Chiu looked disgusted. “I was informed that you were a test pilot. Why should the complexity of the airplane be a problem? You should be ready to leave without delay.”
Bass could see the color rising in Maxwell’s face. “My job is to fly the airplane — if I consider it feasible. Yours is to get me to it. I don’t intend to tell you how to do your job, Colonel. Don’t tell me how to do mine.”
A thundercloud passed over Chiu’s face. A heavy silence fell over the room, and for a long moment the two men locked gazes. Chiu was clearly not a man accustomed to taking rebukes, especially in front of his officers. He seemed to be weighing whether to remove Maxwell from the operation.
Abruptly he swung his attention back to the model of the base. “The purpose of this mission is to find the Black Star aircraft. If circumstances permit our foreign guests to capture one of the aircraft—” he shot a piercing look at Maxwell, “—so be it. Otherwise, we will destroy the aircraft and all the production facilities. In any case, we will be in and out of Chouzhou in thirty minutes time.”
He went into detail about the disposition of the commando force — where they would disperse, which teams had responsibility for which shelters, where they would deploy their mortars and large-caliber weapons. The officers listened intently, nodding their heads.
When he was finished, Chiu said, “Questions?”
There were no questions.
He gave them all a curt nod. A command was barked in Chinese. Again the officers shot to their feet, standing at rigid attention.
Chiu marched to the exit. The briefing was over.
CHAPTER 13 — GWAI–LO
General Wu Hsin-chieh walked down the broad steps of the American Institute in Taiwan. He stopped in the courtyard between the main building and the perimeter wall and gazed around. Wu could remember when this place used to be called the United States Embassy, before Nixon embraced Mao and moved the embassy — and diplomatic recognition with it — to Beijing.
He blinked in the harsh light. The sun was streaming through a high veil of smoke. There was no wind. To the east, where the large industrial complexes nestled on the outskirts of the city, columns of black smoke rose straight into the sky.
War had come to Taipei.
In the first twenty-four hours of the conflict, a barrage of missiles had hurtled across the strait toward Taiwan. The Patriot anti-missile batteries had performed better than anyone expected, intercepting over eighty percent of the incoming missiles. Still, the missiles were taking a toll. Entire blocks of Taipei’s institutions were now heaps of smoking rubble. The sounds of the city were replaced with the wail of sirens, the whump of exploding warheads, the screams of panicked citizens.
Wu saw his aide, Captain Lo Pin, and his driver waiting inside the guarded gate. A pair of guards in battle dress were stationed behind sandbagged emplacements on either side of the gate. Another contingent manned an observation post behind them.
The passenger door of the black government Lexus was open, waiting for him.
Wu was in no hurry. After the past two days inside the executive bunker, he wanted to taste the open air, the relative tranquility of the afternoon. Instead of climbing into the Lexus, he lit a cigarette and stood watching the traffic outside the gate.
He couldn’t help noticing that this part of Taipei — the area around the American Institute — was untouched by the incoming cruise missiles. A coincidence? He doubted it. They already knew that China had retrofitted the guidance units of all their cruise missiles with GPS — global positioning satellite technology — furnished to the world by the United States. They could hit any target in Taiwan with an maximum error probability of thirty feet.
He guessed that it was a tacit protocol being observed by China and the United States. Don’t violate our space, and we won’t touch yours. Each side was scrupulously avoiding a confrontation with the other.
It was strangely quiet. At this time of time of day, mid-afternoon, Taipei should be a maelstrom of gridlock and honking horns. Instead, an orderly parade of vehicles, mostly military cars and a few commercial vans, passed along Joping Street in front of the consulate. The light at the intersection was not working, and a uniformed policeman was directing traffic. No horns were honking.
He had often wondered how the Taiwanese would fare if they actually experienced war. In normal times they were a noisy, quarrelsome, divided people. They fought over parking spaces, argued about food prices, insulted each other in public. Politicians in the legislative Yuan engaged in more brawls than debates.
A large faction in Taiwan had always clamored for total severance from China. Another faction, almost as large, preached reunification with their kinfolk across the strait. Becoming one happy Chinese nation. Various splinter factions wanted a Marxist state, or a Buddhist state, or no state at all — a return to the feudal system of warlords and serfs.
Wu loved this country. It was flawed and feisty, filled with contradictions and pride and guts — but it was his homeland. As a young soldier nearly thirty years ago he had taken a vow to defend it. Nearing the end of his career, he had begun to think that it would never be necessary.
Until the day before yesterday. Until President Charlotte Soong.
He still didn’t know whether he had admiration or contempt for her. Both, he guessed. He was too much of a loyal soldier to engage in an active conspiracy against her — but he didn’t rule it out. If she proved herself to be disastrously inept, he would act. No President had the divine right to destroy Taiwan.
He saw Lo Pin signaling him from the staff car. “General, a call from the President.”
Wu walked over to the Lexus and took the handset from Lo. It was the secure phone, a scrambled-signal satellite connection that linked him directly to Soong’s office.
“Yes, Madame President.”
“What was the outcome of your conversation with the Director?”
Wu had long been acquainted with the senior American diplomat in Taiwan, Jennings Poynter, whose title was now Director of the American Institute. Poynter was a career foreign service officer who spoke Mandarin and liked to play poker with senior Taiwanese officers. He was also known to favor reunification of Taiwan with China.
“He is supportive, but as we expected, he wants you to negotiate.”
“Negotiate what? A surrender?”
“A truce,” said Wu. “A cessation of hostilities.”
A silence followed, and for a moment he thought he had lost the connection. Finally he Charlotte Soong’s voice again. “Did you relay our concerns, General? About more weapons? About our need for U.S. support?”
“To the best of my ability. I am a military officer, not a diplomat.”
“I understand. But I trust you, General Wu, more than my diplomats. I trust you to define our military position for the Americans.”
Wu was about to reply when something on the western skyline caught his eye. A squiggly gray trail was pointing into the smoke-veiled atmosphere. As he followed the trail, it made a couple of corkscrew turns, then erupted in an oily black cloud. A shower of debris arced down toward the western suburbs of Taipei.
A Chinese missile, he realized. Intercepted by one of the Patriot air defense batteries. He guessed that it was another C-801 Sardine short range cruise missile. The bastards had an endless supply of them. Thank God for the Patriots. Without the Patriot anti-missile batteries supplied by the U.S., Taiwan would now be a smoking ruin.
“Are you still there, General Wu?”
“Yes, Madame President. I am observing a demonstration that the PLA has not run out of cruise missiles.”