“How’s it going with your troops?” asked Ryan O’Leary. He had stopped by the base while he was in town to pay off the beer he owed his friend for his latest help at the cabin.
“It’s going better,” answered First Sergeant Aaron Smith. “I still wonder periodically why I didn’t retire rather than take these orders, but I’m only wondering it every week or two now, not every day. The company is starting to shape up, and I’ve worked with the people that write our orders to get some new blood into the unit. I’ve played the “you owe me” card often enough that it’s starting to wear pretty thin, but I’ve got a good number of noncommissioned officers in place that are starting to take some of the burden off my shoulders.”
Aaron laughed. “I don’t think I ever told you about the first 0500 company run we did. The run was everything I’d expected; we had our first person drop out within a hundred yards of starting, throwing his guts up.”
“Rangers are wussies,” interjected Ryan. He laughed. “I’ve always known that!”
Aaron continued as if Ryan hadn’t spoken, “It was a punishing run, but the way I saw it, I’m the oldest; if they couldn’t keep up, it was their fault, not mine. In the end, less than half of the company finished the run…”
“Wusses,” interjected Ryan again.
“…although most stayed with it until the end, choosing to walk across the finish line rather than ride back on the bus that I had follow us for any medical emergencies. I’ve kept my eye on the ones that quit and most of them are no longer with company. I’ve helped them along to somewhere that their presence wouldn’t have such a negative effect on national defense.”
Ryan laughed. “Rangers are our ‘National Defense’ now? Well, if that doesn’t just scare the absolute shit out of me, nothing will. Frankly, now I’m glad I’m living in the woods. It’ll take the bad guys longer to find me there.”
“Yeah, you laugh,” said Aaron, “but my company is in the business of national defense. At any given time, one of the three Ranger battalions is designated as the Ranger Ready Force, a designation that lasts 13 weeks. During that time, we are supposed to be capable of deploying within 18 hours to anywhere in the world, to do any mission the nation requires. When I arrived at the unit, the company could probably have deployed within a week or so, to do about one third of the missions that we’re supposed to be able to do. Now, after a year of intense training, I think we might be able to deploy within two days and accomplish about 80% of the missions we’re supposed to be able to do. Even though we’re headed in the right direction, we’re still not good enough. Maybe we aren’t ‘national defense’ yet, but at least we aren’t as dangerous to it anymore.”
“What was fucked up so badly?” asked Ryan taking a sip of his beer. It was bad form to bring over beer and not stop to have one, after all.
“The worst part was our weapons training,” answered Aaron, looking down.
Ryan laughed, explosively spraying beer all over the room. When he was able to talk again, he said, “Well, at least it wasn’t anything important!”
“No kidding,” his friend replied. “That’s been fixed; I doubt there is currently a Ranger in the company that can’t completely disassemble and reassemble his weapon with his eyes shut. More importantly, their marksmanship, which was laughable when I first got to the unit, is now among the highest in the battalion. As I continue to stress to them, marksmanship is something that will save your life, as well as the life of the Ranger next to you. As the old Sergeant on the TV crime show “Hill Street Blues” used to encourage his officers as they went out for the day’s patrols, “Let’s do it to them before they do it to us.” That line has always stuck with me and is something I believe in.”
“Amen,” agreed Ryan. “I like to make it a point to be able to reach out and touch the enemy before I’m in range of their weapons. It’s a lot more survivable that way.”
Aaron nodded. “Amen, my brother! My sniper teams, especially, are now consistently among the best in the battalion, led by my .50 caliber sniper team. You should see the shooter of that team,” he encouraged; “he’s so big that the .50 caliber rifle looks like a toy in his hands. He’s pretty much acknowledged to be the battalion’s best sniper. He’s also good at working with the other teams and, although they don’t quite have his touch yet, they’re getting to be pretty damn good in their own right.”
“You know,” continued Aaron, taking a pull from his beer, “for that matter, the weapons platoon, of which the snipers are a part, is without a doubt the best platoon in the company. I just got a set of identical twins in the company that operates one of the Ranger Anti-Tank Weapon Systems. You’d like them; they work hard when they are on duty and play even harder when they’re not. They’ve also got a casual disrespect for anything that resembles authority.”
“Without a doubt,” Ryan said. “They’re my kind of people!”
“I was initially worried that their off duty antics would impact their work during the day,” commented Aaron, “but so far those fears haven’t been justified. The twins are always the first ones there in the morning, the first ones to get to work and the first to lend a hand when needed.” He shook his head. “If I could only figure out how to tell them apart, I’d be all set…and if I could get them to lose the surfer accent, too, that would be nice,” he added as an afterthought.
“I don’t know,” said Ryan. “You almost sound like you’re happy you stayed on active duty, after all...”
Terminal 30, Port of Seattle, WA
John Huang looked around nervously, as he walked off the M.V. Xin Ou Zhou. Realizing that he needed to act normally, he stopped his glancing and focused on his car. “If I can just make it to the car,” he thought, “everything will be all right.” As he reached his car, he jumped as he heard someone behind him clear his throat.
“Any problems?” the voice asked. He turned to find himself face-to-face with Colonel Zhang Wei.
“Umm…no…no problems, whatsoever, Mr. Zhang,” he replied. “Should you…umm…be meeting me here?” John had spent years getting into position for this day and was one of many people that the People’s Republic had pre-staged into a variety of occupations, on the off chance that they would one day be needed. He had been needed today.
Zhang smiled. “Is there something wrong with a shipper asking the customs agent if there were any problems with his shipment?”
John’s face, already pale, went another couple of shades paler. “Umm, no, I guess not,” he said. John knew who Zhang was and, truth be told, Zhang scared him. A lot. John had seen many crime dramas and knew that the ‘loose ends’ always got eliminated. He was worried that he had just become a loose end. “And, no, there weren’t any problems; all of the containers that I was told to expect are through customs,” he finished.
“That’s good,” replied Zhang in a voice guaranteed to add one more layer of fear into John’s heart. Zhang understood the need to Americanize his name to fit in, but never would have done it himself. “I’m so glad our previous efforts paid off.” Zhang had known about John for many years, although he had only met him recently. Zhang had been responsible for feeding John, a customs inspector for the Port of Seattle, several tips. Two of these tips had led to his biggest busts, a shipment of rhino horns valued at over $59,000 on the Black Market and a load of 61 children bound for the slave trade. Even though it had been due to a tip, John was extremely proud of the last bust and knowing he had made a difference in the lives of 61 children.
“Ye…yes, sir,” said John. “Everything went exactly as you said it would.”
“Of course it did,” said Zhang leaning close as he spoke. “Did you expect otherwise?”
“No, sir, I…umm…thought it would go exactly as you said it would!” If John had been scared before, the menace in the Colonel’s voice now had him completely petrified.
“Good,” said Zhang, “then stop calling me “sir.” You wouldn’t want to blow my cover, would you?”
&nbs
p; “No, s…I mean, no, Mr. Zhang.” John said, shaking.
“Good,” replied Zhang again. “I’m sure I am keeping you from something. Perhaps you should go see to it?” John, realizing that he had been dismissed, quickly took the opportunity to jump into his car and leave. Zhang smiled. “Civilians are so much fun to play with,” he thought.
Zhang walked over to his car where Lieutenant Colonel Peng waited in the driver’s seat. As Zhang got in, his executive officer asked, with perhaps a little too much enthusiasm, “So, is he a loose end yet?”
Zhang paused to consider. For many years, Zhang had helped build John’s reputation as one of the toughest inspectors at the port, especially for ships coming in from China. The son of parents that had “narrowly escaped the wrath of the Communist Party” by fleeing to the United States, he told all of his friends that being tough on Chinese vessels was his way of paying the People’s Republic back for the suffering they caused his parents.
“No,” Zhang finally decided. “We will let him live a little longer so he can inspect the Changsha when it arrives.” He didn’t need to say that, after he had inspected the Changsha, though, John would be a loose end.
Zhang smiled, causing Lieutenant Colonel Peng to raise an eyebrow. “I was just thinking about how oblivious the Americans are,” Zhang said in reply to the unspoken question. “No one has ever wondered how it is that John, an average agent at best, has made two of the largest seizures in the area’s history.” Both of those seizures were on ships coming from China, due to tips Zhang had provided, and had led to John’s reputation as being tough on China. Zhang had anticipated that John would be picked to inspect his ship today.
“It’s a good thing he was selected to inspect the ship today,” said Lieutenant Colonel Peng. A good XO, he had developed the ability to read his commanding officer’s thoughts. “If anyone else had looked inside containers 2147, 2148, 2149, 2150 or 2151, there would have been a lot of explaining to do.” They watched as the ship started unloading their five containers for further shipment onward to the Guangzhou Interbay Assembly Plant.
“It would have been inconvenient for me to try to explain why there were containers of uniforms, weapons and ammunition going to the plant,” Zhang said, who always tried to keep a backup plan for everything. “Not impossible, though, just inconvenient…”
* * * * *
“China Announces Good Will Tour”
The Chinese president announced today that a flotilla of its ships would be making an ‘Around the World’ tour at the end of summer to promote ‘openness and better diplomatic relations’ with a number of nations. The squadron of ships will be led by the Chinese Navy’s flagship, the brand new PLAN Long, a Type 081 amphibious assault ship, and will also include two Aegis-like destroyers, the PLAN Kunming and the PLAN Changsha. The group will also be accompanied by a Chinese oiler, the PLAN Qinghaihu. The Chinese president also noted that he would be making a state visit to the United States, in conjunction with the ships’ port call in Seattle, to conduct what he called ‘high-level negotiations to improve trade and diplomatic relations.’
The ships will make a port call in Vancouver, Canada, prior to stops in Seattle and Los Angeles in the United States. The ships will then transit to South America for stops in Manta, Ecuador and Lima, Peru. It is expected that the Chinese will participate in a number of events while in the U.S. to promote improved ties between the two nations.
American President Bill Jacobs said, “We welcome this gesture and hope that it will lead to making progress on a number of long-term issues we have had with China. Plans are being developed for us to return the gesture.” The president also confirmed off the record that human rights issues would be discussed, a topic the Chinese had previously refused to acknowledge.
- World News Online. Posted March 4, 2018 by Susan Clements
* * * * *
2018
Naval Base Kitsap, WA, March 20
“Tell me about the ships that are coming here,” Rear Admiral Dan Barnaby ordered the assembled members of his staff as he looked out the window at the Bremerton Navy base. Rear Admiral Barnaby was Commander, Navy Region Northwest, the officer in charge of all of the Navy activities in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Alaska, and all of the associated commands and facilities therein. If it was Navy-related in the northwest part of the United States, he was responsible for it. With over $3 billion spent annually in the region, the Puget Sound region was the U. S. Navy’s third largest fleet concentration area, so he was a man of some importance, which he would be happy to tell you all about.
A tall man at six feet, three inches, he was not recruiting poster material. His uniform might have fit 20 pounds ago, but the buttons were now being perilously stress-tested by his ever-increasing girth. His dark hair was also on the outside edge of regulations; if he had been anyone else, he would have been ordered to visit the barber a week or two ago. He knew that this was his last command and that he was going no further in the Navy; having received that message a couple of months ago, he no longer cared much about uniform regulations.
He did care about doing a good job so that he could get a suitable job in the defense industry upon his retirement, though, and had called his staff together in the conference room at the headquarters building to discuss the imminent Chinese visit. This was his last “big thing” as the Navy Northwest Commander. It was going to be a high-visibility event and one that he intended to ensure would go well.
His Operations Officer, Captain John Galloway, replied, “The Chinese squadron has a Type 081 LHD, which is an amphibious assault ship with both helicopters and a dock for small landing craft, two Type 052D destroyers and an ocean-going oiler.” As he mentioned each ship, one of his staff displayed a picture up on the conference room’s optical screen. A new technology, the screen eliminated optical feedback and generated a sharper picture than the old ‘high definition’ screens. Captain Galloway was an extremely professional officer who had come up quickly through the surface warfare community as a destroyer commander. The polar opposite of his boss, Captain Galloway was still upwardly mobile in the U.S. Navy and was every inch the example of what a naval officer should look like. He could have just stepped out of the recruiting poster in the lobby.
Rear Admiral Barnaby looked at his Intelligence Officer, “Jim, what are we looking at with this group?”
Captain Jim Spence moved to the podium. Just like every other time Spence had briefed him, Admiral Barnaby thought that, if anyone ever looked up “nerd” in the dictionary, they would probably have found Captain Spence’s picture alongside the definition, as he was tall, thin and wore thick-rimmed glasses. Although he couldn’t wear a pocket protector in uniform, which would have completed the picture, Barnaby guessed that Spence wore one with his civilian clothes. As he spoke, Captain Spence used his laser pointer to indicate the important characteristics of the ships to the staff, “The flagship of the force is the PLAN Long, which will be pier-side at Bremerton, along with their Type 903 oiler Qinghaihu.” The largest command in the region, Naval Base Kitsap, was created in 2004 by merging Naval Station Bremerton with Naval Submarine Base Bangor; both were still often called by their previous names.
Captain Spence continued, “We don’t know a lot about the Type 081 class, as it’s a new class and the Long is the first ship, but we believe that it is very similar to a French Mistral-class LHD. We can expect that it has the transport capability for a reinforced battalion of anywhere between 500-800 troops, somewhere between 40-50 vehicles and a mix of about 20 helicopters. It also has a well deck that can hold a variety of landing craft, but we expect that it will probably have about four Type 726 Yuyi class air-cushioned landing craft.”
“From the operations we’ve seen,” he continued, “it looks like they will have two or three Z-15 helicopters. This helicopter is a medium-lift, twin-engine helicopter that can hold 16 people. The Long will also have eight or nine Z-8 helicopters, which are indigenously produced vers
ions of the French Aerospatiale SA-321 Super Frelon heavy transport helicopter. This helicopter can carry up to 38 combat-equipped troops. Finally, it will also have eight or nine Z-10 attack helos. This helicopter is a knock-off of our Cobra attack helo, which has a very capable internal cannon and can carry a variety of rockets and missiles. Of note, the Z-10 can also carry air-to-air missiles, so it is a threat in the air war, as well as the ground war.”
Rear Admiral Barnaby looked at his watch and then asked, “Is that all?”
“Well, no,” Spence said, pushing up his thick-framed glasses so he could refer to his notes. “We don’t know if it will have any aboard, but the Long can also carry the Type 63A light amphibious tank. Not many countries build amphibious tanks, but China is one that does, and they’ve done pretty well with this one. Its predecessor, the Type 63, was designed for river-crossing operations on inland rivers and lakes, but the 63A can be launched from amphibious ships six miles or more offshore. The 63A has a fully-stabilized 105mm rifled gun that is manually loaded and can fire a variety of high explosive and anti-tank ordnance, including an anti-tank guided missile developed from the Russian 9M117 Bastion. This missile has a maximum range of up to 5,000 meters and a hit probability of over 90% against stationary targets. Of note, this missile can also be used against low-flying helicopters. The tank also has a 7.62mm coaxial machine gun and a 12.7mm machine gun mounted on top of the turret roof.”
Admiral Barnaby rolled his eyes. “Is there anything it can’t do?” he asked.
“Actually, yes,” replied Captain Spence. “Its one weakness is that it has very thin armor, as its developers had to keep the overall weight as low as possible to help keep it afloat, so it is fairly vulnerable to just about any of our anti-tank weapons.
Red Tide: The Chinese Invasion of Seattle (Occupied Seattle Book 1) Page 4