He smiled. There would be no cell phone calls to report the helicopter or the piece of gear it was carrying; the machine was a massive 800 watt, trailer-mounted cell phone jammer that wiped out all cell phone signals within about a 10 mile radius; this one jammer was now blacking out all of the Seattle metropolitan area. He saw another jammer, just like the one being carried by the helicopter, lined up on the deck and ready for transportation to Tacoma. He chuckled. Anyone that needs to make a cell phone call in Tacoma better make it soon, he thought.
White House Red Room, Washington, DC, 1705 EDT (1405 Pacific Daylight Time)
Not wanting to have the discussion in the State Dining Room, the president had taken the Chinese Ambassador, along with his closest National Security Council advisors and gone into the Red Room next door. The Red Room was one of three state parlors on the first floor of the White House. It had served over time as a parlor and a music room, and had traditionally been decorated in shades of red; the current carmine color did nothing to decrease the president’s ire.
“What the hell do you mean ‘we’re at war?’” he asked.
“That actually was imprecise,” said the ambassador. “My apologies; I was overly excited. What I meant to say is that my country is currently engaged in combat operations to recover our breakaway province of Taiwan. These operations started just a few minutes ago and are in accordance with our rights under international law. As you well know, the People’s Republic of China succeeded the Republic of China as the sole legitimate government of China in 1949. There is only one China, of which Taiwan is an inalienable part; we have decided today to regain that part of our nation. Just as the German people were united in celebration nearly 30 years ago with the reunification of their country, the people of China are united today in celebrating the reunification of our country. We exhausted all peaceful means at our disposal to recover Taiwan; today we have decided to use our military forces to recover it.”
“Are you saying that our nations are at war?” the president asked.
“I am saying nothing of the sort,” replied the ambassador. “We have not declared war on Taiwan. We are simply conducting military operations to recover part of our territory that has been governed by a foreign power for far too long. We certainly have not declared war on the United States, nor do we intend to unless provoked. Should you declare war on the People’s Republic, we of course will have no option but to reply in kind. While I cannot tell you all of our plans, I have been authorized to tell you that our forces have been prepositioned to deny any sort of response on your part. Anything short of complete acquiescence with our plans to recover Taiwan will go poorly for the citizens of the United States.”
While he was talking, a man entered the room, crossed to the National Security Advisor and whispered into his ear. When the Chinese Ambassador paused, the National Security Advisor spoke to the president. “Sir, we have confirmed reports that power has failed nation-wide. The power failure we just experienced is not contained to the area, but has affected all three of the power grids in the United States.” The president knew there were three separate electrical networks, the Eastern Grid, the Western Grid and the Texas Grid. “Not only that,” he continued, “most of Canada is experiencing a power outage, as are most of our alliance partners. We also have reports of a variety of other governmental service failures, as well as failures in the 9-1-1 emergency system. It looks like we’re being attacked on a variety of cyber fronts!”
The president looked at the Chinese Ambassador. “I thought you said that you hadn’t declared war on the United States!” he seethed through nearly closed teeth.
The ambassador looked at the president. “I have no idea what you are talking about. Certainly, the failure of your antiquated systems cannot be attributed to our nation. Our focus today is on Taiwan, not on your domestic issues.”
The president could not believe that. There was no way that all of these things had happened coincidentally with a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. It was obvious that the ambassador was lying, and if he lied about that, what else was he lying about? The president needed information, not worthless platitudes, and it was obvious to him that the ambassador was not going to be the source of that information.
Looking over to the head of his Secret Service security detail, he said, “Bill, please take the ambassador to the Green Room and keep him there. I’ll need to speak with him later, but first I need to find out what is truly going on here.”
The Secret Service leader spoke into his wrist microphone, and two agents detached themselves from the walls where they had been waiting anonymously and walked over to the ambassador. “Sir, if you would come with us, please?” asked one of them.
The ambassador stood up on his own, but then stopped and would not move any further. The agents began to physically herd him toward the door. “You cannot hold me against my will!” he cried. “I have diplomatic immunity! I demand to be returned to my embassy immediately!”
The president looked at the ambassador and smiled. “I wouldn’t dream of making you go out onto the roads right now,” the president said. “With the power out, you might get into an accident. I fear for your safety on the roads, so I am offering you a place to stay until things calm down outside. Also, some citizens might get the wrong-headed idea that China is behind these failures and want to cause you harm. No, for your own safety, we’ll keep you safely protected right here at the White House.” He waved to the secret servicemen, and the ambassador was ushered out.
“OK,” said the president turning to face his advisors, “so what do we know right now?”
The Senior Advisor spoke first. She was responsible for Strategic Initiatives, Intergovernmental Affairs, Political Affairs and Public Liaison. “We’re still gathering information, Mr. President,” she said, “but it appears that a wide variety of governmental services have failed, not just the power grid. In some places, water and sewage is out, too, and much of the internet appears to have gone away.”
The president looked stunned. “What do you mean, ‘gone away’?” he asked.
“I mean that sites that used to be available, just aren’t there anymore. Most governmental sites, especially, have gone offline. Even Google is offline! We’re trying to figure out what happened, but we depend on the Internet for much of the information we need to figure everything out. That information isn’t available to us at the moment, so we’re having to fall back on old-fashioned things like phone books. Have you even seen a phone book recently? You can’t find a damn thing in them, even if you could find one to look at. Most phone companies aren’t even making them anymore. And now the phone service is cut in many places, too! I can’t give you information I don’t have!” Her voice had risen over an octave during her answer, and it appeared to the president that she was starting to lose her grip.
“It’s OK,” he said, trying to calm her down. “Get with your staff and see what they can find out. We’ll obviously need FEMA involved as soon as possible.” The Federal Emergency Management Agency had been created to oversee emergency management for disasters; he was sure it would be needed everywhere and at once today.
“OK,” said the president. “What else do we know?” Trying to calm the Senior Advisor had the affect of calming him. His temper was back under control, and he was ready to lead.
His Chief of Staff spoke, “Well, I tried to call the Chinese Embassy to reach the Chinese President for you, but didn’t have any luck. After initially being told that he was not feeling well enough to talk on the phone, they finally confessed that he had ‘flown home for treatment.’ He couldn’t have come to the dinner tonight because he went back to China either yesterday or earlier today. I guess that makes sense. If they were planning on invading Taiwan, he’d want to be back in China to oversee the attack.”
The president looked to the Secretary of State and said, “I want to talk to him. Now.” The Secretary of State left to go oversee the task. The president turned back to the Chief of Staff. �
�We’re going to need everyone here to deal with this,” he said. “Get the vice president back, ASAP.” The vice president was currently in Iowa looking at the latest crop failures caused by the ongoing drought. The Chief of Staff said something to one of his staffers, who left to take care of it.
The president next looked to his senior military advisor, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Obviously, I’ll need options, as soon as they’re available. Dust off the ‘Defense of Taiwan’ scenarios that we have and see what forces we have in the area to support them. I’ll want a full briefing in two hours.” He knew that this was not enough time to put together a complete response plan, but he could feel things sliding away from him. He felt sure that if the U.S. didn’t make a response soon, Taiwan would be lost.
The Chairman nodded his head. “Yes, sir, my staff is already working on that. We’ll have something for you at 1915. It won’t be the best, but it will give you enough info to start making some decisions.”
The president addressed the Director of National Intelligence. “How likely is it that the Chinese are responsible for these power failures and the other service malfunctions?”
“I’d say it’s damn likely,” the DNI replied. “We’ve known for years that the Chinese have been mapping our power networks, as well as the rest of our service utilities. My worst nightmare is an Al Qaeda attack along these lines, because we know they’ve been trying to do it for the better part of 17 years. We’ve caught them sniffing around electrical generation and distribution facilities, emergency phone system services, water storage and distribution, and gas and nuclear generation facilities. If Al Qaeda has been working on it, you know the Chinese have, and their guys are much better funded and equipped. We haven’t seen anything so far like a reactor going supercritical or a dam suddenly opening its floodgates, but we have seen electrical substations hit with hundreds of thousands of volts simultaneously, shorting them out completely. It will take a long time before they’ll be able to be put back into operation. If this is the Chinese, and I firmly believe it is, I don’t think that they will cause a nuclear meltdown or wipe out our first responders’ 9-1-1 system; if we could prove that, they know we’d come after them with everything we have at our disposal. Power generation and distribution, though, has been a legitimate target since it was developed. In fact, that was the first thing we went after in Iraq, because it hampered their command and control efforts.”
“Kind of like it is doing to us right now,” said the president.
“Just like it is doing to us right now,” confirmed the DNI.
“OK,” said the president, “does anyone have anything useful?”
The room was silent.
Blair Terminal, The Port of Tacoma, Tacoma, WA, 1405 Pacific Daylight Time
For more than 35 years, the Port of Tacoma had served as a port-of-entry into the United States for the automobile industry. With the addition of SAIC, there were now 10 manufacturers that used Tacoma’s port facilities to transship automobiles, including major manufacturers like Isuzu, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Suzuki, Ford, and GM. It was therefore not unusual for the China Shipping Container Lines Co. (CSCL) M.V. Xin Fei Zhou car carrier to pull into the Blair Terminal Facility, as that was the normal terminal for automobile onload and offload.
The Xin Fei Zhou was the second ship of the CSCL to bear that name, and was a brand new ocean-going car carrier. One of the new breed of large car and truck carriers, the Xin Fei Zhou was a “roll-on/roll-off” ship with both a starboard side ramp that folded down so that cars and trucks could drive off the ship from its interior, as well as a ramp at the stern of the ship on the starboard side, so that vehicle offload could be greatly expedited. At 656 feet in length and 105 feet wide, the Xin Fei Zhou could carry 5,501 cars across the ocean at nearly 20 knots. As it pulled up to Blair Terminal, the Auto Warehousing Company employees expertly tied up the ship to the pier. Situated across Port of Tacoma Road from the U.S. Customs Office, it only took a few minutes for the Customs Officer to arrive at the ship; however, the ramps were already in motion, even though the gangway was not in place yet.
The Customs Officer was the first person across the gangway once it was secured. “What is the meaning of this?” he asked. “You can’t begin to offload until Customs is complete!”
Stepping onto the ship, he was forced to a sudden stop as a large caliber pistol was shoved into his nose by a man in a military uniform. The man was short, but stout, and held the pistol with an air of competence. “I think we will use a different procedure, today,” the military man said, “assuming that is all right with you?”
The Customs Officer mumbled something that might have been “OK,” as he tried to scurry back onto the gangway and off the ship, but it was hard to tell in his haste.
The man with the pistol, Captain Du Jun, looked at his superior, Major Pan Yan and said, “Sir, I don’t believe there will be a problem if we skip Customs today. Our only problem is that we will need someone to clean the deck. It appears the American wet himself in his haste to leave.”
Major Pan, who towered over his subordinate by eight inches, even though they weighed almost the same, replied, “For some reason, I didn’t think Customs would be a problem. Thank you for not shooting him and making an even bigger mess.”
“Won’t he go and call his superiors now, though?” asked Captain Du Jun.
“Of course he will try to,” responded the Major, “just like the longshoreman that are currently trying to do the same.” He pointed to the pier where at least 15 of the 20 men and women in sight had their cell phones out and were pressing their buttons.
“Judging by their confused expressions, it looks like their cell phone service stopped working for some reason,” the Major continued, “and really, what good would it have done?” He looked pointedly at the starboard amidships ramp that was now down and at the first Type 99 tank charging down it, along with the first two companies of troops whose mission it was to secure the port facilities. “We have all of the surprise we needed for the mission, and we were starting to run behind schedule due to the ship’s incompetent commander getting us into port late.”
“Besides,” he finished, “I planned for this.”
The first Type 99 tank reached the pier and its 125mm smoothbore main gun traversed until it was pointing at the Customs Office. Smoke belched from the muzzle of the gun as it fired one round, blowing half of the building apart.
“I don’t think he will be a problem,” said the Major.
As they had planned and practiced, it only took a few minutes until the first group was ready to get underway. Ten of the Type 99 main battle tanks led the procession, followed by a HQ-9 surface-to-air missile battery, a PGZ-95 anti-aircraft battery, ten ZBD-08 infantry fighting vehicles and ten more Type 98 main battle tanks.
The group was a very potent force. The ten Type 99 tanks represented an effective fighting force all on their own, as they were as good as any main battle tank in the world, on a par even with the U.S. M1A1 Abrams tank. The Type 99 showed a mixture of Russian and Western influence in its design and technology, with a hull similar to the Russian T-72, but with a Western-style angular welded turret. With a 125mm smoothbore main gun and the capability to fire the locally produced version of the AT-11 Sniper anti-tank guided missile, it had tremendous offensive firepower; it also had a 12.7mm heavy machine gun for the tank commander and a 7.62 mm coaxial machine gun as a secondary armament. The latest version was powered by a 2,100 horsepower, liquid-cooled, turbo-charged diesel engine based on German technology. Although not quite as top-of-the-line as the Type 99 in most respects, the Type 98 was also a very capable tank in its own right. The twenty tanks together represented far more combat power than anything else in the region and would be hard to stop without using air power.
In order to counter the air threat, the group brought both the HQ-9 and the PGZ-95 combat systems. The HQ-9 gave the group a surface-to-air missile (SAM) capability that was of the latest generation of m
edium to long-range radar-homing SAMs. Its guidance systems were on par with the U.S. Patriot or Russian S-300 missile systems, with missiles that could fly at Mach 4.2 (over four times the speed of sound) out to their maximum operational range of 125 miles. The HQ-9 battery consisted of a truck-mounted acquisition radar, a truck-mounted engagement radar, a command post truck, six transporter/erector launchers (TELs) each with 4 missiles (totaling 24 rounds for the system), and three support vehicles. The radars represented a new generation in Chinese air defense. Gone were the days of reliance on the SA-2 SAM launched from static, fixed sites; the HQ-9’s highly mobile radars now gave it the ability to hide, then ‘shoot and scoot.’ By moving after a launch, it had a much greater opportunity to evade aircraft tasked with destroying it. The system also had a very large missile with a warhead that was almost 400 pounds. Even near misses would probably be fatal.
The PGZ-95 was a self-propelled anti-aircraft system with four 25mm cannons that could fire up to 800 rounds a minute and four infrared homing missiles that were effective to almost 11,500 feet. The system was also effective against ground forces, as its guns could be brought to bear on them. As good as it was against aircraft, it was nothing short of devastating against most light armored fighting vehicles or troops in the open. The PGZ-95 battery consisted of six anti-aircraft vehicles led by a command vehicle and three resupply trucks.
The ZBD-08 was China’s latest armored fighting vehicle with better armor than its predecessor the ZBD-04. The front of the hull and the turret could withstand hits from 30mm rounds, while the sides could stop 14.5mm rounds and the rear 7.62mm ones. Additional armor could also be bolted on, if needed. The turret included a thermal imaging gun sight and, like the Russian BMP-3, of which it was a derivative, it was armed with a 100mm main gun, a 30mm cannon and a coaxial 7.62mm machine gun. Each of the ZBD-08s could transport seven armed soldiers in addition to its crew of three.
Red Tide: The Chinese Invasion of Seattle (Occupied Seattle Book 1) Page 12
