War of Eagles

TWENTY-SIX

Though General Tam Li held all his bases in high regard, he preferred the facility to which he was headed now. The Zhuhai base was the home of the PLA’s Macao forces, key players in his master plan. Macao was only six square miles, a narrow peninsula connected to the mainland by an even narrower isthmus. It was the oldest European settlement in China and had been administered by Portugal since 1557. Yet most of the inhabitants were Chinese, and the hilly, rocky peninsula adjoined the Guangdong province in southeastern China.

Tam Li wanted it for China. And one day he would have it. But first, his larger objective must be realized.

The general traveled to Zhuhai on board a Gazelle helicopter gunship. He did not do so for his personal security. He did it because ordinary citizens enjoyed seeing military aircraft. They always stopped what they were doing to look up. It inspired them, and it made them feel safe, more productive.

Soon it would give them much more.

The trip from the isolated military sector of the Beijing Capital Airport took a little over three hours, with a quick refueling stop in Wuhan. The general was at his desk by nine-thirty for the eleven o’clock meeting.

The other seven members of the Central Military Committee arrived at different hours throughout the morning. The generals and admirals had come from Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and other cities across the nation. They came separately and discreetly, by air. This was not one of the committee’s regular monthly meetings, and the men did not want to attract attention by gathering in Beijing or traveling together. Besides, the way Chou Shin was attacking Tam Li’s interests, the officers did not want to be out and about with him. None of them put it past the Guoanbu to assassinate the general. Especially if Chou found out what Tam Li was planning.

The irony, Tam Li knew, was that Chou would probably approve of the plan but for one thing. It would shift the balance of influence in Beijing from the old-line Communists to the more capitalistic-minded military. That was something Chou Shin would never permit.

The officers had all assembled by eleven. They gathered in the small tactics room down the hall from Tam Li’s office. The pale green walls were covered with maps printed on plastic sheets. Military planners could write on them with grease crayons, which could then be erased. The budget of the People’s Liberation Army did not include wallsize monitors linked to computers.

Nor should it, Tam Li thought as he sat at the large, round table in the center of the windowless chamber. He had heard that an electromagnetic pulse bomb effectively shut down the American National Crisis Management Center. The same thing could happen to the Pentagon or any facility that was absolutely reliant on electronics. What any organization needed was balance through diversity.

Each of the men had brought folders containing different aspects of the plan. If any one of these files had been lost or confiscated, it would make no sense. All of them were required for the plan to be clear.

“Has there been any change in the Guoanbu plan for the launch?” Tam Li asked as he sat down.

The general’s question had been addressed to Rear Admiral Lung Ti. The fifty-three-year-old officer ran the Third Department of the People’s Liberation Navy, which was in charge of naval intelligence. The division was linked closely to activities in the other intelligence agencies. It was an alert from the rear admiral that had triggered this plan three months before.

“There is no change,” Lung Ti replied. He paused to light his pipe. “Even if we did not have whispers from inside the Guoanbu, a man like Director Chou does not undertake a project unless he is sure of his mission.”

“He is very sure,” Tam Li agreed.

“How do you know?” Lung Ti asked.

“I was just with him,” the general replied. “When the prime minister learned of the explosion, he called us to his office.”

“So soon after the event?” laughed a youthful-looking general of the People’s Liberation Army Air Force. “I did not realize that Le Kwan Po could make a decision in less than a day or two.”

“He summoned us well after midnight, along with the sycophantic foreign minister,” Tam Li said. “Le Kwan Po showed uncharacteristic displeasure as he pressed us both for an explanation. Chou gave none and left the meeting before it was ended.”

“Did Chou mention the satellite launch?” Lung Ti asked.

Tam Li shook his head once. “He spoke about a ‘singular vision’ for China and refused to condemn the attacks on my private-market economy. That was the extent of his contribution.”

“Was Chou feeling any pressure at all?” asked the rear admiral.

“No. He was angry to be there, to have his motives questioned,” Tam Li replied.

“The old bastard is still upset by the end of hukou,” said Lung Ti. He snarled, showing a gold tooth. “He does not let anything go.”

Hukou was a form of census-taking and infrastructure maintenance. Each household was registered, and identification was issued to every individual. He or she could only get employment in the issuing district. That kept the main roads relatively free of traffic, allowed local planners to know exactly what kind of medical or police services they would need, and — perhaps most important — kept radical ideas from spreading. Radio and television broadcasts could be monitored. Conversations in the square or in a marketplace could not.

“That would suggest a crisis point is very near,” said the rear admiral.

“What a waste of effort,” another man said.

“It is a counterproductive effort,” Tam Li said sadly. “Do you remember Chou’s last contribution to our economy? He made the deal to sell tens of thousands of machetes to Hutu killers in Rwanda during the Hundred Days of Slaughter.”

“Now he’s killing again,” one of the generals remarked. “That is how Communists move the economy.”

The general’s comment was a simplification, but it was true. Chou refused to fully embrace capitalistic solutions. He saw increasing numbers of beggars in the streets and opposed allowing more foreign corporations in to hire them. He watched the way minor international powers faced China down on peninsulas and islands in the region. He knew that foreign banks and corporations were assuming Chinese debt in exchange for more and more collateral properties. Yet his wish was to maintain the system that allowed these things to flourish.

“I say once again that we should put a bullet in the back of his neck and move on,” Lung Ti said.

“A bullet won’t get us everything we want,” Tam Li reminded him.

“It will get me what I want,” the officer grumped.

“What is Le Kwan Po going to do about Chou’s actions?” another man asked.

“What does Le Kwan Po ever do?” Tam Li replied. “He functions as a buffer between the ministers and military on one side, and the president and vice president on the other. He does not solve problems. He merely prevents them from colliding.”

“Then you do not believe he will try to stop Chou?” Lung Ti asked.

“I do not believe he will,” Tam Li said. “We proceed with our own plans but I will have my own security people on alert in case Chou gets in our way. We will follow his staff and learn who his contacts and workers are. We will use them ourselves.”

Tam Li looked at the rear admiral as he spoke. It was Lung Ti’s intelligence that had suggested there would be assaults in Charleston and in Taipei as a prelude to an attack on the rocket. His people had become aware of the comings and goings of explosives experts from safe houses in the United States and Taiwan. That had been the first indication of fresh initiatives, as aggressive new intelligence actions were called. Once the individuals were flagged, the PLN3 watched them. There were requests for detailed maps, which went through a central logistics center. And travel documents. There was one other site on that list: the Xichang space center.

“We do not have a lot of time before the launch,” Tam Li went on. “I want to make certain that our operations are coordinated.”

He proceeded to review the PLA response, code named Sovereign Dragon. Twenty-four hours before the launch, Taiwan would put its military on alert. Any Chinese rocket launch was an excuse to scramble Taiwanese air and sea forces. Taipei would say the launch could be an act of aggression, a potential intercontinental missile strike. Typically, launches like these were a chance for the nationalists to strut their muscle without fear of reprisal.

Typically, but not this time.

Throughout their career, these seven veterans had watched the Chinese military become shangsheh—more and more of less and less. Though the PLA received budget increases, that money went to updating hardware in an attempt to gain parity with foreign forces. By that time, the enemy had advanced even further. China would always be behind in everything except manpower. That would be used for the backbone of Sovereign Dragon. Unfortunately, there were very few barriers to which that manpower could be effectively supplied. Over the past twenty years, China had become increasingly isolated and marginalized, militarily. To the north they were bordered by slumbering but still dangerous Russia. To the east was Japan, which was on the verge of deploying a ten-billion-dollar missile shield in conjunction with the United States; nearer to home were an increasingly Western-leaning Vietnam and the smouldering Koreas. To the south and west were India and Pakistan, whose Hindu and Islamic rivalry could become a nuclear showdown at any time. If China did not make a move soon, there would be no moves to make. The job of the PLA would become purely defensive, to keep other wars and nations out, not to enhance China’s international standing or power base. Without those, China would become what it was during the Boxer Rebellion: a carcass to be picked at by foreign powers. To Chou and his people, that was acceptable. Closing the doors and keeping the Communist vision pure was a victory. To Tam Li and his allies, that was an unacceptable loss of face as well as a slow death.

So they went over their plans and timetables, fine-tuned the specifics. They would begin with a response to the Taiwanese action. The PLN deployment would be modest and not unprecedented. But this time things would be different. Taiwan would be accused of capitalizing on a tragedy that was about to befall the PRC. As a result, the deployment of PLAN ships would be followed by the launching of PLAAF squadrons over the Taiwan Strait. While the world watched the buildup there, the PLA would seek — and obtain — the authority to establish buffer zones inside the current borders of Laos, Vietnam, and Burma to prevent opportunistic actions by those governments against coveted Chinese lands. The Central Military Committee would be granted those powers because they feared other terrorist actions like the one that was about to take down the Xichang rocket.

While all of this was happening, Taiwan would be blockaded. The United States would be told that an attack on the PLA would be met with devastating force. If they chose to move against China, China would invade the bordering states. Not even India could withstand an invasion of that magnitude. Either the United States had to accept a reintegrated Taiwan or face a massive war on many fronts.

They would press for, then accept, a negotiated settlement that joined a healthy capitalistic society with a dormant giant. The symbiosis would allow both to grow exponentially. And in a very few years, China would be the greatest power the world had ever known.

General Tam Li wondered how Chou Shin would react to the sudden, wrenching change in Chinese society. How could anyone react negatively to their nation going from a Third World economy to one of the most viable on earth?

The PLA and the rest of China were about to find out. And then Tam Li would make certain of something else: that Chou Shin was arrested and executed for treason.