I had to make sure I understood the proposal. “You want us to kill Chinese pilots in their homes while they're sleeping?”
Dietrich nodded. “We split up into as many teams as possible and, in one night, go to their homes near one or more of the big airbases and take out as many as we can. We need to do them all in one night because once the Chinese figure out what we're doing, they'll likely force the pilots to sleep at their bases.”
Douglas asked, “Why aren't they doing that already?”
Dietrich waved a hand. “Sentimentalities. The pilots doubtless enjoy their independence. I do not know if anyone has ever made a concerted effort to target pilots on the ground. During the World Wars, pilots generally lived at their bases. There were also many more of them and training a new one took much less time. It is probably only in the last forty years that the marginal value of killing a pilot has increased so dramatically.
Douglas sat back in his chair. “An interesting notion.”
“Indeed it is, colonel. Having considered the issue at some length, I also suspect it's only a matter of time before pilots on either side of this war start shooting out the parachutes of enemy pilots who have ejected. In fact, I would expect the Chinese to be the first to take this step, since Taiwanese and American pilots who eject are far more likely to be retrieved by friendly forces in Taiwanese territory than Chinese pilots. Thus, the Chinese have less to lose by violating the norm of refraining from killing helpless downed aviators…“
I interrupted. “Getting back to the matter at hand, isn't this going to look bad in the press? Attacking sleeping soldiers in their beds?”
Shrugging, Dietrich answered, “Your General Washington did the exact same thing to countrymen of mine during the American Revolution. And he did it because he believed he was fighting for something more important than public relations. Likewise, if you think this war is worth winning, then we should not hesitate to do what is necessary to win it.”
There was a moment of quiet as Douglas, Dietrich and I considered the idea.
Douglas finally said, “I have to agree with Dietrich, sir. It might not look good in the press, but it's a damn clever way of crippling their air force.” Douglas turned to look at Dietrich. “You're a cold bastard, Dietrich, but you're a good man to have around.”
Dietrich sighed. “The whole reason I came on this trip was because I thought I'd finally be working for someone who was willing to do whatever it took to win. I've been on enough half-hearted UN peacekeeping missions. They are virtually always boring failures because they miss the point of war. War is brutality and decisiveness. It is not winning hearts and minds. War is where all niceties must be tossed aside and the only thing that matters is whether a strategy works, not whether it is popular.”
The only counterpoint I could think of was, “I don't want to be remembered as a butcher.”
Douglas answered quietly, “George Washington isn't remembered for that, sir. And the only thing you have to ask yourself is if you're willing to do it to save Taiwan. Is Taiwan's freedom worth killing some Chinese pilots in their sleep?”
“Alright,” I said in a low voice. “We'll do it. Draw up the plans. Get Fei to look up their home addresses.”
The planning went quickly. In an hour, Fei had a list of several dozen Chinese pilots stationed around the Quanzhou airbase. Many of them shared apartments to deal with the high rent of the big city. That fact dramatically increased the potential toll of our ghastly work. Two hours later, Douglas convened a meeting of the whole group to outline his plan.
“Mr. Cortez and Fei provide overwatch from here. The rest of us break into five assassination teams. Priest and Volodya. Dietrich and Jed. Brook and Grant. Me and Taleb. I figure McCormick can handle being on his own. Each team takes an apartment complex and, over the course of an hour or two, quietly kills as many pilots as they can.”
I had to ask, “How many pilots do you think we can get?”
Douglas shrugged. “We have data on 75 J-10 pilots clustered around airbases outside of Quanzhou, Beijing, and Fuzhou. I figure each team can take out four at the least, probably ten each at the max. So that's twenty to fifty pilots.”
I said softly, “That doesn't sound like so many.”
Volodya responded, “Mr. Cortez, sir, if we do this right, there won't be any J-10's in the skies over Taiwan for a couple days, and from then on just a few. The Raptors will rule the skies.”
The thought was breathtaking. With air superiority, the U.S. would be back in the fight and Taiwan would be in prime position to win a major battle against the People's Liberation Army. But all anyone will ever remember about the Lafayette Initiative is that we killed our enemies in their sleep.
“Is anyone here concerned that we are fighting in a dishonorable way, killing unarmed noncombatants in their sleep?” I knew the question sounded naïve, but I had to ask.
The men exchanged glances. McCormick spoke with the voice of the hardened sergeant he was. “No one forced them to become fighter pilots for the People's Republic, sir. They're trying to subjugate a peaceful country that's done a lot of good for a lot of people. With all due respect, if your view of honor means we can't stop that, then fuck honor, sir.”
Grunts of agreement came from around the room. Even Lian Ming, my former employee and the house administrator, nodded.
Some readers will doubtless press me on the point of culpability for the raid. The decision was ultimately mine. I could have overruled the others, and I was certainly the least gung-ho about the idea. However, even I was convinced that it was worth the risks.
I acquiesced. “Very well. We go tonight.”
Chapter 13
In the very early planning stages, Dr. Chao identified a major potential problem. Many of the pilots had families and, consequently, small children. We had planned to have each team member carry two weapons — a silenced .40 caliber pistol and a dart gun to sedate any innocents in the room when we killed the pilot. As Chao pointed out, however, the sedative dose for a small child was dramatically less than that for a full grown adult. Too much sedative could kill a child; too little could mean someone waking up too soon and alerting Chinese authorities.
I instantly saw the danger of killing innocent children. To that end, I insisted that each team member carry a third weapon, a dart gun loaded with a smaller amount of sedative for exclusive use on children.
Beyond those instructions, each team adopted its own tactics for its particular target. Priest and Jed had been assigned the most highly-guarded apartment complex, with a permanent security guard stationed at a concierge desk at all times. Dressed in dirty gray jumpsuits and carrying tool boxes, they posed as plumbers called to the apartment complex outside Quanzhou for emergency work in the middle of the night.
I watched on the video display as Priest smooth-talked his way past the guard in a matter of seconds, the guard waving them through as if their errand were the most natural occurrence in the world.
That plan obviously wouldn't work for every team since Priest was the only operator in the Lafayette Initiative who could pass for a native Chinese. Douglas and Taleb took a more direct route. The moment they entered, Taleb shot the concierge in the neck with a sedative and hid his unconscious body in the employee washroom. They simply had to hope that no one would notice the missing concierge and call the police in the intervening hour.
Grant and Brook traveled to a cheap apartment complex outside Beijing where the guard had fallen asleep. By entering quietly, they managed not to wake the guard up at all and slip into the stairwell unseen.