“Weapons check,” Colonel Lin said in his communications mike. “Make sure our friend is riding comfortably and that there is no vibration loosening of the tie downs.”
“Yes sir, right away.”
Moments later an affirmative signal came back. Colonel Lin nodded and monitored his own controls. On course, at the right speed. From their base in Congqing, China, it was a 1,350-mile flight to target. At the top speed of the Badger at 650 mph, it would take them a little over two hours to make the trip. The Badger had a ceiling of 49,215 feet, but that kind of altitude was not needed. They were flying at 19,000 feet for good fuel economy. They would get to the target and return without refueling. The Badger’s range with a warload was 4,475 miles. Lots of room to spare.
Colonel Lin expected no trouble. They were over the friendly skies of China for all but the last few miles. They would make the bombing run and return. Routine.
Colonel Lin was taller than most Chinese his age. At thirty-eight he was young for his rank, but he had earned it. He had never disobeyed an order in his life, but he had to think about his current mission. He would be doing something that only two or three men had ever done before.
Would he be cheered or condemned? He knew the world would call him a monster, a villain, a mass killer. He had come to peace with that. He was doing a job assigned to him by his superiors. It had to be done.
Lin stretched in the pilot’s seat. He looked over at his co-pilot. The Major did not know what the mission was. He was not aware of any of the massive movements that the bombing run would set off.
Lin thought about it again. Yes, he would do it. Yes he would carry out his orders. He would drop the bomb on target as ordered and blast away at maximum power to escape as much of the blast and detonation problems as possible. The crew would be affected to a certain degree. They all would be examined carefully when they returned to base. Both he and the co-pilot wore special lead chest and lap protectors.
“One hour and ten minutes to target,” his bombardier reported.
“Yes, understood,” Lin said into the intercom. He adjusted the helmet, checked his instruments, and peered into the black sky ahead. Nothing there. There shouldn’t be. There wouldn’t be anything there. No enemy aircraft to contend with.
For no reason, Colonel Lin thought of his wife and one child at home. He and his wife obeyed the edict of one child per family in an attempt by the government to limit population growth. The plan had worked fairly well in the cities; but in rural China, there were still many four- and five-child families. He and his wife had been lucky, they had a son. He knew of two officers who had determined the sex of their child before birth and aborted girl babies. Male children were highly prized in China.
At once he thought of the wives and children who would never have another day in their lives. He shivered slightly. There could be a hundred thousand casualties. The target was a city of 135,000 people. True, they were not Chinese, they were the enemy. Lin had been surprised when told of the target. How could that small country harm the greatness of China? Certainly, it was no threat and there had been no buildups or threats or war between the countries.
The timing had been carefully plotted out so the bomb would fall on Biratnagar at precisely 0530. That would be at the official time of sunrise in the city.
“Starting gradual climb to 25,000 feet,” the co-pilot said. Lin looked round. Yes, it was time. Two minutes past time. He had been daydreaming.
“Right, climbing to 25,000 as programmed.”
“Thirty minutes to target,” the navigator said. “Colonel, I have more than two dozen blips on the radar of aircraft coming toward us from the south and east.”
“Yes, transports, those are ours. No worry. They will follow us over the target by thirty minutes. Everything is going as planned. Good work, crew. Stand by for bomb drop in twenty-eight minutes.”
Bomb drop. Two words that would change the course of the world for the next few years. The world would never be the same. He was the trigger that would start it. He had no idea where it might end or what else he might do in the plan. After they returned to their base, he was to be flown directly to Beijing for a ceremony and a medal. That much he knew. After that, he had no idea how he would serve China. If there were an air war, he hoped that he would be in the thick of it.
Twenty minutes later the navigator came on the IC, the intercom, again. “Seven minutes to release time. Seven minutes. Starting prerelease check off and count down.”
Colonel Lin went over the procedure again. The bomb would be released at the proper point for forward motion toward the target. It would drop fifty feet and a parachute would deploy, slowing its descent. It would still fall at 120 feet per second, giving it two minutes to descend to 10,000 feet over the target where the altitude sensors would trigger the bomb.
That gave the Tupolev Badger two minutes to get out of the way of the atomic explosion and tremendous heat and air blast. Two minutes at 650 mph would be twenty-two miles. Twenty-two miles away from a blast that could only be described as pure hell on earth. A roiling, boiling mass of flames, blast, destruction, radiation, and instant immolation of buildings, vegetation, and human beings.
Colonel Lin tried not to think about it. He had an airplane to fly, a mission to complete. He would complete his mission!
“One minute to release,” the navigator said. “On proper target course. About eleven miles from release point.”
“Release checklist completed. We have a green light for release by the Colonel.”
“Acknowledged,” Colonel Lin said. He felt sweat seeping down inside his helmet. His right knee hurt. It always began to ache when he went into combat. He had no idea why. For a moment his visor fogged over, then cleared. All he could think about was his family at home in Beijing.
“Counting down from ten,” the bombardier said. “Five, four, three…”
Colonel Lin felt tears streaming down his cheeks. He could think only of his family in Bejing, and the 130,000 souls below who might never see another sunrise.
“… two, one, release.”
Colonel Lin pushed the button on his console that had been especially rigged to release the twenty-megaton bomb in the underfuselage weapons bay. He felt a sudden upward surge of the aircraft as the extremely heavy bomb left the craft.
“Your airplane, Major,” Colonel Lin said.
“Right, full throttle, gradual turn to the left, about two minutes to blast,” the co-pilot said. “We’ll be riding the tail of the air surge. At twenty-two miles it should be moderate but on our tail.”
“Agreed, flip down face mask shields now,” Colonel Lin said. The crew moved down shields that let them see almost nothing.
Colonel Lin tried to count down the two minutes. The navigator did it for him.
“A minute and fifty seconds from release,” he said.
Almost at once, a searing brilliant flash overrode the sparse sunlight of early morning, stabbing through the face shields, followed a few seconds later by a crashing mountain of air that spasmed out of the huge ball of fire and away from the mushroom cloud back there twenty-two miles.
Colonel Lin checked the controls through his shield. What he could see looked normal.
Then the flash of light dimmed, and he jerked up the shield and saw that all instruments were in the usual ranges.
“Good work, crew, our job is done, we’re heading home,” Colonel Lin said.
“I have more than forty blips on my radar of incoming planes,” the navigator said. “They are still more than a hundred miles off but closing fast.”
“Crew, we have just started a war. We have bombed Biratnagar, in southeastern Nepal. The cargo planes coming are filled with paratroopers, who will drop in on every large city in Nepal. Our leaders think this Nepal war will last no more than two days.”
“Why are we going to war with Nepal?” the navigator asked. “What does that little mountainous country possibly have that China could want?”
; “That they didn’t tell me,” Colonel Lin said. “Now our job is to get back home. Navigator, check our course and speed.”
7
East China Sea
John C. Stennis, CVN 74
The carrier’s wardroom was crowded with officers watching the large-screen TV that picked up CNN off a satellite. It was not yet noon on board and no one knew what time zone Nepal was in.
“Whatever time it is over there, they are in one shit pot full of trouble,” an ensign said. “China will walk all over them in three days and there won’t be anything left of that little country but a few high mountains.”
Murdock and DeWitt had just finished coffee when the reports came through on CNN.
“I can’t believe that China would waste a bomb on Nepal,” DeWitt said. “Hell, she could walk across the border there anytime she wanted to without turning a hundred thousand people into crispy critters.”
“CNN said this town they hit with the bomb used to have a population of a hundred and thirty-five thousand,” Murdock said. “Most of them must be gone by now. Of course maybe China wanted to prove she had a tactical nuclear weapon. India would return tit for tat with a nuke, so Nepal would be safer.”
Somebody turned up the volume on the TV.
So far that’s all the information we have. We have no correspondents in Nepal. As most of you know it’s a small country, only fifty-four thousand square miles, that’s a little smaller than the state of Kentucky. Nepal has just over twenty-four million people and Kentucky has only four million.
The military experts say that Nepal has a standing army of only 47,000 men. China has almost three million men under arms. Nepal is a kingdom with the highest mountains in the world. That is where Mount Everest climbs up to twenty-nine thousand twenty-eight feet. The Himalayan Mountain Range bisects the length of Nepal and has twelve more peaks that are over 25,000 feet. By contrast, Mount McKinley in Alaska, the tallest spot in North America, is only 20,320 feet.
Worldwide condemnation of China and Pakistan is pouring into the news media. We have statements from half the nations that are awake at this hour naming China and Pakistan as monsters, bullies, warmongers, outlaw nations, the devil’s spawn, and those are just a few of the nicer names that world governments are calling China and Pakistan that we’re allowed to tell you about.
Which brings us to the question of why. Why would a huge country with a billion and a quarter population, team up with a smaller nation and assault and devastate a tiny country with only twenty-four million residents? We’ve asked some outstanding experts on China, including a U.S. Senator who was rescued from South China less than a week ago. He has some interesting comments. First let’s go to the man who has made his reputation predicting what China will do, retired Army General—
Murdock felt somebody poke him in the shoulder and looked around to see Don Stroh in a garish blue, red, purple, and brilliant yellow Hawaiian print shirt showing tropical flowers, and matching pants. The vision slid into a chair next to Murdock.
“It’s really hit the fan, just like your favorite senator predicted.”
“Thought you had flown back stateside,” DeWitt said.
“Convinced my boss that your senator wasn’t as crazy as State said he was and wrangled another two weeks over here. Looks like it paid off.”
“Hey, Stroh, we’re not in this tussle,” Murdock said. “None of our people were nuked.”
“Haven’t you heard of the Joint Southeast Asian Defense Alliance?” Stroh asked.
“Not a whisper,” DeWitt said.
“Neither have I,” Stroh said, “but there’s something like that out there that damn well could commit us to take up the defense if one of the signatories is attacked. Could be something like that here. If we signed a treaty like that with Nepal, we’re committed to defend that little ridge of mountains.”
“Not another Vietnam,” DeWitt said.
“Whatever you call it, I’d say there is a high and big fucking chance that you boys will be busy here quickly, often, and up to your gonads in Chinese and Pakistanis.”
“But it still has to go through channels, right?” Murdock said.
Stroh gave a big sigh. “Oh, yeah. That little admiral who runs the SEALs is still in a bodacious snit. Wants another stripe on his sleeve. But if things get hot, we can go right with the CNO. The man himself told me so.”
“Stroh, you putting on weight?” Murdock asked. “You look a little pudgy around the waist again and those jowls are barfing out like crazy. You been working out at all?”
“None of your damn business.”
One of the mess stewards came up and stared at Stroh. The CIA man noticed and turned. “So?”
“Are you Mr. Stroh?”
“He is,” Murdock said.
“Sir, the ship’s captain requests your presence with Commander Murdock and Lieutenant (jg) DeWitt in his cabin at once. There is a guide outside to take you there.”
“Duty calls,” Murdock said.
Stroh didn’t move. He hadn’t touched the cup of coffee he brought with him when he sat down. “Be damned. This captain is getting touchy. He ordered me, that’s as in ordered me, to put on some fancy officer khaki uniform. I told him I never made it past corporal in the big war, so I couldn’t wear officer khaki; and he snorted, and said didn’t matter. Guess I’ll get a real ass chewing.”
“Not likely, Stroh. You’ve still got connections, and the captain is always looking for one more wide gold stripe on his arm. Let’s go see what he wants.”
Ten minutes later they were shown into the outer room in the captain’s cabin. It looked like a small living room with a sofa, two large upholstered chairs, a floor lamp and a small table. On one wall was a six-foot-wide map opened to large-scale views of northern India, Nepal, Bhutan, and Bangladesh.
“This is gonna be business,” Stroh said.
“Relived?” DeWitt asked.
“Damn right. I’ve got a boss, too, you know.”
They turned as a large man came into the compartment. He was nearly six feet six, with gray streaks in heavy black hair at his temples, and a face that looked like it had been assembled by committee. His nose was too large for his round face. His cheeks held a perpetual pinkness. Steel blue eyes surveyed the three men in front of him as he moved with an easy grace many tall men don’t have, and pushed behind his desk. He eased into the tall leather chair.
“Seated,” he said. An order.
“I’m Captain Robertson and this is my ship. I usually take orders through channels, and I’m not comfortable having the CNO of the whole damn Navy calling me on the radio.” He paused. “Which doesn’t mean a thing to you men. SEALs and a CIA officer. My lucky day. I don’t mind you taking board and room on my ship, but the CNO said you may have some work to do. He wasn’t specific, but said it had something to do with the nuke bombing this morning and the attack by China and Pakistan.” The captain paused and looked at the men with a steady gaze.
“From what the CNO said, you men have been through this procedure before. I haven’t. He told me that if we get a go-ahead on a mission for you, it takes total priority over anything else I might be doing or want to do, except the safety of my ship and my men. That’s an order I’ve never had before. In short, anything you need or want that I can provide, I give to you. In effect, you own me and my ship. I’m not pleased with that procedure. Whatever you need for your mission is yours. That could be a destroyer, a chopper, a COD, a squadron of F-18s, anything short of a nuclear weapon, which not even the CNO can initiate.
“The CNO told me to tell you that he’s putting orders through channels that you are temporarily assigned to my ship, and you will stand by under a red alert for further orders. My task force is to steam at once toward the South China Sea and generally closer to China off the Chinese island of Hainan. We have a twelve-hundred-mile move. Any idea why, Mr. Stroh?”
“Sir, that would put us closer to the conflict in Nepal.”
“True, b
ut still twelve or thirteen hundred miles from the fighting. I understand that more than twenty thousand Chinese and Pakistani troops have entered Nepal, elite units by air drop, others from helicopters. Mounted troops are fighting their way into the small country by the few roads that link China with Nepal.”
“My guess is that in three days the war will be over,” Stroh said. “Nothing to stop them, and China and Pakistan will put as many ground troops in as they need. China alone has two point nine million men under arms; and as we remember from Korea, they don’t mind taking a high body count if it gets results.”
“At thirty knots it’ll be over long before we get there,” the Captain said. He rubbed his face with his right hand and winced, then massaged his right thumb. “Damned arthritis.” He looked up at Murdock. “Any requests, Commander?”
“Conditioning. We do need a place to run six to ten miles a day.”
“Try the flight deck when there’s no air operations. It’s almost eleven hundred feet long. Five laps to the mile. Talk to a white shirt down there before you run. He’ll help you work out a safe route. In fact he’ll find an area for you to run and work out even if we are having air operations. Anything else?”
“No, sir. If we get a mission, then I’ll want to talk to you, your CAG, and probably somebody in ordnance.”
“Will do, Commander. Now we head for the South China Sea and see what the big Chinese dragon does.” He watched them a moment, then nodded. “Yes, I think this will work out. That will be all, gentlemen.”
The three men stood, came to attention, then turned and left the cabin. When the door closed, Stroh let out a long breath.
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