by Jeff Edwards
The reaction forces were not long in coming, and McDonald was careful to record their arrival.
“I see three trucks converging on the square,” he said. “Each truck contains thirty—maybe fifty—armed men, dressed in what appears to be riot gear. I can’t tell if these are soldiers, or some kind of police tactical squads, but they are definitely loaded for bear.”
“They’re climbing out of the trucks now, deploying in three positions. Doesn’t look like they’re trying to form a perimeter, or surround the crowd.”
McDonald’s narration halted again. He listened for several seconds to the unbroken chanting of the crowd. The people in the square had seen the armed squads arrive and deploy, but there was no move to fight or escape.
The crowd seemed to huddle more tightly together, as if drawing courage and determination from one another. The pitch of the chanting seemed to waver, but it didn’t quite falter. The singsong cadence continued, regaining its strength.
McDonald was about to comment on this, when he heard the thumps of the first gas grenades. He saw several smoking canisters arc into the crowd, and watched the protesters recoil from the billowing clouds of white vapor.
Teargas. He had encountered it during chemical warfare defense training in Army boot camp, and he had seen it used several times in Nam. He recognized the retching, face-clutching motions as every person who caught even a whiff of the stuff tried to stagger blindly away from the source of their sudden pain. The orderly crowd disintegrated into a chaos of lurching, frightened individuals.
“They’re using gas,” McDonald said. “I’m guessing that it’s teargas. Whatever it is, it’s certainly doing the trick. I think…”
But he never recorded his next thoughts, whatever they were, because his attention was shattered by the sound of gunfire, followed instantly by screams of terror and pain.
He felt a flash of nausea as adrenaline surged into his veins, broadcasting and amplifying the ancient chemical reflex to flee from danger. He could feel his palms begin to sweat, and a strange ringing in his ears that had nothing to do with the after-echo of gunshots.
He looked around quickly, trying to identify the source of the shots. He spotted several members of the riot control squad with their rifles unslung. He jerked his cell phone camera around in time to catch at least a dozen of the uniformed men firing directly into the milling throng of civilians. Sharp staccato muzzle reports, in three-round bursts—assault rifles configured for combat shooting.
All thoughts of narration were gone from Bill McDonald’s brain. He saw some of the protestors—a lot of them—jerk and stagger under the impacts of bullets. Blood flew; people fell to the ground, all to the accompaniment of rapid gunshots and screaming voices. This wasn’t riot control. It was a massacre. But why was it happening?
Not all of the soldiers or policemen were firing. In fact, most of them weren’t. Did that mean that they’d been ordered to fire, but many of them had disobeyed the command? Or maybe they hadn’t been ordered to fire, and some of them had taken the decision into their own hands.
That didn’t make sense. Or did it?
McDonald remembered something in the news about an attack on a trainload of Chinese soldiers a few days ago. Was this some kind of retaliation for that? Official retribution? Or maybe spontaneous revenge… Angry Chinese soldiers, who found themselves with Tibetan protesters in their crosshairs.
The more Bill McDonald thought about it, the more likely this last idea seemed. This protest had been going on for less than an hour. That wasn’t a lot of time for senior Chinese decision-makers to consider and approve a plan to use deadly force against the crowd. Also, the assault, or intervention, or whatever had begun with teargas. That pretty much guaranteed that the crowd would break up quickly. If the plan had been to mow the protestors down, it would have been smarter to corral them together, to allow for greater concentration of firepower.
McDonald continued to sweep the square with his camera. It was nearly empty now, except for the people who were down, and not going anywhere. After the shooting had started, the riot force had made no attempt to stem the escape of fleeing protestors. That also seemed to support the idea that the shooting had been unplanned, carried out in the heat of anger and the flush of violence.
This was the thing he had turned away from in his own quest for enlightenment. The world’s problems could not be solved through the barrel of a gun, the bodies in the square below—maybe eighty or a hundred of them—were proof of that.
Even the soldiers looked stunned by what had happened. They milled around for nearly a minute before they began to shamble toward the downed protestors, to check for signs of life in the bloody unmoving bodies.
McDonald shut off his phone camera, and backed away from the window. In a very short time, maybe only a few seconds from now, the soldiers were going to shake off their disbelief and start looking around for any witnesses to the shooting. A foreigner with a digital video camera would not fare well if they happened to spot him.
He slipped the camera into his pocket, and left the hotel by an exit that opened on an alley opposite the square. Ten minutes later, he was six blocks away, poking through the wares of a shop that catered to tourists. He didn’t need or want any souvenirs, but it gave him plenty of separation from the scene of the incident, and he was determined to stay off the streets until the cleanup was completed and the riot force was long gone.
His hands were still shaking, so he shoved them into his pockets. The plastic form of the phone was smooth and warm against the back of his right hand. No one but him had any idea what was recorded on the phone’s memory card. He planned to be well and safely out of Chinese territory before he revealed the ugly little chunk of history stored on that flat wafer of digital circuitry.
His first instinct was to arrange the first possible flight out of this place, but that might not be a smart move. It was probably wiser to wait three days, and follow the itinerary he’d already established. If he changed his travel plans without warning, the Chinese authorities might wonder why this American tourist was suddenly in such a hurry to depart their sphere of influence. Better to be patient. Safer that way.
By the time he was back on friendly soil, the People’s Republic of China would have implemented their information-control strategy. Based on past history, it seemed likely that the Chinese government would try to cover up the incident completely, deny that this bloodbath had ever taken place. If they did admit that the shootings had occurred, they would probably try to minimize the size of the protest, and the number of casualties. They might claim that all reports of injuries and deaths were fabricated by untrustworthy dissidents. They might even try to blame everything on the protestors, falsely accusing them of acts of violence against police or military forces.
Whether they resorted to outright denial or spin control, it was a near certainty that the Chinese government would do everything within its power to hide the ugly truth of what had happened here today. The video recording on Bill’s phone was absolute proof. It would shatter their denials and evasions. If they found out about it, he had little doubt that they would go to extreme lengths to silence him.
His plans to distance himself from politics didn’t seem to be working out too well at the moment, but perhaps that was part of the greater plan of the universe. Perhaps—at this point in his existence—his purpose was not to set himself apart from the affairs of man. Possibly, it was his destiny to become the agent of truth.
He would mediate and pray on the matter. That would usually bring him clarity of thought and unity of purpose.
But even if prayer and meditation didn’t yield the answers, he had a strong feeling that the universe was about to let him know what it had in mind.
CHAPTER 13
FINAL TRAJECTORY:
A DEVELOPMENTAL HISTORY OF THE CRUISE MISSILE
(Excerpted from working notes presented to the National Institute for Strategic Analysis. Reprinted by permission of the a
uthor, David M. Hardy, PhD.)
In 1915, Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels established a small panel of inventors to help the United States military prepare for possible involvement in the Great War in Europe—what we now refer to as World War I. Daniels observed that the technologies of combat in the early 1900s were evolving at an unprecedented rate, and he was concerned that the U.S. military was not properly armed or trained for mechanized warfare.
The resulting organization, the Naval Consulting Board, was comprised of 24 inventors whose charter was to provide ‘machinery and facilities for utilizing the natural inventive genius of Americans to meet the new conditions of warfare.’ Floundering under this lofty but somewhat vague mission statement, the board had no legal status, no funding, and no staff for the first year of its existence. In August of 1916, Congress appropriated an operating budget of $25,000, and the Naval Consulting Board was finally in business.
Despite the high hopes of Josephus Daniels, the board accomplished very little of note beyond approving camouflage paint schemes for civilian ships. One of the more significant exceptions was the development of the so-called aerial torpedo.
The brainchild of Elmer Sperry, one of the pioneers of practical gyroscope applications, the aerial torpedo was intended as an unmanned flying bomb, capable of attacking distant targets without human guidance or intervention. Sperry was fascinated by the remarkable potential of such a weapon, and he hoped that such awesome destructive power might actually deter countries from starting wars.
It should be noted that Sperry’s attitude toward destructive deterrence, as naive as it may appear in hindsight, was relatively common among arms developers of the early twentieth-century. Sperry and his contemporaries believed that—if the frightfulness of warfare could be escalated far enough—human beings would have no choice but to abandon war. Sadly, two World Wars, countless smaller wars, and a global nuclear arms race have disproved that theory.
Elmer Sperry may have been wrong in predicting the end of armed conflict, but his vision for an autonomous flying weapon captured the attention of the Naval Consulting Board. In 1917, the board awarded the Sperry Gyroscope Company a $200,000 contract to develop an aerial torpedo.
Sperry began by developing a gyroscopic autopilot system, and installing it on a Curtiss N-9 biplane. He wanted to start by demonstrating that an aircraft could regulate itself in flight, without a human at the controls. The N-9 carried a pilot to handle take-off and landing procedures, but the intent was to eventually transition to fully automatic flying. In the meantime, the pilot was also tasked to observe the plane in flight, and report on its performance under control of the autopilot.
After a number of successful test flights, Sperry supervised the construction of a purpose-built aerial torpedo airframe, powered by a two-cylinder engine. The actual manufacturing and assembly of the torpedo airframe prototype was carried out by the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company.
The torpedo prototype was modified to carry a pilot, on the assumption that human observation and assistance would be helpful in identifying and ironing out bugs during the early developmental tests. Sperry’s son, Lawrence, became the test pilot. Although the exact number of test flights is no longer certain, it’s commonly accepted that the Sperry Aerial Torpedo crashed at least four times with Lawrence Sperry at the controls. Available technical data suggests that these incidents were caused by mechanical problems in the prototype, rather than error on the part of the pilot.
In spite of these challenges, Elmer Sperry eventually felt that his torpedo design was sufficiently mature to operate without human assistance. The first unmanned flight of the Sperry Aerial Torpedo took place on March 6, 1918, in what is now regarded as the first successful launch of a guided missile.
Operating completely under automatic control, the torpedo climbed from its launch position to a pre-designated altitude, and continued in smooth, stable flight until the autopilot’s distance control ended the test at a preset range of 1,000 yards.
The maiden test of the Sperry Aerial Torpedo was a success. Unfortunately, it was not to be repeated.
Future flights did not go well, as the unmanned aircraft failed to achieve stable flight, deviated from its intended flight path, or simply fell out of the air. Ultimately, Sperry engineers discarded the purpose-built torpedo airframe, and returned to the Curtiss N-9 test bed to re-examine their entire approach to the design.
* * *
While Sperry and Curtiss were struggling with numerous technical challenges, the United States Army Aircraft Board decided to undertake its own aerial torpedo project. The Army asked inventor-engineer Charles Kettering to design an unmanned flying bomb, capable of striking a target at a range of 40 miles or more.
Kettering, who had observed tests of Sperry’s aircraft autopilot in 1917, agreed to take on the challenge of developing an aerial torpedo. While he recognized the potential of Sperry’s earlier engineering in unmanned flight control, Kettering wanted a cheaper and less complicated design.
Working in consultation with Orville Wright and the Dayton-Wright Airplane Company, Kettering developed a lightweight airframe with dihedral biplane wings and a tapered cylindrical fuselage constructed of wood laminates and papier-mâché. Powered by an air-cooled 40 horsepower De Palma engine, the unmanned craft was 12.5 feet long, weighed 530 pounds, and was designed to carry a 180 pound explosive warhead.
Its official title was the Kettering Aerial Torpedo, but people began referring to it as the Kettering Bug almost from the start, possibly in reference to its dragonfly-like silhouette.
Kettering designated independent engineering teams to handle various parts of the developmental research. One of these teams designed an inexpensive portable launch system, consisting of a four-wheeled cradle which rode on two parallel rails.
Although he had set out to develop an autopilot that was cheaper and simpler than the version used in Sperry’s earlier N-9 tests, Kettering was not able to produce a workable model of his own. Ultimately, he asked Elmer Sperry for assistance. Although they were technically competitors, Sperry agreed to help with the autopilot problem.
At last, with the preliminary engineering problems resolved, the Kettering Bug was ready for testing in September of 1918. After several preliminary ground trials, the first full test flight was conducted on 2 October.
The flight began with a smooth takeoff, but it did not go well after that. Instead of turning onto its assigned heading and leveling off, the Bug climbed too steeply until it stalled and then crashed.
Kettering Aerial Torpedo, Patent Application (1927)
The Kettering Aerial Torpedo was not off to an auspicious start, but a number of subsequent tests were more successful. The Army was encouraged enough to order 100 prototypes, but only about 45 were produced before the Armistice was signed and World War I was over.
Seeing no further immediate need for the technology, and frankly not entirely impressed with the results up to that point, the Federal Government decided to combine the Army and Navy aerial torpedo programs. Competitive test events were more favorable for the Sperry design, and the Kettering Bug was abandoned.
The U.S. military conducted limited experiments over the next two years, before cancelling the project entirely in 1920.
The War to End All Wars had come to a close, and so had the aerial torpedo program. Optimists predicted a future of global peace and prosperity, in which there would be no need for the tools of battle. Unfortunately, they were wrong. Mankind was not finished with war, and war was certainly not finished with mankind.
Another global conflict, even larger and more brutal than the first, was looming just over the horizon. And military leaders of that coming war would not forget the idea of an unpiloted aerial bomb that could destroy enemies at a distance.
The first generation of unmanned flying weapons had not carried out a single attack under actual conditions of battle. They had not destroyed a single target, or killed so much as one enemy soldier. But t
he second generation of such weapons would not be long in coming. And when they did arrive, they would change everything.
CHAPTER 14
USS TOWERS (DDG-103)
WESTERN PACIFIC OCEAN; SOUTH OF JAPAN
SUNDAY; 23 NOVEMBER
1348 hours (1:48 PM)
TIME ZONE +9 ‘INDIA’
Commander Silva opened the door to the wardroom, but before she could step inside, she heard the voices. They were muffled, but she didn’t have any trouble making out the words.
“Holy shit!” the first voice said. “We’re really going into battle? You’re not just fucking with me? We’re really gonna do it?”
“I don’t know if we’ll be fighting,” the second voice said. “The big dogs don’t exactly share their battle plans with junior enlisted types. But we’re hauling ass down to the Bay of Bengal, and that’s where all the shooting is. I know that much.”
Silva glanced through the open door. The wardroom was empty of people. The chairs were all pushed neatly up against the long table, and the blue linen table cloth was bare, except for a carefully aligned row of coffee cups, stacked upside down on white saucers.
She stepped through the door, and closed it quietly behind herself. She knew where the voices were coming from now. The small square serving window from the wardroom pantry was not completely closed. A stainless steel shutter could be pulled down to cover the serving window, isolating the pantry from the wardroom to give the ship’s officers privacy during meals or meetings. When the shutter was open, the mess attendants could pass food or dishes back and forth between the wardroom and the adjoining pantry as they were serving meals to the officers.
