by Jeff Edwards
Speaking of amazing, I happen to think that your Mother’s only daughter is pretty fantastic, now that I mention it. That would be you, Miss Muffin. I wonder if your Mom knows that you do most of your cooking in only panties and my old Chargers jersey. Maybe I should save that piece of information for blackmail at some future date. Hmmm…
Okay, I shouldn’t have gone there. Now all I can think about is your cute little butt prancing around the kitchen in panties. Maybe I better go take a cold shower.
I love you, Beth. I miss you more with each second that passes.
Yours always,
Rob
LT(jg) Robert J. Monkman
VFA-228 Marauders
USS Midway (CVN-82)
--------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER 18
MINISTRY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE COMPOUND
AUGUST 1ST BUILDING
BEIJING, CHINA
TUESDAY; 25 NOVEMBER
9:48 PM
TIME ZONE +8 ‘HOTEL’
General Chen Caihou was the first to break the silence. “Comrades, the situation with India is getting out of control. We must act now, before it is too late.” His words were firm, but the tone of his voice was carefully neutral, pitched to avoid any trace of criticism or accusation. He allowed his gaze to take in each of the other eight men seated at the circular table.
Including himself, all nine statutory members of the Central Military Commission were present. When Chen’s eyes came to Lu Shi, they paused for an instant before moving on to the next man.
The table was circular, to symbolize the equality of the commission’s members. There was no bourgeois seat of honor here. Just dedicated communists, meeting on equal footing to debate and decide matters of military strategy.
At least that was the theory. In reality, the greatest concentration of authority in the room lay with Lu Shi. His power as Chairman of the Central Military Commission was technically nominal, but the man was also the First Vice Premier of the People’s Republic of China.
Although Xiao still carried the formal title of Premier, the old leader had long since delegated all serious decisional authority to Lu Shi.
This made Lu a dangerous man to cross. It also put General Chen Caihou and his fellow members of the Central Military Commission in a very delicate position. If the present skirmishes with India continued to escalate, the People’s Republic could find itself in a full scale war with a major military adversary. General Chen had little doubt that China would emerge victorious from such a war, but the cost would likely be staggering, in both financial terms, and in terms of human life. The conflict needed to end before things deteriorated that far.
General Chen’s eyes circled the table again, his words still lingering unanswered in the air. He had discussed this issue with several other members of the commission in advance, and he had received agreement and promises of endorsement. Chen would flatly (but respectfully) raise the topic, and his covert allies would add their voices in support.
But he had spoken up, and the room was silent.
Lu Shi’s eyes also made the circle of the assembled faces. “Someone is letting you down, Comrade General,” he said softly. He let his gaze continue to wander until it came to center on General Chen.
“Who is it?” Lu asked. He raised one eyebrow slightly. “Which of our comrades are supposed to be flocking to your banner right now?”
General Chen sat for several seconds, before he turned to meet the Vice Premier’s scrutiny. “Comrade Lu, we share your grief over the loss of Lu Jianguo. He was a fine young man, and a true communist. His death was a great tragedy. But is that sufficient provocation for war?”
“This is not about my son,” Lu Shi said. His voice was low and hard. “This is about security and national sovereignty. Those who harbor the enemies of China are themselves the enemies of China.”
General Guo Jinping, Chief of General Staff of the People’s Liberation Army, cleared his throat. “With all due respect, Comrade Lu… Is it wise to invite a major military confrontation in order to punish a handful of sewer rats who destroyed a train?”
Lu smiled sadly. “Xīng xīng zhī huǒ kě yǐ liáo yuán.” It was an ancient Chinese proverb which could be translated literally as ‘A single spark can burn the entire prairie.’ Contextually, it was a reminder that leaders must never underestimate the potential destructive power that an apparently minor problem can cause.
“The Qinghai railway is one of the greatest engineering accomplishments in history,” Lu said. “In places, the track elevation reaches more than 5,000 meters. Many aircraft don’t fly that high. When we brought in the Swiss to develop construction methods for laying rail across the permafrost, the Swiss engineers said it was impossible. The Western press called the entire project a five billion dollar boondoggle. They said it couldn’t be done. But we did it. Then, they predicted that the track would fail within a year. But the Qinghai railway carries 3,000 of our people to the Tibet Autonomous Region every single day.”
Lu’s eyes zeroed in on General Guo Jinping. “Comrade General, we can replace the train cars and the engines. We lost nearly two-hundred of your soldiers in the attack, but the PLA can recruit that many replacements in a single afternoon. Between the dead and wounded, there were more than 1,000 civilian casualties as well, but the People’s Republic can also cope with those losses. We can deal with the damaged equipment, and the human victims, and the financial cost. But we cannot permit a direct assault on our national prestige… Our national resolve and our political ideologies have been directly challenged. If we allow such a challenge to go unanswered, China becomes weak in the eyes of our enemies, and the eyes of the world.”
Air Force General Xu Zhiyuan, Commander of the PLA Air Force, nodded respectfully. “I believe we will all concede that there are significant political implications,” he said. “But is it wise to allow political issues to devolve into outright warfare?”
Lu turned toward the general. “I’m surprised that you would even ask such a question,” he said. “Have you forgotten the teachings of Chairman Mao? ‘Politics is war without bloodshed, while war is politics with bloodshed.’”
General Xu nodded again. “Chairman Mao also said that, ‘Communism is a hammer which we use to crush the enemy.’ But he was speaking at a time when China was fighting for its very existence. Is that honestly the case now, Comrade Vice Premier? After decades of peaceful relations, have our Indian neighbors suddenly become a threat to our national survival? For that matter, would we be in conflict with them at all if we had not used a hundred cruise missiles to hammer an Indian village into dust?”
Before Lu Shi could respond, General Chen raised a hand. “How we got into this situation is no longer relevant. Regardless of motivation or intention, we did strike their village, and they have retaliated. So far, the skirmishes have been relatively isolated, but that’s rapidly changing. We are caught in a cycle of escalating retaliations. The question is; how do we break the cycle before it gets completely out of control?”
“I agree,” General Guo said. “If we are not careful, this could become to us what Vietnam was to the Americans. Or what Afghanistan was to the Soviet Union. A bloody quagmire, with no prospect of a graceful conclusion.”
“This is already our version of Vietnam!” Lu snapped. “Can none of you see that? Think about it… Vietnam was not a technical failure for the Americans. Nor was it a tactical failure. The American military was well equipped, well trained, well supplied, and well supported. By comparison, their adversaries were a pack of semi-literate monkeys squatting in rice paddies and swinging through the jungles. So, why did the Americans lose?”
“The communist ideal,” General Guo said tentatively. “The North Vietnamese were sustained by the superior teachings of Marx and Chairman Mao…”
Lu Shi slapped his open palm on the table. “Bái mù!” Literally, this could be translated as ‘white-eyed,’ or ‘blind.’ In this context it meant s
omething like ‘you’re looking the wrong way, you idiot!’
Lu’s voice was still sharp. “The communist ideal had nothing to do with it,” he said. “If it were a matter of ideologies, the Soviets would have used their communist philosophies to triumph over the Afghanis. Instead, the mighty Russian military was vanquished by a few tribes of unwashed goatherds hiding in caves. So I ask you again… Why did the Americans lose in Vietnam? Why were the Soviets defeated in Afghanistan? How were two military superpowers both routed by inferior enemies? When you know the answer to that question, you’ll begin to understand what is at stake in our current conflict.”
The room was silent.
Lu Shi looked from one face to the next. “No one? The military brains of our nation are seated around this table, and not one of you can answer such a simple question?”
Still, no one spoke.
“Very well,” Lu Shi said. “I’ll answer the question for you… The Soviet Union lost in Afghanistan for the same reason that America lost in Vietnam. Because their national will was weak.”
“With all due respect, Comrade Lu, that may be a bit of an oversimplification,” General Chen said.
“It is not an oversimplification,” Lu said. “It is a basic statement of truth, and any serious examination of the facts will prove it.” He jabbed a finger toward General Guo. “Comrade General, how many military deaths did North Vietnam suffer during combat actions against the Americans?”
“Roughly a million or so,” the general said.
“Closer to 1.1 million,” Lu said. “And how many deaths among North Vietnamese civilians?”
“I’m not sure, Comrade Vice Premier,” said General Guo. “I’ve seen figures as low as 50,000 and as high as 300,000.”
“Fair enough,” Lu said. “The numbers vary significantly from one source to another. But let’s assume a number on the low end, somewhere around 100,000 civilian deaths. Combined, that puts the death toll for North Vietnam at somewhere around 1.2 million.”
Lu glanced around the table again. “Can any of you tell me how many American military personnel died in Vietnam?”
“I believe,” said General Chen, “that the final count was about 58,000 American dead.”
“That’s about right,” Lu said. He lifted both of his hands, and turned them palm up, shifting each slowly in a reciprocal up-and-down motion, as though they were the arms of a balance scale. “The North Vietnamese lost 1.2 million, and much of their national infrastructure was bombed out of existence. By contrast, the Americans lost fewer than 60,000 soldiers, and the national infrastructure of the United States was completely untouched.”
Lu dropped his hands. “America was winning on the battlefield. They were winning economically. Their ability to wage war was not even slightly impaired. So I ask you, comrades… How did the United States lose the Vietnam War?”
Again, no one in the room responded.
“Their weapons did not fail them,” Lu Shi said. “Their soldiers didn’t fail them. Their economy was not in danger of collapse. Only one thing failed them, but it was enough to send the indomitable American military slinking home like a beaten mongrel. Their national willpower failed. They lost the desire to win. And because of that, they allowed themselves to be defeated by an inferior enemy.”
Lu’s eyes blazed. “That’s what our current conflict is about. It’s not about trains. It’s not about 200 dead PLA soldiers. It’s not about some rat-bitten Indian village. And it’s not about my son. It’s about the strength of our national will. It’s about refusing to bow to a weaker adversary.”
“I… ah…” General Guo looked at the other faces gathered around the table, and swallowed. “How far do we go with this?”
“As far as it has to go,” Lu Shi said. “Until the Indian government backs down.”
“But what if they don’t back down?” General Guo asked.
“They will,” Lu said.
“But what if they don’t?” Guo repeated.
“They are an inferior adversary,” Lu Shi said. “If we raise the stakes far enough, they will have no choice but to back down. And if they don’t… Our Indian neighbors will discover that they do have a breaking point.”
CHAPTER 19
LHASA GONGGAR AIRPORT
SHANNAN REGION, TIBET
WEDNESDAY; 26 NOVEMBER
8:50 AM
TIME ZONE +8 ‘HOTEL’
The wheels of the China Eastern Airbus A320 left the runway of Lhasa Gonggar Airport exactly on schedule, and Reverend Bill McDonald took his first easy breath in three days. He hadn’t slept more than fifteen or twenty minutes at a time since the massacre in Barkhor Square. Now that he was finally in the air and leaving Chinese territory, he could relax.
His cell phone was safe in his pocket, and the memory card with the video recording was still intact. In three and a half hours, he’d be landing in Kathmandu. Then, after a four hour layover, he’d be on a Cathay Pacific flight to San Francisco International by way of Hong Kong.
He’d be home by tomorrow evening, in time for a late Thanksgiving dinner, but he still hadn’t decided what to do with the video recording. He needed to get it into the hands of the right people. That much was obvious. Unfortunately, he wasn’t sure who the right people might be.
He’d considered going straight to CNN or one of the nationally-recognized newspapers, but he didn’t have any contacts in the world of journalism. The major news organizations probably got several thousand crackpot calls a day. If he cold-called the offices of any of the big papers or studios, they’d probably lump him in with the xenophobes and the conspiracy nuts. He’d never get a chance to present his video to anyone with the power to make the story public on a national scale. That pretty much ruled out the major media approach, unless he could figure out a way to get someone high up to take his story seriously.
He’d also thought about cutting out the middleman, and going public with the video on the internet. He could post it to the top dozen streaming video sites and wait for it to go viral, like so many of the video clips from the Occupy Wall Street protests in 2011. But there were hundreds of millions of videos on the web, maybe billions. Only a small fraction of them ever captured large scale public attention.
Bill didn’t have an established following on any of the popular video websites, and it might take him years to build enough of a reputation to attract a significant audience. He could upload the recording to a hundred websites, or a thousand, but it wouldn’t do any good if no one bothered to watch it.
He might get lucky and the video would spread through the internet like wildfire, until everyone was talking about it and politicians were arguing over it on network news. Or it might vanish into the great ocean of the web without creating a ripple.
The irony of the situation was not lost on him. Despite his personal aversion to violence and the machineries of politics, the video clip in his phone was the physical manifestation of both. He had flown to Tibet in search of one sort of truth, but the fates had selected him to become the witness and bearer of an entirely different sort of truth. One that could affect the lives of many people, and perhaps even the fates of nations. He quite literally carried the truth in his pocket, but he had no idea of what to do with it.
* * *
He was still puzzling over the problem when his plane touched down at Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu. And he hadn’t solved it four hours later, when his Cathay Pacific flight left the runway en route to Hong Kong.
He was so exhausted now that he was practically a zombie. He reclined his seat, closed his eyes and tried to surrender to sleep, but his brain remained stubbornly awake. His mind refused to let go of the problem, turning it over and over ceaselessly and uselessly.
He tried to meditate, to release the cares of the world, and allow himself to find his spiritual center. He controlled his breathing, and one-by-one, willed every muscle in his body to relax.
He was calm… He was focused… He was at peace�
��
He was… awake.
His eyes came open. It was no use. Sleep was impossible.
His weary hands fumbled through the seat pouch and came up with an in-flight magazine. He leafed through the pages, only half glancing at the photos, and ignoring the text entirely. His eyes were too tired to make reading seem very interesting. He was just hoping to distract his brain long enough to get some rest.
When he reached the end of the magazine, he started over at the beginning, the glossy pages becoming a repeating collage of random photographs and marketing logos. On the third or fourth trip through the half-seen pages, an image caught his eye. It was a group of paintings by a young Indonesian artist, who was apparently getting his first showing in some upscale New York art gallery.
Near the center of the page was a triptych: three rectangular paintings of the same scene, each from a slightly different angle. At the center of each panel was the portrait of an old man with strongly Asian features, shown alternately from the front, right, and left profiles. In all three paintings a circle of rusty barbed wire hovered in the air in front of the old man’s face, like a strangely offset halo or the bevel of an old fashioned cameo.
McDonald stared at the three paintings, focusing not on the old man’s face, but on the circles of barbed wire. They reminded him of something—a billboard, or an advertisement, or something that he had once seen on television.
He closed his burning eyes and tried to remember. Three circles of barbed wire, lined up in a row...
And then it came to him, a poster he hadn’t seen for years. For several weeks before the 2008 Winter Olympics in China, that poster had been everywhere. Five circles of barbed wire atop a chain link fence, silhouetted against an overcast yellow sky. Three of the circles had been on top and two on bottom, clearly mimicking the famous five-ring pattern of the international Olympic symbol. In the upper right-hand ring had been a simple but effective message: Beijing 2008. A ragged scrap of signboard hanging from the fence had enumerated the extensive human rights violations occurring in China as dissident citizens and social activists were rounded up and imprisoned to keep them out of public view during the Olympics.