Black Star

CHAPTER 12 — CHINGCHUANKANG

“Is this gonna hurt?” asked Bass.

Maxwell looked at him in the darkened cabin and nearly laughed. Strapped into the rearward-facing seat, wearing the floatcoat and cranial protector, Bass looked like an alien creature.

“Relax,” said Maxwell. “When the catapult fires, just go with it.”

In the dim light, Bass’s eyes appeared as large as Frisbees. Maxwell knew the feeling. For a pilot, sitting backwards like a piece of cargo while being catapulted off a ship was the ultimate feeling of powerlessness.

He felt the rumble of the two turboprop engines going to full thrust. The airframe of the C-2A COD — Carrier Onboard Deliver aircraft — was vibrating like a tuning fork.

“What’s happening?” said Bass.

“You’ll see.”

“When is this thing going to—”

Whoom. Bass’s head snapped forward as if he had been tackled. He lurched into the straps that bound him to his seat. In three seconds the COD traveled the length of the catapult track, accelerating to 120 knots.

Maxwell felt the catapult stroke end. The nose of the COD lifted, and the landing gear clunked up into the wells.

Bass raised his head. “Are we dead?”

“That was nothing. Wait till you sit through a carrier landing.”

“Screw the landing. That was the last boat I’m ever gonna be on.”

Maxwell peered through the window on the opposite side of the cabin. He saw only blackness outside. No lights, no horizon, no sky. The COD was showing no navigation lights, droning northwest over the strait to Taiwan. They were bound for Chingchuankang, the air base nestled in the central mountains of the island.

The cabin was silent except for the metallic hum of the turbine engines. Bass settled into a contemplative mood, no longer his talkative self.

Maxwell had come to like the young Air Force officer. He guessed that beneath the flippant exterior, he was probably a competent fighter pilot. Over the years he had learned to spot the little nuances by which pilots revealed themselves — the way talked with their hands, the way they described their own experiences. Boyce had seen it too, or he wouldn’t be taking a chance on Bass.

Bass’s voice broke the stillness. “You know how I got roped into this. But you seem like a pretty sane guy. Why the hell are you doing this?”

“I’m a tourist at heart. I’ve never been to China and this seemed like a good chance to have a look around.”

“I take it back. You’re not sane. In fact, you guys are all nuts.”

“Now you know the truth.”

“I should have let your boss send me to Leavenworth. At least I’d get three meals a day, regular hours. They’d let me do crossword puzzles, maybe even shoot some pool. What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing, if you like bread and water.”

“Do you know how the Chinese will treat us if they catch us? Fish heads once a day, bamboo under the fingernails, electrodes on the nuts to make us talk.”

“Being a prisoner isn’t our best option.”

“Being dead sucks too.”

Maxwell nodded. At least they were talking about it. It was healthy to vent their fear, to make jokes about that which terrified them. They were embarking on a trip into unthinkable danger. Maxwell didn’t want to calculate how slim their chances really were.

Silence fell over the cabin again. Bass’s question slipped back into Maxwell’s mind. Why are you doing this?

He had given a flippant reply, carefully avoiding the truth. Because I have nothing to lose.

Everyone important to him was gone. No children, no wife, no family except an aging father. His astronaut wife, Debbie, had been taken from him in a fiery accident one sun-strewn day at Cape Canaveral. His own career as an astronaut had come to an abrupt end. He’d lost Claire Phillips once back in time, then she returned like a fresh wind to his life. Now he’d lost her again and—

He caught himself. Knock it off, Maxwell. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. He had been decorated for bravery in two wars. He had put his life on the line as a test pilot and astronaut. Had he done it for no higher reason than that he had nothing to lose? Was courage nothing more than an act of hopelessness?

Hell no. There had always been more to it than that. It was a private set of beliefs, an ingrained code that was peculiar to the warrior class. Men like himself and Red Boyce and, he hoped, Catfish Bass, followed a calling that transcended their own lives. They were patriots and warriors, in that order.

With that thought he told himself to quit thinking. Too much thinking before going into action dulled your senses. Let it go. Just do your job.

He felt the drone of the turboprops change pitch. The nose of the COD tilted downward. In the darkness below lay the island of Taiwan.

The clamshell door in the aft cabin swung open. A short, ramrod-straight figure stood in the darkness on the tarmac.

“Welcome to Chingchuankang.”

Maxwell recognized the voice and his heart sank. Oh, shit.

“Colonel Chiu,” he said. “Good to see you again.”

Chiu didn’t bother shaking hands. He gave Maxwell and Bass each a peremptory nod. “Follow me. Your bags will be brought to you.”The base was blacked out. There was no light spilling from windows, no illumination on the sprawling ramp, no taxiway lights. The COD had been nursed to its parking spot on the darkened tarmac by an unlighted follow-me jeep.

Chiu led them to his vehicle, a Suzuki four-wheeler in military drab. As Maxwell’s eyes adjusted to the dim light of the ramp, he could see aircraft dispersed on the ramp — helicopters, C-130s, single-engine utility airplanes. Sandbagged gun emplacements were sited at regular intervals around the perimeter of the ramp. Taiwan’s central base for special operations, Chingchuankang, was on high alert.

Driving the Suzuki himself, Chiu headed across the ramp. He made no conversation while he drove, speeding past sandbagged security posts with guards wearing black greasepaint and full combat gear, to a sprawling one-story complex. More sandbags, a machine gun post, and half a dozen grim-looking troops guarded the entrance.

Through a light-sealed inner door, Maxwell and Bass followed Chiu into an illuminated hallway. Squinting in the harsh fluorescent light, they entered a capacious room with charts covering three walls. At a row of computers sat half a dozen technicians. On one wall was a large flat-panel screen with blinking symbols that displayed, Maxwell presumed, a real-time military overview of Taiwan and coastal China.

In the center of the room, on an elevated platform, was a three-meter-square plaster-and-cardboard facsimile of an air field. The miniature base contained runways, hangars, buildings, a water tower, revetments, gun emplacements, even missile batteries.

Chiu saw Maxwell studying the model base. “Do you know what you’re looking at?”

Maxwell was impressed. “Chouzhou.”

“The most accurate reproduction we could make, based on reconnaissance photos and the knowledge of defectors who worked there.”

Maxwell caught the note of disapproval in Chiu’s voice. His opinion of defectors hadn’t changed.

“When does the operation go?”

“Soon. Within forty-eight hours. It has been given the highest priority by our… current head of state.” Maxwell caught the note of distaste. He wondered if Chiu had a dislike for the new president of Taiwan, or if he just hated women in general.

Bass was looking at the model, shaking his head. “Jesus, this looks like something from Mission Impossible. How are we going to get in there and out again without getting our asses shot off? This place is more heavily defended than downtown Beijing.”

Chiu gave him a cold look. “That is my concern, not yours. Your task will be to deal with the airplane, nothing more It will be my responsibility to insert you into the base at Chouzhou.”

“Your responsibility?” said Maxwell. “Does that mean that you—”

“I am in command of the raid,” said Chiu. “This is a Taiwanese operation, using our troops and equipment. Everyone—” he gave each man a glower, “—will take orders from me. Without question. Is that understood?”

Maxwell felt himself bristle. No, it wasn’t understood. Something had gotten lost in the mission description. Taking orders from a raving tyrant who hated women and Americans and all other living things wasn’t part of the job.

For several seconds he kept his silence, weighing whether to tell Chiu to go stuff his model base and his mission and his orders, understood or otherwise, straight up his bunghole.

Bass watched him, a curious expression on his face.

Maxwell took a deep breath. The mission comes first. Humor this asshole.

He gave Bass a barely perceptible nod, then he turned to Chiu. “Understood, Colonel.”

Chiu wasn’t finished. “If the United States had not abandoned Taiwan, this operation would not be necessary. The war would be won already.”

“You’ve not been abandoned, Colonel. The U.S. is supplying most of Taiwan’s ships and aircraft and ordnance. We trained your pilots. The Reagan Strike Group is still on station in the Strait.”

“Will they deliver an attack on Chinese air defense sites?”

“Not without provocation.”

“Will they engage the Chinese Air Force when we insert our team into Chouzhou?”

“You know the answer. The United States is not at war with China.”

Chiu shook his head in disgust. “Talk. All empty talk. For fifty years the United States assured us they were our ally. In the final analysis, that’s all it was. Talk.”

Maxwell was getting a quick picture of Chiu. He was obviously a man with a mountain-sized chip on his shoulder. It was hard to figure who he hated the most, China or the United States. It didn’t matter. “Look, Colonel, we’re here to do a job, not discuss foreign policy. If you don’t wish to include us in the operation, that suits me. We’ll return to the Reagan tonight.”

Chiu’s eyes narrowed. He was about to deliver another blast when he stopped and fixed his attention to something in the hallway behind them.

“Our team of foreigners is complete,” he said. “Gentlemen, meet the defector who will take us to the Black Star.”

Maxwell looked over his shoulder. He abruptly lost interest in the model air base, the charts on the wall, the tactical display. His eyes riveted on a rich tumble of black hair, flashing almond eyes, a smile that erased all his anger.

She wasn’t wearing the baggy fatigues and the clunky boots. They had been replaced by snug-fitting Levis, white sneakers, a T-shirt that bore the likeness of, Maxwell presumed, some rock musician. Maybe a dead scientist. He couldn’t tell.

Mai-ling looked like a kid on a college campus.

“I knew it,” she said. “I knew I’d see you again.”

Sovremenny.

Reading the urgent message on the bridge of the Kai Yang, Commander Lei Fu-Sheng felt a surge of alarm pass through him. Everyone had presumed that the greatest threat would come from PLA navy submarines.

They were wrong. They hadn’t counted on the Sovremenny destroyers.

Darkness had descended once again on the strait. The Kai Yang had lived through another twelve hours of daylight. Lei could see only the silhouettes of his escort vessels cruising a parallel course.

After killing the first Kilo class submarine, they had located another and hounded it into the jaws of a fast-moving destroyer squadron, who dispatched it with their own torpedoes. Elsewhere in the strait, another Kilo and a Ming class Chinese submarine had been caught and killed. PLA navy submarines had accounted for the loss of only two Taiwanese warships — a frigate, the Han Yang, and a destroyer whose captain had been too complacent as he cruised out of his anchorage at Kaohsiung.

Until now, it had been a one-sided naval war. The PLA navy was overrated. They had decent equipment, but they were too inept at using it.

But the two Sovremenny class destroyers were something else. They were crewed, according to intelligence briefs, by the cream of the PLA navy. Armed with supersonic 3M80E Moskit anti-ship missiles, the Sovremenny class could kill anything in its theatre — surface, submerged, or airborne.

They weren’t supposed to be a threat. Yesterday Lei and his fellow commanders received assurances that both Sovremenny destroyers—Fan Tzu and Fan Tao—had been caught in their berths at the naval yard at Xiamen when the war began. The first wave of Harpoon missiles had devastated the base. Neither destroyer made it to the open sea.

It was bad information.

The message arrived on Lei’s bridge a few minutes after sunset. The two Sovremennys had appeared in the Xiamen channel, undamaged from the Harpoon barrages, steaming out of their concrete-sheltered berths. Dodging the flotsam in the harbor, they made for the Xiamen channel. They met no opposition as they steamed toward the safety of the strait.

Then they rounded Point Shima, the last promontory before the open sea. Lurking outside the channel entrance was the Taiwanese submarine, Hai Shih, an old Guppy class boat handed down by the U.S.

Hai Shih’s captain had been waiting for the Sovremennys. His first torpedo took the lead destroyer, Fan Tzu, amidships. The destroyer went into a sickening skid, a ball of flame belching from her midsection. Its stern buckled and broke away as the destroyer entered its death throes.

His second torpedo missed the stern of Fan Tao by thirty meters. Without slowing, Fan Tao raced past its dying sister ship. Before the submarine could pump another torpedo after it, the Sovremenny destroyer was launching anti-submarine missiles. Three of the high-speed missiles arced through the sky like killer hawks, plunging back to the surface and disappearing.

Seconds later, a geyser of foam and debris gushed to the surface. An ugly pool of black oil began to spread, marking the gravesite of the Hai Shih. The Fan Tao maintained speed, leaving in its wake the smoke and debris of the two shattered warships.

The Sovremenny destroyer was headed into the strait.

Nice butt, observed Catfish Bass.

Mai-ling was leading the way into the briefing room, the same one with the charts on the wall and the miniature air base in the center. Maxwell and Bass were following her. She was still wearing the tight jeans. Bass noticed for the first time that she had a patch of an American flag sewn on the hip pocket.

Too bad she’s a world class bitch. The snotty babe reminded him of the grad school women he used to know at UCLA. There was something about them. If they possessed the rare combination of good looks and exceptional brains, they had the disposition of a crazed mongoose.

Like this one. Hadn’t missed a chance to sink her teeth into his ankle. He wondered whether it had something to do with his own ethnicity. The fact of his being half Chinese seemed to trigger some kind of hate reflex in Chinese women.

For reasons he hadn’t figured out, Mai-ling had attached herself to Maxwell. He was far too old for her — the guy had to be pushing forty — and, anyway, he had other things to think about. She probably had him sized up as her ticket to the states. Or maybe something more than that.

Bass couldn’t take his eyes off the little flag sewn on her right hip pocket. It moved in a hypnotic rhythm as she walked down the hallway. At the entrance to the briefing room, Mai-ling stopped. She sensed something.

She whirled and gave him a fierce look.

“Nice flag,” he said.

“Animal.” She wheeled and marched on down the hallway.

Predictable, he thought. The type who couldn’t handle a compliment.

They entered the cavernous room with the model of the Chouzhou air base in the center. Mai-ling, Maxwell, and Bass took seats on one side. Opposite them sat a dozen Taiwanese Army officers in their utilities. To a man, they were compactly built, wearing the same intense expression, sitting in a row like coiled springs.

They refused to make eye contact. After an initial curious look at the Americans, they kept their attention studiously focused on some faraway object. Bass figured them to be officers of the commando unit that would insert them into Chouzhou.

The thought of the coming operation sent a fresh chill down Bass’s spine.

He heard the clunk of boots on the wooden floor. All heads turned to see Colonel Chiu, in battle dress uniform, stride into the room. He looked like a drum major, arms swinging at his side, heels hammering the floor.

Someone barked a command in Chinese. As if they were a single entity, the Taiwanese officers shot to their feet and stood quivering at rigid attention.

Not sure what to do, Bass glanced over at Maxwell. Slowly, without great precision, he unwound from the seat and rose to his feet, standing at a loose parade rest. Bass followed suit. Mai-ling made a sour face and stayed seated. “I’m not in their army,” she whispered. “I don’t have to do that.”

Cool, thought Bass. The chick was finallly showing a little class.

“Seats,” Chiu barked out. In another single movement, the commandos slammed themselves back down in the seats.

Joined at the hip. Bass wondered if any of them was capable of thinking by himself. Maybe they weren’t allowed to.

The colonel spoke in rapid Mandarin. Bass could follow only about half the content. Chiu told his audience that the raid on Chouzhou — now called Operation Raven Swoop — had been moved up. Taiwan’s worsening military situation made it imperative that they execute their mission without delay. They would take off at 0300 local tomorrow morning. The colonel paused and looked at Bass. “Please translate for Commander Maxwell.”

Bass nodded, then gave Maxwell an abbreviated version of Chiu’s briefing. He saw Mai-ling shaking her head at his clumsy interpretations.

“Okay, tell him I’ve got it,” said Maxwell.

Chiu continued in Chinese, pausing every couple of minutes for Bass to translate. Bass was having trouble following the quick, guttural speech. It was a country Mandarin dialect unfamiliar to him. Some of the peculiar nuances he had to guess at.

The commando force would total ninety troops, transported in four CH-47 Chinook helicopters and escorted by another four Cobra gunships. Diversionary attacks would be conducted on coastal targets, and a bogus amphibious force would be aimed at a site south of Chouzhou. Prior to the raid, the vicinity’s air defense batteries would be raked by Harpoon missiles launched from offshore naval vessels.

The colonel walked up to the model of the air base. With a long pointer he indicated the landing sites of the helicopters, the locations of the base surface defense units, the routes taken by the elements of the commando force.

“These four hangars,” Chiu said in English, “house the Black Star project.” He pointed to a semi-circle of fortified shelters. “According to our source—” he looked pointedly at Mai-ling, “—we are supposed to find at least one flyable aircraft in Hangar Number One.” He rapped on the first of the four shelters. “If there are more than one, as she claims, they should be in the adjoining hangar.”

Listening to the briefing, Bass’s sinking feeling returned. It was a desperate plan. Too damned desperate. The idea was to breach the tight ring of security the PLA had around the Black Star long enough to insert him and Maxwell into the hangar. What happened next depended on whether they found a flyable airplane.

And whether they could fly it. Bass was performing quick calculations. Ninety commandos versus the People’s Liberation Army. How many PLA troops were in the vicinity of Chouzhou? A thousand? Ten thousand?

The sinking feeling was getting worse.

Chiu looked at Maxwell. “How much time do you require before you can move the airplane?”

“It depends on what we find,” said Maxwell. “We need to locate the specialized equipment — helmets with the correct radio connections, harnesses, oxygen masks.”

“There will no time for random searches. We will not be able to maintain a perimeter defense while you amuse yourselves looking at flight gear.”

“If necessary we will use the generic equipment with standard fittings that we take with us.”

“You haven’t answered my question. How long before you will be prepared to fly the airplane?”

“At least half an hour. Perhaps longer. It depends on the complexity of the airplane.”

Chiu looked disgusted. “I was informed that you were a test pilot. Why should the complexity of the airplane be a problem? You should be ready to leave without delay.”

Bass could see the color rising in Maxwell’s face. “My job is to fly the airplane — if I consider it feasible. Yours is to get me to it. I don’t intend to tell you how to do your job, Colonel. Don’t tell me how to do mine.”

A thundercloud passed over Chiu’s face. A heavy silence fell over the room, and for a long moment the two men locked gazes. Chiu was clearly not a man accustomed to taking rebukes, especially in front of his officers. He seemed to be weighing whether to remove Maxwell from the operation.

Abruptly he swung his attention back to the model of the base. “The purpose of this mission is to find the Black Star aircraft. If circumstances permit our foreign guests to capture one of the aircraft—” he shot a piercing look at Maxwell, “—so be it. Otherwise, we will destroy the aircraft and all the production facilities. In any case, we will be in and out of Chouzhou in thirty minutes time.”

He went into detail about the disposition of the commando force — where they would disperse, which teams had responsibility for which shelters, where they would deploy their mortars and large-caliber weapons. The officers listened intently, nodding their heads.

When he was finished, Chiu said, “Questions?”

There were no questions.

He gave them all a curt nod. A command was barked in Chinese. Again the officers shot to their feet, standing at rigid attention.

Chiu marched to the exit. The briefing was over.