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

by David Poyer

  “Abu-Hamid al-Nashiri’s been a guest of the U.S. government for a while,” Vlad explained breezily. “In a warmer location. Now he wants to fight on our side.”

  Teddy gimlet-eyed the guy. “A warm location. Where?”

  “Guantánamo,” the CIA man said reluctantly. “But he’s tame now. Wants to cooperate. Higher thought you could use him.”

  Teddy gripped his rifle, hardly believing what he was hearing. “You brought al-Qaeda? From Gitmo?”

  “Well, he was once. But like I said—”

  “I have reformed my allegiance,” the man said, in English. He met Teddy’s gaze. “I wish only to fight our common enemy.”

  Teddy bit down on a curse. This dude was going to be trouble. But instead of protesting more just then, he introduced Guldulla, and sent a boy to find Akhmad. Any question of linking up with the Hunza had to be blessed by the old imam. He shouted for Dandan, and ordered food and tea. Pancho asked for his rifle back. “Later,” Teddy told him in Uighur. “You are our guest now.” Then led them inside.

  * * *

  TEDDY attended prayers, during which Vlad stood by the cave entrance, observing. The guy from Gitmo joined the other worshippers, quietly sliding into the back row.

  Now they were alone at last, Teddy and the CIA officer, in his sleeping cell. Dandan had brought in tea and rice, then bowed and retreated, backing out.

  “I see you aren’t happy about al-Nashiri.” Vlad removed his sunglasses and started picking at his food. “Or with me bringing in the Hunza. But you’re not the only team on the field. We support Tibetan resistance. Pakistani, like Leonardo’s guys. A group in Hong Kong. Manchurians. Mongolians. Yunnanese, in the south. Sunnis in Iran. The more angst we stir up, the better.”

  “Zhang’s got a shitload of troops,” Teddy said.

  “A lot, but not an infinite number. And insurrections soak up security forces like you wouldn’t believe. Five to one, troops to rebels. If we can coordinate, things might really break loose.” The liaison seemed to recall something, and reached into his vest. “Oh, and this might brighten your day.”

  He unsnapped a case, and Teddy stared at unfamiliar bars of blue, white, and red on a scrap of ribbon. A bronze medal, a five-pointed star, an eagle’s head. FOR VALOR, the engraving read.

  “Fuck’s this?” he muttered, frowning.

  “This is the Intelligence Star, Ted.” He pinned it on Teddy’s shalwar kameez. “At the direction of the director, Central Intelligence. For extraordinary heroism under conditions of grave risk. I also have something for your assistants.” He laid smaller cases on the worn carpet. “If you think it’s advisable.”

  Teddy sipped tea. “I’d like to hold off on that. They’re starting to accept me. Why remind them I’m not really one of them? Also, take this ‘Qurban’ dude back with you. Al-Qaeda, seriously? Find that fucker a billet shoveling shit in Ceylon. No, better yet, a bullet in the back of the head.”

  “Can’t, unfortunately,” Vladimir said. “Nobody else would take him. But the guy’s got an interesting history. At one time, he was the highest-ranking ALQ in custody. Veteran of Afghanistan. Bosnia. The Yemenis had him, and reported him dead in his cell. But somehow he turned up again in Mosul. That’s where we picked him up. He could be useful. Bin Laden used to have a pretty good network here, all the way into Afghanistan. Gray Wolf can organize the villages for you.”

  “What’s that mean, ‘organize the villages’? I don’t want to reactivate fucking al-Qaeda.”

  “You’re not. He promised.”

  “Ha-ha. With what? A pinkie swear?”

  “All he’s gonna do is lend you credibility, and get you a lot of popular participation.”

  Obie muttered, “Until after the war.”

  “Let’s worry about that bridge later, Ted. Right now our priority’s gotta be to win this thing somehow.” Vladimir stirred his rice. “You do know Zhang nuked Hawaii?”

  “No. I didn’t.” Teddy banged the teacup down. “Nuked it … holy Christ. Where’d we hit back?”

  The agent looked away. “We haven’t. Not yet.”

  “What the…! First the Roosevelt, then Pearl? And we do jack shit? What the fuck’s going on?”

  “We’re losing the cyberwar, too. Unless we can pull something out of our ass, worst case, we could get disarmed and occupied. It’s that serious.” Vladimir let that hang a moment, then pulled the duffel toward them. “But there may be a way to turn it around. How many effectives you got now?”

  Teddy tried to refocus. But a nuclear strike on Hawaii was a shocker.… “Uh, we’re back up to about four hundred, all told.”

  “I don’t see that many.”

  “Most of them aren’t here. We whistle, they muster. Hit a patrol. Blow a power line. Take over a police station, kill the cops, steal everything that’s not nailed down. Then turn back into peasants and shopkeepers. Fish in the sea.”

  “Huh. I’ll take your word for it.” The field operative opened the duffel and took out several small boxes. “These are the crown jewels, so guard them. The first one, this is Swiss technology. An early-warning system. It picks up the video signals the drones emit. Mount them on your mountain peaks.

  “This second system.” Vladimir extracted several long rods, a triangular antenna, and what looked like the buttstock to a FAL rifle. Teddy raised his eyebrows as the operative assembled it into what was obviously a weapon, but like nothing he’d ever seen. “I know, Star Wars, right? This is a beam gun. It’s for if you have to go where the drones live, or one makes it past the stakeout. You can disable a flyer two ways. Either cut the connection between the pilot and the UAV, or else, if the thing’s autonomous, jam its altitude radar and navigation. It either crashes, or just wanders away.”

  The field officer shouldered it and pressed a button. A hornet whine permeated the cave. “Powers up in half a second. Reflex sight, you’re familiar with those. It detects, decodes, and puts out a coned twenty-degree beam. Jams the target’s control frequencies.”

  Teddy accepted it. Hefted it. “What’s my range? And how about power?”

  “Range depends on the make of the drone, but at least a thousand feet. For power, rechargeable lithium batteries. They’re compatible with the solar panels you got on the second drop.” The officer sat back. “I brought night vision, too. Plus more of the usual: ammo, boots, antibiotics, Serb-surplus body armor.”

  “That’ll help,” Teddy murmured, still not happy about the new join, but figuring he could take care of him somehow. Maybe send him down a ravine with Guldulla.

  Vladimir sighed and stood. “Good. Hey, love to stay, but like I said, we need to turn this around fast. Give me ten guys and twenty donkeys. We need to head down to the trucks tonight.”

  “Tonight’s gonna be difficult,” Teddy told him. “This is Lailat al Miraj, you know? They’re gonna be up all night praying.”

  “Shit … You can’t break me out ten guys?”

  “I’ll see what Akhmad says,” Teddy told him reluctantly. He yelled for Dandan as Vladimir broke down the beam gun.

  * * *

  THE cave was bright with hundreds of candles, glowing from the scarred mouths and empty eye sockets of the broken Buddhas. In wall niches, and scattered across the floors. Gas lanterns hissed. A black blanket was drawn across the entrance, with a guard outside to check for light leaks.

  Within, the assembled rebels sat cross-legged in rows as the old imam intoned, in his weirdly accented Arabic, the story of Muhammad’s night journey. The women were gathered separately in a side cave. Teddy sat at the back, cross-legged like the rest, though his mangled foot throbbed, listening to the story. Which by now he could sort of follow, more or less.

  The Prophet’s ascent started in Mecca, when he was halfway between sleep and wakefulness. After the archangel Gibreel greeted him, he mounted Al-Buraq, a magical flying horse, which took him to the farthest mosque in the world. Then God raised him up through the seven heavens, until he reached Allah himself.
There he was told the Faithful must pray fifty times a day. But on Moses’ suggestion, Muhammad asked for a break, and got the obligation down to five.

  Teddy caught himself nodding off, and straightened. Halfway between sleep and wakefulness … that was how his own night journey had started. On the mountain, freezing, starving, spooned against the other escaped POWs for warmth. There hadn’t been any talking horse, but hadn’t there been something like an ascent … like being washed clean … and finally, a Presence.

  But then it had let him go. And he’d hurtled down, toward the black mountains opening below like gulping mouths. Himself screaming, flailing, wanting to dwell forever in the timelessness he’d known so fleetingly.

  Had that been a visitation of God? Or just the misfiring of a starved, dying brain?

  He had the uncomfortable feeling that he wasn’t ever going to know. Not in this life, anyway.

  Up front, Akhmad was winding up. The old imam began the final prayer when one of the men stood. Bowing to the imam, he asked humbly if he could say a few words.

  Teddy tensed. It was the newbie, the squat bearded man Vlad had called Gray Wolf. Another bow, and he was standing in front of the congregation. Stroking his beard, smiling, he began in Arabic, much purer and clearer than the old imam’s, then switched to Uighur.

  “Praise be to Allah! Most compassionate, most merciful. Who created humanity for his worship and commanded them to be just.

  “But he also permitted one who was wronged to retaliate.

  “My name is Qurban, meaning ‘the Sacrifice.’ For that very many years ago I offered myself as a living offering, to oppose all those who oppress the Faithful. I have fought on many battlefields. Endured long years in prison. I greet you now in the Holy Name and praise you as brave warriors who stand up against the godless empire of the Han.

  “Peace forever be upon he who follows the guidance of Allah! But to him who oppresses the Faithful, it is lawful to lay waste to him and to his lands and families. It is said that the Chinese are powerful. That opposing them and their killing machines of the air is futile. That for a man to defend himself and his people, as you are doing, is terrorism and rebellion.

  “Well, if it is, we must accept whatever follows. Yet I remind you that nothing is impossible for Allah.

  “Please accept me as one of yourselves. Not as a leader, for you have wise leadership in your respected imam Sheykh Akhmad, in brave Guldulla, in canny Nasrullah, and in your war chief, the battle-scarred Lingxiù Oberg al-Amriki. In all humility will I carry a rifle by your side, and stand or fall beside my brothers as Allah wills.”

  Qurban bowed again, even lower, to them all. “That Allah is our guardian and helper, I say again. All peace be upon him who follows His wise guidance. Amin.”

  Leaving Teddy gritting his teeth and scowling as he wended his way, smiling, back to his self-effacing seat in the rearmost row.

  * * *

  THEY stood together at dawn, watching as the last crates were carried up from the valley below.

  “Can’t do it, Ted,” Vladimir said again. “Direct orders. Let him build a mass movement. He’s got the track record.”

  “A record of fighting guys like me.” Oberg growled. “I was starting to get them used to my leadership. Now he’s given me a new name. Al-Amriki—‘the American.’”

  “Which you are—right? He’s onside, Ted. Six years in Gitmo, he’s learned his lesson!” The officer sighed. “Put him in charge of the resistance cadre. Let him grow the insurgency. Meanwhile, you focus on tactical objectives. Take the warm bodies he pulls in and deploy ’em where they’ll do us the most good.”

  Teddy said nothing. The guy was mouthing unconventional-warfare doctrine, without getting the picture on the ground. Obviously he’d have to solve this problem on his own. Okay, he could do that. One way or another.

  “Cool.” The CIA man nodded. “And now you’ve got all the shiny new toys, we have a new tasking for you. Ready to copy?”

  “I’m listening,” Teddy muttered.

  “Raids and ambushes are great. But it’s time to amp up your game. Still got that phone I gave you?” The contact touched his to Teddy’s. “I’m transmitting a task order, a map, and your risk assessment. There’s a facility east of here. In the Taklimakan. We need you to penetrate and destroy it.”

  “Oh yeah? What are we calling this op?”

  “Checkmate.” Vladimir hesitated. “I understand you were part of the first TA-3 mission.”

  Teddy blinked, studying the map on his screen. Vladimir was referring to Echo One’s assault on Woody Island at the start of the war. A raid, as far as most SEALs knew. Only he and the lieutenant had been trusted with the real mission. “Uh-huh,” he said tentatively. “Where exactly is this?”

  “Northern edge of the desert basin. South of the Tien Shan mountains.”

  He nodded, remembering one night during the escape from Camp 576. On the far side of miles of sand hills, a long line of saffron lights had sparkled and wavered. Smaller blue lights had circled beneath the black bowl of a starry sky. The fugitives hadn’t gone any closer, but it had seemed like a hell of a lot of activity for the middle of nowhere. “I might know where you’re talking about,” he said slowly. “It’s a long way east of here.”

  “But you made it. During your escape. We’ll arrange a drop halfway, if you stay in the mountains.”

  “Yeah, we made it, but we lost guys on the way,” Teddy said. “Taking a couple hundred troops through high-relief terrain like that is gonna be rough. We’d need bearers, guides.…”

  Vladimir unbuttoned his jacket and pulled out a heavy-sagging belt. “This should help.”

  Teddy accepted, and almost dropped it. “Christ. What the fuck you got in here, lead?”

  “Close.”

  He peered inside, to see … shining disks of yellow metal.

  “Gold Krugerrands,” Vladimir murmured. “Should help you find bearers.”

  “Okay, good. Sure, that’ll help. But that’s a big fucking installation, judging by the lights we saw. Even if we make it there, how are we going to take out something that size?”

  The CIA man strolled a few yards away. He unzipped, and hosed down the side of a boulder. “You emplaced these units on Woody. So you know what they’re supposed to do.”

  “I know what they told us it was supposed to do. Which—” He’d been about to say Which it didn’t, but remembered in the nick of time how classified that little factoid was. And compartmented meant compartmented. “Uh, yeah. I know.”

  “It’s an electromagnetic-pulse generator. The TA-4’s smaller than what you had to carry before, but Sandia’s doubled the range. Enough to fry any circuitry for a quarter mile. And the facility you’re hitting is mainly computers.”

  “Double the range, that’s eight times the power. In a smaller package? How’d they manage that?”

  Vladimir raised his eyebrows. “Smart guy, eh?”

  “Don’t think SEALs are dumb just because we’re handsome.”

  “Uh-huh. Then you might as well know. It isn’t a conventional explosive.”

  Teddy had unbuttoned and was sprinkling the rock too, but the relevant muscles tightened so suddenly he doused the toes of his boots. He sucked air. “It’s nuclear?”

  “The gloves are coming off, Ted. The Chinese crossed a red line attacking Hawaii.”

  “So we’re taking down this facility. What is it, exactly?”

  “You have no need to know that. If any of your guys get captured, this was a simple raid by a bunch of rebels with Klacks.”

  “My guys know better than to get captured.”

  “This is going to be a hard one, Ted. You’ll lose people just getting there. Maybe a lot more in the assault.”

  He shrugged. “Failing to plan means planning to fail.”

  Pancho and Leonardo sauntered out of the cave and joined them. Teddy nodded to the guard, who handed their rifles back. After handshakes and embraces all around, they and Vladimir se
t off downhill.

  Shading his eyes, Teddy watched them shrink, until they were lost in the wilderness of tumbled rock that spread down the valley for mile on mile, from the Karakoram to the borders of Tajikistan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India. The roof of the world. The perfect base area for a guerrilla war. A hundred thousand ridges and canyons and caves, where a million rebels could hide forever.

  Unlike the desert. Flat. Exposed to the sky. No cover. Waterless.

  You’ll lose people just getting there. Maybe a lot more …

  Operation Checkmate. He was beginning to identify with his rebels … eat with them … even pray with them.

  Now he had to lead them into the Valley of the Shadow. With a price on his head, in case any of them cared more about cash than the Cause. Oh yeah—and with a charismatic ex–bin Ladenist asshole, who was already working to undermine him.

  Guldulla climbed up to stand beside him, hand resting on the butt of his signature automatic pistol. “Lingxiù. What was the spy saying to you?”

  “We have a new mission.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll tell you about it later.”

  “I see. But he is gone now? We can resume training?”

  “He is gone, Tokarev.” Teddy took a deep breath, looking into the rising sun, and let it out. “And as far as training … we’re going to have to add some serious mountaineering.”

  14

  USS Rafael Peralta, DDG-115 The South China Sea

  THE Combat Information Center was darkened, its frigid air underscored with a solid grumble of noise. It leaned as the destroyer sliced through the night sea. Screens glowed with frosty light, as if the world outside could be viewed only through panes of ice.

  Dan hadn’t fully grasped the layout yet. Unlike the cruisers and destroyers he’d served on before, the functions here seemed fragmented. Antisubmarine here. Antiair, there. Antisurface, in yet a different place. Strike, ditto. Antiballistic defense, all the way across the compartment.

  Oh, he understood. They were linked digitally, rather than by proximity. No one had to shout to another console to pass a command. Even a comment into a throat mike was rare. But seated in front of the large-screen displays at the command desk, he missed the sense of stovepiped support backing him up. He couldn’t trade glances with the operator at the SPY-1 console, the way he’d done so often aboard Savo Island.