‘All those watercourses freeze in winter,’ Nate said. ‘The thickness supports vehicular traffic — even armored. That fact alone changes all our terrain analysis. In winter those water obstacles turn into supply routes paved in ice. It’s in winter,’ he said significantly, ‘that we’re vulnerable to Chinese attack.’
Marshall had been awakened with the news. Thirteen Chinese missiles had struck Taiwan. Islands just offshore the mainland were being shelled. Plus Chinese soldiers were swarming all over Hong Kong. Beijing was silent as the troops went out of control. All the deals made with the city were being broken.
The president and junior staffers waited in the underground conference room.
‘Why didn’t we get some kind of warning?’ Marshall asked. The captains and majors from the Military Office were mute. ‘Or at least the British. The Prime Minister assured me they still had good intelligence.’
One of the Army officers ventured an answer. ‘We checked with the British, sir. The Chinese were in the middle of a troop rotation. Their hand-picked special garrison was mainly kept in barracks. They were of the highest quality of soldiers. So the first warning the Brits got was when trucks came across from Shenzhen filled with ordinary infantry. They were armed and in combat gear.’
‘First video is in, sir,’ a Naval officer announced as he entered. He turned on the room’s four screens. ‘We picked it up off Japanese TV.’
Soldiers were smashing store windows with rifles. It didn’t look organized to Marshall, but it did seem widespread. Boxes were being carted out of stores, presumably confiscated on authority of the army. Wheeled armored vehicles belched smoke on city streets. Civilians shook fists from doorways. Large helicopters swept in low over the sea. The video came to an end abruptly. It was replaced by color test bars.
Secretary of State Jensen arrived at the door.
‘Can you believe this shit?’ Marshall asked angrily.
‘Could we clear the room?’ Jensen asked.
The junior aides were all caught by surprise. Jensen and Marshall stared at each other in silence. When the door closed, Jensen took a deep breath. ‘We should get out of Siberia right now,’ he said. ‘Announce that we’re going to step back from the confrontation with China. And if you don’t agree, I’m going to have to tender my resignation.’
Marshall was boiling. But he didn’t so much as flinch. ‘Are you sure you mean that?’ he asked.
‘I’ve thought a lot about the direction of world events. I no longer feel I can head up your Department of State, sir.’
I’m resigning, Marshall understood him to say. ‘Just where are we headed, Hugh?’
‘War!’ Jensen blurted out. ‘We’re headed for war, Tom. It’s as plain as the nose on your face!’
‘No, we’re not, Hugh. I’ll pull the plug before it gets that far. That was the plan all along. We’re not there to fight for Russia’s border. A few more months and we’re out of there.’
‘This is our last warning from the Chinese,’ Hugh Jensen said calmly.
‘The Chinese,’ Marshall replied loudly, ‘are kicking in store windows in Hong Kong! We’ll condemn looting, Hugh, but by God we won’t go to war over it. Hong Kong is theirs, for Christ’s sake! What the hell can I do about it?’
Jensen looked up at the president. He wore a peculiar expression. ‘Tom, have you been briefed yet?’
‘I’ve watched Japanese video from downtown Hong Kong with my own two eyes. What more do I need to…?’
‘No, I mean about Taiwan?’
Marshall stared back at him. ‘The missiles.’
Jensen rested his arms heavily on the table. It was as if he were physically exhausted.
‘They’ve invaded, Tom. They’ve invaded Taiwan.’
Chapter Eight
The scene was tense in the windowless Combat Information Center. But only a familiar eye could note the change to the darkened compartment. The sweat-soaked brow of the radarman. The sonarman whose hands pressed earphones to his head. The fire control coordinator hunched over his screen. The dark blue circle under the arm of the Seaman First, who raised his fluorescent pen to draw targets on Lucite.
Lieutenant Commander Richards felt all the ship’s systems. As the captain they were his second skin. Situational awareness, it was called. He sensed the direction in space of the F-14s which were swatting down MiGs by the dozen. The nearness of the noisy subs that were mere minutes from death. The distance of the Silkworm missiles that exploded harmlessly miles away.
But his mind was focused on a large round screen. The surface radar. The real danger, Richards knew, was in his ever-shortening range to the Chinese invasion fleet. The first landing the day before had drawn the Taiwanese army to the west coast. This second and much larger force was circling the island to the northeast. It was aimed straight at the Taiwanese capital — Taipei.
‘Any visual contact?’ Richards asked his fire control coordinator.
‘Negative, sir. We’ve got a whole screen full of radar targets, though.’
At the center of the monitor was the Laboon. To the port and starboard a few miles away steamed its sister ships — the John McCain and John Paul Jones. Up ahead were hundreds of green blips. Chinese coastal patrol and fast attack boats. Minesweepers, training ships and support and supply craft. Salvage ships and repair ships and even survey ships. There were barges being towed by ocean-going tugs. Only a fraction of the craft were true landing ships. But all were packed to the gunwales — a makeshift invasion fleet carrying seventy thousand men.
The Laboon had seen her first action in the darkness of early morning. She’d fired a dozen TASMs at targets leaving Xiamen. She’d then fired Tomahawk cruise missiles at the port itself. But now the orders were to go guns and torps. It was old-fashioned surface warfare. But it was coordinated with an all-out aerial assault. And six attack submarines would strike from the south simultaneously. They had to stop the fleet in the Straits. They had to dump seventy thousand men into flaming water.
Richards shook the thought from his head. It was a scale of human tragedy beyond all comparison, but his job was to make it happen.
‘Message from Task Force Commander, sir,’ came from the communications officer.
‘Put it on.’
‘… to the Laboon , you are approaching the Chinese destroyer screen. Repeat. You are approaching Chinese destroyer screen.’
The three American destroyers were vastly superior ships. But the Chinese combatants still carried lethal weapons. Over a dozen Taiwanese ships had already attacked. They’d smashed into the Chinese flotilla an hour before. The Huei Yang and Lo Yang had been sunk. They were old USN hull numbers DD-696 and -746 — the former USS English and USS Taussig.
‘We’ve got radar targets inside twelve nautical miles,’ the fire controller reported. They could engage at any time.
‘Hold fire till we get a visual,’ Richards repeated. The CIC was cooled to seventy degrees. But the radarman in front of Richards was sweating profusely. ‘Listen up,’ Richards announced loudly. ‘There are Taiwanese warships out there mixing it up. Destroyers and frigates plus corvettes and fast attack boats. I don’t want any friendly-fire casualties. Our rules of engagement require visual contact. We’ve got over ten miles of visibility. We’re gonna do this slow and steady, you read me? I want positive ID before we fire.’