Seawolf Class

14

The composite SEAL-Taiwan commando team had hidden in the forest throughout the first day, taking turns standing perimeter watch while the rest slept, exhausted, concealed by the heavy underbrush filling the clearing opened by the fall of a monster tree. Four of Tse's men pushed on ahead, with orders to reconnoiter the objective.

With nightfall, they'd begun moving once more, covering ground swiftly as they moved deeper inland. Four hours before dawn they reached their planned hide, a hilltop at the edge of the woods overlooking the village of Tong'an from the east. There, they used entrenching tools to dig fighting positions, roofing them over with logs, earth, and tree fronds until they were effectively invisible.

And then they settled down to wait.

SEALs were very good at waiting. During their forging as the most elite of America's fighting units, in Vietnam, they were notorious — and dreaded by the enemy — for their ability to force-march a hundred miles, then wait, more patiently than any cat by a mouse hole. SEALs were trained to deliberately place themselves in uncomfortable positions in order to stay awake, to outwait the enemy, to always — above all else — do the unexpected. SEALs who were questioned about why Navy personnel were carrying out operations so far from blue water learned to reply that the water in their canteens was all they needed.

Tong'an was a relatively small town tucked in beneath the loom of the mountains to the north and a swift-flowing river to the west. South lay farmland and open fields; east, the wooded mountain foothills. A large encampment, obviously military, had been erected on the southern outskirts of the town, complete with supply dump and a small airfield, and surrounded by entrenchments, barbed wire, and guard towers. They could not see their objective — a collection of vehicle-mounted IRBM launchers — but were confident that a search of the area would turn them up. Tse's men had been out searching the surrounding hills and forests for them for two days now.

Once the launchers were spotted, they would break out the laser target designator and call in the air strike. It would be ROC aircraft making the hit, but they would be launching laser-guided munitions that would home in on the LTD's reflected light to destroy the targets, no matter how well hidden or protected they might be.

At least, that was the idea. The first thing they needed to do was find out where the enemy launchers were actually hidden. Satellite reconnaissance had identified the camp next to Tong'an as the base nearest the probable launch site, but so far no one had produced an actual mobile launcher… or even a tire track.

One of the first bits of housekeeping Morton took care of at their new location was setting up the satcom link. A small, dish antenna was aimed at a particular spot in the southern sky, the location of a military communications satellite in geosynchronous orbit 22,300 miles above the Earth's equator. RM1 Haggarty and RM2 Knowles, the team's radio men, set up the LST-5 radio, plugged it into the antenna, and powered up the unit.

The LST-5 operated on two channels simultaneously, one for transmission, one for reception. The Team was to maintain radio silence unless specifically ordered to communicate with headquarters. They switched on every other hour on the half hour, listening for a steady relay tone from the satellite. That tone was their lifeline to headquarters. If it were to stop…

Morton lay at the slit opening to the hidey-hole designated Team HQ, peering through a set of binoculars at the encampment below. He heard a slither of loose earth and turned as Commander Tse scrambled down. "The recon has returned," he said.

"Anything?"

Tse nodded. Moving to the slit, he pointed past the encampment, past the town, and up into the forest-clad slopes of the mountains beyond. "In those hills," he said. "Just there. Four mobile launchers at an old logging camp clearing. They're heavily camouflaged."

"They would be, of course." The PLA would be most concerned with U.S. Navy or Taiwanese air strikes taking out their launchers, and with American spy satellites finding them in the first place, and would have hidden them accordingly. The general location had been identified using spy sats equipped with infrared tracking gear that had picked up the heat flash of launch and followed the trail of each missile as it hurtled across the Strait of Formosa.

"The recon team has located a good site for an OP. We could move there tonight."

"Good. I'd like—" Morton stopped as MN2 Grollemeir crawled into the bunker. "What is it?"

"Message from Knowles, sir. We've lost the signal."

Shit. "I'll be right there." Morton looked at Tse. "It seems someone wants us to phone home."

Tse's eyes widened behind his grease paint. "We've gone to a war footing, perhaps?"

"That I doubt." Morton nodded toward the slit opening and the military camp beyond. "There's been damned little activity down there. If war had broken out, I'd expect the place to be buzzing like a kicked-over bees' hive."

"It won't be a recall, not now…. "

"Let's go find out, shall we?"

Tse nodded and wormed his way out of the hide. Morton followed.

The communications bunker was another covered-over hole in the ground a few dozen yards away, on the reverse slope of the hill away from the town. The LST-5 satcom antenna was perched on top of the branch and earth covering, carefully aligned with the satellite, invisible in the southern sky.

RM2 Chuck Knowles was crouched inside the hide, crouched over the radio. He looked up as Tse and Morton slithered into the bunker. "Hey, Skipper. Commander Tse. Incoming traffic." He handed Morton the headset.

Morton pressed the receiver against his ear, listening to the decrypted transmission. Once the steady tone had stopped, Knowles sent a coded, burst transmission, relayed by the comsat to SEAL Team Three headquarters at Coronado. Moments later a burst transmission had come back down on the receiver frequency.

"Red Dragon, Red Dragon," the voice on the headset was saying, "Cincinnati, Cincinnati…Red Dragon, Red Dragon, Cincinnati… "

"Acknowledge."

"Yes, sir," Knowles replied.

Morton looked at Tse. "It's an abort."

"No… " The word was soft, a hiss of indrawn breath.

"The negotiations might have borne fruit," he said with a shrug. "At any rate, they don't want us screwing up the—"

"We have our orders," Tse said quietly. "Yes. We're to abort the op."

"No. I mean my people. The parafrogmen. We have orders of our own. We are not operating under the umbrella of USSOCOM or SEAL Team Three."

Morton felt a cold chill. "Commander Tse—"

"We will, of course, give you and your people time to withdraw from the AO."

"Commander Tse," Morton repeated, "listen to me! You and your team can't go charging off like a loose cannon! If Washington and Beijing have reached some sort of deal—"

"It is a deal to which the Republic of China is not a party, Commander Morton. Washington has operated in its own interests for decades now. We have learned that we must rely on our own resources to… how do you Americans say it? To stand on our own two feet to maintain our freedom."

"We have the laser designator," Morton said. "It's going back with us."

Tse shrugged, unconcerned. "You Americans are far too caught up with the magic of technology. We will carry on as we always have."

Which meant Tse and his men had all of the explosives and detonators they needed to take down the objective themselves without calling in an air strike, a classic commando op.

"Damn it, Tse, do you think the Republic of China can fight the PRC alone?" Morton demanded.

"As I said, we have been alone for a long time, since the rest of the world turned their backs on us. You, of all people, should know how vital it is to stand up to an aggressor!"

And Morton knew exactly what Tse meant. Bin Laden's Al Qaida, and the War on Terrorism…

"I understand, Tse. But there's a hell of a lot more at stake here than—"

"You do not understand, Commander. No non-Chinese could." And he turned and left the communications bunker.

"What do you mean, there's nothing you can do?" Garrett swung his legs off the hospital bed and sat up… and was immediately sorry he had. He hid the stab of pain, however, and the dizziness, keeping his eyes hard and cold on the pair of Hong Kong police officers standing before him.

The nurse who was with them let out a burst of singsong Chinese, then shifted to broken English. "You no get up! You no get up! You hurt!"

"I want my clothes," he told her. "Please. I need to get back to my… ship."

Submariners always referred to their vessel as their boat, not ship, but the word would have sounded faintly silly here, and Garrett desperately needed to be taken seriously. He looked across the room at Kazuko. She was sitting in a chair near the door, looking pale and worn. He'd only learned this morning that after he lost consciousness the night before, Kazuko had called for an ambulance to bring him to the emergency room at St. Elizabeth's in Kowloon. Evidently, she'd also spent some time arguing security issues with the manager at the airport hotel and called both the American and the Japanese embassies.

Garrett had awakened in the emergency room, feeling woozy, but not that much the worse for wear save for the bruises and a throbbing head. The E.R. doctor, fearing concussion or internal injury, had insisted on admitting him, and he'd been transferred to a semiprivate room.

The two Hong Kong police officers showed up at 0900 hours, one speaking perfect English, the other no English at all. Neither one was very helpful.

Garrett managed to stand up, but a wave of dizziness swept over him. He touched the side of his head and felt blood on the white gauze bandage wrapping it. The nurse pushed past the police officers and firmly pressed him back down onto the bed. "You no move!"

"I no move," he agreed. "But please, I want my clothes." It was impossible to maintain a sense of proper dignity for an interview with the local police while wearing a hospital gown.

He looked up at the policemen and said again, "What do you mean there's nothing you can do? One of the guys who attacked us has a nasty cut, right here." He stroked the left side of his face, showing where one of the intruders had been pistol-whipped. "And his blood's on the carpet in that hotel room."

He didn't add the obvious, that his own blood was there, too. Christ, what a beating they'd given him….

"Sir, I'm afraid you overestimate our resources." The man had a pleasant, richly English accent. He'd given his name as Kuo Jung Wang. "And our abilities. Your attackers are long gone by now. Out of our jurisdiction."

"Attacking an American naval officer has got to be one hell of a serious crime. Don't you think Beijing is going to want to hear about this? They're going to hear about it from the American and Japanese embassies, that's for damned sure!"

"Commander Garrett," the officer said slowly, "it won't make any difference. These unfortunate things… happen."

"What makes you think they are gone?" Kazuko asked. She added something in Cantonese, which made the policemen look uncomfortable.

"As… your friend suggested, miss, attacking foreigners is a serious crime. They will have fled for the interior, where the Hong Kong authorities cannot track them."

"I'd still like to know exactly what the crime was," Garrett put in. "Aside from breaking and entering, assault, attempted rape, terrorist threats—"

"You did say that nothing was taken?" the officer said.

"Yeah, so it wasn't a robbery. They took off when they found my ID and Kazuko's passport."

"They were idiots," Kazuko added. "Their leader just kept going on about me being with a gwailo. They seemed to think that I was Chinese."

Gwailo, Garrett knew, was a Chinese word meaning "ghost." For the past two centuries the Chinese had used it as a term for foreigners, a term translated into English as "foreign devils."

"Is that what this is all about?" Garrett asked. "Racism? They thought she was Chinese and were scolding her for having a date with an American?"

"There are… traditional elements in our society, Mr. Garrett," the policeman said, "elements that are unhappy at the thought of Chinese girls mingling with… foreigners. They may have wished to point out to the lady of the impropriety of her—"

"Impropriety my ass!" Kazuko snapped. "That bastard pinned me against the wall and screamed obscenities into my face. Half of the words he used I didn't even know, which is saying something, believe me!"

"Well, miss, perhaps you just didn't—"

"My Cantonese is excellent, thank you." She added something in Chinese, and Kuo looked startled.

"And what did he tell you that you understood?"

"He kept telling me that I shouldn't mingle the pure blood of the Middle Kingdom with… with gwailo slime. When I told him I was Japanese, he didn't believe me, told me I was shaming my parents, being like that with a foreigner. They wouldn't believe me until they found my passport."

"Officer Kuo," Garrett said, "these weren't just racist street thugs. Three of them were carrying AK assault rifles. The leader had a military-issue pistol. They were organized, and they were looking for us, specifically. I think they got the maid to show them where we were staying and to let them in."

"Yes, sir." He looked thoughtful. "These are… difficult times, sir. Between your government and mine. I suggest you return to your ship and do your best to forget about this."

"That's bullshit! This wasn't political!"

"Can you be certain of that, sir? In my country, nearly everything is political to one extent or another, even if politics are rarely discussed openly. Especially politics of a…military nature."

Garrett was about to reply, then stopped. Those four intruders last night had been military men, of that he was sure. The close-cropped hair, the hard faces, the military weapons… There'd been a discipline about them, too, except for that one moment at the end, when one had accosted Kazuko and been hit by the leader. And even that suggested a military hierarchy of some sort, confirming that the man with the pistol had held rank.

For some reason, he thought about Frank Gordon. The attackers hadn't been nearly as pleasant or as laid-back mellow as his old friend, but there was something about them, about their manner — their attitude, per-haps — that suggested military intelligence.

And that sent a cold shock down Garrett's spine. An American submarine officer would be a damned juicy target for a military-intelligence sting operation.

So… which had it been? Four well-armed thugs terrorizing someone they thought to be Chinese, sleeping with a foreigner? Or four operators out of PLA Intelligence, finding what they thought was an American submarine officer with a Chinese woman and using the situation to… what? Intimidate him? Compromise him? Blackmail?

There were too damned many unknowns. If they had been milint people, why had they fled when they did? Maybe they'd had orders not to involve foreign nationals other than their target. Maybe they didn't want an incident with Japan. Maybe…

There was no way to know, but he was sure of one thing now. The Hong Kong cops had a reputation for being very good, very thorough… but these two men were afraid.

And that clarified a lot. Hong Kong might be operating under the "one country, two systems" rule, but the local police were still under the thumb of Beijing's governors. They wouldn't want to find themselves in the middle, between the U.S. government and the rulers of the PRC. No doubt they would do or say anything just to make the problem go away.

"You're not going to help us, are you?" he said bluntly.

Kuo looked embarrassed. "Sir, as I told you, there is little we can do in this instance. Our jurisdiction is quite… limited."

"I understand. It's not your fault."

Kuo pulled a business card from his jacket and placed it on the bedside table. It had the address of a Kowloon police station, on Public Square Street. "If you wish to talk to us again, sir… "

"Thank you." He waited until they'd left the room before turning again to Kazuko. "I need to get back to the boat."

"You no go!" the nurse said. "You hurt!"

"Kazuko, explain to the young lady, please, that we were attacked last night by members of the Chinese military intelligence directorate, possibly in an attempt to get me to answer some questions. If she persists in keeping me here, there is every possibility that those men will come back. To this hospital. To this floor. To find me. Ask her if she wants to get caught in the middle of that."

He didn't like using strong-arm tactics, but there seemed no faster way to cut through the bureaucracy. Within fifteen minutes the nurse had both produced his clothing and found a doctor to sign the discharge papers. In the meantime, he'd used his room phone to reach Master Chief Dougherty, by calling the American consulate in Hong Kong and having them patch a radio call through to the Seawolf via the consulate's military liaison office.

"Commander Garrett!" Dougherty said. "It's damn good to hear your voice. Your friend called earlier and told us you were at St. Elizabeth's."

"That's affirmative, COB. I'm getting processed out of here now. But listen up. I think what happened to us last night might have been an intelligence sting. I think they were trying to set me up so I'd be willing to talk to them."

There was a long pause on the line. "I'm very sorry to hear about that, sir. We seem to have another… situation."

"Talk to me, COB."

"Seven of our people have been arrested in Kowloon. They're being held at the local police lockup on Public Square Street. The word we have here is that there was a gunfight."

"Shit! Where?"

"A Kowloon hostess club. And — get this, sir — there are Russians involved."

"Interesting." He thought for a moment. "Can you put the captain on the line?"

"Uh… nossir. He's ashore with Mr. Tollini… at the U.S. Consulate, trying to straighten things out."

"I see." He took a deep breath. "Okay, we'll do this one ourselves. See if you can check that police station on a map. It can't be too far from where I am now."

"Right, sir."

"And round up the boat's MAA and…make it seven men. With arms. Post them on the dock, and don't let any local near the boat. I don't like the way this is shaping up."

"No, sir. I'm with you."

"I'll try to get the captain at the consulate. But if I can't reach him, I may need an armed shore party to come get me. COB, we might just be the sharp pointy end of a whole new war…. "

"Got Commander Randall on the horn, Skipper." About fucking time!

Morton took the handset to the LST-5. "Commander? This is Morton."

"Hello, Jack," the voice at the other end of the line said. There was the faintest of a pause between transmission and reception, partly due to the speed-of-light time lag between Earth and the communications satellite, and partly to the processor time needed to encrypt and decrypt the signal at each end. Commander Kenneth Randall, who'd been on the Kuei Mei Board of Inquiry three years before, was now executive officer of SEAL Team Three back in Coronado and the senior SEAL officer on the operational planning staff for this mission.

He sounded tired. "What time is it there, sir? Did I get you up?" Morton asked.

"Nah. It's about eighteen forty-five. They caught me when I got home from the base. What's up?"

"A cluster fuck in the making, sir. What the hell is going on back there?"

"Your mission's been put on hold," Randall said. "What's this I hear about you already being deployed?"

"It's true, Commander. We're on the mainland now. And my counterpart has his own orders. He's not aborting."

The pause at the other end of the line was much longer than any geosynch time lag. "You'd best start at the beginning, Jack. Give it to me slow."

Morton began filling him in on the situation.

The hell of it was, he found himself in sympathy with Tse. The Taiwanese commando was right. It was impossible for a non-Chinese to fully understand the long struggle — both physical and emotional — between Mainland China and Taiwan. But Morton understood perfectly the need to negotiate from strength, to not show weakness when dealing with an implacable enemy, and especially the need to hit back, and hit back hard, to convince the bully that further aggression was useless.

When Osama bin Laden's terrorist cells had struck at American targets — embassies in Africa, the USS Cole at Aden, a car bomb explosion beneath one of the World Trade Center towers in New York City — American response had been tepid at best. After the Cole incident, President Clinton had launched cruise missiles at terrorist camps in Afghanistan that were most likely empty by the time they were targeted. President Bush had later categorized the strike as using a ten-million-dollar cruise missile to blow up a ten-dollar tent… and hit a camel in the ass. The lack of a forceful response, apparently, had only emboldened the bin

Laden network… with tragic, unforgettably nightmare consequences in the late summer of 2001.

And as a direct result, the United States was now engaged in a full-fledged and bloody war spreading across most of the eastern hemisphere; a low-level, mostly guerrilla-style war, to be sure, but a war nonetheless. A war that had given Beijing the opportunity to make a grab for Taiwan, in hopes that the United States was too preoccupied elsewhere to respond.

If the United States had acted decisively and firmly with the first American deaths, Morton thought, if bin Laden had not been dismissed as a disaffected Saudi nutcase bankrolling his network of revolutionary fanatics, perhaps the tragic events of September 11 would never have happened in the first place.

If Neville Chamberlain hadn't given part of Czechoslovakia to Hitler in a bid for peace in our time…

Hell, there was no way to second-guess history like that, he told himself. The causes of World War II lay in more than Chamberlain's political myopia, and the peace would have ended sooner or later. But certain principles were clear. Bullies rarely respected offers of negotiation, save as another form of warfare, a means of improving their position before the real fighting began. Tse's government hoped that a strong response — a military response — to Beijing's missile-rattling would make Beijing think twice and perhaps step back from the idea of invasion.

Wishful thinking, perhaps. Taiwan could not long resist an all-out invasion by the PRC. But if they promised that the effort would be costly enough, perhaps Taiwan could win time and even the security of world opinion.

Morton understood all of this and more. His immediate responsibility was not to the regime in Taipei, however, but to SEAL Team Three, to Washington's concept of this operation… and to the fifteen American SEALs stuck with him out here in the Chinese hinterlands, and not at all necessarily in that order. Getting his team out of China would have been tricky at best; without the active help and participation of Tse and his men, extraction was going to be a real bitch.

"Roger that, Commander," Randall said when Morton finished relating the situation. "Let me get back to you. Make it… eighteen hundred hours, your time?"

"Roger that. I copy. Eighteen hundred."

"In the meantime, keep your head down. Don't go sinking any Chinese freighters and calling attention to yourself."

"That's the submariners' job, sir. We're just along for the ride. Besides, we're a good fifty klicks inland. There's not a freighter in sight."

"I hear you. Randall out."

Another eight hours? Well, they wouldn't be able to move before dark anyway. Even Tse's men, while they'd pulled off by themselves into the woods nearby, would not be moving out before sunset. Who knew? Maybe orders would come through for the SEAL platoon to stick with the Taiwanese and help them take down those launchers.

At least the decision was out of his hands, Morton reflected. He settled down to wait.

SEALs were very good at waiting….