Now he stood on the command bridge of a powerful warship. In minutes he would give an order that would result in the deaths of many men. He could no longer put the reality of those deaths in the back of his mind simply because it was to have been Admiral Wu leading the taskforce who would give the order to open fire. The admiral was steaming north. Now he was in charge. He had been ordered to attack a convoy and kill men who had harmed neither him nor his nation.
Is this how all wars start, he thought, with men like me who are told to kill and do not have the courage to say no? If I refuse to obey the order to murder, I will be relieved of my command and someone else will issue the order. I will be shot and my family will suffer. My little son doesn’t even know what war is and yet by refusing to kill now, I would not affect the outcome out there on the water and I would destroy him as surely as I am about to destroy men I have never met. Is it always so? Are we doomed to kill simply because we are all too cowardly to say no?
“Captain, we are within range of the convoy,” announced his first officer. “What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to hand me the microphone, Lieutenant,” Geng answered. The lieutenant watched his eyes as he handed him the microphone. The captain did not return his gaze. He stared out over the ocean as he lifted the microphone to his lips.
“Attention ships of the Vietnamese Navy and the merchant ship you are escorting. The is the captain of the Frigate Yulin of the People‘s Republic of China. You are in Chinese waters and are hereby ordered to prepare for boarding and inspection. Do you copy?”
“Chinese naval vessel, this is Vietnamese Frigate Dinh Tien Hoang. As you well know, we are in international waters and will proceed accordingly.”
Yes, you are right, my Vietnamese captain, thought Geng. You have done no wrong and yet you are about to die for the egos of old men who will never even know your name.
“Attention frigate Dinh Tien Hoang. This is your final warning. Heave to or you will be fired upon.”
“We are prepared, Chinese dogs,” came the reply.
Captain Geng Huichang turned to his fire control officer.
“Prepare to fire two missiles from Yulin targeting lead Vietnamese warship and two from Yuxi targeting the second.”
“I have lock, captain,” announced the fire control officer.
“Fire!”
******
Something hit her shoulder from behind. A woman had bumped into her, then glanced back with a look that said: Watch out fool! It happened again and she realized that she was just standing there, blocking traffic. Before she had always been moving with the flow, going somewhere like everyone else. Now she felt somehow out of place – in front of her own apartment building.
No one seemed to notice her, at least as long as she stayed out of the way. Everyone was rushing by, just as they always did, none stopping to stare. She was starting to feel calm again, as if there was nothing to be afraid of, as if what she had seen was only a dream. Perhaps it was. Maybe she had dreamed it. But the image of the woman seated at the desk – and her words – would not fade.
A police car put an abrupt end to that. It was nearing the spot where she stood, its occupants looking her way. Ming wanted to flee, but to where? It was in her apartment where she had listened to the sedition; it no longer promised refuge. She had almost turned to run down an alley when something inexplicable happened. A boy of perhaps fifteen emerged from the passersby and threw something at the police car, or rather in front of it. Then he pivoted and ran.
The officer behind the wheel twisted his head around and shouted as he hit the brakes. There was a pop, followed by a hissing sound. He cursed and banged the steering wheel with the heel of his hand before getting out and walking around the front of the car. The left front tire was already sinking. He picked up a small object and looked at it. It appeared to be made of sharpened nails, bent and welded together so that a sharp point is always up. He cursed again as he picked up several more in front of the car.
Then a young woman stepped off the curb and handed him a folded paper, much as one might extend an invitation. She stood smiling as he opened it.
Please do not be angry. We wish only that you pause to reflect that we are all Chinese - citizens with aspirations, hopes, families, precious children and revered elders. Like people everywhere, we desire to be free to express ourselves and to choose our leaders. We invite you to join us in peaceful change toward democracy for all.
The officer was neither persuaded nor amused and he grabbed her wrist and snapped a handcuff around it. Spinning her around harshly, he cuffed her other hand behind her and shoved her roughly into the back seat. Her smile was unchanged.
“You are under arrest for crimes against the People’s Republic,” he said mechanically.
Then he climbed back into the front seat and grabbed the microphone to call for backup in case there were other miscreants about and for prisoner transport. Another car less than a quarter mile away responded, announcing that he would be there in approximately five minutes.
A young couple approached the police car and, pointing out that she had done nothing wrong, asked that she be released. The police officer responded that he had more handcuffs for them too, but they did not back away. Then an old man shuffled over to the officer and volunteered to take her place. Soon there were more than a dozen people gathered around the car, all peacefully beseeching the officers to join them.
Now becoming nervous and agitated, the officer called the other car to find out what was holding them up. It was clear from the look on his face that the answer he received unsettled him. It was then that he drew his sidearm. The crowd surrounding him backed away but only a couple of meters. Then they began to chant:
“Peace be to you, our friends. Do not be afraid. We desire only that you join us in our quest for democracy.”
The officer vacillated between fear and confusion as the crowd repeated their chant but did not approach him. The other car had informed him that they had a flat tire and could not assist him. What worried him even more was that they had also called for backup and received a similar answer. Clearly he was stranded in the midst of a brewing insurrection. Briefly he flirted with the idea of shooting two or three in the crowd to instill fear, but the crowd was growing and he was afraid to anger them. For now at least they continued to chant peacefully.
Lee Ming stood transfixed, not believing her eyes. The voice in the message had predicted this:
You will find other citizens already there who will instruct you in how to first contain the police and army and then convince them that they are us and we are them.
She took a few hesitant steps, then started walking, wondering how she will know who is with this . . . this movement. Everyone knows the police have spies everywhere and she feared she might go marching up to someone only to have handcuffs slapped on her wrists. She had walked several blocks when she caught the eye of another young lady, perhaps three or four years older than she. Not knowing what to do, she demurred. The slender young woman approached her and said:
“Tell me, how has your day been?”
“Confusing,” Ming replied hesitantly, looking into the gentle eyes of the person in front of her. “I was listening to music, then all of a sudden . . .”
“Your music was replaced by a message,” interrupted the young woman.
“Yes, but how did you know?”
“Don’t worry about that. Walk with me and I will explain to you what is happening. What is your name?” The two turned and set off down the street, noticing a motorcycle policeman with a flat tire and a group of people gathered around him.
“I am Nuan,” the young woman said. “The hidden video file you watched is not just a warning; it is a call to freedom. It is a rallying cry for millions of Chinese who are unemployed due to President Li’s reckless actions, hiding underground for fear of capture or just yearning for a time when citizens can speak freely without being beaten or imprisoned. It is an awakening des
igned, by sheer force of numbers, to force China’s repressive government to bring democracy and a say in the affairs of government to its people. It is also a desperate and dangerous gambit by those who hope to prove that a movement which was brutally crushed in Tiananmen Square can somehow prevail now.”
“The organizers’ hopes rest on two tenuous assumptions: one, that Li’s outrageous actions both domestically and abroad have pushed the average Chinese citizen over the edge in terms of opposition to him; two, that current ubiquitous video technology will manage to broadcast any crackdown that Li might launch so widely as to force him to capitulate. The organizers are not naïve, nor are they stupid. They are aware that many Chinese have good jobs and are willing to overlook corruption and the brutality of the police in order to continue to enjoy their comforts. They also realize that while video technology in 1989 was far from what it is today, there were photos and videos of that horrible event that made it into the world press and, in spite of that, the tanks still rolled over the demonstrators.”
“Darkness has descended over our nation and its people, Ming, and today a new life for you and for China is dawning. But it is not without peril. Do you want to become a part of that?”
Ming searched Nuan’s eyes, looking for any hint of deceit or treachery. They were like clear pools, tranquil reservoirs of kindness and understanding.
“Tell me what to do,” she replied.
“Very well. First we must contain the police and the army to the greatest extent possible. By hindering their movement, we limit their ability to organize against us. Furthermore, by isolating them we gain the opportunity to speak to them on a human level and persuade them to join us and put down their weapons. To do this we use caltrops, simple ancient devices first used to puncture horses hooves to stop their charges. Now we employ them to puncture tires and prevent movement. Here, take these.” She reached into a small bag she carried with her a produced a handful which she handed to Ming.
“Use them only when you have a clear avenue of escape, because the police become very angry when they realize they are stranded. When you have used them successfully and escaped, find a another group that is gathered around a police car with a flattened tire and plead with the officers to join us. It is critical that we do not attempt to injure the officers in any way for if we use violence, then we become like them. Can you do that?”
Ming looked at the spiked devices that Nuan was holding out and said:
“But how can this make a difference; there are so many police?”
“There are many of us too and every minute, more like you join the movement. Already some of the police are joining us too. We must have faith in each other and in the righteousness of our cause. Soon there will be millions and the government will be forced to acknowledge the futility of resistance.”
Ming cupped her hands around the caltrops that Nuan proffered.
“Be strong,” Nuan said, “and one day you will tell your grandchildren tales of your bravery and ours and how together we saved our great nation.”
Ming looked down at the tiny weapons of freedom in her hands and smiled. When she looked up again, Nuan was gone.
******
The taxi pulled to the curb and one of its five passengers disembarked. Three blocks later, it made its way around a disabled police car and continued on for approximately a quarter mile before dropping off the next passenger. It was more than a mile to the next drop off point, and along the way they passed a motorcycle that had been pushed to the side of the road, a police officer cursing no one in particular as a group of people began to gather around it. Each of the remaining three passengers was dropped at a strategic point before Jun turned back to Beijing to gather more.
While there was no way to know exactly how many, there were certainly hundreds of police cars and motorcycles whose tires had been flattened and whose drivers were now the subjects of impassioned pleas to join the movement. Most fell on deaf ears, and several came very close to provoking angry police to use their side arms. In fact, guns were brandished by quite a few officers, but perhaps finding themselves isolated tempered their resolve. Not a single police officer had decided to join the movement yet, but as they waited for backup that would never arrive, a few were on the fence.
If the officers felt isolated now, they were about to experience a new level of isolation. It seems that among the authorities’ vast network of computer, surveillance, radio, and cryptography specialists were a few traitors. At a pre-arranged time, they began jamming the frequencies that the police use to communicate. This was accomplished with powerful transmitters periodically transmitting over all police frequencies in ten second bursts, overwhelming calls to and from individual cars. The fact that these transmissions were intermittent and the transmitters were concealed in moving vehicles made apprehension extremely difficult. In addition, hackers had reprogrammed the software that switches and allocates calls for the entire system, causing massive confusion as officers received calls meant for others and calls from the base were routed back to itself. Pandemonium could not adequately describe the effect.
While some levels of the military were equipped with frequency-hopping equipment to foil jamming, the police had nothing so sophisticated. Some had scramblers that could garble transmissions to prevent eavesdropping, but even those were not available to many street-level officers. In a nation where scanners and walkie-talkies are forbidden to the average citizen, they were never thought to be necessary. There was a delicious irony in all of this: some of those responsible for the chaos had helped to develop the electronic warfare systems that were to be used against the West in the event of conflict. An unplanned trial was now in progress.
Every route in and out of a precinct police station had, by this time, one or more dissidents with concealed caltrops ready to stop any movement by official automobile or van. The numbers of disabled vehicles and stranded officers had reached a level that was crippling operations. At first, there were some in the police hierarchy who believed that this was a prelude to bank robberies or jewelry heists. Accordingly, they attempted to direct officers to protect these places, only to be puzzled when the cars that were dispatched didn’t report back. Because few realized the extent of the disruption, it was at first attributed to some sort of glitch in the equipment. In desperation, individual officers began to use personal cell phones, a move that would present a new challenge to authorities.
Jun had picked up five more passengers. Now all of the men who had been hiding in Hong’s warehouse were in strategic locations near the hospital. The foreigner who had instructed them along with two other ‘attachés’ who, after a lengthy game of cat and mouse, had finally shaken off their Chinese tails, were in a grocery supply warehouse several miles away. Jun made another circuit of the neighborhood around the hospital, noting that the police car that had been parked nearby was gone. The plan would be executed during shift change, an hour away.
******
Captain Geng Huichang had no way of knowing there were Russians aboard the Vietnamese frigates, though he should have considered the possibility since both China and Russia had used ‘advisors’ to augment allies’ militaries in the past. For the Russians, the invitation had been irresistible. In return for exchanging the frigates’ existing anti-ship missiles and other defensive systems with upgraded versions that had not yet even made it onto some of their own vessels, the Russians would reap billions in profit from sales of these systems to countries who considered China a potential threat. With videos of sinking Chinese ships playing on monitors in their next weapons expo exhibit, the orders would come flooding in.
It had been no simple feat and had involved non-stop, around the clock modifications which had barely been completed in time. Both because there was no time for training and because there were certain features that would be surreptitiously altered after the battle to ensure that only Russia retained the most capable weapons systems, Russian technicians would be manning the weapons. They were c
onfident that the upgraded version of the SS-N-25 ‘Switchblade’ anti-ship missile would burn through the jamming equipment on the Chinese frigates. Furthermore, the new defensive systems would defeat the Chinese YJ-83’s that had just been fired. Finally, the Vietnamese captains, knowing full well that they would be fired upon when they refused to come about had fired their missiles immediately upon the second warning from the Chinese warships, not waiting to be fired upon themselves.
“Enemy missiles fired, Captain,” the Din Tien Hoang radar intercept officer shouted, momentarily forgetting that the captain was only feet away.
“Activate countermeasures,” answered the captain calmly.
Aboard the Yulin:
“Our missiles have acquired the Vietnamese ships, Captain,” interjected the weapons systems officer, then abruptly adding:
“Enemy missiles inbound!”
“Activate jamming,” responded Captain Geng, confident that the ship’s countermeasures would defeat the Vietnamese weapons.
The electronic jammers immediately began to saturate the area in front of the enemy missiles with powerful signals designed to disrupt the missiles’ guidance system, but the updated Russian Switchblade missiles bored through the electronic noise.
“Enemy missiles still tracking, Captain!”
“Launch counter-measures rockets!” barked the captain, his eyes now betraying fear.
The PJ-46 six-round decoy rocket launchers immediately fired their rockets. Designed to create a large ‘bloom’ to distract the seeker head on the missile, they likewise did not fool the updated Russian missiles. Everyone in the CIC (Combat Information Center) realized that what was in essence a large machinegun was now all that stood between them and the incoming ordinance. The missiles switched to terminal guidance mode, ducking to within less than 20 feet of the sea and began to jink from side to side as they closed at nearly 600 mph.
Two Peasants and a President Page 39