Black Star

by Robert Gandt

  “I don’t believe it. You definitely are not like a brick.”

  “You don’t know me.”

  “I’m learning.”

  He kept noticing her face. There was something about the animated expression, the way she seemed to probe his mind with her eyes. Something familiar.

  Then it came to him. That rapt, curious look—it was how Claire used to peer at him. They were galaxies apart in looks and background and style, yet alike. In Mai-ling’s intent brown eyes he was seeing that same eager intelligence.

  It explained a lot. Like why he was here when it was half past eight and he had to get some sleep. He didn’t want to leave.

  He said, “This mission to Chouzhou isn’t something you have to do. You could stay here.”

  She shook her head. “I’m the one who knows the ground. Only I can guide you to the right places, save Colonel Chiu’s precious time.”

  “He doesn’t like you, in case you haven’t noticed.

  “Nor you, in case you haven’t noticed. He doesn’t like anyone outside his own little clique. Chiu is like every senior Chinese military officer I’ve known, Taiwanese or PLA.” She paused, looking off into space. “Like Zhang.”

  “Zhang?”

  “Colonel Zhang Yu. Commander of the PLA air force’s special operations squadron, the unit responsible for the Dong-jin—what you call Black Star. He is a very well connected political officer, said to be a protégé of the Chief of the PLA air force, General Tsin.” She paused, then said, “I hate him.”

  “Why do you hate him?”

  “Zhang had the task of purging the PLA air force of political and religious dissidents. He was very good at his job. He arrested over a thousand, mostly officers, and sent them to the Laogai—the retraining camps.”

  “So you were you a dissident?”

  “More like an enlightened thinker. In the years after the Tiananmen Square massacre and the persecution of the Falun Gong, many of us became enlightened thinkers. Some were more enlightened than others, and those were the ones Zhang arrested. One was my fiancé, Shaomin.” At this, her voice caught and she fell silent for a moment.

  Maxwell nodded, letting her collect her emotions.

  She said, “He was a good man, very intelligent, perhaps too idealistic for his own good. I loved him for that.”

  “What happened to him?”

  A cloud passed over her face. “He vanished. I knew that Zhang’s thugs had come to the compound and taken him away to the camps. Then, a week later, I heard through our network that he was not in the Laogai. He had disappeared. We received a report that he had been summarily tried and executed. I knew by then that I was also in great danger because Shaomin and I had been—” her voice caught, then she went on. “We were lovers. It would be assumed that whatever he was involved in, so was I.”

  “That’s when you defected?”

  She nodded. “There was a network. Many who live in Fujian Province have contacts in Taiwan. When I indicated my willingness to leave China, they assigned someone to help me. We left one night from the port of Xiamen in a fishing boat. It was easy.”

  “It doesn’t make sense. You’re safe now. You have a terrific education, with a brilliant career ahead of you. Why do you want to risk it all by going back to Chouzhou?”

  She chewed on a thumbnail for a moment. “Retribution, I suppose. A kind of quid pro quo. And redemption.”

  “Whose redemption?”

  “Mine. And all the other dissidents who haven’t yet been killed like Shaomin.”

  “How will that happen?”

  “I haven’t got that figured out yet. I just have this fantasy that I’ll somehow encounter Colonel Zhang.

  “And then what?”

  “I want him to recognize me. When he realizes who I am, he’ll know that I know he was responsible for the death of Shaomin. He will understand why I’ve come back.”

  Maxwell was getting the picture. “And then. . .”

  She made a slashing motion with her finger across her throat. “You know.”

  In the shadows Maxwell detected a faint movement of something metallic. Something concealed. He stared into the darkness, then made out the dim outline.

  A sentry behind a sand-bagged security post.

  “We’d better stop here,” he said. “One of those guys will get nervous and shoot before he asks questions.”

  “I needed to get out of that building for a while. Away from Colonel Chiu.”

  “Chiu is a strange guy,” said Maxwell. “Why is he so hostile to you?”

  “He considers himself a patriot, and he thinks I’m not. As much as he hates the People’s Republic, he hates people like me even more. He thinks I have no loyalty.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes. To science. To civilization.” She smiled in the darkness. “To you, maybe.”

  “No feelings for the PRC? Or Taiwan?”

  “Why should I? The PRC is a repressive government that persecutes its own people. They killed Shaomin. Taiwan? It’s an island. That’s all.”

  “What about the United States?”

  “What about it?”

  He gave up. The concept of patriotism was so ingrained in him that he couldn’t imagine not having it. Mai-ling was a person without a country, and that seemed to suit her. Obviously, it didn’t suit Colonel Chiu.

  She fell silent for a while. Then, in the darkness, she said, “Brick, why don’t you have a girl friend?”

  “I did. Now I don’t.”

  “She left you? Or you left her?”

  “It was more her idea.”

  She thought about that for a moment, then she took Brick’s hands in hers. Her hands felt warm

  and dry.

  “A woman who would leave a man like you must have very bad judgment. You are lucky to be free of such a woman.”“Well, that’s putting a positive spin on it.”

  After a moment, she said, “You would have liked Shaomin.”

  “Your fiancé? Why?”

  “He was much like you. Good looking. Very smart.

  He loved what he was doing—working on the Dong-jin project and flying fighters.” But there was a secret part of his life that he didn’t discuss with me. I think it was because he wanted to protect me.”“Protect you from. . .?”

  “The PLA security arm. Shaomin was afraid for my safety.”

  Maxwell watched her in the darkness, realizing again how very little he knew about her. He could understand, at least from a professional point of view, why Chiu distrusted her. How could you trust someone who had no loyalty to the traditional things—flag, country, homeland?

  He didn’t care. He could feel something in the touch of her fingers, like an electric field connecting them. Mai-ling Chen—he unconsciously made the switch from the Chinese usage to the western practice of family name last—was a girl with whom he could be comfortable. He liked her quick brain, the dry humor, her clear-eyed, irreverent world view.

  That’s not all, Maxwell.

  With a jolt, he realized he was smitten by the wide brown eyes, the lithe, curvaceous figure that even the baggy utilities couldn’t conceal.

  More than smitten, actually.

  He felt himself wanting to draw her close to him. And it definitely wasn’t her quick brain that he needed.

  She sensed it too. She placed her hands on his forearms.

  “What if we don’t come back?’”“I can’t predict the future.”

  “I can. This is what I predict. You and I will come back and we will become lovers. It will be an intense and very physical relationship. After that, perhaps it will become something else.”

  “Like what?”

  “Something more advanced. We will appreciate each other for what we really are.”

  “When did you become a fortune-teller?”

  “When I was born. Chinese women have it in their genes.”

  Be careful, said a voice inside him. You’ve got too much on your mind. This is no time to be thinking
what you’re thinking.

  Right.

  With that thought, he felt himself filled with an even deeper longing. He told himself that what he sensed was just the chemistry of shared danger.

  Right.

  He felt her fingers sliding behind his neck. She was on her toes, her face six inches from his.

  He gazed into her eyes for a full ten seconds, wrestling with his thoughts. I’m on a mission that requires total concentration. My country trusts me. Stay focused.

  Right.

  They weren’t aboard ship. No non-fraternization rule here. What they did was no one’s business except—

  Enough thinking. He took her face in his hands and kissed her. Their lips barely touched, almost a social kiss, slow and tentative.

  And then it became something else. She pressed herself to him, returning the kiss, her eyes wide open, hands entwined behind his neck.

  He could feel her heart beating against his chest. He was aware that the sentry was watching them from his gun position. To hell with him. Nothing mattered at the moment. Nothing except the pressure of Mai-ling’s body against him.

  They held each other for what seemed like an hour but was, in fact, less than a minute. She tilted her head upward. Her hands were still clasped behind his neck.

  “You’ve done this before, Sam.”

  “I have? I don’t remember.”

  “You want to make love to me, don’t you?”

  “Is that an invitation or an observation?”

  “Neither. It’s a question.”

  “The obvious answer is yes.”

  “Yes, but. . .?”

  “But we have a mission in five hours. And Colonel Chiu is spying on us.”

  “Have you always been so honorable?”

  “No. I’m just trying to impress you.”

  She laughed. “When we’re finished with this mission, I’ll let you really impress me.”

  Still holding her hand, he turned and started back toward the compound. Something made him stop. A sound, a low guttural voice behind them.

  He glanced back over his shoulder. The sentry was watching them, talking into a radio handset.

  CHAPTER 15 — INGRESS

  Chingchuankang Air Base, Taiwan

  0315, Monday, 15 September

  Sitting in the aft cabin, Maxwell could feel the vibration of the big turbine engines through his hard metal seat. The whopping noise of the twin rotor blades filled the cabin as the CH-47 “Super D” Chinook lifted from the tarmac at Chingchuankang.

  Seated along either bulkhead and in rows to the front and back were thirty black-clad, black-faced troops of Colonel Chiu’s special forces brigade.

  Chiu sat next to him, on the side row of seats. He was peering at Maxwell’s holstered pistol. “What is that thing?”

  Maxwell pulled the weapon out of the holster. “Colt .45, model 1911.”

  “Why would anyone carry a relic like that?” Chiu said. “It belongs in a museum.”

  “Family tradition. My father wore it in Vietnam. I’ve had it with me on every combat mission.”

  “What for? To drive tent stakes?”

  In the darkness of the cabin he couldn’t tell if Chiu was making a joke or being sarcastic. With Chiu, you couldn’t tell. He shrugged and replaced the heavy pistol.

  Through the round cabin window of the Chinook he saw only the blackness of the tarmac, the faint silhouette of the high terrain surrounding Chingchuankang. Somewhere behind and in front of them were the other three “Super D” Chinooks carrying sixty more special ops commandos, led by their escort of four AH-1W Super Cobra gunships.

  With fewer than a hundred troops, we’re invading China.

  It was a joke.

  The throb of the rotors deepened further. Maxwell felt the big chopper tilt forward and accelerate. Like all fighter pilots, he held a deep-rooted mistrust of rotary-wing aircraft. There was something unnatural about helicopters, all those whirling parts, gears gnashing together like metallic demons.

  He could tell that Catfish Bass felt the same way. The Air Force pilot looked like a man waiting for a hemorrhoidectomy. Bass sat with his arms folded tightly over his chest, his face frozen in a glum expression. Like the rest of the raiding party, he wore ninja-like black utilities and a Kevlar helmet with night vision goggles attached. His face was smeared with greasepaint. He wore a satchel over his shoulder containing a PRC-112 handheld communications unit and a flight helmet fitted with oxygen mask and PLA-standard connectors. In a shoulder holster he carried a 9 mm Beretta.

  “Helicopters suck,” said Bass.

  “It beats swimming.”

  “Swimming sucks too.”

  “That’s what I like about Air Force guys. You’re so cheerful.”

  Bass nodded toward the front of the Chinook. “What about them? Do they have a clue what they’re doing?”

  Maxwell looked up at the darkened cockpit. He had been wondering the same thing. Sneaking four troop-carrying helicopters and four noisy gunships across the Taiwan Strait into the most heavily defended air base in China was a trick of incredible audacity. What would happen when they triggered the alarm in the PLA’s elaborate sensor net? What would happen when the air defense ring around the Chouzhou perimeter detected their unwelcome presence? The big twin-rotored Chinooks were the furthest thing imaginable from stealth aircraft.

  He remembered Chiu’s response when the question was raised in the final briefing. “Privileged information,” was all he would say. “We have assets to deal with the base defenses. We will enter the Chouzhou perimeter without interference.”

  Assets? Maxwell decided not to press him. He assumed it meant they had operatives on the ground at Chouzhou. What kind of operatives? It made sense not to disclose details, in the event they were captured.

  But what about the sensor net? How did they plan to suppress the surveillance radar that constantly probed the sky over the Taiwan Strait?

  Did the Chinook pilots know what they were doing?

  “It doesn’t matter now,” Maxwell said. “We’re along for the ride until we get to Chouzhou and find the Black Star.”

  Bass nodded. His face became gloomier.

  By the hum of the airframe Maxwell guessed that the Chinook was up to speed, something around a hundred-forty knots. An occasional wink of light passed by the blackened cabin window. A hut in the mountains? A boat at sea? No way to tell.

  They were in the second of the four Chinooks. Leading the column were the Super Cobras. If they ran into trouble, the rocket-firing gunships would be the first to engage.

  He caught Mai-ling’s eyes on him. She looked oddly subdued, dressed in the ninja costume, her face blackened. Gone, at least for the moment, was the defiant attitude, the look of confidence in the almond eyes.

  For a moment Maxwell let himself remember. He could still sense the warm touch of her skin.

  She seemed to be reading his thoughts. She nodded and gave him a tentative smile.Chiu noticed. He looked at Mai-ling, then switched his gaze back to Maxwell, his eyes narrow and penetrating.

  Chiu was a snoop, Maxwell thought. He had already learned from his sentries about the walk on the darkened ramp last night. So what? To hell with Chiu.

  Chiu abruptly rose and went to the forward cabin. Along the way he stopped to clap several of his commandos on the shoulder, rapping his knuckles on their helmets, giving words of encouragement. Maxwell noticed how each of the young special forces soldiers looked at Chiu with reverence.

  For all his personality deficiencies, Chiu had the total loyalty of his men. His troops would follow him into hell.

  Is that where we’re headed? With that question in his mind, Maxwell reached for his holster, checking that the clip was shoved all the way into the grip of the .45.

  Chiu was carrying on an animated conversation with the two pilots on the elevated cockpit deck. Their heads were nodding, and they pointed to a display on the panel.

  After several minutes Chiu returned to the cab
in. He huddled for a moment with one of his platoon leaders, clapped him on the shoulder, then he came back to where Maxwell and Bass were seated.

  Chiu glanced at his watch. “Half-way across the strait,” he said to Maxwell. “Thirty-five minutes from Chouzhou.”

  Maxwell nodded. He glanced out the round window again. Nothing but blackness. He knew they were skimming the surface of the ocean, probably no higher than fifty feet. Again he felt the impotence of a fighter pilot trapped in a clattering, low-flying helicopter.

  Bass was right. Helicopters suck.

  <>

  It was eerily quiet in the bunker. Sitting at his desk inside his cubicle, Franklin Huang heard no explosions from the complex outside, no sirens, no clamor of fire trucks and ambulances. The war seemed to have entered a lull.

  Huang considered again the faxed brief on his desk. Glaring at him from the black-and-white sheet was the visage of Colonel Chiu Yusheng. The colonel looked grim and unsmiling in the photo. His hard features glared at the camera as if he ready for hand-to-hand combat.

  So this was the legendary Chiu. Huang had heard of him.

  According to the classified brief sheet, Chiu had participated in over a dozen clandestine operations inside mainland China. He had been inserted by raft, submarine, helicopter, and on one occasion, an ultra-light aircraft. The sheet only alluded to Chiu’s objectives, which Huang inferred to be intelligence gathering, rescue and retrieval of operatives, and a certain amount of discreet sabotage.

  Huang nodded appreciatively. Colonel Chiu was a man of diverse talents.

  Next to the briefing paper on Chiu was a report from the chief of the southern sector air traffic control center. Two nights ago, a U.S. Navy C-2 had been cleared into Taiwanese airspace. The American airplane had arrived at a low altitude from the southwest—the sector where the USS Ronald Reagan and its strike group were known to be stationed. The turbo-prop aircraft had landed at Chingchuankang base, then departed forty-five minutes later. Nothing more had been reported.

  Huang stared at the report. What was the purpose of the visit? To drop off the two Americans? If so, it could mean that two U.S. Navy personnel were participating in a mission commanded by Colonel Chiu.