Calling Ivanov to join me and Dietrich, McCormick said, “This road leads down to the river Pinglin is perched on. Taiwanese high command thinks there’s a PLA advance company making its way over the mountains here, and they’ll be here in about twenty minutes. We’re going to wipe them out.”
I glanced at Dietrich and Ivanov, and they showed no surprise, as if they thought McCormick was serious. McCormick began to describe his plan, but I felt the need to interrupt. “The four of us are going to take on a hundred-plus PLA infantry?”
McCormick looked annoyed. “No, we’re going to wipe them out with our kindness and good-spirits. What the fuck do you think we’re going to do?”
Angrily, I said, “It only took about 150 PLA to push three companies of the 101st Airborne to the breaking point. Three hundred American soldiers. And you think the four of us can take on a hundred?”
McCormick eyed me skeptically. “You look old enough. Did you ever do a tour in Iraq?”
Ignoring the age portion of the comment, I answered, “Yes.”
“Ever see the Iraqi Army fight?”
“No.”
McCormick recounted, “I’ve seen thirty ISIS fighters break a battalion of the Iraqi Army — a thousand soldiers. I’ve seen two ISIS snipers ambush and force the surrender of forty Iraqi soldiers.”
“That was the Iraqi Army, not hardened PLA veterans,” I objected.
McCormick answered, “Iraqis aren’t cowards. I’ve worked with brave Iraqis. The ones who surrendered had seen fighting before. But they were mostly Shiites caught by surprise in hostile Sunni territory. ISIS hit them hard and fast and scared them into running.”
Working up a steam, McCormick paced in front of me. “Put fear in their hearts and the battle is over. Scare the PLA and they’ll run. I’ve seen it happen. The Knights could have held the American Institute in Taipei until hell froze over against the PLA because they were scared of us. They had expected to walk into a peaceful, nerdy country with a conventional army and found hardened killers instead. We surprised them at every turn and spilled their blood until the thought of trying again to beat us was more terrifying than the thought of failing in their mission.”
McCormick stopped his pacing and pointed right at me. “That’s how three unconventional fighters can succeed where three-hundred soldiers failed.”
This is crazy, the rational part of my mind told me. But another part remembered the fear of Farmers’ Ridge, the sense that there was nothing I could do against a better-trained, better-equipped foe. I wanted the PLA company commander to experience what I had felt.
“Make it four.”
I waited for the PLA advance, my face and arms covered in mud to make my thermal signature a little less obvious. It didn’t seem likely that the Chinese would be using infrared at high noon, but a light rain had begun to fall, and if the storm got worse, visibility might have reduced to the point that only infrared would be useful.
Limited visibility made me feel much more comfortable about my role in the plan. I was covered in leaves in the middle of a thick stand of trees just off the southern edge of a tea field.
The field itself was on the slope of the last mountain before Pinglin. The downward slope of the mountain south of me led through 150 yards of dense forest to a farm house and barn that marked the beginning of the one-lane road running down to the river. The road exited out to the river just west of Pinglin, a perfect route to bypass and cut-off the American garrison of the town.
As the minutes crept by, I considered the men with whom I’d be fighting the coming battle. I’d heard of Sergeant McCormick, of course. In those videos the Knights and the Lafayette Initiative had posted on YouTube, McCormick was passionate. In person, his dedication to his cause was fanatical, almost scary. Dietrich and Volodya were both older than the American sergeant, but they deferred to him, trusted his judgment. That trust was clearly borne of experience, but what might happen when McCormick’s fanaticism pushed him to do something crazy, I wondered.
Crazier than four men destroying a company? I smiled, but didn’t laugh.
Twenty minutes ticked by, feeling like a year. Finally, I heard Volodya’s voice whisper in my ear. “Here they come. They just entered the tea field.”
I slowed my breathing, and my chest began to hurt from the effort of partially holding my breath. Calm down. I took a deeper breath, trying to normalize my breathing by the time the PLA infantry walked past my position.
Then I saw them. Heavily armed. Adorned in body armor. Walking forward carefully, their eyes scanning the area. Steady.
They were deployed in a loose column about fifty yards wide, plenty of space between each soldier. The clear intention was to present a relatively narrow front to minimize the risk of detection while keeping enough distance between soldiers to minimize the risk of multiple casualties from a single explosion.
Most of the soldiers were focused forward and didn’t see me off to one side in the field. But one soldier was more curious than the others. He approached the periphery of the tea field with his Ak-2000 rifle at his shoulder and aimed away to my left. Then he turned and looked right at me.
My heart stopped. I almost brought my rifle out from underneath my body by reflex. “Sit tight,” Volodya said on the radio. I don’t know if he could see what was happening or if it was just a particularly well-timed random admonition.
The PLA soldier’s head swiveled and he continued his patrol to the south. The rest of his company followed behind him, their weapons in their hands.
I didn’t bother to whisper that the Chinese had passed me. My professional reason was that Volodya would already know where the Chinese were. The real reason was that I was so scared that I didn’t trust myself to speak without my voice cracking.
The Chinese infantry continued their steady march into the woods. A little over two minutes passed, and though my immediate danger was lessened, I felt my stomach tighten with apprehension. The battle would be upon us shortly.
“Initiate phase one,” McCormick whispered over the radio.
The distinctive crack of a Taiwanese T97 rifle sounded up the mountain to the left of the Chinese advance. A PLA infantryman was hit in the face, no time to scream. Before his body hit the ground, another shot rang out. Another hit, this time in the neck.
Explosions erupted in the woods. Old Claymore mines, little changed from 50 years earlier, detonated, spraying ball bearings ricocheting against trees, rocks, and Chinese soldiers.
By now, there was a cacophony on the mountainside. Two grenades detonated, sending more shrapnel among the PLA soldiers. All the while, intermittent gunfire continued pouring down on the PLA company from somewhere in the deep woods on the side of the mountain.
Though the ambush had killed or wounded about ten of their number, these PLA soldiers were too experienced to panic. They had fought their way through Taipei, and were not about to let a few explosives and a little gunfire break them. In good order, one platoon lay down covering fire on the side of the mountain while the other two platoons ran to the farmhouses to take cover.
About sixty PLA infantry broke for the farmhouses, sprinting to get out of the line of fire. They didn’t bother to stack up outside either house, focusing instead on getting to a place of safety quickly.
“Initiate phase two,” McCormick said.
Though Volodya was nearly invisible in the deep woods, I knew he was now running as nimbly and quickly as he could, circling around behind the Chinese almost to my position.