Fourth Crisis: The Battle for Taiwan

by Peter von Bleichert

  Headed for Secretary Pierce’s office, Richard walked the hall. He noticed things were unusually quiet and too many heads were down. Pierce had summoned him, and the earnestness of her tone had been ominous. The questions this imparted had quickened Richard’s steps. He knocked on Pierce’s open office door and entered. Two men awaited inside with her: one seated, and the other standing in the office’s corner. With a stern look on her face, Secretary Pierce lifted herself and strolled to the office’s door. She closed and locked it. Even more daunting to Richard was when she then lifted the telephone to order that all calls must be held. Richard sat beside one of the strangers, his mind racing. He nervously glanced to the other, who loomed in the room’s corner.

  “This is FBI Special Agent Hunter Jackson,” the secretary said, gesturing to the seated man. Richard extended his hand, which Agent Jackson left hanging. “Special Agent Jackson is in counterintelligence.” Richard felt a rush of warm blood that prickled his skin.

  “Mr. Ling, you’re aware that the penalty for espionage is death?” Jackson asked, his steel-blue eyes piercing. Richard looked to his boss for support, but she looked away. “We searched your apartment,” the agent added.

  “You… WHAT?” Richard was suddenly more angry than scared. Jackson unfolded a copy of the warrant and handed it to him.

  “We found this.” Jackson handed Richard a small electronics box with input and output ports. “It’s a keystroke logger. Everything you typed on your secure home terminal was copied. It’s set to transmit via Bluetooth and it’s configured to download to some other device, probably a smart phone.” The FBI agent leaned toward Richard, who noticed the empty shoulder holster beneath the agent’s grey mid-priced suit. Richard held his penetrating gaze, and told himself he was ready for whatever came his way. “Do you love your country, Richard?” was the question posed. Richard wondered if a white man would have been asked something similar. Anger pushed back against Richard’s fear. He looked to Pierce, but she still avoided his gaze. She’s pretending not to be here, Richard weighed up. He considered cursing them both and then storming out.

  “I am not a spy,” Richard belted out, and then dropped his face into his hands where he forced his shocked mind to think clearly. Secretary Pierce studied her underling’s expressions, and then looked to the federal agent, who nodded.

  “Jade,” Secretary Pierce stated.

  “Zhang Jiao—your Jade—is really Bei Si Tiao, last name first, as in the Chinese manner,” Agent Jackson said. He paused to let the information hang in the room like a dark cloud. “Richard, Bei Si Tiao is Chinese Foreign Intelligence Service.” Those last four words stabbed deep, and Richard winced as Jackson uttered each one. His heart split into palpitating halves. Then Richard could only mumble incoherently as he shook his head.

  “I am so sorry,” Richard offered the secretary. His tears welled.

  “So am I,” Pierce offered a sympathetic, though strained smile.

  Richard started to stutter an explanation, but the agent cut off Richard’s articulations. He said that he knew Richard had not been a willing accomplice, and that he must now, instead, help his country, himself, and even the woman who had betrayed him. Richard lowered his head into his hands again. This time, the tears rolled down his flushed cheeks.

  Secretary Pierce stood and went to pat Richard’s back.

  “Jade could be a dangle,” Jackson coldly postulated. Then he sighed and added, “I don’t think so. She shows no signs of wanting to turn to our side. So…we want to keep feeding her misinformation.” Jackson stood and practically ordered the crumbled Richard: “I want you to keep on typing your reports at home.”

  “I’m not trained for counterintelligence operations,” Richard complained.

  Jackson sighed. “Then I have no choice but to bring Jade in.”

  Beaten and exhausted, Richard stood, walked to the window, and stared out at the capital. Even though innocent, he realized that he might never be trusted again, and that his career was, perhaps, effectively over. He watched a water droplet as it ran down the windowpane. As he contemplated his fate, almost forgetting that others were in the room, he was handed a business card. He raised it up, ran his fingers over the embossed seal of the FBI, and placed it in his pocket.

  Agent Jackson had seen this reaction before; usually presented by the innocent.

  “I’ll be in touch, Mr. Ling,” Jackson promised.

  ◊◊◊◊

  USS Essex— a Wasp-class amphibious assault ship, the ‘Iron Gator’—and the American 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit transited the southern approaches to Taiwan. The size of a World War II aircraft carrier, Essex sported a hangar full of jump jets, heavy-lift helicopters, and tilt-rotors, and a well deck full of air cushioned landing craft ready to truck ashore main battle tanks and the eighteen hundred marines that called the ship home.

  The dock landing ships New York and Tortuga, the guided-missile frigate Hawes, the littoral combat ship Coronado, and the sleek, black stealth guided-missile destroyer Michael Monsoor accompanied the Essex. Far beneath them all, and making her way at a depth of some 400 feet and some several miles ahead of the surface formation, roamed the nuclear attack submarine Key West. Thirty-five thousand feet above flew two aircraft.

  One, an olive-drab Marine Corps Lightning II, the Corps’ Bravo version of the Joint Strike Fighter, capable of short take-off and vertical landing capabilities, was configured for forward flight. An air force F-22 Raptor air supremacy fighter that had flown out of Guam accompanied the Lightning These two assassins cruised the sky together far above the Essex’s group.

  Meanwhile, Essex carried two unmanned aerial vehicles, sitting on her rectangular deck. These Predators were in air force livery and featured inverted v-tails and pusher props. Remotely piloted from the United States, they began to roll into the stiff head wind. They rose quickly into the air and then droned away.

  Lieutenant Pelletier’s Lightning II capped at 40,000 feet, doing Mach 1.1. A Growler—an electronic attack aircraft based on the Super Hornet—flew along on her wing. Belonging to Ronald Reagan’s ‘Cougars,’ the Growler carried big jammer pods and HARM high-speed anti-radiation missiles. One of Essex’s olive-drab stealth jump jets climbed to join Pelletier and the Growler. Once formed up, the three American aircraft banked in unison.

  A Sentry airborne warning and control system aircraft orbited at a distance. Within its long fuselage, controllers studied their screens. Before the senior controller, a tactical display showed all aircraft within range of the powerful revolving radar on the Sentry’s back: Eagles out of Guam, Raptors from Okinawa, Pelletier’s three-ship maritime strike package, and two very slow Predator UAVs. Although invisible to his scrutiny, the senior controller knew Spirit stealth bombers had entered the area. They had departed Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, sweeping west with bellies full of big guided bombs destined for Chinese surface-to-air missile sites deployed on Taiwan’s main island. The Sentry controller watched as the Predators approached Penghu in the Taiwan Strait. Pelletier’s three-ship lagged behind and, at a higher altitude, the Eagles were ready to keep enemy fighters at a polite distance.

  The two Predators flew 1,000 feet over the Taiwan Strait. Ahead lay Penghu. The Chinese surface-to-air missile battery at the island’s Magong Airport acquired and targeted the Predators. Meanwhile, Pelletier’s three-ship flight had dropped to the deck behind the unmanned aerial vehicles.

  The Growler powered up a jamming pod and fired digital streams into the energized Chinese surface-to-air missile radar. Networked to the Growler, US Cyber Command used the digital stream to access and penetrate China’s integrated air defense system. Once inside this system, cyber-phantoms seemed to appear on huge flatscreens that covered the wall of a People’s Liberation Army Air Force bunker in Beijing.

  A massive congregation of aircraft seemed to appear, to the northeast of Taiwan. To the Chinese air defense controllers, the radar returns appeared to be from big, slow bombers, likely Am
erican B-52s carrying cruise missiles. They ordered that every available Chinese fighter be sent their way. As the cyber-phantoms drew Chinese attention, real Spirit stealth bombers slipped in from the east and over Taiwan.

  Favorit missiles knocked the Predators down. The electronic warfare officer in the Growler’s backseat warmed up his high-speed anti-radiation missiles and fed GPS coordinates and enemy transmitter profiles into the HARM’s electronic brains. One of the missiles flashed off the Growler’s wing rail and streaked away through wispy clouds. A second missile also went, and the American three-ship looped together, coming about for a return to Essex and Ronald Reagan.

  The HARMs crossed the beach at Penghu. They flew over a deserted elementary school’s playground, and then over Magong Airport’s fence line. The missiles then over-flew a parked Chinese Beagle light bomber, two Flankers, and a Flying Leopard that had taken up residence at the captured field. They then turned for the Chinese surface-to-air missile battery set up at the end of the runway. Even though its radar had shut down after downing the Predators, the missiles remembered the location of the Favorit battery. Two massive explosions announced the HARMs’ arrival. The airport’s one yellow fire truck dutifully departed its garage.

  Warm sun permeated the cockpit of Pelletier’s cruising Lightning II. She had just completed a mid-air refueling and taken position at the outer edge of Ronald Reagan’s combat air patrol. Pelletier closed her eyes for just a second. Eighteen-hour shifts had taken their toll on everybody. She faded. A spasm travelled her body, and her closed eyes twitched as her brain took her into a dream. Her alarm clock broke through the haze and jarred her awake. The fog lifted from her mind as she realized the alarm was really the cockpit’s missile warning.

  “Shit,” she gasped, and then instinctively dropped decoys before pulling the Lightning II almost straight up. Enemy fighters? Here? She wondered with self-admonishment. Ronald Reagan came on the radio and stated the obvious: “Bandit, your sector.” She rolled the aircraft inverted and pointed its nose back into the threat. With the enemy missile highlighted in her helmet visor, Pelletier dropped the engine into idle, allowing the threat to pass underneath, and then slamming the throttle into afterburner, all while flying upside down. White-hot flames blasted from the Lightning II’s gaping maw; her ship quickly regaining air speed. The enemy missile, seduced by the flares, had turned away. Pelletier recognized the weapon as a Chinese Thunderclap short-range infrared-guided missile, and knew its launch platform had to be within nine miles. Her adversary, she realized, had somehow gotten in close. She switched her radar to active scan and flooded the sky with energy. The culprit popped up on the radar screen. Pelletier looked out to the towering cloud her enemy was hiding within and made selections to fire a single AMRAAM. The Lightning II’s bay doors opened, and unfolded into the slipstream.

  Senior Lieutenant Peng switched from the passive infrared search and track ball in the canopy, and powered up the Flying Shark’s radar. He got a faint reflection on his display. Peng sent a Lightningbolt air-to-air missile that way.

  Pelletier’s own missile was shoved from the bay and ignited. With missile and radar warnings blaring, and the world outside spinning, Pelletier’s attention drew to a fault warning on the primary display. One of the weapon bay doors had failed to close. She switched to a backup, but the door mechanism again failed to actuate. Pelletier inverted the airplane to present her stealthy top to the enemy missile. Flying upside down, she hit the chaff and tried the jammed door again. It remained unresponsive. Pelletier climbed the Lightning II in an attempt to slam the stubborn door shut with positive Gs. The flashing red symbol on the dash indicated the tactic had failed. She righted the airplane, and then made inputs to change the view in the helmet-mounted display.

  Images from six cameras distributed around the Lightning II fused and projected into her visor. The airplane ‘virtually’ disappeared, appearing to take Pelletier’s lower body with it. She looked down. Her aircraft’s specialized camera system allowed her to see below her own aircraft as though it were not even there, so where her lap should be, she only saw clouds streaking by. The effect was that only her eyeballs and brain were flying at Mach 1.2 Certainly, a surreal experience. However, one that would hopefully help her survive. The computer projected a big green down-arrow before her. She lowered the nose and saw the Chinese aircraft, its fuselage outlined by the computer, helping her distinguish its staggered blue and grey paint scheme from the sky. She prepared a Sidewinder on the weapons panel. Small folding doors at the wing’s leading edge opened, and a red targeting reticle appeared before her. She turned her head and put the crosshairs between the Flying Shark’s canards and wings. The reticle changed to green as the targeting system locked onto the hot exhaust of the enemy airplane’s two big engines. Pelletier squeezed the trigger, authorizing the computer to release the weapon. Spring-loaded arms pushed the Sidewinder clear of the Lightning II. It ignited with a whoosh, and the missile’s motor nozzle vanes put the heat seeker into a high-G turn. Pelletier’s Sidewinder spotted engine heat and began autonomous pursuit. Hoping to perplex the American missile, the Flying Shark dropped a string of flares.

  Senior Lieutenant Peng took his Flying Shark vertical. Speed bled off in the climb. The big airplane rolled over and its nose dropped toward the threatening missile. Momentarily losing lock on the Flying Shark’s heat, the Sidewinder switched tracking to the next hottest object: one of Peng’s flares. Bringing his airplane outside the heat seeker’s cone of detection, he spotted the American airplane in his infrared scope, and recognized its outline as belonging to the new joint strike fighter—the stealthy Lightning II. He could see one of its belly doors was open and the white of its internal weapon bay. The Chinese aviator celebrated the honor and his luck by sending infrared and radar-guided missiles in rapid succession, a nasty one-two punch. In response, the American airplane rolled hard and lit up with afterburner.

  With alarms blaring, Pelletier focused on the incoming missiles. She set up the radar for jamming. The Lightning II’s active, electronically scanned array directed a high-power beam at the oncoming enemy missiles. Peng’s radar-guided missile corkscrewed and did a suicidal dive into the sea, although his infrared one continued after the American’s airplane.

  Pelletier dropped flares, dove toward the choppy sea, and selected an advanced medium-range air-to-air missile. The computer reopened the one closed weapon bay door, and fired off a brace of AMRAAMs, the missiles kicked out by ejector arms, which then retracted. This time, both bay doors shut and locked. With radar no longer reflected by the door, Lieutenant Pelletier’s Lightning II was stealthy again and disappeared from Peng’s radar screen.

  Peng saw his screen go blank. In hopes of catching a glint of metal or the smoke of an engine, Peng strained to look over his shoulder, scanning the mirrors that surrounded his canopy frame. The radio crackled. A squadron mate from Liaoning broadcast that he would be on-scene in less than a minute.

  “Where are you, American?” Senior Lieutenant Peng barked, his throat sore from the airplane’s arid environmental system. The infrared tracker peered into a dense cloud and found a faint heat signature. Peng fired a Thunderclap and watched it scoot away to pierce a fluffy cloud. The cloud flashed red. Flares, Peng realized. The Lightning II popped out, trailed by Peng’s missile. Peng yanked his Flying Shark over, grimaced through the radical maneuver, and swooped in to take position on the American’s tail. The Thunderclap followed Pelletier through several hard turns. With his opponent on the defensive, Peng selected the Flying Shark’s 30-millimeter cannon.

  Focusing on the enemy missile, Pelletier dumped more flares and initiated an Immelmann turn, which would end with her jet flying in the opposite direction but at a higher altitude. She gained height and reversed direction on the heatseeker to break its lock, exiting the maneuver upside-down before rolling the airplane horizontal. Tracer fire zipped by like laser beams. She felt a thump followed by vibration. A red light blinked on the Lightni
ng II’s console. Pelletier’s bird had been hit. Redundant and self-healing systems quickly isolated and aerodynamically compensated for the damage as avionics established new G-force restrictions, preventing the pilot from overstressing damaged areas. With multiple warnings blaring and flashing in her visor, Pelletier initiated another loop. This guy’s good, she mulled. She pulled the Lighting II over as hard as the computer allowed. Using maximum thrust, she got herself over the enemy.

  Peng lost sight of Pelletier and overshot. Unable to shed speed and match her turn, he roared past, screaming curses at the American all the while. Pelletier exited the gutsy move in pure pursuit position. Smack on her adversary’s tail, two fiery engine nozzles filled her canopy. Her last Sidewinder begged for release. Pelletier raised the nose to drop back a bit. Then she lowered it again before selecting the impatient weapon. Even throughout violent changes of direction, Pelletier stayed glued to the Flying Shark. About to pull the trigger, Pelletier hesitated, as a chivalrous modern knight. Her foe was down and her blade at his throat, and the crowd in her mind screamed: ‘Mercy’—drowning out those who shouted: ‘Kill.’ Pelletier brought up the radar’s function menu and selected the pulse generator. The Sidewinder ended its whine and a yellow star appeared where the red crosshairs had been. The star floated over the Chinese airplane and she pulled the stick’s trigger. An invisible beam projected from the nose of the Lightning II, striking the Flying Shark.

  Peng’s skin tingled, and then itched and burned. Water in his epidermis heated up and began to boil. Crackles of energy started to dance around the Flying Shark’s console and cockpit. A zap signaled overloaded electrical systems. The airplane’s cockpit display went black, and the stick went dead. The flight computer was cooked, and, without it making hundreds of flight surface corrections every second, the Flying Shark became a flying brick. The big warplane yawed over and entered a flat spin. Peng reached behind him to yank the eject handles. A forceful tug was followed by a rat-tat-tat as explosive bolts fired, releasing the canopy, which was sucked away. Peng got smacked silly by the slipstream. The rocket seat fired, and Peng’s spine compressed as he was lifted from the dead airplane.