Dragon Strike -- A Novel of the Coming War with China (Future History Book 1)
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`China will never again be humiliated into slavery,' said Song after a pause. `We are a very old civilization. You may bomb our whole country, but we will recover, even if it takes a thousand years. Yet if we turn just one suburb of one city into what you call radioactive rubble, what will happen to America?'
`We can handle it.'
`Can you? Look at the television. Look how America panics as soon as its own country is threatened like ours has been so many times.'
Overhalt didn't answer.
`Why don't you compare us to an African-American gang in Los Angeles?' said Song. `They're tearing around in their trucks shooting everything and getting shot back. Kids aged eleven, twelve, thirteen are being torn apart by automatic weapons. But they're still doing it. They expect to die. It's part of the gang life. If American citizens go out and destroy themselves, why is it so impossible for you to comprehend that China won't?'
`This whole conversation is putting a bitter taste in my mouth, Jamie,' said Overhalt. `We've put a lot of time, money, and loyalty into your country, believing that you really did want to modernize and reform. But I'll tell you this, and make no mistake, America and Boeing would survive. India is already giving you guys a run for your money; Latin America is growing rapidly. Russia and Eastern Europe are queuing up for our technology and building skills. The days are gone when developing countries cry victim and get away with it. There are big markets out there that are much easier to get into than here. There are democratic leaders who have real plans to let their countries develop. China isn't special any more, and if you don't have us you won't have the European Union either. If Boeing goes, Airbus goes. You throw out Ford and Chrysler, Citroe¨n and Mercedes pack their bags as well. You ban AT&T and Motorola, you won't get Nokia and Siemens. We'll all cut our losses and go. The people you are threatening with nuclear attack are the best builders of infrastructure in the world.'
At this stage, Jamie Song stood up and walked to the window. `I've been authorized to tell you that our Xia nuclear missile submarine is in the Pacific with the new JL2 intercontinental ballistic missile. From where it is now, it can hit Washington.'
`We sank it,' snapped Overhalt. `You sank the older Xia carrying the JL1. The commander of the Xia 407 is awaiting orders to launch. I have to return to Zhongnanhai and report our meeting. Why don't you talk to President Bradlay on the secure line from the Embassy, and we can meet back here in say two hours? You can tell Bradlay we won't launch until after our next meeting. You have my word on that.'
The two men travelled down together in the lift. It was approaching midnight. As they stood on the hotel forecourt the activity of night-time Beijing glittered in front of them as if nothing was untoward at all. Limousines drew up. They heard the horns of traffic along the Avenue of Eternal Peace. The smoke from fires warming the homeless under the flyovers was lit up by the street lights. Overhalt realized with irony that the band was singing a very bad version of `Rocket Man', by Elton John. `See, Reece,' said Jamie Song. `While America burns, China is tranquil. We are in control of our people and our culture. Why don't you ask Bradlay whether he is in control of the American dream?'
The White House, Washington, DC
Local time: 1200 Thursday 22 February 2001
GMT: 1700 Thursday 22 February 2001
After speaking directly to Reece Overhalt from the Embassy, President Bradlay ordered a unilateral ceasefire among Allied forces in the South China Sea. All aircraft except surveillance aircraft were to be grounded. There would be no firing of weapons unless fired upon. National Security Adviser Martin Weinstein said that the Chinese might well be bluffing, but it was a risk America could not afford to take: `Gentlemen, we must assume we are two hours away from a nuclear strike,' he said.
For some minutes there was confusion over the number of Chinese submarines deployed in the Pacific. Military intelligence had a near certain identification of a Kilo class attack submarine off the Californian coast near Crescent City. Its present position was unknown, although there was a good chance that either the USS Asheville or the USS Jefferson City would be tracking it within the next few hours. At the time it was sighted, Jamie Song was with Reece Overhalt in the China World Hotel. It was probable that Song was unaware of its detection. He had declared a totally different type of submarine, the strategic missile Xia class, as still being several thousand kilometres out in the Pacific.
`Let us get all this absolutely clear,' said the President. `We are threatened by two submarines. The Chinese have declared one. We know about the other. Right now, either of them could launch an attack on the American people. Are there any more submarines?'
`We don't think so, sir. But we don't know.'
`They could take out an American city and there's not a damn thing we can do about it.'
`We could pick a missile up on launch, but that would be only minutes before it hit the target,' said Arnold Kuhnert. `The chances of us stopping it are not good.'
`And to stop it happening we have to surrender our right to the South China Sea.'
`That's about it, sir.'
`Or we could wipe out China, and lose Washington and a few other cities. How many dead -- one or two million, maybe? The question in front of us, gentlemen, is whether it is worth sacrificing those lives in order to retain our leadership in global affairs.'
Beijing University
Local time: 0100 Friday 23 February 2001
GMT: 1700 Thursday 22 February 2001
Throughout the previous evening events were being chronicled by students linked into the Internet. While the official state-run media continued to lambast American and Japanese aggression, there was no mention of the imminent nuclear threat. Since the beginning of Dragonstrike students had been holding informal salons to discuss the implications. The highly secret group of twelve young men and women of the New Communist Movement were now deciding at what stage the crisis should be exploited to force a change of government. A short-wave radio, tuned to the BBC World Service, was perched on a window sill with an aerial hanging outside because of the bad reception. The leader of the group, a twenty-one-year-old economics student, believed the movement had two duties. Reeling off a list of names including Mao Zedong, Mahatma Gandhi, and Nelson Mandela, he argued that to win victory for China they must be prepared to sacrifice their freedom and possibly their lives. But in reality the time was not right for demonstration. With the United States about to launch a nuclear attack it was the duty of the New Communists to give warnings to people to protect themselves. Over the past hours messages had gone out over the Internet to the movement's cells in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Taipei, Lanzhou, and other major cities. Secret radio stations in Hong Kong and Taiwan were ready to begin broadcasts. There was another in Lhasa and the cell in Shanghai said it too was setting up transmission equipment. Every cell had made posters advising nuclear survivors what action to take. The students had downloaded whole nuclear Web pages from the Internet and photocopied them. The leader of the Beijing cell said that in half an hour New Communists all over China would begin their announcements. Cars were waiting outside the university campus and the posters would be distributed around tenement blocks. After that, people would be warned through loud hailers. The leader made it clear that this was not a political action of any sort. The purpose was to save lives. Therefore, no posters would be put up in and around Tiananmen Square and other sensitive areas, nor would there be any announcements there.
As the meeting broke up, the Public Security Bureau moved into their dormitory, arrested the students, and confiscated the radio and computer equipment. The leader wriggled free and ran down the corridor attempting to escape. He was shot dead, in the back. PSB officials closed in on three cars parked on opposite sides of the streets 300 metres away from the university main gate. Two drivers were picked up. The third drove off at speed, but was met at the first junction by a hail of automatic weapons fire. The Volkswagen Santana turned over and smashed into a lamp-post. The driver di
ed. The few witnesses who saw the killing were taken into custody. It became clear that China's massive security apparatus had been monitoring the activities of the New Communists for months and as the students were about to show their hand, they chose now to close in. At least eighteen others were shot dead, one in Xiamen, two in Wuhan, three in Lanzhou, one in Guangdong, three in Chengdu, five in Lhasa, and three in Shanghai, where police opened fire as soon as they burst into the room where radio transmissions were being made. The machine-gun fire was heard by the few listeners before the signal ended. The New Communist radio station in Hong Kong was on the air for twelve minutes before police found it. Signals from Taipei were jammed.
California Coast, Pacific Ocean
Local time: 0930 Thursday 22 February 2001
GMT: 1730 Thursday 22 February 2001
The commander of the attack submarine USS Asheville reported that he had a near certain acoustic identification of the Chinese Kilo class 10 kilometres south of where it was first sighted. His orders were to keep with the vessel, but not to destroy it yet because there was a temporary ceasefire. Trailing a VLF wire, he placed his submarine behind the Chinese and waited. The sea microphones were now picking up the same signature. An AWACS surveillance aircraft was dedicated to tracking it. Satellite photographs came back of the trail it was leaving. The commander of the USS Asheville waited. His sonar operators, picking up the mechanical sounds emitted by the Chinese submarine, reported that the launch procedures for the cruise missiles on board had not yet begun. They had not yet detected the torpedo tube doors being opened in preparation for firing.
Briefing
How America planned to survive a nuclear strike
While efforts to shield the civilian population had ended decades before, plans to rescue the nation's leaders, its heirlooms, and national documents remained in place, and key government personnel, together with the President and Congress, had nuclear shelters to go to. Time magazine, in a special four-sheet edition, claimed that the government was resurrecting a plan first drawn up in the 1950s to take the President out of danger of a nuclear blast. In Outpost Mission, as it was called, a helicopter was on standby. The pilots carried dark visors to shield their eyes from the atomic flash and wore 9 kilograms of protective clothing to block out radiation. It was supplied with decontamination kits and radiation suits for the President and the First Family, and even carried equipment to dig White House staff out of the rubble, if the bomb hit first. It would fly to the heavily reinforced communications ship the USS Northampton, off the Atlantic Coast, or to one of several hollowed-out mountain sites, although Time, which had written extensively about nuclear protection in the 1990s, speculated that the only facility still operational was Mount Weather, a bunker 80 kilometres from the capital.
Time was accurate. The underground shelter hewn out of Mount Weather was a forty-three-year-old complex. Officially it had never existed and was referred to only as the Special Facility, operated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The complex was tucked into a heavily wooded mountain ridge, and surrounded by a 3 metre high chain-link fence with six strands of barbed wire on top. Inside there were manicured lawns and buildings with antennas and microwave relay systems. The hard rock face was reinforced with 2.5 to 3 metre iron bolts. Underneath there was a giant disaster co-ordination complex, covering 18,500 square metres, with a blast-proof steel door at the tunnel entrance. Offices were reinforced with steel and concrete. Drinking water was kept in an underground pond. There was a massive computer network and a television and radio studio from which to address the nation, together with a hospital, a cafeteria supplied with enough food for several weeks, a power plant, and dormitories. The most senior administration officials carried special cards, ranking them in order of importance for evacuation. They included Cabinet Secretaries and the heads or seconds-in-command of government departments and agencies. Private quarters were set aside for the President, Cabinet Secretaries, and Supreme Court Justices. Officials would be checked for radiation and those exposed would be decontaminated with showers and medicated soap. Their clothes would be burnt. They would be issued with military overalls. Electric golf carts would ferry the injured to hospital.
At the same time, Congress could seek refuge at the West Virginian resort of Greenbriar in White Sulphur Springs. The bunker was codenamed Project Greek Island, built under the hotel complex and equipped like Mount Weather, but with less luxury, to enable Congress to function for sixty days after a nuclear attack. The aim was to ensure that democracy did not collapse and give way to a military dictatorship. There were 1,000 bunk beds in eighteen dormitories, with communal toilets and all the character of a penal institution.
`What they envisioned during the Cold War, and are probably envisioning today,' wrote Time, `is an America darkened not only by nuclear war but also by the imposition of martial law, food rationing, censorship, and the suspension of many civil liberties. It would be the end of society as we know it.'
While the government continued its no comment policy, previous plans on how American would salvage its heritage from nuclear holocaust were discussed. The original documents of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights were to be flown from the National Archives, seven blocks from the White House, to Mount Weather. If there was time other documents such as a Gutenberg Bible, the Gettysburg Address, and the papers of James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and George Mason would be taken there by truck. The National Gallery chose the works to save not by painting but by the size of the canvas. They included Leonardo da Vinci's Ginevra de' Benci, Raphael's Alba Madonna, and Rogier van der Weyden's St George and the Dragon, which was just the size of a post card. They were packed in lightweight metal containers where the humidity in the air was stabilized by bags of chemicals.
The Federal Reserve Board would make its own arrangements. It maintained a 13,000 square metre bunker with enough cash inside to bankroll a nuclear-blasted America. Wads of bills were stacked in polythene packets against a wall on wooden pallets which would be moved out by a fork-lift truck. Standard Oil's senior management was withdrawing to an emergency operating centre 100 metres underground, near Hudson, New York. Their job was to ensure a continuation of energy supplies. The Department of Agriculture had published a food-rationing programme, allowing survivors between 2,000 and 2,500 calories a day, including seven pints of milk and six eggs a week.
Government officials spoke the single code word FLASH to notify others that the operation had begun.
Washington, DC
Local time: 1300 Thursday 22 February 2001
GMT: 1800 Thursday 22 February 2001
National Guard units had been called out in all American cities. The President had declared a national emergency. Some of the worst rioting was now breaking out in Washington itself as rumours spread after the television networks began to speculate whether the President, his Cabinet, and senior officials would be airlifted to the Mount Weather bunker. `We never discuss security arrangements for the President,' said a White House spokesman. The Marine Corps threw up a cordon around Capitol Hill and the White House. Like the enemy in Zhongnanhai, American leaders were travelling back and forth through a warren of underground tunnels and railways, too afraid to show their faces to their constituents. Members of Congress were reportedly preparing to go to the Greenbriar shelter, 400 kilometres away, built under a luxury hotel complex. `We can neither confirm nor deny whether this facility is still in use,' said a spokesman. One Marine was shot dead in the neck by a sniper in the crowd. A rocket-propelled grenade was fired over the head of the Marines into a window of a Congress building. Helicopters dispersed the crowd with tear gas. Troops moved in with water cannon and rubber bullets.
The spectre of a nuclear holocaust could not be kept from the public, fear of an imminent nuclear strike had swept through the United States, and ignorance about what to do was shared between officials and members of the public. All had families to protect, children to be acco
unted for, supplies to be bought. The National Guard, army, and Marines had taken over most city centres. Looting gangs controlled many other parts. Many people saw the countryside as a safer place to be and headed out in their cars: the roads became clogged and fights broke out. The public transport systems halted. Airlines abandoned their schedules and flew their aircraft south to Latin America or north to Canada. Newspapers put out extra editions with instructions on how to handle a nuclear holocaust. Television news stations, which were now devoting all their programming to the Dragonstrike crisis, speculated on the Chinese nuclear threat while their commercial breaks concentrated on packed foods and survival kits. A New York Times opinion poll found that 64 per cent of Americans believed the government did have defences against missile strikes. The Washington Post estimated that two million Americans could die and two hundred thousand could be injured from just two Chinese missiles. It drew comparisons with data compiled during the Soviet threat, when twenty million people would have been killed and five million injured. Each 550 kiloton bomb would destroy all people and buildings within a 5.6 kilometre radius. Fires would damage areas almost twice that size, where about half the population would be killed and half would be injured.
The CNN Beijing bureau, quoting Foreign Ministry sources, was the first to report that a Chinese Xia class submarine had been declared in the Pacific. The announcement interrupted a discussion about Mount Weather to point out that the helicopter flight time from Washington to the shelter was about twenty minutes. The submarine's missiles could strike ten to fifteen minutes after launch.