by Robert Gandt
Mai-ling looked like a kid on a college campus.
“I knew it,” she said. “I knew I’d see you again.”
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Sovremenny.
Reading the urgent message on the bridge of the Kai Yang, Commander Lei Fu-Sheng felt a surge of alarm pass through him. Everyone had presumed that the greatest threat would come from PLA navy submarines.
They were wrong. They hadn’t counted on the Sovremenny destroyers.
Darkness had descended once again on the strait. The Kai Yang had lived through another twelve hours of daylight. Lei could see only the silhouettes of his escort vessels cruising a parallel course.
After killing the first Kilo class submarine, they had located another and hounded it into the jaws of a fast-moving destroyer squadron, who dispatched it with their own torpedoes. Elsewhere in the strait, another Kilo and a Ming class Chinese submarine had been caught and killed. PLA navy submarines had accounted for the loss of only two Taiwanese warships—a frigate, the Han Yang, and a destroyer whose captain had been too complacent as he cruised out of his anchorage at Kaohsiung.
Until now, it had been a one-sided naval war. The PLA navy was overrated. They had decent equipment, but they were too inept at using it.
But the two Sovremenny class destroyers were something else. They were crewed, according to intelligence briefs, by the cream of the PLA navy. Armed with supersonic 3M80E Moskit anti-ship missiles, the Sovremenny class could kill anything in its theatre—surface, submerged, or airborne.
They weren’t supposed to be a threat. Yesterday Lei and his fellow commanders received assurances that both Sovremenny destroyers—Fan Tzu and Fan Tao—had been caught in their berths at the naval yard at Xiamen when the war began. The first wave of Harpoon missiles had devastated the base. Neither destroyer made it to the open sea.
It was bad information.
The message arrived on Lei’s bridge a few minutes after sunset. The two Sovremennys had appeared in the Xiamen channel, undamaged from the Harpoon barrages, steaming out of their concrete-sheltered berths. Dodging the flotsam in the harbor, they made for the Xiamen channel. They met no opposition as they steamed toward the safety of the strait.
Then they rounded Point Shima, the last promontory before the open sea. Lurking outside the channel entrance was the Taiwanese submarine, Hai Shih, an old Guppy class boat handed down by the U.S.
Hai Shih’s captain had been waiting for the Sovremennys. His first torpedo took the lead destroyer, Fan Tzu, amidships. The destroyer went into a sickening skid, a ball of flame belching from her midsection. Its stern buckled and broke away as the destroyer entered its death throes.
His second torpedo missed the stern of Fan Tao by thirty meters. Without slowing, Fan Tao raced past its dying sister ship. Before the submarine could pump another torpedo after it, the Sovremenny destroyer was launching anti-submarine missiles. Three of the high-speed missiles arced through the sky like killer hawks, plunging back to the surface and disappearing.
Seconds later, a geyser of foam and debris gushed to the surface. An ugly pool of black oil began to spread, marking the gravesite of the Hai Shih. The Fan Tao maintained speed, leaving in its wake the smoke and debris of the two shattered warships.
The Sovremenny destroyer was headed into the strait.
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Nice butt, observed Catfish Bass.
Mai-ling was leading the way into the briefing room, the same one with the charts on the wall and the miniature air base in the center. Maxwell and Bass were following her. She was still wearing the tight jeans. Bass noticed for the first time that she had a patch of an American flag sewn on the hip pocket.
Too bad she’s a world class bitch. The snotty babe reminded him of the grad school women he used to know at UCLA. There was something about them. If they possessed the rare combination of good looks and exceptional brains, they had the disposition of a crazed mongoose.
Like this one. Hadn’t missed a chance to sink her teeth into his ankle. He wondered whether it had something to do with his own ethnicity. The fact of his being half Chinese seemed to trigger some kind of hate reflex in Chinese women.
For reasons he hadn’t figured out, Mai-ling had attached herself to Maxwell. He was far too old for her—the guy had to be pushing forty—and, anyway, he had other things to think about. She probably had him sized up as her ticket to the states. Or maybe something more than that.
Bass couldn’t take his eyes off the little flag sewn on her right hip pocket. It moved in a hypnotic rhythm as she walked down the hallway. At the entrance to the briefing room, Mai-ling stopped. She sensed something.
She whirled and gave him a fierce look.
“Nice flag,” he said.
“Animal.” She wheeled and marched on down the hallway.
Predictable, he thought. The type who couldn’t handle a compliment.
They entered the cavernous room with the model of the Chouzhou air base in the center. Mai-ling, Maxwell, and Bass took seats on one side. Opposite them sat a dozen Taiwanese Army officers in their utilities. To a man, they were compactly built, wearing the same intense expression, sitting in a row like coiled springs.
They refused to make eye contact. After an initial curious look at the Americans, they kept their attention studiously focused on some faraway object. Bass figured them to be officers of the commando unit that would insert them into Chouzhou.
The thought of the coming operation sent a fresh chill down Bass’s spine.
He heard the clunk of boots on the wooden floor. All heads turned to see Colonel Chiu, in battle dress uniform, stride into the room. He looked like a drum major, arms swinging at his side, heels hammering the floor.
Someone barked a command in Chinese. As if they were a single entity, the Taiwanese officers shot to their feet and stood quivering at rigid attention.
Not sure what to do, Bass glanced over at Maxwell. Slowly, without great precision, he unwound from the seat and rose to his feet, standing at a loose parade rest. Bass followed suit. Mai-ling made a sour face and stayed seated. “I’m not in their army,” she whispered. “I don’t have to do that.”
Cool, thought Bass. The chick was finallly showing a little class.
“Seats,” Chiu barked out. In another single movement, the commandos slammed themselves back down in the seats.
Joined at the hip. Bass wondered if any of them was capable of thinking by himself. Maybe they weren’t allowed to.
The colonel spoke in rapid Mandarin. Bass could follow only about half the content. Chiu told his audience that the raid on Chouzhou—now called Operation Raven Swoop—had been moved up. Taiwan’s worsening military situation made it imperative that they execute their mission without delay. They would take off at 0300 local tomorrow morning. The colonel paused and looked at Bass. “Please translate for Commander Maxwell.”
Bass nodded, then gave Maxwell an abbreviated version of Chiu’s briefing. He saw Mai-ling shaking her head at his clumsy interpretations.
“Okay, tell him I’ve got it,” said Maxwell.
Chiu continued in Chinese, pausing every couple of minutes for Bass to translate. Bass was having trouble following the quick, guttural speech. It was a country Mandarin dialect unfamiliar to him. Some of the peculiar nuances he had to guess at.
The commando force would total ninety troops, transported in four CH-47 Chinook helicopters and escorted by another four Cobra gunships. Diversionary attacks would be conducted on coastal targets, and a bogus amphibious force would be aimed at a site south of Chouzhou. Prior to the raid, the vicinity’s air defense batteries would be raked by Harpoon missiles launched from offshore naval vessels.
The colonel walked up to the model of the air base. With a long pointer he indicated the landing sites of the helicopters, the locations of the base surface defense units, the routes taken by the elements of the commando force.
“These four hangars,” Chiu said in English, “house the Black Star project.” He pointed to
a semi-circle of fortified shelters. “According to our source—” he looked pointedly at Mai-ling, “—we are supposed to find at least one flyable aircraft in Hangar Number One.” He rapped on the first of the four shelters. “If there are more than one, as she claims, they should be in the adjoining hangar.”
Listening to the briefing, Bass’s sinking feeling returned. It was a desperate plan. Too damned desperate. The idea was to breach the tight ring of security the PLA had around the Black Star long enough to insert him and Maxwell into the hangar. What happened next depended on whether they found a flyable airplane.
And whether they could fly it. Bass was performing quick calculations. Ninety commandos versus the People’s Liberation Army. How many PLA troops were in the vicinity of Chouzhou? A thousand? Ten thousand?
The sinking feeling was getting worse.
Chiu looked at Maxwell. “How much time do you require before you can move the airplane?”
“It depends on what we find,” said Maxwell. “We need to locate the specialized equipment—helmets with the correct radio connections, harnesses, oxygen masks.”
“There will no time for random searches. We will not be able to maintain a perimeter defense while you amuse yourselves looking at flight gear.”
“If necessary we will use the generic equipment with standard fittings that we take with us.”
“You haven’t answered my question. How long before you will be prepared to fly the airplane?”
“At least half an hour. Perhaps longer. It depends on the complexity of the airplane.”
Chiu looked disgusted. “I was informed that you were a test pilot. Why should the complexity of the airplane be a problem? You should be ready to leave without delay.”
Bass could see the color rising in Maxwell’s face. “My job is to fly the airplane—if I consider it feasible. Yours is to get me to it. I don’t intend to tell you how to do your job, Colonel. Don’t tell me how to do mine.”
A thundercloud passed over Chiu’s face. A heavy silence fell over the room, and for a long moment the two men locked gazes. Chiu was clearly not a man accustomed to taking rebukes, especially in front of his officers. He seemed to be weighing whether to remove Maxwell from the operation.
Abruptly he swung his attention back to the model of the base. “The purpose of this mission is to find the Black Star aircraft. If circumstances permit our foreign guests to capture one of the aircraft—” he shot a piercing look at Maxwell, “—so be it. Otherwise, we will destroy the aircraft and all the production facilities. In any case, we will be in and out of Chouzhou in thirty minutes time.”
He went into detail about the disposition of the commando force—where they would disperse, which teams had responsibility for which shelters, where they would deploy their mortars and large-caliber weapons. The officers listened intently, nodding their heads.
When he was finished, Chiu said, “Questions?”
There were no questions.
He gave them all a curt nod. A command was barked in Chinese. Again the officers shot to their feet, standing at rigid attention.
Chiu marched to the exit. The briefing was over.
CHAPTER 13 — GWAI-LO
Taipei, Taiwan
0935, Sunday, 14 September
General Wu Hsin-chieh walked down the broad steps of the American Institute in Taiwan. He stopped in the courtyard between the main building and the perimeter wall and gazed around. Wu could remember when this place used to be called the United States Embassy, before Nixon embraced Mao and moved the embassy—and diplomatic recognition with it—to Beijing.
He blinked in the harsh light. The sun was streaming through a high veil of smoke. There was no wind. To the east, where the large industrial complexes nestled on the outskirts of the city, columns of black smoke rose straight into the sky.
War had come to Taipei.
In the first twenty-four hours of the conflict, a barrage of missiles had hurtled across the strait toward Taiwan. The Patriot anti-missile batteries had performed better than anyone expected, intercepting over eighty percent of the incoming missiles. Still, the missiles were taking a toll. Entire blocks of Taipei’s institutions were now heaps of smoking rubble. The sounds of the city were replaced with the wail of sirens, the whump of exploding warheads, the screams of panicked citizens.
Wu saw his aide, Captain Lo Pin, and his driver waiting inside the guarded gate. A pair of guards in battle dress were stationed behind sandbagged emplacements on either side of the gate. Another contingent manned an observation post behind them.
The passenger door of the black government Lexus was open, waiting for him.
Wu was in no hurry. After the past two days inside the executive bunker, he wanted to taste the open air, the relative tranquility of the afternoon. Instead of climbing into the Lexus, he lit a cigarette and stood watching the traffic outside the gate.
He couldn’t help noticing that this part of Taipei—the area around the American Institute—was untouched by the incoming cruise missiles. A coincidence? He doubted it. They already knew that China had retrofitted the guidance units of all their cruise missiles with GPS—global positioning satellite technology—furnished to the world by the United States. They could hit any target in Taiwan with an maximum error probability of thirty feet.
He guessed that it was a tacit protocol being observed by China and the United States. Don’t violate our space, and we won’t touch yours. Each side was scrupulously avoiding a confrontation with the other.
It was strangely quiet. At this time of time of day, mid-afternoon, Taipei should be a maelstrom of gridlock and honking horns. Instead, an orderly parade of vehicles, mostly military cars and a few commercial vans, passed along Joping Street in front of the consulate. The light at the intersection was not working, and a uniformed policeman was directing traffic. No horns were honking.
He had often wondered how the Taiwanese would fare if they actually experienced war. In normal times they were a noisy, quarrelsome, divided people. They fought over parking spaces, argued about food prices, insulted each other in public. Politicians in the legislative Yuan engaged in more brawls than debates.
A large faction in Taiwan had always clamored for total severance from China. Another faction, almost as large, preached reunification with their kinfolk across the strait. Becoming one happy Chinese nation. Various splinter factions wanted a Marxist state, or a Buddhist state, or no state at all—a return to the feudal system of warlords and serfs.
Wu loved this country. It was flawed and feisty, filled with contradictions and pride and guts—but it was his homeland. As a young soldier nearly thirty years ago he had taken a vow to defend it. Nearing the end of his career, he had begun to think that it would never be necessary.
Until the day before yesterday. Until President Charlotte Soong.
He still didn’t know whether he had admiration or contempt for her. Both, he guessed. He was too much of a loyal soldier to engage in an active conspiracy against her—but he didn’t rule it out. If she proved herself to be disastrously inept, he would act. No President had the divine right to destroy Taiwan.
He saw Lo Pin signaling him from the staff car. “General, a call from the President.”
Wu walked over to the Lexus and took the handset from Lo. It was the secure phone, a scrambled-signal satellite connection that linked him directly to Soong’s office.
“Yes, Madame President.”
“What was the outcome of your conversation with the Director?”
Wu had long been acquainted with the senior American diplomat in Taiwan, Jennings Poynter, whose title was now Director of the American Institute. Poynter was a career foreign service officer who spoke Mandarin and liked to play poker with senior Taiwanese officers. He was also known to favor reunification of Taiwan with China.
“He is supportive, but as we expected, he wants you to negotiate.”
“Negotiate what? A surrender?”
“A truce,” said Wu
. “A cessation of hostilities.”
A silence followed, and for a moment he thought he had lost the connection. Finally he Charlotte Soong’s voice again. “Did you relay our concerns, General? About more weapons? About our need for U.S. support?”
“To the best of my ability. I am a military officer, not a diplomat.”
“I understand. But I trust you, General Wu, more than my diplomats. I trust you to define our military position for the Americans.”
Wu was about to reply when something on the western skyline caught his eye. A squiggly gray trail was pointing into the smoke-veiled atmosphere. As he followed the trail, it made a couple of corkscrew turns, then erupted in an oily black cloud. A shower of debris arced down toward the western suburbs of Taipei.
A Chinese missile, he realized. Intercepted by one of the Patriot air defense batteries. He guessed that it was another C-801 Sardine short range cruise missile. The bastards had an endless supply of them. Thank God for the Patriots. Without the Patriot anti-missile batteries supplied by the U.S., Taiwan would now be a smoking ruin.
“Are you still there, General Wu?”
“Yes, Madame President. I am observing a demonstration that the PLA has not run out of cruise missiles.”
“All the more reason that we need rearmament.”
“Consul Poynter tells me that a resupply of the Patriot missile batteries has been authorized.” Wu was watching the cloud of debris descend over Taipei. The sound of the explosion had not yet reached him. “To our request for more offensive weapons—land-attack missiles and more F-16s—he says Washington declines. There will be no rearmament of offensive equipment.”
“I have a conference scheduled in two hours with the U.S. President,” said Madame Soong. “I will remind him that America is involved with Taiwan in this war. That we share a common interest in the outcome.”
