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Recent statements by the State Department indicate a serious reinterpretation of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty is underway. Officials in the current administration seem to believe that providing Taiwan with nuclear weapons would not be a breech of the treaty which has been honored by the United States (and 189 other nations) since 1970, and is considered a cornerstone of international nuclear peace efforts.

China meanwhile has stated that it will not tolerate a nuclear Taiwan, and that it will consider any attempt to arm Taiwan as an act of war. The Red Army is on alert and the Chinese fleet is operating feverishly.

Are we going to provoke China into starting World War III? Is the United States trying to provoke a nuclear conflict? Are the destabilizing nukes coming from behind these gates?

A car honked. Angi, startled, dropped the flyer into her lap. She realized her heart was pounding. The Marine at the gate was waving her forward, looking annoyed at her for holding up the line.

• • •

Two cars behind her in that line was Captain Mario Soldato. He saw Angi’s Honda, but Angi did not see him, and he prayed silently that the commotion would not cause her to turn around and spot him. Angi was smart, very intuitive, and knew him well; if she saw him, she would see the worry in his eyes and that would make her worry. He turned around and glared at the lieutenant in the minivan who was leaning on his horn; the junior officer, noting the four stripes on Mario’s shoulder boards, quickly let up.

Mario had taken a rare afternoon off to spend with Cindy and her sister Sue Ellen, who’d flown in from South Carolina, where her husband, a Marine, had just made colonel. The two sisters were intensely competitive about their husband’s careers, and they both were enjoying the fact that their husbands had made O-6, held command, and were now assured not only of decent pensions, but of having served complete, fulfilled careers. Mario took pleasure in the sisters’ conversations, who in a very old-fashioned, southern way, regarded their husband’s military successes as their own. He’d met them for lunch at The Keg, in Bremerton.

“Tom’s boys are in charge of security at the sub base,” said Sue Ellen.

“That’s an important support role,” said Mario.

“Stop it,” said Cindy, slapping his hand as he laughed.

“Anyway…” Sue Ellen continued, laughing at the joke. “While one of those boats was deployed, it seems one of the young enlisted wives took up with one of Tom’s Marines.”

“Oh my.”

“They were very serious, and when the boat finally came back, after a six month Westpac, as you can imagine this young sailor was distraught.”

“I would think,” said Mario.

“So the captain of this boat, Mario, you might know him, Mark Procopius?”

“I do know him…”

Sue Ellen rolled on, not interested in the details. “So this Captain Procopius schedules a meeting with Tom, to tell him about the whole thing, how distraught this sailor is. And you know what Tom tells him?”

“I can only imagine.”

“He says, ‘Captain, I can understand why you’re upset, but I can’t be responsible for every Navy wife in Charleston who decides she’d rather be with a United States Marine!”

Cindy launched into a defense of the attractiveness of submariners when his cell phone rang.

“Soldato.”

“Captain, this is Bushbaum. We’ve got another flash message from 731.”

As his Chief of Staff explained, Soldato felt a stab of guilt, not for the first time, about being on shore duty, and for taking a half day away from the pier, as if trouble at sea was somehow his fault. Disaster had again befallen Alabama, and this time, someone had died: that’s all he knew, all that could be communicated on the unsecure cell phone that he always carried, and even that message was spoken in military jargon that was impenetrable to outsiders. He hung up without saying goodbye, and stood.

“Gotta go,” he said.

Cindy turned her head so he could kiss her cheek. She resumed her conversation with her sister before Soldato was gone, unshaken by his sudden departure. She’d been a navy wife too long to ever assume a full meal together was a guarantee.

He sped to the gate where the protestors and added security were slowing him down. He tried hard to control his temper at the two disparate groups that were holding him up, the earnest Marines with their clipboards and inspection mirrors, and the protestors with their glazed eyes, sandals, and smudged pamphlets. He declined to accept one when they came to his window. He actually had a lot in common with the protestors, it occurred to him. Like the protestors, Mario had spent hours worrying about the US, China, and Taiwan. But his concerns at the moment were far more immediate.