Overthrow: The War with China and North Korea

by David Poyer

  Hainan had fallen. The Indonesians and Vietnamese had joined hands in mid-island at Phase Line Bullet. But instead of surrendering, the People’s Liberation Army had withdrawn across the strait. Dan had done his best to pound them as they crossed. Troops were most vulnerable during retreats. But overcoming the island’s defenses had degraded his airpower, depleting already low missile and bomb stocks to the point he’d had to accept a reduced sortie rate. So there weren’t as many POWs as they’d hoped for. Not nearly as many as had been taken on Taiwan.

  Still, General Isnanta said deserters and the captured reported low morale, scarce rations, sickness, and general disintegration. The shattered remnants on the mainland would take many weeks to resupply, reinforce, and rebuild into combat-worthy forces again. JCS estimated the Allies had wrecked at least four first-class enemy divisions in the fighting.

  But the victory on Hainan had been overshadowed by the nuclear laydown on the American homeland, and the violent retaliation for it. Dan had gotten the news via high-side chat. The exchange had been triggered by an ICBM launch from northern China. Some of the missiles had been taken down by the combined US-Japanese task force in the Sea of Okhotsk as they arched overhead. Others were shot down by Army ground-based missile defense, in Alaska. Still more, blasted out of existence by microsatellites steered to impact at orbital velocities.

  But a few had gotten through. The terminal vehicles spun off warheads and decoys as they burned down toward the continental United States. These in turn were taken under fire by Patriots and THAAD interceptors that had been pulled out of Europe and the Mideast early in the war. Cued, tracked, and attacked nearly continuously through the boost, midcourse, and terminal phases, only a remnant had succeeded in penetrating the layers of defense. And not all of those had survived reentry with their fuzing mechanisms still functioning.

  But still, the damage was incalculable. Millions were missing, presumed dead.

  Nan was one of them. No one knew who had survived and who had not.

  Zhang had disavowed having provided release authority, blaming “renegade elements” in the military, “adventurers” and “traitors” who’d despaired of ultimate victory for the People’s Empire. But the Joint Chiefs had rejected his apology, and acted in savage revenge.

  * * *

  SLEEP took another step away. He breathed hard, remembering, denying, wet face buried in the pillow. He turned over angrily. Shouldn’t have let her stay in Seattle. Should have insisted she evacuate. But even as he reproached himself, he knew she wouldn’t have obeyed. She’d told him it was her duty to stay, to keep working on the drug that would bear her name. Or at least her initial.

  Not much to hang on to, to remember her by. A single initial.

  He punched the pillow away and rolled out, coughing. Doubled, hacking so hard he almost vomited, clutching his stomach. When air finally returned he lurched up and staggered into the little attached head.

  He rubbed his face, staring into the mirror. Facing the fact he’d tried to push away. Trying to accept the unacceptable.

  His daughter was dead. She had to be.

  Seattle, where she’d worked, had been one of the worst-hit population centers. Neither Dan, Blair, nor Nan’s mother had heard from her, despite calls and emails.

  The Patriot Network said central and north Seattle were obliterated, hit by two megaton-range airbursts. A dud had impacted south of Port Orchard, apparently aimed at the submarine base at Kitsap. San Francisco had been hit by one leaker, detonating over Pacifica.

  Montana and North Dakota, where the ground-based deterrent was sited, had been hammered hardest of all. Sixteen ground-penetrating warheads had detonated near and around Karlsruhe, Velva, Max, Ryder, Mohall, Bowbells, Makoti, and other small towns, the obvious intent being to blast out and degrade the US retaliatory capability dug into silos there. Omaha had absorbed three ground penetrators, two of which hadn’t detonated and were being investigated. Dan wondered who was doing the investigations. Whoever it was, they had brass balls. Montana had been struck hard too, Augusta, Cascade, and Judith Gap, so heavily no one really knew how many missiles had fallen. Duds and decoys were still being discovered and evaluated, some buried many feet below the soil’s surface.

  It would take time even to guess at how costly the attack had been. The casualties were still being counted. Both from the blast and from radiation; the ground bursts had smeared thick plumes of radioactive dust across the Midwest as far as Ohio and Ontario.

  American retaliation had been swift and violent. But with only a part of the strategic arsenal, and none of the surviving ICBMs. Instead Trident submarines in the Pacific had launched against strategic assets, command sites, and bases.

  In exchange for North Dakota and Montana, every large military base in south China had been wiped clean. In revenge for Seattle and San Francisco, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, and Changsha had also been destroyed. Going forward, the president had announced, the price exacted would be double whatever America suffered. Dan suspected Szerenci had designed this: a wintry, blood-curdling strategy that sequentially degraded the enemy’s ability to defend himself, while daring the leadership to strike back. At which time, no one doubted the rest of China would be obliterated, while StratCom still retained enough warheads to take on Russia and Iran—if they cared to join the game.

  So far, though, both Moscow and Tehran were lying low. Neither had issued so much as a press release about the exchange.

  Dan washed his face, trying to think past emotions to what he had to do next.

  Notified thirty minutes in advance of launch of the counterstrike, he’d disaggregated the task force, spreading across the sea to minimize the effects if the next exchange targeted them. But in the days since the attack, not a missile, not a single plane had triggered the sensor net reticulated across South China and the western Pacific.

  But if Nan was gone …

  He sighed. Went out into his stateroom, switched on the desk light, and reached for a red-and-white-sriped binder. OPERATION OVERTHROW, its cover read.

  The next step.

  The invasion of south China.

  No one expected to actually conquer China. It was too vast. Too populous. But a foothold, stubbornly maintained, would exert ever more pressure. Forcing Zhang to the conference table at last. If the destruction of four cities and most of his remaining conventional forces was not enough.

  He sat with head down, trying to lose himself in the tables and graphs and maps. Based on the lack of reinforcements for Hainan, and intel about the enemy’s growing weakness, his staff was modifying the plan to provide for a hasty landing of Vietnamese and Indonesians, along with American air support, in Hong Kong. That city was already in open revolt, and the unrest was spreading to other regions of the south, as well as Xinjiang and Tibet.

  The world was coming apart. And as much as he grieved, he couldn’t shake the knowledge that many more were grieving, terrified, mourning, bereft. Millions. He wasn’t alone.

  War did that.

  He muttered “Fuck this,” and snapped the desk light off. He blinked in the sudden absolute darkness. Fear for his daughter was an icy stone in his chest. A paralysis of the heart, draining the world of light.

  He had only one resort. The power that had never failed him, when he asked it for help.

  If he asked for strength, he’d get it. If he begged for courage, it would come. It always had.

  But it couldn’t take away grief. And even if it could, he wouldn’t accept that.

  Grief was the memory of love. Its opposite wasn’t happiness, but oblivion.

  No matter how he felt, he had to go forward. Into a cave of everlasting darkness, out of which he could see no way out. No light, no warmth, no solace.

  Only the razor edges of memory, slicing his flesh again and again whenever he moved.

  * * *

  HE must have fallen asleep there at his desk, because when the chime sounded he was facedown on the op plan. He coughed and
unstuck his cheek from the pages, grabbing for the red phone. “Lenson,” he grunted.

  “Sir, comm-oh. Stand by for quantum voice with Fleet.”

  Christ, the fucking conference call. He logged into the LAN and scrolled though the TF chat, trying to refresh a groggy brain while he chinned the handset, waiting for Higher to come on.

  “Barbarian, this is Replay. Barbarian, this is Replay. Over.”

  Dan recognized Dick Enders, his classmate, now J-3 of Ninth Fleet. “Hello, Dick.”

  “Dan. Wish we had time to talk. Maybe after. Stand by for Replay actual.”

  “Standing by. Over.”

  A tap on his door. It cracked, and the red night-lighting from the passageway leaned in past Enzweiler’s silhouette. Dan waved his deputy to come in and sit, and hit the button for speaker so he could hear.

  A hiss of unmodulated air. Quantum comms were new to the Fleet, limited to the most secure command links so far. They used regular STANAG 4591 scrambler technology, but assured security by using quantum information protocols to distribute the keys. Then a new voice came on. The Fleet commander, Bren Verstegen. “Dan. Very sorry to hear about your daughter. I lost people too. Most everyone here has. Over.”

  Dan let a breath out slowly. “Roger, sir. Let’s press ahead. Get this over with.”

  “Could not agree more. Dick recommends we speed up the timetable for Overthrow. We’re drawing up a frag order to bring it forward. How soon can you go? Over.”

  A frag order modified a previous op plan. Dan said carefully, “This is Barbarian. Sir, I can move forces, but my limiter is support. We’re below forty percent fuel. Heavy losses to strike aircraft. Low on ordnance, parts, tech support. Over.”

  “Understand your concerns, but this is the time to be aggressive. Even if we’re not totally ready. Speed over preparation.”

  Dan said, “The enemy could have reserves we don’t know about.”

  “They probably do, but overall, he’s softening. If at all possible, we want to advance the landing to seventy-two hours from now. What’s the issue here, Dan? You stood tall when it looked like we might not get ashore, in Hainan.”

  Yeah, he wanted to say, but this isn’t a night in Las Vegas. They couldn’t keep gambling and not expect to lose big at some point. He coughed into a fist. Enzweiler was keying numbers into his notebook, head bent. Dan pulled the op order over, unfolded a chart, and swung dividers. He and his chief of staff exchanged glances. Enzweiler shook his head and tilted the screen. Dan grimaced.

  Finally he pressed Transmit. “This is Barbarian actual. I can’t commit to that, sir. Too much damage to my air wings. Not enough time to clear the lanes in.”

  Impatience edged the distant voice. “Then when? The governor’s left. The last Interior Ministry troops went with him. The people are flying the Dragon and Lion, the old Crown Colony flag. The city administration’s proposed they join Taiwan in what they call the Commonwealth of Chinese States. We need to move ASAP, Dan.”

  Dan took another deep breath, and committed. “I understand, sir. Assuming we can refuel passing Dongsha, I can move advance elements into Hong Kong harbor five days from now. That’s flat out the best we can do. Over.”

  A new voice broke in. “All stations, this is Coronet. Who do I have on the line? I need actuals. Over.”

  Dan was confused for a moment. Coronet was Indo-PaCom, the overall theater commander. But movement orders, operational, and frag orders came down through the operational commander. The theater commander wasn’t scheduled to be on this call. WTF? “Uh—roger. This is Barbarian actual, over.”

  “This is Replay actual.”

  “Very well. This is Coronet. Stand by for actual.”

  A familiar voice: Admiral Justin “Jim” Yangerhans. Dan recognized it as clearly as if the lanky, homely four-star who’d steered the Allied war across half the globe stood in front of him.

  “This is Coronet. Flash message on the way. But I wanted to give each of the forward commanders this personally.” A pause; excited voices clamored in the background. “We’re getting reports of a coup in Beijing. Military commanders are asking for an armistice. They say Zhang’s dead, but our diplomatic sources say no, he’s left the country. If so, no indication where yet. One source guessed Russia. Storming and looting of Party headquarters is reported from Tibet and south China.” A pause, more muffled shouting. “Over.”

  Dan’s heart was pumping harder than it ought to. He felt unreal, as if brushing webs aside as he descended into a dark basement. So many deaths. So much danger. For so many years. Could this finally be the end? “Roger, copy all,” he managed, glancing at Enzweiler. Who was typing busily, head down so far the bald patch was visible.

  “This is Replay. What’s your intent, Admiral? Our last orders were to expedite Overthrow.”

  Yangerhans said, “Continue that effort. Regardless of what just happened in Beijing, we need an early presence in the south. But be aware, hard-line elements may continue to resist. We’re still on a war footing. Until I tell you otherwise. Over.”

  Dan and Verstegen acknowledged. Yangerhans promised more details as they became available, and signed off.

  * * *

  DAN put the task force in an east–west racetrack south of Dongsha, while warning Custer to press on with the buildup in case the invasion went ahead. He reminded his screen, ASW, and air commanders to keep their guard up. He tasked Captain Pickles to revisit the plan to see if a permissive landing could take place early. He had Enzweiler start detaching ships, two by two, to refuel.

  Then he tried to get his head down again. After lying awake for a long time, he managed to get in a solid hour.

  Before Blair called. Also on a covered circuit, direct from the Tank. “I’m here with General Vincenzo. Wanted to make sure you got the word about the armistice.”

  “Jim Yangerhans passed it. But I’m still glad you called. Over.” Of course they both already knew he had; Blair was using it as an excuse for a personal call. “How are you doing?” he asked. “Have you heard anything yet?”

  “You mean about Nan. Not yet. FEMA’s overwhelmed. Millions are unaccounted for. Presumed … anyway, unaccounted for.” She sighed audibly. “We won’t know even rough casualty totals for weeks. I’m really sorry. I hate to tell you this.”

  “I … understand. Thanks for trying. And don’t stop. Please.”

  “I won’t. But, another issue’s come up. The ICC.”

  “ICC?” He didn’t recognize the acronym

  “The International Criminal Court’s issued a summons for you. Stemming, but maybe not limited to, that German tanker episode, back when the war started.”

  Unexpected, but it seemed trivial, compared to what he’d lost. “You’re kidding me. A summons … am I supposed to respond?”

  “No. State’s working on a formal response. The Hague’s talking about a series of trials once the war’s over. Zhang, if he’s still alive. Chagatai. Lianfeng. Pei. For aggressive war and crimes against humanity. But they’re planning to indict from both sides, to show impartiality. Uh … over.”

  Dan rubbed his face, torn between apathy and outrage. “Uh-huh. Like Nuremberg?”

  “Sort of. I guess.”

  “Great. So who’ll they indict on our side? Szerenci? Yangerhans? The president? You?”

  “We’ll have to wait and see. Maybe we can derail the issue. Or simply refuse to participate. The US never signed the Rome Treaty. But then, the Chinese could do the same. So that might not be the best reaction. Anyway, we’re still studying options. No need for you worry. I probably shouldn’t even have mentioned it. But I didn’t want you to be blindsided.”

  They chatted a little longer, but finally she said she had to go. Dan blinked blurrily at his watch, considered, but finally got up, shaved, and dressed.

  Getting ready for another day. Even though he still felt done in.

  Even though, without his daughter in the world, he didn’t really see the point.

  * *
*

  THE confirmation came just before dawn. Captain Skinner read the announcement to the crew over the IMC. “An armistice has been brokered by Switzerland. A cease-fire has been declared. All Allied and Opposed forces are to withdraw from contact and halt in place. Discussions are under way for a peace conference. The location will be announced.

  “All hands are cautioned that this doesn’t mean we can’t still be attacked. Some elements may refuse to surrender. We will stay at Condition Three until further notice.”

  Dan had gone up to the bridge to catch the sunrise. He stood on the wing, leaning on the splinter shield, staring out as the horizon gradually sharpened, into a far-off, jagged line. The brightness grew behind it, bleaching the sky.

  A intensely bright golden dollop popped up, quivering. It shimmered for a second, hovering, indescribably bright, then ran down again into the sea and vanished. And darkness rushed back across the face of the sea.

  The central fire slowly reappeared as its upper limb pushed up into view, orange-reddish at first, then gradually brightening to a glare that reached across the waves to them, picking out the crests while leaving the troughs in shadow.

  Dan stared down at the passing waves. Decades before, back when he’d first gone to sea, he’d thought of their endless rolling as some kind of metaphor for existence. So many years before …

  “Think this is really it, sir?” Donnie Wenck, cowlick ruffling in the sea-wind, stood beside him for a moment. Then leaned forward, placing his elbows alongside Dan’s.

  “I sure hope so, Master Chief.” Dan glanced back. The rest of the staff stood inside the wing. Looking expectant. So he beckoned them out to join him.

  They let themselves out the door, dogged it, and ranged in a ragged rank, going to a loose parade rest. Enzweiler. Pickles. Singh. Tomlin. And the others. Captain Skinner peered up at them from the next deck down, eyebrows raised; Dan gave him a nodded acknowledgment.

  He surveyed their faces. Expectant. Exhausted. Etched with the sleeplessness and stress of years of war. The strain of battle and loss. Some hadn’t heard from their folks back in the States, either. And from what little news was being released, the final casualty numbers were going to be horrifying. Even if this was truly over, it would take the world many years to recover. If ever.