Patrick laughed as his thoughts interlinked with Elliott’s, through time and space, from the present to the past and back again over dozens of battles, through tragedy and triumph. “Hell, I think Ive got to change, General. I’m afraid I’ll get left behind—” And then he stopped abruptly, his cheeks flushing red under his longish blond hair.
“You were going to say ‘left behind like you,’-like me, right, Muck?” Elliott said. Patrick raised a pair of sad, apologetic blue eyes at his friend and mentor, to the man he had just betrayed with his thoughts. Elliott smiled reassuringly back. “Hey, Muck, it’s okay. I see myself in you, Patrick, but sure as shit, you’re not like me. I get things done by blasting ahead, by kicking ass and doing things my way and to hell with anyone that thinks they know better than me. You don’t do it that way. You plan, you train, you build, and you let the smart commanders and the smart decision-makers come to you. You’re smart, working with guys like Jon Masters — I can only stand the skinny dweeb for a few minutes a day and that’s it. We’re different, Muck. You’re the future of the Air Force, bud.”
“Some future,” McLanahan said. “In five days, we’ll be entering a plea in front of a federal judge on about twenty different charges. We could go to prison for ten years.”
“In five days, you’ll be a commanding officer in charge of the greatest strike force the planet has ever seen, snatching victory from the jaws of defeat,” Elliott corrected him proudly. “And after that, you’ll take your rightful place in the world. It won’t be behind a desk, and it won’t be in a federal prison. That’s my prediction.”
McLanahan smiled a cautious, hopeful smile, but Elliott extended a confident, reassuring hand, and the young bombardier took it warmly. “I like the way you think, sir,” he told him.
At that moment the door to the room opened, and a gentleman in a dark suit and tie, similar to the federal marshal’s, came in. McLanahan quickly stood, blocking the man’s path, and motioned for the man to step outside. “Excuse me, sir, but the general needs his rest and can’t be disturbed right now. ”
“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.