by Dale Brown
the more he realized it was the loss of the B-2 that bothered him the
most. Yes, it was horrible that they'd lost six B-52 crew members, and
the F-14 Tomcat aviators, and the sailors from the USS Ranger. But he'd
always thought of the B-2 as. . . almost invincible. For the kind of
money and research that had gone into those planes, they should have
been. And yet, as he more than anyone knew, nothing was ever certain in
life. Nothing. Paul Cesare had been keeping the President's coffee mug
filled and hot all this time, even though the President had only taken
two or three sips in nearly twenty-four hours; now, he replaced the
thick, white Navy galley mug of coffee with a mug of chicken soup. "Eat
something, Mr. President, " Cesare said. "Get up and stretch . Taylor
considered it, but the ringing of the White House phone glued him to the
desk. Cesare picked it up, listened, then handed it right to the
President. "Sir, it's the Chinese Foreign Minister on the line from
Beijing." Taylor would have loved to tell Zhou to piss off backwards, or
tell him that, yes, we won't bomb your ships anymore-hell, he wasn't
sure what he would tell Zhou. Instead, he motioned to Secretary of
State Danahall to take the phone. They had already discussed in great
detail exactly what was going to be said-now was the moment to start the
drama. The President turned to a separate no-voice phone to listen in
while Danahall cleared his throat and said, "Secretary Danahall
speaking."
"Mr. Secretary, this is Zhou Ti Yanbing, " the Chinese For eign
Minister announced himself. "I thank you for taking my call, sir." "Do
you have a message for us?"
"Yes, Mr. Secretary, " Zhou said. "Premier Cheung wishes to officially
protest the unwarranted and brutal attack on the People's Republic of
China's fleet in the southern Philippines. Premier Cheung demands to
know if a state of war has been declared and whether Article Four of the
Brussels Conference is hereby implemented." Article Four dealt with the
formal declaration of hostilities between nations, setting in motion all
the legal and diplomatic formalities of war. Taylor couldn't believe it.
He listened with a growing sense of fury and frustration. God, how he'd
love to tell Zhou and Cheung to go to hell. Better yet, to bomb them
back into the Stone Age. With that one nuclear explosion they had set
off the most maddening and aggravating chain of events in his
administration. And now the fuckers were demanding that the United
States follow the letter of the law. The audacity. . He shook his head
and took a deep breath. Even going on twenty-four hours without sleep,
he knew, as much as he'd rather not, that rules had to be obeyed,
protocol observed, words exchanged. He nodded for Secretary Danahall to
continue... Danahall took a deep breath and said calmly, "Please advise
Premier Cheung that the government of the United States desires no
direct communication with the government of the People's Republic of
China except to receive an offer of an immediate cease-fire and
guaranteed promise to halt all military operations in the Philippines.
Any official notification this government has with your government will
be through the United Nations."
"I understand the formal notification procedures, Mr. Secretary, and we
will of course abide by them as well, " Zhou said in his polished,
fluent English-Oriental accent. "My government has already delivered an
official letter of protest to the Secretary General, and I trust
Ambassador O'Day will contact you in short order. But any nation that
embraces peace, freedom, and human rights would surely desire to begin
negotia tions to end all hostilities as soon as possible. You do not
wish to fight a war, do you, Mr. Secretary? Will you simply make
demands of us without opening any sort of dialogue?"
"We have no message or statements for your government, Mr. Foreign
Secretary, Danahall said resolutely, "except that we expect your
guaranteed promise to withdraw all military forces from the Philippines
immediately. Do you have a message for my government?" There was a
slight pause; then: "Mr. Secretary, please conAnd then the line went
dead. THE PRESIDENTIAL RESIDENCE, BEIJING PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA
MONDAY, 10 OCTOBER 1994, 0231 HRS. LOCAL "You will not capitulate to
the Americans!" Chinese High General Chin Po Zihong said as he grabbed
the phone from the Foreign Minister's hand. Several other members of
Premier Cheung Yat Sing's Cabinet shot to their feet in absolute shock.
Premier Cheung himself remained impassive, his hands folded on his desk,
watching the spectacle with a stone-cold, expressionless visage. "How
dare you disrupt a call to a foreign ministry like that!" Zhou shouted.
"Explain yourself, Comrade General. You are violating a direct order
from the Comrade Premier himself..."
"I am in charge of this military operation, Comrade Zhou, " General Chin
said. "Any communications that involve it must go through myself. I
have full authority-"
"You are out of line, General, " Zhou said angrily. "You were insane to
begin this foolish military incursion, you were insane to place that
criminal Admiral Yin in charge of an invasion force on Mindanao, and you
are a fool to refuse to open a dialogue with the Americans." He turned
and motioned to a stack of reports piled on a granite conference table
nearby. "You have read these reports. Four destroyers have been sunk
out there! Four destroy ers! That is half of the destroyers assigned
to Admiral Yin, and one-fourth of all the destroyers in the entire
People's Liberation Army Navy fleet! At first report, ten frigates and
nearly thirty patrol boats were sunk or put out of commission as well.
There is no report of casualties yet, but they must number in the
thousands! This operation must be terminated immediately!"
"Impossible!" Chin shouted. "Out of the question. We are hours away
from final victory, Zhou Ti Yanbing. The invasion has already begun,
and the early indications are that there is no resistance "No
resistance? Four destroyers on the bottom of the Celebes Sea, and you
say no resistance? You cannot hope to ever claim a victory in this
debacle!"
"I was referring to rebel resistance in Davao, " General Chin said. "We
expected heavy losses from the very begin....... "You told this
government that we could expect twenty to thirty percent losses maximum
throughout the duration of this conflict, " Zhou argued. "You did not
say we would sustain thirty percent losses in three hours "The objective
of the operation was to seize Samar International Airport and secure the
island of Mindanao, " General Chin said. "This government authorized
that operation-you authorized it as well, Comrade Zhou, with your
affirmative vote. That objective is still within my reach. Loss
figures have not been verified, and all my reports indicate that the
objective can still be achieved in less than six hours. So far only the
American Air Battle Force has been involved in this operation. They have
<
br /> sustained heavy losses as well, and even if they complete their raids we
can still achieve total victory. Once Samar International Airport
falls, not one single American aircraft will be able to approach within
five hundred kilometers of the Philippines again... "It appears obvious
to me, General, that even if you do take Samar International Airport,
you have gained nothing, " Zhou said. "The losses we are experiencing
are staggering. We must withdraw immediately or we will not have an
army to land on Davao Airport when you finally take it-or should I add,
if you take it." Zhou turned to Premier Cheung, who had not said a word
during the entire argument. "Comrade, I request, with all due respect,
that General Chin's operation be terminated and that we return-"
"You cannot do this, " General Chin shouted. "You cannot abandon a
military operation simply because of unverified reports of heavy losses
in the first few hours of a battle." To Premier Cheung, he said,
"Comrade Premier, we know the Americans cannot mount a follow-on attack
with the Air Battle Force-Admiral Yin estimates they are using
two-thirds of their strength on this raid alone and are sustaining heavy
losses. This is nothing more than a warning-the Americans want us to
know that they are serious about the status of the Philippines. "But if
we back out now, we have no claim to make for Palawan, Mindanao, or the
Spratly Islands whatsoever. If we take Davao and secure Mindanao, we
can negotiate for favorable terms. The Americans might even be forced
to disengage if their losses are heavy enough and if both world and
popular opinion turns against them, and then we begin our consolidation
of the Philippines under Chinese stewardship." He lowered his voice,
stared the Premier straight in the eyes, and said, "I can guarantee you
a victory, Comrade Premier. If I am stopped, I can guarantee you only
embarrassment and defeat." After several long moments, the aged Cheung
rose, assisted by two bodyguards. In a low, creaking voice, he said,
"You can guarantee nothing, General Chin, but death and destruction.
However, for your sake, I hope you can inflict more on the enemy than he
does on us. I will require updates every thirty minutes."
"Yes, Comrade Premier, " Chin said, bowing. "Be assured, we will see
victory today." Cheung ignored Chin's boasting. To his Foreign
Minister, Cheung said, "Comrade Zhou, I will speak with you for a
moment." Chin was not invited in on the brief discussion. Cheung said
a few words to Zhou, who bowed deeply and hurried off. Chin was left
alone with his thoughts. The Americans were doing incredible damage to
his fleet in the south Philippines, Chin thought grimly. There was a
very real possibility that he could lose this conflict-if the American
bombers managed to sweep across to the landing ships, every last one of
the Marines landing near Davao could be wiped out. He would be
completely disgraced. He could not allow a defeat in Davao... Zhou
criticized him for putting Admiral Yin Po L'un in charge of the
invasion, but suddenly a fearsome thought occurred to General Chin that
Admiral Yin might provide a way out of this mess. The question was: was
Admiral Yin really insane enough to do it? He stepped quickly out of the
Premier's office suites and directly to the palace communications center
to put through an urgent call to Admiral Yin on the destroyer Hong Lung.
The answer to his question: yes, Yin was that crazy. ANDERSEN AIR FORCE
BASE, GUAM "General, we got the satellite picture back!" Jon Masters
said. Generals Stone, Elliott, Harbaugh, and the rest of the Joint Task
Force staff crowded around the reactivated high-definition computer
screen. It showed the entire Davao Gulf area in extraordinary detail,
with IFF data blocks on every American aircraft, and computer-generated
data blocks on the Chinese vessels. "Great, Jon, just great, " Stone
said. The staff studied the board for several moments. "We're going to
have to divide the screen up between the staff and prepare a summary of
the Chinese ships that are still out there. We'll have to make a
decision about the second wave pretty soon." After checking that the
individual consoles were working out properly, Stone assigned each staff
member a section of the Davao, Celebes Sea, and Philippine Sea areas to
search for Chinese ships. "Looks like the southern packages are coming
off the target, the eastern packages are over the target, and the
northern packages are two minutes out, " Calvin Jarrell summarized. "The
southern group got hit pretty hard... the eastern group looks almost
intact. . . God, the northern planes are taking a beating from that
one ship right there near the airport."
"It'll take awhile to see which ships have been hit or not, " Masters
said, "but several are showing zero velocity-we can probably assume
those were struck. Luckily we've still got memorized satellite data, so
we can retrace a ship's movements along with our aircraft and determine
whether or not someone hit it." Elliott called Stone over to his console
after only a few minutes. "I think you better see this, Rat Killer, " he
said. There were two large vessels and three smaller escort vessels in
a small group, farther west than the main battle group. "Obviously
reinforcements, " Elliott said. "But the ISAR radar report that Cobb and
McLanahan got for us said something about this group... As Stone
watched, Elliott zoomed in on the group of five vessels, zoomed in on
the largest one in the group, then switched to an ISAR view of the ship.
Using ISAR, or inverse synthetic aperture radar, mode, the motion of the
ship itself as well as the motion of the satellite created a very
high-definition three-dimensional view of the vessel, which when run
through a computer's stored catalog of ships could yield the identity of
the ship itself. And when they found out, Stone muttered a curse to
himself. "Hong Lung, " he said. "They're sailing Hong Lung itself back
into battle . "General Stone, " one of the battle staff communications
officers said. "Sir... the base operator received an urgent phone
call-from the embassy in Manila." The officers turned to face the
communications officer-they could tell from the man's voice that
something was happening. "What is it?"
"Sir... the embassy got a call from an officer who identified himself
as a member of the Fleet Admiral's Staff of the Chinese People's
Liberation Army Navy South Philippines Task Force. He advises us that
Admiral Yin Po L'un, the Fleet Admiral, has ordered that the city of
Davao be attacked and destroyed with nuclear weapons if the American
bombers do not withdraw immediately."
"What?" Everyone in the command post was on their feet. "That was the
ship... the guy... that launched the antiship nuclear missile . . .
wasn't it?" Masters asked Stone. No one replied, but the answer was
clear. "It's a bluff, " Cal Jarrel said resolutely. "The message origin
was verified, sir, " the communications officer reported. "Came directly
from the Premier's offices themselves t
hrough military channels. The
State Department is notifying the White House now. "Back up that call
with one of our own, Stone ordered. "Get the President on the line for
me immediately."
"Can he do it?" Elliott asked. "Can his missiles attack ground
targets?"
"Easily, and with pretty good precision, " Stone replied. "The Fei
Lung-9 has a range of almost two hundred kilometers-that's over a
hundred nautical miles. It was originally a mobile land-based missile,
modified for shipboard use. "You can't take this seriously, " Jarrel
protested. "We were expecting something like this. The next call that
comes in will say that the Chinese will launch a sea-launched ballistic
missile on Guam or Hong Kong or Okinawa if we don't withdraw." But
faces were still grave-they were taking the threat very seriously.
Jarrel said, "There's nothing we can do anyway-the planes are over their
targets now. In three minutes the B- Is will go over the target."
"We can withdraw them, " Harbaugh said. "That's crazy, Tom. "Look at
the board, Cal, " Harbaugh said. "Your boys have done enough damage
already. What's the big deal if we abort the northern strike group?"
"The big deal is, the Chinese Marines will make it on the beach, "
Jarrel argued. "We would have used all the other bombers for nothing...
we will have lost all those other crews for nothing."
"We can't take the chance that he'll do it, " Harbaugh said. "He'll wipe
out a bunch of his own guys, won't he?" Masters asked. "If they're
already wiped out by the Air Battle Force, he might not care." "Order a
strike by the Tomahawk cruise missiles again, " Elliott said. "What's
the range from the Wisconsin group to the Hong Lung?" But the
measurement was quickly made and verified-it was over six hundred miles.
The Tomahawk cruise missile crews would need at least thirty minutes to
program a new strike, and then the missiles would take at least an hour
to fly that distance. "We can order one of the bombers to attack the
Hong Lung, " Harbaugh said. "They can withhold a couple weapons, head
south, and attack. We can use a couple of the B-1s in the northern
