War of Eagles

FORTY-FIVE

Tam Li was dozing at his desk when the intercom came on. He did not start at the sound, because he never slept very deeply. It was a habit soldiers acquired if they wanted to survive. He picked up the phone.

“Go ahead.”

“General, an aircraft is approaching from Beijing,” the orderly reported. “It is carrying Chou Shin of the Guoanbu.”

“How do you know?”

“We advised the pilot that the base is in a lockdown situation because of the maneuvers off Taipei,” the orderly replied. “The pilot insisted that command did not apply to his passenger.”

That was not good. Not at all. “Are they landing?” the general asked.

“They said they will, with or without assistance from the tower,” the orderly informed him.

“Bring them down,” the general said. “Send two security units to meet the aircraft and take them all into custody.”

“Arrest the Guoanbu director?” the orderly asked.

“And everyone with him.”

“Yes, sir,” the orderly said. “The security detachment leader will need to know the charge.”

“Murder,” Tam Li said without hesitation.

“Sir?”

“Chou Shin has committed homicidal acts of terrorism abroad.”

“Yes, sir,” the orderly said. “If there is resistance?”

“Tell the detachment leader to resist back!” the general shouted. He slammed the receiver into the cradle and looked at his watch. He did not need to prove the charges or even make them survive the morning. All he needed was for Chou Shin and the leadership at the launch site to be out of the way for the next few hours. After that, there would be a military crisis that only military leaders could solve.

The general was now completely awake. His olive green jacket was draped on the back of the chair. He got up and put it on. He tugged the hem to remove the wrinkles. He tugged it hard.

The bastard provocateur, he thought angrily. Chou Shin may have thought to confront the general and bully him into aborting his plan. That would not happen. In fact, Chou Shin would not set eyes on Tam Li until a frightened nation had surrendered its will to the military. Not only would a general become the effective leader of one billion Chinese, but Chou’s antiquated Communist ideology would be buried at last and for all time. In a way, his arrival here was timely. Tam Li had planned to tell the prime minister that he was remaining in Zhuhai to watch the Taiwanese deployment in the strait, claiming it was more significant than usual. Now he could add to that the curious arrival of Director Chou, who was also supposed to be at the launch. The general would tell the prime minister that he was analyzing the data with the help of the Guoanbu.

Tam Li left the room with long, bold strides and entered a corridor that connected his office with the rest of the officers’ compound. The morning light was coming over the strait in strong yellow splashes. The pale green carpet of the hallway looked like solid amber. The general did not notice the salutes of his command as he passed. His eyes were on an office ahead, the headquarters of the strategic planning officer, Colonel Hark. He entered without knocking. The tall, lean Hark was standing at an electronic table with four other officers. The men all turned and saluted smartly as the general entered. He returned the salute perfunctorily and stood beside the table. A map of the region was being projected from below. Electronic blips on top showed the position of every commercial plane and ship in the area.

“What is our status?” Tam Li demanded.

“The forward aerial strike force is thirty-five percent deployed,” the colonel replied. “The naval task force is nearly twenty-five percent deployed. Everything is precisely on schedule.”

“I want our forces boosted to fifty percent — full deployment within the hour,” Tam Li ordered.

Hark regarded the general with open surprise. The other officers remained at attention.

“General, the Americans will see it on satellite,” Hark pointed out. “They will suspect we are sending out more than a routine patrol.”

“Thank you, Colonel. That had occurred to me.”

“Sir, with respect, we all agreed that the main deployment should coincide with the situation at the launch—”

“Circumstances have changed significantly,” Tam Li told him. “I want us to be seen.”

There was a short silence. “May I ask why, sir?”

“Chou Shin is on the way to the base. I am going to have him detained. If he suspects what we are doing, he will try to stop us. We need to maneuver events to a point where they cannot be stopped.”

“Even if we are perceived as an aggressor?”

“Taiwan military vessels are in the water, and their warplanes in the skies,” the general replied. “All of them are headed toward our shores. We need no other justification to field a defense force.”

“Perhaps, sir. But we have never responded before in this situation. The attack on the rocket and Taiwan’s opportunistic deployment was going to justify our own sudden and confrontational move—”

“Colonel, what is Directive Two forty-one?”

“ ‘Taiwan is an integral part of China,’ ” the colonel replied.

“Directive Two forty-two?”

“ ‘It is an inviolable mission of the entire Chinese people to reunify the motherland,’ ” recited Hark.

“And Directive Two forty-six?”

“ ‘The sooner we settle the question of Taiwan, the better it is,’ ” the colonel declared.

“You understand the goal. With that in mind, what command would you issue if our ports and airfields were about to come under attack?” the general asked.

“I would simultaneously move and deploy our equipment, sir.”

“Just so,” Tam Li said. “We are under attack from ideological enemies at home. They may seek to confiscate our assets while they are in one place. We cannot allow that. Get our forces off the ground and out of the docks as soon as possible. They will not engage Taiwan. Not yet. Nothing else has changed. The rocket will be destroyed as planned. Our ships and planes will simply be closer to the enemy than we had planned. In a way, this helps us.”

“How so?”

“Instead of hunting him down later, we will have already arrested the man who was responsible for the destruction of the rocket,” Tam Li told him. “There is one thing more I want.”

“Sir?”

“Have the white unit meet me in Hangar Three,” he said.