Since everyone was now looking—awkwardly, guiltily—at Willem, he felt it made sense to speak up. “The great question of our time is no longer whether climate change is happening but what to do about it. The right wing has recently snapped around to a hardline pro-geoengineering stance. Since then we’re seeing hints that Shell and other oil companies are going to follow their lead. It has been made obvious to me personally during the last few weeks that China is providing covert support to those political actors in our country who advocate aggressive deployment of geoengineering schemes such as what is going on in West Texas. The disaster at the Maeslantkering can only strengthen their hand politically. I can’t imagine what it’s like right now to be Ruud Vlietstra.”
“Since you mention the prime minister,” said the defense minister, “I have some news, which none of you will have seen because we are in a SCIF and our phones don’t work. As of—” She glanced up at the twenty-four-hour clock on the wall. “Literally ten minutes ago I am the
“Has Ruud been briefed on all this?” asked the woman from counterintelligence, rattling her copy of the Dyson paper. “Does he know he was—we were—set up?”
“Yes,” said the now ex–defense minister. “But it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t help to know.”
“So there will be a new government,” Willem said. “Forming it might take months. The parties such as the Greens who are on the record as anti-geoengineering are likely to be shut out. Because the electorate will now be calling for strong measures. That means that Martijn van Dyck and his lot will probably be in. It’s just arithmetic.”
Heads turned toward Simon, who studiously ignored them. It was up to the Dutch people to work out among themselves what it all meant for them.
“Getting back to the question of motive,” said Janno, “China—obviously this is all China—has spent a little bit of money and taken some modest risks and claimed the scalp of the Dutch government.”
“Probably the British government as well,” said Simon. “Things are headed in that direction.”
Janno nodded. “The next governments of both those countries are likely to be pro-geoengineering to a degree that would have made them politically radioactive until a few days ago. In Texas, T.R. McHooligan has achieved a similar result, transforming the conversation around geoengineering by simply doing it. What does all this mean for China? It means that they can go on fueling their economy with coal and suppress its nastier side effects with geoengineering schemes of their own, while enjoying political cover from several countries in the West that might otherwise have raised a fuss. Good value for the money, if you ask me.”
THE LINE OF ACTUAL CONTROL
The easiest way for the Chinese to retreat was up the valley toward the glacier, which is what they did. Following them, and pushing the Line of Actual Control in that direction, wasn’t the smart move from an overall strategic perspective. The smart move was to ignore them and instead advance east up the slope of the ridge on the formerly Chinese side of the valley. The Line could thereby be fixed, at least for the winter’s duration, in a more defensible spot. Besides which, stats-wise, it would add a larger number of hectares to India at China’s expense. It was a way of running up the score. So as soon as they got things sorted at the barracks and made a quick count of who was injured and who was fit to keep going, they began to climb. Laks, who had borrowed snowshoes from one of the School who had suffered a broken cheekbone, led the advance. Spreading out to his left and right were his stick fighters, his rock throwers, his irregulars, a dozen survivors of the barracks siege, and various supporters and streamers. They were, at the moment, the living human embodiment of the Line. And the only thing that was holding back the Line’s advance was snow, an uphill slope, and a lack of oxygen consequent to being at six thousand meters above sea level. But as Laks had discovered on that first exhausting climb up the Rohtang Pass, you just had to not stop. Just keep putting one foot ahead of the other. If you then had to pause and gasp in ten breaths, so be it.
He knew perfectly well that the Gurkhas could have scampered past him and beaten him to the top, but they politely refrained from doing so. Instead they spent their oxygen exchanging war stories from this morning and laughing. So Laks got there first, unless you counted the three video drones from competing Indian television networks hovering up there to record the planting of the flag.
