If Neville Chamberlain hadn't given part of Czechoslovakia to Hitler in a bid for peace in our time…
Hell, there was no way to second-guess history like that, he told himself. The causes of World War II lay in more than Chamberlain's political myopia, and the peace would have ended sooner or later. But certain principles were clear. Bullies rarely respected offers of negotiation, save as another form of warfare, a means of improving their position before the real fighting began. Tse's government hoped that a strong response — a military response — to Beijing's missile-rattling would make Beijing think twice and perhaps step back from the idea of invasion.
Wishful thinking, perhaps. Taiwan could not long resist an all-out invasion by the PRC. But if they promised that the effort would be costly enough, perhaps Taiwan could win time and even the security of world opinion.
Morton understood all of this and more. His immediate responsibility was not to the regime in Taipei, however, but to SEAL Team Three, to Washington's concept of this operation… and to the fifteen American SEALs stuck with him out here in the Chinese hinterlands, and not at all necessarily in that order. Getting his team out of China would have been tricky at best; without the active help and participation of Tse and his men, extraction was going to be a real bitch.
"Roger that, Commander," Randall said when Morton finished relating the situation. "Let me get back to you. Make it… eighteen hundred hours, your time?"
"Roger that. I copy. Eighteen hundred."
"In the meantime, keep your head down. Don't go sinking any Chinese freighters and calling attention to yourself."
"That's the submariners' job, sir. We're just along for the ride. Besides, we're a good fifty klicks inland. There's not a freighter in sight."
"I hear you. Randall out."
Another eight hours? Well, they wouldn't be able to move before dark anyway. Even Tse's men, while they'd pulled off by themselves into the woods nearby, would not be moving out before sunset. Who knew? Maybe orders would come through for the SEAL platoon to stick with the Taiwanese and help them take down those launchers.
At least the decision was out of his hands, Morton reflected. He settled down to wait.
SEALs were very good at waiting….
15
The sound of the old cannon banged out across Victoria Harbor on the dot of noon, just as it had every day for much of the last century. The old three-pounder, a relic from 1901, was one of the better-known landmarks in Causeway Bay, thanks to Noel Coward's 1924 song about mad dogs, Englishmen, and the noonday sun. Even though it was a reminder of British rule, it continued to sound each day in Communist-controlled Hong Kong, if only because it was now a popular tourist attraction.
Garrett was about three miles away, trotting up the steps to the Kowloon police station where the Sea-wolves were being held. The sound carried well across the water, however, and the distant bang, loud enough to be heard above the traffic and street noise and echoing off distant buildings, startled him. It was a reminder that he was very much alone in hostile terrain… alone and unarmed.
Kazuko was on her way back to the airport. Funny. She'd seemed less shaken by the attack than Garrett. "I was talking to the people at the Japanese Consulate on the phone," she'd told him an hour ago, before they left the hospital. "It seems there've been several incidents like this happen to tourists in Mainland China. Someone breaks into a hotel room, threatens the occupants… racism pure and simple. They told me there was even at least one incident where an American was found with an Asian girl. They thought she was Chinese, but she was actually Japanese and the guy's wife at that." She'd shrugged. "Mistakes happen."
"That was no damned mistake," he'd told her. "Even if it was, that kind of racist crap is unacceptable no matter what the circumstances. They don't like you and me being together? They can damn well get over it.
"But everything about those creeps points to them being MMI — Ministry of Military Intelligence. They're not going to care two yuan who I'm dating… not unless it helps them somehow. And just maybe we can use that to our advantage…."
He strode into the police station, a dingy, noisy place with rubbish on the floor and the mingled scents of alcohol and urine. The place must have been doing a heavy business in drunks the night before. On one wall, a large portrait of the Chinese president was flanked by a pair of bright red PRC flags.
The desk lieutenant barked something in Chinese as Garrett walked up to the desk, then looked up, saw that he was a westerner, and shifted to accented English. "Yes? You want?" A name plate on the desk had a row of Chinese characters, and the man's rank and name in English: LIEUTENANT XIAN GAO.
Garrett flashed his ID. "Commander Garrett, U.S. Navy. I need to talk to whoever's in charge here."
"I in charge," Xian said stiffly.
"You don't have a captain here?"
"This satellite station. Captain Yuen at main station, downtown. You want?"
"I want my men," he said. He was aware of how alarming he must look — an American in civilian clothes, with a bloodied gauze bandage tied around his head. "Seven men, sailors off the USS Seawolf. They were brought in here last night after a fight."
The man's eyes narrowed. "Your captain already call. These men held for trial. Bad, very bad. They shoot up place." He held up his hand, thumb and forefinger extended to imitate a pistol, and added, "Chow! Chow!"
Garrett kept his face bland. "Was anyone hurt?"
"No hurt, no bad. But much damage to place."
"My men were not armed when they went there, Lieutenant," he said quietly. "Where did the guns come from?"
"I not know. When police arrive at Fuk Wai, one of your men is holding gun, shooting at ceiling. He very lucky he not shot by police."
"Your men are well-trained, sir. If he had a gun, he must have taken it off of someone else. Who? Not your police, surely."
Lieutenant Xian looked uncomfortable. "Employees at Fuk Wai hostess club have guns."
"Ah. Did they shoot at my men first? Who started it?"
"They say they try get your men pay bill. A fight start. one of your men grab gun, shoot."
Garrett nodded. He was dancing pretty close to the edge, not knowing exactly what had happened. He did know that U.S. sailors wouldn't have had guns while they were on liberty. Someone had been trying to impress them with a show of hardware, it sounded like, and overstepped some bounds.
"This place, the… what did you call, it?"
"Fuk Wai. Hostess bar. Very clean, very honest place. Good place."
"I'm sure it is. And the bouncers obviously had guns. What are they…Triad?"
He was guessing now, but at least it was an educated guess, one based on some research he'd done before leaving the boat. Many of the bars, brothels, and hostess clubs in Hong Kong either paid protection money to or were owned outright by one or another of the city's notorious triads, criminal gangs that were the Chinese equivalent of the Mafia. The triads supposedly traced their ancestry back to revolutionary groups fighting the Manchus and had helped bring that brutal regime down in 1911. Flaunting snappy names like 14K and the Bamboo Union, they were active throughout southern China in everything from youth gangs to the sellers of Swiss watch copies in the streets, and from bodyguards for wealthy visitors to the vastly powerful masterminds of sprawling and competing criminal empires.