Stephen Coonts - Combat

“Yeah, but I think the old man’ll probably never trust an American again. I think I might have told him that I’d love to screw his mother, his sister, and his goat.”

McGarvey had to laugh. “Would you?”

Hanrahan shrugged. “Well, maybe not his mother.”

The train station was a madhouse, filled mostly with merchants and tradespeople bringing goods and services from Keelung to the rest of the country. Taiwan had only one rail line, which circled almost the entire island along the coast, with only a couple of branch lines. The trains were always overcrowded with people and animals, and loaded beyond belief with everything from candle wax and strawberries to codliver oil and machine screws.

Hanrahan headed for the lines at the ticket windows, but McGarvey steered him directly down to trackside, where he produced a pair of first-class tickets to Taipei. The police guards demanded to see their passports before they were allowed to board the train. When they were settled near the rear of the car Hanrahan leaned nearer.

“Good thinking about the tickets, but we’re not going to be able to get back this way, not with … him.”

McGarvey watched the policeman at the gate. He’d not made a move to use the telephone beside him. A couple of Americans boarding a train in Keelung were evidently not unusual enough for him to report to his superior. It was another break for them. But he didn’t think that their luck would last forever. It never did.

He turned back to Hanrahan. “We’re coming back by car, so keep your eyes peeled on the highway for roadblocks or military patrols. We might have to make a detour.”

Hanrahan nodded. “Now that we’re here, are you going to let me in on the rest of it, or am I going to have to guess?” He looked out the window at the police. “These people have their backs to the wall. If something starts to go down that they don’t understand, they’re likely to start shooting first and ask questions later.”

“I brought you along to get us on and off the sub, and because you speak Chinese. The rest of it you’re going to have to leave up to me.”

Hanrahan started to object, but McGarvey held him off.

“We’re probably going to run into some major shit in Taipei. And if it does hit the fan, if it looks like some of the good guys might get hurt, you’re going to turn around and walk away from it. And that’s an order, Lieutenant. At that point it becomes strictly a Company operation, and you’re not going to be the one holding the dirty laundry.”

The train was completely full now. The conductor came in, shouted something over the din, and moments later they lurched out of the station for the fifteen miles to the capital city.

Hanrahan’s jaw tightened. It was clear that he was anything but happy. “Just one thing, Mr. M,” he said, his voice low but with a hard edge to it. “I know how to follow orders—”

“Nobody is questioning you. But if something goes down, no matter whose fault it is, who do you suppose they’re going to blame? It won’t be me. It’ll be a grunt lieutenant.”

“The SEALs have never left one of their own behind, never,” Hanrahan said. “I don’t give a shit what’s going down, ’cause that’s a fact.”

“Captain Heishui is a reliable officer,” Sun Kung Kee, the fleet’s political commissar, told the CINC, Vice Admiral Pei. “I know his father. He will do as he is ordered.”

“I expect nothing less from all of my officers.” Admiral Pei reread the slot buoy message that had been sent last night from the Hekou .

“Presumably he followed the American submarine to the coast near Keelung. If he is right, the Americans meant to put someone ashore in secret. Since there have been no incidents reported, we must assume that Captain Heishui is still there and has not been detected.”

“Nothing from our satellites?” the admiral asked.

“The weather is too bad for visual images, and nothing has shown up on infrared, Admiral,” Commander Sze Lau, his Operations Officer replied.

“What about our spies on the ground in Keelung and Taipei, if that’s where the Americans are heading? Have there been any reports?”

“Nothing yet,” Commissar Kee told him. “But we must ask ourselves why the Americans chose to put somebody ashore in such a secret manner. The operation was not without its very considerable risks, which means that the Americans must be expecting a very considerable reward.”

Admiral Pei put the slot buoy message down and sat back. “Yes?”

“Shi Shizong,” the political commissar said, and both officers were startled though it was immediately clear that they understood the logic. “I think they mean to kidnap him.”

“Do we know where he is being held?” Commander Lau asked. “We could intercept the Americans and take Shizong ourselves.”

“His location is a secret. Apparently they move him every few days. Beijing, however, thinks that the Americans will almost certainly make contact with someone from their illegal consulate, who might know where the criminal is being hidden. If we were to wait there, our agents might be able to follow them to the traitor.”

“Beijing was consulted?” Admiral Pei asked, his voice as soft as a summer’s breeze but as bitter as a Tibetan winter’s gale.

“Naturally I wanted to provide you with all the support you might need without the necessity of asking for it if and when the need should arise,” Commissar Kee answered smoothly.

“Go on.”

“If Shizong cannot be returned home to stand trial, he must never be allowed to leave Taiwan alive.”

“That is a job for your agents on the ground,” the admiral said.

“But if they fail, it will be up to Captain Heishui and his submarine.”

“It would be a suicide mission.”

“An acceptable loss providing Shizong does not escape,” Commissar Kee pressed. “Word must somehow be gotten to him.”

“It will be difficult without revealing his position, if indeed he is hiding just off the coast from Keelung, but not impossible,” Commander Lau said, and Admiral Pei nodded his approval for the mission. The nation was willing to go to war over this issue; what was the possible loss of one submarine and crew by comparison?

McGarvey watched from the train window as they entered Taiepi from the northeast. The capital was a city ready for invasion. The government was taking the Chinese threat seriously. Street corner antiaircraft batteries were protected behind sandbag barriers. Rooftops bristled with machine-gun emplacements. He counted six Patriot missile launchers set up in parking lots and empty fields, something the PRC had to be really unhappy about.

“This is going to be on my lead,” he told Hanrahan. “You don’t do a thing unless I tell you to do it.”

“This place is crawling with PRC spies.”

“That’s right,” McGarvey said. “The problem is that you can’t tell them from the good guys. And if they get wind that we’re here on a mission we’re screwed. Capisce? ”

Hanrahan nodded. Jumping off aircraft carriers, diving down to submarines, and even storming ashore prepared to fight an army of trained commandos was one thing. In-your-face daylight covert operations where you were outnumbered a few billion to one was another ball game.

The press of people on the train platform all the way up to the street-level terminal was constant. They had to bull their way forward in order to get outside to the cab rank, and practically had to knock over three businessmen to get a cab. McGarvey gave Hanrahan an address on Hoping Road a few blocks from the university to give to the cabbie, and they headed away.