Murdock couldn’t think of any way to answer. He patted the senior senator from Idaho on the shoulder and heard a shout from Ching.
“I’ve got running lights slightly to port, Captain. I think the Pegasus has found us.”
Twenty minutes later in the dry cabin of the Pegasus, Mahanani worked quickly over the prostate form of Vinnie Van Dyke. The bullet had penetrated his webbing and slammed into his right lung.
“The lead must have been misshapen and flattened out when it broke through a rib,” Mahanani said. “Lots of damage in there. I gave him some morphine in case he gets conscious. Other than that we keep his head high and keep him warm so he doesn’t go into shock. If the bullet chopped up some of the major tubes in there, he could bleed out in fifteen minutes. So far, so good. Nothing else I can do. They’ll have a doctor onboard the Gonzalez who will have a good shot at saving him. Vinnie wouldn’t live through a five-hour chopper ride back to T’aipei.”
They had cut the Pegasus speed to fifteen knots to reduce the pounding. The coxswain said it would take twenty minutes to get to the destroyer. He had alerted the medical staff onboard about the wounded man, and they would be ready for him on the chopper pad on the stern of the ship.
Murdock sat beside Vinnie. He was still unconscious. That wasn’t good. Damn it, he wasn’t going to lose another man. He wouldn’t permit it. He looked at the senator and his family huddled together not yet believing that they were safe and free. Three for one, it would be a good trade-off. But not if that one dead man was one of his SEALs.
Murdock closed his eyes. This was the toughest part of being a SEAL commander. Watching one of his own lying there with a bullet in him, and no one being sure if he would live or die. Well, Vincent Van Dyke, you big sonofabitch, you are going to live if I have to pump my own blood and breath into your body. You hear me, you cock-sucker? You’re going to live!
4
T’aipei, Taiwan
Senator Gregory B. Highlander had spent two days writing down what he remembered from his ten-day stay in China. He had talked with his wife and put down what she told him from the daily newspapers and television reports she had seen. He had it all spelled out and now he tried to tell the State Department’s Far Eastern Desk supervisor what he had seen. He sent it on a secure encrypted line from the Navy’s base there in T’aipei.
“I know what the feeling is at State, but I was on the ground, Phil. I saw with my own eyes, and my wife heard them talking and she listened to their TV and radio diatribes. I tell you that China is getting ready for war. She’s on a wartime footing, and goading her people into believing that whatever the government does will be right and with the best interests of one and a third billion Chinese….
“Yes, damn it, I told you, there has been absolutely no mention of Taiwan. I and my wife both have the impression that this is not about Taiwan; they are gearing up for something else. I’ve put everything I saw and heard in a dispatch that went out by secure wire an hour ago. I wanted to alert you that it’s coming….
“Don’t be surprised at whatever the Chinese do, and they are going to do something. I believe it will be military, they will strike somewhere, and I don’t have the slightest idea where. There has been nothing in their talk about the target of all of this building war hysteria. They might go anywhere along their borders, from North Korea to Mongolia to Kazakhstan or Kyrgyzstan, even India. Now there would be a prize, but it would be a tough fight. India has nuclear weapons as well.”
He listened for a moment.
“Yes, I know this is a surprise. Where are your China watchers? Don’t you have anyone in Bejing anymore? Now, I’ve told you, my hands are clean. I think this is justification for the trouble I’ve caused by this trip. I just hope to God that somebody back there will take this warning to heart. They have to, Phil. Somebody has to believe me. What?”
“Coming home? We’ll be traveling by commercial air so it will take us a few days. We’ve rested up two days here in Taiwan, and now we’re ready to travel. How did we get out of China? That’s between my family and a few good men we can’t mention. Let’s just say that we got out and nobody on either side was killed. Well, one of our men did get wounded, but I don’t know what his situation is. We’re out and coming home.”
* * *
Lieutenant Commander Blake Murdock sat in the waiting room in the Ladies of Charity Hospital in T’aipei. It had been three days since Van Dyke had been shot on the Yibin River coming out of China. He had made it to the destroyer where a team of doctors dug into his chest and took out six fragments of the lead bullet that had fragmented when it hit his rib after penetrating his web harness.
Van Dyke was still alive. The doctors had done what they could on the destroyer, then when it was safe for him to travel, had sent him back to Taiwan via the amphibious ship in a helicopter. The trip had set him back but the doctors at the best hospital in Taiwan had corrected that problem and now he was what the doctors called out of danger. Still Murdock decided to stay with him. Orders had come through sending the SEALs to an aircraft carrier in the 27th Fleet just south of Japan in the East China Sea. The SEALs would stand watch there in case there were any more Americans in China who needed to be extracted. The platoon would replace a group from SEAL Team One, who had been stationed on the ship for the past two months. Murdock requested that he stay with his wounded man until Van Dyke was ready to be flown to the Naval Hospital in San Diego.
Ed DeWitt had hustled the SEALs into a Navy COD plane at T’aipei. The carrier onboard delivery plane was a Greyhound C-2A, developed from the airborne early warning aircraft, and its primary job is to ferry goods, mail, and personnel from land bases to carriers at sea. It can land and take off from the aircraft carriers. It has a crew of three and can carry thirty-nine troops or twenty-eight passengers, or a payload of fifteen thousand pounds. It has a cruising air speed of 299 mph and a range of twelve hundred miles. In less than two hours out of Taiwan, the Third Platoon landed on the carrier John C. Stennis, CVN 74 cruising in the East China Sea two hundred miles south off the southern most island of Japan, Kyushu.
* * *
Still in Taiwan, Murdock put down the magazine and went to the hospital room to talk with Van Dyke. He was alert now, and the doctors said he was on the way to recovery. They figured it would be five more days before he could be sent home on a Navy jet fitted with a litter section. It would be the same type of business jet they had arrived in little more than a week before.
Tijuana, Mexico
Detective First Class Hector Villareal had been the first officer on the scene after a hysterical woman reported the two homicides early in the morning. Hector was thirty-two, married, and had four children. He was only five feet six and sensitive that he was shorter than most of the other detectives. But he had a strong desire to do well at his job, and had become one of the best detectives in Tijuana. The woman who called was the housekeeper who cleaned the rooms and fixed meals for the man who lived there with one friend.
Hector had handled it by the book. He called his superior, Captain Carlos, who called the chief and together they went over the murder scene carefully, examining every detail.
Captain Carlos was tall, with a pencil-thin moustache and deep-set piercing eyes. He was forty-two, and a widower. He stared at the bodies and scowled. “Yes, I agree this is not the usual type of Mexican Mafia killing. Those hired killers always go with three or four gunmen with submachine guns and spray a hundred and fifty bullets into the victims, making sure the targets are dead.”
“This looks almost surgical by contrast,” Detective Villareal said. “There is no sign that the apartment here on the second floor has been broken into. No smashed glass, no forced entry at the doors. Three of the windows are unlocked, but that is normal — there are no locks on them.”
“Someone could have come in one of the windows off the shed,” the chief said. “I will send a man to check that out.” The chief was more politician than lawman. He held his post by ap
pointment after the former chief had been gunned down on his way to work one morning. The former chief and three bodyguards were all slain. Reports showed that at least two hundred rounds had been fired from submachine guns. The chief stood tall and heavy, swearing that he was going to lose weight, but never could.
“No struggle, no broken furniture, nothing disrupted,” Captain Carlos went on, summarizing the scene. “It could be that the victims knew their attacker. Knew him and even let him in the door, then the bodyguard reacted when he heard the shots, charged into the hall and was shot down himself. Small-caliber weapon, two shots to the head of this big-time drug businessman. He was the main target. The bodyguard must have been a complication. The two shots to the head are the mark of a professional killer. Someone who has to make sure of the death so he can collect his blood money.”
“A gringo?” the chief asked.
Captain Carlos cringed. He didn’t like the term. “Yes, it could be someone from north of our border, an Americano. But if so, how could he do this deed without being seen? Our detectives and uniformed men have canvassed the neighborhood, the street, and the alley. No one could remember seeing anyone who did not belong. No Americano walked up to the door, went upstairs, and shot down the two men. Someone would have seen him.”
The chief looked at his captain. He rubbed his face with one hand and stopped at once. He had to get rid of that habit when he was unsure of himself.
“So, Captain Carlos. You still have friends in the policia in San Diego just across the border?
“Si. Several in the detective bureau. Good friends.”
“So, Captain, why don’t you take a copy of Detective Villareal’s report and have a two-day vacation in San Diego. There you can show the report to your gringo friends. They might recognize the techniques, and might know some Americanos who are capable of such a professional job of murder.”
“Yes, Chief. I will go tomorrow early and talk with my friends across the border. Perhaps they will have some ideas that will give us some leads.”
Bejing, China
In a secret room, ten floors below ground level, the four highest men in the Chinese government sat around a table. Before each man lay a folder that was marked “Operation Self-Sufficiency.” The room was brightly decorated, had carpet on the floor, and soft upholstered furniture around the sides; at one end was a living room — type area with a large-screen television and a CD player with large speakers. On the other end of the forty-foot-long room was a bar and a small kitchen filled with supplies. The room had been built four years ago to specific designs that would withstand a direct hit of a forty-megaton nuclear explosion.
The four men consulted the file and nodded. They had been working over the plan for months, now it was ready and they had agreed to talk about it one last time before final approval.
General Hui Hon Yuen was the only one in uniform. It was his meeting. General Hui had come up the hard way through the vagaries of the Chinese Army. He attached himself to one top general after another, side-stepped when they were deposed or died, and rapidly climbed in the hierarchy until he had the top spot. He was taller than the other men at nearly five feet ten. He was fifty-three years old and silver was invading the sides of his black hair. He wore glasses and was clean shaven. Sometimes details of an operation drove him crazy. He’d rather be out leading a tank battalion.
At Hui’s right hand sat the head of state, president of the People’s Republic of China, Chen Shung Wai. Chen was a politician of the old school; had ridden every phase of Chinese politics for the past thirty years; and weathered each one, moving upward with each purge and each switch in the agenda. He was fifty-six, father of one child and grandfather of one, hewing exactly to the party line on one offspring per marriage.
The second man in the country was called the head of government. He sat to Hui’s left. The fourth man was the defense minister.
General Hui rose and stared at the three men. “We have worked hard on this plan, this operation. It will ensure our future as a powerful nation for the next two hundred years. It will allow us to grow without becoming dependent on any other nation. We will be self-sufficient, we will be able to rule this part of the world with total impunity.”
The defense minister looked up. He was a general himself now out of uniform and in the cabinet of President Chen. He peaked his fingers, frowned, and motioned to the general. “Sir, I know of the powers of our Army and Air Force. I have agreed that we will have no trouble taking the first objective and even the second. Our troops can carry enough food for a week. Ammunition and shells and equipment repair will be a factor. Resupply of our troops is my main concern. Resupply is the key in any battle, any campaign. No matter how sharp and experienced and determined a fighting force may be, it will be whipped without timely resupply of ammunition, supplies, and food.”
General Hui frowned. “You are aware that we have stockpiled huge amounts of food, equipment, ammunition, and other ordinance within a few miles of our border at both the first two objectives. Once we are victorious, we begin drawing support and food from the captured enemy.”
General Hui stared hard at his one-time colleague in the military. “General, let me assure you once again, we have the resources and the placement of those items to do the job.”
“What about our ally in this operation?” President Chen asked.
“They are fully ready and well equipped. We have furnished them with some of their military needs over the past year, paving the way for this operation. They will be ready to attack the same time we do; and together we will turn this into a three-day war.”
The president smiled. “Three days now, but what about the second phase, the vital one.”
The general frowned. “Yes, the vital one. True, the crux of our whole operation. By the time we are ready to light that fire, we will have almost two hundred thousand Chinese military in the guest country in a supposed buildup for a strike at a third nation. We will have specific targets and objectives, and we expect no more than a three-day engagement before we have won that phase of our operation.”
President Chen had another question. “General, I’ve been talking with some of my experts on world opinion. Right now China is in a rather neutral position. That’s better than the negative ten percent we were last year. However, this major war, particularly the opening shot, is going to have a dramatic negative effect on world opinion. My experts say that fully fifty percent of the nation’s governments will condemn us for that act alone.”
General Hui turned and walked to the living room end of the area, paused a moment and then walked back. By that time, the rage that had struck him had melted away and he controlled it. There was no sign of anger or displeasure when he turned to his only superior.
“Mr. President, world opinion means nothing to me compared to the tremendous benefit this operation will bring to us. It is ludicrous to even try to compare world opinion with our own self-sufficiency for the next two hundred years. Opinions come and go. For example we have strong commercial and business ties with the United States. Do you think they will break those contracts, deliveries, and imports because of our first strike or the resulting bad world opinion? Of course not. Our thrust will be quick and sure. World opinion will work back in our favor in only a few years.”
General Hui looked around the table. The other two nodded. At last the president gave a little sigh and bobbed his head.
“Good. Saturday is the day, dawn is the time. General, communicate with our friends about their movements and have everything primed at dawn. That will be about five fifteen A.M.” General Hui smiled at them. “Gentlemen, it will be a good war, a fast one, and we will be set for the next two hundred years.”
5
Coronado, California
Nancy Dobler sat in her Coronado apartment in the robe she had pulled on quickly that morning. She had overslept, and fourteen-year-old Helen had to wake her. Helen was ready for school, but eleven-year old Charles wasn’t. She hust
led him and got them both off to school on time with lunches.
“Mom, do I have to carry a brown paper sack lunch? All the kids I know buy their lunch at the cafeteria. It’s just not cool to take a sack to school.”
“Cool or not, you do it. We aren’t made of money, child. Your dad is Navy, right, and we scrimp and save where we can.”
“Yeah, like that model power boat Dad bought. Wasn’t that something like a hundred and fifty dollars?”
“Hush up, young lady. Your father gets little time enough for his own enjoyment.”
They were gone then, and Nancy had regretted some of the things she said. But if the money just wasn’t there…
She ran to the bathroom and lifted a full bottle of whisky from inside the toilet tank where she had hidden it. Just a short one. Just one to get through the day. Hell, it was going to be another long one, and then Will wouldn’t be there at night. She missed him.
The one drink turned into four; and when Nancy checked the clock through fuzzy eyes, she figured it was somewhere around eleven o’clock. She knew she should get dressed.
“Dressed for fucking who?” she asked out loud. It seemed funny coming that way and she said it again. This time she shrilled with laughter. She turned on the TV in the living room and had another half a glass of the straight stuff and sipped at it. Before she knew it the glass was empty.
“Hell, must have spilled it,” she said and giggled. For a minute she felt like she was going to throw up, but she didn’t and lay on the sofa. The whisky bottle tipped and half of it ran out onto the fabric and soaked in. When she saw it she whooped.
“Oh, damn and God damn, I done it this time.” She stared at the stain, stood the bottle on the floor and whooped in delight ending in a raucous laugh. “Fuck, I’ll just send the thing out to get cleaned.” It seemed uproariously funny and she said it again. Then she bent over and vomited on the living room carpet.
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