by Don Keith
“Soo Be Xian is crafty. How is it possible for the government to know and confirm these things?”
Li had to work hard to avoid a knowing smile. She knew fully well what Yon was thinking. If they knew of corruption by Soo Be Xian, they might also know of his own lucrative side hustles. She imagined TJ Dillon having the same suspicions as he listened in from across the dining room, but she managed to keep a straight face.
“They know what they know because we—my associates and I—arranged it. We all know he is corrupt. We simply needed to be sure enough of the confirming evidence—whether it was valid or not—would fall into the right hands. By the end of the week, Soo Be Xian will be pleading for his life. And he will no longer be an obstacle to your own plans.”
Yon Ba Deng sat back and stared at the beautiful woman sitting across the table from him. She was mesmerizing. But he forced himself to clear his head and consider what she was telling him. If she or her people could take down his worst nemesis, then they could well be the allies that he needed. Of course, they could also be an enemy he could not afford. This scheme of theirs could be his golden opportunity or the seeds of his destruction.
His first thought was to wait, to learn what he would be required to do in order to repay his new benefactors. Only then would he agree to the terms.
But even before their meals arrived, Yon had already made up his mind. The risks of dealing with this mysterious, gorgeous lady were absolutely worth the potential rewards.
Ψ
Soo Be Xian was startled awake by the loud pounding on the door of his compound. He looked out his bedroom window to see a constellation of flashing blue and red lights from a covey of police vehicles pulled over at odd angles wherever he could see out the window. Armed men in combat gear were hidden behind the vehicles, but he could easily make out others, crouching as they moved across the grass and then scaling the compound walls.
This was not good. Something bad had happened. Where were the servants and the security guards? Why was the house so quiet despite all the clamor outside?
Soo grabbed his cell phone. The instant he touched the device it dinged with a new text message. Bien Sung, his factotum, was warning him that the secret police, the dreaded and much feared Guoanbu, were about to arrive at his apartment. They were coming to arrest him.
Clearly the text from his assistant had come too late to do Soo any good.
He was just donning his robe when a second text message arrived. Major General Shun was informing Soo that both he and Colonel General Xiang were being taken into custody. He also requested that Soo immediately clear up whatever misunderstanding was playing out and have them freed.
As he walked out of his bedroom suite and headed across the inner courtyard toward the outer one, the steel reinforced wooden outer door suddenly crashed open, left hanging loosely on its hinges. Half a dozen heavily armed troops stormed through and took up shooting positions around the suite’s broad outer courtyard. All of their weapons were pointed squarely at Soo Be Xian, who stood stunned in the doorway to the inner courtyard.
A small, rotund, middle-aged man in a business suit stepped in from outside and walked to the center of the outer courtyard. He brushed some dust from his lapel, looked over the tops of his spectacles, and took something from his inside coat pocket.
“Soo Be Xian,” he intoned in a squeaky voice, reading from the official-looking document. “You are being placed under arrest for violation of the Criminal Laws of the People’s Republic of China. You will be charged with official corruption and bribery of high officials, both crimes having been committed against the People and the Party.”
The disbelieving Soo Be Xian started to protest but the man held up a dismissive hand.
“There is nothing that you can say for yourself here,” the little man told him. He waved toward the leader of the armed troops. The officer slammed Soo Be Xian against the wall and quickly bound his hands tightly behind his back. The now-former leader of the Chinese military was roughly marched out to a waiting prison van.
Qincheng High Security Prison would be his next stop.
23
Commander Geoffrey Smythe was still entranced by the scene playing out on the large-screen flat panel, even though he had been watching it for a couple of weeks now. The Sagem Series 30 Advanced Optronics Mast was delivering a crystal-clear picture of the mayhem happening only thirty feet above his head. Chinese attack jets were making repeated passes at Dongsha Island, raining down missiles and bombs on the few square yards of real estate that barely qualified as an “island.”
From Smythe’s position, in the control room of the Australian submarine HMAS Audacious, the skipper could not imagine how anyone could survive such a prolonged and vicious pounding. But tracer fire still came up from the smoke to meet the dodging and weaving Chinese jets. Sporadically, a surface-to-air missile would roar up as well. And sometimes flaming wreckage fell from the sky as a result.
It was mostly an awful sight, though, and Smythe was watching it from a front-row seat. He had his submarine cruising only a mile off of Dongsha Island, watching and recording the events for the rest of the free world. Every evening, he would slip out a few miles to report back to Submarine Command in Perth, all the while snorkeling so he could recharge the batteries for a bit. Then he would snake his way back in, close to the island again. It had become mostly routine, and it was apparent the Chinese were more interested in annihilating Dongsha than in detecting any observers in their midst.
Now it was time to again head back out to make yet another report. They were each pretty much the same lately. The PLAN warplanes pounded the island all day while the Taiwanese defenders did their best to shoot back. The only variables were how many of those planes attacked and how many managed to get themselves shot down by the determined and heroic Taiwanese on Dongsha.
Smythe was just about to order the boat deep when he was interrupted.
“Captain, Signals, picking up a Dragon Eye AESA radar. High signal strength. Probably in visual range. That type is typically carried on newer PLAN destroyers and carriers.”
With a swing of the scope, Smythe did a quick three-sixty scan. He did not see any ships at all.
“Well, Signals, but I don’t see...”
“Captain, Sonar, new broadband contact, Sierra Four-Six, bearing one-two-six. High-speed screws. Correlated to a destroyer type.”
Then, when Smythe wheeled around to the reported bearing, he saw it. The Chinese destroyer was coming fast, emerging out of a rain squall on the horizon. Looked like a Type Fifty-Two.
This was a definite threat. It was time to hide. Best course of action was to slink out of here quietly.
“Helm, come right to course two-one-zero. Ahead one-third.” Audacious slowly came around and headed south, away from the island. Hopefully away from the destroyer.
The Chinese ship turned broad. Suddenly, a column of flame shot up from the warship’s forward deck. A missile headed up high into the sky, then arced over and raced directly toward the tiny island. Four more missiles quickly joined the first one.
Then Smythe watched as the forward gun mount on the destroyer’s deck slewed around and commenced blasting away at the island, too. Jesus, the Aussie captain thought, they’re trying to wipe that bit of coral right off the map!
“Captain, Sonar, receiving active sonar. Equates to a Chinese Type Fifty-Two VDS. High signal strength. Better than fifty percent probability of detection.”
This was not good at all. The destroyer seemed to be looking for something or somebody. Smythe had to expect that any foreign submarines detected loitering about in this particular area would not be welcomed. This class of destroyer carried a CY-5 ASW missile. They packed a punch. A couple of those, dropped close aboard, would ruin a perfectly good day for a submarine.
Smythe ran the table, trying to find a good tactic to try. He could not hope to outrun the destroyer. And certainly not the bastard’s ASW missiles. He probably could not hide, eith
er. There was precious little water beneath the keel. And based on the sonar signal strength, they would be easily tracked.
That left one option. Fight. And, at the moment, getting off the first shot made the most sense. Who owned these waters would be immaterial if what was left of the Australian boat and her crew were in the mud on the bottom.
Smythe turned to his XO. “First Officer, set up on the destroyer. Set your best solution. Surface tactics. Make tube one ready in all respects.”
The XO turned pale but immediately set to work. Meanwhile, Smythe did a quick calculation in his head. With the destroyer five miles away, the Mark 48 ADCAP torpedo he was setting up to fire would take about five minutes to get to the Chinese vessel.
On the other hand, the destroyer’s CY-5 ASW missile could make the distance in about seven seconds. The math was discouraging. It was way beyond a long shot that they would somehow get their asses out of this particular sling.
“Captain, Signals, receiving terminal homing radar, RIM-84A Harpoon missiles. Probably several.”
Harpoons? The Chinese would not have Harpoons. Smythe looked at the flat panel just in time to see six of the big surface-to-surface missiles flash across the screen in the distance. It was like watching a video game screen as he saw the Chinese destroyer’s close-in defense system perform as designed and splash three of the deadly weapons.
But the other three smashed into the ship’s superstructure with stunning results. There was a split-second delay before great gouts of fire leapt up from the stricken vessel.
Smythe knew there was no time to stay and watch the show or try to determine who had just saved his bacon. With one of their ships badly damaged—likely done for—the Chinese would be mad as hell and looking for any other potential threat in the vicinity.
This was not a place for a slow diesel submarine to hang around and see what happened next.
“Dive, make your depth two-hundred feet. All ahead standard,” Smythe ordered. “First Officer, let’s clear datum for a couple of hours. That will put us twenty miles out. Draft up a message to Submarine Command with what we’ve seen today. Make it good. They’re likely going to think we’re crackers.”
Ψ
Yon Ba Deng walked swiftly, leaving behind his office in one of the gray cement monstrosities that had been so unimaginatively named “the West Building Complex.” But the name was actually quite descriptive of the buildings’ reason for existing. They were nothing more than a compound of simple, utilitarian offices. Most of the buildings in Zhongnanhai—the true center of power for the People’s Republic and the Party—had been built and named long ago, during the far more creative and colorful Imperial period. His destination, Qinzheng Hall, was a prime example. Originally constructed by the Kangxi emperor way back in the seventeenth century as the main hall of his palace complex, it now housed the office of the General Secretary of the Party, by far the most powerful man in all of China, a nation of almost a billion and a half people.
Yon Ba Deng had been sitting in his office, reviewing the reports from the Dongsha Island attacks, when the call came from the general secretary’s office. The general secretary desired to speak with him privately at the Assistant Vice Deputy to the Minister of National Defense for Naval Matter’s earliest convenience. Yon Ba Deng did not hesitate. He immediately closed the report, dropped it on his desk, and bounded out the door with only a quick word to his assistant about who he was going to see. It was understood by everyone who mattered that when Tan Yong requested the presence of someone “at your earliest convenience,” it actually meant “at this instant” would not be soon enough to honor the summons.
Yon Ba Deng normally enjoyed—one of the very few things he truly enjoyed beyond work—the short walk along the Southern Sea Lake to the Qinzheng Hall. Today, however, there was no time to tarry in the Garden of Abundant Beneficence or pause and gaze over at the temple on Yingtai Island.
When he arrived at the general secretary’s office, Yon was escorted into a small, darkened conference room. No one else was there. He sat in near-darkness, the silence only broken by the ticking of a clock somewhere in the room. Yon was beginning to worry that he had been forgotten when the lights abruptly flashed on. Tan Yong rushed in, unaccompanied by an advisor or bodyguard, and closed the door behind him. Yon Ba Deng jumped up and gave a quick bow toward the Chinese leader.
Tan Yong ignored him as he plopped down into a chair at the head of the small conference table. Only then did he motion for Yon Ba Deng to sit in the one to his right. Yon took that as a very positive sign.
“I am unhappy with the situation with Dongsha Island,” Tan Yong began without any prelude or pleasantries. “The rebels have just upped the ante with this missile attack. Are we going to be able to save the Qiqihar?”
“Honorable General Secretary, the ship was treacherously attacked by the Taiwanese rebels on the island. They somehow managed to sneak in at least six American Harpoon missiles, of which we were not aware. Another breach in our military intelligence, I am afraid. It seems some, unaware of the potential ramifications, have paid little attention to this particular speck of territory. The Qiqihar was quite skillful in destroying three of the missiles before they could strike, but the other three, I regret to report, caused severe damage and great loss of life. The ship is now being towed back to Ngong Shuen Chau Naval Base for repairs, if feasible. The fires are almost extinguished at last report.”
“Thank you, Assistant Vice Deputy to the Minister of National Defense for Naval Matters,” Tan Yong said with formality, frowning and shaking his head sadly. “Thank you for your candor. A most regrettable tragedy and, even worse, a severe loss of face for all China, but especially PLAN.” The president shifted gears with a wave of his hand. “After the shameful discovery of the indiscretions by Soo Be Xian, I find that we now need a reliable person to head our military organization. The Committee has decided to place great trust in you and immediately appoint you as Vice Deputy to the Minister of National Defense. You will also become the Party Assistant Secretary for National Defense. We will, of course, discuss the details of your new role later. Now, we have more urgent priorities that we will ask you to address immediately. We must determine how we are to deal with the rebels on Taiwan and the loss of respect that they have inflicted on us and our nation. And that will be your first duty.”
Yon Ba Deng maintained a stoic face, but inside, he was ecstatic. Li Min Zhou had honored her promise. Yon had no idea how she had done it, but that woman had precisely predicted what was going to happen. Somehow, she had helped to point his career skyward, pushing him up another rung of the ladder, just as she told him she would.
The lovely lady was, indeed, proving to be a very valuable ally. Perhaps she could eventually assist him to become the one sitting at the head of this table.
“Zongshuji,” Yon responded to the general secretary. “I have, of course, been studying this matter and have some ideas I can share with you. First, I am convinced that now is not the time to turn away and ignore the Taiwanese uprising. That would only signal to the rest of the world weakness and a lack of resolve, as well as give leverage to those insurgents on Formosa and within our own nation. Nor is it the time to answer with overwhelming force, of which we are certainly capable. We need to find a middle ground. One where we can regain face but also where we are most likely to not become involved in an all-out war with the Americans and their allies.”
“Is there such a path?” Tan Yong asked doubtfully, leaning forward. “I agree that starting a war with the Americans is not in our interests at this time. It would be counterproductive since we already bleed their economy and will eventually surpass them as the world’s top financial power. And we are also aware that they and especially their president have no will to employ their military. Against us or anyone else. Besides, we have already paid highly for significant influence with their most powerful politicians. So, what is this path of which you speak?”
Yon placed the fingertips
of each hand together and slowly brought them to his chin. It was a well-practiced gesture, designed to make him appear even more astute.
“We simply declare a state of emergency,” Yon Ba Deng responded. “We announce that because of the violent, murderous attacks on our sovereign ships and territory by the rebel terrorists, henceforth any military ships or planes within two hundred and fifty kilometers of Chinese territory will be treated as hostile and they will be attacked. But first, it will be necessary to deploy our submarines around Taiwan and Dongsha in order to back up our position should that become necessary. In the process, we totally isolate Taiwan until they come to their senses and abandon what is left of that worthless little island garrison. Then it is they who lose face, and we are a major step closer to finally claiming our rightful territory of Formosa Island.”
Tan Yong smiled. He seemed pleased with Yon’s answer.
“So, as justification, we will use the strategy that the Americans employed in the fiasco they called the ‘Cuban Missile Crisis.’ They claimed the right to embargo all military equipment from Cuba because the Russians had shipped missiles there. We will do the same for Taiwan because those were American missiles that killed our brave sailors.” Tan Yong thought for a moment and then added, “The Americans have conveniently announced that they will not approach closer than four hundred kilometers. The American president, Smitherman, has personally assured me that this is only a political maneuver, a show of gaowan for his voters. Nothing for China to fear. Excellent. Put the plan in motion immediately...Mr. Vice Deputy.”