War of Eagles

FORTY-THREE

The People’s Liberation Army Naval Flight Unit was based at the Shanghai Dachang Airbase. Thirty-one-year-old Lieutenant Commander Fa Khan was proud to be here, though he knew that assignment to Dachang was considered less prestigious than deployment at the Shanghai Jiangwan facility.

The two airfields were neighbors. Their importance had nothing to do with proximity to the coastline or to the heart of Shanghai. Jiangwan received more funding and the newest aircraft and radar because of ancient family ties between key military officers and members of the government.

Prestige was much less important to the pilots of each base. They saluted one another whenever they flew close enough to have cockpit visual contact. To them, the pride was the shared honor of being the homeland’s first line of defense.

Dachang was a staging area for the PLANFU while Jiangwan was primarily used by the People’s Liberation Army Air Force. Fa Khan was an eleven-year veteran of the PLANFU and knew this as well: the sharpest fliers were stationed with him at Dachang, where the technical and logistical facilities were the weakest. Though that kept him from piloting the newest fighters like the J-13, with its stealth capabilities, Fa Khan and his squadron could nurse miraculous maneuvers from the aging MiG-21s at Dachang. As he once explained it to his father, who repaired automobiles in the city, pilots recognized every groan and hesitation, every burp in the engines or response time variance from the stick. The Dachang pilots knew just how to compensate and how to get the most from their machines. The MiG was flown by a man, not by a computer. It had been designed for quick and cheap construction, like the earliest biplanes. It was the ideal craft for an air force that wanted to throw overwhelming numbers at an enemy. That concept of war had been the Russian and Chinese mind-set for centuries. The MiG-21 was simply a mechanical expression of that tactic.

Besides, he had joined the PLANFU to fly, and he had achieved that goal. He experienced renewed joy each time he pushed himself into the sky. The takeoff and flights were never the same. Indeed, change was something very keenly felt by Fa Khan and his fellow fliers. The clouds changed from second to second, the colors changed from minute to minute, the air currents changed from hour to hour. The landscape below changed from day to day, and the political situation shifted from week to week. The preflight briefing indicated that there was tension with Taiwan now. In a few days it could be South Korea or Vietnam, Japan, or even the United States. These struggles always played out in the air or upon the sea to the east.

He was a part of all that, and he was also apart from it, like one of the gods of old China. He had insight into what was coming and the tools to affect it. He was also vulnerable to these events. The thrill was constant.

As long as all the gear worked, Fa Khan was happy. Not many men got to sit where he was. As he prepared to take off into a sun-drenched morning, he did what he did every day: he cherished his life and work.

Fa Khan’s patrol sector was Sector Seventeen. That took him northwest for 200 kilometers and then east 150 kilometers over the Yellow Sea. He returned via a southward course over the East China Sea, then east again in a long loop that brought him west to return to base. It was a 1,400-kilometer round trip, 200 kilometers within the MiG’s maximum range. If Fa Khan spotted uncharted sea traffic — smugglers were a primary target — or if he faced an engagement with the enemy, he would be able to meet them, hold them until reinforcements could arrive, and still return to base.

These patrols were vital to national security. China did not yet have the satellite capabilities of the United States, Russia, and their allies. That would begin to change later this morning with the launch from Xichang. If he was lucky, he might be in a position to spot the flames of the launch and the mighty contrail as the rocket sped into the heavens.

Lieutenant Commander Fa Khan had only been aloft for a few minutes, his heart still racing from the G forces he took during his sharp climb, when he received a coded communiqué from the tower. It was a series of five doubledigit numbers, followed by a time code in letters, followed by another number. He put the MiG on autopilot as he wrote the figures on a pad that hung from a chain below the altimeter. Since he was still in his ascent to 22,000 feet, the pad was hanging slightly toward him, the always-reliable low-tech plumb in his cockpit. The tower asked Fa Khan to repeat the numbers, which he did. When the radio officer confirmed that the read-back was accurate, the lieutenant commander signed off. He referred to a thick but compact map book in a lockbox beneath the seat.

There were four maps on each page of the volume. The numbers referred to a section number, a page number, a map number, and then two coordinates. The last two numbers pinpointed a patrol zone.

Fa Khan raised the visor of his helmet as he looked at the map. He checked it against the numbers. Twice. Then again.

There was no mistake.

He went back to the pad and worked out the letters. The corresponding numbers were six, zero, zero. Six o’clock in the morning. That was a little less than two hours from now.

The lieutenant commander had no idea what was up, but he knew how much time and fuel it would take him to reach the target zone. He calculated backward so he would arrive exactly at six A.M. He would also keep an eye open for other aircraft that would be converging on the target, a point just outside the territorial waters of the breakaway republic of Taiwan. The last number of the series indicated that Fa Khan would be joined by seventeen other fighter jets from Dachang. That was the remainder of his squadron as well as two other squadrons.

Apparently, this was a day when change was coming a little faster than normal.

And yet, one thing did not change: the determination in his eyes and spirit as he altered his flight path slightly in preparation for the rendezvous.