Paying no attention, his wife tightened her scarf against the rising wind.
On Kinmen, where Moh Pan’s son, Ahmao, was doing his National Guard service in the army, the Nationalist garrison was completely nonplused. Did the sudden maneuvering by the Communists patrol boats presage an attack? Or were the Communists merely taunting the Taiwanese as they had so many times during their so-called “military maneuvers,” using elements of their PLA navy and PLA air force fighters, mere seconds from Matsu and Kinmen and only eight minutes from Taiwan itself? Such maneuvers, in this case by attack patrol boats from China’s East Fleet, were no doubt designed not only to rattle the nerves of the Nationalists, but to serve as a constant reminder to the Taiwanese that Beijing believed Taiwan was nothing more than a renegade province that sooner rather than later would be forced to rejoin the Communist mainland. And on that day, Taiwan would be forced to give Beijing back the enormous treasure Chiang Kai-shek, Mao Tse Tung’s mortal enemy, had taken with him and his Nationalist Army across the straits in 1949. Beijing had been encouraged since 1978 in its dream of reunification when U.S. aid to Taiwan and U.S. recognition of Taiwan as an independent nation ended, and then a year later, in 1979, when the U.S.-Taiwan national defense treaty died. Even so, every President from Harry Truman, who, despite his reservations about Chiang Kai-shek — whom he called “Cash My Check”—to Bill Clinton in 1996, had at times dispatched a CBG, carrier battle group, up into the Taiwan Strait to keep the uneasy peace between the two antagonists. And now the President and his advisors thought it prudent to repeat his predecessors’ cautionary move, as one of the first questions every President asked in times of impending crisis was, “Where are the carriers?”
The carriers, thought to be outmoded in twenty-first-century war, were floating U.S. air bases that were now more important than ever before, given the number of U.S. overseas bases that had been closed once the Cold War had ended, a war in which the U.S., like the Soviet Union, had made many an unsavory deal with a tin pot dictator in order to prevent one another from gaining an advantage in the other’s hemisphere. The current occupant of the White House had quickly discovered that in the war on terrorism, which involved so many different flashpoints, even the might of the U.S. Navy was stretched thin. America’s twelve CBGs were spread far and wide, standing off “the powder keg of the Middle East”—Afghanistan, Iran, as well as the new Iraq, to say nothing of the far-flung U.S. missions to combat terrorists and their myriad bases throughout Central and South America and amid thousands of islands of the Indonesian and Philippine archipelagos. Then there were missions in Pakistan and throughout the Africas, where American citizens were being kidnapped, murdered, or threatened.
In all this, the carriers served as stand-ins for all the land bases the United States had lost in post — Cold War client countries that now felt they could go it alone. Especially troublesome to the U.S. Navy, however, was the loss of the huge complex at Subic Bay in the Philippines. And so it was that this President, with a mandate to continue waging the war on terrorism until the terrorists were beaten, knew more than any President since JFK about where his twelve carrier groups were at any one time.
“Eleanor, all of our carriers are overextended,” the President said over the phone. “Do we have any available in dock?”
She didn’t know. A quick call to the CNO’s office in Washington, the transit coding causing a delay of only 1.5 seconds, gave her the answer. There was one in Bremerton, Washington State’s big maintenance yard. It was the USS Turner, a Nimitz-C class flat top, a nuclear aviation carrier.
“The Turner.” The President nodded. “Western Pacific Fleet?”
“Yes, sir. In for overhaul.”
“What’s its completion date?”
Eleanor, phone still in hand, relayed the question to CNO, then informed the President, “Estimated time of completion, five days.”
The President shook his head. “No. Tell them they’ve got twenty-four hours. I want the Turner to join the McCain, which I believe—” He brought up the CNO’s map on his computer screen. “Yes, there’s the McCain. South China Sea. I want McCain to steam north to the Taiwan Strait ASAP!”
And it was so ordered. The McCain would steam north immediately, the Turner to leave Washington State in the Pacific Northwest within twenty-four hours.
“The Turner’s CO didn’t like that, Mr. President,” proffered Eleanor. “Said it’s almost impossible to speed up overhaul from five days to one.”
“He doesn’t have to like it. He only has to do it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Get me the McCain’s CO, Growly.”
“Admiral Crowley,” Eleanor reminded him diplomatically.
“No, Growly,” riposted the President. “Always bitching about how much more we give the other armed forces. He’s a pain in the butt.”
“Like Freeman,” put in Eleanor’s junior aide.
“Exactly, but Freeman’s retired, thank God,” replied the President, overhearing.
“Know their jobs though,” said Eleanor Prenty, giving her junior aide, who looked ready to join in the dissing of Freeman and Crowley, a withering look. It told the aide he had best hold his tongue, though Eleanor realized she was being hypocritical. She’d not only ignored Freeman’s phone message to call him, she’d forgotten all about it. Freeman, despite his legendary status among military types, was regarded as a “has-been,” and the truth was, he had no political clout at all. In short, he was of no consequence to the administration’s agenda.
“You through to McCain?” the President asked impatiently.
“Not yet,” she replied, the image of the Nimitz-class carrier in her mind’s eye. The carrier was named after the Vietnam hero, Senator John McCain, who, after being shot down by North Vietnamese Communists, being held prisoner, and tortured in the “Hanoi Hilton” for years, would not cave in. Dragged out in front of the blinding TV lights in Hanoi with other American prisoners as Communist propaganda, McCain was blinking so much that it looked as if he might have a damaged retina. In fact, his apparent affliction was the personification of defiant cool, his blinking a Morse code message to those at home watching that what the Communists were saying was a load of BS.
Admiral Crowley was now on the line, his voice gruff as usual. He had to respect his Commander in Chief, but he detested politicians.
“Admiral!” said the President heartily, scrolling down Crowley’s file on screen in front of him. “How’s your boy Richard doing? Must be his final year at Annapolis?”
“Yes, sir,” came the admiral’s reply.
“Has his heart set on Fallon, I hear?” continued the President. Fallon was the top gun school in the Nevada desert.
“Well,” answered the admiral, “he’ll have to learn to walk before he can run.”
“I’m sure he’ll make it,” the President said, adding, “main thing is, Admiral, he’s following his passion. We parents can’t hope for much more than that.”
“True.”
“Admiral, there’s some kafuffle up in the Taiwan Strait. What we’re getting from Beijing and Taiwan is ’they started it first, not me’ stuff. You no doubt have been getting the traffic?”
“Commies are accusing Taiwanese marines of going after one of their offshore islands. Taiwan denies it. Taiwanese are accusing Chinese Communist patrol boats of going for one of their islands.”