Two Peasants And A President Part 26

"Fire!"

Something hit her shoulder from behind. A woman had b.u.mped into her, then glanced back with a look that said: Watch out fool! It happened again and she realized that she was just standing there, blocking traffic. Before she had always been moving with the flow, going somewhere like everyone else. Now she felt somehow out of place in front of her own apartment building.

No one seemed to notice her, at least as long as she stayed out of the way. Everyone was rus.h.i.+ng by, just as they always did, none stopping to stare. She was starting to feel calm again, as if there was nothing to be afraid of, as if what she had seen was only a dream. Perhaps it was. Maybe she had dreamed it. But the image of the woman seated at the desk and her words would not fade.

A police car put an abrupt end to that. It was nearing the spot where she stood, its occupants looking her way. Ming wanted to flee, but to where? It was in her apartment where she had listened to the sedition; it no longer promised refuge. She had almost turned to run down an alley when something inexplicable happened. A boy of perhaps fifteen emerged from the pa.s.sersby and threw something at the police car, or rather in front of it. Then he pivoted and ran.

The officer behind the wheel twisted his head around and shouted as he hit the brakes. There was a pop, followed by a hissing sound. He cursed and banged the steering wheel with the heel of his hand before getting out and walking around the front of the car. The left front tire was already sinking. He picked up a small object and looked at it. It appeared to be made of sharpened nails, bent and welded together so that a sharp point is always up. He cursed again as he picked up several more in front of the car.

Then a young woman stepped off the curb and handed him a folded paper, much as one might extend an invitation. She stood smiling as he opened it.

Please do not be angry. We wish only that you pause to reflect that we are all Chinese - citizens with aspirations, hopes, families, precious children and revered elders. Like people everywhere, we desire to be free to express ourselves and to choose our leaders. We invite you to join us in peaceful change toward democracy for all.

The officer was neither persuaded nor amused and he grabbed her wrist and snapped a handcuff around it. Spinning her around harshly, he cuffed her other hand behind her and shoved her roughly into the back seat. Her smile was unchanged.

"You are under arrest for crimes against the People's Republic," he said mechanically.

Then he climbed back into the front seat and grabbed the microphone to call for backup in case there were other miscreants about and for prisoner transport. Another car less than a quarter mile away responded, announcing that he would be there in approximately five minutes.

A young couple approached the police car and, pointing out that she had done nothing wrong, asked that she be released. The police officer responded that he had more handcuffs for them too, but they did not back away. Then an old man shuffled over to the officer and volunteered to take her place. Soon there were more than a dozen people gathered around the car, all peacefully beseeching the officers to join them.

Now becoming nervous and agitated, the officer called the other car to find out what was holding them up. It was clear from the look on his face that the answer he received unsettled him. It was then that he drew his sidearm. The crowd surrounding him backed away but only a couple of meters. Then they began to chant: "Peace be to you, our friends. Do not be afraid. We desire only that you join us in our quest for democracy."

The officer vacillated between fear and confusion as the crowd repeated their chant but did not approach him. The other car had informed him that they had a flat tire and could not a.s.sist him. What worried him even more was that they had also called for backup and received a similar answer. Clearly he was stranded in the midst of a brewing insurrection. Briefly he flirted with the idea of shooting two or three in the crowd to instill fear, but the crowd was growing and he was afraid to anger them. For now at least they continued to chant peacefully.

Lee Ming stood transfixed, not believing her eyes. The voice in the message had predicted this: You will find other citizens already there who will instruct you in how to first contain the police and army and then convince them that they are us and we are them.

She took a few hesitant steps, then started walking, wondering how she will know who is with this . . . this movement. Everyone knows the police have spies everywhere and she feared she might go marching up to someone only to have handcuffs slapped on her wrists. She had walked several blocks when she caught the eye of another young lady, perhaps three or four years older than she. Not knowing what to do, she demurred. The slender young woman approached her and said: "Tell me, how has your day been?"

"Confusing," Ming replied hesitantly, looking into the gentle eyes of the person in front of her. "I was listening to music, then all of a sudden . . ."

"Your music was replaced by a message," interrupted the young woman.

"Yes, but how did you know?"

"Don't worry about that. Walk with me and I will explain to you what is happening. What is your name?" The two turned and set off down the street, noticing a motorcycle policeman with a flat tire and a group of people gathered around him.

"I am Nuan," the young woman said. "The hidden video file you watched is not just a warning; it is a call to freedom. It is a rallying cry for millions of Chinese who are unemployed due to President Li's reckless actions, hiding underground for fear of capture or just yearning for a time when citizens can speak freely without being beaten or imprisoned. It is an awakening designed, by sheer force of numbers, to force China's repressive government to bring democracy and a say in the affairs of government to its people. It is also a desperate and dangerous gambit by those who hope to prove that a movement which was brutally crushed in Tiananmen Square can somehow prevail now."

"The organizers' hopes rest on two tenuous a.s.sumptions: one, that Li's outrageous actions both domestically and abroad have pushed the average Chinese citizen over the edge in terms of opposition to him; two, that current ubiquitous video technology will manage to broadcast any crackdown that Li might launch so widely as to force him to capitulate. The organizers are not naive, nor are they stupid. They are aware that many Chinese have good jobs and are willing to overlook corruption and the brutality of the police in order to continue to enjoy their comforts. They also realize that while video technology in 1989 was far from what it is today, there were photos and videos of that horrible event that made it into the world press and, in spite of that, the tanks still rolled over the demonstrators."

"Darkness has descended over our nation and its people, Ming, and today a new life for you and for China is dawning. But it is not without peril. Do you want to become a part of that?"

Ming searched Nuan's eyes, looking for any hint of deceit or treachery. They were like clear pools, tranquil reservoirs of kindness and understanding.

"Tell me what to do," she replied.

"Very well. First we must contain the police and the army to the greatest extent possible. By hindering their movement, we limit their ability to organize against us. Furthermore, by isolating them we gain the opportunity to speak to them on a human level and persuade them to join us and put down their weapons. To do this we use caltrops, simple ancient devices first used to puncture horses hooves to stop their charges. Now we employ them to puncture tires and prevent movement. Here, take these." She reached into a small bag she carried with her a produced a handful which she handed to Ming.

"Use them only when you have a clear avenue of escape, because the police become very angry when they realize they are stranded. When you have used them successfully and escaped, find a another group that is gathered around a police car with a flattened tire and plead with the officers to join us. It is critical that we do not attempt to injure the officers in any way for if we use violence, then we become like them. Can you do that?"

Ming looked at the spiked devices that Nuan was holding out and said: "But how can this make a difference; there are so many police?"

"There are many of us too and every minute, more like you join the movement. Already some of the police are joining us too. We must have faith in each other and in the righteousness of our cause. Soon there will be millions and the government will be forced to acknowledge the futility of resistance."

Ming cupped her hands around the caltrops that Nuan proffered.

"Be strong," Nuan said, "and one day you will tell your grandchildren tales of your bravery and ours and how together we saved our great nation."

Ming looked down at the tiny weapons of freedom in her hands and smiled. When she looked up again, Nuan was gone.

The taxi pulled to the curb and one of its five pa.s.sengers disembarked. Three blocks later, it made its way around a disabled police car and continued on for approximately a quarter mile before dropping off the next pa.s.senger. It was more than a mile to the next drop off point, and along the way they pa.s.sed a motorcycle that had been pushed to the side of the road, a police officer cursing no one in particular as a group of people began to gather around it. Each of the remaining three pa.s.sengers was dropped at a strategic point before Jun turned back to Beijing to gather more.

While there was no way to know exactly how many, there were certainly hundreds of police cars and motorcycles whose tires had been flattened and whose drivers were now the subjects of impa.s.sioned pleas to join the movement. Most fell on deaf ears, and several came very close to provoking angry police to use their side arms. In fact, guns were brandished by quite a few officers, but perhaps finding themselves isolated tempered their resolve. Not a single police officer had decided to join the movement yet, but as they waited for backup that would never arrive, a few were on the fence.

If the officers felt isolated now, they were about to experience a new level of isolation. It seems that among the authorities' vast network of computer, surveillance, radio, and cryptography specialists were a few traitors. At a pre-arranged time, they began jamming the frequencies that the police use to communicate. This was accomplished with powerful transmitters periodically transmitting over all police frequencies in ten second bursts, overwhelming calls to and from individual cars. The fact that these transmissions were intermittent and the transmitters were concealed in moving vehicles made apprehension extremely difficult. In addition, hackers had reprogrammed the software that switches and allocates calls for the entire system, causing ma.s.sive confusion as officers received calls meant for others and calls from the base were routed back to itself. Pandemonium could not adequately describe the effect.

While some levels of the military were equipped with frequency-hopping equipment to foil jamming, the police had nothing so sophisticated. Some had scramblers that could garble transmissions to prevent eavesdropping, but even those were not available to many street-level officers. In a nation where scanners and walkie-talkies are forbidden to the average citizen, they were never thought to be necessary. There was a delicious irony in all of this: some of those responsible for the chaos had helped to develop the electronic warfare systems that were to be used against the West in the event of conflict. An unplanned trial was now in progress.

Every route in and out of a precinct police station had, by this time, one or more dissidents with concealed caltrops ready to stop any movement by official automobile or van. The numbers of disabled vehicles and stranded officers had reached a level that was crippling operations. At first, there were some in the police hierarchy who believed that this was a prelude to bank robberies or jewelry heists. Accordingly, they attempted to direct officers to protect these places, only to be puzzled when the cars that were dispatched didn't report back. Because few realized the extent of the disruption, it was at first attributed to some sort of glitch in the equipment. In desperation, individual officers began to use personal cell phones, a move that would present a new challenge to authorities.

Jun had picked up five more pa.s.sengers. Now all of the men who had been hiding in Hong's warehouse were in strategic locations near the hospital. The foreigner who had instructed them along with two other 'attaches' who, after a lengthy game of cat and mouse, had finally shaken off their Chinese tails, were in a grocery supply warehouse several miles away. Jun made another circuit of the neighborhood around the hospital, noting that the police car that had been parked nearby was gone. The plan would be executed during s.h.i.+ft change, an hour away.

Captain Geng Huichang had no way of knowing there were Russians aboard the Vietnamese frigates, though he should have considered the possibility since both China and Russia had used 'advisors' to augment allies' militaries in the past. For the Russians, the invitation had been irresistible. In return for exchanging the frigates' existing anti-s.h.i.+p missiles and other defensive systems with upgraded versions that had not yet even made it onto some of their own vessels, the Russians would reap billions in profit from sales of these systems to countries who considered China a potential threat. With videos of sinking Chinese s.h.i.+ps playing on monitors in their next weapons expo exhibit, the orders would come flooding in.

It had been no simple feat and had involved non-stop, around the clock modifications which had barely been completed in time. Both because there was no time for training and because there were certain features that would be surrept.i.tiously altered after the battle to ensure that only Russia retained the most capable weapons systems, Russian technicians would be manning the weapons. They were confident that the upgraded version of the SS-N-25 'Switchblade' anti-s.h.i.+p missile would burn through the jamming equipment on the Chinese frigates. Furthermore, the new defensive systems would defeat the Chinese YJ-83's that had just been fired. Finally, the Vietnamese captains, knowing full well that they would be fired upon when they refused to come about had fired their missiles immediately upon the second warning from the Chinese wars.h.i.+ps, not waiting to be fired upon themselves.

"Enemy missiles fired, Captain," the Din Tien Hoang radar intercept officer shouted, momentarily forgetting that the captain was only feet away.

"Activate countermeasures," answered the captain calmly.

Aboard the Yulin: "Our missiles have acquired the Vietnamese s.h.i.+ps, Captain," interjected the weapons systems officer, then abruptly adding: "Enemy missiles inbound!"

"Activate jamming," responded Captain Geng, confident that the s.h.i.+p's countermeasures would defeat the Vietnamese weapons.

The electronic jammers immediately began to saturate the area in front of the enemy missiles with powerful signals designed to disrupt the missiles' guidance system, but the updated Russian Switchblade missiles bored through the electronic noise.

"Enemy missiles still tracking, Captain!"

"Launch counter-measures rockets!" barked the captain, his eyes now betraying fear.

The PJ-46 six-round decoy rocket launchers immediately fired their rockets. Designed to create a large 'bloom' to distract the seeker head on the missile, they likewise did not fool the updated Russian missiles. Everyone in the CIC (Combat Information Center) realized that what was in essence a large machinegun was now all that stood between them and the incoming ordinance. The missiles switched to terminal guidance mode, ducking to within less than 20 feet of the sea and began to jink from side to side as they closed at nearly 600 mph.

During the final seconds of the missile's flight, every sphincter muscle on the Chinese s.h.i.+ps tightened as their crews stood astride the line that separates life and death. With a roar that penetrated even the armored CIC, the Gatling-like point defense cannon erupted, spewing enormous 30mm sh.e.l.ls at the rate of several thousand per minute. A thundering explosion scarcely fifty feet off the s.h.i.+p's port bow showered the s.h.i.+p with large chunks of destroyed missile, to which the men responded with a cheer. But their celebration was cut short as the second missile, evading the curtain of depleted uranium sh.e.l.ls, struck amids.h.i.+ps, its 225kg shaped-charge warhead penetrating to the center of the s.h.i.+p, where it exploded in a white-hot fireball.

More than thirty men were instantly incinerated, and an intense fire began to consume the interior of the s.h.i.+p. The engineering s.p.a.ces were relatively unscathed as yet, and the engines continued to propel the s.h.i.+p forward. But on the bridge all were either dead or gravely injured and there was no one to man the helm, leaving the s.h.i.+p charging forward at its most recent rudder setting. Those a.s.signed to damage control who were not already dead or injured, bravely tried to fight the fire, but it quickly became a raging inferno that was nearing the forward magazine where the ammunition for the 100mm gun is stored. Had Captain Geng Huichang been alive, he would have ordered 'abandon s.h.i.+p' to save what remained of his crew. But some were still courageously manning their damage control stations when the forward magazine exploded, blowing off the front of the s.h.i.+p clear back to the bridge. Bowless and with the engines still propelling it forward, the Yulin dove into the abyss.

The Yuxi defensive systems had not managed to stop either of the missiles targeting it and both struck amids.h.i.+ps, nearly cutting the s.h.i.+p in two. It was quickly sinking as those still alive struggled to find the means to evacuate. They would have less than four minutes before the s.h.i.+p, now split in two, sank beneath the waves. Only eleven would survive.

Aboard the Song-cla.s.s submarine trailing the convoy, the captain, hearing the unmistakable sounds of the two wars.h.i.+ps breaking up, ordered a firing solution for each of the Vietnamese frigates, intending to send them to the bottom with torpedoes. But the 20 knot speed of the container s.h.i.+p had necessitated that his submarine match it in order to keep up, and this speed markedly diminished the ability of its sensors to listen to the surrounding waters. It was only when the trailing Vietnamese Kilos opened their torpedo doors that the Chinese captain realized his mistake. He was scarcely able to get off a snap-shot at the Kilos before their torpedoes sent him to the bottom.

68.

The unmistakable sound of diesel engines starting alerted the young man that something was afoot inside the Beijing Military Garrison. Chao, who had been drinking tea nearby, opened his cell phone to alert those along the route leading from the base into the city. Twenty minutes later, the first of three dozen trucks could be seen emerging from the base, each with twenty fully armed soldiers seated in the back. Again, Chao opened his cell phone, this time to let his comrades know that the soldiers were seated facing out, clearly in a position to fire at anyone attempting to interfere.

Slightly more than a mile away, six lorries whose beds contained drums of cooking oil were pulled into a blocking position across the highway, at a point where it would be difficult go around. Their drivers punctured the tires and opened the drums before taking up positions astride the highway. The roar of diesel engines could already be heard approaching. As men with the now familiar bows and arrows peered around corners, they noted that rather than slow for their roadblock, the heavy army trucks were accelerating. The first truck slammed into the lorries at nearly forty miles per hour, shoving one aside and upending another.

The next truck aimed at the intersection between two other lorries and managed to flip one over before continuing unimpeded, but the collisions had created a sufficient tangle of wreckage to snag the undercarriage of the following truck. It rode partway up over the mangled lorries before becoming high-centered. The follow-on trucks now had no choice but to slow. A slick of vegetable oil beneath the wreckage had begun to spread outward.

Arrows began to fly from concealed positions, but the soldiers were prepared and leaping off the trucks, quickly spread out, firing as they went. One dissident who broke into a run was cut down. Discipline among the dissidents began to crumble as some ran to waiting cars and taxis one street over and others, enraged at the murder of one of their own, turned their primitive weapons on the soldiers themselves. A soldier fell clutching his neck; several others were hit in the legs as the archers concentrated their fire where their arrows wouldn't encounter body armor. What had started as a blizzard of arrows was now a drizzle, but the remaining archers resumed their discipline, focusing on trucks whose punctured tires would slow the movement of troops.

The two trucks that had managed to crash through the barricade now encountered a litter of caltrops, these larger than the others, intended for the heavy-duty military tires. Radios crackled with an order to stop; the road must be cleared, both of archers and of caltrops. Soldiers poured out of the trucks, some firing at the remaining archers, the rest ordered to clear the road ahead.

Some noticed a familiar odor; vegetable oil now covered much of the highway, some of it pooling around hot exhausts of trucks whose engines were still running. Only one soldier seemed to realize the implication and yelled to the others just as the fumes ignited. An enormous grease fire erupted around the trucks as their drivers leapt from their cabs only to be engulfed by the flames. Soon diesel fuel and melting rubber added to the conflagration, leaving only the rearmost trucks of the convoy unscathed. They turned in search of side roads that would lead them to the city, leaving behind nineteen dead and wounded, seven of them dissidents.

A peaceful revolution was no more.

When Li Guo Peng was informed that the police radio net was apparently under cyber attack and that individual cars were being disabled, he had not hesitated to order the army into the streets. In fact, he welcomed an excuse to further extend his power by a.s.serting martial law, remarking to his aide that now the troublemakers would finally be exterminated. However, his confidence in the ability of the army to quickly quell the rebellion was premature, for wherever army or police vehicles attempted to travel, they encountered the now ubiquitous caltrops. A fundamental requirement of decisive action is speed of movement and a small ancient weapon was robbing the authorities of that critical element.

Buoyed by their success and incensed by the authorities brutal response to what had been a peaceful demonstration of the will of the people, thousands of citizens who had been sitting on the fence now joined the dissidents. Months of pent up anger among the unemployed further swelled the ranks.

In cellars and machine shops, auto and appliance repair businesses across the city and the nation, anyone with even rudimentary tools and access to a bit of sc.r.a.p iron began to manufacture caltrops. More ominously, citizens were also fas.h.i.+oning Molotov c.o.c.ktails from petrol and maotai, the fiery 105 proof liquor that is China's drink of choice.

Now army trucks that had somehow managed to avoid the caltrops and arrows were being targeted by Molotov c.o.c.ktails thrown from rooftops. The effect upon the morale of soldiers who witnessed their flaming comrades leaping from the trucks was profound. Several police vans were also targeted, along with police cars and even a few smaller precinct stations. But upon the orders of their president, trucks continued to roll out of army garrisons across the country, their occupants occasionally shooting at citizens who weren't even involved in the protest, further fueling the growing anger.

While the army did manage to set up road blocks in some locations, the attrition on their equipment from caltrops, arrows and alcohol was increasing. Any thought of a complete lockdown of the largest cities was now tenuous at best. Hearing this, Li flew into a rage and ordered out the tanks, determined to quell the uprising at any cost. Upon learning that the dissidents were communicating freely using their cell phones, he ordered the cellular network shut down, only to have to rescind the order less than an hour later when he was informed that the police were also using it. The man was beside himself with fury, but his rage had not yet reached its full furor.

It was then he learned that the unthinkable had happened. Chen Lei, the highest naval officer in the country called on a secure line to notify him that the two frigates ordered to sink the convoy had themselves been sunk and a submarine was feared lost. Li grew very still when he heard the news, the aides in the room fearing for a moment that he had been stricken. After an excruciating silence he finally asked: "How is that possible?"

"That is not entirely clear at this time, Mr. President," Chen answered. Our frigates fired upon the Vietnamese but it appears that they were somehow able to jam our missiles while our s.h.i.+ps were not able to defend against theirs," Chen replied, thinking he would likely find himself in prison by morning. "The submarine has not been heard from and we have no further information as yet," he continued.

"You are telling me that two of our frigates and one of our most modern submarines have been sunk by a third rate navy?"

"Regards our submarine, I cannot say that with any certainty, but there is no doubt that the frigates were sunk."

"That is impossible, Admiral!" Li screamed into the phone. "It has already been shown that our anti-s.h.i.+p missiles cannot be stopped by anything those Vietnamese pigs possess, has it not? You fool, don't you see it has to be the Americans! It is their container s.h.i.+p and they decided to defend it. They have submarines in the area and they have used them."

"The frigates detected no submarines before they were sunk and satellite data shows the Vietnamese frigates firing their missiles, Mr. President."

"The satellites may have seen missiles, but that doesn't mean that there were not also torpedoes in the water, Admiral. Am I correct."

"It is possible, Mr. President, but unlikely. Neither of the frigates detected any torpedoes; we were monitoring their data link."

"That doesn't mean that the Americans don't have a new torpedo, or perhaps the frigates were too busy defending against the missiles."

"But Sir . . ."

"Shut up, Admiral and listen to me! In two hours I want you here with a plan to sink the 7 Fleet."

Before Admiral Chen could respond, the line went dead.

Aside from a few civilian cars and taxis arriving early to pick up employees who would be done with their s.h.i.+fts in half an hour, the area around the hospital was more or less clear of traffic. Jun's final circuit showed no obvious police presence, the likely result of student demonstrations at nearby Nankai University and Tianjin University. With the taxi's windows rolled down, he could hear the chanting and a booming megaphone pleading with the police and army to join the demonstrators. The authorities had thus far made no attempt to quell the demonstration, due as much to their limited presence as to the determined efforts of the students to prevent violence.

Though both the police and army had been working tirelessly to procure and install new tires on their damaged vehicles, there still wasn't enough transport to do anything other than observe the many demonstrations taking place across Beijing, Tianjin and elsewhere. However, Li's order to call out the tanks was at this moment being implemented and within hours dozens of tracked vehicles that could not be slowed by caltrops would be patrolling the streets.

Jun turned the taxi around and headed back to the grocery supply warehouse, the chants of the demonstrators growing louder as he drove north on Baidi Road, just two blocks from Nankai University. Five minutes later a steel overhead door clattered upward revealing two panel trucks used for deliveries and a group of men standing in the shadows behind them.

"No police around the hospital, at least that can be seen. They must have been moved to the university to monitor the demonstration," Jun said to the foreigner who had been in Hong's warehouse training the dissidents.

"All right, everyone knows his job," the foreigner said, turning toward the dissidents who had escaped from the convoy and the two uniformed soldiers who had defected. All wore the grim expressions of the condemned, but they had been condemned when they were loaded on trucks headed into the scorching Gobi desert; at least now they had a chance to make a difference before they died. The two soldiers piled into the taxi with Jun; the rest climbed into the panel truck with the others.

There were more cars outside the hospital now, waiting for the s.h.i.+ft change. The panel truck pulled up to the closed overhead door of the loading dock and the two soldiers got out and went to the smaller door next to it where they rang the bell. A face appeared at the small window and, seeing the armed soldiers, opened it. Before the poor man could ask for an explanation, one of the three 'attaches' who had recently arrived at the American emba.s.sy reached around the corner and dropped him with a Taser. Once the van was inside the loading dock, the dock guard was cuffed and placed inside it, for which he would later be grateful.

With a map drawn for them by Captain Davis and Dr. Min's help, Jim and two former US Navy Seals headed for the room where they believed they would find Brett. Having been provided diplomatic pa.s.sports courtesy of Benedict, the three had sidestepped the usual immigration formalities, a time-honored tradition allowing one nation to insert its spies into another as 'attaches.' That Benedict had once again done so without consulting the president would likely mean the end of his career, possibly worse, but he would not stand by while a courageous ex-Navy Seal was dissected by order of a brutal Chinese dictator. As Jim had said: "Navy Seals don't leave other Navy Seals behind! Period! Ever!" Finding like minded volunteers among his friends in the Seal community had been easy.

With the two uniformed soldiers preceding them, the Seals hoped to bluff their way past any additional security they might encounter. The other dissidents began unloading the crated explosives from the van and attaching charges to supporting pillars in the lower level, as they had been shown by their Seal advisors. Above them, nurses, orderlies and those who transport patients around the hospital were leaving as their s.h.i.+fts ended and others arrived to replace them.

The USS George Was.h.i.+ngton carrier battle group had exited the Strait of Taiwan and turned south when it was notified of the sinking of the frigates, having already been advised that the Chinese destroyers had come about and were heading north. The question in Captain Johnston's mind concerned the intent of the destroyers. He was now steaming away from the coast, having never entered Chinese waters, unless of course one accepted their preposterous claim to the entire South China Sea. Not only did his battle group not const.i.tute any direct threat to China, it had absolutely nothing to do with the sinking of their frigates. Captain Johnston had no way of knowing that a deranged Chinese president thought otherwise.

The plan was to meet the container s.h.i.+p further south where the Vietnamese wars.h.i.+ps would hand it off to him to be escorted into open ocean. But unless the Chinese destroyers diverted, they would intersect with his battle group first; they were currently steaming at battle speed.

What is it you intend to prove? he thought to himself.

"Captain, Chinese sub contacts have turned. Current plot indicates they will intersect with us and the destroyers."

Now that makes things a bit more interesting.

"Any aircraft movement? he asked.

"Nothing in the air at this time, Sir, but satellite data indicates activity at two airfields.