Kaleidocide (23 page)

“Why?”

“I don't know, Michael.”

I hung up, muttering that I would have to find out for myself, and pulled a goggles rig out of a bag I had brought with me, so I could relive my assault on the nuclear power plant in Taiwan during the Crisis. Hopefully my “detective skills,” as Terrey had called them, would help me learn some more about the questions that Saul's ghost was refusing to answer.

 

22

INSERTION

The Taiwan Crisis was the only connection I knew of between myself and Chinese interests, though I didn't know yet how Zhang Sun himself was connected to it. He had been a highly ranked general during the Crisis, but was not in Taiwan himself, as far as I knew—the Chinese operation there was led by a lower general named Ho (a romanized version of He'). So I wasn't sure what I might learn from reliving my part in the Crisis, or whether I would learn anything at all, but it was the only lead I had to pursue right now in an attempt to discover the reasons for Sun's animosity toward me, or any other information that might be helpful in abating it. Plus it had been years since I last watched the holo, which I had been allowed to keep as a reward for my heroics, contrary to normal procedure. And I won't deny that it was a major rush to experience the assault again in this way, much like an athlete who watches his greatest game on video, but many times more intense.

When I slipped on the goggles containing the file and opened it, I was transported back into the insertion coffin as it left the submarine in the East China Sea off the northeast coast of Taiwan. The file was video and sound only, of course, but I immediately started feeling echoes of the other sensations that I had experienced back then. It seemed like I was lying on my back again in the cramped interior of the coffin, feet forward and adrenaline coursing through my body as I imagined the immense volume and pressure of the water all around me, with only about three inches of the world's best plasteel protecting me from it. I felt disembodied again, too, because most of what I could see in the combat goggles that I was wearing inside the coffin was the view from the front end—headlights shining into the darkness of the ocean ahead of me, with only occasional dots of sea life flashing by.

I also had status displays in part of my view, of course, and control icons that I could select and manipulate using the mouse equipment that each of my hands rested on inside the coffin. I knew this part of the operation would be uneventful and take about ten minutes, but rather than fast forwarding it to the exciting part, I let it run and mentally reviewed the reasons for the assault I was about to relive.

The People's Republic of China (PRC) had been seeking to extend its hegemony over the island nation of Taiwan for over a hundred years. The island nation had been a part of China since ancient times, but became independent from the mainland in the mid-twentieth century, when Chiang Kai-shek and his government fled from the Communist revolution and found haven there with the support of western nations, especially the United States. Then in subsequent years Taiwan became more democratic, capitalistic, and economically successful, which was a constant insult to the PRC. So numerous times during the years to come, China tested the waters with saber-rattling and military maneuvers, to see if the U.S. would really stand by this “rebel nation” and protect it.

In 1954 Mao Zedong launched an invasion of some islands in the South China Sea and bombarded Taiwan with artillery. The U.S. Seventh Fleet moved in and he backed down, agreeing to peace talks. In 1958 he repeated the artillery bombardment, added air and naval assaults, and threatened a landing. The United States sent troops and a plethora of modern weapons to Taiwan, and signed a mutual defense treaty with the beleaguered country. Mao gave in again, and that uneasy peace more or less held until 1995, when President Jiang Zemin threatened force against Taiwan and even fired several M-9 nuclear capable missiles in the direction of the island. In 1996, the Red Army began rehearsing an invasion, forcing the Americans to send an official warning to Beijing and two carrier battle groups to back it up.

Since the United States had proven its resolve to defend Taiwan against Chinese aggression in the twentieth century, the first part of the twenty-first century was relatively quiet on that front, as China bided its time before acting again, waiting until it had grown stronger and America weaker. When that time came, the Middle Kingdom did act, but in an unexpected way, reflecting and honoring the stratagems of surprise advocated by the ancient general Sun-Tzu, from whom the present General Sun took his name.

Even though China had grown stronger and America weaker, the outcome of a frontal attack on the island was still risky because of the formidable Taiwanese military and the likelihood of escalation by the western powers. So the Red leaders decided to take a page from the playbooks of terrorists and guerrilla warfare groups, and sent General Ho and a company of “Flying Dragon” special forces from Nanjing to take over the Lungmen Nuclear Power Plant on the northeast tip of the island. The soldiers were transported by night in stealth aircraft to the airspace above the plant, and used the latest “Skyfall” backpack equipment to reach the plant with a combination of powered skydiving and powered paragliding. They easily neutralized the security measures, which were notoriously lax in Taiwan, and rigged the plant for sabotage before the Taiwanese government could intervene. One push of a button in the hand of General Ho could now release enough radiation into the air to kill all seven million people in the capital city of Taipei, which was forty kilometers downwind from Lungmen. Taiwan's military surrounded the plant, the army on the three land sides and the navy off the coast, but they didn't dare to do anything as long as General Ho had his finger on that button.

Ho demanded reunification with the mainland, of course, and the Chinese thinking behind this unorthodox move was that if it was successful, the loss of life from a war could be avoided by giving everyone an opportunity to agree to an outcome that was inevitable anyway, but now had the noble purpose of saving millions of lives. There was also some ambiguity, at the public level at least, as to whether General Ho was an extremist acting on his own, and combined with the threat of nuclear catastrophe, that made the situation much more complex than a direct invasion, and caused the western powers to hesitate in sending their forces to the area. Also, if the ransom attempt was unsuccessful, the Chinese could simply deny that they sanctioned Ho's operation—no one would be hurt, and things could presumably return to their former stalemate.

The unusual nature of this Crisis could also work against China, however, and that's where I came in. A counterespionage operation was a viable option, because the Reds were obviously not eager to launch into a world war. But the Taiwanese themselves didn't have the tech to pull it off, and their current government wouldn't be able to stay in power if Taipei ended up becoming irradiated because of an attack. The American government had the ability, but also preferred not to be the one to blame for whatever might happen. So they did what they had been doing ever since they funded and promoted “the revival of the British Empire” under King Noel I—they asked us to do the dirty work for them, and gave us the means to do it.

This was one of the most interesting global political developments in the twenty-first century—how the American populace had grown more and more isolationist as a result of numerous recessions and secessions, but also how some shrewd politicians cooked up a scheme to arm and empower other like-minded nations to create a buffer of security for their suffering society. This was all done in the name of “global sharing” and “reverse colonialism,” and so was more palatable to the tastes of the voters. I didn't understand much of that, but what I did know was that I was gliding through the depths of the ocean in one of the most amazing machines I had ever seen, armed with American wartech that was worth a fortune, and could never have been developed by my own country.

Resting between my legs, in the storage spot carved out for it, was a gun with three barrels called the Alliant Trinity. (That was the only place in the thin coffin where there was room for the weapon, but that didn't stop everyone on the sub from cracking jokes about it.) The Trinity could fire a monofilament grappling wire and two kinds of projectiles—for this operation it was loaded with caseless explosive and killer rounds, both of which were “smart” in the sense that they could change direction in midair and be guided to their targets. This was achieved by a link to the other ridiculously expensive piece of wartech, which was the eye rig I was wearing that stretched around to the back of my head, allowing me not only to see in the dark and identify targets for the Trinity, as many combat goggles could do, but also to have a 360-degree view of my surroundings. This was accomplished by cameras on the outside of the rig that projected into the view inside, with a technology similar to the net glasses many people used, but much more complex. So in the center of my view was what I normally saw in front of my head, but on the peripheries were the input from the cameras showing what was behind and above me. If I kept my head still, but moved my eyes to those peripheral images, I literally had eyes in the back of my head (and the top). I remembered how I had loved practicing with the gun and the goggles on the day before the operation, and how excited I was about using them on real targets.

Since I was thinking about the 360-degree capabilities of the eye rig, and guessing that the holo would soon show the part where I reached the island, I decided to transfer it to the whole net room and take the simpler goggles off, so I could see everything I saw that night in Taiwan. When I did, I told Vera to interrupt my viewing only if Terrey or Lynn called, or if the cottage's security was breached. Then I imported images of Zhang Sun and all of his close friends and family members into the projection system, directing it to alert me if any of the faces I encountered in the power plant matched with any of them. I wondered if maybe one of the Chinese that I killed or maimed in the operation was someone close to Sun … it was the only possibility I could think of at the time for why he hated me so much.

I turned in my chair to face the coffin's headlights, so I would be oriented in the correct direction to catch all the action. Other than those lights and some navigation displays that were on the edges of the goggle's front view, the room was totally dark. That was because the sea around the headlight beams was dark, and because the inside of the coffin was, too, so the peripheral cameras weren't projecting any images yet. I reached behind me to the only other thing I could see in the room, which were the softly lit controls of the keyboard and mouse, and fast forwarded the holo until I could see the big pipe that was my destination. I shifted in the chair until I was comfortable, and let myself drift into this virtual world that had been very real just eight years ago.

“This is Talon 3,” my voice rang out from the holo. “I've reached the insertion point.”

The Americans had not only provided us with the most cutting edge wartech, but they had also lent their strategic and simulation prowess to the planning of this operation. The Taiwanese had shared with them and British intelligence all the information about the Lungmen site, of course, to give us an opportunity to come up with a plan that could neutralize the Chinese threats without Taipei being endangered. But the natives didn't expect that to happen, and were genuinely surprised to find themselves agreeing that the plan could work and giving their approval for it to go ahead. One of the keys was that there was a desalination plant that had been built in the tight space between the nuclear power plant and the ocean, which enabled the Taiwanese to kill two birds with one stone and address their water crisis as well as their energy crisis. Many of these plants, which converted salt water into potable, had been added to nuclear sites all over the world, because they needed tremendous amounts of energy to make their contribution to the global water shortage, which had become almost as much of a threat to the world's population as the global energy shortage.

I was being inserted through the seawater intake of the desalination plant, because we knew that the primary security measures would be on the nuclear facility itself. For example, there were no sensors on the protective grill at the end of the large pipe, so the tool array on the front of the coffin merely projected a laser oval and cut a hole that I would fit through. I then proceeded down the long tunnel at a faster speed than I had come in, because the strategists had not been completely sure (as they never are) that this wouldn't be detected. We expected that the primary surveillance of the Chinese, if they even had any on this part of the site, would be heat sensors tuned to detect human activity. But we knew this wouldn't be a problem, because both the coffin and every inch of my body were “cold.” The coffin was lined with a polymer that hid all heat signatures, and the black bodysuit that covered every inch of my skin was made out of a similar substance.

The pipe stretched far out to sea and disappeared into the ground well before it reached the coast, because the builders wanted to protect the marine environment as well as the beach and dunes. But I proceeded at a fast clip, only stopping twice for other safety grates, and before I knew it I was inside the underground portion of the desalination plant, as far as I could go because the water was now funneling into smaller pipes. Before I exited the coffin, I checked the HUD displays in my goggles to make sure there was no indication of Chinese alarms or other security issues detected by our tech people on the sub. There were none, so I opened the coffin and swung my legs out, crouching by its side so I could pull out the Trinity and hang it on the back of my left shoulder. (The insertion suit was ingeniously designed to hold it in place, while still allowing me sufficient freedom of movement.) Then I shimmied to the front of the coffin, detached the tool array from its front, and used it to open a hole in the high side of the pipe, so that no water would escape when I climbed out. I then slung the tool array, which looked something like a small oblong steering wheel, over my other shoulder so it was fastened there. The two pieces of equipment felt like wings on my back, and in a very real sense they would fly me where I needed to go.