Fourth Crisis: The Battle for Taiwan (14 page)

“They’re making sure the Indians don’t get any fancy ideas,”
Pierce offered.

“Georgie, is this little island chain worth starting a world
war over?” the national security advisor asked Secretary Pierce, as his digital
image tiled and flickered.

“It is,” Pierce declared.
 
“Taiwan is a democracy.
 
China is
a dictatorship.
 
This is not about cheap
products or tiptoeing around a creditor.
 
We have fought many times to do what is right by our beliefs and
values.
 
Isn’t that so, Dr. Westermark?”
she asked the grandson of a Holocaust survivor.
 
Richard watched intently, more impressed with her than ever.
 
He had had his doubts when the new
administration had come to town and appointed an old political ally to head
America’s diplomatic corps.
 
Although,
now, watching Secretary Pierce get all fired up and hearing the passion in her
arguments, he realized she was no simple crony.
 
Both men smiled on the video screen.

“Okay, okay,” the national security advisor conceded.
 
“Glad you’re on our side, Madam
Secretary.”
 
Knowing her department’s
stance was clear, Pierce informed her colleagues that the Japanese had decided
to sit this one out, and officially viewed the attack on Kadena Air Force Base
as an attack on American soil.
 
Their
ambassador, however, had iterated his government’s policy of allowing combat
operations to be launched from Japanese air and maritime space.

“Good.” The secretary of defense welcomed the news of
Japan’s acquiescence.
 
“Taiwan needs
airpower.
 
If China dominates Taiwanese
airspace, the cost of us getting back in there goes up.
 
Anything more from State?”

“Yes, but only by other means,” Pierce responded sternly.
 
The men nodded understanding.

“Right then…”
 
On the
video screen, a Pentagon emblem
 
replaced
the secretary of defense, and VC-25B’ centered on color bars took the place of
the national security advisor, ending the teleconference.

“
Let your plans be as
dark as night, then strike like a thunderbolt
.”—Sun Tzu

R
ichard strolled
to Jade’s school, hoping to make up for lost time.
 
He planned to surprise her outside class and
treat her to lunch at the campus café where they could smooth things over.

Richard peeked through the little window on the classroom’s
door.
 
Attentive students filled the
amphitheater’s lecture hall.
 
One sneaked
out a few minutes early, and Richard put his foot in the door to listen.

“…Renaming Taiwan ‘Takasago Koku’—Highland Nation—Japanese
rule of the island waffled from oppressive to paternal, and then plagued by
resistance and violence,” the professor orated.
 
Like many Asians, the professor harbored ill memories of Japanese
wartime behavior.
 
His voice trembled momentarily,
revealing his latent hatred.
 
“During the
Second World War the Imperial Navy home-ported the South Strike Group on
Taiwan.
 
With America, China, and the
other Pacific allies finally pushing the Japanese back to their home islands,
the Imperial garrison surrendered to Chiang Kai Shek and his Nationalists in
1945.
 
With the common enemy defeated,
Communist and Nationalist Chinese immediately fell back to fighting each other,
reigniting the interrupted Chinese Civil War.
 
Since no official Chinese government existed to legally claim or
administer Taiwan, the territory was placed under American stewardship.
 
The Treaty of San Francisco--” The hall bell
cut the professor off.
 
Released from the
gate like spirited race horses, a throng of young people erupted from the
classroom and into the hallway.
 
Richard
flattened himself against the cold, brick wall to protect himself from the
human swarm.
 
Not seeing Jade’s shiny
black hair among the bobbing heads,
 
he
peeked back inside the room.

Jade stood at the professor’s podium, where she accepted a
padded envelope that she nonchalantly tucked into her purse.
 
Feeling Richard’s gaze, she turned.
 
Jade did not exhibit the look of innocent
joyful surprise.
 
Instead, Richard
realized, she was startled.
 
Jade collected
herself, pasted a smile on, and thanked the professor.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, as she went to
Richard.

“I thought we could get some lunch,” Richard said, eying the
professor who now erased the day’s lecture notes from the whiteboard.
 
Jade walked one step ahead and kept speed
walking.
 
Richard followed.

“What, are you boinking your teacher?” he half-joked.
 
She stopped and turned.
 
As usual, his joke had fallen flat.
 
He thought their incompatible sense of humor was
cultural, but she thought he was just a rude American.
 
“Can I buy you something to eat?” Richard
tried again.

“Sure,
Dick
.”

◊◊◊◊

In the early morning and stillness of dark at China’s Jinan
Air Base, three thousand Chinese paratroopers marched on the flight line.

“
I-erh
,
I-erh
,” they counted, one-two,
one-two.
 
The men belonged to the 43
^rd
Airborne Division, an elite formation that traced its proud heritage back to
the Korean War’s Battle of Triangle Hill.
 
General Zhen presided over the awesome congregation, standing on a
command vehicle.
 
The base’s commander sat
in its driver’s seat.

Like a proud father watching three thousand sons, Zhen
surveyed his tools for victory.
 
Proudly,
he returned salutes as they passed.
 
The
men of the 43
^rd
were destined for Taipei’s Songshan Airport.
 
Other airborne divisions would drop on Chiang
Kai Shek International Airport as well as other smaller airfields that dotted
the Taiwanese capital and its outskirts.
 
Once these strategic positions were
in Chinese hands, Taiwan’s entire 6
^th
Army will be pinned
, Zhen
thought.
 
Then the airborne divisions would
break out and seize control of the island’s northern third.
 
Zhen smirked and nodded.
 
A sniveling emanated from the otherwise
silent ranks, disturbing the general’s mental machinations.

Zhen looked to the base commander, who called for the
formation to halt.
 
Zhen jumped from the
vehicle, wearing a concerned look and, pushing through the phalanx, moved for
the sound.
 
He closed in on the racket,
hearing other men as they urged the culprit to stop.
 
The sniveling became a sniffling mumble.
 
Finding the source of the disturbance among
the engineers, Zhen pulled the young man from the line.

“What is it, my boy?” The general put his arm around the
young man with the boyish face.
 
Zhen felt
the teenager tremble.

“I have family where we are going,” the engineer pleaded.

“Oh oh oh, yes, yes, I understand,” the general pulled the
dissenter in tight as he drew a pistol with his free hand.
 
In a fluid motion, he placed the gun beneath
the engineer’s jaw and discharged it with a loud report.
 
Despite the bang and grotesque spray, the
other men stood perfectly still.
 
Zhen
removed a handkerchief, wiped brain matter and fluids from an adjacent
paratrooper’s face, pocketed the bloody mess, and returned to his vehicle.
 
He climbed up and scanned the ranks, studying
the men with a remorseless scowl.
 
This
lesson had been well learned, Zhen ruminated. He yelled at a passing tractor driver
to clear the body from his sight.
 
The
aircraft technician, visibly shaken by the strange order, went about lifting
and transporting the warm corpse.
 
General Zhen nodded to the base commander, who ordered preparations to
proceed.
 
Zhen crossed his arms and
watched the renewed dance of men and machines.
 
He returned his concentration to Operation Red Dragon:

The 43
^rd
Division was tasked to fly south and
form up with the 44
^th
and 45
^th
over the Chinese coast at
Wenzhou.
 
The entire 15
^th
Airborne Corps would then meet its escort of fighter-bombers—glossy dark-grey
delta-winged J-10 Vigorous Dragons.
 
The
Vigorous Dragons would spearhead the transports, clear the sky of any last
Taiwanese fighters, and attack remaining drop zone air defenses.
 
General Zhen cracked a crooked grin.

Paratroopers lined up at the rear cargo ramps of big
propeller-driven An-12 Cubs.
 
The
division’s light tanks, airmobile artillery pieces, and infantry fighting
vehicles drove into the bellies of voluminous Il-76 Candids—strategic
transports with hunched, swept-wings, four big turbofans, towering T-tails, and
noses freckled with observation windows.
 
Zhen squirmed with excitement.
 
Despite his age and political status, the general had convinced the
Politburo to let him join the division’s second wave into the drop zone.
 
Ignoring the risk, General Zhen insisted his
place was with the soldiers of the republic where he could lead from the front
to instill courage, discipline, and morale.
 
His bravado inspired the old men that ran the country, who then gave
reluctant support.

◊◊◊◊

Senior Master Sergeant Li’s breakfast was a boxed meal-ready-to-eat.
 
He noted with ironic amusement that it had
been manufactured in the People’s Republic of China.
 
Finishing the MRE, he considered the
cigarette it included.
 
Li stood, stretched,
and exited Hill 112’s command bunker to smoke.
 
A passing airman gave him a light.
 
The Chinese tobacco was stale; it popped and hissed with each draw.
 
This was the first cigarette Li had had in
months, and it made his heart pound and throat sting.
 
Li surveyed what was left of his air defense
site.

About midnight the night before, a platoon from the 6
^th
Army had towed a new Sparrow launcher and radar up the hill.
 
The soldiers stayed to reinforce the garrison
and better protect the high ground from air or ground assault.
 
The Sparrows were set up on the platform’s
remains, just beside the site’s one remaining operational anti-aircraft
cannon.
 
Hill 112’s airmen and soldiers had
cleaned up most of the mess overnight, cleared fallen trees, and used the wood
to buttress new perimeter trenches.
 
A
dump truck came up before first light, too, and poured its load of coarse
gravel in revetments for the hilltop’s mortars and heavy machineguns.
 
Li crushed the cigarette and raised
light-enhancing binoculars from around his neck.
 
Piercing the dimness, Li peered into the
valley.

Taipei Songshan had been built where Matsuyama Airdrome—an
Imperial Japanese airbase—once stood, and had evolved into a modern mid-size
commercial airport.
 
Li and the air force
knew that Songshan’s proximity to the government center meant it was integral
to Chinese invasion plans.
 
So far, Li
assessed, Songshan looked unscathed, and, despite surrounding blacked-out city
blocks, emergency power flowed to the airport.
 
A subordinate hurried from the bunker and gestured for Li to rejoin them
inside.

In Hill 112’s bunker, a crowd had congregated around a radar
terminal.

“Tell me,” Li ordered

“Senior master sergeant, this airman is tracking six
mid-altitude fast movers, with another 15 high-altitude targets trailing them.
 
Both contact groups are inbound from the
northwest and bearing on our relative position,” the seated technician reported.
 
Two blips appeared on the radar screen.
 
The technician pointed at them.
 
“Those are our fighters climbing out of
Songshan.
 
They are climbing to meet the
raiders, he proudly deduced.”
 
Everyone
huddled in the green glow of the radar.

Two Taiwanese F-CK-1 Ching Kuos powered their way into the
sky.
 
Underpowered kludges named for a
former president, the Ching Kuos raced headlong at the Vigorous Dragons.
 
Taiwanese air controllers sent a Mirage to
help even the odds.

“Ready a Sparrow,” Li ordered.
 
Hill 112’s new surface-to-air missile quad
box-launcher elevated.
 
Dots on the radar
screen represented Chinese and Taiwanese aircraft as they converged and flew
about, playing out a dogfight.
 
Intertwining puffy trails appeared in the dawn sky.
 
Thunder echoed around eastern Taipei.
 
Ruined Chinese and Taiwanese aircraft crashed
into neighborhoods and splashed into the rivers.
 
With both Ching Kuos down, the Taiwanese
Mirage heeded a low fuel warning, dove, and turned for the east coast.
 
More Chinese Vigorous Dragons roared over
downtown, their crackling engines echoing among the nervous streets.
 
People crouching in the heights of Taipei 101
felt the skyscraper vibrate from the close fly-by.

“Okay, our sector is clear of friendlies.
 
Weapons free,” Li directed.
 
The radar technician reported that
high-altitude targets were coming in from the north.
 
Some were slow, others moving fast.
 
With only four surface-to-air missiles and
limited ammunition for the anti-aircraft cannon, Li decided to engage the
fast-movers with the Sparrows, and then switch over to the cannon to fire at
the slower targets, what he assumed to be enemy troop transports.

Hill 112’s surface-to-air missiles bolted from the launcher
and flew off.
 
Its lone anti-aircraft
cannon tilted up, and let it rip.
 
Tongues
of flame shot from its barrel and smoking brass clinked to the concrete.

Explosive rounds zipped among the big Chinese Candids and
Cubs as they entered their drop zone.
 
Hill 112’s anti-aircraft fire struck a Cub transport hauling enemy
paratroopers, and then an old An-2 Colt observation biplane that carried the
drop coordinator.
 
Smoking pieces fell, as
the damaged Chinese airplanes veered from the formation.

“Fast movers are still inbound.
 
Sparrows are closing,” the missile technician
declared as he watched the surface-to-air missiles ride the radar beam toward
their targets.
 
Half the control screen suffered
from electronic noise, turning it a blinding greenish-white.
 
“Enemy jamming.”
 
Everyone watched as the blips that
represented the Sparrows began to divert, turned from the true path.

Two Vigorous Dragons screamed down the river with impunity,
the Chinese warplanes dwarfed by the hollow mountains of downtown Taipei.
 
The Chinese fighter-bombers hauled two 1,000-kilogram
gravity bombs.
 
They hopped over bridge
wreckage and then turned east to follow the highway.
 
A whip of glowing cannon fire stretched from
one of the hilltops ahead.
 
Then the
Chinese flight leader spotted a puff of launch smoke and ordered chaff.