Operation Barracuda

39

The so-called Battle for Taiwan lasted just under four hours. The first two hours belonged to General Lan Tun and his small but superbly equipped army and navy. While he had sufficient firepower from his destroyers and frigates, the air support he had counted on from the Chinese base in Quanzhou never came. The effects of his ships’ bombardment of Taipei were greatly exaggerated in the world media. At first the reports indicated that tens of thousands of people had been killed and the city had been destroyed. In fact, the loss of life numbered in the low hundreds and only 20 percent of the metropolis was hit. By the time all the general’s landing craft had brought his army to Taiwan’s shores, the island’s own forces had gathered en masse to repel the invasion. Tun, aboard one of the Luda-class destroyers in the strait, watched with horror as his plans to conquer the island and become a national hero in the People’s Republic diminished with each passing minute.

Then, despite his warnings to the U.S. government that he had a powerful weapon at his disposal, the American military joined the melee. The navy’s ships had been stationed around the island all along, watching and waiting for the moment when those in charge in Washington gave the command to strike. Tun had warned the U.S. that any attempt to stop his invasion would result in the loss of a major American city. For the first two hours of the assault, the Americans did nothing. As soon as it was evident that Tun’s army had failed to establish a beachhead, the U.S. destroyers moved in and began to fire at Tun’s ships. In actuality, the orders were given to go ahead and strike before the armed MRUUV was found in Santa Monica Bay and just happened to coincide with the first inklings of Tun’s defeat.

In a panic, General Tun had issued the orders to the submarine Mao to activate the nuclear bomb. The device was programmed to explode after the ten minutes of diagnostic testing was complete. The Mao, safely hidden in the deep waters of the Pacific Ocean, had no reason to fear retaliation. All they had to do was make sure the bomb went off.

Thus it was a heart-wrenching blow to General Tun when he learned that the bomb did indeed explode — miles away from the California coast and very deep below the surface. He couldn’t understand why the MRUUV hadn’t been closer to shore. What had gone wrong? The plan was foolproof. Even though sketchy reports were coming in that as a result of the explosion Los Angeles had suffered an earthquake and considerable damage, nothing along the magnitude Tun had envisioned had taken place.

In a last-ditch appeal, Tun contacted Beijing and asked for support from the rest of the PLA. The Politburo refused to acquiesce. In short, General Tun was on his own. China wasn’t going to lift a hand to help or protect him. Several powerful officials in the military protested the Politburo’s decision but there was nothing that could be done unless other independent branches of the army joined the battle on Tun’s side. To have done so would have meant political disaster for the generals involved. It became a case of China at first believing her arrogant son was making a risky but necessary challenge to Taiwan, but in the end the child had become an embarrassment and needed to be disowned.

Tun also didn’t know that China’s president gave the U.S. permission to stop the general. The Politburo had to do so to save face with the rest of the world. Nuclear bombs exploding off the coasts of countries were not acceptable forms of diplomacy. China conveniently blamed General Tun for the “unfortunate incident” and thus sacrificed him to world justice. During the fourth hour of the conflict, the U.S. Navy sank General Tun’s Ludo destroyer with torpedoes. The general and his entire command support team went down with the ship. Shortly afterward, his men on the beach were forced into surrendering. American forces joined the Taiwanese in rounding up the surviving army and eventually turned them over to Chinese authorities. Most of them would undergo trials for treason.

While all this was going on, Andrei Zdrok lay in a hospital bed in Fuzhou. He had slipped into a coma shortly after his skull was fractured by Sam Fisher and had remained in critical condition ever since. The medical facilities in Fuzhou were far from adequate even though the doctors did everything in their power to save Zdrok’s life. The Chinese government had expressed a fervent desire that the man would answer for his crimes against the country. But it was not to be.

Ironically, Andrei Zdrok died peacefully in bed at the exact moment when the nuclear bomb he had supplied to General Tun exploded off the coast of California. His last great arms deal was, to that extent, a success.

The Shop, however, would no longer be a threat to world peace.