by T I WADE
“Landing tonight begins at 03:00 hours and the weather looks wet and windy. Call me same time tomorrow. Good luck, Lieutenant!” and the general ended the conversation.
Major Wong found a pressed and neatly packed colonel’s uniform, a set of extremely powerful army-issued Chinese binoculars, and a swagger stick in one of the other men’s packs and he happily increased his rank. They ate a cold meal of rations and three men held sheeting and kept the “colonel” dry. They were now stationed at the old runway and there wasn’t much to keep the men dry, other than a couple of small 20-foot by 8-foot brick buildings with roof corners and parts of the walls still intact. The wind wasn’t much help.
The drizzle eased as Wong was escorted as close as possible to the two jeeps on the dirt road without being seen. The clouds parted slightly and rays of sunshine dotted the sparse landscape. He thanked the men and meandered forward to walk up the road. It didn’t take long for one of the Chinese soldiers, a new man, a sergeant this time, to run up to him and salute.
“We didn’t see you come down the road, Sir,” the perplexed Sergeant exclaimed.
“Of course you wouldn’t, Ma. I came around from the eastern side of the airport, across the grass and up the road. I try to do this walk at least once a week, Sergeant.”
“Yes sir. May I ask you for today’s password, sir? I must do my job, Sir!”
“Of course, soldier, it is good that you are alert and saw me so quickly. Last week I nearly walked past the first jeep before they looked up and saw me. ‘Turnip’ is today’s password, I think, Sergeant Ma, or let me see, is that tomorrow’s?”
“No, no you are correct, Sir! ‘Turnip’ is today, ‘Mao’ is tomorrow’s password.”
“Glad I got it right. Now let me get back before it starts to rain again. I was lucky to get my walk in today without getting wet.” With that Wang returned the salute and continued up the road.
The second jeep didn’t take any interest in him several hundred yards further east and on the road leading up to the closest main gate. There was good daylight visual between the three jeeps he had “inspected” before dawn and they had seen him waving his swagger stick at their sergeant in the first jeep.
He had been told that many Chinese officers enjoyed using these short riding crops as authority and had asked for one to be packed with the uniform. Thank God most of the stuff purchased in the USA was ‘Made in China’.
At the main gate, two guards looking alert, watched him coming and saluted as he arrived.
“Turnip,” he stated and without a word they opened the single smaller gate next to the larger gates, and he walked unopposed into the enemy camp.
The guards must have phoned for a jeep for him as one sped across the runway. The driver saluted and he got in, asking to be taken to the American prisoner’s building, he couldn’t think of any other place at that moment in time.
“I haven’t seen you before Colonel Wong,” the driver, a lieutenant, commented as he drove across the airfield.
“I came in on the last flight,” replied Wong looking around the field.
“But, that flight came in from Washington, Colonel,” the man said. “I was on it!”
“Correct. We still do have several men still in Washington, mostly the hit squads and a few of the Chairman’s secret service men,” the colonel replied calmly, still taking in all he could see. “I must have been aboard the other aircraft.”
“You have met our glorious Chairman, as well?” the driver asked in awe. “I met him at Shanghai harbor just before he left for America. He just happened to pick a few of us and he acknowledged me.”
“I worked with Comrade Wang and his hit squads, and was in America when the tragedy happened,” Wong continued.
“Yes, I heard about the death of our glorious Chairman. All the work he had done to change the world and it is now not so.”
Yes, I agree,” added Colonel Wong as the jeep pulled up to the first in a line of single-story barrack-like buildings with two guards standing outside. “Lieutenant Chun, that third large hangar over there. Was it here several months ago when I was last here? It looks new to me.”
“No, it has always been here, but I arrived only four months ago. Maybe it was built after you left, Colonel. Hangar Three, the one we are not allowed near has always been off limits to lower officers since I’ve been based here.” He dropped off the colonel; waved to the two guards he seemed to know and waited for further orders.
“Thank you for the lift. I know my way around. I prefer to walk, as I usually do outside the perimeter every week.” The lieutenant then saluted and drove off. The jeep had a Chinese license tag on the back and he memorized it. “I’m here to check on the prisoners,” he stated to the two sergeants standing outside the main doors to the prisoner building. They saluted and opened the door and let him into the smelly interior.
“Morning Parade is in ten minutes, Colonel. The prisoners should be dressed and ready,” stated one of the guards.
Dozens of eyes looked at him as he entered the musty, hot room. Several American children under 10 years old looked scared as he returned their glares.
“Who is in charge here?” he asked, trying to sound like a Chinese soldier speaking bad English.
“Joe Mathews, our mayor, he’s over there,” stated one of the adults. He was led into a small private room where an older man was sitting on the single army issue bed, already dressed and, Wong assumed, ready for parade.
“We had a quiet night and nobody didn’t cause any problems, sir,” the man stated looking at the entering Chinese officer he hadn’t seen before.
“Wong shut the door behind him and looked at the man.
“Please don’t beat me I can’t take much more. Get one of the others to be the leader,” the man stated looking at the ground.
“Where are you from Mathews?” Wong asked.
“Don’t you know? Are you new here? This is our town and we have been locked up like this for ten months now, ever since October last year.”
“How many of you left?” Wong asked trying to keep his cover.
“You shot Pete Smith and Mike Parkins in March, the two guys trying to escape. We are now 105 in here. One kid got away a month or two ago, we don’t know how and I think the jeeps went out and shot him. We heard shots all the next day. Why are you asking all this? We have been perfect prisoners since the kid’s escape. Please don’t beat me up again with your stick, I can’t take anymore.”
Colonel Wong left the room. He so wanted to tell the old man that help was soon at hand, but he knew that blowing his cover would not be very fruitful for the Seals at this moment.
He walked outside as sirens sounded and he thought to return and stay in the building as the Americans, all dressed in old dirty clothes, rushed out to the airport tarmac. The old man stumbled past him last, looking down at the ground as he shuffled by.
Sitting by a front window on the south side of the runway Wong looked onto the area where the Chinese soldiers in uniform were forming up. Looking through his binoculars he had a direct view of the three large hangars and he watched as one set of large hangar doors opened. It was the middle hangar, next to the one he had asked the driver about, and he saw two white Gulfstream Vs, several military jeeps and a couple of what looked like armored vehicles inside. He also saw several high-ranking Chinese officers walk out, he assumed to inspect the parade.
He trained the glasses on the inside and saw several engineers working on the two jets and a couple of the armored vehicles that were manned and ready. A band struck up a chord from somewhere he couldn’t see and he recognized it as an old Communist Party song as all the Chinese soldiers began singing along with the band.
When the doors closed behind the officers, he focused on the approaching men. There were thousands of soldiers facing the approaching officers who slowly walked out of his view. He had seen several colonels and one general, by the look of the fancy red braid on the shoulders of the shorter, extremely overwei
ght man leading the group.
There were a lot of shouted orders and he understood that the troops were being inspected. From his window he could see most of the Americans at the eastern end of the parade line and many of the soldiers in formations. The Americans were inspected last, the old man standing in front of the group. With much the same swagger stick as Wong had, the general finally got to the American prisoners, hit the old man hard on the top of a shoulder with the stick, shouted something at him and, as the man fell to the ground, headed back out of view.
Nobody left ranks to help the poor man who slowly got back to his feet. The band played a second tune and there were more orders shouted and the Americans began running down the runway and the soldiers headed off in different directions, mostly toward the buildings next to where he was watching.
The old man, too weak and old to run, headed towards the prisoner’s building and the same two guards followed him and closed the door once he had entered.
“He does that to me every other day without fail,” the old man said to Wong entering his room to lie down. It didn’t seem to matter to the old man that he was talking to a Chinese colonel.
“Where are Americans running to?” Wong asked in bad English, and silently getting up.
“One lap around the airfield, then to the showers and finally over to the vegetable garden to tend the crops for the rest of the day. Mr. Westbrook likes his vegetables fresh.” The old man looked around, but the colonel had already gone.”
Wong now felt that he was free to move around and inspect the base. There were dozens of soldiers walking around the airfield and he became invisible as he blended in with them.
He checked the dozens of buildings next to the prison and then a second row in a line behind the first buildings. Inside were barracks, three beds high and he counted 300 beds per building.
“Not much more room than in that submarine. Glad it’s cold around here,” he thought to himself. Several men were about to go to sleep, many awake and they saluted him as he walked through each one and then out the door at the other end.
The last three buildings in each line had slightly better quarters and a lieutenant was getting undressed as he entered.
“At ease,” Wong said in Chinese saluting back, hit his swagger stick on several pieces of furniture and exited the other end.
He headed across to the northern buildings of the airport and counting about 100 guards patrolling the third large hangar; he thought it best to stay away from that building for the time being.
The first hangar was clear of guards as he entered. There was one large Chinese military transport aircraft, a modern four turboprop Shaanxi Y-9, the first he had ever seen. It was the most modern mid-sized transport aircraft the Chinese had and was slightly bigger than a C-130. Around the hangar walls and out of the aircraft’s way were two dozen Chinese armored vehicles, three Chinese medium-sized tanks, a dozen jeeps of all sorts and a couple more jeeps with the same anti-aircraft missiles he had “inspected” outside the perimeter on the rear beds.
“This aircraft has been busy flying in all this stuff,” he thought.
The hangar was empty of personnel and he did some calculations in his head. He worked out that Harbin China to Cold Bay was approximately 3,000 miles. This transporter could do that non-stop. Suddenly a door opened and he realized that there were living quarters in the hangar. “This might be where the general resided,” as the general himself walked up to him. He stood at attention and saluted.
“Colonel… Wong!” the general stated looking at Wong’s nametag. ”I haven’t seen you around here before. Do I know you?”
“Yes, General Lee, I am in command of troop and airport cleanliness, overnight guard duties, and I normally work at night and sleep by day. I often come through here to inspect while you are asleep, then I go out of the airport and inspect the missile launchers to make sure the guards are awake. We don’t have the same daily schedules.”
“Very interesting,” the general thought. Wong could smell the man’s body odor and knew this man was old school; he only bathed once a week. “I never knew that. Have we met in China?”
“Yes, I was a good friend of Colonel Rhu’s at the airport in Harbin. I often noticed you coming and going.”
“Oh, Rhu! He was a lousy airport commander, but good at chess.”
“General Lee!” shouted a voice from the door the general had entered, and Wong nearly went into shock upon hearing an American voice.
“Mr. Westbrook, I will be one minute,” replied the general in bad English and returned to Wong in Chinese. “Keep up the good work, Wong. Keep our airport clean.”
“I have one question to ask, General,” Wong continued knowing that he was about to be dismissed.
“Hurry up, Wong.”
“I am only in charge of the above ground cleanliness, but my orders state the whole airfield. Should I get permission to check out the areas underground?”
For once the general looked surprised. “I suppose that would be in order. You are a colonel and only colonels and above are allowed down there. Get a special operations ID tag from Major Bong Fung at the operations office behind Hangar Two. Tell him that I sent you and I think a checkup should be done at least once a week. It stank of animal urine, or something that smelled horrible in corner areas when I was down there last week.” With that and with Westbrook shouting at the man again General Lee did a half impromptu salute and headed back.
Wong went back to inspecting the corners of the hangar for cleanliness, in case anybody was watching.
If anybody had been watching, they would have seen the conversation and he decided that it was safe for him to poke his nose in a few more corners than just the large hangar. He walked into the living quarters and received quite a shock. They were much like the ones he had seen in Preston Strong’s hangar in North Carolina. He had slept overnight there for one night. These were far bigger, had a large lounge where a colonel of equal rank to him was sitting on a couch reading a book. They nodded to each other and he continued through the rooms, only looking into open rooms.
There were several bedrooms along each side of a long corridor with the end room divided into a bedroom, a dining room and a private lounge. Lee was the name on the door and there was an orderly inside cleaning up.
“Twenty-one senior officers,” he thought to himself. “I bet the Americans sleep in the same rooms in the middle terminal.”
He found he was correct after walking out of one hangar and twenty yards later into the next. This time several heads turned to see who had entered, saw the rank and uniform and went back to their jobs. The lounge was in exactly the same place, one floor higher with the same open staircase leading up. This lounge had large glass walls and he could see a long table and a meeting going on. The guy Westbrook was there, three other Americans, several young and pretty American-looking girls serving drinks and food, and General Lee.
The two aircraft looked spotless; he had always wanted to get his hands on a Gulfstream V. A 747 was like an 18-wheeler truck compared to flying one of these babies. He decided to step inside and was confronted by a pilot exiting. He was American and had flight logbooks and maps in his hand.
“Can I help you?” he asked with a Texas drawl.
“I want to see if your aircraft is well cleaned enough for you, Mr. Captain,” Wong responded in his absolutely worst English and accent to boot.
“Sure, check it out. It smells a bit in there, and if the people around here ever washed a little more maybe the smell would go away.” He arrogantly left the aircraft and headed for the meeting.
He quickly looked around. “One modern anti-radar jamming device, front left passenger seat, just as Mo Wang had described. No transponder, no flight logs, no black box; one pretty clean aircraft!” He thought looking around. He did notice a small and powerful looking satellite phone/transmitter on the wall next to the main seating section of six comfortable leather lounge chairs. A few inches above the modern commun
ications system was a padlocked Perspex box with two red buttons in it. He immediately left the first aircraft to check the second one. He ran his fingers down surfaces outside in case anybody was looking and then headed over to the second Gulfstream.
It was exactly the same, even the radar-jamming device was there and the radio transmitter and little Perspex box and its two red buttons, each the size of a dollar coin.
Wong was starting to worry. He had been visual for too long, but he needed to inspect the most important area, so he headed to find this Major Bong Fung.
“Looking for Major Bong Fung,” Wong informed the corporal saluting in front of him.
“Who wants me?” shouted a voice from a rear office.
“Colonel Wong, on orders from General Lee,” shouted Colonel Wong back pretty loudly and with authority. The man was out of his office quickly. “General Lee wants me to inspect the underground areas for cleanliness once a week and told me to tell you to authorize me an ID tag immediately.”
“You don’t want to go down there, Colonel, I’ve been told it stinks down there,” replied the major looking directly at Wong.
“Precisely why he has ordered me to clean it up, Major! I don’t even know where the underground area is. Can your corporal show me?”
“You are a colonel. You are entitled to go down there at any time,” was the reply.
“I don’t like underground places and I don’t like stinking smells, Major, but when the general gives orders, I must obey!”
“Of course, Colonel! Corporal Bo, issue Colonel Wong an ID badge and show him the door to get down there. Good luck, Colonel. Better you than me!” and the major saluted and headed back into his office.
A color photo was taken and glued onto a badge that stated Hangar Three, and the corporal headed out of the door, expecting the colonel to follow.
Colonel Wong quickly looked over the desk in front of him and looked inside the still-open draw where the corporal had taken out the badge; he saw several others in there with photos on and left the room.