Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 06 (68 page)

 
          
“Hold
on, Muck,” Elliott said. “You don’t remember this gent, do you? Ambassador Kuo
Han-min, meet Colonel Patrick McLanahan, my friend and colleague. ” The Asian
gentleman smiled a very pleased and excited smile, bowed, and extended a hand.
“Mack, meet Ambassador Kuo Han-min, ambassador to the
United States
from the newly independent Republic of
China. You ran into each other outside the White House Oval Office, remember?”
McLanahan’s expression told Kuo that he remembered, which pleased him even
more.

 
          
“What
are you doing here, Ambassador?” McLanahan asked as the ambassador took his
hand and shook it. “How did you get on base? How did you know to find us here?”

 
          
“I
told him, of course,” Elliott said. McLanahan turned a shocked grimace toward
his ex-boss. “Hell, Muck, don’t act so damned shocked— you knew it all the
time. I talked to Kuo before our patrols began over the
Formosa Strait
; Eve talked to him almost every day since.
We’ve coordinated our moves as much as we could over the past month.” McLanahan
could do nothing but nod—yes, he knew, or at least strongly suspected, that
Brad Elliott was sharing information with Taiwan all the time, not just before
the initial patrol but ever since then.

 
          
“Very
pleased to meet you, Colonel,” Kuo said with a warm, admiring smile. “You are a
very great hero in my country. Many members of my government and my military
wish to meet you and extend to you every courtesy and honor. ”

 
          
“I
appreciate it, Mr. Ambassador,” McLanahan said, trying to stay polite despite
his uneasy feeling that Brad Elliott was tiptoeing on the very thin line
between cooperation between allies and treason. “Someday I’d like to visit
Taiwan
. I’ve never been there before.” His tired
voice, however, signaled that it might be a very long time before he got the
opportunity to visit anywhere but a rec room in a minimum-security prison
facility.

 
          
“I
have heard of your legal troubles, my friend,” Kuo said. “It is very
unfortunate that your bravery is not rewarded by your own government. I wish
there was some way we could help.”

 
          
“Perhaps
you could tell us about the attacks you staged against
China
, sir,” McLanahan suggested.

 
          
“Of
course,” Kuo said. “The attacks were planned as preemptive strikes against the
communications, headquarters, and fuel-storage facilities that might be used in
an attack against Quemoy Tao, which our intelligence said would be the
Communists’ first target.”

 
          
“Did
you know the PRC had nuclear-armed surface-to-air missiles?”

 
          
Kuo
shrugged. “Yes, Colonel, we knew,” he replied. “We know of many Communist
nuclear weapon deployments, both tactical and strategic. Part of he strike
against
Xiamen
was against their suspected nuclear-armed
Hai Ying-2 and Ying Ji-6 land-based anti-ship missiles.”

 
          
“Nuclear
anti-ship missiles?”

 
          
“The
Communists have an extensive menu of tactical nuclear weapons, Colonel, similar
to the American arsenal in the 1960s and 1970s,” Kuo said. “Their ships carry
short- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads, and
their subs use nuclear-tipped torpedoes and can lay nuclear-armed mines,
similar to the Mk 57. They employed nuclear cruise missiles from their
long-range bombers on their attacks on my country, and we believe they can
launch medium-range ballistic missiles from their heavy bombers as well. The
world has looked the other way for many decades, but we on
Taiwan
have lived under the shadow of a powerful
nuclear adversary.”

 
          
“Shit,”
McLanahan swore. “No one ever suspected they had a nuclear arsenal like that.
Have you ever shared this information with the American government?”

 
          
“Always,
but our information was disregarded as unreliable, biased, and unverifiable,”
Kuo said. “I believe your government simply chose not to believe our
information, that starting a war with
China
over its military hardware would mean
financial and economic disaster to your country. Many other pieces of
information were discarded by your government. We reported the actual size of
the Communists’ amphibious assault fleet to your chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff directly, but your official published estimates did not reflect this.
We reported the Communists’ advanced ballistic missile capabilities, including
air- and sea-launched M-9 nuclear ballistic missiles, but that went unheeded as
well. The
Republic
of
Iran
has far less military hardware than
Communist China, and you sent your stealth bombers over there secretly to bomb
their bases—but for some odd reason, your government refuses to punish
China
for its aggression.

 
          
“Our
information is reliable,” Kuo went on, “and we expected the Communists to begin
using these weapons against us at any time. We believed the
Mao
battle group and their attempted attack
on
Quemoy
to be the first step. The attack on
Quemoy
by nuclear missiles fired by the carrier
Mao Zedong
that you stopped with your
amazing EB-52 Megafortress was typical of the People’s Liberation Army. Since
then, however, their tactics have become very confusing, very
unconventional—not at all like the Peoples Liberation Army and its leadership.
The attack on the
Mao
was obviously a
complicated and well-orchestrated ruse.

 
          
“Your
sub was caught in the immediate vicinity, and reports said the PLAN recovered
pieces of torpedoes used by your navy,” McLanahan pointed out. “It could be a
well-planned ruse—or it could have been an attack by your submarine.”

 
          
“Our
submarine did not fire on the carrier,” Kuo insisted. “Yes, we were shadowing
the carrier, but we did not attack. ”

 
          
“Can
you prove it?”

 
          
“The
Communists covered their tracks very effectively by sinking the submarine
instead of capturing it,” Kuo said. “We cannot prove our contention—just as it
is difficult for you to prove that your frigates were fired upon by
underwater-launched rocket torpedoes. The faked attack against your frigates,
in which you were involved? Pure genius, if I may say so. Setting off the
underwater-launched rocket torpedoes at the same time a passenger ferry cruises
near the area, a ferry equipped with radio emitters to make it appear like a
warship? The sheer imagination of the plan must be applauded, do you not
agree?”

 
          
“I
agree,” McLanahan said. It was the only possible explanation, and one that he
had suspected right from the start. “So this leaves us alone, isolated, and
with
China
holding all the cards. They’ve got the world believing both Taiwan and
the United States are trying to provoke a war— and in trying to defend
themselves, they seem to be given tacit permission to use nuclear weapons.”

 
          
“After
Taiwan
, the
South China Sea
and
Spratly
Islands
will fall to the Communists—as you have
stated, Colonel, they will be allowed to defend their new conquests with
nuclear weapons,” Kuo said grimly. “The entire world will be in danger if the
Communists are allowed to control access to the
South China Sea
.” He paused, looking first at Elliott, then
McLanahan. “We were praying for a miracle, that your amazing EB- 52
Megafortresses might be able to come to our defense once again.”

 
          
“There
isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of us getting those planes back into action,”
Elliott said. “It would take a small army to move those Navy security
policemen. And even then, we’d have no place to take them.”

           
McLanahan had been quiet for several
long moments, but now he was looking at Kuo and Elliott, a glimmer of an idea
in his eyes. “We can get them off
Guam
,” he
said.

 
          
“You
and what army, Muck?” Elliott asked.

 
          
“Getting
past the marshals and Navy security is the easy part,” McLanahan said with a
sly smile. “But if we fly the Megafortresses back to the States, they’ll be
ground up into asphalt filler in a matter of days, and we’ll be in front of a
federal court judge fighting for own freedom and the survival of our company.
We need a base of operations. Sky Masters, Inc., has a support base on
Saipan
, and he has pretty good connections with
the sultan of
Brunei
, who would probably be happier than hell to have the Megafortresses
based in his country.”

 
          
“If
you are able to get your aircraft off
Guam
with
weapons and support personnel, I have a base you can use,” Ambassador Kuo said
proudly. “We have skilled aircraft technicians, a good supply of fuel and
ordnance, and very good security.”

 
          
“A
base on
Taiwan
?” McLanahan asked. Kuo bowed in assent with great enthusiasm. “With all
due respect, sir,
Taiwan
has been hit pretty hard. It might be too dangerous.”

 
          
“It
would be, as you might say, the last place anyone would look for your EB-52
Megafortresses,” Ambassador Kuo said with an unabashed grin. “Please, Colonel
McLanahan, let me explain. ...”

ANDERSEN AIR FORCE BASE,
AGANA
,
GUAM

MONDAY, 23 JUNE 1997
,
1901 HOURS LOCAL (SUNDAY, 22 JUNE. 0401 HOURS ET)

           
The “six-pack” crew truck pulled up
to the first hangar on the north side of the aircraft parking apron, and was
immediately surrounded by U.S. Marines in green-and-black battle dress uniforms
carrying M-16 rifles slung over their shoulders. As Patrick and Wendy
McLanahan, Brad Elliott, Nancy Cheshire, and Jon Masters stepped out of the big
pickup truck and began unloading their gear, a Navy officer in a clean, neatly
pressed white tropical uniform met up with them, accompanied by a security
guard wearing black fatigues with “U.S. MARSHAL” in yellow across his chest.

 
          
“A
little late to be out working, isn’t it, Mr. McLanahan?” the Navy officer
asked. He glared at Brad Elliott, obviously surprised to see him up and about.
Elliott gave him his best mischievous grin in return.

           
“Not if we want to depart by
tomorrow night,” Patrick replied. The rest of his crew tried to carry their
gear past the Marine guards, but were stopped by a raised hand from the Navy
officer. Patrick put his bags down at his side. “Is there a problem, Commander
Willis?”

 
          
U.S.
Navy Commander Eldon Willis pointed at the bags of flight gear, and the federal
marshal and a Marine guard began searching them. Willis was the commander of
security forces at Agana Naval Base on
Guam
, sent up to Andersen Air Force Base to
personally supervise the security on the EB-52 Megafortresses ordered by
Admiral George Balboa, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Willis took this
assignment very seriously and knew that it might be a path to getting an
assignment for the Chief of Naval Operations or even for Balboa. “I didn’t expect
you out here tonight, Mr. McLanahan.” He turned to Elliott. “And I certainly
did not expect you either, General. I hope you’re feeling better, sir.” He used
the words “sir” and “General,” but it was obvious that Willis offered no sign
of respect to the retired Air Force three-star.