His notoriety at the Academy helped him, and despite the fact that his grades, while good, were not at the top of the class, he was appointed as the second set brigade commander. Taking his commission, he excelled at The Basic School, then at the Infantry Officers Course. All of this forced him to put up a front, to act like he was confident when he was actually self-conscious about his face almost to the point of not being able to function. He knew that eyes were on him, staring at him. And that made him want to freeze up, to put a hood over his head a la the elephant man.
Being assigned to B 1/7 as a platoon commander, though, had given him at least a degree of confidence. His Marines seemed to like him, even to be proud of the fact that their commander had seen combat. And he loved Thursdays, when, if they were not in the field, their PT was sports. It was like he had his own private football team.
He had made an uneventful pump, doing exercises with the Japanese, Koreans, and Filipinos, but he had never pulled into one of the “good” liberty ports like Pattaya. After getting back to Pendleton, he went to one of the semi-annual tryouts for recon, and not surprisingly, he was selected, not having too much difficulty with the RIP and BRC or dive school after that. This was now his first deployment as a recon platoon commander, assigned to the 15th MEU.
The other four Marines were all with the BLT, with Mac as the battalion sergeant major, Capt Niimoto and Stepchild with Kilo Company, and Ian Harwood as the supply chief. Pete’s presence with the MEU was a coincidence, but he knew that SgtMaj Mac or Capt Niimoto had pulled strings to get the rest of them assigned together. The captain even had his old platoon sergeant, Burke Davidson, the guy who was awarded the Medal of Honor in Somalia for saving his ass, assigned back to him as his company first sergeant.
Slowly, they started talking again, enjoying the camaraderie. New Delhi was not mentioned, but life in general was. Capt Niimoto brought out his tablet to show photos of Amalyn, his new daughter. She was his fourth kid. When Pete was with him in New Delhi, the then Sgt Niimoto was a goof ball, a laughing surfer dude from San Diego. It was odd seeing him now as such a proud family man.
The captain had been good for Pete, though. Shortly after getting underway, the two had a long discussion, catching up on old times. When Pete had asked him about surgeries, the captain had told him he had none after he was stabilized. He didn’t want surgery for purely cosmetic reasons. He called his own disfigurements his “Heidelberg scars.” Pete even thought that the captain might be more proud of this scars than his Navy Cross or Silver Star, if that made sense. At that moment, Pete vowed that he’d have no more surgery on his own face. It was what it was.
Gunny Harwood was getting a few sheets to the wind. If he got too far gone, Pete knew SgtMaj Mac would get him back to the ship. The MEU commanding officer’s prime directive for the three days of liberty was that there were to be no, repeat no liberty incidents. As no one wanted any liberty curtailed, it was “watch out for each other time.”
The waitress brought Pete another bottle of Chang. It was only his second, but as he watched her walk away with a nice wiggle in her butt, he reminded himself of what he wanted to do later, and he didn’t want to be drunk while doing it.
He was wondering how he would make his escape and go to one of the more adult-oriented bars when 1stSgt Davidson walked up. Pete had not talked to him yet, but he recognized the only active duty Marine with the Medal of Honor.
“Skipper,” he said, leaning in to Capt Niimoto. “You need to get back. The SP’s are going to be rounding up everyone for a recall, but you need to get back and meet with the CO ASAP.”
Capt Niimoto looked up with a confused look on his face. “Why, what’s up?”
The 1stSgt looked around the bar, then leaned closer and said so only those at the table could hear, “It looks like the Chinese may have invaded the Spratlys.”
Chapter 3
Beijing, China
General Li Zhiyuan, Deputy Chief of Staff of the People’s Liberation Army, left the tall General Staff Headquarters, his driver wending his way through the bustling traffic. The architect had designed the headquarters to look like it was seemingly balanced on a point, like a reverse pyramid. To General Li, it had always seemed to him that it symbolized the PLA, precariously balancing itself and the needs of the nation against the political types from the Central Military Commission, the party and state officials who controlled China’s vast and powerful armed forces. General Li was a party member, of course. He could not have attained his present rank had he not been. But he always thought the military and the defense of the country should be left to those in the military, not the politicians, especially the politicians who openly embraced western culture and economic growth.
And now, he was the one doing the balancing. He knew the way forward for China, and with a few like-minded individuals and the support of loyal subordinates, and with the push from the still unknown person or persons higher in the power structure of the country, he had taken action, action that would vault China into its proper position as the world’s premier superpower.
He had been pleased though, that in the early morning briefing for General Chen Jun, the PLA chief of staff, no word had yet leaked out of the operation. He knew it would get out soon, but he wanted the operation presented as a fait accompli, not something still in process.
His fingers drummed on his knee as they slowly made their way through the morning commuter traffic to the nondescript white building that was the actual nerve center for the operation. He hated wasting time even when things were routine; with the operation in full swing, it was even worse. If there had been any way to control the operation from the headquarters, he would have done it. But there was no way that could be kept secret, and he could not afford the CMC getting wind of it and closing the operation down before it could succeed.
The driver finally pulled in front of their destination. No one rushed forward to open his door—General Li did not need nor allow for such symbols of subservience. He stepped out of the car and walked into the building. The lone soldier at the simple desk came to attention and saluted before taking a key and opening the door behind him, a door that looked like tens of thousands of other doors into the city, leading into shops, homes, and offices.
General Li had thought to get some counter-terrorism experts to maintain security, but the Intermediate Action Unit personnel were all technically part of the police force, not the Army, and thinking that hiding in plain sight was a better option, he had elected to go with a single PLA soldier manning the entrance.
While the hallway of the building looked like every other building, the room into which he strode would have made the National Space Administration proud. It was bright, almost blindingly white, and spotless. Various computer hubs buzzed with activity with about 30 people engrossed with their stations. It was hard to believe that this was the heart of the action that was thrusting China forward into the future.
The target of his attention was looking over the shoulder of another technician, focused on whatever information was being gathered on that man’s computer. Sung Wenyan was in his mid-30’s and looked like a shopkeeper. At about 180 cm, he probably weighed 80 kg and had a continual smile cemented to his face. That smile might fool others into thinking he was a nice, congenial fellow, but Li knew that it hid a pretty cold and calculating mind. “Wenyan” might mean refined and virtuous, but the man himself was anything but that.
He was brilliant, though, to give credit where credit was due. His problem was in not using his brilliance for the good of the people but rather for his own gain. A master programmer, Wenyan had bedeviled companies and government agencies for several years by hacking into their systems. Initially, he never caused much damage nor received material gain from his escapades, but he left calling cards to announce his success. As time went on and he became bolder, however, he did manage to siphon several million yuan into an off-shore bank account from the Department of Interior’s accounting department. His downfal
l came when he hacked into the PLA’s most secure system, playing a pornographic video of him and a woman on a loop that took the PLA’s best computer minds almost three hours to stop. Both he and the woman had worn hoods, but like many criminals, Wenyan couldn’t keep a secret, and when he bragged to a friend, that friend had turned him in.
Sung Wenyan had been quickly tried and sentenced to a bullet in the back of the head—only, he hadn’t been killed. He had been stashed in Qincheng Prison, where mostly political prisoners were kept.
An anonymous phone call had led General Li to Sung. It was the nature of Chinese politics that such calls were best not ignored, so he had taken a trip to the prison to meet the hacker. It was immediately clear to him that Sung was an asset that was too valuable to waste. He made an offer that Sung could not refuse, and by pulling his own strings, got him transferred into Army custody.
Sung was still a prisoner, albeit a prisoner with authority, one whom General Li kept plied with good-looking and accommodating women (all loyal PLA soldiers, of course) and Jack Daniels, Sung’s beverage of choice. Li didn’t trust Sung, pure and simple. He didn’t mind the womanizing and drinking. While General Li chose not to poison his own body with alcohol, in his opinion, one of a man’s duties in life was to give pleasure to women, to take a woman, any woman, and reduce her to a grateful, if quivering, exhausted state. General Li’s secret hubris was his ability to do this, something that he had undertaken to achieve with as much single-mindedness as he undertook most tasks. So he understood this need, even if the reports he was given by the soldiers assigned to this task were that Wenyan was perhaps more interested in his own gratification than that of the women’s.
That Wenyan had this weakness was perhaps not surprising. As one of the 40 million or so “bare branches,” men who had little hope of finding a wife due to the long years of illegal abortions of female fetuses, he was just one man who contributed to the growing social ills of the country. He may not have the courage to have joined one of the New Nien gangs, those groups of desperate young men who controlled prostitution, smuggling of sex slaves from neighboring countries, drugs, kidnapping, rape, and all sorts of other crimes. But he took out his frustration in his own way, trying to obtain wealth and women, and with his weaknesses, the general could control him.
General Li had a disdain for the bare branches and what they were doing to the nation. Just as the original Nien gangs had contributed to the fall of the Qing Dynasty, so the New Nien were tearing down China. It was not lost on him, though, that what he was doing could be a relief valve, not only providing China with much needed resources, but starting the country down a path that could lead to new territory, territory that needed young Chinese men to administer.
Despite his disdain for the New Nien and other bare branches, he was more than willing to use any of them to further the nation’s causes. It wasn’t that he trusted any of them. What specifically rendered Wenyan as someone who could not be trusted was that he used his gifts for his own ends, either for money or fame. He did not use them to better the Chinese people. For that, General Li could not forgive him nor trust him. Use him, however, that he could do.
And General Li Zhiyuan, Deputy Chief of Staff of the PLA, was perhaps in a better position to use Wenyan than most anyone else. Because of his position, Li was one of the few people in the country to know one closely held state secret: China had back doors into most of the world’s satellites, communications systems, and even military software.
Over the years China had been taking over more and more manufacturing from other countries, and this included in electronics. Part of this was because of price and quality, part of it was because China had long ago taken over the production of rare earths from the USA, those critical elements needed for most high tech applications.
Chinese wizards had developed components that would pass the most rigorous inspections. They would function as designed by the customers, but when subjected to a very tight and specific frequency, the housings of the components would act as simple on-off switches, allowing Chinese programming to enter and hijack various functions.
This was a huge leap from August 30, 2007 when the Chinese had caused a B-52 at Minot Air Force Base to be loaded with six nuclear cruise missiles and take off. It took three hours for the Americans to realize what had happened and divert the plane to land at Barksdale AFB in Louisiana. This in itself was a significant step forward from earlier in the year when Chinese hackers caused Vice President Cheney’s 757 to land at Singapore.
It took both hackers and American corporations sub-contracting out vital components to Chinese companies for them to be able to do this. After these two incidents, some politicians in the US, Japan, the EU, and other countries objected to vital parts in communications, military equipment, and defense-related satellites being “Wal-Marted,” as the term became known, but the bottom line ruled the roost, especially as any part could be supposedly tested. And if Chinese-made components were not ordered, then they could be slipped in and substituted through bribery, or on one case, by a brilliant act of subterfuge, something right out of a Hollywood movie.
With this ability to open up windows into satellites and communications hubs, someone like Sung Wenyan could essentially take control over them. And this was the final piece of the puzzle. For years, General Li had chaffed at the handcuffs placed on his country when dealing with the rest of the world. The bowed and scraped to the African savages in order to get their raw materials. They paid exorbitant prices from Australia, the US, and Russia for more raw materials. They had the power to take what they wanted, but the politicians would rather play diplomatic games.
But someone, someone probably as high as a member of the Central Committee, had given him the information about Sung Wenyan. Someone had sent him a link to a study that had advocated China’s taking control of the Wanli Shitang, what the rest of the world called The Spratlys. That someone or someones had to be like-minded with him. Someone wanted him to take action.
He had taken the hint. For him, the new China would start with the Wanli Shitang. Chinese had been in these islands for over 2,500 years, and it wasn’t right that a collection of small, weak countries could keep China from the much needed gas and oil reserves, much less the rich fishing grounds that could help feed China’s billion-and-a-half people.
Last night, it had started. Thitu Island had fallen quickly, the special forces unit from The Sword of Southern China getting on the island on a Taiwan-flagged fishing boat. There were no friendly casualties and only a handful of Filipino soldiers killed before the rest, as well as the civilians, were captured.
Things had not gone so well on Taiping, where the Taiwan Marines had not been taken by surprise. Even though the electronic measures had functioned as planned, Marines with rifles, 120mm mortars, and 40mm autocannons did not need advanced electronics. The larger Sword of Southern China special forces team assigned to take the island had been wiped out before they could even land.
Taiping was still cut off from all means of communications, but now, General Li had to give the order to divert the Changbai Shan and the Jinggan Shan, two of the PLA Navy’s Type 071 Amphibious Transport Docks, along with their embarked 1,800 Marines, to the stubborn island.
The longer this took, the more likely it was that word would get out. General Li needed the Wanli Shitang completely in Chinese hands before the world realized what had happened. The Central Committee couldn’t back down then.
“So, Mr. Sung, what’s your report?” he simply asked the hacker.
Sung Wenyan turned around, then nodded his head respectfully, something the general knew was an act.
“General Li, by all accounts, we are still cloaked in secrecy. The enemy satellites are all showing what we want them to show, and there has been no alarm from anywhere.”
“Sir, what about the outgoing burst from Taiping?” asked the computer operator at whose station they stood.
“What was that?” demanded the general.
>
“Ah, nothing to be concerned about, sir,” put in Sung hurriedly. “There might have been a short burst of static from Taiping before we gained control of the communications nexus. But there has been no response from the Taiwan renegades, so there is no reason to be concerned.”
General Li looked into Sung Wenyan’s eyes. There was something more going on there, he thought. But what was done was done.
“What about Thitu Island? What are the reports?”
“Sir, the glorious soldiers of the Sword of Southern China bask in their accomplishments in taking back our land from the Filipinos. However, the water and electricity have been sabotaged, and well, the exalted soldiers need engineers to fix those. Communications are well and truly down there, so we have to rely on the special forces team’s internal communications.”
With all the “gloriouses” and “exalteds,” Sung was spouting perfect revolutionary rhetoric, but Li was not fooled. The man had a pretty high opinion of himself, and the remark about the soldiers not being able to fix the water production was a jab at what he thought of their mental capabilities.
He wished for the hundredth time that this command center was back at headquarters, or that he could even use his cell phone to get updates. He had to get back for another inane meeting on procurement when all he wanted to do was to sit there, leading the operation. He had good men out at sea and in the attack, but here, at the heartbeat, he had a criminal in charge. That didn’t sit well with him. Perhaps he should have brought in someone else, like Col Lian, maybe, to camp out in the control center until they could bring everything out into the open.
“Mr. Sung, I have to be back at headquarters. I will return in two hours. If anything happens that needs my attention, have someone go across the street and give me a missed call, and I will get back here immediately,” he instructed the hacker.
Just a little bit longer, he thought to himself as he left the building. Then I can stop this sneaking around and let the world know what we’ve done.
The Return of the Marines Trilogy Page 46