Ian Slater - Force of Arms

“They get wind of it before we’re ready, General, and those beaches could become an abattoir for Second Army.”

“Well, Dick, it’ll be our lot’s job to make damn sure they don’t know. We’ll make a feint of hitting the coast up north first. Meanwhile at Beidaihe we’ll send in SEALs by submarine. That skipper — young David Brentwood’s older brother — Robert Brentwood. He’s proved his mettle. We’ll send a SEAL team in with his sub to scout the approaches. They can wrap underwater demolition charges around any obstacles to a landing and we can blow them in unison later by remote control.”

“If Kuang doesn’t come in and we need to send in the MAGTAF,” Norton said.

“You’ve got it. At the very least it’ll frighten the pants off of Cheng, having a beachhead attack to worry about. He’ll have to divert at least two divisions — more — from the Beijing Military Region. If the marines get pinned down we can always pull them out, and us attacking Beidaihe might light a cracker under Kuang’s ass and get him moving. Then China could have four fronts to contend with — the Orgon Tal-Honggor front, the trace north of Beijing, Beidaihe to the east, and Kuang to the south. That’s when I’d expect all the Chinese minorities to take the cue. Hell, even if they don’t, we have to take the pressure off our boys around Honggor. They’re getting clobbered. We’ll have to move in a carrier force from South Korea to Bo Hai — bomb the crap out of the Beidaihe beaches before and while our MAGTAF is going in.”

Norton saw the weak link in a flash, and he was about to say something when Freeman conceded the Achilles’ heel of the operation. “Yes, I know, PLA’s navy is a brown navy. Haven’t got a pot to piss in when it comes to deep water, but here we’re talking about coastal defenses and they have scores of hydrofoil and fast-attack surface-to-surface missile boats for coastal defense. Well our carrier’s screen’ll have to deal with them.”

“Washington isn’t going to like the expansion of this ‘reconnaissance in force.’”

“Well, Dick, I have a choice — see our boys chopped to pieces around Honggor, or take the pressure off with a MAGTAF. Hell, that’s what a MAGTAF is all about — self-contained emergency force ready to move anywhere. If this isn’t an emergency I don’t know what in hell is.” He paused. “Did I call it that —a ‘reconnaissance in force’?”

“You did.”

“Hum — needs a new title, Dick — with something U.N.-ish about it—’police action!’ By God, that’s it! For Khabarovsk press releases.”

“Yes, sir. You do know the press are crying foul about you prohibiting them from the front.”

“For their own safety,” Freeman said.

“They’d take that risk, General.”

“Yes, by God, I’m sure they would. And some son of a bitch’d take a faceup snapshot of one of our dead, and next thing you know we’d have every damned liberal from here to Waco telling us how we should have done it. No, Dick. No press — not now.”

“Yes, General.”

Within a half hour the MAGTAF was notified, and Captain Robert Brentwood, skipper of the Sea Wolf II class combination Hunter-Killer-ICBM sub USS Reagan, was ordered to take a SEAL team fully qualified from Coronado and San Clemente, the latter an open-water school at San Diego, and the airborne school at Fort Benning, Georgia, and have them carry out a BLS — beach landing site— survey of the central beach off Beidaihe.

As Alexsandra was pushed out of the prison exit into the darkness in a large bamboo hopper, she almost threw up from the noxious odors of the hospital’s filthy linen, but it was her way to freedom, and within a half hour she had been transferred from the hospital truck to a hutong not far from the railway station. From there, after a change of clothing and bowl of meat-laced rice, she found herself aboard the six-and-a-half-hour train to Shanhaiguan, the university student accompanying her telling her that it would take only five hours to Beidaihe. If everything went all right, they would arrive close to dawn.

It was still several hours before dawn as Julia Reid was awakened by the baaing of sheep, the wind howling about the tent still sweeping down upon the Chang Tang unabated. Despite the soft sheepskin rugs she had been sleeping on, her body ached all over, and what had been a small bump on her left cheekbone, caused during her eject, was now a dark bruise. The smell of the dung fire, surprisingly pleasant, mixed with that of sour yogurt and cheese in the tent, gave a cloying quality to the air.

The strangeness of it all, the constant moaning of the wind and the pull on the tent ropes like a ship straining to be free, all reminded her of how far from home — how far from civilization — she was. She could hear the grandfather and the man who’d been watching her snoring like motor mowers, the sound so loud that at times it even subdued the wailing of the wind. Used to living in shared quarters at Fairchild Air Force Base in Washington State, she wasn’t normally bothered by the snores and other nocturnal sounds in barracks, but now they irritated her to the point of sleeplessness, and she pulled the sheepskin over her head. It was worse, her sense of isolation exacerbated. How long could she stay with the nomads?

From the little she’d been able to understand, it seemed as if they stayed only long enough for a pasture to be grazed and then moved on. Given this and the snow, she guessed they’d be on their way within a day or two. But to where? Further into the vastness of the Chang Tang plateau. Yet what else could she do? Turn around and walk to Lhasa, with Chinese troops looking for the pilot of the downed F-15? Or perhaps they couldn’t reach the wreckage, wherever it was — perhaps it wasn’t even visible, burned somewhere in the high mountain snows.

Someone in the tent broke wind, and a malodorous cloud permeated the smell of unwashed bodies, yogurt, and yak dung. Next time someone told her women weren’t fit for combat she’d tell them to go find a yak tent. Beyond the immediate noises of snoring and the wind, Julia thought she could hear snoring from the next tent, which she knew was impossible.

The more she listened, the more convinced she became that it was a motor. No sooner had she deduced this than the flap of the tent seemed to implode, and silhouetted against a flurry of snow was a man. From where she was lying he looked to be over six feet, and in his sixties, his face leathery from the harshness of the climate. He immediately began talking. Julia had no idea what it was about, but from his tone she could tell it was urgent. The snoring stopped abruptly, and in the dim light of the fire’s coals she could see the shadow of the grandfather, then his son or son-in-law.

The children woke and started crying. The man who had entered the tent so abruptly came across and tapped her on the arm. He raised his arms as if he were holding a rifle, then made driving motions, pointing beyond the tent. “Chin-eze,” he said, “Chin-eze,” and motioned her to follow him, handing her a sheepskin coat and hat. As she stumbled over the bodies in the darkness, she felt the grandfather grabbing her and thrusting something hard and warm into her hand. It was her service .45.

Out in the freezing darkness the snow was still swirling down. It was a light snow, the howling wind whipping it across her face, making it seem much denser than it really was. There were two yaks standing still as statues, and she wondered why she hadn’t heard them coming up to the tent The man indicated she should get on the nearest animal, which she thought would be easy until the yak, sensing her hesitation, moved, and it was more difficult to mount than any F-15.