"In the spring of 1950, Mao Tse-tung planned to invade Taiwan and return it to China's rule. Bad planning, few boats, and a terrible health crisis brought on by liver flukes in China delayed the planned invasion. In mid-1950 the Korean War started, and the U.S. sent the Seventh Fleet to the Taiwan Strait to shield Taiwan from invasion by China.
"With peace and protection by the U.S., Taiwan could look to reform. They began with land reform, returning the land to the people, and with U.S. help did an outstanding job. That was the start of reforms that soon transformed Taiwan into a place with the fastest-growing economy in the world.
"As Taiwan's economy, her standard of living, and more and more freedom for her people soared, China was stagnated with too many people, not enough industry, and a sluggish economy that had no firm foundation. This aggravated the Mainland Chinese even more and some say this is the main reason why the Communists want to capture Taiwan and bring the island into line as a China province."
Wong took a pull from a soft drink and looked at the men.
"So, are there any questions?"
Magic Brown turned his big brown eyes and his black face upward and stared at the speaker. Then he grinned. "Mr. Wong, just why the hell do we need to know all this?"
There was an immediate hurrahing and lots of laughter in the quarters. Wong looked surprised. Then he grinned.
"You need to know it because your commanding officer said you did. Best damn reason I can think of."
"Yeah, me too," Brown said, and they all laughed again. Murdock stood and shook Wong's hand.
"If China ever gets her act together, those one point three billion Chinese are going to be a real pain in the butt."
Stroh laughed at that and he and Wong started out. Stroh made it to the outside door, where a sailor handed him a piece of paper. He read it and headed back to Murdock.
"Hey, Lieutenant, you've got a phone call. The Chief of Naval Operations himself back in D.C. wants to talk with you. He's on the horn right now and we're due up in the communications room."
Murdock stared at him. "The CNO? You sure? Admiral Lucian Quenton himself? I've never met the man. He doesn't know that I exist."
"He does now, sailor. Let's get up there before he hangs up on you.
7
On the way from the men's quarters to the communications room, Murdock asked Stroh if he knew what this was about. "Not a clue, frogman. We better get hopping."
Murdock took a swing at Stroh, who chuckled at his own joke and led the way. They got lost twice in the big ship, and had to ask for a guide to take them to the communications complex. When they finally got there, a chief, two radio operators, the captain, and two commanders stood around waiting, their nervous twitches obvious.
"Glad you found time to come, Lieutenant," the captain said. "Right over here. It's the satellite link and just like talking on a telephone. There will be a slight delay, but you'll get used to it. We've got it on the speaker so we all can hear."
Murdock took the handset. "Yes, sir, Admiral Quenton. Lieutenant Murdock reporting, sir."
A light chuckle came over the handset. "Murdock. I've been hearing good things about you. We just got word from the President. It's a go for your mission to try to stop that damned invasion. We can't make it overt. Don't leave any of your dead behind, use all the sterile equipment that you can. We don't have a chance to talk about tactics, but all of us here wish you well."
"We'll try for containment and prevention, get them before they can get into action on any of the four phases. It should work. If we're lucky, sir, and the creeks don't rise."
The admiral laughed. "Understand. I've already talked with Captain Victor there on the Intrepid. You have his cooperation for any materials, transport, weapons, rehearsal areas. Just tell your contact what you need and you'll have it."
"Thank you, Admiral. We'll also need the satellite guys there in D.C. to give us all the data they have on the Chinese nuclear site where they build and store their bombs. The same for anything they have on Chinese poison gas facilities and storage. These two elements are vital for our operation."
"Our boys have been checking out those two elements for the past few hours. I'll get printouts and photos sent to you by satellite just as soon as they're ready. Anything else from the home office?"
"Anything about the Chinese defenses along the coastline opposite Taiwan would be helpful. Airfields, barracks, naval stations, that sort of thing."
"No problem. You'll have that material within an hour."
"Thanks, sir. Now we better get to doing our detailed planning."
"Good luck, Murdock. We're counting on you and your men."
"Yes, sir. We'll do it."
Murdock hung up the phone and looked at Stroh. "You heard it."
"So, what's next?"
Murdock looked at Captain Victor. "Who will be our contact with your people, Captain?"
One of the commanders spoke up. "I am, Lieutenant Murdock. Jason P. Wandemere. The captain told me you get anything we have on board or that we can fly in here in a rush."
Murdock took the man's hand. "Thanks, we'll be needing lots. First, how about a good-sized conference room, lots of big blank charts, and all of the intelligence you have on the Chinese mainland across from Taiwan. We'll especially need to know where their airfields are and all of their close-by navy facilities, and anything you know about where they store their nuclear material and weapons."
The commander brought out a notebook and took notes quickly.
"We have a medium-sized classroom one deck up from your quarters that should work well for you," he said. "It has overhead projectors and lots of old NCR blank charts. Room for twenty men.
"Let me make some phone calls and I'll get this other information you need brought right down there. We can talk later about what transport you'll need. Do you have any time schedule planned yet?"
"We've only got four days. We'll want to hit them as fast as we can, probably tomorrow as soon as it gets dark. We'll see how our data comes in. Let's see that training room. Could you have a runner go bring my men to that same training room? They've had enough sleep for this week."
The commander grinned, motioned to one of the sailors in the room, and then left himself to do his phoning.
"Sir, I'll take you to that training room," another sailor said. Murdock nodded. Don Stroh doubled up his fist and punched the air once. "We're on our way, Murdock. Watch out, you Chinese bastards, the SEALS are coming after your ass."
An hour later Third Platoon wallowed in data, locations, estimated troop strength, position of airfields and barracks, and a hundred other bits and pieces of data about the Chinese position on the mainland.
Murdock had them separating and classifying the information. "We put everything we know about their airfields in one stack on this table," he said. "The same for their nuclear ability and possible locations goes over here." He looked at the scatter of maps and satellite printouts and reports and grinned. "At least we have enough intel on this project. Down here goes the poison-gas and germ-warfare ability and locations. Then the next table is for the naval facilities and where their troop transports probably will be stationed and load out."
It was another hour before they had the material sorted. More kept coming in every ten minutes or so from the satellite, and from the map room of the carrier.
Murdock assigned them to each of the four phases of their attack for a more detailed study. He, Lieutenant Dewitt, Chief Jaybird Sterling and Magic Brown worked on the nuke problem.
"Figured they might have a facility way back in the interior somewhere," Murdock said. "From the intel we get from the satellite guys, they say the major Chinese nuclear center is in a huge solid granite cave on an island near the mainland just south of Fuching."