This would not be Jay’s first action with some of the members of Kilo. Jay had been with then Lt Niimoto’s platoon on the hostage rescue in Somalia, so he had worked with Captain Niimoto, 1stSgt Davidson, Gunny Dailey, Sgt Steptoe, and Sgt Isaac. To bring the web even tighter, his platoon commander, Lt Van Slyke, had been with the captain when the skipper won his Navy Cross at New Delhi.
Coincidences were one thing, but from what he had heard, Captain Niimoto liked to surround himself with people he trusted, and he had the pull to get people assigned to him. Jay’s own assignment to the recon unit supporting the BLT, though, was most certainly a coincidence.
Jay felt much closer to the first sergeant though, than to the captain. It was the first sergeant, back when he was a staff sergeant, who had run up behind him while out on the Jason Dunham’s tiny flight deck, urging him to run faster. Jay was a pretty big guy, and it was hot that day. He was about to quit when Davidson, in his black Ranger t-shirt, basically shamed him into pushing it. It wasn’t until afterwards that he realized he had it in him to push it, that it felt no worse after pushing it than when he just plodded along.
That had made him run each day he had free time, anxious to see his platoon sergeant, wanting to show him that he was improving. And he felt Davidson had taken him under his wing, almost like a big brother. So when SSgt Davidson had bolted off with Cpl Steptoe back into Hobyo, the Somali city where they had rescued the two hostages, Jay didn’t know why he was leaving the safety of the beach, but he knew he had to follow him.
The platoon sergeant had ordered Jay to take back the body of Capt Svenson, so Jay wasn’t with him when he found Lt Niimoto and rescued him. But his intent had been to cover Davidson’s back, no matter what, and he still felt that way today. There was no expiration date on loyalty.
Without Davidson, Jay probably would not be in recon. It was the enjoyment of running that his platoon sergeant had awakened in him that turned him from a big soft Marine to a big hard Marine, one who naturally gravitated to recon. He had always been at home in the water, and now he had the physical and mental endurance to excel in the unit.
That would probably surprise any of his homeboys back in Flagstaff. Back there, he was still Jesus, the slightly pudgy goth boy. Oh, he had been on his school football team (“Go Eagles!”), but that had been mostly due to his size. He was more at home helping his mother with the taqueria and playing his video games.
If he got his coloring from his mother, he got his size from his father, and it was his father who convinced him to join the Marines. Not that his father liked the military—in fact it was the complete opposite. To say that Colin McNamara was not the best father around was an understatement. He disappeared for months at a time, showing up for awhile, promising that things would be different this time, and getting a few dollars from his mom before proving that this time was no different.
During the last time he was home, while somewhat drunk, he went on a rant about the military and how it was the tool of an imperialistic and dictatorial government. That perked up his ears. If his dad was against the military, well, maybe that was something for him. So after graduation, with his mom’s blessing, he had joined, only expecting to serve one enlistment, then using the GI Bill to get his degree. He never expected that he would like it so much.
And now, here he was, onboard a nuclear submarine, getting ready to walk out of it while it was still 70 feet down. His friends back home would never believe it.
The signal light on the walkout trunk turned green. The first group had already exited and the trunk was ready for them. He sent in LCpl Maus first, then they passed in the tanks before he entered the chamber, to be followed by the rest of his team, the gunny, and Doc Swanson. The trunks were designed for nine men, and with the eight of them and the Navy diver who would work the chamber, it was a tight fit.
The diver (Jay couldn’t remember his name) went over the procedures yet again, but Jay was going over the mission again in his mind. He couldn’t screw this up.
Everyone put his tanks on and checked his equipment. When each Marine and the doc gave his thumbs up, a sailor outside the trunk closed and locked the hatch. The diver started letting the water in from the outside. Immediately the trunk began to fill and the pressure began to build. This was different than diving down and clearing your ears and sinuses. When diving, you could stop for a moment if you were having a problem clearing. In the trunk, as long as the Navy diver was letting water in, you had to clear on his schedule. But he watched everyone closely. If anyone held out his hand, thumb down, he would stop until that person could clear.
When the water was chest deep, the diver turned off the white lights and turned on the red lights. The top of the sub was 70 feet below the surface, but no use showing any lights to prying eyes.
It was only a minute or two until the trunk was completely flooded. The diver signaled the OK with his forefinger and thumb, then swam up the big metal tube that dominated the top of the trunk. Maus, who was going to be the navigator, followed him. When his fins disappeared, the rest followed in their designated order.
Jay took his turn, swimming up the tube, which looked like nothing more than a cheap chimney. It was big enough, though, to easily fit him, his pack, his weapon, and his tanks. As he exited the hatch, he automatically looked back at the sub, the huge bulk a dark shadow beneath him.
When the gunny joined them, the Navy diver gave them another thumbs up and re-entered the trunk. They were on their own now. Divers are used to hand-and-arm signals, so without too much fanfare, they formed up and began to swim off, LCpl Maus leading the way with his dive board, LCpl Brugal swimming directly over him, scanning the water in front of him.
The water was clear, and in the darkness, plankton lit their passage with an eerie, radioactive-looking glow. Jay held up his hand, watching it become outlined as he disturbed the water with his passage, exciting the plankton. Despite the decent visibility, though, each Marine had a buddy rope connecting him to his swim buddy.
The waters around the Spratlys were pretty deep, especially near the Manila Trench. But most of the islands themselves were protected by coral reefs. Within 30 minutes, they had reached the reef just to the west of the island. He couldn’t see it, but Jay knew there was a sunken Filipino Navy ship near them, a victim of that reef.
They eased themselves over the reef, careful not to break the surface of the water and possibly be spotted from shore. Once over, the water deepened a bit, but they could now see the bottom. Jay halted the team, then with PFC Wellington dangling below him on the other end of his buddy line, he and Maus slowly came to the surface. Scanning the beach ahead, he caught sight of a small, faint glow. That was their target. Maus took a bearing on it, and the two slowly sank back down.
With their new bearing, it was only about five minutes before they were more crawling than swimming as they eased ashore. LCpl Mater met them, pocketing the small glowstick he had used as a signal, and led them into the low but dense trees to where the lieutenant was waiting.
First Platoon, Bravo Company, First Reconnaissance Battalion was on enemy-held territory.
Chapter 13
Beijing
General Li looked at the screen, willing somehow that the icons were a glitch, a bug. But he knew they were accurate. There had been three lifts of planes to land on Taiping, and now a fourth was taking off from their amphibious carrier, now less than 300 km away. The first lift had only three planes, with one going off to the south before turning back, but the next two lifts had four planes each. So that meant there could be as many as 360 US Marines on the island to complement the 80 Taiwan Marines already there. That was up to 450 troops to defend it.
He could order the assault now that his own two ships were waiting within an hour’s steam of the island. He certainly had enough soldiers to take it in an all-out fight. But the problem was their ability to quickly build up forces. Even though each ship had LCACs, and each ship had helos, none of these were in large en
ough numbers to be able to get forces ashore quickly enough to overwhelm the defending forces. He thought he could still prevail, but the cost would be high. And with the American planes returning to their task force, they might be able to land even more troops before that bleating lamb of a Senior Captain Chou could get his troops in the assault.
For the hundredth time during the night, he wished he had taken in the Air Force on the plan. One J11 fighter could have quickly knocked the US planes out of the air. But General Li frankly did not have anyone high enough in the Air Force hierarchy that he could trust, and secrecy was paramount until after the islands had been seized. The Air Force tended to be pretty “progressive,” a term that merely meant “out-for-oneself” to him, more concerned with economic factors than with national security. So in order to keep the circle of leadership smaller, he had bypassed the Air Force. Only five people currently knew the true scope of the operation and its reason, not including whomever on the Politburo had been pulling his strings. The rest of the actual fighters, from private to senior captain, thought that the Americans were the aggressors and that the entire party and military leadership were coordinating their response. Now, the general was wishing he had brought in at least one more person, someone wearing Air Force blue.
He had to admire the pure balls of the Americans, though. To fly those tilt-rotor aircraft blindly to a refueling point was an ambitious move. He had watched the screen with dismay as the three planes had hooked up with the larger one coming from their base in Okinawa. There was nothing else it could be rather than a refueling link, and when the planes had not only landed but then took off again, it was confirmed.
He wondered if it was time to brief General Chen and the politicians. He had really wanted to already have Taiping in Chinese hands before he did that, but with Thitu Island, maybe that was enough to goad the leadership into taking action. It wasn’t as if the Americans were going to meekly slip away. China was going to have to take them down a notch.
On the other hand, maybe he could bring in one Air Force general, one person who could control a few assets. One J11 earlier would have done it, but now, perhaps a few more assets would be required. He hadn’t wanted to damage any of the structures on the island, but that might not be an option at this point. At least there weren’t any civilians on Taiping, unlike on Thitu. It just all boiled down to timing.
“Mr. Sung, you are positive that enemy communications are still down?”
“Yes, General Li. We remain in full control of all satellites, and there are no sea-cables between the two islands and anywhere else. Of course, as I informed you before, while we are also jamming the immediate area, we do not know if there is an older system available that can be used to slip through our coverage. I can think of three methods myself that could be used to communicate with either ships outside our coverage or with the mainlands of Vietnam or the Philippines.”
“And we have no indication that they are certain on what is happening?”
“Other than the fact that they have sent a task force? Well, no, we have collected no SIGINT to that fact, but as you know, we are not fully staffed for that.”
The general chose to ignore the slight tinge of sarcasm in Sung’s reply. He looked back at the opposition forces screen. The Gerald R. Ford battle group had stopped off the coast of Okinawa and was now making square circles in the ocean. It was imperative that they stayed out of any fight-- even if he had the entire resources of the PLA in his hands, he knew that if they waded in, he would have a very difficult time defeating them.
He wasn’t sure if it was uncertainty on what was actually happening that kept the battle group away or concern over what had happened to the two Filipino Gripens. General Li thanked his lucky stars that it had been fairly easy for the Second Department to infiltrate Saab, and in routine upgrades, a simple kill switch had been installed in the planes. If it had been the Malaysians who had responded with one of their Russian-made SU-30’s, well, despite their nominal efforts to date, those planes were secure from Chinese actions (the Malaysians were just not as high a priority to their efforts.) They might not have been able to communicate, but they could have flown and fought.
The Americans, on the other hand, were perhaps the highest priority. But even with their forces, there were gaps. On the carrier off Okinawa, while the F-35’s were all compromised, the older F-18’s that had gone through their most recent upgrade were pretty much secure. But as they wouldn’t know that, he thought that would keep even the F-18’s grounded for the time being.
Based on what he knew, he thought it would take the Americans at least a week or more to analyze their aircraft and take remedial action. He had no doubt that they would figure it out, though, so his window of opportunity was limited.
He yawned and looked at his watch. The city would be coming alive as people started stirring and getting to work. He needed a shower, he knew, and he could use a few hours sleep, but he wondered if he should try and make contact with Lieutenant General Li, the most likely Air Force candidate to go along with the plan. He knew, though, that time was of an essence. He couldn’t keep the operation under wraps for much longer—he was somewhat surprised that the veil of secrecy had lasted as long as it had, to be honest.
He stood up to get a cup of tea when the operator on the opposing forces screen motioned to Sung. The general walked back over to see what had caught his attention. Sung saw him come up and stepped aside so the general could see.
The recent flight of aircraft to take off of the American ship was not headed to Taiping. It was heading to Thitu. They were going to try to take it back, it seemed.
The general was glad that he had diverted what was supposed to be the second wave to go to Taiping down to Thitu. It was only another 40 men on the two fishing boats, but when the Taiwan Marines had stood off the first wave, he had not wanted to waste the smaller second wave, so he had sent them to Thitu, mostly just to wait until they were needed. Now, it looked like they might be needed right where they were.
But this was upping the ante. While the Americans might suspect the attack on Taiping was conducted by the Chinese, they couldn’t be sure. If somehow they landed their planes on Thitu, and they were not all shot down, confirmation of that would be there.
And confirmation was not what his guardian angel on the Politburo needed. General Li was astute enough to realize that whatever political firestorms were raging, the simple fact that no one on the Politburo “knew” what was happening let them deny, argue, and create doubt amongst their enemies. This is what the Americans termed “plausible deniability,” one of the few English phrases he remembered from his classes at the National Defense Academy. The time spent arguing and denying gave him time to complete the mission before presenting it to the world at large.
He wished he had better communications with the small group on Thitu. Communications with the two big ships were fine, but the same cyber-jamming of the opposing communications seemed to be affecting their smaller unit radios. Sung had given him some half-ass excuse as to why there were problems, but the bottom line was that communications were intermittent at best the further any unit went south.
He looked up to Commander Hung, his Navy representative, a man personally picked by his father, Admiral Hung, to assist him.
“Commander, I want you to order Senior Captain Chou to send the Jinggan Shan south to Thitu Island and prepare for a landing. Keep the Changbai Shan at its present position and await further orders. And keep trying to raise Major Ching on Thitu. He needs to be warned about the incoming assault.”
The young commander hurried to comply as General Li Zhiyuan went to the toilet to shave and straighten himself up before going back to the headquarters. He knew he was at a nexus, and he had to take action. Complete secrecy was gone, and now he had to get the other key players in the military and the country at large to not only accept, but embrace the new China era.
Chapter 14
Pagasa Island
“You, e
mpty the bucket,” the Chinese soldier told her, pointing at the white paint bucket that was now full of urine.
Analiza sighed inwardly, but let nothing show on her face. This wasn’t the first time she had been called to latrine duty.
Just as the Chinese soldiers began their attack, Rayner Umberto, the assistant public works engineer, had shut down the power plant. This wasn’t just a simple on and off switch, although such a switch did exist. This was a disguised kill switch that he had shown her once, used to disable the generator in just such an emergency. He had then used an old M16 to fire on the generator, destroying a few cables as a red herring before stashing the weapon and sneaking away to be taken prisoner with the rest of them.
The fighting had been over quickly, but the Filipino soldiers had just given him enough time to get this done. This was not without cost, of course. Taken by surprise with most of them asleep in the barracks, six soldiers had been killed, not including Alan, five had been seriously wounded, and the rest captured. Only one Chinese soldier had been killed in the fighting, although another two seemed to be wounded pretty seriously.
Without power, neither the water pumps nor the desalination station worked. So they had no lights, no running water, no anything. The Chinese had taken Rayner and Val Williams, the chief engineer for the town, to try and fix the generator, but after making a good show of replacing wires and cables, they “failed” in their efforts to get it working. Analiza had been concerned that the Chinese might use more violent ways of getting them to fix it, and she knew that Val would break under the slightest of coercion methods, but the Chinese basically left them alone after they had supposedly tried.
The Return of the Marines Trilogy Page 49