Clive Cussler - Flood Tide

“Mr. President, Admiral James Sandecker and Commander Rudi Gunn.”

The President gave the impression of being older than he was. He looked sixty-five but was still in his late fifties. The premature gray hair, red veins streaming through his facial skin, the beady eyes that always seemed reddened, inspired political cartoonists often to caricature him as a wino, when in fact he rarely drank anything more than an occasional glass of beer. He was an intense man with a round face and low forehead and thin eyebrows. He was the consummate politician. Within days of replacing his ailing boss, no decision regarding his lifestyle or the state of the union was made without considering the potential for gathering votes for his run for office in the next election.

Dean Cooper Wallace would not become one of Sandecker's favorite presidents. It was no secret that Wallace detested Washington and refused to play the required social games. He and the Congress pulled in harness together like a lion and a bear, both wanting to eat the other. He was not an intellectual, but was adept at cutting deals and acting on intuition. Since replacing the man who had been duly elected, he had quickly surrounded himself with aides and advisers who shared his distrust of the entrenched bureaucracy and were always looking for innovative ways to circumvent tradition.

The President extended his free hand while still holding the coffee cup. “Admiral Sandecker, a pleasure to finally meet you.”

Sandecker involuntarily blinked. The President's grip was anything but hardy, not what he expected from a politician who pressed flesh year in and year out. “Mr. President. I hope this will be only the first of many times we meet face-to-face.”

“I expect so, since the prognosis for my predecessor is not good for a full recovery.”

“I'm sorry to hear it. He is a good man.” Wallace did not reply. He merely nodded at Gunn, acknowledging his presence, as Laird continued playing host. The chief of staff took the admiral by the arm and led him over to the three men standing in front of a gas fire that burned in a stone fireplace.

“Duncan Monroe, commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and his executive associate commissioner for field operations, Peter Harper.” Monroe had a tough, no-nonsense look about him. Harper seemed as if he melted into the bookcase behind him. Laird turned to the third man. “Admiral Dale Ferguson, commandant of the Coast Guard.” “Dale and I are old friends,” said Sandecker. A large ruddy man with a ready smile, Ferguson gripped Sandecker by the shoulder. “Good to see you, Jim.”

“How are Sally and the kids? I haven't seen them since we took that cruise together around Indonesia.”

“Sally is still saving the forests, and the boys are wiping out my pension with their college expenses.” Impatient with the small talk, the President gathered them all around a conference table and kicked off the meeting. “I apologize for asking you to leave your beds on a rainy night, but Duncan has brought to my attention a crisis that is exploding on our doorstep that involves illegal immigration. I'm counting on you gentlemen to come up with a viable program to cut the flow of aliens, particularly the Chinese who are being smuggled across our shorelines in vast numbers.”

Sandecker raised his eyebrows, puzzled. “I can certainly see, Mr. President, where INS and the Coast Guard fit into the picture, but what does unlawful immigration have to do with the National Underwater and Marine Agency? Our work is based on underwater research. Chasing down Chinese smugglers is out of our territory.”

“We're in dire need of any source that can help us,” said Duncan Monroe. “With congressional budget cuts, INS is overstretched far beyond our capacity. Congress appropriated a sixty-percent increase in INS border-patrol agents, but provided no funds for expanding our investigations division. Our entire department has only eighteen hundred special agents to cover the entire United States and foreign investigations. The FBI has eleven hundred agents in New York City alone. Here in Washington twelve hundred Capitol police patrol an area that is measured in city blocks. Simply put, there are nowhere near enough INS criminal investigative assets to put a dent in the flow of illegal immigrants.”

“Sounds like you're operating with an army of patrolmen on the beat but few detectives to back them up,” said Sandecker.

“We fight a losing battle as it is with illegals pouring across our border with Mexico, many who come from as far away as Chile and Argentina,” Monroe continued. “We might as well hold back ocean surf with kitchen sieves. People-smuggling has grown into a multibillion-dollar industry that rivals arms and drug smuggling. Moving human cargo in an underworld apathetic to borders and political ideologies, people-smuggling will be the major crime of the twenty-first century.”

Harper inclined his head. “To make matters worse, large-scale alien smuggling from the People's Republic of China is reaching epidemic proportions. Smugglers, with the blessing and support of their government, who are looking to decrease their tremendous population any way they can, have launched a program to export tens of millions of their people to every corner of the globe, especially to Japan, the U.S. and Canada, Europe and South America. Strange as it sounds, they're even infiltrating the whole of Africa from Capetown to Algiers.”

Harper continued for his boss. “The smuggling syndicates have organized a complex labyrinth of transportation routes. Air, sea, and land are all used to smuggle human cargo. Over forty advanced staging and dispersion areas have been set up throughout Eastern Europe, Central America and Africa.”

“The Russians are especially hard hit,” added Monroe. “They see massive, uncontrolled migration of Chinese nationals into Mongolia and Siberia as a threat to their security. The intelligence directorate of the Russian Defense Ministry has warned their leaders that Russia is on the verge of losing its Far Eastern territories because the flow of Chinese is already accounting for a greater part of the population in the region.”

“Mongolia is already a lost cause,” said the President. “Russia has allowed her power base to slip through her fingers. Siberia is next.”

As if reading lines from a play, Harper chimed in again. “Before Russia forfeits her ports in the Pacific, with rich deposits of gold, oil and gas, all vital for her entry into the exploding Asia-Pacific economy, her president and his parliament may out of desperation declare war on China. That would make for an impossible situation for the United States to choose sides.”

“There is also another cataclysm in the making,” said the President. “The gradual takeover of eastern Russia is only the tip of the iceberg. The Chinese think in the long term. Besides the impoverished peasants being rounded up and loaded aboard ships, a great many migrants are by no means poor. Many have the financial means to buy property and launch businesses in whichever country they settle. Given enough time this can lead to enormous changes in political and economic influence, particularly if their culture and loyalty remain tied to the mother country.”

“If the tide of Chinese migration goes unchecked,” said Laird, “there is no predicting the enormous upheaval the world will experience in the next hundred years.”

“It sounds to me like you're implying the People's Republic of China is engaged in a Machiavellian scheme to take over the world,” said Sandecker.

Monroe nodded. “They're in it up to their necks. China's mass of humanity is growing by twenty-one million people a year. Their population of one-point-two billion represents twenty-two percent of the world's total people. Yet their land area is only seven percent. Starvation is a fact of life over there. Laws enacted to allow couples only one child to slow the birthrate are a drop in the bucket. Poverty breeds children despite threats of prison. China's leaders see illegal immigration as a simple and inexpensive solution to their population problem. By literally licensing criminal syndicates that specialize in smuggling, they capitalize on both ends of the spectrum. The profits can be nearly as high as trafficking in drugs, and they decrease the numbers of those who drain their economy.”