Combat

by Stephen Coonts

  The city of Keelung, just a few kilometers to the southeast, was mostly in darkness, blacked out because of the threat of invasion. But behind them, for as far as they could see in every direction were the dim red-and-green lights of the commercial fleet and the numerous military patrol boats the Seawolf’s sonar had picked out. Coming in had been like playing dodgeball.

  After ten minutes the point of light disappeared around the corner of the warehouse and processing center. They waited another full five minutes to make sure that the guard wasn’t coming back, then paddled the rest of the way in.

  The old wooden docks were up on pilings. They worked their way beneath them, the water black, oily, and fetid with rotting fish and other garbage, then pulled themselves back to the seawall and to the west side, where they found a ladder. The only way anyone would spot the inflatable in what amounted to an open sewer would be to get into the water to make a specific search for it.

  They had changed into civilian clothes on the way in: light sweaters, khaki trousers, soft boots, and jackets. After they secured the boat they scrambled up the ladder and stepped ashore with the credentials of U.S. Navy advisors to the Republic of China’s Maritime Self-Defense Force.

  “Welcome to Taiwan, Lieutenant,” McGarvey said, and keeping low they headed across the net yard in the dank humidity of the nearly silent early morning.

  0520 Local SSN 21 Seawolf

  Harding hadn’t slept in more than thirty-six hours. Once they were settled on the bottom, and he had made sure that his boat was secure, he drifted back to his cabin, where he kicked off his shoes and lay down on his bunk. McGarvey was one tough character, and Harding held a grudging admiration for the man that was beginning to grow into a friendship. But in Harding’s estimation McGarvey was also one lucky son of a bitch. By all laws of reason he and Hanrahan should have been spotted on their way ashore. Four different patrol boats had come to within spitting distance of their inflatable and yet had passed right by. And they were still going to have to get back tonight after dark if they were successful ashore. There was another worry, too. Paradise had reported the conversation between McGarvey and Hanrahan in the escape trunk. They were apparently bringing someone back with them, and there was only one person on all of Taiwan he could think of who’d be worth the risks they were taking.

  The phone over his bunk buzzed. He switched on the light and answered it. “This is the captain.”

  “Hate to bother you, skipper, but we’ve got company,” Paradise said.

  Harding sat up. “What are you talking about?”

  “Sonar’s picked up some stationary noises. Maybe pumps, nuclear-plant noises. It looks as if we’ve got a PRC Han-class submarine parked on our back porch.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  Taiwan in Country

  Hanrahan was in the front seat of the ancient cloth-goods delivery truck speaking Mandarin with the driver. They’d hitched a ride on the main highway into Keelung just as the rain began in earnest. The drab old city was known unofficially as the rainiest seaport in the world, and although it was dawn by the time they reached the train station, visibility was limited to less than one hundred feet in the heavy traffic.

  “Syeh syeh ni,” Hanrahan told the old man.

  “Boo syeh,” you’re welcome, the driver said, an odd expression on his wizened old face.

  Everything that came to Keelung by sea had to leave either by rail or by highway, so the train station was busy twenty-four hours per day. Passengers and small parcels were loaded from the street side through the terminal, while trucks and a special spur line running up from the docks used a commercial loading yard across the tracks.

  “Your Mandarin sounded pretty good,” McGarvey said as they hurried across the street.

  “Thanks, but I only had two years of it at Fort Benning.”

  “It’s gotten us this far.”

  “Yeah, but I think the old man’ll probably never trust an American again. I think I might have told him that I’d love to screw his mother, his sister, and his goat.”

  McGarvey had to laugh. “Would you?”

  Hanrahan shrugged. “Well, maybe not his mother.”

  The train station was a madhouse, filled mostly with merchants and tradespeople bringing goods and services from Keelung to the rest of the country. Taiwan had only one rail line, which circled almost the entire island along the coast, with only a couple of branch lines. The trains were always overcrowded with people and animals, and loaded beyond belief with everything from candle wax and strawberries to codliver oil and machine screws.

  Hanrahan headed for the lines at the ticket windows, but McGarvey steered him directly down to trackside, where he produced a pair of first-class tickets to Taipei. The police guards demanded to see their passports before they were allowed to board the train. When they were settled near the rear of the car Hanrahan leaned nearer.

  “Good thinking about the tickets, but we’re not going to be able to get back this way, not with … him.”

  McGarvey watched the policeman at the gate. He’d not made a move to use the telephone beside him. A couple of Americans boarding a train in Keelung were evidently not unusual enough for him to report to his superior. It was another break for them. But he didn’t think that their luck would last forever. It never did.

  He turned back to Hanrahan. “We’re coming back by car, so keep your eyes peeled on the highway for roadblocks or military patrols. We might have to make a detour.”

  Hanrahan nodded. “Now that we’re here, are you going to let me in on the rest of it, or am I going to have to guess?” He looked out the window at the police. “These people have their backs to the wall. If something starts to go down that they don’t understand, they’re likely to start shooting first and ask questions later.”

  “I brought you along to get us on and off the sub, and because you speak Chinese. The rest of it you’re going to have to leave up to me.”

  Hanrahan started to object, but McGarvey held him off.

  “We’re probably going to run into some major shit in Taipei. And if it does hit the fan, if it looks like some of the good guys might get hurt, you’re going to turn around and walk away from it. And that’s an order, Lieutenant. At that point it becomes strictly a Company operation, and you’re not going to be the one holding the dirty laundry.”

  The train was completely full now. The conductor came in, shouted something over the din, and moments later they lurched out of the station for the fifteen miles to the capital city.

  Hanrahan’s jaw tightened. It was clear that he was anything but happy. “Just one thing, Mr. M,” he said, his voice low but with a hard edge to it. “I know how to follow orders—”

  “Nobody is questioning you. But if something goes down, no matter whose fault it is, who do you suppose they’re going to blame? It won’t be me. It’ll be a grunt lieutenant.”

  “The SEALs have never left one of their own behind, never,” Hanrahan said. “I don’t give a shit what’s going down, ’cause that’s a fact.”

  East Fleet Headquarters Ningbo

  “Captain Heishui is a reliable officer,” Sun Kung Kee, the fleet’s political commissar, told the CINC, Vice Admiral Pei. “I know his father. He will do as he is ordered.”

  “I expect nothing less from all of my officers.” Admiral Pei reread the slot buoy message that had been sent last night from the Hekou.

  “Presumably he followed the American submarine to the coast near Keelung. If he is right, the Americans meant to put someone ashore in secret. Since there have been no incidents reported, we must assume that Captain Heishui is still there and has not been detected.”

  “Nothing from our satellites?” the admiral asked.

  “The weather is too bad for visual images, and nothing has shown up on infrared, Admiral,” Commander Sze Lau, his Operations Officer replied.

  “What about our spies on the ground in Keelung and Taipei, if that’s where the Americans are heading? Have there be
en any reports?”

  “Nothing yet,” Commissar Kee told him. “But we must ask ourselves why the Americans chose to put somebody ashore in such a secret manner. The operation was not without its very considerable risks, which means that the Americans must be expecting a very considerable reward.”

  Admiral Pei put the slot buoy message down and sat back. “Yes?”

  “Shi Shizong,” the political commissar said, and both officers were startled though it was immediately clear that they understood the logic. “I think they mean to kidnap him.”

  “Do we know where he is being held?” Commander Lau asked. “We could intercept the Americans and take Shizong ourselves.”

  “His location is a secret. Apparently they move him every few days. Beijing, however, thinks that the Americans will almost certainly make contact with someone from their illegal consulate, who might know where the criminal is being hidden. If we were to wait there, our agents might be able to follow them to the traitor.”

  “Beijing was consulted?” Admiral Pei asked, his voice as soft as a summer’s breeze but as bitter as a Tibetan winter’s gale.

  “Naturally I wanted to provide you with all the support you might need without the necessity of asking for it if and when the need should arise,” Commissar Kee answered smoothly.

  “Go on.”

  “If Shizong cannot be returned home to stand trial, he must never be allowed to leave Taiwan alive.”

  “That is a job for your agents on the ground,” the admiral said.

  “But if they fail, it will be up to Captain Heishui and his submarine.”

  “It would be a suicide mission.”

  “An acceptable loss providing Shizong does not escape,” Commissar Kee pressed. “Word must somehow be gotten to him.”

  “It will be difficult without revealing his position, if indeed he is hiding just off the coast from Keelung, but not impossible,” Commander Lau said, and Admiral Pei nodded his approval for the mission. The nation was willing to go to war over this issue; what was the possible loss of one submarine and crew by comparison?

  Taipei

  McGarvey watched from the train window as they entered Taiepi from the northeast. The capital was a city ready for invasion. The government was taking the Chinese threat seriously. Street corner antiaircraft batteries were protected behind sandbag barriers. Rooftops bristled with machinegun emplacements. He counted six Patriot missile launchers set up in parking lots and empty fields, something the PRC had to be really unhappy about.

  “This is going to be on my lead,” he told Hanrahan. “You don’t do a thing unless I tell you to do it.”

  “This place is crawling with PRC spies.”

  “That’s right,” McGarvey said. “The problem is that you can’t tell them from the good guys. And if they get wind that we’re here on a mission we’re screwed. Capisce?”

  Hanrahan nodded. Jumping off aircraft carriers, diving down to submarines, and even storming ashore prepared to fight an army of trained commandos was one thing. In-your-face daylight covert operations where you were outnumbered a few billion to one was another ball game.

  The press of people on the train platform all the way up to the street-level terminal was constant. They had to bull their way forward in order to get outside to the cab rank, and practically had to knock over three businessmen to get a cab. McGarvey gave Hanrahan an address on Hoping Road a few blocks from the university to give to the cabbie, and they headed away.

  The streets were as crazy as the train station. Traffic was all but stalled at many intersections, and their driver had to backtrack and make several detours around the downtown area. Especially around the government buildings. The military presence was everywhere, yet there seemed to be a look of inevitability, of resigned indifference, on the faces of the people here and aboard the train. War was coming, and there wasn’t much that anyone could do about it.

  “How the hell do they expect to get anything done like this?” Hanrahan asked, watching out the windows. The cab was not air-conditioned, and already the heat and humidity had plastered their clothes to their bodies.

  “You oughta see New Delhi at rush hour in midsummer,” McGarvey said absently, watching for any signs that an organized resistance movement had been formed.

  The Taiwanese were great soapbox orators. They took their politics more seriously than just about any other country on earth. Their representatives regularly got into fistfights on the floor of the legislature. And just like the South Koreans, who were also faced with a constant threat of annihilation, there were staunch Taiwanese supporters for every side of just about every issue that was raised. There was a sizable minority of Taiwanese who wanted a return to the mainland. If they wanted to start something, now would be a perfect time for it. If Taiwan were suddenly to find itself in the middle of a bloody civil war, it would give the PRC one more reason to come in and take over by force: to save human lives.

  Taiwan was like a powder keg with a short fuse in the middle of an armory packed with dynamite. Lit matches were being held out from every direction. It was only a matter of time before one of them caught.

  The driver left them off in front of the Bank of South Africa building, in an area of offices and apartment high-rises. They had just passed the sandbagged entrance to Taiwan University, where a mob of a thousand or more students wearing headbands and carrying banners was parading up and down in front of a Patriot missile emplacement on the grass. Soldiers had cordoned off the area, keeping the students from spilling out onto the busy street and further disrupting traffic. It was the only evidence of any sort of dissension that McGarvey had seen so far.

  The Parisian Lights was a sidewalk café set under a red-and-white-striped awning across Hoping Road from the university demonstration. The place was crowded, but they got a table in the corner. Their waiter spoke French with a Chinese accent. McGarvey ordered coffee and beignets, and when the waiter was gone he used his cell phone to call the American Institute three blocks away on Hsinyi Street.

  “Peyton Graves,” he told the operator.

  “He’s not in,” she answered.

  “Yes, he is,” McGarvey insisted. “I’ll hold.” Graves was the CIA’s Chief of Taiwan Station and a very capable old China hand. He was in the hot seat right now, so he wasn’t going to be in to most people. It was SOP. McGarvey had met the man only once, and although Graves had struck him as a bit officious and bureaucratic, he was doing a good job for them out here.

  “This is Peyton Graves, what can I do for you?”

  “Is this a secure line?” McGarvey asked.

  “Jesus,” Graves said softly. He’d recognized McGarvey’s voice. “It can be.”

  “Switching now,” McGarvey said. He pressed star-four-one-one, and his cell phone’s encryption circuits kicked in. “How’s this?”

  “Clear,” Graves said. “You’re in-country, but nobody said anything to me, Mr. McGarvey.”

  “I want to keep it that way, Peyton, you probably have a PRC leak in the embassy.”

  “This place is like a sieve. Where are you?”

  McGarvey told him. “We’re going to need a windowless van and a driver who knows the city, and someplace to lie low just until tonight.”

  “I’ll have somebody pick you up within ten minutes. It’ll be a gray Chevy delivery van, Han Chi Bakeries, Ltd. on the side. Driver’s name is Tom Preston. Tall, dark hair, mustache.”

  “Good enough. No one else is to know that we’re here, and I mean no one, not even the ambassador.”

  “I understand,” Graves said. “I’m not even going to ask how you got here without flags going up. The city is crawling with PRC supporters. But if you’ve come here to do what I think you came here to do, tonight will be cutting it a tad close.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Apparently you haven’t heard. The PRC are sending a military delegation of some sort over here early this evening to arrest Shizong. Nobody knows how it’s going to pl
ay, but the word is out that the delegation will at least be allowed to land. From that point it’s anybody’s guess.”

  “Does the PRC know where Shizong is being kept?”

  “It’s possible, but I don’t think so. The Taiwanese CIA have been handling it, and they’ve done a good job so far. But the politicians might take it out of their hands. Taiwan wants to keep him b e, but they’re afraid that if the PRC pushes it, we’ll just sit on our hands and watch.”

  “They’re right,” McGarvey said. “Do you know where he’s being kept?”

  “They switch him around every few days. But for now he’s up on Grass Mountain at Joseph Lee’s old place.” Lee was a Taiwanese multibillionaire whom McGarvey had run up against a couple of years ago in a Japanese operation to put nuclear weapons in low-earth orbit. Lee was dead and the Taiwanese government had confiscated most of his properties, including the Grass Mountain house.

  “Who’ll be with him tonight?”

  “I don’t know for sure, but considering what might be going down I’d guess the same team that snatched him from Xiamen.”

  “I know them. They’re all good men.”

  “Tough bastards,” Graves said. “They’re not going to take kindly to anyone barging in up there, friend or foe. Especially friend. If the PRC is allowed to arrest him and take him back to the mainland, Taipei will be able to make a very large international stink over it. They’ll win beaucoup points in the UN. But if you mean to grab him and bury him someplace deep and out of sight, nobody will win. They’re not going to want that.”

  “You’re wrong about one thing, Peyton. If we do pull this off, everybody will end up on top in the long run.”

  “Do you want some help then?”

  “Just Tom Preston, the van, and someplace to crash until tonight,” McGarvey said.

  “If anything breaks this afternoon, I’ll get it to you,” Graves said.

  “Thanks. But then forget that we were ever here.”