Never by Ken Follett
Ken Follett has written 26 books, including several multi-volume epics that trace the development of characters and the history of the world over time. The last of his writings that I read was his take on the 20th century, beginning with World War 1 and ending with Barack Obama’s election in 2008. This history was chronicled in three books, Fall of Giants, Winter of the World, and The Edge of Eternity.
Never is very different from much of Follett’s recent output. It takes place over a few months in the near future and traces the geopolitical implications of several country’s actions and activities around the world.
The book is organized based on DEFCON levels. DEFCON stands for defense readiness level, ranging from 1 (the lowest level) to 5 (the highest) – meaning war is probable.
The story begins in Chad, a poor, politically unstable country in Central Africa. China has taken an interest in helping the country build major water transport projects. The US also provides aid.
Tamara Levit is a US state department employee in N’Djamena, the capital of Chad. She’s really with the CIA and, as the book opens, she’s meeting an informant – Abdul – who is trying to track down a major terrorist leader, al-Farabi. She finds Abdul although he is heavily disguised as a cigarette vendor. He is definitely CIA. Abdul is Lebanese but his family moved to the US when he was very young, right after his sister was killed by a terrorist bomb.
Abdul tells Tamara that he thinks that he has found the village where al-Farabi is hiding while running a lucrative cocaine sales ring to finance terrorism. It turns out that this wasn’t the right village but there were lots of important ISIS members there that were taken down by the locals.
Kiah is a young local single mother with a three-year old son, Naji. Her husband was killed a few months ago and she desperately wants to leave Chad and get to France. She has some money from selling her husband's herd of cows and she’s looking to find someone to take her to the Mediterranean Sea and then to Europe. Tamara stops at her village for water and the two meet. Kiah asks Tamara all about life in the US and gets motivated about leaving Chad.
Tamara develops various sources in Chad and she has a lot of meetings where she identifies herself by wearing a certain scarf. There's a lot of Spycraft 101 in the book.
Pauline Green is president of the United States. She is a centrist Republican who was elected for being reasonable - low-risk foreign policy, low-key government, basic fairness. She is facing a tough primary opponent, a Trump-type Republican who is strong on bombast and weak on facts. She has a teenage daughter, Pippa, and a husband, Gerry, who may be wandering away from the marriage. Her vice president, Milton Lapierre, is very conservative and not especially bright, but she needed him on the ticket to win.
During a briefing, President Green learns that China and North Korea are the source of the terrorist’s weaponry in their attempt to destabilize countries.
Back in Chad, Tamara learns from an informant that jihadis are going to threaten people crossing the main bridge between Chad and its neighbor, Cameroon. She tells the local US military leader, Colonel Susan Marcus, about the tip, and the two of them, along with a group of Army soldiers, go to the bridge to check things out.
Once they get there, they notice a lot of suspicious-looking men who may be hiding rifles under their robes. They are, and they start shooting. The Army crew fights back. Tamara aced sharpshooting in CIA school and she kills the terrorist who was shooting at her.
Her killing a person, even a terrorist shooting at her, has upset her. She is dating Tab, a French diplomat. The shooting brings them closer together. There’s a lot of romance in the book, intertwined with rocket assaults and ambushes. Some of it seems to be just thrown in, perhaps to widen the book’s appeal. This is a much mushier work than any of the other Ken Follett books that I have read.
Chang Kai is a high-level Chinese diplomat in Beijing, whose father is an even higher-level diplomat. Dad is a classic hard-liner. He believes that all options, including nuclear war, should be on the table to advance China’s interests. Kai is much more moderate. He’s in charge of developing good relationships with emerging countries as China forms new alliances as it works to increase its global influence. Kai’s wife, Ting, is a famous Chinese television star and they lead a celebrity life. Ting is pretty outspoken in criticizing some aspects of communist rule. She’s not political. It’s just that some of the rules get in the way of her lifestyle. Kai has to use his influence to get her out of trouble with the party leadership.
Kiah is still in the village but she is looking for a way out. An attractive woman drops by the town square and announces that a fancy restaurant in a nearby city is hiring waitresses and paying them really well. Several local girls, including Kiah, are interested and decide to take the offer. She can bring her son along; daycare is provided.
It turns out that the “waitresses” are actually prostitutes who provide sex for money to rich customers. The girls are well paid, but they’re basically hookers. Kiah refuses to have sex with the men and is sent home by her boss and told to take the night off but be ready to “work” tomorrow. The other girls from Kiah’s village are fine with their new jobs – they’re making more money than they ever dreamed of.
Kiah waits until the middle of the night and leaves with her son. She goes to the local fish wharf where someone from her village works. He helps her get back to her village. She has to get out of Chad.
The best way to get out of Chad is to pay a sketchy character, Hakim, who can get her to Europe. It’s very expensive. Kiah has the money from the sale of her husband’s herd, so she shows up at Hakim’s one-stop human smuggling bus for the trip. As it turns out, Abdul, Tamara’s CIA contact, is also on the bus because he found out that it is carrying millions of dollars’ worth of cocaine that will be used to finance terrorists. He needs to find out where it’s going. They are part of the terrorist network that he's trying to bring down. He senses that Kiah and her son might be vulnerable to abuse on the trip so he takes the seat next to her.
At a big US embassy party, Tamara flits about and gets information from various local sources she has developed. She learns that the president of Chad, known as the General, is upset about the ambush on the bridge. He thinks that it was organized by Sudan, his enemy. He wants revenge. Tamara also finds out that Chad has changed its mind on backing a US-sponsored UN resolution condemning China and North Korea for supplying weapons to terrorists. She learns that since China is paying for billions of dollars of major canal improvements in Chad, the country can’t support the resolution. Tamara is learning about real geopolitics.
Back in China, Kai is trying to figure out what to do about North Korea, which is bordering on the edge of instability. Supreme Leader Kang, the dictator who runs NK, is facing a starving populace and a military that is sensing his weakness. Kai has a high-level North Korean source who reports that increased American sanctions and a failed growing season have really made things dicey. Kai believes that China will help with the food shortage since the two countries are allies, but things could go wrong.
Another contact Kai relies on is an American, Neil Davidson, a China-based CIA operative. They help each other out as needed and provide a back channel for communications between the two superpowers. Neil reveals that the US is really unhappy that China and North Korea are arming terrorists. The tightened sanctions against North Korea are a warning shot to both countries to stop supplying guns and other armaments to bad guys.
Back in Washington, President Green learns that her vice president is sleeping with a 16-year old girl, not a good look. She has to get rid of him which she does. He resigns for “personal reasons” - so he can chase his young honey. The president is also having to deal with her teenage daughter who has been acting up in school. One problem with being president is that you don't have enough time to serve the country and take care of your family. A New York City tabloid had a headline calling the president’s daughter, Pippa, a pothead since she and a lot of her friends attended a party where weed was being ingested.
During this time, the president of Chad made an inflammatory speech accusing neighboring Sudan of doing all sorts of bad things. There were refugee camps in Chad full of people fleeing Sudan. One of Tamara’s sources hinted that if Sudan tried to grab people to return to Sudan that there would be a strong response from Chad. Naturally, there was a big battle which Chad won because the country had moved thousands of troops to guard the camps.
Back on the bus full of people who are desperate to get to Europe, Abdul protects Kiah from men who are pestering her. Abdul is starting to get suspicious of the whole get-out-of-Chad deal. The bus turned towards the east when it should have kept going north.
In North Korea, dissident army officers have taken over several military bases and demanded that the supreme leader step down. The country has a fuel shortage and is racked by starvation and so far NK’s ally, China, has not come through with food. Relief is supposedly on its way but you can’t eat “on the way”.
The North Korean crisis triggers a move from DEFCON 5 - lowest state of readiness - to DEFCON 4 - above normal readiness - by the US. This is not good.
Back in Washington, President Green has to deal with the new crisis as she is trying to figure out why her marriage is going south. Gerry, her husband, is growing distant. At an emergency meeting, we find out that the NK coup may have been triggered by our country’s tightening sanctions and cutting off fuel delivery to North Korea. China has stepped up and is delivering food and fuel, but the rebel soldiers still occupy several bases that have nuclear weapons. Green talks to Chinese Premier Chen to try to calm things down. During the conversation, she learns that the coup is spreading in North Korea. South Korean President No, a woman who is fanatical about reuniting the two Koreas, is getting nervous.
President Green’s primary opponent, Jim Moore, goes on friendly cable TV networks and says that the way to end the crisis is to nuke North Korea. His supporters love it.
Back in Africa, an American drone that was given to the Chad government is missing. Dexter, the CIA station chief and Tamara’s boss, assumes that it just crashed as they sometimes do. Tamara is nervous. The drone is a weapon that can inflict great damage.
The bus is still wandering along and stops for the night at a strange camp that has a bunch of permanent buildings. It’s a secret gold mine that is a massive pit. Abdul sees that terrorists are guarding some of the buildings which concerns him. He figures out that this is Hufra, which means “pit” in Arabic. Hufra is the home of al-Farabi. Abdul has accomplished his mission of finding the terrorist. Now he has to get the information out.
Abdul gets ready to get back on the bus but it isn’t there. The bus and the driver, Hakim, and the guards have taken off. The bus passengers are now slave labor to work the mine. The whole bus-to-freedom pitch was a scam to get free labor for the mine which provides steady revenue for the terrorist network. Men work to extract gold and the women are sex slaves for the guys in charge.
Back at the N’Djamena CIA station, Tamara is worried about the missing drone and Abdul, who hasn’t been heard from in two weeks. One of her informants tells her that the Sudanese are planning to assassinate the General (the president of Chad). She gets the message to the top of the command chain so the General is not in the car he was supposed to be in. A bomb does go off, killing a few people, but the General is safe.
Tamara’s boss, Dexter, is irritated at her for not coming to him with the news of the danger to the president. She skipped protocol because she found out about the plot right before it was supposed to happen. She didn't have enough time to go through the CIA hoops so she used her back channel to warn the president. It worked and the General was saved, but her boss keeps yelling at her anyway.
The next day the major oil depot in Sudan, Port Sudan, is on fire. After a while, the CIA folks figure out that the lost American drone, which was stolen by an anti-Sudan terrorist group, bombed the site and killed a hundred Chinese people who were living and working there. Kai and the Chinese diplomatic corps quickly figure out that an American-made drone did the damage. Kai calls Neil, the CIA guy who is his back channel operative, and finds out that the drone was stolen.
The Chinese brain trust, including President Chen, meet to discuss their response. The hardliners, including Kai’s father, want to sink an American battleship. Others point out that it’s unlikely that the US would be dumb enough to attack Chinese nationals. It probably was a rogue operation. The group decides to show pictures of some of the children who were killed in the bombing by an American drone, which will be a great propaganda victory. They also decide to sink a Vietnamese ship that was prospecting for oil in Chinese waters. There are American geologists on board.
Back in Washington, the president is outraged at the sinking which killed two Americans and dozens of Vietnamese. But one of her advisors points out that the sinking is retaliation for the fact that an American drone killed many Chinese so she calms down. She calls Chinese President Chen and they calm things down, but there is distrust on both sides.
Kiah and Abdul are settling into their roles as slaves in the gold mining camp. Each day, one of the workers keels over and dies and is buried along with the countless others who have died. Abdul, who is planning to steal a car and escape at night, sees al-Farabi, the big deal terrorist leader, who has shown up for a meeting. So far Kiah has managed to avoid being sent to the whore hut, but her luck runs out when al-Farabi’s companion decides that he wants to have her. Abdul has to figure out how to take Kiah and her son with him.
Abdul sneaks into the brothel in the middle of the night and gets Kiah and her son out. She has not been summoned by the guy who likes her, a good thing for her virtue. Abdul kills a guard, grabs the key, and steals a Mercedes which he fills up with gas from another car. Before he and Kiah leave, he sprays gas all over the other parked cars and is confronted by another guard who he knocks out just while Kiah uses a cigarette lighter she got from Abdul – his cover identity is cigarettes salesman – and lights up the cars. They’re off as the mining camp explodes into flame.
Soon after Abdul leaves, CIA helicopters swoop in and take over the mining camp. Abdul used a secret satellite phone he had to tell his handlers where Al-Farabi was. Tamara is in on the raid and she panics because she can’t find Abdul, who has of course escaped.
In China, Kai’s North Korean contact confirms that the rebels are expanding the territory that they hold, despite the assurances of Supreme Leader Kang that he had crushed the rebellion. The rebels are rapidly heading towards South Korea, which makes everyone nervous because the South Korean President No is a bit nuts herself.
The Chinese president’s leadership team is trying to figure out what to do to calm things down on the Korean peninsula. North Korea just sank a South Korean boat and things are getting dicey. The Chinese and South Koreans know that the NK supreme leader will shoot nukes off with very little provocation so they have to be careful. Kai and his colleagues sit down with the North Korean ambassador to try to work out a deal. They threaten to cut off Chinese support of North Korea if the country doesn't agree to negotiating with the insurgents. The ambassador leaves in a huff, so there’s little likelihood that negotiations will happen.
The US goes to DEFCON 3 – increase in force readiness.
South Korea blows up a North Korean sub that may have been spying or may just have gotten lost and wandered into SK waters. North Korea temporarily cripples US forces in South Korea with a cyberattack. The US decides not to retaliate.
North Korea shoots missiles at two cities in South Korea, probably in retaliation for having their sub sunk. Two of six hit their targets, killing dozens of people and doing massive damage to buildings. President Green and her brain trust decided that this was a restrained strike. She calls for a peace conference between NK, SK, China and the US. Her primary opponent, Jim Moore, disdains the conference as a sign of weakness. He would nuke North Korea. He is a manly man.
Abdul, Kiah, and Naji (her son) are in Tripoli, Libya, at an inn, lying low. Abdul looks at the news for the first time in days and sees that South Korea launched cruise missiles at the North Korean base that had sent missiles to South Korea, further escalating the conflict. Despite what’s going on in the world, he has to figure out how to get Kiah to France.
Tamara and Tab, a French diplomat who is her boyfriend, have been sent to Tripoli to talk to Abdul. They congratulate Abdul on a job well done, He still wants to track down the cocaine. He put tiny transmitters into the bags of coke so he should be able to find them. Tamara convinces him that he’s done enough. Abdul asks her for passports and transit to Paris for Kiah and her son. She can do that.
NK Supreme Leader Kang is being boxed in, a bad thing. Chinese diplomat Kai and Neill, his CIA contact, discuss the situation. Kai learns that President No did not consult with the US before the missile strikes, a big No-No of protocol between supposed allies. Kai believes that this can still be worked out if President No stops attacking North Korea. Neill will get that message to the US president but is not sure that anyone can control what’s going on in Korea.
President Green and Chinese President Chen speak. He wants her assurance that US troops will not move against North Korea. She can’t promise that but will try to keep them in place.
North Korea continues to shell and attack South Korea, killing some Americans in the attacks. President Green is back in touch with President Chen to propose a cease fire. He is skeptical and says that Green has to get President No to OK it. That won’t happen. The South Korean president sees this as a chance to eliminate the government of North Korea and reunite the country. There is no cease fire or peace conference.
South Korea is winning the war, which makes sense since North Korea is a splintered country being run by the supreme leader and the rebels. This concerns China, North Korea’s ally. Kai and his fellow diplomats propose a peace conference between the warring factions. The supreme leader agrees, but the rebel leader doesn’t.
Next, the supreme leader, who is getting desperate, unleashes poisonous chemical weapons on South Korean cities and a US Army base. Many people die horribly, including 500 American soldiers on the base. Another 5,000 Americans in Korea were injured in the attack.
We’re at DEFCON 2 – now one step from nuclear war. The only time the alert level was this high was during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.
President Green has to do something against North Korea but she wants to avoid war with China, NK’s ally. In China, the younger diplomats like Kai are counseling President Chen not to support the supreme leader. He’s gone too far this time. The old hawks just want to nuke South Korea and the other American bases in the country.
The US could bomb North Korea or send troops to take out the supreme leader but those actions would cause a major war when China came to North Korea’s defense. Another option would be to use strategic bombing to take out military targets and warships with no active troop involvement. The attack begins and takes out much of the NK military.
Back in China, President Chen’s advisory group is debating what to do. They decide to try to convene a meeting between the supreme leader and the NK rebels. Kai is sent to negotiate with Jan Pak, the rebel leader, who agrees to talk and expects to be named the new leader of North Korea. Kai is delighted. Things might be calming down.
But no. North Korea bombs several Japanese cities and US military bases. Kai talks to his CIA contact, Neill, and assures him that the Chinese are installing the rebel leader as the new head of state for NK. The supreme leader will be gone.
President Chen assures Japanese President Ishikawa that China had nothing to do with the North Korean attack and is removing the supreme leader from power. Ishikawa is calm, which surprised Kai. It turns out that the Japanese president and the US know that South Korea has started to invade North Korea, preempting a peaceful transfer of power by the Chinese to the North Korea rebels. Soon the South Korean military forces overrun Pyongyang, the NK capital.
The North Korean government that was led by the supreme leader and fired missiles at Japan is out of business. Now the Japanese have no reason to go after North Korea; it doesn’t exist. Since NK is not available for revenge, the Japanese send a submarine to drop troops off on a small island in the Sea of Japan that is claimed by the Chinese.
At first the Chinese are willing to ignore the Japanese being on their island until they see a video shot from a drone that shows the Japanese soldiers mocking China. Now Chinese President Chen, who has been a voice of reason so far, is deeply offended. He orders that the Japanese troops be wiped out and they are bombed into oblivion as they are eating lunch.
That triggers DEFCON 1 - nuclear war is imminent or has begun.
By wiping out the troops on the island, the Chinese attacked Japan. Japan has a defense treaty with the United States. An attack on Japan is an attack on the United States. The US has to retaliate, preferably in a way that doesn't cause nuclear war. President Green’s advisors decide to sink a Chinese aircraft carrier that is off the coast of Japan. There are 2,500 sailors on the carrier who drown when the president orders the strike.
The whizzes in the White House War Room figure that, since we have more nukes than China, they will not go nuclear in retaliation. Of course, the country has 300 nuclear missiles which is enough to wipe out the US ten times over. We have 1,000 missiles which is enough to obliterate China 30 times over.
Back in Korea, although the South Koreans occupy the North Korean capital, the rebels still occupy a lot of territory and have nuclear missiles. They decide to launch a missile at Seoul with its ten million people. Nuclear war has begun.
President Green wants to eliminate the rebels who have the nukes but the Chinese have made it clear that an American attack on North Korea is an attack on China.
Right about now, the president’s husband, Gerry announces that he's in love with one of their daughter Pippa’s teachers and wants a divorce. President Green knew that something was going on for months so she’s not surprised. She has feelings for one of her aides so perhaps she can find new love if the country survives the crisis.
Enough romance. Back to trying to avoid nuclear war.
The rebels launch another nuclear missile, this time to wipe out South Korea’s second-largest city, Busan, with eight million people.
President Green orders a nuclear attack on every rebel-held base in North Korea. She assures China that she will not attack their territory.
In China, hard-liners are screaming that by attacking North Korea, America has attacked China. Kai and his colleagues who have been pushing for a muted response to any provocations are arrested on trumped-up charges. Kai’s father was one of the people who made up the accusations that led to his son’s going to prison. Nice father move. As a result, the war hawks have won. There are no moderate voices left in the conversation.
President Green and daughter Pippa head off to the secure bunker miles away from Washington; husband Gerry is otherwise occupied with his new girlfriend. Pauline Green calls Gerry and they discuss a few things about the break-up. In typical romance novel style, she thanks him for the good years, a classy move.
President Green calls President Chen to try to calm things down. It doesn’t work. He is in the hands of the old hard-liners and wants his revenge for the American nuclear attack on the rebel North Koreans who were shooting off nuclear missiles. The Chinese president says that any attack will be measured and limited.
China fires off a nuclear missile that wipes out Honolulu.
President Green orders full retaliation against China.
There goes the world.
The End.
Bob’s Take
This was a different kind of Ken Follett book. Unlike his sweeping historical novels, it takes place over a few months in the present. Never does have multiple characters in multiple locations, but everything is in real time. The book doesn’t have the epic sweep that characterizes most of his books.
Compared to Follett’s typical oeuvre, this book was short, only 800 pages. Most of his books are around 1,000 pages. Despite its length, Never was a fast read, especially if you speed-read the mushy stuff. I did not enjoy it as much as the many other Follett sagas that I have read over the years.
There is lots of romance, with much of it seeming gratuitous. In the middle of some tense situation, someone will start swooning about his/her true love honey. I don’t get it, but it might be that focus groups and market research indicated that adding romance would increase sales. Romance novels are the most popular of all books.
Was this an accidental war? The rebellion in North Korea started things moving and since the leaders of both North and South Korea were very flawed people with huge egos, things never could be figured out. One bad thing led to another. There were about a dozen key decision points in the book, where a different, more restrained response might well have de-escalated tension and brought things back to a low boil which is OK.
Two of the key people who escalated the situation were women, US President Green and South Korean President No. They each made decisions which led to catastrophic events. I’m not sure what to make of that, but I guess that women global leaders should have the same opportunities to make dumb decisions as do men.
Given what’s happening in Russia, the book is a bit scary. There is no Vladimir Putin in the narrative. Not one of the world leaders starts off choosing to invade a free country and wage a war that is totally unjustified. Things just sort of bounce downhill from one bad situation to another until we reach the unthinkable.
In a way, having to deal with a crazed leader like Putin is better than what happened in Never. The entire world knows what he is doing and how dangerous he is. Dozens of countries are working together to isolate him and Russia. That’s probably a more desirable geopolitical situation than the one in the book, which documents bad decisions by many leaders that fueled a slow crawl to chaos.
