Two Peasants and a President

by Frederick Aldrich

  During the final seconds of the missile’s flight, every sphincter muscle on the Chinese ships tightened as their crews stood astride the line that separates life and death. With a roar that penetrated even the armored CIC, the Gatling-like point defense cannon erupted, spewing enormous 30mm shells at the rate of several thousand per minute. A thundering explosion scarcely fifty feet off the ship’s port bow showered the ship with large chunks of destroyed missile, to which the men responded with a cheer. But their celebration was cut short as the second missile, evading the curtain of depleted uranium shells, struck amidships, its 225kg shaped-charge warhead penetrating to the center of the ship, where it exploded in a white-hot fireball.

  More than thirty men were instantly incinerated, and an intense fire began to consume the interior of the ship. The engineering spaces were relatively unscathed as yet, and the engines continued to propel the ship forward. But on the bridge all were either dead or gravely injured and there was no one to man the helm, leaving the ship charging forward at its most recent rudder setting. Those assigned to damage control who were not already dead or injured, bravely tried to fight the fire, but it quickly became a raging inferno that was nearing the forward magazine where the ammunition for the 100mm gun is stored. Had Captain Geng Huichang been alive, he would have ordered ‘abandon ship’ to save what remained of his crew. But some were still courageously manning their damage control stations when the forward magazine exploded, blowing off the front of the ship clear back to the bridge. Bowless and with the engines still propelling it forward, the Yulin dove into the abyss.

  The Yuxi defensive systems had not managed to stop either of the missiles targeting it and both struck amidships, nearly cutting the ship in two. It was quickly sinking as those still alive struggled to find the means to evacuate. They would have less than four minutes before the ship, now split in two, sank beneath the waves. Only eleven would survive.

  Aboard the Song-class submarine trailing the convoy, the captain, hearing the unmistakable sounds of the two warships breaking up, ordered a firing solution for each of the Vietnamese frigates, intending to send them to the bottom with torpedoes. But the 20 knot speed of the container ship had necessitated that his submarine match it in order to keep up, and this speed markedly diminished the ability of its sensors to listen to the surrounding waters. It was only when the trailing Vietnamese Kilos opened their torpedo doors that the Chinese captain realized his mistake. He was scarcely able to get off a snap-shot at the Kilos before their torpedoes sent him to the bottom.

  6 8

  The unmistakable sound of diesel engines starting alerted the young man that something was afoot inside the Beijing Military Garrison. Chao, who had been drinking tea nearby, opened his cell phone to alert those along the route leading from the base into the city. Twenty minutes later, the first of three dozen trucks could be seen emerging from the base, each with twenty fully armed soldiers seated in the back. Again, Chao opened his cell phone, this time to let his comrades know that the soldiers were seated facing out, clearly in a position to fire at anyone attempting to interfere.

  Slightly more than a mile away, six lorries whose beds contained drums of cooking oil were pulled into a blocking position across the highway, at a point where it would be difficult go around. Their drivers punctured the tires and opened the drums before taking up positions astride the highway. The roar of diesel engines could already be heard approaching. As men with the now familiar bows and arrows peered around corners, they noted that rather than slow for their roadblock, the heavy army trucks were accelerating. The first truck slammed into the lorries at nearly forty miles per hour, shoving one aside and upending another.

  The next truck aimed at the intersection between two other lorries and managed to flip one over before continuing unimpeded, but the collisions had created a sufficient tangle of wreckage to snag the undercarriage of the following truck. It rode partway up over the mangled lorries before becoming high-centered. The follow-on trucks now had no choice but to slow. A slick of vegetable oil beneath the wreckage had begun to spread outward.

  Arrows began to fly from concealed positions, but the soldiers were prepared and leaping off the trucks, quickly spread out, firing as they went. One dissident who broke into a run was cut down. Discipline among the dissidents began to crumble as some ran to waiting cars and taxis one street over and others, enraged at the murder of one of their own, turned their primitive weapons on the soldiers themselves. A soldier fell clutching his neck; several others were hit in the legs as the archers concentrated their fire where their arrows wouldn’t encounter body armor. What had started as a blizzard of arrows was now a drizzle, but the remaining archers resumed their discipline, focusing on trucks whose punctured tires would slow the movement of troops.

  The two trucks that had managed to crash through the barricade now encountered a litter of caltrops, these larger than the others, intended for the heavy-duty military tires. Radios crackled with an order to stop; the road must be cleared, both of archers and of caltrops. Soldiers poured out of the trucks, some firing at the remaining archers, the rest ordered to clear the road ahead.

  Some noticed a familiar odor; vegetable oil now covered much of the highway, some of it pooling around hot exhausts of trucks whose engines were still running. Only one soldier seemed to realize the implication and yelled to the others just as the fumes ignited. An enormous grease fire erupted around the trucks as their drivers leapt from their cabs only to be engulfed by the flames. Soon diesel fuel and melting rubber added to the conflagration, leaving only the rearmost trucks of the convoy unscathed. They turned in search of side roads that would lead them to the city, leaving behind nineteen dead and wounded, seven of them dissidents.

  A peaceful revolution was no more.

  ******

  When Li Guo Peng was informed that the police radio net was apparently under cyber attack and that individual cars were being disabled, he had not hesitated to order the army into the streets. In fact, he welcomed an excuse to further extend his power by asserting martial law, remarking to his aide that now the troublemakers would finally be exterminated. However, his confidence in the ability of the army to quickly quell the rebellion was premature, for wherever army or police vehicles attempted to travel, they encountered the now ubiquitous caltrops. A fundamental requirement of decisive action is speed of movement and a small ancient weapon was robbing the authorities of that critical element.

  Buoyed by their success and incensed by the authorities brutal response to what had been a peaceful demonstration of the will of the people, thousands of citizens who had been sitting on the fence now joined the dissidents. Months of pent up anger among the unemployed further swelled the ranks.

  In cellars and machine shops, auto and appliance repair businesses across the city and the nation, anyone with even rudimentary tools and access to a bit of scrap iron began to manufacture caltrops. More ominously, citizens were also fashioning Molotov cocktails from petrol and maotai, the fiery 105 proof liquor that is China’s drink of choice.

  Now army trucks that had somehow managed to avoid the caltrops and arrows were being targeted by Molotov cocktails thrown from rooftops. The effect upon the morale of soldiers who witnessed their flaming comrades leaping from the trucks was profound. Several police vans were also targeted, along with police cars and even a few smaller precinct stations. But upon the orders of their president, trucks continued to roll out of army garrisons across the country, their occupants occasionally shooting at citizens who weren’t even involved in the protest, further fueling the growing anger.

  While the army did manage to set up road blocks in some locations, the attrition on their equipment from caltrops, arrows and alcohol was increasing. Any thought of a complete lockdown of the largest cities was now tenuous at best. Hearing this, Li flew into a rage and ordered out the tanks, determined to quell the uprising at any cost. Upon learning that the dissidents were communicating freely using their cell phones, he
ordered the cellular network shut down, only to have to rescind the order less than an hour later when he was informed that the police were also using it. The man was beside himself with fury, but his rage had not yet reached its full furor.

  It was then he learned that the unthinkable had happened. Chen Lei, the highest naval officer in the country called on a secure line to notify him that the two frigates ordered to sink the convoy had themselves been sunk and a submarine was feared lost. Li grew very still when he heard the news, the aides in the room fearing for a moment that he had been stricken. After an excruciating silence he finally asked:

  “How is that possible?”

  “That is not entirely clear at this time, Mr. President,” Chen answered. Our frigates fired upon the Vietnamese but it appears that they were somehow able to jam our missiles while our ships were not able to defend against theirs,” Chen replied, thinking he would likely find himself in prison by morning. “The submarine has not been heard from and we have no further information as yet,” he continued.

  “You are telling me that two of our frigates and one of our most modern submarines have been sunk by a third rate navy?”

  “Regards our submarine, I cannot say that with any certainty, but there is no doubt that the frigates were sunk.”

  “That is impossible, Admiral!” Li screamed into the phone. “It has already been shown that our anti-ship missiles cannot be stopped by anything those Vietnamese pigs possess, has it not? You fool, don’t you see it has to be the Americans! It is their container ship and they decided to defend it. They have submarines in the area and they have used them.”

  “The frigates detected no submarines before they were sunk and satellite data shows the Vietnamese frigates firing their missiles, Mr. President.”

  “The satellites may have seen missiles, but that doesn’t mean that there were not also torpedoes in the water, Admiral. Am I correct.”

  “It is possible, Mr. President, but unlikely. Neither of the frigates detected any torpedoes; we were monitoring their data link.”

  “That doesn’t mean that the Americans don’t have a new torpedo, or perhaps the frigates were too busy defending against the missiles.”

  “But Sir . . .”

  “Shut up, Admiral and listen to me! In two hours I want you here with a plan to sink the 7th Fleet.”

  Before Admiral Chen could respond, the line went dead.

  ******

  Aside from a few civilian cars and taxis arriving early to pick up employees who would be done with their shifts in half an hour, the area around the hospital was more or less clear of traffic. Jun’s final circuit showed no obvious police presence, the likely result of student demonstrations at nearby Nankai University and Tianjin University. With the taxi’s windows rolled down, he could hear the chanting and a booming megaphone pleading with the police and army to join the demonstrators. The authorities had thus far made no attempt to quell the demonstration, due as much to their limited presence as to the determined efforts of the students to prevent violence.

  Though both the police and army had been working tirelessly to procure and install new tires on their damaged vehicles, there still wasn’t enough transport to do anything other than observe the many demonstrations taking place across Beijing, Tianjin and elsewhere. However, Li’s order to call out the tanks was at this moment being implemented and within hours dozens of tracked vehicles that could not be slowed by caltrops would be patrolling the streets.

  Jun turned the taxi around and headed back to the grocery supply warehouse, the chants of the demonstrators growing louder as he drove north on Baidi Road, just two blocks from Nankai University. Five minutes later a steel overhead door clattered upward revealing two panel trucks used for deliveries and a group of men standing in the shadows behind them.

  “No police around the hospital, at least that can be seen. They must have been moved to the university to monitor the demonstration,” Jun said to the foreigner who had been in Hong’s warehouse training the dissidents.

  “All right, everyone knows his job,” the foreigner said, turning toward the dissidents who had escaped from the convoy and the two uniformed soldiers who had defected. All wore the grim expressions of the condemned, but they had been condemned when they were loaded on trucks headed into the scorching Gobi desert; at least now they had a chance to make a difference before they died. The two soldiers piled into the taxi with Jun; the rest climbed into the panel truck with the others.

  There were more cars outside the hospital now, waiting for the shift change. The panel truck pulled up to the closed overhead door of the loading dock and the two soldiers got out and went to the smaller door next to it where they rang the bell. A face appeared at the small window and, seeing the armed soldiers, opened it. Before the poor man could ask for an explanation, one of the three ‘attachés’ who had recently arrived at the American embassy reached around the corner and dropped him with a Taser. Once the van was inside the loading dock, the dock guard was cuffed and placed inside it, for which he would later be grateful.

  With a map drawn for them by Captain Davis and Dr. Min’s help, Jim and two former US Navy Seals headed for the room where they believed they would find Brett. Having been provided diplomatic passports courtesy of Benedict, the three had sidestepped the usual immigration formalities, a time-honored tradition allowing one nation to insert its spies into another as ‘attachés.’ That Benedict had once again done so without consulting the president would likely mean the end of his career, possibly worse, but he would not stand by while a courageous ex-Navy Seal was dissected by order of a brutal Chinese dictator. As Jim had said: “Navy Seals don’t leave other Navy Seals behind! Period! Ever!” Finding like minded volunteers among his friends in the Seal community had been easy.

  With the two uniformed soldiers preceding them, the Seals hoped to bluff their way past any additional security they might encounter. The other dissidents began unloading the crated explosives from the van and attaching charges to supporting pillars in the lower level, as they had been shown by their Seal advisors. Above them, nurses, orderlies and those who transport patients around the hospital were leaving as their shifts ended and others arrived to replace them.

  ******

  The USS George Washington carrier battle group had exited the Strait of Taiwan and turned south when it was notified of the sinking of the frigates, having already been advised that the Chinese destroyers had come about and were heading north. The question in Captain Johnston’s mind concerned the intent of the destroyers. He was now steaming away from the coast, having never entered Chinese waters, unless of course one accepted their preposterous claim to the entire South China Sea. Not only did his battle group not constitute any direct threat to China, it had absolutely nothing to do with the sinking of their frigates. Captain Johnston had no way of knowing that a deranged Chinese president thought otherwise.

  The plan was to meet the container ship further south where the Vietnamese warships would hand it off to him to be escorted into open ocean. But unless the Chinese destroyers diverted, they would intersect with his battle group first; they were currently steaming at battle speed.

  What is it you intend to prove? he thought to himself.

  “Captain, Chinese sub contacts have turned. Current plot indicates they will intersect with us and the destroyers.”

  Now that makes things a bit more interesting.

  “Any aircraft movement? he asked.

  “Nothing in the air at this time, Sir, but satellite data indicates activity at two airfields.

  “What are the Vietnamese doing?”

  “Fighters being prepped at Da Nang, Sir. Looks like they’re preparing to sortie their fighters to fly cover over their frigates.”

  It doesn’t make sense, thought Captain Johnston. Even without the customary backup which the president denied, my carrier battle group is an extremely formidable weapon. While it would be theoretically possible to overwhelm it, it would take far more
than what I’m seeing now. And the farther we are from the mainland, the more the shore-based missile threat diminishes. Even if they decided to sortie dozens of aircraft against me, I could still inflict enormous losses on them. My subs alone could very possibly sink everything they currently have on and under the water. What are they doing?

  “Prepare all aircraft for combat. When those destroyers close to missile range, I want them to know there’s a cloud of stinging insects waiting overhead. When their subs are in range, have the anti-sub helicopters drop sono-buoys on their heads; let ‘em know we can dump the whole shithouse on ’em if they so much as open their torpedo doors. Notify all ships to go to battle stations,” he ordered. “And tell fleet headquarters what we’re seeing here.”

  ******

  Larimer again found himself cooling his heels in the White House Situation Room with Benedict and the Navy Secretary, having been pulled out of a meeting only to have to wait for the president and his chief of staff to arrive.

  “I have the distinct feeling Li’s not bluffing,” Larimer said.

  “I can’t think of any other conclusion that could be drawn,” replied Benedict. “Assuming he has the balls to do it, how do you think we’ll fare?”

  “Assuming they wait until the destroyers are within optimal range, the Washington battle group will be far enough from the coast to mitigate but not eliminate entirely the shore based missile threat. Against two destroyers and two Song class subs alone, we would no doubt prevail. But if they sortie dozens of aircraft against us, which it appears they may be preparing to do, we could have our hands full. They’ll lose two front line destroyers and probably two front line subs in the process, and that’s what troubles me. Why would they sacrifice that and risk war?”