Woo left then. He had saved Len’s life on a battlefield in Iran five years earlier, which had only been the beginning of their partnership. Since then they had gone through much. Was it only prelude to much more? Len wondered.

CHANGASHAN, GREATER MANCHURIA

“This isn’t like the Japanese,” Len said, shrugging into his full military tunic as Lee Chun Wah held it for him.

“They plan everything they do. Nothing spontaneous.” “Sir,” Lee said, “it is a diplomatic delegation. They seem to be sincere.”

President Len looked at Lee Chun Wah, his personal aide.

“Mr. Lee, you may, in my presence, accuse the Japanese of many things. But don’t ever accuse them of being sincere.”

“Yes, sir.”

Len buttoned the tunic and concentrated on putting on his war face. Only minutes before he had been called by Lee, who relayed the fact that a Japanese diplomatic delegation headed by Ambassador Usume Nakamoto was enroute to the presidential palace and had requested permission to convene with President Len. Unprecedented.

Len would never have allowed it under normal circumstances, but he suspected that this must have something to do with the suicide raid on the missile complex.

He watched out the window as the door of the Lexus limousine opened, and a three-man diplomatic team disembarked, clearly one leader with two lackies, one of them carrying the leader’s briefcase, the other holding a bulky metal suitcase. The leader stood by the car for several moments, smiling, bowing and shaking hands with the palace guards.

As the delegation was led into the presidential mansion, Len concentrated on what he would say. The videolink conference room, he decided, would be the room in which he would receive the Japanese. There they could be filmed unobtrusively, the video cameras mounted in the fabric of ornate and ancient oil paintings depicting wars on land and at sea. He could use the disk to keep the Japanese honest.

The intercom buzzed and Nakamoto was finally announced.

Len nodded at Lee Chun Wah, and together they left the office and walked briskly down the hall to the conference room. Lee opened the door for President Len, who proceeded in.

The room was painted a deep shade of green to the railing, which was stained a dark brown and varnished to a glowing shine. Above the railing the huge oil paintings hung, the bloody scenes of battle shocking at first, then soon ignored. The room had no windows, its only furniture a wooden conference table with dark green leather set into the surface, several chandeliers casting a mellow light throughout the room. The place would be ideal for poker, an American ambassador had once joked. He had not known how close he was to the truth.

Against the front wall stood Nakamoto and his aides.

The Japanese ambassador, elderly and deeply wrinkled, broke into a grin, revealing uneven teeth protruding outward on top, inward on the bottom. He required only round wire-rimmed glasses, it occurred to Len, to complete the caricature of a Japanese from an old Allied World War II poster. Nakamoto began to bow, deeply, and Len wondered how he could go so far down without falling. Len continued to stand upright, refusing to bow, having decided to throw cold water on Nakamoto from the start. The Japanese were not going to steamroll him with their polite rituals, disarming their opposition and walking away winning the negotiation. That might work with certain naive American presidents, but not a former battlefield commanding general.

“Please state your business, Nakamoto.”

Nakamoto looked at the Greater Manchurian president with no change in his expression. “Honorable President Len Pei Poom, we have come to discuss a matter of urgency and concern to the Japanese people—”

Len sat down, not drawing his chair up to the table, as if he was about to leave momentarily. He looked pointedly at his watch and said nothing.

The Japanese ambassador sank slowly into a seat.

“Your nuclear missiles, Honorable Mr. President.”

“What?” Len sounded more indignant than surprised.

In fact, he had suspected as much.

Nakamoto proceeded to open an envelope and spread out several black-and-white photographs of the inside of the Tamga facility, one of them showing the inside of the bunker. “These were taken from inside your facility.”

Len refused to look down at the photographs. The Japanese gave him no chance to accuse them of spying.

They began by acknowledging it. Clever. Nakamoto might look like a caricature, but that was clearly only on the surface.

“You admit it,” Len said slowly, trying to recover.

“I merely advise you of a fact. The prime minister is gravely concerned.”

“He has no need to be.”

“We do not agree. We wish control of the Tamga facility to ensure our security. We will keep this private.