Douglas had brought in his best men, all former commandos from units around the world. They scoured the hills, using custom drones, commercial satellite imagery, and exhaustive patrolling to find rebel bases of operation. He had briefed me daily on his progress, working his way up the rebels' chain of command. His reports had always been thorough, honest, and laden with creative profanities.
Inside of a month, police discovered the elusive leader of the Maoist rebels hogtied and unconscious in front of the national police headquarters. If that bit of panache had not been enough, Douglas had also put a placard around the Maoist's neck that read, in Tagalog, “Occupy Prison!” The reference to the 2011 protest movement may have been lost on the Malaysian police.
Now the red-haired, bearded, burly fifty-two year-old Scotsman eyed me curiously with dark brown eyes as he sipped his tea. In his deep Scottish brogue, he noted, “Ding, my boy, you know I love the pleasure of your company, but I imagine the 3D printer business has other things going on at this moment. And if you wanted me to corral some more of the Marxist buggers that were hassling your sweatshops, you could have just called.”
I smiled at the jibe. Merlin Printing only hired the best engineers, technicians, and workers, and we paid a premium for it in wages and in the quality of our facilities. “You been busy lately?”
Gesturing vaguely to the outside world, Douglas said, “We've got operations running in Bolivia, Zimbabwe, and Detroit.”
“Then what the hell are you doing here?”
A sigh. “The wife's been after me to spend more time here in the UK. I've got trusted subordinates running the ops overseas.”
“She came with you when you worked for me in Malaysia?”
“That she did, but the poor woman has never particularly enjoyed travel. And none of the places we've got ops going right now are as scenic as Malaysia. And, besides, none of the ops are particularly difficult. Bolivia's an insurgency, Zimbabwe's a counter-insurgency, and Detroit… hell, you wouldn't believe me if I told you.”
“Try me.”
“The bloody government's given up on fighting the gangs. Their policemen won't go in the bad neighborhoods, see.”
I arched an eyebrow. “And the city government is willing to pay your fee?”
Douglas almost spat out his tea mid-sip. “Don't be daft, Ding. It's some bloke who inherited a car manufacturer's fortune. I think he's doing it as some kinda charity.”
“And you don't mind operating without the consent of the government?”
Douglas shrugged. “As long as he pays and we're fighting bad guys, I don't really care.”
I decided to steer the conversation to the purpose of my visit. “Have you been following the news?”
A nod. “Those Knights must be some real tough operators. I heard they took down five hundred PLA during the assault on the American Institute in Taipei. Christ, that must have been a sight.”
“What do you think about the war?”
“The U.S. is going to get involved for sure now. You've seen the same polls I have. But I don't know if U.S. forces can make it over there in time to save Taiwan. The PLA is already ashore and their strength grows every day. The Taiwanese military is going to be hard-pressed to stop them.”
That assessment corresponded roughly with what I had been told on my flight over by the best military experts money could buy. “So you think Taiwan can win.”
Douglas stared off for a moment. “Yeah, they can win. Not gonna be easy, but if they can slow down the build-up of Chinese forces until the Americans get there, they can do it.”
“And what do they need to do to slow down the Chinese?”
“Harass the Chinese supply line. Wreak chaos on Chinese forces.”
“How?”
“Well, the Taiwanese air force has already been pushed to the breaking point and they never had much of a navy.” A grin. “That leaves my favorite option. Guerilla warfare. Send as many teams of commandos as you can into China to start blowing shite up.”
“Why do you think the Taiwanese haven't been doing that?”
Douglas paused, considering the question. “I would think that they have been trying, but I'd also think they're babes in the woods as far as covert ops are concerned. It's been over half-a-century since they've fought a real war. Besides, their military has probably been penetrated for years by Chinese spies. Any really serious effort would probably attract too much attention within their military. After one or two successful missions, the teams probably get ratted out.”
“I'm impressed, Colonel Douglas. Your assessment matches the one given to me by senior Taiwanese military officials.”
Douglas asked, “Enough beating around the fockin' bush, Ding. What are you doing here?”
“I want you to help me win the war in Taiwan.”
Douglas’s eyes went wide. “Oh.” A second passed. He regained his normal jocular confidence enough to ask, “Is that all?”
After taking a sip of his tea, Douglas sat staring at me for a long moment. I looked right back into his eyes. Finally, he said, “You’re not asking me to hunt down some punks in a jungle with Che Guevara t-shirts and Ak-47’s. The People’s Liberation Army is the biggest, strongest military in the world. My Yank friends tell me their army — the second strongest in the world — is going to be at war with the PLA in a matter of days. And, hell, the Knights themselves couldn’t beat the Chinese on their own. What good can we do?”
I chose my words carefully. “I doubt that the U.S. military can win this war on its own. You know your history. When has the U.S. military ever been ready to win a big war quickly? It’s like the Civil War all over again. We’ve got old equipment, old tactics, inexperienced peacetime commanders who joined up because they wanted a job and a pension. The Chinese are battle-hardened and they’ve been planning this war for eighty years.”
Douglas nodded, agreeing with my summary. I continued, “The Knights, well, they did as much as they could. But they didn’t plan to fight a war from the outset. They were stuck in Taiwan with no safe transports and limited intelligence assets.” I broke into a smile as I added, “And they didn’t have the latest Taiwanese weapons.”
Douglas couldn’t help but smile as well. “I bet their boffins have cooked up some mighty good stuff. Shame the Knights didn’t get their hands on it.”
I moved to the killer part of my pitch. “We’re going to have the best weapons in the world. Sci-fi shit. I’ve been competing with Taiwan’s engineers tooth-and-nail. I poach the best of their engineers for my companies whenever I can. And now they’re fighting for their lives. Can you imagine the stuff they’re cooking up? I’ll tell you one other thing,” I said, picking up my teacup for the first time. “We’re going to have the best people. Money will be no object. Nationality will be no object. Everybody has a price, and I will pay that price to get the best fucking soldiers in the world.”
Caught up in the idea, Douglas's eyes widened as he considered what we could do with every conceivable limit removed. Then his eyes narrowed. “What’s in it for you?”
I had honed my speech on the flight over, imagining I’d have to tell every recruit the same thing. “I was born in a shithole. I’m going to die a billionaire because a Taiwanese bank invested in Merlin Printing when no one else would. That bank didn't care that I didn’t have a fancy office or a cousin who worked for the Department of Commerce like every other successful tech startup in the country. All that Taiwanese bank cared about was what my idea was, whether my prototypes worked, and whether I had the vision to scale it up. So, call this payback.”
Douglas’s red-hued eyebrow arched. “I don’t do charity, Ding.”