Dragon Strike -- A Novel of the Coming War with China (Future History Book 1)
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With the shelter built Mr Wallace set about securing the room housing it. He closed the double doors, both of which were solid timber. The dining room had only one window. He painted its panes white — this might deflect the flash, although they would likely break if the bomb went off in Kent itself — and then set about bagging the window. After he'd done that he moved a cupboard to cover the bags. The last thing he did, before the period of waiting began, was to construct a makeshift lavatory. The BBC advice was to remove the seat from a dining chair and place a bucket, lined with a rubbish bin liner, underneath it. The three buckets with lids that Cathy had bought now had a use.
The Wallaces then began their wait. They sat outside their shelter, watching the BBC. They figured that once the TV went off they'd have time to get in the shelter.
SEVEN
The South China Sea
Local time: 1900 Thursday 22 February 2001
GMT: 1100 Thursday 22 February 2001
Throughout the day, Sea Harriers and Merlins had continued to strafe and destroy any Chinese ship they found on patrols. They were loaded with a mixture of Sidewinder missiles, American-made air-to-ground AS-16 Kickback missiles, specially designed for attacks on ships, together with anti-submarine Stingray torpedoes and depth charges. They destroyed a Ming submarine and sank a Yukan class LST which was reported to be carrying up to 200 troops. Most drowned.
Shortly before dark another Romeo struck, this time hitting the Australian frigate HMAS Parramatta near the bow. Five servicemen died, including an officer. Although the damage was contained, the frigate had been put out of action. The captain took her out of the battle area. The task force commander agreed to let HMAS Rankin escort her. Five hours later HMS Triumph destroyed the submarine believed to have carried out the attack.
`We expected more attacks at night,' wrote the captain of the Ark Royal. `Strangely there was nothing. We sailed at half speed because the Montrose was under repair. There was very little moonlight. We scanned for periscopes like they would have done in the Second World War. I thought of them lying in wait, perhaps choosing not to fire in order to test our nerve. Our speed and our course were irrelevant. Our task lay in maintaining our presence in these contested waters, although in truth it was hard to see why British and Chinese servicemen were dying over such barren and remote landfalls. I must discipline my mind not to retreat down such a perilous path. What of those oft-quoted remarks after British campaigns in places long ago abandoned by us only to return to poverty and tribal killings: that such and such a battle was a good one to have on the CV? Perhaps 22 February 2001, the naval battle for the Spratly Islands, will also be good for our careers.'
Chinese South Sea Fleet, Naval Headquarters, Zhanjiang
Local time: 2100 Thursday 22 February 2001
GMT: 1300 Thursday 22 February 2001
The Vietnamese mission was to destroy China's ability to launch an attack. To complete the objective, Vietnam's own air force would be shredded. Casualties would be high. The international press would call it suicide. But it wasn't; this was how Vietnam had fought all its modern wars and won. The targets were the Chinese troops, artillery, and armour positions gathered along a 300 kilometre stretch of border; the Su-27 fighter base at Yulin on Hainan Island; the nearby submarine base at Sanya; and a return sortie to the headquarters of the Chinese South Sea Fleet, the Zhanjiang Naval Base. This forward command post for Dragonstrike was located on the east side of the Luichow Peninsula, which formed the dividing line between the South China Sea and the Gulf of Tonking.
The attackers did not expect to find any significant Chinese naval assets in port — they were either at the bottom of the South China Sea or patrolling parts of that great waterway beyond the control of the American, Japanese, and British navies. No. Their objective was the fuel dumps to the north of the dock and what had become known as the `Russian quarter'. This was a group of low-rise buildings on the east side of the dock which housed Russian technical advisers (and families) and equipment.
Overnight, aircraft had been flown back from their refuges in Cambodia and Laos to military airstrips near Hanoi. The task of attacking Zhanjiang went to the pilots of a single squadron of twelve MiG-21 fighters. They headed due east, flying at 45 metres, too low to show up on Chinese radar. They would not be identified until they managed to make Chinese landfall: but the Chinese were expected to deploy their Su-27s and the MiGs would need to use all their countermeasures. The cover of night would help. Vietnamese pilots were more experienced fliers than their Chinese counterparts, who spent most of their training practising daytime missions.
The Vietnamese battle plan called for the squadron to divide into two parts. The first, consisting of five aircraft, would take out the oil installation. The resultant fire, it was calculated, would be helpful for the second part of the mission — the attack on the Russian quarter. The MiG-21s made landfall at 2114 and were immediately subjected to anti-aircraft fire in a continuous curtain from fixed installations along the coast to the naval base. But it was not aimed fire and the aircraft got through. Within minutes a squadron of Su-27s intercepted them before they began their bombing run on the oil installation. But this was where the Vietnamese showed their mettle. Also they were wearing night-vision intensification goggles and the Chinese were not. Flying at night can be a nerve-racking business at the best of times, but when you're making sharp turns while at the same time diving or climbing or rolling figuring out which way is up is often difficult. Two Chinese pilots lost their lives that night as they slammed their aircraft into hills after becoming disoriented and losing ground reference. The MiGs also hit three other Su-27s, but not before one of the MiGs was also hit.
They began the bomb run, seeing at night through the intensification goggles. The oil bunkers were close to the waterfront and extended over a large area. A direct hit on any one of the ten massive tanks might ignite the rest. The first MiG-21 to attempt an attack just exploded under a hail of well-aimed radar-directed ground fire. The second was hit badly, but at least the pilot had time to eject. The third aircraft scored a direct hit on an oil tank. The fireball that resulted shot 150 metres into the air, and adjacent tanks started to catch fire. All around, massive explosion followed massive explosion. The silhouette of the Shell New World could be seen against a wall of flame. The four remaining MiGs turned to complete their mission.
The attack on the oil bunker had lasted not quite five minutes, but that was enough time for the Russian technicians and scientists to look for cover. Except there was none. The MiGs -- each equipped with a high-explosive bomb set to burst in the air, as well as air-to-ground missiles, and cannon -- turned to begin their run. An Su-27, flying straight towards them, launched two air-to-air missiles. The pilot of the lead MiG did not even have time to press his ejector seat button before he was hit. His comrades kept to their course. The three of them managed to drop their bombs. These were not laser-guided smart bombs, but they did their work. The Russian quarter was reduced to rubble as the buildings collapsed. Eighty-five Russians lost their lives -- mostly women and children. The mission was a success -- both targets had been hit and the Vietnamese air force had five MiGs left.
The airbase at Yulin was deserted. All available Chinese aircraft were deployed over the South China Sea or in defence of Zhanjiang. Vietnam sent its own small Su-27 squadron into the main Chinese forward base for Dragonstrike. They flew fast and low through anti-aircraft fire, cratering the runway, and destroying the control tower, three IL-76 refuelling aircraft, and radar installations. Returning Chinese aircraft had to be diverted to the civilian airfield at Haikou, where there were no engineers or ordnance to turn them round for another attack. The Vietnamese attack on Yulin crippled the Chinese fighter force for long enough to give them clear skies for their two remaining targets. Climbing straight up from the attack on Yulin, the Vietnamese pilots hit the Sanya submarine base. With rockets and cannon fire they cut communications and started a series of small fires. One Romeo cl
ass submarine was destroyed and sunk. Another was hit. Just as swiftly, the squadron, still without casualties, pulled away and headed back across the border to Hanoi. At the same time thirty-four Vietnamese fighters, bombers, and attack aircraft struck at Chinese positions on the border. Amid scenes reminiscent of American carpet bombing during the Vietnam War, the whole stretch of border lit up as airbursts and cluster bomblets combed the jungle where the Chinese artillery and troops were hidden. It was only on the second run that the Chinese guns jumped to defend the tens of thousands of troops massed there. The Vietnamese aircraft took casualties, losing twelve in the second run before the anti-aircraft artillery had been damaged, and another five in the third when fewer guns were firing. But as they pulled up and flew away the Chinese positions were in chaos, and command and discipline had broken down. The full extent of the casualties was never known. China said 600 men had been killed or wounded. Military satellite photographs suggested that the figure could have been as high as 4,000. There was no real cover.
All the attention had been on a ground assault into Vietnam and the Military Committee had decreed that the enemy air force had been eliminated. They were taken by surprise by the weight and accuracy of the attack. The airbursts and cluster bomblets killed any exposed personnel and damaged everything but heavily armoured vehicles. President Wang himself ordered the attack on Vietnam halted.
CNN Studios, Atlanta
Local time: 0830 Thursday 22 February 2001
GMT: 1330 Thursday 22 February 2001
`Certainly nobody in this country has taken civil defence seriously for God knows how long, for twenty-five years, at least. It was recognized by most people that civil defence was kind of a silly idea, given the kind of thing it was supposed to protect against.' The broadcast was live from the University of Michigan in Chicago. The deep baritone voice was that of Edward Stone, the sixty-one-year-old veteran editor of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. In the past day the hands of the magazine's fabled Atomic Clock had moved from nineteen minutes to just one minute to midnight, exactly the same spot it had been during the Cuban missile crisis with the Soviet Union in the sixties. Midnight signified the hour of the holocaust.
`It seemed possible to protect people in cities to some degree in fallout shelters,' Stone continued, `by taking simple measures like ducking under tables or desks if you saw a flash, or ducking behind a tree or into a ditch if you were outside. But it was only when the possibility became dozens of nuclear weapons used against the US that things changed drastically. An all-out nuclear war as then planned by Moscow and Washington involved the exchange of thousands of nuclear weapons. It became pretty clear to most sensible people that civil defence against that kind of an onslaught would do no good. If you're in a city, and you're hit by a nuclear weapon, you're either going to be suffocated or burnt up or killed by the blast. Firestorms use up all the oxygen — you can't breathe. And the fallout itself doesn't go away after two weeks. You can't just magically get up out of your shelter and everything is fine and you go to the store and get some milk and resume your normal life. It just doesn't work that way.'
The anchor turned to Colonel David Blakeny of the Illinois National Guard. He had 10,000 troops under his command and spoke in clipped military sentences. `As far as nuclear attack goes, any military unit, through their normal training procedures, would have only a limited capability of reacting to that threat,' he said. `We can provide security, help with evacuation or rebuilding. We maintain a very low level of readiness. But through our day-to-day activities, and training, we could respond to that.'
`Respond, fine, Colonel,' pressed the presenter. `But how effective would that response be? Have your men been trained for a nuclear attack?'
`Negative. No drills for nuclear war preparedness have been performed by the Guard for years. There are three reasons. We did not want to scare the populace. Acting out a simulated attack would be expensive. And thirdly, during the Cold War, preparation of a nuclear strike was considered a hostile act by the enemy.'
The anchor interrupted: `You're telling me America is totally, I mean totally unprepared for this. Edward Stone, is this right?'
`We would respond in the same way as we do to any disaster. In the 1950s and 1960s the arms race ran out of control. We tried to stabilize it with the SALT 1 and ABM treaties in the seventies. The idea was to accept the concept of nuclear parity. Instead of one side always trying to get ahead of the other we would accept a situation, and they would accept a situation, where both sides had roughly equal forces. Each side could effectively destroy the other side, even if the other side struck first. In order to make Mutually Assured Destruction, or MAD, work, you had to make sure that neither side could protect its people or its forces. So from that perspective truly aggressive civil defence programmes would be seen as provocative. If the other side really began digging big, deep shelters and really equipping them, and acting like they were seriously beginning to protect their people, that would be seen as a provocation. It would be taken as evidence that they were planning something.'
The programme shifted to a live insert showing a street lined with palm trees in the Californian capital, Sacramento. Delia Murphy from the Department of Emergency Operations was waiting to go on air. The anchor explained how her department had responded to earthquakes, mud slides, floods, waste spills, race riots, and other disasters in recent years, but not nuclear attack.
`Until today, this hadn't weighed heavily on our minds,' said Murphy. `We did have air-raid shelters in the fifties and sixties, but they've been abandoned. None of the county shelters have been stocked. If we are hit by a nuclear missile, a lot of people will die from the first hit. There's no preparation for that kind of situation. Through the sixties the shelters were stocked with crackers, candies, and sanitation kits. But in 1984 we sold all that stuff off to the Third World countries. The last time people got worried was during the Gulf War in 1991. They would ask where the nearest shelter was. I had to joke with them. I recommended that they go to a McDonald's, because they store food in the basement.'
`What are the signs of panic where you are, Delia?' asked the anchor.
`There's been some looting. But pretty much, I think people are staying calm, listening to announcements, and looking after their families.'
`We have a response now from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA,' said the anchor. `They are very busy today preparing for something which we all hope will never happen. They are just confirming what we've all discovered in the past few minutes. Their federal initiatives and training programmes to assist American people during a nuclear holocaust were cut because of lack of funding. No one thought it would happen. Edward Stone, let me turn to you. I have a declassified intelligence document issued by Richard N. Cooper, Chairman of the National Intelligence Council. He says, and I quote: "China plans to update its ICBM force with new missiles and, unlike the Russians, to increase the number of missiles deployed. A possible future improvement is to include a mobile ICBM" d he says: "Many of China's long-range systems are probably aimed at the United States."
`Edward Stone, if we knew this was happening why didn't we do something about it?'
`Clearly we misjudged China's intentions and resolve. Until two days ago, I didn't know anybody outside of the wacko hard right who really believed that the Chinese would launch a missile attack against CONUS.'
`Excuse me, CONUS?'
`Continental United States. Sure we know China has the capability of hitting one or two west coast cities. They couldn't hit Chicago or Washington. But they could do some real damage in California. That makes us conscious about the Chinese. We would never go to war with them. What President wants to lose San Francisco or Los Angeles? So that makes us a little cautious. That's the way deterrence works. Our policy toward China seems to be pretty fragmented. But it is some sort of constructive engagement. China has a very small nuclear arsenal, of 400 to 500 missiles. Meantime, the US has more than 20,000 such weapons. But
if you're asking me to point out the flaws in our intelligence policy, I would have to say that we concentrated too much on the rogue states, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Korea, and always hoped that China would remain at least militarily neutral. Not so.'
`I would just like to add,' said Colonel Blakeny, `there would be millions injured in a nuclear attack. They won't be able to receive proper medical treatment immediately. There are only a few hundred intensive care hospital beds in the entire country, not enough to handle the horrendous influx of burn and radiation victims after a nuclear blast. I tell you now, if the leaders of China and America are unable to unwind this confrontation, there is nothing the National Guard of Illinois can do. We are heading towards a situation where the survivors would envy the dead.'
Wall Street, New York
Local time: 0845 Thursday 22 February 2001
GMT: 1345 Thursday 22 February 2001
Like the City of London a few hours before, Wall Street was pervaded by an eerie emptiness. Few employees had bothered to turn up for work. New York's subway system had ground to a halt, as had the train service from Grand Central Station that connected Manhattan to the dormitory suburbs in New Jersey and Connecticut. Those traders who had managed to get to work found financial markets in paralysis. Earlier the Bank of England, in conjunction with the main London based commercial banks, had announced a cessation of currency trading in the City. Special arrangements would be made, the Bank said, for the settlement of transactions due for Thursday and Friday. Without explanation it added that it was `hopeful' that the crisis gripping the world would be resolved to such an extent that normal operations could resume the following Monday. Nothing like this had ever confronted the world's monetary authorities. The modern currency market had no way of preparing, or coping, for it. Since the 1980s a group of US, Japanese, and European banks had dominated currency market trading and had developed systems to enable them to trade around the clock. An electronic record of all the trades executed own as the `book' s passed from Tokyo to London and from London to New York and from New York back again to Tokyo, where the whole process started again. No one had ever expected the clock to stop. So when the handful of dealers who managed to get to work in London arrived at their offices they found they were holding a book of deals which they could not trade with any confidence. Soon afterwards the Bank of England had issued a statement.