“I must admit to being greatly surprised by your summons,” Ambassador Bai Zhogming looked suitably perplexed. He had served for almost forty years on China’s diplomatic staff, with previous Ambassadorial postings to France, Italy and Japan. He spoke four languages, including English fluently, and was well versed in the understated theatrics of world diplomacy where the smallest gesture, phrase, or change of tone could often conceal the gravest threats. “I hope I can be of assistance.”
“I’m sure you can,” Virginia said. “The President will join us shortly.”
Ambassador Bai nodded and smiled. The Americans had just scored the first small point. Bai had expected to meet President Austin in the Oval Office. The Roosevelt Room seemed entirely inappropriate. Bai understood the workings of the White House sufficiently to know that this room was typically used for staff meetings and as a room where delegations to meet the President were prepared. It was a windowless room, twenty-five feet wide and thirty-five feet long with a table that seated sixteen in the middle of the floor. Hanging over the mantel was a portrait painting of former President, Theodore Roosevelt astride a horse. The painting did not impress Bai. He regarded it as a poor imitation of ‘Napoleon Crossing the Alps’, but lacking the grandeur and drama of the acclaimed French masterpiece.
“Very good,” Ambassador Bai said. Behind his smiling façade his mind worked to understand the implications. Was this a slight on his Government – to be denied a meeting in the Oval Office? Was it an innocent matter of the President’s schedule? Were the Americans sending a subtle message of displeasure?
Patrick Austin came striding through the door before Bai could complete his analysis. The two men shook hands.
“Mr. Ambassador. Thank you for coming. Please be seated.”
Bai Zhogming bowed slightly. The American president looked fatigued and slightly disheveled, Bai noticed. The man’s face was craggy, his manner a little brusque. He took a seat at one end of the long table and President Austin sat at the other end. Virginia Clayton sat in the middle, like an umpire adjudicating a tennis match.
“How can I be of service to you, Mr. President?” Bai sat straight-backed and attentive. It was all theatre, but a necessary part of international diplomacy. Bai knew perfectly well why he had received this summons. But the game had to be played…
“You can begin by explaining to me why your entire East Sea Fleet and your South Sea Fleet are gathering in the South China Sea.”
Bai looked bewildered and for a moment Virginia Clayton suspected the Chinese Ambassador was going to plead ignorance.
“With respect, Mr. President, these matters regarding our warships are Chinese domestic issues. They are not relevant to America, nor are they any of America’s concern,” Bai said, faultlessly polite, his tone civil.
President Austin kept his face impassive. Virginia Clayton blinked with incredulity.
“I disagree,” President Austin put some steel into his voice. “Over the past few days the world as we know it has changed irrevocably, Mr. Ambassador. This NK Plague has the potential to sweep the world and kill every man, woman and child. I know your country is currently dealing with the dreadful ravages of the contagion, and I know that Japan, Taiwan, the Korean peninsula and several other countries in Asia have already been devastated and overwhelmed by the shocking infection. But none of those issues explains why your fleets of warships are gathering in the South China Sea.”
The Ambassador’s expression had reflected true grief throughout the President’s monologue, but the emotion vanished and his tone remained politely insistent.
“Yes, Mr. President. This abomination released on the Korean Peninsula is devastating my country. Already many millions have been infected and our President is working hard with our Army leaders to contain the spread before it reaches further around the world. But those measures, too, are internal issues of our government. They are not relevant to America.”
“Perhaps, Mr. Ambassador,” Patrick Austin let some steel come into his voice. “But we are talking about the majority of your vast Navy sailing into international waters. That makes the issue relevant to every remaining government in the Pacific – including America.”
“I fail to see your reasoning, Mr. President,” Bai felt the heat of the blowtorch but remained steadfast and outwardly immune to Patrick Austin’s rising temper. “The South China Sea, and the islands within that area are all legitimate Chinese territorial waters. What we do with our ships inside that area are entirely our own decisions, and are not subject to America’s influence – or any other nation that seeks to infringe on our national security.”
“The South China Sea does not belong to China,” President Austin let the leash off his temper and the Ambassador let surprise show on his face. In truth, the American leader’s bluster of irritation had been expected. The South China Sea had been a contentious source of acrimony between Asian neighbors and the Americans for years. In recent times China had begun belligerently flaunting the issue – converting benign small islands in the contested waters into military installations and stridently bullying foreign naval vessels that dared to sail the waters without their permission. America had pushed back, regularly conducting freedom of navigation operations – but always bowing to Chinese pressure to avoid direct conflict.
In China’s eyes – and in the eyes of several Asian nations – the Americans had shown weakness and a lack of conviction. The Chinese had demonstrated their determination to claim the South China Sea as their sovereign territory. The Americans had shown their concern – but not enough resolve to directly challenge the Chinese.
There were precedents. In 2009, five Chinese naval vessels had harassed an unarmed US Navy surveillance vessel, blocking its path and forcing it to stop in the ocean. In 2013, two Chinese warships had confronted a US Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser. One of the Chinese vessels had lunged directly in the path of the US cruiser, forcing the Americans to make a crash-stop to avoid a collision. Both incidents had demonstrated the glaring difference in commitment. The Chinese had been willing to engage in direct conflict in order to force their claim on the South China Sea, and to hell with the consequences. The Americans had flinched away from armed conflict on both occasions.
But both incidents had occurred before Patrick Austin’s presidency.
“Well are you aware that a formidable American naval force is also currently on military exercises in the South China Sea?”
“Yes. It has been brought to my attention.”
“Good. Then you will understand, Mr. Ambassador, how inherently dangerous such a situation is. Amidst great global tension, our force must take all necessary defensive measures against any threat – and your combined fleets are a threat, because we do not know your intentions… and you refuse to be candid about their motives.”
Ambassador Bai gave a delicate shrug of his shoulders. “Your fleet is greatly outnumbered…”
Patrick Austin glared. For long moments the room was silent, the tension palpable.
Finally, the Chinese Ambassador spoke, staring down the table, meeting the President’s gaze, his expression artless and somehow smug. “Is there anything else I can help you with, Mr. President?”
“Yes,” Patrick Austin said through gritted teeth. “My military advisors have told me that you are assembling your entire commercial shipping fleet at the harbor of Dalian, and that your North Sea Fleet remains in port,” Austin waited for some sign of surprise from the Ambassador at the detailed extent of his knowledge. Bai Zhogming remained stony faced. “I’d like to know why,” the President went on. “Because to my people such actions look inexplicably suspicious, Mr. Ambassador, and that makes my people very, very nervous. It would be wise in such a situation, to explain your government’s actions so that I can allay my people’s concern.”
Bai narrowed his eyes. The Americans were very well informed, and it unsettled him.
“I am unaware of any extraordinary movements by our commercial s
hips, Mr. President,” Ambassador Bai lied smoothly. “To the best of my knowledge, they continue to perform their typical duties.”
Patrick Austin grunted. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the agitation on Virginia Clayton’s face. The meeting had been far less cordial than normal international diplomacy dictated.
“Well you are a very poorly informed Ambassador, Mr. Bai,” President Austin remarked acidly. “Either because you do not do your job well, or because your masters in Beijing do not trust you sufficiently with the relevant information. Perhaps you would like to return to your infection-ravaged country on the next available flight to seek further clarification on my questions? I’m sure an aircraft can be arranged.”
It was a brutal insult. The Chinese Ambassador’s unflustered façade cracked. Indignant color bloomed on his cheeks and his eyes became dark with offense. He stood up, trembling with barely-suppressed fury.
“Madam Secretary,” he nodded curtly to Virginia. “Mr. President. I will report our discussion to Beijing. Good day.”
*
“Your impressions?” President Austin waited until long after the Chinese Ambassador had been escorted from the White House before he asked his Secretary of State the question.
“May I speak freely, sir?”
“Of course.”
Virginia Clayton drew a breath. “I think the arrogant little prick was lying through his teeth,” she said in colorful language that made the President blink. “And I think that Beijing is treating us with contempt because the Chinese leadership no longer respects us as an international power.”
The President grunted. He was aware how bitterly divided America’s military and political leadership had become over the issue of engaging with China – so riven that opposing sides had hurled insults and demeaning names at each other. In recent years those who had advocated a low-key approach that avoided confrontation, preferring patient, painstaking negotiation, had dominated Washington’s halls of power. But it had been those policies, the detractors claimed, that had emboldened the Chinese to blatant disregard of America.
Those who would seek to mollify China had been labeled, ‘Panda Huggers’. Those who advocated aggressive resolute defiance were termed ‘Dragon Slayers’.
The world was yet to discover what side of the fence the current President stood on.
THE OUTSKIRTS OF SHENYANG
NORTHEAST CHINA
They flew due east with the Z-10 attack helicopters in echelon formations and the General’s command chopper buzzing higher overhead. The Z-10 was in the same class as the American AH-64 Apache; a brutal, angular killing machine of the air.
The smoke pall from the burning ruins of Shenyang rose black and billowing into the polluted smudge of the sky. It seemed to General Guo as if the entire rim of the world was ablaze.
With binoculars pressed to his eyes, the General made a cursory study of the ground immediately east of his defenses, noting the wide band of a forested mountain range and a network of paddy fields as the attack force raced towards the smoke. He pointed through the bubble of the cockpit canopy and his pilot dashed to the south, over the rooftops of a small farming village. Guo could see peasants in the fields and children running along the narrow dusty streets. They would all soon be infected.
Some of the people in the village looked up curiously as the sky above them filled with the clattering thunder of the passing helicopters and the air trembled. They waved and smiled. Guo felt a twinge of remorse, then crushed down on the emotion. There was much more at stake than the fate of a few hundred peasants. All of China was relying on the Army’s steel fist to hold back the horde. Sentiment was a luxury he could not afford.
The command chopper regained height and drifted back into formation. The low-flying echelon swooped over the crest of a high escarpment, and suddenly a moving ocean of brown and black blanketed the rolling ground before them.
General Guo gaped in astonishment and horror.
The undead resembled a swollen wave of tsunami water; a solid phalanx of filthy bodies that spilled across the land with ponderous, relentless, unstoppable energy. They filled the entire basin of the valley, churning the lush green fields to mud as they passed, surging and eddying, rolling inexorably westward towards the Army’s tenuous defenses.
Guo had never seen such a sight. The undead numbered into the millions, moving without apparent purpose other than following the natural contours of the land they infested. They were like a great swarming plague of locusts, moving under a buzzing hum of incoherent noise that was so loud Guo could hear it through his ear defenders above the clattering roar of the helicopter’s rotors.
“Chù mù jīng xīn!” General Guo gasped. “It shocks the eye!”
The infected moved on a front that filled the horizon from north to south. They swarmed with the crash of four million stomping, pounding feet and a hoarse inhuman cry in their throats that rumbled like thunder across the sky. They came on as a swelling, surging chaos. The front ranks pressed hard from behind so that it appeared as a solid crush of howling savagery. They rolled across the gentle ground, so many that there seemed to be no end to the advance, moving like the shadow of some vast cloud front, dark and menacing as an evil threat.
General Guo quailed. His eyes swept the horror with loathing fascination. He felt his mouth turn dry as sand and the skin on his forearms crawled with the insects of his fear. He had fought the undead at Dandong, but that had been a frantic night action through the streets of a city where a true sense of the enemy could not be formed. Now he saw the imminent end of civilization, and knew in his heart that it could not be stopped.
Urgent radio chatter in his headset broke the General’s numbed trance. He was linked onto the same comms net as the pilots commanding the Z-10 attack helicopters. Guo blinked himself alert just in time to see the choppers swoop down on the undead swarm in a heroic blaze of flaming cannon fire.
The Z-10’s fanned out and attacked line-abreast with their noses tilted forward, 30mm autocannon fire from their chin-mounted turrets tearing horrific damage through the front ranks of the ghouls from a height of just thirty meters. The undead fell in their thousands, blown to pieces by the heavy shells, cut down in swathes of shattered limbs and gore. The stench of their rotting filthy bodies rose like a miasma over the battlefield. The air became misted with a haze of blood.
The helicopters cleaved deep furrows into the throng of bodies, unable to miss a target that was an almost stationary mass stretching for mile upon mile. The carnage was unequal to anything General Guo had ever witnessed – but still the undead rolled ponderously westward.
The thunderous roar of the swooping helicopters seemed to frenzy the undead so they howled and bayed at the rushing black shapes like wild dogs. They clawed at the air and tried to hunt the sound. Seen from the General’s command chopper it appeared as if the vast mass rippled and shuddered as they turned to follow the maddening noise. The tide of undead humanity eddied into whirlpools of chaos, but the inexorable press of the phalanx that followed drove them on. Some staggered and fell under the hammer-like impact of the cannons. Stomping thrashing bodies stampeded over them, grinding them into the muddy fields like an unstoppable steamroller.
Gao watched it all with wide-eyed fear and superstitious awe. The undead were mindless, primal predators.
He had once seen a western television documentary about army ants, and that memory came back to him now, vivid and haunting. In the film a raiding party of ants had attacked a scorpion. The scorpion was twenty-times the size of an individual ant, but the arachnid had been overwhelmed by the swarm and killed. Its body had been dismembered by the ants before being devoured. Looking down, aghast, at the tsunami wave of infected sweeping westward, Guo saw nature reflected. The undead were like a massive army of ants, raiding across the landscape and devouring everything in their sight.
Would Guo’s army become their scorpion?
“Rockets!” the General spoke across the comms chatt
er. “Hit the enemy with rocket fire.”
Each Z-10 attack helicopter carried four 57mm rockets. The pilots loosed their munitions in a streaking fireworks display of flame and smoke and explosions. The rockets speared into the horde, and for a moment the general’s view was masked by a back blast of billowing smoke. When the haze cleared, huge holes had been punched into the writhing mass and bodies lay flung in gruesome attitudes of death. It lasted for just a moment. Like tossed pebbles into a vast ocean, there was a small ripple of reaction before the vast swarm of infected ghouls filled the torn open spaces as if they had never been.
The front ranks of the horde reached the crest of a gentle rise and rolled down the slope like molten lava. General Guo called upon the helicopters for another swooping attack.
“Drive them back. Turn them away,” his rising unease was masked by the hissing crackle of his radio.
The Z-10 pilots swung back over the infected army and hovered their helicopters, using them as stationery weapon platforms. The sky was torn apart by the hammering hail of cannon fire. Guo saw the fusillade tear into the undead like the sharp teeth of a rip-saw – but still they came on, relentless and remorseless. Many of those flung down with hideous wounds staggered back to their feet. The general shook his head. The ghouls seemed indestructible and without morale. They clambered mindlessly over the bodies of those blown apart and dismembered, they howled their snarling fury at the helicopters that hung in the sky, incensed by the clattering tormenting bellow of the black machines.
The Z-10’s fired into the seething phalanx until their ammunition was expended and fuel lights blinked warnings. Reluctantly, General Guo gave the order for the helicopters to withdraw. He flew back to Fuxin City a shaken, despairing man.
FUXIN CITY
JINZHOU-TONGLIAO DEFENSIVE LINE
NORTHEAST CHINA
The helicopter came clattering out of the smoke-stained sky, and settled on the ground. Immediately the General’s command APC sped out from between nearby buildings. Even before the rotors had stopped turning, the operations officer was standing, waiting, on the hangar apron.
Dead Storm: The Global Zombie Apocalypse Page 28
