Why? Why didn’t they just destroy it as they had the air defense system?
The answer came to him. Because they want it intact.
With that thought echoing in his mind, Zhang jammed his foot down hard on the accelerator.
Chiu hit the ground running. He didn’t stop until he had put a hundred meters between himself and the CH-47. Then he dropped to one knee and looked back toward the helicopter.
Good. They were following, staying together as he had ordered. The two Americans and the Chinese woman, running pell-mell away from the helicopter to join him and the fire team of commandos.
With the PVS-7 night vision goggles pulled down over his eyes, Chiu scanned the quadrant in front of him. In the greenish light he had a clear view of the tarmac, the helicopters, the row of shelters to the northeast. All the helos were empty now. He watched the shapes of his commandos, joined in twelve-man units, sprinting across the tarmac toward their objectives.
Maxwell came jogging up, followed by Bass and the woman.
“Stay close to me,” said Chiu. “Three meters, no further.”
They all nodded. Crouching in the darkness beside him was the team of six commandos, led by a grim-faced young lieutenant named Kee. Each wore helmet-mounted NVG, and one had the PRC-119 manpack radio by which Chiu would communicate with the helicopters and his dispersed squads.
The sound of automatic fire crackled nearby. Chiu turned his head and listened. It seemed to come from the shelters several hundred meters to the north. He recognized the distinctive burp of the commandos’ H&K MP-5N submachine gun.
Excellent. On schedule, C squad was taking out the guard posts.
He nodded to the lieutenant. Without a sound, Kee and his team rose. Spread out line ten yards apart, they trotted off toward the complex at the northeast quadrant.
“Follow them,” Chiu said to the Americans. “Don’t get separated.”
Jogging along behind the commandos, he heard more bursts of automatic fire, this time from the right.
The northeastern security posts. There were posts every two hundred meters in the restricted area, and each had to be sanitized before the commandos could establish defensive positions.
It was going well, but Chiu knew their advantage was momentary. They had the cover of darkness and the NVG and, most importantly, the element of surprise. They enjoyed a numerical superiority only because the PLA forces — who outnumbered them twenty-to-one— were not yet positioned to oppose them.
Their advantage was dwindling with each passing minute. The blanket of darkness was diminished by the towering blaze of the fuel tank fires and the gathering dawn. In less than an hour, the new day would lighten the eastern horizon.
They had to find the Black Star, insert the Americans into the stealth jet, get them launched, then escape — all before the base defense brigade could organize a counter attack.
Chiu glanced over his shoulder. They were staying with him, as he had ordered. Even the woman, the Chinese defector, was trotting along in trail behind Bass and Maxwell.
As they neared the first of the two assembly buildings, he heard the sounds of the firefight from the nearest building in the complex. Staccato MP-5N bursts were mixed with the rattle of a Type 95 assault rifle — the Chinese derivative of the venerable Kalashnikov AK-47. Lieutenant Kee, leading the column, gave the signal to stop and crouch.
They huddled in the darkness, shielded from the flickering light of the burning fuel tanks by the wall of a revetment. Sporadic sounds of battle spilled out of the buildings.
The radioman waddled back to Chiu. “Building One secure, Colonel. The second still contains a platoon of security troops.”
Chiu acknowledged. He signaled for Maxwell and the other two to remain with him, huddled by the revetment wall.
A minute later, the squad leader reported that the resistance in Building Two had ended. Both assembly buildings were secure.
“Tell the D squad leader I want snipers deployed to the roofs of both buildings.”
“Yes, sir.”
He gave the signal for Kee to move out. In column behind the commandos, Chiu and his group rose and headed toward Building One, where the defector told them the Black Star life support equipment shop was located.
Trotting across the open ground, Chiu glanced over his shoulder to make sure the others were staying with him. They were, Maxwell leading, with Bass and the Chinese woman close behind. Even without using his NVG, he could their shadows flitting across the surface. The blazing fuel fires were flooding the base in an orange glow.
The thought had already occurred to Chiu that the woman defector, Chen, might be leading them into a trap. Even if she were not a double agent, the accuracy of her information could still be flawed. She was the one he had been most worried about. Traitors by any other name or nationality were still traitors. They were not to be trusted.
They had no time for a random search of the complex for the Black Star and the equipment they needed to fly it.
What then?
About the woman, Chiu had reached a decision. It was possible that she had compromised the operation by seducing the American Maxwell. What information had she obtained from him?
He had already decided that her only remaining value was to point them to the Black Star. If she failed, Chiu intended to put a bullet in her head. No hesitation, no remorse. Defectors, even PLA defectors, had no claim to a long life.
The Americans were another matter. Taiwan’s survival depended on getting them into the cockpit of the Black Star. The primary purpose of the mission was to insert these two into the stealth craft. For that reason, Chiu had not allowed himself to become friendly with them. The mission was too critical to be compromised by sentimentality.
If the mission failed, Chiu’s duty was clear. The Americans must not be allowed to become prisoners of the PLA. He would kill them.
From his bridge aboard the Kai Yang, Commander Lei peered into the gathering darkness.
He had a rendezvous scheduled with a tanker and a resupply ship. Only after nightfall would he undertake the risky operation of rearming and refueling. Returning to port, either to Keelung in the north or Kaohsiung in the south, was out of the question. If they weren’t caught by missiles or PLA strike jets in the naval yard, they’d be picked off by one of the submarines that were parked outside every port in Taiwan.
Out of the murk the two provisioning ships appeared. No transmissions were exchanged as they took station, one on either side of Kai Yang. To the outboard side of the tanker, the pair of destroyer escorts were lined up, bow-to-stern, to take on their own fuel. Blinking lights from each vessel were the only communication.
From the bridge of Kai Yang, Lei watched the reprovisioning with a vague uneasiness. It was an operation his crew had rehearsed a hundred times. To his port side, half a dozen lines drooped between the stores ship and Kai Yang. Containers filled with vital supplies — more Harpoons, more torpedoes, food and fresh water — wobbled across the narrow canyon between the ships, dangling from the lines.
They were headed into the wind on a southwesterly course. The four-foot swells were causing the dissimilar vessels to rise and fall in discordant rhythms. Kai Yang’s larger bow was lifting while the provisioning ship was dropping into a trough. The containers danced between the two ships like trinkets swaying on a chain.