by Chuck DeVore
“Comrade Fu, I think we are seeing the pivotal battle in this campaign. All will be won or lost based on the actions of a few thousand brave men and a handful of commanders. We should know the outcome within two hours, three at the most.”
The colonel’s certainty did little to comfort Fu. Fu Zemin’s entire life and career was now tied up in the success or failure of some mid-ranking PLA commander 20 kilometers away. After one week of fighting, Fu decided he didn’t much like war after all—it was too messy, too uncertain. Moreover, Fu couldn’t manipulate military affairs as readily as he could Party politics. Fu said under his breath, “Colonel, do you trust Deng?”
Dugen was taken aback—trust Deng? Is this a trick? “Sir, I have never served directly under General Deng, but I know him by reputation to be one of our most aggressive and resourceful generals. He inspires complete devotion in his men as well. I have the utmost confidence in his leadership abilities.”
As Dugen finished his sentence, a map worker erased an enemy unit symbol then redrew the same unit another five kilometers closer to Taipei. The enemy was now only ten kilometers away from the outskirts of the capital. Colonel Chu noted only one battalion of tanks and one battalion of truck-mobile infantry stood between the enemy and his objective. The nearest mobile unit of significance was at least 15 kilometers away—and it hadn’t moved from its position for 36 hours. A clerk handed the map worker a message. He quickly erased the PLA tank battalion and advanced it to a position directly opposite the ROC tank brigade.
The commando colonel remained impassive to the new posting. Inside, he questioned the wisdom of uprooting a tank battalion in prepared defensive positions to blunt the point of the thrusting spear during the hours of darkness that favored the enemy. Such a small-scale effort using no more than 30 tanks was doomed to failure and could only slow the enemy’s advance for half an hour at the most.
Judging by Fu’s hopeful look Colonel Chu correctly assumed Fu really didn’t understand the implications of the situation map. With decisions already made and set in motion hours ago, Chu decided not to tell Fu that things were looking worse by the minute for the PLA. Whether he knew now or an hour or two later, it would make little difference: the PLA was very likely going to be compelled to go on the defensive until the long term effects of a costly and demoralizing blockade could bring the island to its knees. Without friends to rescue her, Taiwan was doomed—it would just take more time for China to subdue the province than originally anticipated. Chu decided to attempt small talk to divert Fu’s attention, “Comrade Fu, may I ask, how did you get that scar on your hand?”
Fu’s face brightened for an instant at the prospect of telling the warrior his war story, then darkened for effect, “I was in our Embassy in Belgrade in 1999 when the Americans bombed it.”
Chu grunted admiringly, “Well, that means you’ve been bombed two more times than I have!”
* * *
Lieutenant Colonel Dan Alexander’s tank Traveller died three days ago. The lack of logistics support and mechanics coupled with a few direct hits from PLA tanks (all destroyed shortly after challenging the American tank) was too much for the 64-ton tank to handle. By the time Alexander made the painful decision to abandon his steed he and his crew had chalked up 63 kills (it would have been less, but the ROC’s M60A3s used the same round as the M1IP’s 105mm gun—it didn’t take much persuasion before Traveller was given another 20 rounds to carry on the fight). The worse part about leaving the tank behind was trying to destroy anything of value inside of it in case the Chinese ended up winning the war and capturing the vehicle (which, from Alexander’s viewpoint, was a very real and growing possibility). The crew destroyed the breach with a Thermit grenade, placing two unused HEAT rounds under the path of the molten-hot metal they knew would be produced by the grenade. A minute later Traveller’s insides were a smoky ruin—what four days of continuous combat failed to do, her own crew did to her.
Alexander pulled his remaining force of 67 National Guardsmen off the increasingly tenuous line around Sungshan Domestic Airport (also destroying the avionics of the three parked C-17s) and headed north to the Yangmingshan Mountain district of Taipei. There, at the foot of the thickly wooded mountain, he knew he would find the American Ambassador’s residence (the Taiwanese said the embassy itself was evacuated after sustaining some artillery damage). Technically, Alexander knew that the Ambassador was called the Representative of the American Institute in Taiwan—a diplomatic nicety designed to allow the Chinese to pretend that the Americans had no diplomatic relations with an island they considered a renegade province. Practically speaking, however, Alexander knew that the Chinese would understand that little could be gained by violating diplomatic conventions. So long as they were on American soil, Alexander and his men would be safe. Besides, he imagined, the Marine embassy guards would probably welcome the reinforcements.
* * *
Logistically, Flint knew his Marines were spent. Too much was lost with the sinking of the Belleau Wood and the Dubuque. Without spare parts and ammunition, they were quickly reduced to barely more than light infantry with a decreasing number of helicopters and vehicles to call upon. Worse still, an increasing number of the personnel he had were coming down with the flu.
Even so, Colonel Flint had been filled with conflicting emotions since he first received the order to evacuate Taiwan Wednesday afternoon. The Marines of the 31st MEU left Taiwan an unbowed force. With less than half of their original members remaining, the Marines knew that they had performed to the highest standards of the American fighting tradition—more than 15,000 PLA soldiers killed and hundreds more captured were the undisputed tribute to combined efforts of the U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Navy. Flint knew that had America enough stomach for a fight, they could have not only cleaned the PLA off of Taiwan, but landed on Mainland China itself and taken Beijing just to show it could be done. But, it was not to be.
On Friday, Flint stopped by his old office on the way to see his Marines at the hospital. It was dusty, but otherwise untouched since he left Okinawa for East Timor more than seven months ago. It felt strange to be in the office. After seeing so much death and suffering, the office—my office, he reminded himself—seemed coldly bureaucratic and out of place for a warrior.
As soon as he landed at Okinawa the inquisition began. Everyone of higher rank wanted to know why he did what he did. Did he know that he almost caused World War Three? That the U.S. West Coast had been terrorized because of his decision to fight? That China had demanded his unconditional surrender and internment in North Korea? It was upon hearing this last item that Flint was just damn glad to be off the island. Given the record of his Commander-in-Chief he knew that he and his men probably came very close to being long-term “guests” at the Pyongyang “Hilton.” Still, he was left with the feeling that he had unfinished business on Taiwan—he and his Marines didn’t leave after completing a job; they were forced off the island prematurely by policymakers in Washington.
* * *
Just outside the town of Fuqing, about 40 kilometers south of Fuzhou, three Dong Feng-15 missiles were on their final countdown. The orders called for the missiles to be launched at one-minute intervals. The three warheads were targeted to land at four-kilometer intervals in a string eight kilometers long. The first missile lifted off flawlessly and on time, leaving a thick gray-white plume in the early Saturday morning sky.
The neutron bomb is a misunderstood weapon in the West. Touted as a counter to the massive Soviet armored advantage in Europe in the late 70s and 80s, it was developed but never deployed by NATO. Soviet propaganda and the appeasement-minded Western Left killed the weapon. Fortunately, the timely appearance of high-tech American tank killers such as the Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) with 644 tank-busting bomblets in each missile, lessened the military need for the controversial weapon.
The neutron bomb, also known as the “enhanced radiation weapon” is basically an H-bomb without the uranium-238 jacke
t used to increase the blast effect by absorbing neutrons. Without the dense jacket of U-238 to catch them, the neutrons are free to escape in much larger numbers than in a regular thermonuclear device. What makes the neutron bomb of interest to the military is that it is especially well suited to killing concentrations of tanks on a battlefield. Tanks are tough and can actually withstand the effects of a nuclear bomb—they are virtually crush-proof, so a nuclear bomb’s blast effect with its building-collapsing overpressure is not much of a threat—and they are highly resistant to heat. Instead, the neutron bomb’s enhanced flow of radiation efficiently kills tank crews within the small radius of blast and heat created by the explosion. A one-kiloton neutron bomb affects a fairly small area: a diameter of about two miles (three kilometers).
South of Taipei, the tankers within a kilometer of ground zero were killed outright, those further away got radiation sickness, some dying within a few days, others within two weeks.
For the Chinese on Taiwan, the neutron bomb held a particular attraction. First, it could be used to negate the Taiwanese advantage in armor in the early, vulnerable stages of the invasion before the Chinese could land their own armor in large numbers. Second, its effects were very confined and the fallout minimal. Were the PLA generals of the same mind as their 1980s NATO counterparts for whom the bomb was originally designed, there would be a final consideration: with enough warning and preparation, friendly troops could easily survive a close encounter with an enhanced radiation weapon by simply digging in. Unfortunately for the nearby PLA troops, their senior officers had no excess of humanitarian impulse—more than 2,000 PLA conscripts died in the three explosions along with more than 3,500 of their foes in 157 tanks and 256 armored personnel carriers. Complete surprise was deemed more important than sparing the lives of a few common infantrymen.
Moments after the dust from the third blast cleared, the PLA’s 10th Tank Division west of Taipei and the 12th Tank Division south of Taipei at Hsintien rolled into action. By the end of the day Taiwan’s 4th Armor Brigade would be the only mounted force standing between the Communist forces and the southern three-quarters of the island nation.
31
Gambit
The last two days were a strange mix of boredom and fear. There was little official business to demand Klein and Taylor’s time (the Chinese took the Americans’ satellite phones; Taylor’s two-way pager was their only link—and its batteries were running low).
The downtime led Donna to regard the general in a different light. At first she absorbed his mannerisms. He was calmly efficient. Whenever she came close to him, however, she noticed him tense up. With Lindley out of the way, they quickly became friends.
Over a Saturday breakfast of boiled rice, stale bread and tea, Donna asked Tim Taylor the question that had been in the back of her mind for half a year, “Tim,” the older man looked up from his plate, his pleasant, but distant expression quickly turned to discomfort, “At the war game when our eyes first met, what were you thinking?”
Taylor looked at Donna then looked away to his right, “I was thinking that you were a beautiful young woman. You, ah. . .” Taylor struggled with control, “you reminded me of my late wife and the first time I saw her. You kindled a feeling in me I thought I’d never have again. When I spoke to you after the first day though, I knew you were uncomfortable. I didn’t blame you. I’m old enough to be your father and you probably didn’t appreciate an old goat hitting on you. In any event, I am thankful for meeting you. You showed me I might still be capable of loving someone.”
Donna reached out and squeezed Taylor’s hands. She looked at him, “First of all, I was uncomfortable; I saw your wedding ring and I thought you were married. Secondly, my father is old enough to be your father. Thirdly, you weren’t ‘hitting on me’ and you’re hardly an ‘old goat.’” She squeezed his hands again.
Taylor looked at Donna, “Well, what do you say we get to know each other better?” He chuckled, “I know a great Chinese restaurant. . .”
“Do they serve rice and stale bread and have lousy service?” Donna smiled gently.
“Yes. But they have nice, private tables. . .”
By Saturday afternoon, Donna had spent eight solid hours talking with Tim (as she began to think of him). The war’s sounds occasionally intruded on their little universe. It was the longest period of time Donna had ever talked with any man without that man expecting a kiss—or something more.
Their blossoming friendship was forgotten briefly on Saturday afternoon when Tim told her he had received a communication on his message pager that the Chinese had detonated three small nuclear weapons south of Taipei. After that, their relationship took on a sense of urgency.
It was Sunday morning. Donna took it as a positive sign that the Chinese hadn’t returned to press their surrender demands for three days now—the PLA must have its hands full, perhaps they used the nuclear bombs in desperation.
As for Lindley, she figured he was only now recovering from the drugging she administered to him with Taylor’s help. She knew the drug’s aftereffects were painful, but she held absolutely no sympathy for the traitor.
A loud banging on the door ended the temporary break from their mission. “General Taylor,” the voice demanded in strong tones, “You and Ms. Klein are required to meet with Party Representative Fu within five minutes. Be in the hallway in three minutes and we will take you to him. Do you hear me?”
“Yes,” Taylor yelled through the door.
“Do not be late.”
Taylor grumbled. All the tenderness Donna saw in him the last 24 hours vanished; the warrior returned. Donna was thankful for the seamless transition—there was serious work to be done now.
Donna grabbed her notebook and considered whether or not to take her microcassette recorder. She decided to take it and show it to the Chinese, asking for permission to use it to assist in transcribing the notes from their meeting.
She walked out into the darkened hallway, a half step behind Taylor. She could barely make out the figures of two Chinese military men at the end of the hall. “You come now! You must not be late!” bellowed the soldier to them.
Donna heard Taylor grumbling under his breath—she thought she heard something like, “Come now, my ass!” Fortunately, the soldier’s English wasn’t good enough to understand the insult.
The soldier, pistol raised, beckoned them towards the stairwell.
Donna leaned over to speak quietly into Taylor’s ear, “Are we really going to negotiate a surrender?” Even though they discussed it, Donna still refused to abandon hope.
“Of course. Let me put it to you this way: were we commanding troops out in the field in a militarily untenable situation we could negotiate terms of surrender. This situation is no different. . .”
“Except that the troops in question seem to have no desire to surrender,” Donna reminded the general.
Taylor was momentarily reflective, “Well, yes, we do have that minor consideration to contend with, don’t we?”
“Assuming we do arrange for acceptable surrender terms, how do we convince the soldiers to give up?”
Taylor sighed before stepping through the stairwell’s door, “Hell, I’m still trying to figure the surrender terms part out, I haven’t thought about the actual execution of the mission.”
The two Chinese soldiers and the two Americans clanked down the metal staircase, everyone held their thoughts to themselves. Donna’s stomach tightened. What if Lindley is conscious? What if he remembers what happened to him? The drug experts at the CIA assured her that anyone so incapacitated by the drug would have a very difficult time recalling anything around the time of the injection. She hoped so, she could only wonder at what the Chinese would do to her if they knew that their highest mole in the U.S. government was disabled by a lowly CIA analyst.
Donna and the general were ushered into a well-lit room in the hotel’s basement. Other than six guards standing around the periphery, there was no one else in th
e room. The room only had one office-sized work desk and one chair, nothing else. The solitary desk in the middle of the room made the room look much larger than it really was. “I’d say the ‘negotiations’ are over General,” Donna said softly.
“We should have nuked the bas. . .” The door burst open. Two soldiers hurried in, followed by a man wearing large, dark sunglasses. “. . .tards,” Taylor finished a beat later.
The man—Donna now recognized him as the ‘negotiator’ from a few days before—slowly walked to the desk and sat down. A tall, muscular colonel followed stiffly three paces behind him. Another man, a captain, followed behind the colonel. Party representative Fu spoke in Mandarin, “I have a list of demands. . .”
Donna pulled out her microcassette recorder, “May I use this to avoid errors?” She asked in her own excellent Mandarin.
Fu looked up, not expecting to be interrupted so soon, “No!” He turned to a soldier, “Take that device from that woman!”
A soldier stepped forward and gruffly took Donna’s recorder.
“I will tell you what errors you make,” Fu hissed at the analyst. “Now then,” Fu comported himself, “Speaking for the People’s Republic of China, I have three demands.
“First, all United States armed forces personnel unlawfully on the Chinese sovereign soil of the province of Taiwan will cease hostilities as of 1800 hours Monday.
“Second, said forces will surrender to representatives of the Peoples Liberation Army by 0600 hours Tuesday morning.
“Third, the United States of America will recognize Taiwan as a province of the People’s Republic of China’s by converting their illegal diplomatic presence into consulates of the United States of America to the People’s Republic of China.” Fu looked up from his paper. The room was silent.
