Red Metal

EPILOGUE

The noise in Siné Irish Pub in Crystal City was almost out of control, which shouldn’t have been a surprise, because it seemed the entire Pentagon had taken over the small establishment. The old wooden bar was packed with pitchers of beer, and men and women squeezed into every square inch of space.

Newly promoted Colonel Dan Connolly sipped a half-full beer in a booth in the back, and newly promoted Lieutenant Colonel Bob Griggs had a black and tan clutched close to him across the table.

Griggs held Connolly’s new eagle insignia, turning it over in his hands.

After a time Connolly said, “That’s enough, Bob. You’re gonna get french fry grease all over it.”

“But… this eagle is awesome, boss.”

“So awesome, I’m worried next time I look up from my beer I’ll find you’ve sauntered off with it in your pocket.” He turned serious for a moment. “An officer should never worry about rank. The men pay dearly for idiots who chase after adornments.”

Griggs nodded solemnly, then looked back down to the eagle. “Still, this is as close as I’ll ever get to one of these babies.”

At this Connolly laughed. “What are you talking about? You’re shooting up the ranks yourself now that you saved the world.”

Griggs laughed and handed back the insignia. “No, boss, I’m the flavor of the month, but I’ll piss off the wrong person again before too long. I’ll leave the spotlight and go back to a desk surrounded by file cabinets in the bowels of the Pentagon.” He looked up at the Marine across from him. “Beats getting shot at for a living.”

Connolly nodded and sipped his beer. “I’m inclined to agree.”

A Navy commander they knew was hoisted on the shoulders of several younger officers and carried over to the bar. From the sound of things he’d refused any more alcohol, and the throng of officers’ punitive measure was for him to sing “Anchors Aweigh” on top of the bar or drink a shot of rum.

He chose the rum, and Connolly appreciated him for it. There was enough bad singing in this room packed full of drunks, he thought.

Seeing the Navy commander made him think of the captain of the John Warner. She had been a hero, likely saving those Marines and French men who survived the siege of Mrima Hill, and then somehow managing to successfully sneak away from a picket of enemy ships to find safety in the Indian Ocean.

Commander Diana DelVecchio was still at sea, still weeks away from port, still lurking below the waves, but Connolly looked forward to the day he’d meet her, shake her hand, and fight the urge to hoist her onto his shoulders just like the commander across the bar.

Connolly sipped his drink in silence a moment while Griggs talked to a passing Army major. Connolly wanted to get back home to Julie and the kids, and he would do so just as soon as he could break away. Just three days earlier he’d surpised them, showing up unannounced after his trip to Africa, with flowers for his wife and chocolates bought in the airport for his kids, and with the grit, grime, and dirty clothes of war and days of travel.

The kids had been ecstatic; he played with them and then went into dad mode, getting them off to bed. And then, when they were finally alone, Dan and Julie shared a bottle of red wine in the living room.

Right in the middle of one of his stories about his week, she put down her glass, took his from his hand, and placed it on the coffee table as well. Then she climbed onto his lap and kissed him like they had kissed after all his dangerous deployments over the past twenty years, and he loved it as much now as he had back then.

No. He loved it more now.

“Can I see the other one again?” Griggs said now, interrupting Connolly’s happy thoughts of home.

With a long sigh Connolly took the Navy Cross out of his pocket. He’d hidden it there before walking into the bar, not wanting to draw attention to himself, but it hadn’t really helped. He’d had to pull it out four times already to show it off to half-drunk colleagues demanding to see it.

So for the fifth time he retrieved it and handed it over to Griggs, but just as his Army buddy took it, Connolly felt the buzzing of his cell phone in his pocket.

“Hold up,” he said, looking at the caller ID. His phone’s screen read “TX-185.” An agreement with the U.S. cell phone companies allowed them to freely send senior military personnel alert signals. “Shit, it’s the office. Something’s up.”

Griggs pulled out his own cell and began staring at it.

“Yeah, same here.”

The two looked up at each other.

“What the hell is it now?” Connolly asked.

But Griggs just put his face in his hands. “We both know exactly what it is, don’t we?”

Connolly stood up from the table. “Oh shit.”

The election in Taiwan had the world holding its collective breath, and although the results had seemed a foregone conclusion from the beginning, when they came in, they still caused Asian markets to plummet.

The hard-liners won, as expected, although only by a couple of points. Still, the Chinese immediately declared the vote to be illegal because of their accusation of the Taiwanese government’s assassination of the pro-unification candidate.

Within hours of the polls closing, U.S. satellites noticed Chinese troops amassing near ports across the Strait of Taiwan from the tiny island.

U.S. intelligence analysts quickly came to a consensus.

The Chinese were coming. Not today, perhaps… but they were coming.

Captain Chen picked the NVGs out of the mesh bag on his waist and looked along the placid shoreline of the coast of Taiwan. From his perch aboard the Type 039 Yuan-class submarine’s sail, he could clearly see the trees swaying gently in the offshore breeze that gusted in from behind him in the strait.

He looked down from the submarine’s superstructure at a Chinese special forces sergeant and nodded. The soldier signaled down a hatch and in seconds the deck was flooded with forty elite Sea Dragons. They climbed into waiting inflatable boats, their dark camouflage uniforms almost imperceptible in the predawn darkness. Hardly a clatter from the rifles and equipment slung onto their backs.

Captain Chen leaned over to the ship’s captain to gain his agreement to depart. Once granted, he climbed down the salt water— and seaweed-covered metal rungs and stepped easily into the lead rubber craft to begin his return to the shores of his enemy.