Inspector O and the Abyss

As usual, the table was in the corner. I sat down and waited. Inspector O looked up and stared. I waited. He stared. Finally, I thought it might be time to break the ice. Nothing too complicated.

“Hello.” I let a smile loose.

O pursed his lips. “Don’t sweet-talk me, Church. Did you or didn’t you read this.” He pulled a book from his briefcase and threw it on the table. “No tap dancing. Answer the question. Did you read it?”

I waited two beats so I could watch his eyes. “No.”

“Noted.” He wrote something on a piece of paper he took from his jacket. “Let me ask you something else. Were you a source?”

“For this?” I turned the book so I could read the title: “Nuclear War: A Scenario.”

“I didn’t ask what the title was. I asked if you were a source. Think carefully, Church.”

“No, I was not, not even remotely. Why would I be?”

O closed his eyes. “You have no idea what I have been through. We are both in big trouble. Are you sure you didn’t read it?”

I paused. “I may have glanced at it.”

O groaned and rocked back and forth. “Oy veh. He may have glanced at it, he says he may have glanced at it.”

“I take it there is something in there,” I pointed at the book, “you don’t like.”

“Something? Only something? Church, the entire premise is crazy. It makes us look like idiots. The army planning guys that barged into my apartment the other night had steam coming out of their ears. They screamed at me, ‘Does he think we are idiots?’ And by ‘he’ they meant you. They were so angry I thought they would tear me apart.”

“Why?”

“Because I talk to you. They think I’m SOC.”

“Which is?”

“Soft on Church.”

“Don’t you think that’s an overreaction? I had nothing to do with the book. And, OK, I agree, you are presented as stick figures led by a mad king. But that wasn’t the point of the book. It was just part of a scenario used to make a larger point.”

“Don’t say mad king again.”

I took a deep breath. “You’ll have to admit you invite this sort of thing. It’s easy to make you out as stick figures with a …”

O held up his hand. “Don’t say it.”

“…a leader. The author needed something to get the ball rolling, that’s all. The rest is actually a good read.”

“So, to get the ball rolling, she begins with our launching an ICBM at Washington, DC. For no reason, just out of the blue. Church! We aren’t crazy. Why would we do something like that?”

I shrugged. “You tell me and we’ll both know.”

“That’s not how we would do it.” He looked across the room for a moment, then reached into his briefcase and took out a small black notebook. “The whole idea is to avoid getting wiped out, not to invite you to do it.”

“In that case, don’t do anything. We have no intention of wiping you out on a whim.”

“Spare me. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But sooner or later it will happen. Your country thinks it should rule the world, and we should disappear. We disagree, and we aren’t going to be pushed around anymore.”

“In that case, what do you have in mind?”

O pointed at the black notebook. His eyes were blank, there was no expression on his face at all. He lowered his voice. “We will do what we have to do. And we won’t be crazy when we do it.”

“You’ll lose.”

“No, I don’t think so, Church. You may beat your chests and threaten us, but what if we discover a hole in your iron-clad defense? What if we already have?”

“You’re telling me you already have?”

“All I said was, ‘what if.’ And if we did, would we be crazy enough to attack your territory right off your butt?”

“Bat, right off the bat.”

“No, of course not. We’d want to make sure you were knocked back, uncertain, panicked. We’d want to make very sure of two things—one, that you knew we were serious about using nuclear weapons, and two, that your regional counterstrike assets were severely degraded.”

“Assets? Degraded? Inspector, since when is that in your vocabulary?”

“Don’t worry with my vocabulary, Church. I know lots of words you’ve never heard me say.”

“Like what? I’m curious.”

“How about duck and cover?”

“So. OK. I’m to understand you’re going to start by using nuclear weapons, but not against the continental United States? In that case, what’s the point? A lot of radiation in one half of the Peninsula, which the wind could blow any which way.”

He pointed to the black notebook. “The fickle finger of fate has written on the wall.”

“Don’t get mystical on me, Inspector.”

“If you’ve been paying attention, you will have realized we have lots of short-range missiles, nuclear capable. If you did the math, you’d realize we could wipe out all of your airfields on the Peninsula, and all of South Korea’s military airfields as well in less than 200 seconds. Out of the blue, no warning, just did and done. If you have any planes in the air, they’ll have nowhere to land.”

“Japan?

He shook his head slightly. “A smoldering mess.”

“The question remains, what’s the point? Just a bad hair day? I would have to say the outcome will be the same. We respond massively and wipe you out.”

He smiled. “You wish. You wish we will believe that. In fact, you think we fully understand that, and because we are quacking…”

“Quaking…”

“…in our boots, we will be good little boys. Church, don’t be foolish, don’t think we don’t know you will never intercept all of our missiles. And we know you know. A few will get through. Maybe only one will make it. All it takes is one megaton. When it explodes, you will lose a city. Not part of a city, but an entire city, all of it, city center and suburbs, bars, parks, schools, whatever. And when that happens, your grand country will dissolve into panic. You know that.”

“Is that a threat? It isn’t credible. You can loft all the missiles you want, that doesn’t prove they can fly to Los Angeles, or Chicago, or New York. And even if they do, you don’t have the warheads that will go the distance.”

“You don’t think so? Your President is willing to gamble on that, even this President? And what if next year we launch a test flight all the way into the Pacific, full range. How confident will you be after that? After we destroy your bases in South Korea and Japan, and we tell you to leave us alone, we realize you won’t like it, but you won’t gamble. You dare not, because we mean what we say. If we see anything coming at us, we won’t hesitate. And deep down, you know that.”

“Guam. You can’t touch Guam. It’s well defended and will be prepared after they see what has happened in South Korea. We have strategic bombers based in Guam. They are only a few hours away from Pyongyang. They’ll be in the air as soon as you do anything against us in South Korea.”

O raised an eyebrow. “Guam.” He pointed at the black book. “I think it’s filed under ‘d’ for ‘drones.’”

“What if we really believe you’ll launch an ICBM at us first, without warning?”

“Then you’ll be looking in the wrong direction. That’s good. Actually, now that I think of it, we should be plumping the idea. Misdirection, always a good deception tactic.”

I sat quiet for a moment. “Tell me you’re not serious about this. It still doesn’t make sense. Why do this? Why risk everything? Why cause so much destruction? For what?”

“You are a menace, not you personally. Your country, you are suffocating mankind, and much of the world has had enough of that. And you are keeping our country divided.”

“Reunification? I thought you had given up on that.”

“Not what we said, Church. Read what we said again.”

“How does destroying the South help reunification?”

“No one is talking about destroying the South. That would be stupid. We’re not stupid.”

I sat back. “So what happens now, Inspector? What if I still don’t believe you?”

“Church,” he put the black notebook back in his briefcase, then the book, “you’ll believe what you want to believe. Like Caesar said, “Fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt.”

“How would you know what Caesar said?”

“Been around the block, bud. Well, I can’t sit and palaver.” He stood up and motioned the waiter over. “Next time it’s on me, Church. Keep your chowder dry.”

“Powder,” I said, but he had already disappeared.