by David Poyer
The rebels owned the city. But only for perhaps an hour. No matter how great the surprise at the security station, he had to assume they’d gotten off some sort of message. The district’s quick reaction force would be on its way, with heavier weapons and far more men than the guerrillas could stand against.
But before that happened, he had a task to perform. One that was, in many ways, the whole point of the raid.
He emerged onto the second square. A broad flat paved area, set up as a marketplace on holidays and weekends. It was ringed by deserted booths and tables, flimsy sheds with rolled-up awnings. Ahead, as he limped forward, parties of rebels, accompanied by townspeople, were emerging from the streets, debouching into the square. Prodding with rifles, they pushed others ahead of them. Men, women, children. The captives’ faces were sallow with fear. Most were Han, but not all. Some had the flat Turkic features of Uighurs, but they’d lived long in the Han quarters.
“Servants of those who deny God,” Qurban muttered, beside him.
The old fighter had come up beside him without a sound. Teddy studied his bearded face. No sign there of pity. Just that stare of hatred.
Nasrullah joined them. “The sickness is in the city.”
“I saw.”
“Some were too ill to leave their beds. We took care of them before we left.”
Teddy nodded. Sometimes you had to leave your feelings behind. This operation had a larger objective. A twofold aim, actually. He stole a glance behind him, to where Nasrullah was directing the camera teams. Seizing the town would demonstrate the power and reach of ITIM. But more than that, it would send a message to this new general, Chagatai. Triggering the violent, Tiananmen-style crackdown from Internal Security that would turn all the Turkic and Uzbek populations—from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and above all, “Chinese” Turkistan—against Beijing for good.
Weakening the regime from within, as the Allies hammered on the doors from without.
To achieve that end, unpleasant actions might be necessary.
He cleared his throat and nodded to a teen. The boy spoke into a radio. Seconds later, a distant thunk sounded. Then, after the period of a drawn breath, another.
The flares burst high above the square. Their fierce magnesium light threw sharp-edged double shadows from each of the helplessly milling men and women confined in the middle of the bazaar area by ranks of rifle-pointing rebels.
“Hand your weapons over. Then bring us that table,” he told his men. He said it in Uighur, then in the simplified Han. But many still looked puzzled. Tokarev spoke sharply, backing him up. At last they fingered their weapons, then, grudgingly handed them over.
To the townsmen. Some of whom were already armed, but others accepted the proffered rifles and pistols with grim smiles, grabbing them eagerly with both hands. A rough-looking bunch: swarthy, almost all in the traditional four-cornered caps, a few even wearing the forbidden beards, in worker’s coveralls or ragged shirts and trousers. Some carried cudgels or knives. Probably criminals, along with the workers and unemployed. No doubt a hard core of true-believer Islamists among them too. Well, you worked with what you had.
“And ammunition,” Teddy prompted, and his mujs reluctantly produced loaded magazines from their pouches.
ITIM could not be held responsible for what was about to happen. Or at least, had to be able to assert deniability, even as everyone understood what must have really gone down. The same way the Russians had staged nonattributable attacks in Ukraine and the Baltics and Finland.
He nodded to Tokarev. The lanky rebel climbed onto a rickety sales table the others had dragged over. Tucking his pistol under his arm, he cupped both hands to his mouth. Sentence by sentence, Teddy fed him his lines, to be shouted out in Chinese.
“Do you wish your daughters to live? If they are virgins, yet strong, let them come over to us.”
The Chinese women began to howl. They saw what was coming. Families clung together, wailing. The fathers understood too. Some held their daughters more tightly. Others began prying the girls’ fingers from their mothers, shoving them toward the grim-faced rebels. Who opened their ranks, funneling them toward the women slaves, who quickly led them out of the square.
Guldulla turned to the women among the townsfolk next. “We are not monsters. If any among you want children, take them now. Babies, toddlers. Take them now.”
Qurban raised his arms and his voice. In guttural Arabic-flavored Uighur he shouted, “If Allah did not send you children, today truly He has granted your wish, praise be to Him, the beneficent, the merciful. Raise them as your own, in the Faith. And women, veil yourselves. Be modest and do not transgress. Men, you are free. Grow your beards, and do not defile yourselves with tobacco and beer.”
The flares fell behind the buildings, guttering out in long drifting tentacles of white and yellow sparks. One parachute drifted down among the captives, emitting a sizzling smoke. The Chinese stirred like a wind-ruffled sea. The wailing rose and fell. The captives screamed as new flares detonated light over them. One by one, small children were pushed or carried out of the mass. The older kids were shoved stumbling across to the outstretched arms of townswomen. Infants were simply laid down between the two groups, on the cold pavement. Now and then a townswoman dashed out, uncovered a tiny face, hesitated, then picked up the child and retreated. One baby lay crying weakly. Snot or pus covered its eyes and face. None of the Uighurs picked that one up and it lay there, mewling like a sick kitten and waving tiny fists.
“Those who have taken children, leave now,” Teddy told Guldullah in his prison Han. Tokarev repeated the command in Uighur.
Shading his eyes against the glare from the flares, Teddy peered around once more, making sure all was as it should be. The video crews stood ready atop vehicles. The snipers were stationed at strategic points, in case any of the townsmen they’d just armed decided on a change of allegiance. More flares detonated, doubling the brilliance of the scene and the inkiness of the shadows.
He jerked his head, and Guldulla jumped down. Qurban seemed to want to stay, but Oberg yanked him around by the shoulders and gave him a push. Nasrullah and the other rebel leaders fell in behind them as he paced away, away from the restive assembly, from the scowling, gesturing townsmen, who’d begun yelling curses at the Chinese. Some of the Han screamed back, but most simply waited, bleakly silent, clinging to each other with chalky faces. He headed off down a side street, until the square at Kanayi, Xinjiang, western China, was out of sight behind them.
Master Chief Theodore Harlett Oberg walked stiffly ahead, away, favoring his crippled leg. He did not turn back, nor look over his shoulder, as, behind him, the firing began.
II
NO FLAGS ARE FAIR
7
The South China Sea
DAN scrunched tensely in the little passenger seat, hardly daring to look back as the ship fell astern. The electric motors whirred composite blades into black disks. He was alone, except for two lightweight torpedoes slung on the cargo points. No pilot. And no semblance of controls in his cramped bubble cockpit.
The ship shrank to a gray dot. The machine tilted forward and gathered speed, skimming two hundred feet above a gray-green sea. He fought panic. Since being shot down in a helo during Operation Recoil, he liked flying a lot less.
Twenty minutes, he told himself. Only a twenty minutes’ flight. You can stand that.
The Harveys—UHARVs, Unmanned Heavy Aerial Resupply Vehicles—were recent arrivals in the fleet. Developed from General Atomics’ close air support UAVs, they were intended to eliminate the lengthy, dangerous procedures for ship-to-ship resupply and personnel transfer. Instead of hours of straight-line steaming a hundred feet apart, any ship with a pad could transfer ordnance, parts, personnel, and ammunition to another. Or receive resupply from shore, if it was within range. The Harveys had enough lift to tote a full-sized Alliance missile booster.
No pilot … but the takeoff had been smoo
th enough. A quick run-up of nearly silent motors, then a gut-wrenched launch straight up off the flight deck. A canting, a rapid climb … and now he was fleeing west sixty fathoms up, clutching the handholds and trying to talk himself out of screaming aloud. If they went down, Harveys were supposed to float. It wouldn’t be like trying to fight his way out of a flooded, sinking, inverted helicopter, boots kicking at doomed, wounded men strapped helplessly into litters … He shuddered, trying to push that horror out of his mind.
But he couldn’t help remembering a twist of white smoke tipped by white fire. Then a bang, the fuselage lurching, falling—
A slim black needle was threading the waves far below. A Hunter USV, sanitizing the sea around the carrier. So he was almost there … “Barbarian actual, this is Barbarian,” sounded in his earphones.
“Barbarian” was his own former CTF 76 call-sign, reactivated when he’d taken command of this far larger task force. He clutched at the familiarity of his deputy’s voice. “Barbarian actual here. Hey, Fred.”
“Welcome back, Admiral. Hold you ten mikes out. Hang on … ship has visual.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s self-defense lasers doubled as powerful reflecting telescopes. It didn’t add to his sense of security to know a two-hundred-megawatt pulse laser was zeroed on him as well. One miscue and he’d be burnt out of the sky like a gnat hitting a bug zapper. He breathed in, then out. Trying to take his mind to a happy place …
A pinprick on the horizon. It pushed up rapidly, growing into an eye-puzzling array of gray flat slabs, then suddenly, a ship. A supercarrier, powering majestically through gray-green swells. It left a flattened, nearly waveless superhighway behind it on the China Sea. He white-knuckled it through the approach as the drone lined up behind the carrier, selected a landing point, then descended.
Something hissed. He tensed, but the autonomous brain did not fail. The great gray deck, covered with the angular outlines of stealth UAVs and F-35s, slowly extended to blot out the sea. A jostle, a triple thump, and he was down.
A small group waited by the island. His staff. DEPLANE, the touchscreen read. A green light flashed and the windscreen unlocked. He slid it back and the wind hit his face, fierce, hot, thick. Smelling of burnt JP-5 and the sea.
* * *
ENZWEILER trotted into the elevator behind him, making it a close fit. The door sealed. Dan grew heavy, then light. “Video teleconference starts in fifteen,” his chief of staff said.
Dan nodded, glancing at his Seiko. He’d spent the morning visiting his COs. This afternoon would be the final confab with the component commanders, the generals and admirals in charge of the Indonesians, Indian, and Vietnamese forces that—along with the US and Australian core units—comprised Task Force 91 and the invasion fleet. “I have time for the staff, right?”
“If we keep it brief. Oh, and Commander Naylor wanted to know was it okay if he sat in. His clearance arrived, by the way.”
Dan smoothed his hair back. Hardly anyone wore caps aboard the carrier. Captain Skinner was a monomaniac about foreign object damage, and the low-mounted engines on the UAVs made it even more critical to prevent FOD. “Who?” he muttered, then remembered. PACOM had assigned a young reservist, one Lynwood Naylor, to his staff as a historian. Before the war he’d been a curator at the Navy Museum in DC. The guy had terrible posture and was rail-thin, but aside from a case of bad breath he was so unobtrusive it was easy to forget he existed. “For the staff conference? If he’s really cleared.” He took another deep breath. “Just keep him the fuck out of the video room afterward, okay?”
The doors opened and Dan stepped out. The air-conditioning was a freezing wall. Faces turned toward him. Everyone stood. He gestured them down. “Carry on, please. Let’s get this started, I have a VTC in fifteen.”
Enzweiler, Kitty Pickles, Sy Osterhaut, Donnie Wenck, Hermelinda Garfinkle-Henriques, Amy Singhe. He’d told BuPers he wanted people he knew for his staff. People who’d tell him the truth, without truckling to the stars he wore so provisionally. Without the truth, he couldn’t make the right decisions. Mistakes were inevitable. But anyone who cared more about his career, his impression, or his ego, than the mission, was undependable. Untrustworthy. And ultimately, useless. Dan had fired men and women, hating to do it, but knowing ruthlessness saved lives in war. They could find other jobs, and maybe the experience, realizing they’d fallen short, would change them for the better.
He might have to fire someone today. He hoped not. But it might be unavoidable.
The briefing started, with Tomlin, the WTI, briefing on the final exercise with Sea Eagle, the multi-domain battle manager they would depend on to fight a sixth-generation engagement. “A rigorous, broadly scaled warfighting checkout,” Tomlin was saying. “We networked eight nodes across five hundred nautical miles and three national platforms, demonstrating robust network management and maintained secure voice, data, and video connectivity against Cyber Command’s Red Cell.”
Dan tried to keep his mind on the brief, but found himself drifting. No. Had to concentrate. As a flag officer, he no longer carried a weapon, the way he had as a junior officer, or at the Tactical Analysis Group. He no longer directed a warship in combat, as he had as a commander and captain.
These days, he planned joint operations. Not nearly as dramatic. Briefings. Discussions. Simulations. Translating Fleet’s, Indo-PaCom’s, and JCS’s intents into a plan that could be executed with the available forces. Managing risk. Insuring against the unforeseen with alternate courses of action. Which meant long hours poring over briefing books, orders of battle, intel on enemy capabilities, and maps. Reviewing the drafts his planners produced. Scheduling tests and exercises to iron out weaknesses. Deconflicting operations. Bounding the theater engagement problem. Puzzling over possible enemy ripostes, and how to guard against them.
Not nearly as dramatic as combat.
But this was his fight now. Commanding the commanders.
Time-sensitive crisis planning, in the face of a dangerous threat and inadquate logistics.
He bit his lips to concentrate as Enzweiler outlined the overall situation. The fall of Taiwan had put optimism into everyone. But the mainland still lay ahead. Even if they were invaded, the Chinese could hold out for years. Vietnam came to mind, and the titanic struggle China had carried on against the Japanese before and during American entry into World War II.
But he couldn’t worry about that. That was for Blair to think about, and the administration she worked for.
He only hoped they were taking it seriously.
“Admiral, TF 91 is beginning the sorties from the various embarkation points. There’ll be no single rendezvous point and no concentration en route. We’ll pick up the various force elements between D minus seven and minus five. Transiting to a position off the Spratleys, we will conduct two practice landings to add experience to the amphibious elements and supporting forces. Meanwhile, the rest of the task force will restage at Cam Ranh Bay, then proceed to the amphibious oparea.”
Dan lifted a finger. “I think we’re up to speed on the big picture, Captain. I’d like to hear what Commander Garfinkle-Henriques has for us on the supply situation.”
His J-4 shuffled notes and cleared her throat. “Sir, the Mount Hood event set our timetable back almost six weeks, and we still haven’t fully recovered. We’ve made intense efforts to restock ammo from CONUS and other sources, but we’ll still be almost twenty-five percent below the original planning points for the operation.”
Don nodded. Even now, no one was sure what had triggered the detonation aboard the ammo ship. Maybe no one ever would. It would join the long list of inexplicable maritime disasters, from the Maine to the Cyclops … He blinked, realizing they were all watching him. He definitely had to get some sleep. But there wouldn’t be much opportunity en route … “Okay, two questions. One: are the practice landings going to be properly covered against attack? And, two, will we have the fuel and ammo in the pipeline to sustain a protracted land
battle? I asked those questions before. So far, the answers from Log Force don’t make me happy.
“Bear in mind, we could face a major battle off Hainan. I want adequate fuel. At least double what we calculate as necessary. And we have to support the forces once they’re ashore. I won’t pull back and leave people stranded, like Frank Jack Fletcher did at Guadalcanal.”
Garfinkle-Henriques swallowed. “Double, Admiral? LogForce is planning based on a fifty percent reserve.”
Dan had read Admiral Turner’s report on the capture of the Marianas, the closest analog to Operation Rupture he could find numbers on. “We’ve got a long trip to the objective, Hermelinda. Not just fuel for ships, but hundreds of small craft, drones, the USVs, air cover … I’d rather have double what we need than fall ten percent short.”
The commander looked conflicted. “Sir, remember, preparations for this started two years ago. Two million tons of fuel to Australia. Two hundred tankers chartered. I can try to scrounge more, but frankly, sir, I doubt we’ll get it. Our instructions from Fleet are to economize. Refinery capacity back home—”
“I know, crippled by sabotage. Cyber. And riots. But what about the Indonesians? Brunei?”
“Brunei produces crude, but they don’t refine—”
Dan said, “In War II the Asiatic Fleet burned Brunei crude. Can modern gas turbines run on it? Look harder at regional supply. If we need more tankers, contract for them.” He checked his watch. Five more minutes. “Check thoroughly and see me tonight. Let’s move on to ammo.”
“As I said, the picture’s not good, Admiral. A third of our smart ordnance went up with Mount Hood. The Taiwan battle had priority for new weapons. A major effort to break out older stockpiles, but they’re largely GPS-guided.”
He nodded. “But that’s been down since the outbreak of the war. No retrofit kits?”
“They went to Taiwan.”
