The gunner manning the 30mm autocannon didn’t need to wait to be told to fire back, and immediately sent a dozen depleted uranium rounds into the enemy armored vehicle, which summarily blew it up. The rest of the soldiers in Slater’s Stryker, who were already standing up through the troop hatches, opened fire on the enemy soldiers as their vehicle continued to race toward them. Not stopping, their vehicle zipped right past the now-burning enemy vehicle and the enemy soldiers still firing away at them and their comrades.
Busting out onto Merdeka Square ring road, they gunned the engines and raced across the square toward the presidential building and the other government buildings. Slater stood up and held a set of field glasses to his eyes to try and get a better look; of course, that was challenging to do considering how fast they were racing across the square, but he spotted a couple of very expensive-looking vehicles near the entrance, with a lot of people running all over the place. Sensing that this might be the president trying to make a break for it, he ordered the gunner, “Send a few dozen rounds at those vehicles at the entrance. I want you to destroy them.”
“You’re not getting away if I can help it,” thought Slater.
In a matter of minutes, they were at the gates of the building, next to the vehicles that were probably meant to whisk the president and his staff away. They weren’t going anywhere — they had all been engulfed by flames. Bulldozing their way through the front gate, Slater’s group of six Strykers drove right up to the front of the building before they finally stopped. They all jumped out of their vehicles. Slater’s first squad engaged the remaining security personnel outside the building, while the other three squads busted their way through the front door of the government edifice. As they ran into the entrance, two of his men were gunned down by a slew of gunfire from the security guards inside.
“Hold up, guys!” yelled Lieutenant Slater. “Toss some grenades in the room, and then we’ll charge in.”
Sergeant Nassem grabbed two grenades from his chest rig and handed one to the soldier standing next to him. They both pulled the pins on the grenades, counted two seconds and then threw them in.
Boom! Boom!
“Now!” yelled Slater as Sergeant Nassem led his squad into the room. Confusion reigned as many machine guns started firing and voices in both English and Indonesian were shouting to be heard above the din of battle. Seconds after Nassem’s squad entered the room, the next squad went in to support them. In less than two minutes, they had cleared the first room and fanned out inside this massive building.
Lieutenant Slater told Nassem and his squad, “Follow me to the roof. We might by chance catch the president trying to escape using a helicopter.”
Before they moved, he ordered the other two squads to begin clearing the rooms and rounding up prisoners. As Slater started to head to the stairwell, he spotted Captain Wilkes entering the building from the corner of his eye.
“Good, the rest of the company is here,” he thought. “That’s a lot more soldiers to add to the mix.”
Huffing and puffing by the time they got to the top landing of the stairwell that would open up to the roof, they paused to catch their breath and then tossed a couple of grenades through the door. Seconds after the explosions, they ran through the opening onto the roof, expecting to be surrounded by security guards. Instead, there was no one up there at all. They had just blown up the air conditioning units.
Once he realized there was no danger, Lieutenant Slater plopped down on the ground. “Hmm… I guess they either got out another way, or the president had been evacuated before we got here,” he said to the soldiers around him, who likewise had sat down on the ground to rest for a second and catch their breath. Lugging eighty pounds of body armor and weapons and a CamelBak up four flights of stairs while fighting your way through an enormous government building was extremely physically exhausting.
After a moment of rest, Slater recovered enough to come up with a new plan. “OK, guys, let’s head back down and help the rest of the platoon and company clear the building and round up prisoners.”
Before walking down though, Slater took a quick look across the city from the top of the building. He could see black pillars of smoke rising from many areas of the metropolis. He could also hear tons of machine-gun fire and see dozens of red and green tracers bouncing off buildings and armored vehicles, adding to the chaotic scene unfolding all around them. He glanced to the side and saw that most of the other men were likewise transfixed by the scene.
“As much as I want to stand here and look at everything going on, we all need to get back downstairs,” Slater said, breaking his own trance. “We still have a job to do, guys.”
It took them another hour to round up all the people from within the building. They herded them all into a couple of large rooms and then slowly identified who was who and moved the high-value individuals to a few separate rooms the battalion intelligence folks had set up to question them.
Many of the new prisoners were clearly stunned to see American and Australian soldiers standing in the presidential building. They couldn’t fathom how this could have happened so quickly, or how their military had so epically failed them.
During the mad dash to capture Jakarta, the US, Australian and New Zealand forces managed to catch the bulk of the government by surprise with the swiftness of their landing at Cirebon. From the time they landed and secured the port and beachhead to the time they advanced on Jakarta, only roughly nineteen hours had elapsed. The Indonesian Army had been confident the Allies would wait to advance on the city until they had offloaded all their armored units and other forces, and they had figured they would have at least two full days to get the city prepared to meet the invaders. They were caught completely by surprise by how fast the Allies just rushed units straight from the port to the capital.
The lightning dash netted the Allies the Vice President of Indonesia, the Indonesian Minister of Defense, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the majority of the cabinet. The president had been able to escape and had made it to Malaysia before being flown away to China, where he’d attempt to set up a government in exile. With the capture of the majority of the government officials, the Vice President, who was considered the leader of the country by the majority of the people, ordered the Minister of Defense to order the surrender of Indonesian forces to the Allies. There was no reason to lose any more civilians or soldiers to a war that, for them, was already lost.
Eastern Alliance Reckoning
President Xi wasn’t in a panic just yet, but he was having some serious doubts about the outcome of the war. Just one year ago, it had looked like Operation Red Storm was truly going to prevail. While defeat was not certain, victory was not nearly as guaranteed as it had been just a few months ago. The loss of their navy meant they could not keep control of the Philippines. It also meant holding on to Formosa was going to be incredibly difficult. His generals had told him the Americans would probably launch an invasion of Formosa before the beginning of the typhoon season, which meant they didn’t have a lot of time to prepare. As it was, they were using nearly every vessel they could to ferry munitions, food and other supplies to the island before the Americans completely cut it off.
Sensing his generals staring at him, President Xi stared back at Vice Admiral Ning Sheng, the head of the PLA Navy, and then General Xu Ding, the head of the PLA Air Force.
“I’ve got half a mind to have these men shot,” he thought, “but I need their expertise if we are to try and salvage this war.”