Watching the jetliner carve through the afternoon sky toward Taiwan, Maxwell wondered what would happen next. Would China try to take Taiwan by force, as they had long threatened?
God help us, he thought.
Another war. And the worst kind — a Hatfield-McCoy feud between people of the same blood — who hated each other’s guts. Each equipped with enough high tech weapons to obliterate the other. The USS Reagan was in the line of fire from both sides.
The thought made Maxwell uneasy. He kept his eye on the Airbus as it continued along the airway northward. Another five hundred miles, then the Taiwanese F-16s would show up to escort Dynasty One the rest of the way. He’d be off the hook.
Li Hou-sheng wasn’t much of a drinker. Seldom did he take more than a sip of wine at dinner or a glass of champagne on a special occasion. Today was such an occasion. He turned to the others in the forward cabin of the jetliner and raised his glass. “To Taiwan,” he said in a hearty voice. “To the sovereign Republic of China.”
The others — three cabinet ministers, the Vice Premier, a dozen members of the legislative Yuan, and Madame Li, his wife of eighteen years — all raised their glasses, but not with enthusiasm. In muted voices they repeated, “To the sovereign Republic of China.”
Li could see the uneasiness in the legislators’ faces. They looked like witnesses to an execution. He had deliberately kept them uninformed about his plan to declare Taiwan’s independence at the SEA conference. Now they were indignant, angry, frightened.
In particular, Li could feel the antagonism of George Tseng, the former leader of the opposition Kuomintang party. Tseng had gone through the motions of toasting, but he quickly set his glass aside. Now he was giving Li a baleful look. His champagne was untouched.
Tseng was a problem, Li reflected. It had been a mistake naming him to the post of Vice Premier — the second most important job in the Yuan, Taiwan’s legislative body. After the bitterly close election, Li wanted to demonstrate that he was reaching out to all the factions in Taiwan. Even quarrelsome opposition members like Tseng.
Now Tseng was one of Li’s most virulent critics. It was Tseng and the Premier, Franklin Huang, who led the noisy pro-Beijing faction — those who wanted to negotiate Taiwan’s return to the stewardship of mainland China.
Tseng was glowering at him. “You have destroyed Taiwan,” he said.
A hush fell over the cabin. Li felt the eyes of the others on him. Be calm, he told himself. It was critical that the others not be infected with Tseng’s negativism. “As usual, Tseng, you miss the point. Taiwan has always been a free country. I have simply made it official.”
“China will never permit Taiwan to claim independence. It means war.”
“You sound like a mouthpiece for Beijing. We’ve been hearing that same threat for fifty years.”
“It is no longer a threat. After what you’ve done, China will take Taiwan by force.”
Li shook his head, smiling. “I know it’s difficult for you, but you should try not to be hysterical. The communists are incompetent, but they’re not crazy. They realize that Taiwan has a powerful defense force, and that we have an even more powerful ally.”
Tseng scoffed. “The Americans? Are you so naïve as to think the United States will alienate its favored trading partner — the People’s Republic of China — over little Taiwan?”
Li nodded, liking the way this was going. In a conciliatory voice he said, “Tell me, what do you think the American response to today’s declaration will be?”
“They will abandon us. At this very minute we are in danger of attack. The Americans have washed their hands of us.”
“Very interesting,” said Li. It was the moment he had been waiting for. He tossed down the remainder of his champagne, then strolled over to the nearest cabin window. With one hand he slid open the plastic shade over the window. Sunlight streamed into the cabin.
He motioned to Tseng. “Look up there. Tell me what you see.”
Wearing a sour expression, Tseng went to the window. He peered outside, squinting against the intense sunlight.
Then he saw it. He jumped back from the window as if he’d been zapped with a cattle prod. “Fighters! There are fighters out there. We are being attacked by—”
“Super Hornets,” said Li. “From the USS Reagan. They’re not attacking, they’re protecting us. Now what is this drivel you’re telling us, Tseng? Do you still think the Americans have abandoned us?”
The massive shape of the three-engine U.S. Air Force KC-10 tanker filled Maxwell’s windscreen. He eased the throttles back a notch, letting the Hornet slip backwards, disengaging the refueling probe from the drogue.
As he slid to a high perch off the tanker’s left wing, his wingman, B.J. Johnson, nestled into position on the drogue.
Still on station with Dynasty One was Maxwell’s second section, Pearly Gates and Flash Gordon, who had already refueled from the tanker. This would be their last in-flight refueling session before they turned the escort duty over to the F-16s.
Maxwell watched Johnson’s Hornet plug into the KC-10, slurping up fuel like a horse at a spring. Tanking was a fact of life for a Hornet pilot. Even with the larger tanks and longer range of the new F/A-18 Super Hornet, the jet still required in-flight refueling in order to reach an objective and return. Plugging into the tanker was as critical a skill as landing aboard a carrier.
When Johnson was topped off, she slid back from the tanker and joined Maxwell’s left wing. The two jets climbed away from the KC-10 and turned back toward the Airbus, twenty miles away. In the distance he could see the slick profiles of Gates’s and Gordon’s Hornets, still on station, two thousand feet above the jetliner.
Three hundred more miles, then they’d pick up the ROC F-16s. They would turn back to the south, pay one more visit to the tanker, then they’d land aboard the Reagan. End of mission.
Still, Maxwell couldn’t get over this nagging feeling. Where were the Chinese fighters? Even before the inflammatory announcement by the Taiwanese President, the Chinese had been willing to send up jets, just for the hell of it. Now that they had a reason to be hostile, they were staying low.
It didn’t make sense.
With that thought, Maxwell’s eyes went again to the Airbus. The A-300 was a wide-body, twin-engine jet, cruising just above a puffy cloud layer at.82 mach. It would make a nice fat, vulnerable target for—
What was that? Behind the Airbus, a mile or so in trail. Something — a glimmer, a shadow against the clouds, a reflection.
It was gone.
Maxwell strained his eyes, peering intently at the empty sky. Nothing. He went to his MFD — multi-function display — checking radar and infra-red returns. Still nothing.
He was getting jumpy. He’d be glad when they were finished babysitting this airliner and returned to the steel deck of the Reagan. He was beginning to imagine—
Something else. Something odd down there.
No, he wasn’t imagining.
A black puff, like a spurt of exhaust, spat from the Airbus’s right engine.
Maxwell felt the hair stand up on the back of his neck. The A-300’s engine nacelle seemed to expand in size, swelling like a balloon. In the next instant, a sphere of orange flame appeared around the engine, then engulfed the entire wing.
As in slow motion, the long tapered wing folded back, then cleaved through the tail surfaces of the Airbus. Sheared aluminum fluttered like confetti in the wake of the dismembered jet.
Maxwell stared in disbelief. The Airbus was rolling to the right, its nose slipping downward, spewing a trail of flame and smoke and debris. The big jet was descending in a corkscrew path toward the sea.