Fourth Crisis: The Battle for Taiwan (33 page)

The low thump of the 862
^nd
’s and 601
^st
’s
helicopters drew
Tek’s
eyes to the west, where he
focused his binoculars.
 
In the magnified
view, he found Super Cobra gunships, armed with TOW missiles and rotary
cannons.
 
They led several Black Hawk
transports and a Chinook heavy transport, with its double rotor chopping at the
air.
 
Tek panned his view toward the
freeways and watched his tanks and men assemble at a key intersection along
Route 66.
 
He traced the line of fuel
bowsers and supply trucks that stretched back in the direction of Jhubei
City.
 
Tek lowered the spyglasses and
checked his watch. As the second hand ticked down to 0400—X-Hour—the first
reports from the artillery echoed among the hills and mountains.

The artillery had now opened up on Taoyuan International
Airport.
 
They would soften the way,
using airburst anti-personnel, fragmentation, and illumination rounds to keep
the Chinese in their foxholes while damaging the enemy combat aircraft parked
there.
 
Fire would then shift to the
beach north of the airport to pave the way for the marines.
 
The barrage would lift as the air cavalry began
its assault on the runways and terminal.
 
While this transpired, Artillery Command would focus its lethal cannons
on enemy positions in Taoyuan City and Lujhu and Yingge Townships.
 
All the while, armor, mechanized infantry,
and regular infantry would charge east by coastal routes and freeway, thrusting
toward their objective: the #2 Freeway that ran north/south along the
mesa.
 
Meanwhile, special operators had
been tasked with eliminating enemy command and control nodes across the
battlefield, as well as to create general confusion in the enemy rear.
 
Tek looked at his map and shifted the circle
of light.
 
He shone it on Chiang Kai Shek
International Airport, where the navy’s 66
^th
Marine Brigade would go
ashore and retake the airport from the Chinese invaders.
 
It is
time
, Tek thought.
 
The Taiwanese
major general ran to the building’s helipad and the machine that awaited
him.
 
Saluted as he jumped in, he would
be airborne in moments.

◊◊◊◊

As usual, Union Station was a tapestry of people.
 
From this terminal, they arrived at and
departed the American capital, to among others, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, and
New York.
 
Beneath the station’s
barrel-vaulted, coffered ceiling, travelers scurried to and from trains, and
connected with buses, taxis, and DC’s subway, the Metro.
 
Jade and Richard hid themselves among the
tide of people.
 
She had cut her hair and
dyed it a dark shade of red, and dressed in her version of casual: a leather
jacket, NY Mets cap, and worn blue jeans.
 
Even incognito
,
she’s a beauty
, Richard thought.
 
He took and tugged her hand.
 
They had to move faster to their track.

They passed through the doorway and emerged on the platform
where a silvery, streamlined locomotive sat at the head of several passenger
coaches.
 
On adjacent tracks, local
trains from Maryland and Virginia came and went, and Amtrak’s Capitol Limited
had just arrived from Chicago.
 
A
uniformed cart attendant stocked their train’s diner car as another man monitored
a hose pumping fresh water into a carriage’s holding tank.
 
Jade and Richard noticed an armed guard,
watching boxes and suitcases being loaded into the train’s baggage cart.
 
Richard scanned the platform crowd.
 
His paranoia made him assume that the hot
blonde touching up her lipstick was CIA, and the gentleman reading the day’s
paper was FBI.
 
Although wrong in both
cases, what his sixth sense could not suspect was that a Chinese sniper had
been situated high in the structure of the station’s iron train shed, and had a
telescopic sight centered on Richard’s chest.

As Jade texted on her phone, the Chinese operator shifted
the rifle’s crosshairs to her center-of-mass.

“That’s not a good idea; using that thing,” Richard said,
pointing at the phone.

As he eavesdropped on Jade’s cellphone microphone, FBI
Special Agent Jackson smiled at Richard’s statement and silently agreed.

The sniper gently began to squeeze the trigger of the
high-powered, suppressed rifle.
 
When other
passengers rushing to board the train blocked his shot, he backed off on the
pressure.
 
The Chinese intelligence
operator muttered curses, and the pigeons that shared his roost blinked
blankly.
 
The sniper focused again
through the sight.
 
The woman—his target—was
now blocked by the porter.
 
Then Richard moved
into the sight’s view.

“
Fen
,” he silently
cursed.

Although the American would be acceptable collateral damage,
having Richard’s bleeding dead body sprawled across the platform was not this
operator’s primary goal.

Unaware Richard had now inadvertently saved her life by
blocking the shot, Jade handed tickets to the train’s conductor, and she and
Richard climbed into the silver coach.
 
The capped porter smiled and welcomed them aboard.
 
With all his passengers on the train, the conductor,
too, climbed the steps as he checked his pocket watch.

Jade and Richard grew more relaxed with every mile they put
between themselves and downtown DC.
 
They
arrived at Dulles International Airport station, hopped a bus to the terminal, were
felt up by security, and boarded a cramped jet.
 
Despite the wafer-thin seat cushions, they both fell fast asleep.
 
Later, a bump of turbulence woke them.

The seatbelt sign was on.
 
Richard raised the blind of the oval window and squinted through sleepy
eyes, pressing his face against the cold pane.
 
The jet’s extended flaps and low altitude told them they were on final
approach.
 
The marine layer of fog cleared
and San Jose were evident below.
 
Green and
red salt-ponds, and the lush marshes that outlined the southern half of San
Francisco Bay, glistened in rays of sunlight that stabbed through the murk.
 
The long viaduct of the San Mateo Bridge
passed beneath them as the landing gear came down with a bump and sucking
sound.
 
The surface of the bay drew
closer.
 
Seeming about to land on water,
the airplane finally settled onto the runway that jutted out into the muddy
shallows.
 
Spoilers on the wing deployed,
and with the roar of reverse thrust, the jet slowed and turned off toward its waiting
gate.

With ‘California Dreamin’ playing on the PA, the cabin
attendant cited the local time and weather before welcoming the travelers to San
Francisco.
 
Richard peered out at the
collection of foreign airlines assembled on the tarmac and at the
terminals.
 
He suddenly realized:
This is my first time in San Francisco
.
 
Then, sadly, he concluded, there could be no Fisherman’s
Wharf, Golden Gate Bridge, or Palace of Fine Arts on this visit.
 
He was, after all, just passing through.
 
A
run-of-the-mill traitor and his foreign spy girlfriend
, he realized.
 
Despite increased anxiety and disbelief at
the course they had embarked upon, Richard forced a smile for Jade.
 
He looked back through the taxiing aircraft’s
window.
 
Just passing through
, he pondered again.
 
Never
to return
.
 
The airplane slowed next
to another before it stopped at the gate.
 
The cabin chime sounded and a jetway extended and bumped the fuselage at
the forward cabin door.
 
Everyone else raced
to get up, to stake a claim in the aisle.
 
Richard watched as they elbowed each other.
 
Overhead compartments yawned open and
regurgitated carry-ons that did not quite fit the space within which they had
been crammed.
 
Swimming in doubt for the
first time in his life, Richard was unable to picture the future.
 
He looked to Jade for strength.
 
He thought of the baby that grew within her
womb.
 
He gently touched Jade’s belly,
and leaned in for a long, reassuring kiss.

They deplaned and walked down the jetway, their footsteps
reverberating on the carpeted aluminum, emerging into the terminal where every
face that turned their way seemed to threaten: The Asian couples were Communist
agents, Jade thought. The young guy with the crew cut was an American assassin,
he concluded.
 
Of course, the cop by the
coffee stand had to be clutching their mug shot.
 
Richard pretended to admire a gauntlet of art
pieces arrayed along the terminal’s moving walkway and breathed deeply to calm
himself.
 
He looked at Jade.
 
She was a rock.
 
They followed the tide to baggage claim.

Richard swiped his credit card to rent a Smarte Carte bag trolley.
 
He then realized he should have used cash
instead of a card that registered his exact location and the time of the
transaction.
 
He looked at the plastic
rectangle with the Visa symbol on it.
 
I am a slave, you are my shackle
, he
pondered, before tucking it back in his wallet.
 
As he did so, he realized that he might be in
way over his head.
 
They silently collected
their bags from the carousel, and then boarded an elevated train driven by
computers.
 
God help us
, Richard thought.
 
Machines are in control
.
 
Watching the white headlights that streamed
along CA-101, the train headed for the airport’s international departures
terminal.
 
The robot engineer pulled them
into the airport station.
 
They stepped
across the platform threshold and realized things were about to get more
serious.

Security at the international terminal was far heavier than
they had considered.
 
A Transportation
Security Agency worker towered over and scanned the mob.
 
Although Richard arrogantly thought that the
person would be cleaning his apartment if they were not checking identification
and boarding passes, he avoided the man’s gaze nonetheless, and occupied himself
by pawing at the contents of his carry-on.
 
Richard’s American diplomatic passport was reddish-brown, and Jade’s—one
of many provided her by Chinese intelligence—had been ‘issued’ by the Republic
of the Philippines.
 
They both took out
the small books and wielded them like shields in battle.

Richard’s diplomatic credentials triggered politeness from
the woman who clacked away on her keyboard, and happily, no US agents swarmed them
in an enveloping maneuver.
 
Despite beating
hearts and rapid, shallow breaths, Jade and Richard received their half
cardboard/half paper boarding passes, and saw their baggage labeled and chucked
onto the conveyor.

They shared a look of relief.
 
As they strolled away from the counter, they began
to feel home free.
 
Then Richard reminded
himself his home was here—the US—and that, leaving it, he would never be free
again.
 
Suppressing this voice of reason,
he remembered duty to Jade and the unborn child tucked in the sack of her belly.
 
No longer encumbered by luggage, they quickly
navigated the crowded terminal, and then ducked into their airline’s first
class lounge.

Inside the privileged oasis, Richard led Jade to a large
vase behind which the couple landed on a corner sofa.
 
Killing anxious minutes with small talk, they
heard their flight number and destination finally announced.
 
Soon the speaker said first class was ready
to board and they stood, anxious and ready.
 
They both collected carry-on bags and headed for the lounge’s door.
 
There were several uniformed police officers
when they exited.
 
One of them noticed
Richard’s strange reaction, but went back to scanning for their own
fugitive.
 
Jade nudged Richard along to
their gate.

Gate 12 served as a simple portal; a door to the airplane
that would carry them away.
 
Jade hooked
her arm through Richard’s.
 
They handed over
boarding passes to the woman in uniform who held a hand out at the jet-way
entrance.
 
Then, they strolled through
the gate’s door.

“
The opportunity to
secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of
defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself
.”—Sun Tzu

A
People’s
Liberation soldier, one of many now on Taiwan, lay in his foxhole.
 
Although he was loyal and had believed all he
had been told and absorbed all the films and lectures, he now entertained other
thoughts.
 
Now, on a foreign island
fighting other Chinese, with explosions that lifted earth all around him, he
cocked his rifle again and centered on a man’s shadow in the sight before he
pulled the trigger and terminated a life.
 
However, before he did so one more time, he asked himself: Why?

He looked to the next man in the hole, a man caked in mud
and blood who screamed as he emptied his assault rifle.
 
The scream that emanated from his mouth made
his lips a square shape beneath the slits of squinted eyes.
 
Fire licked from the barrel of his weapon and
illuminated everything in a yellow strobe.

Such hatred
, the soldier
thought.
 
Such blind hatred
.
 
Then he
looked through the iron sight of his own rifle.
 
A parachute flare caught a shape in its cone of light.
 
A shadowed face showed.
 
He
could be a colleague
;
a friend
;
or
,
even
,
a brother
, the Chinese
soldier thought, although he aimed his rifle anyway, ready to fire.
 
Then, fighting indoctrination and training,
he stayed his trigger figure and let his heart decide.

“You
are
my
brother,” he whispered to the Taiwanese soldier who charged his position.
 
“I love you.”
 
He dropped his weapon and looked for a means of escape from the hellish fire,
flying mud, and whistling shrapnel, and, most of all, from the murder.
 
That is when he saw General Zhen.

Zhen had pushed his way to the front.
 
For several minutes, he ran from foxhole to
foxhole, shouting inspiration to those he led.
 
But then, when the enemy’s determined faces had appeared too near, and
explosions blossomed around him, Zhen dashed for his command vehicle.
 
Tripping on the way, he tripped atop a
mangled comrade, and received a gash on his forehead from the pavement.
 
The unfortunate’s bloody exposed entrails
soaked his uniform.
 
When Zhen reached
his vehicle, he scurried inside its steel cocoon, opened the compartment meant
to hold maps or other paraphernalia, and found his small flask of whiskey.

He drew a deep gulp from it; a gulp that was meant to be one
of relief, but with every swallow, every rise and fall of his Adam’s Apple, it
told him ‘You are weak. You are defeated.’
 
As if to reinforce the sentiment, a Taiwanese rocket destroyed another vehicle,
and the shockwave shook his old bones.
 
Soldiers
of Taiwan’s 6
^th
Army poured over the line.
 
They shot and bayoneted anything that still
moved.
 
When a nearby Dragon Turtle light
tank received a missile and popped like an overcooked sausage, Zhen’s vehicle
sped off in retreat.

Four hours after Taiwan’s armies launched their
counterattack, a dented and scorched infantry fighting vehicle pulled up
outside Songshan airport’s terminal.
 
The
rear hatch squeaked open and General Zhen stumbled forth.
 
A soldier ran to assist, while signaling for
a medic.
 
Crackles of gunfire could still
be heard in the near distance, and the thud of artillery drew closer.

“The enemy is coming,” observed the medic who attended to
General Zhen.

Zhen hissed and his eyes filled with poison.
 
If he had not dropped his sidearm, he may
have shot the man for stating the unfortunate, obvious truth.

Once his wounds had been stitched and bandaged, Zhen’s
hearing began to return.
 
Zhen ripped the
drip needle from his arm and dizzily stood from the cot.
 
A doctor protested, but Zhen brushed him aside.
 
General Zhen emerged from the hangar that
housed the makeshift hospital, blinking away the bright sun of the early
morning.
 
A guard snapped to attention.
 
Zhen walked away, back to his terminal office,
where he nursed his headache with coffee.
 
Surrounded by maps and timetables, Zhen mustered energy and reluctantly
turned on a teleconferencing terminal.
 
A
green light indicated that a secure connection had been established, and that
the camera and microphone functioned.

“General Zhen Zhu, reporting, sirs,” he stated firmly to the
camera.
 
The president and vice president
of China appeared on the video screen, staring with hostile anticipation.

“I deeply regret to inform you that the enemy hit us with
unanticipated numbers.
 
My force has
been…negated,” Zhen said, lowering his head in shame.

“Negated?” the vice president gawked.
 
The president turned away for a moment, but
turned back and pounded a fist, shaking his camera and the image on Zhen’s
screen.

“General Zhen, you are hereby recalled.
 
Return to Beijing immediately,” the president
ordered, before storming off screen.
 
The
stunned vice president stared back at the general.

“There is still hope,” Zhen muttered.

“Hope?
 
My dear
general, there are over 200,000 people standing in Tiananmen Square with
candles and flowers.
 
Tell me: How is
there hope?” the vice president asked.

“Sir, you must clear the square immediately.
 
I beg this of you.
 
And get the president to reconsider.
 
Get him to send me another armored
division.
 
I also want follow-up
strategic strikes against Guam and Hawaii.”

“By strategic strike, General Zhen, I assume you mean
nuclear weapons?”

“I do.
 
A chemical
strike against Guam would suffice, however.”
 
Zhen straightened up.
 
A digital
silence hung between the two men.

“General, listen carefully.
 
You are recalled.”

“Yes, vice president,” Zhen conceded.

“At once.
 
Or must we
have you collected?”

“No, sir.
 
I am
recalled.
 
I understand.
 
I will obey,” Zhen said.
 
He turned off the camera and video screen
with a trembling hand.
 
He touched his
tender head and gabbled to himself.

◊◊◊◊

Chief Master Sergeant Li awakened in his tent as the sun
rose, struggling to peek through thick forest.
 
Among the smoky, sweet smell of a campfire was that of brewing
coffee.
 
Captain Whidby waited by his tripod-mounted
laser designator.
 
Having been up most of
the night, he rubbed tired eyes.
 
He picked
at a tin of peaches, and, between bites, Whidby continued to stare through
binoculars, concentrating on the airport.
 
Li walked over to the coffee and poured them both a cup.
 
Whidby accepted the steaming mug, thanked Li,
and pressed his face to the binoculars again.
 
Whidby spotted something of interest and removed a photograph from his
thigh pocket.

“That’s him,” Whidby said, and began removing a protective
cover from the business end of the laser designator.
 
He checked battery power and turned on the
contraption.
 
Li approached and drew a
sharp glance from the American that said: ‘Do not interfere.’
 
Whidby leaned into the laser’s sighting
eyepiece.
 
Li stole a glimpse of the
photograph that balanced on the edge of the trench, recognizing the man in the
photo.
 
It was General Zhen, Politburo Military
Commissioner and Supreme General of the People’s Liberation Army.
 
Li nodded approval.
 
Whidby looked up and took one last
comparative look at the photograph, and then asked Li to confirm the target’s
identity.
 
Li took the binoculars, and,
amazed with their magnification, settled on the Chinese officer on Songshan’s
tarmac.

“It’s him.”

“Okay, let’s start the show.” Whidby mumbled to the
breeze.
 
Then he spoke into a radio,
giving his identification and a code word.

Captain Whidby’s transmission had gone to nearby Hualien Air
Base.
 
Major Han and his Fighting Falcon
took off just three minutes later and climbed over the mountains toward Taipei.

Whidby disengaged the laser’s safety and leaned back into
its eyepiece. He kept Zhen in his sights, pressed a trigger, and fired an
invisible pulsing beam. Li got his own pair of binoculars and fixed his
magnified gaze on Songshan.

General Zhen had driven up to one of the airport’s hangars,
with ‘Taiwan, Touch Your Heart’ painted across it in big, colorful
letters.
 
Two Chinese soldiers snapped to
attention as the general stumbled from the vehicle, wobbled, and pressed the
bloody gauze wrapped around his head.

“Nobody, not even Chairman Mao himself, enters this hangar
after me,” Zhen ordered.
 
“Understood?”
 
The guards saluted.
 
Zhen entered, shut the door, and locked it
behind him.
 
The guards crossed their
bayonet-tipped assault rifles in a menacing ‘X.’

Zhen’s fully fueled private jet awaited inside, ready to
take him from defeat, and into the hands of consequences.
 
However, the general did not climb the narrow
steps to board the jet.
 
He instead headed
for a corner of the hangar where several wooden crates were stacked against the
wall.
 
Padlocked chains wrapped one large
crate.
 
Zhen spun the lock’s combination,
opened the shank, and released the chain.
 
It ran; fell heavily, to the floor.
 
He raised the crate’s lid and pulled a cord that tore a foil seal.
 
Beneath padded fire blankets lay a black
steel cylinder the size of a refrigerator.
 
The cylinder, marked ‘596,’ displayed a radiation trifoil painted on its
side, and a parachute container at its base.

“You are my hope,” Zhen said to the 100-kiloton hydrogen free-fall
bomb.

Whidby now had his laser designator was trained on the
hangar with General Zhen inside.
 
The
American centered the reticle on the structure’s big tourism slogan.
 
Han’s Fighting Falcon arrived 20,000 feet
overhead.

Han armed the big Paveway laser-guided bomb slung beneath
his warplane.

General Zhen attached a cable to the bomb and plugged it
into a small keypad.
 
From his chest
pocket, he removed a command authority card as well as a second card that only an
authorized pilot on a nuclear bomber mission should be in possession of.
 
Zhen entered his command code to disengage
the bomb’s primary tamper safety.
 
A hum emanated
from the weapon as batteries started up its internal electronics.
 
Zhen input the pilot’s code, and the bomb’s
second tamper safety unlocked.
 
He quickly
set its controls for a ground burst.
 
As
soon as the bomb’s altimeter detected sea level—plus or minus 100 meters—a
thermonuclear detonation would be triggered.
 
There will be a great light
,
Zhen imagined,
and the banking,
commercial, industrial, and government heart of Taiwan will be incinerated
.
 
Some two million enemy citizens will die as a
single glorious blast ends the Chinese Civil War once and for all.
 
There will be victory for the Communist
Party, and General Zhen’s place in history and among the pantheon of great Chinese
leaders will be assured.
 
As the
radioactive fallout blows harmlessly to sea, Mother China will then care for
the hundreds of thousands of injured and dying Taiwanese.
 
The island province will then be rebuilt, and
China will finally be one.
 
And I will be a hero
.
 
General Zhen cracked a devious smile.

In the sky over Songshan, Han put his Fighting Falcon into a
gentle climb and then released the Paveway.
 
It separated from the airplane and wobbled weightlessly.
 
Tail fins sprang into position and the Paveway
nosed down.
 
Han rolled over, dumped
chaff and flares, and then dove away.
 
The
Paveway’s laser detector spotted the laser beam that splashed the hangar wall,
and the small onboard guidance computer matched and verified the laser’s coded
pulse.
 
The Paveway zeroed in on the
invisible light and adjusted its silent fall.
 
The Paveway broke through wispy clouds that hung over the airport.

Zhen slowly turned the bomb’s commit key.
 
A green light illuminated on the control
panel.
 
Zhen cackled as he started typing
the hydrogen bomb’s final arming code.
 
A
gust of wind came from above, shaking the hangar.
 
Zhen looked up.