as you supply the logistical support. How many? A lot? Could you please be more specific? Two squadrons? My ... that's going to get pretty dicey. I believe you when you say the F-22 is a highly advanced stealthy fighter. I also believe that they are a lot less stealthy when they are sitting on the ground re-arming and refueling.

Do we think they will really threaten us? They are threatening us -- over our Spratly Island claims ... are you sure you know what you are getting into? By the way, when this blows over, do you think you can pressure the Khanate into giving us their Spratly island airbase? It is rapidly approaching completion and is over 3000 meters long.