Stephen Coonts - Combat

“Taoyuan Airport tower, this is Justice Wind Four on final to one-seven with delta. We acknowledge your last transmission.”

“We want your escorts to leave our airspace the moment you land.”

“Negative, tower. They have been ordered to remain on station until their fuel has been exhausted, at which time they will be relieved.”

“Permission is denied, PRC Flight Four.”

“We didn’t ask for permission, Taoyuan tower,” the pilot, Colonel Hezheng, replied in polite but measured tones. “We will view any hostile response as an act of war, acknowledge.”

The radio was silent for several long seconds, and Langshan could almost imagine the scene in the tower as the controllers talked to their superiors by telephone.

“Acknowledge,” Colonel Hezheng repeated calmly.

The airport was visible now about twenty kilometers to the west. Langshan’s threat-assessment radar was clear, although he was being painted by at least a half-dozen ground-radar sets. None of them, however, were missile-facility radars. Those signatures were different. The Taiwanese military well understood that if they illuminated a target it was tantamount to aiming a loaded gun. It was universally recognized as an act of aggression. In that case Langhsan had permission to shoot, though it was not his primary mission.

“We acknowledge your last transmission,” the tower finally responded. “Your escorts will maintain flight level one-zero and remain within ten kilometers of the airport.”

“My escorts have been ordered to establish and maintain twenty-five-kilometer patrol zones centered on Taipei.”

“Negative, negative, negative!” the tower controller practically screamed.

Colonel Hezheng overrode the transmission, his voice still maddeningly calm. “The provincial government of Taiwan has not adequately informed the people about the real issue of the criminal Shi Shizong. We will drop leaflets guaranteeing the truth of our peaceful mission, and let the people decide for themselves who are the warmongers.”

Langshan grinned behind his face mask.

“PRC Four, we will shoot your escort aircraft out of the sky if they stray outside of the airport containment zone.”

The 727 was losing altitude for its final approach to landing. Langshan looked over at Qaixo and rocked his wings left-right-left. Qaixo responded.

“If our aircraft are fired upon, they will shoot back, tower. And we will request immediate backup. In force.”

The radio was silent again. Civilian traffic to Taiwan had been sharply curtailed since the troubles had escalated in the past ten days. And all traffic for the duration of this mission had been diverted to the airport at Kaoshiung in the far south.

Qaixo peeled off to the north to start the outer leg of his patrol zone. When he got over the city of Taoyuan itself he would begin to drop his leaflets.

Langshan watched for a few moments as the 727 continued gracefully down for landing, then hauled his throttles back and shot northeast directly for the heart of Taipei, maintaining an altitude of ten thousand feet while his mach indicator climbed past.7, the hard bucket seat pressing into his back.

In less than two minutes he was directly over the city, Grass Mountain rising off to his north, Green Lake spread out to his south, and the city of Keelung on the coast lost under a thick blanket of low-lying clouds directly ahead.

His threat-radar screen remained blank, and the moment he crossed the Tamsui River he released the first of his canisters programmed to fall like a bomb to one thousand feet before opening and spreading the leaflets on the wind. At the very least, he thought, the bastards would have a big cleanup job tomorrow. In his underwing pods he carried one million messages on long, thin strips of rice paper, like giant fortune cookie fortunes.

He dropped a second canister near the stadium and a third on the densely populated shantytown in the western suburbs before he continued to Keelung and the coast twenty-five kilometers to the west-northwest. Within a half minute he was enveloped in a dense cloud, rain smashing into the canopy like machine-gun bullets. His forward-looking radar was clear of any air traffic, and his look-down-shoot-down radar showed him exactly what was happening on the ground.

In two minutes he was over the city of Keelung, where he dropped two more of his canisters and then made a long, sweeping turn out over the harbor.

At the last minute, about three miles off the coast, Langshan dialed up a special canister on his port wing rack, checked his position, hit the release button, and then headed back for his second run over Taipei.

“Conn, sonar.”

“This is the captain speaking. What do you have, Fisher?”

“Skipper, something just hit the water eighteen hundred yards out, bearing one-eight-seven. It’s not very big, but from the angle it made I’d say that it was dropped from something moving real fast. Maybe a jet, but definitely not a boat.”

“Any idea what it is?”

“I think it’s a comms buoy, sir … stand by.”

Paradise came in from the officer’s wardroom with a couple of cups of coffee. He handed one to Harding. It had been a very long day since McGarvey and Hanrahan had locked to the surface. They’d all existed on coffee.

“Okay, skipper, that’s definitely a comms buoy. She’s started to transmit acoustically.”

“Good work,” Harding said. He switched to the radio room. “Comms, this is the captain. Somebody just dropped an acoustical communications buoy to our south and it’s starting to transmit. It’s probably in Chinese and in code, but see what you can do with it.”

“Aye, aye, skipper,” the radio officer said with even less enthusiasm, for a job he was not equipped to handle, than he felt.

“A message from home for our friend?” Paradise asked.

“So it would seem. Question is, what kind of a message is it?”

“It could be about us,” Paradise said. “But you have to wonder what makes them think that they haven’t told the entire world where their boat is hiding.”

Z112530ZJUL

TOP SECRET

FR: CINCEASTSEAFLEET

TO: 405 HEKOU

A. ACKNOWLEDGE UR Z145229ZJUL

1. DETERMINE AT ALL COSTS IF SHI SHIZONG IS TRANSPORTED TO SEAWOLF UR REPORT.

2. THIS IS A MOST URGENT OPERATIONS FLASH MESSAGE. COMPLIANCE IS MANDATORY.

3. SHIZONG MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO LEAVE TAIWAN. ALL OTHER CONSIDERATIONS ARE SECONDARY. GOOD LUCK SZE LAU SENDS BT BT BT

Captain Heishui handed the decoded message across the table to Lagao. They were alone in the officers’ wardroom. His XO read the message, then read it again before he looked up, a grave expression on his face.

“If they manage to get him aboard the American boat, we will be obligated to attack,” he said.

Heishui nodded. “But we would have two advantages,” he said. “In the first place, they don’t know that we’re back here. But even if they do find out, they’ll never believe that we would open fire. You have to shoot at an American six times before he will start to respond.”

“Yes, Captain. But when he does it’s usually fatal.”

Peyton Graves powered down his window and pointed a tiny parabolic receiver at the PRC Air Force 727 as the boarding stairs were brought up and the forward hatch swung open.

A lot of cars and military vehicles surrounded the jet, which was parked in front of the old Pan Am hangar. Everyone seemed restrained. No one wanted this situation to accelerate out of control. There were no media.

Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Daping, chief of the Counterespionage Division for the Taiwan Police, went up the stairs, followed by a lieutenant in uniform whom Graves did not recognize.