Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 06 (65 page)

 
          
Sun
Ji Guoming scanned all the possible radio frequencies for any signs of the
death and destruction he had caused that night, but the atmosphere for hundreds
of miles around had been charged by the nuclear detonations and all the bands
were jumbles of static—he could not communicate with anyone until he was almost
all the way across the Gulf of Chihli and over the coast near Tianjin, just
sixty miles from Beijing. No matter, he thought. The war was on.

 
          
Soon,
Sun knew,
China
would be handed the keys to its twenty-third province,
Taipei
, by a world praying for the bombing and
missile attacks and the nuclear devastation to cease. The world would soon know
that
China
would not be denied complete reunification.

U.S.
STRATEGIC
COMMAND
COMMAND
CENTER
,
OFFUTT AIR FORCE BASE,
BELLEVUE
,
NEBRASKA

SATURDAY, 21 JUNE 1997
,
1601 HOURS LOCAL (1701 HOURS ET)

 
          
“The
invasion of
Taiwan
appears to be under way,” the intelligence officer said casually. If it
were not such a serious matter, many of the men assembled before him might be
laughing at the understated irony of that statement. It was not just
Taiwan
that was under attack—it seemed the
stability of the entire planet was crumbling.

 
          
“The
Chinese are on the move everywhere,” the intelligence officer continued. He was
standing at the podium on the stage in the U.S. Strategic Command command
center, three stories underground in the middle of Offutt Air Force Base in
central
Nebraska
. “At least three divisions massing along
Xiamen
Bay
at
Amoy
, Liuwadian, Shijing, Dongshi, and Weitou.
At these and several other locations, PLA artillery and rocket units have begun
shelling the northern shoreline of
Quemoy
in
an obvious ‘softening-up’ attack. We’re looking at three hundred multiple
rocket launcher units, two hundred and twenty artillery batteries, and at least
sixty short-range ballistic rocket units arrayed along the bay. Resupply is
coming in mostly by rail and by truck.”

           
“What about amphibious landing
capability?” one member of the STRATCOM staff asked. “We’ve been briefed that
the Chinese don’t have much of an amphibious assault capability. How are they
going to move three divisions to
Quemoy
? ”

 
          
“The
reports of the People’s Liberation Army’s lack of amphibious capability was
apparently grossly underestimated,” the briefer responded. “Most forces needed
for an amphibious invasion were not based with active-duty units, but sent
instead to reserve and militia units that kept them separate and inactive. Now
that the reserves and militia have been called up to support the invasion, we
have a better picture of the PLA’s amphibious assault capability, and it is
quite substantial:

 
          
“The
Taiwanese government has already reported airborne assaults in the
early-morning hours by several cargo aircraft, with as many as a thousand
commandos dropped on
Quemoy
in the past couple hours. They also report
several forty-five- and thirty-five-meter air-cushion landing craft spotted
along the western shores of
Quemoy
,
including three on the beach. Each of these can carry as many as fifty troops
and two fast armored assault vehicles, armored trucks, mobile antiaircraft
artillery units, or small tanks. The Taiwanese have not reported where these
commandos may be massing; they speculate that it may be part of a large
reconnaissance or artillery-targeting patrol, or perhaps a plan to insert a
great number of spies on the island.
China
was reported to have only a few of these
air-cushion landing craft, but we’re seeing reports of as many as a dozen.

 
          
“Several
classes of amphibious assault ships have been spotted on shore, including some
never classified previously and many thought to have been discarded or not in
service,” the briefer continued. “It’s very difficult to determine exact
numbers, but one estimate said that the PLAN has enough ships for a
twenty-thousand-man assault on
Quemoy
anytime. They could possibly lift an entire brigade onto
Quemoy
in two to three days if unopposed.”

 
          
“How
many troops does
Taiwan
have on
Quemoy
?” one of the staff officers asked.

 
          
“Estimated
at between sixty and seventy thousand,” the briefer replied. “But we have not
been given any casualty reports from the attack earlier today. Any troops
stationed in unprotected areas might have been injured enough to make them
combat-ineffective.”

 
          
“Estimate
of that number?”

           
There was a slight pause, as the
enormity of the number he was about to give caught up with him; then he
responded in a hard-edged monotone: “Half. As many as thirty-five thousand
casualties possible on
Quemoy
. ”

 
          
The
STRATCOM members listening were stunned into silence. They could hardly believe
what had happened: in repelling a Taiwanese air invasion of Chinese invasion
forces arrayed around
Quemoy
, the People’s Republic of
China
had launched several surface-to-air
missiles armed with nuclear warheads. The entire Taiwanese air invasion armada,
estimated at thirty-two frontline U.S.-made F-16 Fighting Falcon
fighter-bombers— two-thirds of its F-16 fleet and 10 percent of its entire
active military air inventory—had been destroyed instantly.

 
          
“The
five massive nuclear explosions occurred almost directly over
Quemoy
Island
at an altitude of about thirty thousand
feet, high enough so the fireballs did not touch the ground, but near enough to
cause extensive damage from the heat and overpressure,” the briefer went on.
“Danger of radioactive fallout is low; the southern portion of
Taiwan
and northern
Philippines
might be affected. The aircraft carrier
George Washington
has been diverted to
keep it out of the danger area.”

 
          
“In
apparent retaliation for the attacks on the mainland, China staged a massive
counterattack, beginning with a feint by large fighter formations that drew
away Taiwan’s air defense fighters, followed by three large formations of heavy
bombers attacking with short-range nuclear cruise missiles and conventional
gravity bombs that almost completely destroyed four major air bases in the
western portion of Taiwan,” the intelligence officer continued. “The Chinese
then followed up with medium-range nuclear ballistic missile attacks on three
eastern
Taiwan
air and naval bases. The nuclear warheads were small high-altitude air-
bursts, less than forty-kiloton yields, but they were very effective. Half of
Taiwan
’s air defense system, including
substantially all its air forces and a third of its ground-based air defense
weapons and radars, were destroyed.”

 
          
“Any
reports about
Taiwan
’s defense posture?”

 
          
“Virtually
nothing from
Taipei
at all, sir,” the briefer replied. “Lots of reports of Chinese troop
movements, but nothing regarding their own forces. No sign of the sixteen F-16
fighter-bombers that hit Juidongshan earlier. AWACS radar planes report
formations of fighters, believed to be F-5s, over northern
Taiwan
, but Air Combat Command and the Navy want
to get a better picture of the situation over
Taiwan
before moving radar planes closer.

 
          
“Now,
over to the east, something else broke out between North and
South Korea
about an hour after the attacks over
Taiwan
began,” the briefer went on. “The ROK air
force detected a ballistic missile inbound from the west-northwest, possibly
from the North Korean naval base at Haeju or from a surface ship off the coast.
Air defense missile units at
Inchon
and
Seoul
successfully engaged and destroyed the
inbound. The ROK then reported a second missile headed north over the border.
Moments later, a hot nuclear detonation was detected over
Wonsan
, the army and navy headquarters base in the
eastern DPRK. The ROK denies it fired any missiles, although it does admit they
returned artillery and rocket fire with the North at many different locations
along the DMZ after the nuclear explosion.

 
          
“The
ROK is on full military alert, as is the North.” The intelligence officer ran
down a summary of the military deployments on both sides— almost two million
troops and thousands of tanks, military vehicles, artillery pieces, and rockets
were staring at each other all along the 140-mile-long frontier, with about a
dozen clashes already breaking out in various parts of the DMZ. “Of course,”
the briefer summarized, “all nations in the region are on a high state of
alert.”

 
          
“No
shit,” Admiral Henry Danforth, the commander in chief of U.S. Strategic
Command, gasped aloud. “Any idea at all who launched against the Koreans?”

 
          
“Both
sides are denying it, as are the Chinese,” the briefer responded. “We have
polled our naval and air forces in the
Yellow Sea
and western
Korean
Peninsula
region, and no one fired anything—the Navy
is conducting an audit of all its forces, but that will be hampered by the
alert. We’ve ruled out the Chinese ballistic missile subs—one has been in dry
dock for some time, and the other two Chinese boomers are being shadowed by
American attack subs, and they report no activity. The only possible
explanation is one or two Chinese missiles that were supposed to hit
Taiwan
somehow veered six hundred miles off course
and accidentally hit
Korea
, but that’s unlikely. We’re still
investigating.”

 
          
“Sweet
Jesus, I can’t believe it,” Danforth muttered. “
China
actually went ahead and pushed the button.”
Admiral Danforth swiveled around in his seat until he could see General Samson,
sitting behind him in the second row of the Battle Staff Room. “Still think we
should recommend to the President that we take the bombers off nuclear alert,
General Samson?” he asked.

 
          
“Admiral,
the invasion of
Quemoy
,
Taiwan
, and perhaps even
South Korea
was going to occur no matter how many
nuclear weapons we put back on alert,” Samson said. “The Chinese destroyed an
American aircraft carrier, launched a nuclear bombing raid on Taiwan, and I
believe tried to instigate a second Korean War by shooting missiles over both
North and South Korea—but are we any closer to declaring war on China, let
alone a nuclear war?”

 
          
“I
think we are, and the National Command Authority apparently agrees,” Danforth
said. “Tm recommending to the NCA that we go to DEFCON Three, deploy the
ballistic missile sub fleet, put the bombers on restricted alert, and MIRV up
all of the Peacekeeper and Minuteman ICBMs.” The fifty LGM-118A Peacekeeper
missiles were
America
’s largest and most powerful nuclear weapon. Headquartered in
Wyoming
but based in underground silos in
Colorado
and
Nebraska
as well, the huge 195,000-pound missiles,
when fully “MIRVed up,” could carry as many as ten Mk 21 nuclear Multiple
Independent Reentry Vehicles to targets as far as ten thousand miles away. The
five hundred LGM-30G Minuteman III missiles now on alert at bases in
North Dakota
,
Wyoming
, and
Montana
carried up to three Mk 12 nuclear warheads.