Taleb threw another two Needles at the other two police cars. One detonated, as the first had, on the bumper of the car, while the other landed atop the engine and fired straight down through the engine block. Both police cars swerved to crashing halts on the side of the road, and suddenly there were no police cars behind the van.
“We're at the highway!” Douglas guided the car through the on-ramp onto the highway. Few cars, were about, and Douglas merged into traffic with little fanfare. He accelerated to nearly eighty miles per hour, anxious to put distance between the van and any other pursuers.
Douglas said, “Fei, can you call in a false report from somewhere else along the road in Fuzhou, before we got on the highway?”
Fei answered over the radio, “Will do.”
Explaining the new plan, Douglas said, “If you buy us a few minutes, we can pull over on the highway, switch the license, spray on a new paint job, and be on our way.”
Twenty seconds later, Fei called back, “Alright, I called in a false sighting, hopefully that will throw them off your track. We've got one other problem, however. The Chinese just put up an armed drone, a Predator knock-off. It's going to be scanning the whole area. If it finds a van parked on the side of the road with two men working on it, the Chinese won't hesitate to take it out.”
Taleb responded, “I will deal with the drone.” He dug into the equipment in the van and retrieved a long slender metal tube adorned with only a handle trigger.
Douglas peered back into the passenger compartment, then asked, “Mr. Cortez, how sure are you that that missile still works? It looks like an old Soviet SA-14.”
I radioed back, “It's an old design, true, but it's a new missile, fresh out of the newest Merlin 3D printers. I had it made in Australia the day before we left for Taiwan. We used the Soviet design because it was simple. It should work fine.”
Taleb muttered, “This is not the first time I've used the SA-14, not even the first time against a drone. And if the drone's a Chinese copy of the American Predator… well, I have plenty of experience with those. Where is the drone now?”
“Three miles northwest, flying at approximately 10,000 feet closing in on your position.”
Taleb said to Douglas, “Drop me off with the launcher.”
“Why the bloody hell would I do that?”
“We need the drone to close to within three miles to be sure of a hit, and we can't just wait here in the van for it. You will continue on down the road and circle back for me once you've had a chance to change the license plate.”
Douglas reluctantly agreed to Taleb's plan. He pulled to the side of the highway, and Taleb jumped out, missile launcher in hand. Douglas accelerated away and Taleb scurried a few yards into the underbrush near the highway.
Taleb radioed in, “Keep me posted on where the drone is, Fei.”
Fei answered, “I will. It should be within three miles of your position in a minute and a half.”
Through Taleb's glasses, I could see him raise the missile launcher to his shoulder, listening for the growl of the infrared seeker on the nose of the missile that would indicate it was locked onto the heat-signature of the drone.
The growl sounded. And Taleb continued to wait. Douglas, hearing the noise over the radio, said, “Take the shot, Mohammed.”
“Not yet, Colonel.”
“Take the bloody shot before the drone picks you up and fires a missile up your arse.”
“I have much experience in this, Colonel. We have precisely one shot, and we must not miss.”
Fei reported, “The drone should be two miles away.”
“Shoot the missile!” Douglas ordered.
Five seconds passed. I could see the running light on the drone in the sky through Taleb's glasses camera.
“Firing,” Taleb said. A high-pitched whistle sounded as the missile streaked away from the launcher on Taleb's shoulder and rocketed into the sky. I followed the fiery path of the missile as it arced into the sky.
After five seconds of watching the missile ascend, I wondered if it had missed the target. I asked, “What—” and was interrupted by a flash of light in the night sky. Though I could not see the drone itself, I saw a fire fall from the sky and crash into the highway.
Taleb said evenly, “The drone is down, Colonel. Please return and pick me up.”
Douglas did so. Before driving off again, the two spent two minutes spraying the sides of their van with a new coat of paint, a dark blue. With the professional equipment kept in the van for just these contingencies, the entire job went off quickly and smoothly.
The two Lafayette Initiative members did not see any more police as they made their way as fast as possible back to the base in Qiaogangzhen.
When Taleb and Douglas confirmed that they had escaped, I took a deep breath and tallied the night's activities. The attacks had ultimately gone better than we had hoped. In the course of one hour, the five teams killed a total of 63 Chinese pilots. The teams actually ran out of J-10 pilots and so Douglas and Taleb, Grant and Brook, Dietrich and Volodya, and McCormick had started going after pilots of the less-advanced Su-30 jet.
When Douglas and Taleb, the last outstanding team, called in to announce they were on the way back home, I sent an encrypted message to my assistant in Australia. “Tell our friends in the five-sided barn the coast is clear for their rodeo.”
When Dietrich had originally come up with the idea for the pilot assassinations, it hadn't taken long to come to the obvious conclusion that the best way to maximize the gain from the operation was to coordinate with the Pentagon. The Chinese air force would be thrown into chaos by the loss of so many pilots and would be, for at least some time, unable to cobble together many planes to send up to meet an incoming attack.
At the time, I didn't know what the Pentagon had planned, but through conversations with Air Force officers and the facts made public subsequently in the press, I have pieced together the events of the hours following our assassinations.
Within twenty minutes of my assistant messaging the Pentagon, every F-22 on Guam was sent aloft; a massive sortie of thirty-seven Raptors. The Chinese learned of the surge within minutes from their surveillance satellites, which always kept a watchful lens on Guam, the fulcrum of U.S. operations against the People's Republic.
The People's Liberation Army Air Force had plenty of time to respond. Their bases were mere minutes from Taiwan instead of the three hours' flight time from Guam. There were about thirty J-10 pilots at the bases themselves, and those began getting ready for another terrifying day of air combat.
This was clearly going to be the largest force of American fighters to date to enter the fray over Taiwan. Every available plane would be needed to repel the flock of Raptors. Commanders at bases outside Beijing, Fuzhou, and Quanzhou sent out the automated alert to their pilots, all of whom lived within ten minutes of their bases.
About 63 of the 78 alert calls went unanswered. Military police, sent in to investigate, discovered the bodies of the pilots, as well as the unconscious families and roommates.
News of the dead pilots shot up the line to the commander of the Chinese air force in Beijing, who was then faced with a gut-wrenching decision.
There were still ten or so J-10 fighters with pilots available to send up against the thirty-seven F-22's, as well as another twenty-two Su-30's. Thirty-two fighters, only ten of which could put up a real fight against the stealthy, fast, maneuverable Raptors.
Of course, the Chinese general didn't have to send them up. He could let the F-22's sweep the skies over Taiwan clear of whatever Chinese helicopters and transports happened to be in the area. Probably only a dozen or so relatively cheap helicopters and two transport planes.