Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 06 (64 page)

 
          
Rumors
had been flying for years about huge army bases underground, where two entire
generations of citizens and soldiers had grown up and trained. Sun had even
heard about caves cut into the rock big enough to hide a cruiser, or massive
underwater caves turned into submarine pens where the only access in or out of
the base was underwater, as in Sweden. He dismissed most of these rumors.
Anything big enough to house a capital warship, several submarines, or more
than a few hundred men had to be carefully engineered, and that took time,
money, and vast amounts of equipment and manpower—and that meant security leaks
and evidence. In all of Sun’s years in the People’s Liberation Army, with all
the spies they employed all over
Asia
and
the world, no exact proof had ever been produced of any legendary rebel
underground military bases.

 
          
Admiral
Sun switched to his interphone and keyed the mike: “Continue on course,” he
ordered. “Notify me when your attack checklists are complete.” He received an
acknowledgment from his crew. The H-7 bomber started northward toward
Fuzhou
, staying close to the mainland coast in
case any surviving rebel fighters tried to take a pass at them. It was accompanied
by a single HT-6 Xian tanker aircraft. After passing near
Fuzhou
, Sun’s H-7 and the HT-6 took up a
northbound course, out over the
East China Sea
.

 
          
The
attack on
Taiwan
’s major military bases was a great success, but Sun knew that the real
threat to
China
didn’t come from
Taiwan
, but from the
United States of America
. Sun had managed to keep the area around
Taiwan clear of American aircraft carriers by planting a “backpack” nuclear
device on the USS
Independence
and
detonating it just after it had left its Japanese port of Yokosuka—and to his
immense surprise, the United States had not retaliated against anyone, not
China, not Japan, not Iran. The nearest American carrier was nearly a thousand
miles away, and intelligence reported that it might take up stations in the
Sea of Japan
to defend
Japan
and
South Korea
, instead of moving toward the
Formosa Strait
to assist the rebel Nationalists.

 
          
America
had to be stopped, Sun knew. The
United States
had to learn to respect the waters and
airspace around
China
, as the
United States
expected other nations to do around its
waters.

 
          
But
the political leaders around the world, even in
China
, did not have the stomach to do what was
necessary to ensure their sovereignty in their own territory when faced with
the threat of domination by the
United States
. Sun Ji Guoming knew what must be done, and
he knew that he must force his own political leadership to accept what was
right and what was necessary. There was no choice, no other way.

 
          
Admiral
Sun switched his radio panel to the Great Wall satellite communications system
again, linking directly into the
Beijing
emergency military command center, and
asked to speak with the Paramount Leader again.

 
          
“The
wrath of the entire planet will be upon the people of
China
for what has been done today,” President
Jiang Zemin intoned, when he came on the line a few moments later. He had
obviously been informed of the extensive and deadly nuclear attack on
Taiwan
, and the doubt and worry crushing his every
thought was evident in his tired, wavering voice. “Our lives, our future will
never again be the same.”

 
          
“The
future is now, Comrade President,” Admiral Sun said. “You have seen to that.
You have opened the way for us to reunite our shattered country from the
destruction of foreign imperialism. But there is one more step to be done. Give
the order, and it will be done.”

 
          
“I
cannot do it. It is insanity.”

 
          
“Comrade,
you may rely on me to be the instrument of your vision,” Sun said in a firm,
confident voice. Jiang did not order him to abort the mission or return to
base, so he was
positive
that Jiang
was going to give the order. He was a little hesitant—but who wouldn’t be? “I
will be the sword of your promise to the Chinese people. Give me the order, and
I shall accomplish the deed. Afterwards, you may tell the world that I was an
insane man who stole a jet and nuclear weapon at gunpoint—if you must betray
me, so be it. I will always be loyal to you, to the motherland, and to the
Chinese Communist Party. But this must be done. You know it to be true. We
cannot succeed if the final step is not taken.”

 
          
“You
have done enough, Admiral,” Jiang said.

 
          
Again,
the Paramount Leader was expressing doubts, but he still did not give the order
to abort. “You must tell me to abort the mission and return to base, Comrade
President,” Sun said. “If you do, I will obey. But you will also lose the
opportunity to all but eliminate the Western imperialist-dominated threat to
China
’s existence. I urge you, sir—no, I demand
it. Save Zhongguo. Save
China
. Give the command.”

 
          
There
was no response—not even a “wait.” A few moments later, a command post operator
relayed an order from the president to stand by.

 
          
Sun
continued northward over the
East China Sea
and, almost an hour later, they were just a hundred miles east of
Shanghai
. Sun ordered the final refueling to
commence, and thirty minutes later the HT-6 Xian tanker was left with just
enough fuel to return to base at
Wuhan
. Sun’s H-7 Gangfang bomber turned slightly
west and continued into the Yellow Sea, beginning a descent from 30,000 feet to
5,000 feet, sneaking in under the long-range radar coverage from Kunsan and
Mokpo in South Korea, now less than three hundred miles to the east. After the
attack on the rebel Nationalists, the Americans and South Koreans would surely
be on their highest states of alert, and any unidentified aircraft flying
anywhere near their shoreline or bases on the
Korean
Peninsula
would quickly be intercepted.

 
          
Although
a fully fueled H-7 had an endurance of about seven hours, Sun could not wait
that long to get a response from
Beijing
. He would simply fly to his next
checkpoint—if he did not receive approval for the final phase of his plan, he
would head westbound and land at Wuhan People’s Liberation Army Air Force Base,
then begin planning another night of attacks on the Nationalists. It was
important that—

 
          
“Attack
One, this is Dark Night, respond, please.”

 
          
“Dark
Night, I am listening. Go ahead, please.”

 
          
“Attack
One, you are ordered to proceed. Repeat, you are ordered to proceed. Do you
understand?”

 
          
Admiral
Sun Ji Guoming wore a smile like a young child’s at his first circus. “Attack
One understands,” he responded. “Attack One out.” Sun then switched to the
interphone and instructed the stunned bomber crew to carry out the attack
orders.

 
          
The
attack was simple and completely without threat from anywhere. From an altitude
of 5,000 feet and an airspeed of 240 knots, the H-7 Gangfang bomber flew toward
a preprogrammed point in the north- central part of the
Yellow Sea
, about one hundred miles east of the North
Sea Fleet headquarters base at
Qingdao
, and then two long, slender shapes dropped
from their semirecessed spaces in the H-7 bomber’s belly. Three large
parachutes deployed immediately from each object, and by the time the objects
were 1,000 feet above the water, they were both hanging almost exactly vertical
in their chutes, almost all rocking motions stopped. The H-7 bomber turned
westward and accelerated to its maximum speed of nearly the speed of sound . .
.

 
          
...
so it was well clear of the area when the rocket motors of the two M-9
ballistic missiles ignited. The stabilizer parachutes released seconds after
the flight computer detected full power chamber pressure in the rocket motors,
and the M-9 missiles climbed rapidly in the night sky. One missile headed
eastward, while the other headed northeast—both over the
Korean
Peninsula
.

 
          
The
Republic
of
Korea AN/EPS-117
air defense radar station at
Seoul
was the first to detect the missile
launches, just seconds after the M-9s crossed the radar horizon, and the
U.S.-made Patriot and I-Hawk surface-to-air-missile sites at
Inchon
and
Seoul
were instantly alerted. By the time
missile-launch detection was confirmed, the second missile was out of range as
it headed farther north over the demilitarized zone. The first missile was
tracked and engaged by eight Patriot batteries—one by one they opened fire with
double Patriot anti-missile missile launches.

 
          
The
first two Patriot missiles hit their target, breaking the M-9 missile into
several pieces. The other Patriot batteries continued to fire at the larger
pieces of the Chinese missile—in all, eight Patriot missiles were launched,
effectively chopping the thirty-foot-long, eighteen-inch- diameter M-9 missile
into pieces no larger than a suitcase. The M-9’s nuclear warhead was hit
directly by one Patriot, detonating the high- explosive fusion initiator
portion of the warhead and scattering radioactive debris over
Inchon
and the west-central coastline, but there was
no nuclear yield.

 
          
The
Korean People’s Army Air Force of North Korea did not detect the second M-9
missile until after it had crossed the coast and was headed down over the
center of the
Korean
Peninsula
. The KPAAF’s SA-2 and SA-3 fixed missile
sites at Kaesong and one SA-5 mobile missile site at Dosan were the only units
capable of attempting to intercept the M-9 missile, but all of these missiles
were older, larger, less reliable strategic air defense missiles and were not
designed to shoot down something as small and as fast as a ballistic missile.
Untouched and unimpeded, the Chinese M-9 missile streaked out of the sky... and
detonated its nuclear warhead about 20,000 feet above the large military city
of
Wonsan
, on
North Korea
’s east-central coastline.

 
          
The
warhead had the explosive power of 20,000
tons
of TNT, so although the missile missed its preprogrammed target coordinates by
over a mile and a half, the effect of the blast was devastating. The nuclear
explosion leveled the southeast portion of the city, completely destroying half
of the aboveground buildings and facilities of the Korean People’s Army’s
Southern Defense Sector headquarters, and substantially damaging the KPA Navy’s
Eastern Fleet headquarters and the surface and submarine naval bases located on
Yonghung
Bay
. Although the city of
Wonsan
itself was spared from much of the nuclear
blast because of the miss distance, almost twenty thousand civilians were
killed or wounded in the blink of an eye that night, along with thousands of military
men and women and their dependents on the military installations.