Fourth Crisis: The Battle for Taiwan (21 page)

◊◊◊◊

“Unbelievable,” Richard said, impressed by the political
spectacle on his television.
 
Jade had
spotted the official-looking envelope among the junk mail.
 
She tore into it with a manicured nail and
read.

“They revoked my student visa,” Jade choked.
 
Realizing she was about to cry, Richard grabbed
her hand for comfort.
 
“I have one week
to go home,” she managed before she sobbed.
 
Richard pulled her close and hugged her tight, feeling her slight but sturdy
body tremble.
 
Her warm tears dripped to
his bare arm.

“They cannot do this to you,” he cried.
 
“It’s unfair catching students up in
international games.”
 
She looked up to
him.
 
Her face porcelain and her eyes,
moist with tears, glistening like wet coal.
 
Richard could smell her hair; floral and clean.
 
He would do anything for her.
 
He pulled her closer and shot a glance deep
into her soul.
 
He kissed her like it was
their last kiss.
 
When they parted, Jade
smiled, though the smile quickly disappeared, replaced by the worry that
permeated her.
 
He knew he could not be
without her.
 
He admitted to himself what
he already knew.

“I love you, Jade,” he declared.

“I love you, too,” she whispered, and sighed.

“This is going to be difficult.”
 
He held her tighter.

“More than you think.
 
I’m pregnant.”

◊◊◊◊

Senior Master Sergeant Li and his men huddled around Hill
112’s only working radio, eating the last of their rations.
 
Smoke from a small cooking fire vented
through the shattered bunker’s ceiling as moisture dripped down twisted rebar
and collected in silted pools.
 
The
change of government ceremony ended, and the radio broadcast concluded with the
national anthem of the People’s Republic.
 
A soldier snuffed the radio racket with a click.
 
The men looked to the senior master sergeant
who rubbed his injured arm.
 
One asked if
this meant the war was over.
 
Another, if
Taiwan had surrendered.
 
Li realized he
must act quickly to stem the confusion.
 
Li
scanned the apprehensive faces that awaited an answer.
 
He stood and said:

“We have not surrendered, and we do not take orders from the
Communists or their lackeys. Understood?”
 
The response was hesitant and lukewarm.
 
One soldier said he had not talked to his wife in a week.
 
He had no idea how his children had
fared.
 
This caught Li unprepared and
momentarily snuffed the flame that grew inside.
 
What of my own wife and child
?
He wondered.

“Senior master sergeant, sir,” an airman interjected. “For
all we know, we’re holding out for nothing.
 
We’ve even lost contact with command.”

“This is exactly what the enemy wants, doubt and confusion
in our ranks.
 
We are fighting for our
country and our way of life.
 
Are you
willing to roll over so easily?
 
Are you
all strawberries like the Communists say?
 
Does your liberty mean that little to you?”
 
While he framed his words in questions, Li
wanted no rebuttal.

“I don’t want to die,” a young conscript whined.
 
Li, exhausted, sat back down.
 
There was a long pause.
 
A jet—probably Chinese—roared overhead.
 
Unknown to the men on Hill 112, several
sympathetic Taiwanese officers—Communist stooges in positions of command—had succeeded
in disarming and dismissing major elements of Taiwan’s army.
 
Although the professional units did not
succumb to this psychological operation, large numbers of soldiers had
abandoned their positions and weapons.
 
Li scanned the semicircle of men that surrounded him.

“How many of you wish to desert?” Li asked, with a cautionary
choice of words.
 
Several hands started
to rise timidly.
 
Li’s first instinct was
to grab his assault rifle and execute the traitors on the spot.
 
He fought this instinct and, instead, said, “You
are free to go.”

Several airmen and soldiers stood, disgusting Li.
 
Without making eye contact, he insisted they
leave their identification and uniforms behind.
 
Then, in a blur, a seated soldier raised his gun.
 
Another man screamed for him to stop, but the
soldier cursed and opened up on the deserters.
 
The bullets propelled them backward into a dark corner of the
bunker.
 
While one man still twitched,
they were soon all dead.
 
With ears
ringing and head swimming, Li saw the shooter splattered with magenta polka
dots.
 
The assault rifle exhaled a twist
of smoke from its bore.
 
Li grabbed his
own rifle and hit the shooter with the butt.
 
The shooter fell backward onto a rock that knocked him unconscious.
 
In the still air of the bunker, gun smoke
lingered in dancing layers.
 
One soldier
cried.
 
Li covered the bodies with a rain
tarp, collected himself, and stood before the remaining men.

“We are soldiers of the republic.
 
We will hold until relieved or killed.
 
Is that understood?”
 
The men nodded, coaxed by the firmness of
Li’s voice.
 
He pointed at the
unconscious shooter.
 
“This man is under
arrest for murder, and will face a court-martial.
 
These men are deserters, but they did not
deserve to die like this.
 
Li began to
secure the unconscious shooter with handcuffs.

“Sir, the Chinese.
 
They
will be here any moment.
 
How can we--” A
sharp glance from Li cut him off.

“They’ll overrun us.
 
Kill us all,” another man picked up where the soldier had left off.

“You are all strawberries,” Li shouted.
 
“They should have sent your girlfriends and
wives, instead.”

One soldier stood, and snapped to perfect attention.

“Senior Airman Hong Xu. I am ready for duty.”

One-by-one, the Taiwanese air stood.
 
Each stated their rank and name, albeit some
reluctantly and halfheartedly.
 
Nonetheless, Li was inspired.

“Sir, we need food. I suggest we journey into town. We can
use civilian clothes,” the senior airman proposed.
 
Li smiled.

“We also need a radio; preferably a military one,” Li said.
 
The waning adrenalin had left him shaky.
 
He put his face in his hands.

◊◊◊◊

From within his air-conditioned office that overlooked Songshan
airport’s tarmac, General Zhen reviewed maps and timetables.
 
He rested a stubby digit on the map.
 
It covered several small islands in the
Strait that comprised Taiwan’s Penghu County.
 
On the largest isle were Magong City and its small airport.
 
By the runway was a Taiwanese Sky Sword air
defense site.
 
We must seize the airport and destroy the surface-to-air missile
battery
, Zhen plotted.
 
Operation Red
Dragon called for the Chengdu Military Region Special Forces Unit—The Falcons,
as they were called within the People’s Liberation Army—to seize these
targets.
 
Zhen lit a cigarette, sipped
some coffee, and rubbed his aching temple.

◊◊◊◊

A heat shimmer appeared on the Taiwan Strait’s horizon.
 
This mirage obscured a grey hull.
 
The 150-foot Chinese landing craft
N7579
thumped through the moderate chop,
her bow visor shielding the landing ramp from the sea.
 
One mile southeast of the target airfield,
the big craft approached the quiet Taiwanese beach and scraped ashore.
 
N7579
’s
bow visor swung up and her cargo of Falcons streamed down the landing craft’s
ramp.

Carrying futuristic bullpup assault rifles, and wearing
blue, white and black camouflage, the Falcons waded through waist-high water
and stormed the beach.
 
They dropped to
the sand at a line of barrier dunes.
 
A
strolling elderly Taiwanese couple stopped to watch the commotion, and a
Chinese officer politely urged them to leave.
 
An invader stabbed a red signal flag into the dunes, now flapping in the
shore breeze.

With the Falcons ensconced on the beach, a tracked ZBD05 Sea
Storm amphibious infantry fighting vehicle rolled down
N7579
’s ramp.
 
Painted shades
of blue, the Sea Storm clawed up the dunes, and its 30-millimeter cannon and
Red Arrow anti-tank missile launcher menaced the swath of shoreline.
 
The Sea Storm led ashore a 6x6 cargo truck
carrying ammunition, food, and water.
 
The truck sank into the gravel, but then its powerful diesel engine coaxed
the truck ahead.
 
As the truck negotiated
the soft sand,
N7579
reversed her powerful,
ducted propellers, raised her bow ramp, and lowered her bow visor.
 
Kicking up mud and sand from the bottom,
N7579
backed away from the beach.
 
The Falcons bound inland under cover of the
infantry fighting vehicle and its cannon and missiles.

Where rough shore road met the pavement of Penghu County’s Route
204, the Chinese Sea Storm infantry fighting vehicle stopped at the airfield
perimeter fence, and waited for the sprinting special forces to catch up.
 
When the Falcons made it, the vehicle pushed
down the fence, and raced onto the airfield and its rubber-streaked concrete
runway.
 
Followed by their supply truck,
the Falcons made their way down the runway.
 
They blasted and disabled a small Taiwanese helicopter, as well as a
single Mirage already stripped of parts that had been abandoned in place.
 
The Falcons dashed for the far end of the
field.
 
The speeding Sea Storm locked one
of its Red Arrows on the primary target—the airfield’s Sky Sword surface-to-air
missile battery—and sent the anti-tank missile on its way.
 
The Red Arrow impacted the Sky Sword’s
rectangular quad launcher and exploded the Taiwanese emplacement in an inferno
of solid rocket fuel and high explosives.

The Chinese Sea Storm then rolled up and shredded the
emplacement’s radar antenna with cannon fire.
 
The Sea Storm’s hull ramp dropped and a breach team dismounted.
 
Wearing gas masks, these Falcons burst into a
small Taiwanese command trailer.
 
Muffled
gunshots and a small explosion followed, and smoke and gas vented from the
trailer.
 
A Falcon emerged.
 
He made a fist, signaling, mission
accomplished.
 

Then, with a sound like rocks knocked together, a firefight
heated up between a Taiwanese platoon and a Chinese security detachment.
 
Men had fallen on both sides, when the pops
of gunfire subsided.
 
The Falcons then shifted
their attention to secondary objectives, including sabotaging several more
aircraft and seizing airport vehicles, including fuel bowsers and cargo
trucks.
 
When the Falcons reported they
had taken the abandoned terminal and the control tower, their commander, seated
within the infantry fighting vehicle, transmitted an encrypted success
code.
 
Loitering over the Taiwan Strait,
several Chinese airplanes received this code and turned toward their
destination.

Eight minutes later, a single Candid strategic transport
lined up on the captured airfield’s runway, and entered a steep descent.
 
The heavily loaded airlifter touched down,
and the pilot immediately deployed spoilers, reverse thrust, and then
brakes.
 
Struggling to slow down and not
overrun the short runway, the airplane wobbled along the runway’s centerline
and, with brakes smoking, the big Chinese transport stopped at the crux of
concrete and grass.
 
Using brakes on one
side and engine thrust on the other, the Candid pilot skillfully spun his
airplane in place, lined it up for a rapid departure, and then stopped.
 
He ‘kneeled’ the big airplane, using its hydraulic
lowering capability, as on some city buses. He then lowered its tail ramp.
 
A machine growled inside its hold, announcing
its presence.

Trailing a ribbon of black diesel smoke, a Thunder Dragon
main battle tank rolled from the Candid’s interior.
 
It clanked off toward the airfield’s small
terminal, now called, ‘The Falcon’s Nest.’
 
A self-propelled Favorit surface-to-air missile transporter-launcher was
next to emerge from the Candid.
 
It drove
carefully down the ramp and headed toward a collection of hangars.
 
Since the Candid was highly vulnerable while
on the ground, and had already deposited its clutch, the big bird hurried to
leave.
 
Four turbofans unrolled a carpet
of thick smoke, and the lightened Candid rotated and climbed into the sky.
 
Once clear, another airplane lined up on the
runway and began its descent, the first of three passenger airliners tasked to ferry
Chinese soldiers to the small Taiwanese island.