Deep War: The War with China and North Korea - The Nuclear Precipice

by David Poyer

  “He was in bad shape when he got to Bishkek. A week before he could talk. Then we couldn’t shut him up. Quite a story, escaping from the toughest hard-labor camp in China. Oh, and we passed your message on to your old girlfriend. ‘The guy she knew is dead.’” Vladimir looked around again. “How many effectives?”

  “Not that many yet, but the possibilities are there—Dandan! Ni zài na?”

  A slight figure in black materialized from the gloom. His slave girl was barefoot, face so swathed in black cloth that only one dark eye showed. Teddy ordered her to bring chai and naan, and lay back on a musty-smelling pillow.

  Vladimir stared after her as Teddy asked again about how the war was going. The operative said the Indians and Vietnamese were holding their respective lines, but didn’t seem to want to discuss what the Allies had planned. Then he was asking the questions again. “Numbers, Ted. If you want us to supply you, we need quantification.”

  Obie said reluctantly, “I have forty-some right now. But we could triple that if we tried. From there on, if we train the trainers and get the arms, I can double the numbers every two weeks.”

  “How many in a month or two? Fighting men?”

  Teddy said reluctantly, “Maybe … three hundred?”

  The CIA man didn’t look impressed. The girl, silent, returned to set down a tray with hot tea, small brass cups, and cold bread. They ate with their fingers. Vladimir drank off a cup, then poured more.

  “What about it, amigo? Agency gonna help out, or not? Way I see it, golden opportunity to put an itch on Zhang’s balls.”

  Vladimir murmured, “The colonel told us what you propose. Essentially, what we did in Afghanistan against the Soviets. Recruit a resistance. Foster a sectarian rebellion. But is that going to actually hurt Beijing? Or just end up sucking down resources, and getting a lot of more-or-less friendlies killed.”

  “Since when does Langley worry about losing ragheads?”

  Those colorless eyes regarded him levelly. “I’ll take that as a rhetorical question, Master Chief. Or some kind of satire.”

  “Take it how you like. These guys were busting heads before I showed up. Low-level, but they kept Internal Security hopping. Raiding police stations. Shooting up marketplaces. Bushwhacking foot patrols. The Hans have oppressed them for centuries. Stolen their land. Cut off their beards. We’ve gotta be thinking about destabilizing the enemy, right?”

  “Your proposal was accepted,” Vladimir said carefully. “But with caveats.”

  “What?”

  “We direct operations. Not the local leadership, whoever that is. If we’re going to underwrite a rebellion, we specify the targets.”

  Teddy said that seemed fair. “So what’s our first mission?”

  Checking that no one was looking, Vlad slipped what looked like a cell phone from the greatcoat and palmed it over. “We’ll drop a squirt transmitter for backup, but Jetwire’ll be our main comms. Lets us talk direct, without the indigenous overhearing. Uplinks to a MOUSE satellite.”

  He initialized it and called up a map. Teddy squinted at it, wondering if he shouldn’t ask for reading glasses too. “First priority: recruit. But as soon as you muster two hundred effectives, we need you to hit a major pipeline and high-voltage line.”

  Teddy scrutinized the map as the other explained that before the war China had committed a hundred billion dollars to secure an overland flow of liquefied natural gas and oil from Iran, via Pakistan, along a China–Pak Economic Corridor. “The line runs from Islamabad north along the route of a mountain highway. It crosses the border from Pak-occupied Kashmir at the Khunjerab Pass and goes to Kashgar, China.

  “This has been Zhang’s main source of imported oil since the blockade started. Running alongside it, a high-voltage DC transmission line takes power from the wind and solar installations in the desert south to Islamabad. Fossil fuel one way, electrical power the other. So cutting it will impact them both.”

  Teddy sucked a breath. “That’s got to be … a hundred kilometers from here.”

  “Right. Not far.”

  “But over the roughest terrain in the world.”

  “Your guys are mountaineers, right?”

  “Not all of them.” Teddy cleared his throat; the dried bat shit, or whatever, clogged him up. “Look, all we’ve got are small arms and a couple RPGs they stole from a police station. The Hans patrol these mountains with drones. Copters. We need weapons. Serious cold-weather gear. Night vision. Stingers.”

  The CIA man lowered his voice further. “I’m here to elucidate your requirements. But the first drop’s tonight. They’re waiting on my call.”

  Teddy sighed, trying not to show how pleased he felt. A drop was a commitment. “I hope it includes boots.”

  “Of course it includes fucking boots.” Vladimir winced, as if he hadn’t meant to drop the F-bomb. “Sorry.”

  “Hey, you didn’t offend me … it’s actually good to hear English again. Boots and—?”

  “Figured you wanted to stay with the AK platform. So it’s 7.62 × 39, RPDs and RPGs. And we—”

  “Kim bu?” The short slim old man bowed, smiling, his wispy beard falling to his chest. A taller man, with a mustache half white, half black, stood behind him, holding a rifle.

  Teddy lurched to his feet, favoring his bad leg. The rebels’ religious leader was asking who this new guest was. Vladimir stood too, and Teddy introduced him, lapsing into his prison Han. “Imam Akhmad, this is our contact man with the CIA. We can call him Vladimir, but he is American, not Russian. That is only his war name. Like Tokarev here.” He nodded at Guldulla. “Let us sit down to tea. Dandan! More!”

  No reply. But the scuffle of bare feet in the dark told him she’d heard.

  * * *

  THE sun fell behind the peaks. Their shadows merged, painting the world black beneath a glowing sapphire sky. Miles from the cave, Teddy shifted uneasily atop a donkey. At least he didn’t have to walk. The bitter wind chilled him to the bone. To his left Vladimir sat on another donkey, chatting in low tones to Tokarev. To his right, Nasrullah muttered with one of the bodyguards he’d assigned to Teddy. Obie wasn’t sure if it was to protect him, or to keep an eye on him.

  At last he swung down and found shelter in a rock crevice. The CIA contact joined him, cupping his gloves to torch a cigarette with a black Zippo. He offered one, but Teddy grimaced. “Akhmad runs a tight ship. No alcohol. No smokes. Prayers five times a day.”

  “What, are you turning into one of the Faithful?”

  Teddy wondered how to explain whatever it was he’d experienced in the Tien Shan. But he didn’t understand it himself. Vision, hallucination, mystic insight?

  Shivering on the icy ridge that night, eyes wide open, Teddy Harlett Oberg had left his body.

  The mountains had glowed with a light he’d never seen before. They were folded out of rock, like origami. The way the world itself was … folded … out of … nothing.

  An enormous voice had spoken, but without words. It revealed how one single Will underlay the world. The mountains. The stars. Everything that had happened, or ever would. All had been foreordained, before Time itself had existed.

  Which meant: Choice was an illusion.

  All was one thought. One act. One creation.

  The vision had left him shaking on the ground. When it lifted, like an immense black saucer departing for the stars, he’d screamed for it to take him. Hating to return to his starving, agonized body. His time-bound, ignorant mind, pinched as in a coffin.

  No … some things couldn’t be talked about. Reducing it to words would make him sound insane. Finally he just muttered, “It’s complicated. I’m sort of falling in with the way they think, maybe. So, when’s the drop?”

  “Any minute now.” The liaison studied his own phone. “And … here it comes.”

  A shape slid against the stars. Before Teddy could react, something heavy thudded down onto the gravel fifty yards away. Black wings collapsed above it, fluttering in the wi
nd. Guldulla’s shout sent men running to drag it back into the warren of rocks where the donkeys were hobbled. Others scanned the ridgeline, aiming rifles with, Teddy knew, nearly empty magazines.

  But apparently the drop was undetected. Daylight, though, could change that. So as chute after chute collapsed fluttering, he and the other leaders kept the men humping. They hauled the crates to where drivers lashed them on panniers and chivvied the animals on up the mountain. When the stars had wheeled two hours on, all the parachutes were collected and the packaging was policed up. They left the streambed unmarked.

  * * *

  CUMIN-RICH smells of lamb and rice and naan met them as they pulled off blankets and coats back in the main cave. As the men pried the crates open, Nasrullah inventoried them on a grade-school tablet. Teddy inspected a new-looking AK. “It’s stamped in Chinese,” Vlad said. “But it was made in Charleston. The ammo’s Ukrainian.”

  There were two hundred rifles and over a quarter million rounds of ammunition. Enough for training and a couple of engagements. Teddy was inspecting a case of road mines when Nasrullah came up, carrying an irregular bundle. “Bu oyoq seniki bo’lishi kerak,” he muttered, of which Obie got only about half. Accepting it, he stripped off Bubble Wrap to reveal a complexly curved fabrication. Aluminum? Titanium? Bending, he held it to where the damaged foot dangled. He buckled the straps and stood, testing it. The brace took his weight, and, miraculously, without pain.

  “Nice,” he muttered. “But I don’t see any Stingers. Nothing to bat down drones. Or any night vision. Did I miss those?”

  “Got to earn the advanced technology, Teddy. Hit that pipeline. Show us results, the good stuff arrives. And we do have good stuff on tap.”

  Dandan nudged his elbow with a mug of hot tea. He patted her behind through the black cloth, and watched with interest as she shuffled off. Then re-collected himself and walked slowly, not limping for the first time in months, toward several ragged young men who squatted at the back of the cave.

  New fish. They regarded him with something between apprehension and awe as he forced a smile. “Isyon xush kelibsiz.” He hoped that was passable, and repeated the words in Han and Russian. “Huanyíng lái dào pànluàn … Dobro pozhalovat’ v vosstanii.” Welcome to the rebels, welcome to the resistance. “Hal yujad huna ahd yatakallam alerby?” Anyone here speak Arabic?

  No takers, which was good. The guys who came in from the cold tended to be uneducated: shepherds, peasants, truck drivers. He could work with that. He shook hands with each, and led them past the guys unpacking the crates, noting how their gazes homed in on the weapons. Back to rows of carpets, steaming pots of tea, and covered dishes the slave women were carrying in.

  The food was hot, the air warm, and a song was wailing and jangling on a player, heavy on the drums and guitar, when one of the original muj lowered himself beside him. A chunky fellow with a reddish beard. Alimyan. Teddy nodded companionably. Alimyan helped himself to tea. Then asided quietly, “He is truly CIA?”

  “As best as I can tell.”

  “You will use us as food for cannons. We cannot trust CIA. Or America.”

  Cannon fodder, he must mean. Teddy debated how to answer, since he’d just accused Langley of the same thing. Vladimir was eyeing them from across the feast. One of the new recruits was holding the officer’s hand.… “Uh, not sure what you mean. Food for…?”

  “America will supply guns as long as we fight Chinese. But you will abandon us after the war. Bomb us, as you did the Taliban after the Communists withdrew.”

  Teddy shifted, like a man on the hot seat. From his other side, Akhmad was listening too, blinking watery old eyes. The imam’s cataracts didn’t seem to keep him from reading the Koran, or maybe he’d memorized it by now. Turning back to Alimyan, Obie murmured, “There are other versions of this history. We are allies now. America will stand by you to the end.”

  “The end of what? Of the Uighurs, at the hands of the Han? No, too many abandonments.” The fat muj raised his voice, glaring across at the contact. “I tell you, I do not trust this man. Him, or any other foreign unbeliever.”

  Teddy deliberated. “Foreign unbeliever” had to mean him, too. The voices around them were falling silent. Others had heard the challenge. He had to meet it.

  As to how … these guys operated on two things: religion and honor. He didn’t share their religion, but maybe they had the other in common. “Then I will swear you a solemn oath.” He raised his voice too, so all could hear. “I will stand by you to the end, no matter what that end may be. I, the Lingxiù, will not abandon you. ’Uqsim fi sabil allah: In the name of Allah.”

  Alimyan still looked skeptical, but the old imam laid his withered hand on Teddy’s arm. He blinked rapidly. Then intoned, “We will walk this road together. As you said: In the name of Allah.”

  Oberg blinked too, covering a sudden rush of unexpected emotion with a reach for a handful of lamb. What the fuck? Had he meant that, what he’d just promised?

  Even he wasn’t really sure.

  * * *

  THAT night, after the fires were banked and he’d seen Vlad to another chamber, stationing an armed guard outside to protect him, he attended prayers with the others in the main cavern. Sitting and kneeling in unison, turning his head to left and right to greet his co-worshippers, he felt a sudden qualm. Maybe the doubting Thomas, Alimyan, was right. Maybe he was leading them all to the slaughter.

  Fuck that, Obie. They’re all volunteers. All grown-ups.

  Except maybe the fifteen-year-old beside him. Who looked actually more like thirteen.

  They’re still volunteers.

  Volunteers who think you’re leading them to paradise?

  Who think I’ll lead them against the Chinese.

  Who’ll mow them down.

  Not if we do our planning, Tok and I. Plan hard, hit hard, then disappear. Billet most of the rebels with their families, in towns and villages, or their home farms. As far as Internal Security knows, they’re civilians.

  The old imam intoned the rak‘as as they faced Mecca, and Teddy murmured and prostrated himself along with the rest. The old guy’s Arabic was terrible. As the prayer ended and the men held up their hands and muttered their dhikr, he made a mental note to ask Vlad to send him a Koran with a pronunciation guide.

  * * *

  DANDAN was waiting in his own cave-nook, which had an entrance so low he had to stoop double to crawl in. But that let him block it with a crate, and he laid his rifle, fully loaded and with the safety off, beside his pallet.

  The Han girl looked frightened. “Ba ni de yifú tuole,” he told her, and pulled up the black caftan. She was naked underneath, naked and scrawny and with blue bruises on her throat. Her suddenly revealed face was ashen, and she shrank away, covering herself with her hands.

  At his peremptory gesture she lay back on the pallet and hastily spread her legs. Holding her by the throat, half choking her, he pulled down his pants and rammed up into her bony hips with hard, rapid strokes. Face turned away, eyes squeezed shut, she shuddered. A tear winked in the candlelight when he rolled off, breathing hard.

  Hey, Teddy Oberg thought, lying on his back, watching the firelight flicker on the overhead. This might not be too bad of a way to live. Training, and leading men into battle, and in the evening feasting and screwing slave girls …

  There might be something to this.

  3

  Cast Away

  THAT day dawned like all the others since the crash. Cloudless, and it would soon be hot. The surf was booming out on the reef, a deep growling like faraway drums. A reverberation so endless, beneath the sigh of the wind in the palms and the cries of gulls, that he never noticed it unless he consciously listened.

  And someone was screaming, not far away.

  Daniel V. Lenson rubbed grit from swollen eyes. Scratching at sand flea bites, he lay staring out at the sea from a pile of plastic bottles, discarded fishing floats, driftwood, and thin plastic bags wadded up and ham
mered into makeshift bricks. The shelter he lay in was floored with pandanus leaves. The roof was more leaves, high enough so he could crawl under, but not sit up. It was warmer at night that way.

  The horizon was empty. Vacant. Untenanted. As it had been since they’d landed here, though occasionally high contrails scratched the blue.

  The island—they didn’t know its name, if it even had one—was less than half a mile long and not quite ten feet above sea level at its highest point, except perhaps for some craggy exposed rocks at one spot along the shore. Rugged and black, they were obviously part of whatever ancient volcano had vomited up the island before eroding into what was left. The place was uninhabited, though a rotten, abandoned lean-to on the eastern spit testified that someone, probably fishermen, had camped there long ago.

  Their helicopter had been shot down after the strike on the mainland. Lenson, in charge of the surface strike group, had been en route from the stricken and burning Savo Island to her sister cruiser, Hampton Roads. Wilker said the missile had come out of the blue. Best guess, one of the German-licensed antihelo weapons the Allies had discovered Chinese submarines carried.

  Only three men had made it out of the inverted, sinking airframe after the crash: Dan; Min Su Hwang, the South Korean liaison officer; and “Strafer” Wilker, the pilot. Dan had tried to pull the wounded out. He’d been taking them to Hampton Roads as well. But he’d failed, foiled by their entanglement in their litters and their inability to help free themselves. Grabbing a bailout bottle as the water submerged their screaming mouths, he’d swum forward to cut the pilot out of the smashed-in cockpit. But all the others—the crew chief, the co-pilot, and the wounded—had died, spiraling down into the blue-black abyss.

  Leaving the three of them, all stove up to some degree, on a bright yellow life raft meant for two. They’d drifted for days, running out of food first, then water. Fumbling desperately with the patch kit as taut rubber wrinkled toward uselessness. Bobbing oh so gently on the blue, eyeing circling fins. And the gulls too had circled, lower and lower.…