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2023: the Third Sino-Japanese War
- Thread starter leibowitz
- Start date
I am afraid so. Fiction could turn to Reality sooner than later, especially IF there are exchanges of fire by aircraft of either side ---- this is what we in the Asia-Pacific are very concern.
I am afraid so. Fiction could turn to Reality sooner than later, especially IF there are exchanges of fire by aircraft of either side ---- this is what we in the Asia-Pacific are very concern.
It's the wrong time for this to happen. Maybe in 2015 or 2016, after a US pullout from Afghanistan.
I am certain both countries would have done recent research on any possible US involvement, IF a serious Sino-Japanese conflict arises. The situation is currently quite fluid now, & who is correct in its analysis is just a guessing game where Obama's Administration is concerned. May there be Peace on Earth.
It's the wrong time for this to happen. Maybe in 2015 or 2016, after a US pullout from Afghanistan.
Rewrote the first few parts of the 2023 storyline.
Captain Fuchida Hideo's legs itched. They always did during his flight missions. It was the flight suits, he knew, but when he complained to the base doctor, he got a response lifted straight from the Lockheed marketing brochure.
"...keep pilots warm and enhance combat functionality in high-G maneuvers...constrict the legs to keep blood from pooling in them during long combat missions..."
Keep him from passing out. He got it. And the helmet wrapped around his bald pate had to pump pure oxygen into his system to assist in that duty, oxygen which only added irritated lungs atop his endless itch. It had to, because his cockpit was only "lightly pressurized" to guard against explosive decompression. The cockpit couldn't be strengthened because the engineers had to save weight. The plane had to save weight to be a better combat machine. The plane had to be a better combat machine so that Fuchida Hideo could live up to his namesake.
"Fuck," Hideo breathed into his headset. Always, always, always his great-grandfather would intrude on his private thoughts, as if the old gray gentleman was still alive, his ancient Nakajima B5N fluttering alongside Hideo's F-35, the leather-jacketed arm reaching out to fire the green flares signalling the swarm of two hundred planes behind him to vomit their deadly hail upon an unsuspecting enemy, the cocky voice breathing the three-word code phrase that would launch the American Era.
Of course, no one at the base mentioned his great-grandfather to his face. And no one descended from his great-grandfather mentioned him. After the war, Fuchida Mitsuo, flight commander of the air group that bombed Pearl Harbor, had become a committed pacifist and Christian evangelist. Hideo was the black sheep in his family, the one who had, in his father's words, "thrown away the lessons that his forefathers acquired at the cost of three million dead."
Being estranged from his family only spurred Hideo to train harder. Mitsuo's ghost was the only relative who acknowledged him. Sometimes, it would scowl at him when he tried to slack off in the mundane mechanical tasks of peacetime piloting. And sometimes, in the most inopportune of times, it would appear next to him, distracting him from the task at hand.
"C'mon, pops. Not the time," Hideo muttered to no one in particular.
Hideo was the best pilot in his unit. As such, he led the deterrence patrols against Chinese aircraft that tried to intrude on the disputed rocks some eight kilometers below him.
Barely fifty meters to his right, a Chinese J-31 rocked its wings to tell Hideo that he was getting too close. Hideo ignored the signal. Eighteen hundred meters behind them, another J-31 and F-35 followed at a thousand kilometers an hour. The four planes had been flying concentric rings around, but just outside, the island's territorial waters for the past half-hour, and Hideo's legs kept itching.
The J-31 began to descend, and Hideo was followed to maintain contact. His orders had been the classic ones used in territorial disputes between countries since the deadly clockwork of the nuclear era had been first set in motion. Bug the other guy so much that he either backs off or is forced to shoot first. The American pilots called it "road rage with fighter jets."
The J-31 kept dropping lower and lower, approaching the clouds. Hideo was glad. A lower altitude meant thicker air, which meant everyone would run out of fuel faster, which meant a shorter mission. Then the dark triangle kept dropping, disappearing into the fluffy white carpet beneath them, and Hideo's confidence wavered. He toggled his mike.
"How low does this bastard want to go?" Hideo said to his wingman.
The wingman, a fresh-faced trainee pilot, was some right-wing politician's son who was on the patrol mission to burnish his father's nationalist credentials. In spite of the nepotism, the lieutenant's response was crisp and professional.
"I'm not sure, Captain, but his wingman is staying at eight-two-zero-zero. Should I maintain contact with him?"
Hideo gave a curt "Yes", then resumed pitching his F-35 downward. The last two digits on his HUD altimeter blurred as the angle of descent steepened. He punched through the cloud cover, found the Chinese plane, and cursed.
"Crazy son-of-a-bitch!" Hideo realized that the J-31 pilot was daring him to follow the Chinese jet into the flat, flawlessly blue ocean. To his left, the white band of the horizon had turned nearly perpendicular to his wings. Without terrain features, it would be nearly impossible to judge the distance to the water until it was too late. And Hideo had to closely watch the J-31, which meant he couldn't really keep an eye on the altimeter.
Hideo tapped the air brakes and stretched the distance between the planes to three hundred meters. Now, if the J-31 pilot really flew into the ocean, Hideo thought, his splash would serve as a prior warning.
At about one hundred fifty meters of altitude, the J-31 pilot suddenly leveled out. Gritting his teeth, Hideo yanked hard on the stick and followed. The suit did its job, fighting the G-forces and squeezing his lower body and torso so hard Hideo knew he would have marks on his skin for a week.
Hideo began to pull closer to the J-31, and he saw the wings rock once more. He ignored it. He was now barely one hundred meters behind and to the left of the J-31. The J-31 began to descend slowly, taunting Hideo. He followed.
The itch returned, much worse now. Hideo finally gave in and reached down for a scratch. At that precise moment, the Chinese plane banked right, passing barely a hundred meters in front of Hideo's F-35. The jet wash buffeted him around in the seat. Then his HUD flared red as warning kanji blanketed his field of view.
The F-35's engine had flamed out upon breathing a load of concentrated jet exhaust instead of oxygen. At five thousand meters, this was a simple issue to fix--simply pull up gently and press the re-ignition button--but Hideo was at barely twenty meters. His turbines flared to back life just as the stealth jet clipped the top of the waves.
Hideo's last conscious thoughts touched on how ironic it was to push the gears which his great-grandfather had set in motion.
Captain Kang Zongqi saw the F-35 disintegrate behind him and gasped with shock. He had never meant for that to happen--to him and his wingman, the job was just a dance to keep the netizens placated, to fill the weekly helmet-cam videos the Nanjing Military Region released on the internet showing how the Air Force was "defending the motherland's inviolable territorial integrity."
His wingman spoke immediately. "Flight leader, what happened down there? My dance partner just started screaming at me."
Zongqi dialed up the volume on the international comms channel. A sea of static, then the unmistakeable sound of angry Japanese cursing. Then his wingman cut back in. "Wait a sec, he's climbing and slowing down. He's on my six now, six o'clock high. What the fuck is going on?"
Kang Zongqi responded guiltily. "My bogey crashed. I don't think his wingman saw it through the clouds, though."
Zongqi's wingman responded brusquely. "Great. That's just fuckin' great. He probably thinks you brought him down on purpose. What are we gonna do?"
Zongqi fought to remember the vague and poorly-delivered lessons on incident management. "We need to contact higher to get a translator on the channel, and immediately disengage from the mission area."
Just as Zongqi finished his phrase, the cursing stopped and became a phrase which Zongqi half-remembered from old Chinese propaganda films.
"Tenno Heika, BANZAI!"
Oh shit, Zongqi thought. "Watch out, watch out, I think he's about to--"
The radio suddenly filled with hard thumps and screaming, then cut to silence.
Zongqi was momentarily stunned, then awakened from his state of reverie by the triple beeps of his radar warning receiver. A cold sweat broke out across Zongqi's shoulders. At such close ranges, the relative intensity of radar illumination nullified the stealth shaping of both planes, and worse yet, the bogey was somewhere above him, giving his missiles a normally inescapable energy advantage.
In spite of his thousands of hours in the simulator and cockpit, Zongqi found real combat wildly disorienting. The expected pair of short-range missiles poked through the clouds, like the fingers of God. Zongqi popped chaff, then flares, then wrenched the black stealth jet into a hard turn directly towards the bright, modern arrows. His twin engines whined with the redlined abuse. Fighting his instincts to run, he counted on the knowledge that against radar seekers, the front of his stealth jet offered the smallest radar cross-section, and thus the greatest chance to survive. Turning into the missiles also gave Zongqi the opportunity for an instant reply instead of waiting around for the F35 to finish him off after the initial attack.
His neck jerked left, right, upward, but the F35 was nowhere to be found. Going off a blind, caveman, instinct to fight back, he popped off a heat seeker into the incoming missile contrails while slamming the active jamming suite to full power, cracking his LCD screen with the force of an outstretched, panicked, palm. The white streaks grew closer and closer; a sticky wetness at his crotch told him he would need new underwear--if he could make it back to base. At the last possible second, Zongqi dove hard to his right, the negative G forces forcing thirty percent more than the normal volume of blood into his eyeballs and forehead for a brief second. Zongqi felt as though his world was being crushed by a vise, but didn't know why.
A roar, sudden, to his left. One missile slid harmlessly past Zongqi's aircraft. Zongqi silently exhaled, but was cut mid-breath by a blast wave that tossed his plane about like a champagne cork, followed by a sickening shredding sound from his port side. The second missile's proximity fuse had set it off about fifteen meters from his left wing.
Beep beep beep.
The Japanese jet, too, had been busy--cutting afterburners to decrease its heat signature and popping flares like a madman. This kid must be new, Zongqi thought, as his maneuver rendered the F35 a slow-moving target marked by the classic, smoky, angel-shaped bullseye of burned-out flares caught in wing vortices.
The radar reciever was now silent. His radar locked on to the fat tail section of the F-35. "My turn," Zongqi muttered, then launched everything he had--two radar missiles and a heat seeker--straight for the F35.
Beep beep beep. Beep beep beep.
The F35 waggled its tail and popped chaff immediately, then engaged afterburners. But the heat-seeker was not so easily fooled. It picked up the scent trail of the afterburners, then dove into the F35's engine like a rabbit into its warren. A split-second later, the F35 disintegrated in a fifty-meter wide fireball.
The age-old truism of air combat: tt's always what you don't see that kills you. "Chaff and flares, always chaff and flares, never just one or the other," Zongqi muttered.
Beep beep beep. Beep beep beep. BEEEEEP.
"What's that sound?" Zongqi fumbled at his plane, then his helmet, before realizing one side of his helmet mounted display was completely dark.
"That's strange," Zongqi thought. Shifting his helmet around, he realized with a sickening finality that his left eye was completely blinded. Zongqi thought back to the dive, the blood rushing to his head from the negative Gs, popping all his retinal capillaries. "Fuck!" He'd always treasured his eyes growing up, jealously guarding them from books and computer screens, all so he could eventually become a pilot. Now he would never fly again.
BEEEEP. BEEEEP. BEEEEP.
Zongqi felt a violent death rattle coming from the left engine. Adjusting his helmet, his right eye finally caught a wall of warning symbols down the left side of the helmet-mounted display. Turn around to get a visual on the damage--more curses. The port wing was completely shredded. The left engine was on holed and spitting pieces of flaming scrap sideways and upwards.
Nothing more to do, no time to think. Zongqi's training kicked in. When he awoke from the knockout blow of the ejection seat, he was already peacefully drifting into the East China Sea. Directly below him, an emerald island jutted proudly from concentric rings of white froth.
A final wave of sweat coursed over Zongqi's body. He was still in disputed waters. Fighting the urge to vomit, Zongqi dialed home base on his emergency radio.
TWO
Colonel Wu Taifu set down his head-mounted display and reached for a steaming mug of straight black coffee. Through an opened window in base headquarters, the morning sun glittered off a row of parked fighters, as if the runway and apron were a display case of jewelry made for giants. He closed his eyes and took a sip, letting the strong, clean, aroma--mixed with hints of jet fuel--clear his head.
There had been three times in his life when he wanted to quit the air force. The first had been eight years ago, when he was shuttling aid down storm-wrecked Jamaican runways in the aftermath of Hurricane Claudette, with Hurricane Erika still bearing down on the island. It was there that he'd picked up a taste for the excellent local coffee beans and met his wife, then a relief worker. They'd helped calm his nerves, but each time he had to thread the big military transport through sixty-kilometer-an-hour crosswinds on tarmac littered with fallen palm trees, he'd promised himself that he would quit when he accomplished the mission.
He didn't.
The second time had come five years later, when he'd overseen the closure of an air base. He played honest and inadvertently scuttled a land deal that would have made his superior officer rich. Someone then messed with his controls on a routine training flight, and when they pulled him out of the wreckage, he was miraculously alive, but got the message. He'd come within a final few signatures on the resignation forms when his daughter had asked if he could take her into the sky for her birthday.
Since they couldn't get rid of him, they kicked him upstairs. He went to command school, watched the land deal get done, and came back a regiment leader. Now, as his eyes opened on his spartan office, he thought about quitting once again.
His command and control monitor centered on two flashing red and white crosses, marking the locations where the planes had been downed thirty minutes ago. From the screen's upper right corner, six white triangles and two dotted blue triangles inched closer at an estimated speed of seven hundred kilometers an hour. A Chinese destroyer had picked up six JASDF fighters on its radar shortly after they left Naha Air Base, and a real-time satellite feed recorded a pair of F-22s scrambled out of Kadena on a direct flight path towards the disputed islets. The information, once cleared by the MI analyst, had passed through the new C4ISR network in a matter of seconds, without any need for additional human intervention.
Eight fighters. Eight fighters total. He'd have to wait until they were gone before mounting a rescue operation, Taifu thought. He shifted in a cushioned office chair borrowed from his wife's office for his bad back and jotted some brief notes down on his military-issue tablet. Then he donned his display headset and dialed the division commander again.
The official photo of a crinkled, salt-and-pepper man in Air Force blues filled his visor. "General Liang, this is Colonel Wu calling from Feidong Air Base regarding the collision and shoot-down accidents this morning. I just spoke with the flight leader again, Captain Kang."
"Hold on. Before you go further, let me get the Military Region commander on the line. I just emailed him." His portrait blurred out, and then split in two. The right half was still the same, but the left half was now the grainy webcam view of an ancient-looking man with hair dyed jet-black, cramped beside an infant's carseat. Behind him, tinted glass shaded the crowded mosaic of a morning commute.
The division commander cleared his throat and spoke, softly. "General Fan, this is Colonel Wu Taifu, commanding officer of the regiment involved in this morning's... incidents. He just spoke again with the pilot involved. It seems we have a problem: our pilot ditched in disputed waters."
The old man grimaced. "Got it." He then tapped some keys on his laptop. "I have to brief the Central Military Commission as soon as I get into the office. Colonel, did the flight leader give you a detailed breakdown of events?"
Taifu nodded. "General Fan, please find attached Captain Kang's debriefing." He tapped his tablet and sent over the notes to General Fan's inbox. "At 0640, Captain Kang and his second element, Captain Guo Ling, departed from Feidong Air Base for a demonstration of sovereignty over the disputed islands. At 0750, they reached the islands. At 0752, a pair of Japanese F-35s showed up. At 0812, Captain Kang was engaged in aggressive maneuvering versus a JASDF F-35 when the Japanese plane caught his jet exhaust and suffered an engine flameout, which caused the Japanese plane to crash. The second Japanese plane did not see the flameout due to intervening cloud cover, and assumed Captain Kang had shot down the first plane. Then it intentionally destroyed our flight's second element at 0813, and engaged Captain Kang with missiles and cannon fire, damaging our fighter in the process. Captain Kang returned fire and destroyed the second Japanese plane at 0815, but his plane was so badly damaged that he had to ditch as well. The ejection knocked him unconscious. When he awoke at 0821, he contacted me with a quick after-action report, and added that he didn't see any parachutes or emergency beacons from the other three downed aircraft."
The old man flashed a wry grin. "Glad to know our pilot did his job." Then his expression turned serious. "Did you"--the old man paused and grimaced--"did you give him an ETA on any rescue attempts?"
Taifu shook his head. "No."
"Good. He won't like it, but it's the right answer. We can't promise anything at this point." The old man's expression softened. "How long will he last in the ocean? Is there any way we can talk to him?"
Taifu nodded. "His ejection seat should have a shortwave radio built into it, but the batteries won't last more than five hours. If that's damaged, his helmet's emergency transponder can double as a receiver for manual Morse. He should have a 95% chance of surviving for at least 60 hours, if he didn't lose his emergency water and food supplies in the ejection. However, he has retinal bleeding in his left eye, most likely from the violent maneuvering. Without quick medical care, he may lose his sight, permanently."
The old man grimaced again. "I don't think we can get to his eye in time. I'd advise him to swim for the island, just in case." He asked another question, in an innocent tone. "General Liang, how badly does a flameout affect a modern fighter plane?"
Taifu bit his lip. He knew where this question would lead, and so did the air division commander, who mumbled out a response. "N-not that much, General Fan. Most modern fighters can recover from a flameout in a second or two, at most."
"So how could it lead to a crash?"
The division commander was silent for a moment, then replied, "Because our flight leader and his Japanese counterpart were flying at very low altitudes."
The old man's eyes hardened. "How low?"
"I'm not sure, General Fan. Perhaps Colonel Wu knows."
Taifu instinctively glared at General Liang's unmoving avatar. "General Fan, Captain Kang said the aircraft were maneuvering at under a hundred meters. Until the black boxes are recovered, though, we won't be able to get an exact altitude figure."
The old man frowned and shook his head vigorously. "General Liang, didn't you order our guys to stay above five hundred meters while maneuvering near the contested islands?"
"Y-yes."
"So why was he flying under a hundred meters?"
"I cleared them to, last week."
The old man's fist pounded his thigh. "Dammit, we worked those rules out to keep something like this from happening. Can you give me a good reason why I shouldn't cashiere you this instant?"
"Sir, the netizens were complaining that the videos on the internet weren't 'exciting enough.'" Taifu recognized the classic tone of a schoolboy before the headmaster.
General Fan facepalmed, hard. "For heaven's sake, Xiao Liang, our pilots are not Hollywood stuntmen! One man lost an eye, and three others--three lives--are gone today because of your idiocy." The General turned sideways, looked out the window, and let his expression settle before continuing. Behind him, the expressway had become the twisting confines of an underground parking lot. "Okay. Get a few non-escalatory recovery options on my desk. I'll send our attachés in Tokyo and Washington our version of the events, and ask them what the other side thinks. General Liang, I'm sending you the contact info for the Military Region's press officer and political commissar--you, Colonel Wu, and those two are going to draw up the response. Send me your initial set of plans at 1100. Dismissed." General Fan's image froze, then cut out.
General Liang spoke up. "Colonel Wu, let's meet in the lobby in five minutes." Then he cut out as well.
Colonel Wu Taifu sat back in his chair and dialed his wife to tell her he would be coming home late.
THREE
First Lieutenant Nakano Kenichi surveyed the ocean below him for a sign of life. He shook his head.
It had been thirty minutes already, and both friendly transponders were dead. He recorded the warble of a single Chinese transponder, but did not focus on it. They were, after all, the clear aggressors in this engagement. Why should anyone worry about rescuing them? Let the bastard die of thirst in the salt water, he thought.
Both his squadron leader and wing leaders had been especially nervous after hearing the panicked transmissions from First Lieutenant Ishii, and insisted on accompanying the eight-plane formation out personally. It was no surprise, Kenichi thought, that they were nervous, and even less of a surprise that Ishii had reacted to the Chinese provocation this way.
First Lieutenant Ishii Akira was his roommate at Naha Air Base. His father, Ishii Shinobu, was a rabid nationalist, a former nuclear engineer who advocated revising Japan's pacifist constitution, massively increasing the defense budget, and acquiring nuclear weapons. He also happened to be the governor of Tokyo prefecture. Akira spoke of his father in reverent, even worshipful, tones. Yet as far as he knew, the relationship was not reciprocated. From time to time, Kenichi had to cheer his rooomate up when his father would chew him out for a poor classroom or training result; the elder Ishii had a close relationship with the base commander and got free access to his son's performance record. And, since, truth be told, Akira was not all that talented of a pilot, those lectures came fast and often.
Lieutenant Ishii's garbled broadcast had mentioned cloud cover, but the sky outside was clearing. White-specked wavepeaks appeared and disappeared at random across the brilliant blue water as the eight planes continued to circle over the crash site like enormous aluminum vultures.
Kenichi's mind dwelled briefly on how the old man must be feeling now. Confused? Angry? Hurt? Maybe even a little... vindicated? No, Kenichi, thought. It was wrong to ascribe thoughts like that to a man in such an unfortunate situation. With a silent flush of shame, Kenichi forced his mind to the task at hand. Scan for friendly debris. Circle the area and prevent further Chinese incursions. And await the arrival of two JMSDF destroyers racing up at combat speed.
The flag behind the emcee was nearly as tall as he was.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, the Japan Restoration Party thanks you for attending this fundraising brunch today. Our first speaker is the esteemed Governor of Tokyo Prefecture, Ishii Shinobu."
Applause. Applause for the future Prime Minister of Japan, he thought. It was practically inevitable; in the cannibalism of post-bubble Japanese politics, the chairs were soon due to revolve around to him. And yet, he thought, blinking back tears, he would give it all up for one more chance to see his boy, to tell Akira how much loved him, and how happy he made him, happy, and yes, even proud...
Ishii Shinobu stood up from his seat onstage and approached the podium with firm, purposeful steps. His smooth face betrayed no hint of the turmoil brewing inches behind his eyes. He extended a warm smile, the smile that he knew won him so many votes. "Kuruni", as he was called, was consistently considered not only among the most attractive politicians in Japan, but around the world. He had gained the nicknamed at a Hollywood dinner in the prior decade, when a keen-eyed Asahi Shimbun journalist photographed him sitting next to George Clooney and captioned the picture with one simple word: "Twins."
Shinobu began to speak, and his smile disappeared.
"My fellow Japanese, today I come to you not as a Governor, or a Party member, or even a citizen of Japan. Today, I come to you as a father. A father who has recently received the most terrible news possible."
Shinobu paused, waiting for the murmurs to die down in the audience.
"As some of you may know, my son, Ishii Akira, joined the JASDF to serve his Emperor and people last year. Recently, he has been defending our sovereign islands against the unrestrained aggression of our western neighbor. Some time ago, I was notified that he--my son, my firstborn--was shot down by forces of that... that country which you are all too aware of, and of which I shall not name."
The crowd looked amongst each other. Behind Shinobu, a military officer's face blanched as he realized what a gross breach of operational security Shinobu's speech was becoming.
"For far too long, we have suffered under the aggression of our revanchist enemies and, I daresay, the occasional negligence of our friends. I wish to let you know that if I am elected to lead our people in these next tumultuous years, I will draw the line. No more. I will not apologize for Japan. Never. And should any of those neighbors use our common history to justify their aggression, I will stop at nothing to teach them a lesson, a lesson to respect the absolute safety of the Japanese people, and the absolute integrity of our territory. I give you my word as a loyal subject of our Emperor, and father to a true hero."
Ishii Shinobu left the podium with steps as firm as those he took to approach it. In his wake, the other speakers heard applause, deafening applause, but all Shinobu could hear was the voice of his son, suddenly a child now, whispering in his ear to wreak a vengeance ten thousand times greater than the hurt which he had received.
FOUR
"Want a smoke?"
Colonel Wu Taifu shook his head. "No, thank you."
General Liang, commander of the air division, closed his silver cigarette case. "Your loss. Yves Saint Laurent stopped making 'em a year ago." Then he placed them into a shirt pocket and sat down on the curb next to the colonel.
They'd walked from the lobby to a spot behind a maintenance shed, right next to its rattling air-conditioning unit. The general lit up, took a drag, then spoke in an oddly cheery tone. "Look, I think we're both going to get screwed by this shoot-down--hard. General Fan chews nails and spits napalm, and having to brief the CMC on something like this happening in his Military Region is going to give him a bad case of heartburn." Another puff, followed by a smoke ring.
Taifu listened, nodded, gave a non-committal grunt of assent.
"But--I have something that's going to save both of us." The division commander withdrew a small flash drive from his pocket, followed by a red envelope filled with two equally thick bundles of paper documents and yellow 1000-RMB bills. "Here you go. Happy Spring Festival. Keep it safe."
Taifu stared at the gifts in the division commander's hands. "What is this?" Belatedly, he added, "General Liang."
"Electronic and paper copies of files on General Fan's son. Seems like Fan the Younger has been engaged in some, uh, extracurricular activities in his capacity as a trader at the Bank of China." The general took another drag.
Taifu stared at the ground, unmoving. The cigarettes. The furtive conversations. The words which others tossed around casually, but which boggled his mind, the way it had been before his near-death crash. He responded with a voice held low by a wooden sense of dread. "And no one found out?"
"Nope. General Fan knows of the matter, of course, so when he lifts the axe, let me do the talking."
Taifu nodded. He took the envelope and flash drive with hands made of lead, stuffing them stiffly into his air-force-issue messenger bag. He knew better than to ask how General Liang had gotten the files, or why he was passing them on.
General Liang smiled, puffing on his cigarette.
Both said nothing for a long minute. Then General Liang stood up and clapped his hand on Taifu's shoulder. "Come, my old friend. I scheduled a meeting at 0920 with the press officer and the commissar. Let's figure out how to beat those Jap devils."
A thousand kilometers to north of Nanjing, in a windowless conference room, the Central Military Commission of the Communist Party of China gathered. The room was arranged as usual for their meeting. Name cards arranged in a never-changing order sat with parade-ground precision down each side of a long, dark, oval of mahogany. A pad of paper and two sharpened pencils sat ready for each committee member, although the pads were never used.
At the head of the room, on a large screen, the wizened face of General Fan, head of the Nanjing Military Region, loomed over sets of tea prepared for Admiral Sun Jianguo, Exective Vice Chairman and day-to-day boss of the CMC, and Army General Yuan Kun, the Chief of Staff.
Other senior officers and officials filed into the room, dropping their own notepads at the usual places along the sides of the wide table. The room felt crowded, though it was actually less full than usual. It had been cleared of the aides and staff officers who normally sat against the side walls, ready to provide their bosses with the details of any issue.
General Fan was not the only one who wondered why they were not at the table with the generals and Party officials.
He recognized why the room was crowded, though. Even through his webcam, the tension was so thick, he could almost cut it with a knife. The VIPs gathered in small clumps, immersed in separate conversations, but the tone of chatter was far from banal.
In the last twenty minutes, General Fan had hurriedly conferred with the Chief of Staff, General Yuan Kun. The Chief of Staff was the senior operations officer in the Chinese military. Together, they went over the details and discussed likely questions and answers on operational matters that he and Yuan would address at the 1000 meeting.
Over the past five years, General Fan had learned that General Yuan liked to look as though he were in control and could handle every question brought up by his boss, the Executive Vice Chairman, or any of the dozen or so officers and Party officials gathered around the large conference table. But Fan also knew that Yuan expected him to jump in quickly if Yuan's sometimes shaky grasp of relevant details threatened to become apparent. As had become glaringly obvious over the years, when General Yuan dumped a problem into a Military Region commander's lap, he left it there.
Far better to prep the kindly gentleman so he could blather his way past any uncertainty and then clean up problems later, Fan thought. He pawed at his tablet again, checking his slides and the corrected version of Colonel Wu's briefing notes. As he glanced up, Executive Vice Chairman Sun Yan marched through the door with the Chief of Staff, and unexpectedly, the General Secretary himself. Admiral Sun motioned the General Secretary to take his own chair while a staff officer hurriedly brought another ot the head of the table for the Vice Chairman as the attendees took their places.
The Executive Vice Chairman sat down, looked at the Chief of Staff, and commanded immediately, "Let's hear it." His sharp tone brought all eyes to General Yuan he stepped up to the podium.
"General Secretary, Vice Chairman, esteemed comrades, I'll begin with a video clip we recorded ten minutes ago. Then I'll provide a brief situation report on this morning's incidents. General Fan will provide greater detail on the operational background, and then the Executive Vice Chairman will give us his thoughts on future operations." He looked down at his script while his staffer swapped General Fan's face for the video of Ishii Shinobu.
"This clip," Yuan continued, "was recorded at 0920 hours from the Japan Broadcasting Corporation, NHK."
The Chief of Staff nodded at his staffer and Ishii Shinobu's smile appeared, stretched a half-meter wide. Subtitles scrolled below it.
"As some of you may know, my son, Ishii Akira, joined the JASDF to serve his Emperor and people last year. Recently, he has been defending our sovereign islands against the unrestrained aggression of our western neighbor. Some time ago, I was notified that he--my son, my firstborn--was shot down by forces of that... that country which you are all too aware of, and of which I shall not name.
For far too long, we have suffered under the aggression of our revanchist enemies and, I daresay, the occasional negligence of our friends. I wish to let you know that if I am elected to lead our people in these next tumultuous years, I will draw the line. No more. I will not apologize for Japan. Never. And should any of those neighbors use our common history to justify their aggression, I will stop at nothing to teach them a lesson, a lesson to respect the absolute safety of the Japanese people, and the absolute integrity of our territory. I give you my word as a loyal subject of our Emperor, and father to a true hero."
The tape ended abruptly and General Fan's face reappeared. While Yuan returned to his notes, the commission sat silent, except for the Chairman, who shifted in his chair, reached for a pencil, and began to calmly take paper notes.
The Chief of Staff resumed his presentation. "This morning, two of our fighters were engaged with their Japanese counterparts in a demonstration of sovereignty over the disputed islands. One of the Japanese fighters suffered an accident and crashed, which the other Japanese fighter interpreted as due to hostile action. The other Japanese pilot fired upon and destroyed one of our fighters, and was in turn engaged and destroyed by our second pilot, Captain Kang Zongqi of the Ox Squadron, 771st Regiment, 3rd Fighter Division. During the engagement, Captain Kang's aircraft sustained heavy damage, and shortly afterwards, he successfully ejected into the water." On cue, a map of the islands with red and white crosses appeared beside General Fan's looming face. "Approximately fifteen minutes after the engagement, the Japanese and Americans scrambled eight fighter planes to the islands. Also, at this time, our satellites have spotted two Japanese destroyers operating in the vicinity, and the US 7th Fleet is making emergency preparations to sally forth from Yokosuka Naval Base. Stealth bomber assets at Andersen Air Force Base also appear to be going on high alert."
"In addition to the American and Japanese response, there are three further factors that complicate the situation." Yuan paused for a drink of water. "First, as the video hints at, one of the Japanese pilots--we are not sure which--was the son of Ishii Shinobu, the far-right leader of the Japan Restoration Party, and the likely Prime Minister following the Japanese elections in the next few months. Captain Kang did not report any parachutes from the three other downed airplanes, which means his son is likely dead. This will likely make future diplomacy with Japan extremely difficult."
"Second, there is no hard evidence to corroborate with Captain Kang's version of events, since all aircraft ditched in disputed waters. This means that the Japanese or Americans may be able to spin an alternate version of events as the truth, at least until we recover a black box or flight recorder."
"Third, Captain Kang is still floating in disputed waters. We can communicate him, but his food and water supplies will only last him for another two and a half days, and we might, for the same reason as the second issue, have problems trying to rescue him. Furthermore, he has an eye injury that may render him partially blind if he does not recieve timely medical treatment."
"General Secretary, Vice Chairman," Yuan continued, "we have put our sea- and land-based air-defense networks on alert, scrambled interceptors and AWACS to patrol over international waters in the East China Sea, and tasked a team from the Nanjing MR to draft up a non-escalatory rescue plan for Captain Kang. We've also sent our version of events to our attaches in Tokyo and Washington, and tasked them with getting a pulse on the reactions of the Japanese and American national security establishments. These responses have been limited to defensive preparations only, so as not to unduly alarm the Americans--we are treating the incident as a regrettable multiple mid-air collision, and downplaying the shoot-down angle." Yuan put down his notes, a signal for questions.
The General Secretary sat up. "Admiral Sun, General Yuan, that message can't hold given Ishii's remarks. The Politburo will have to make a public statement confirming briefly what we know and what we're doing about it. And we'll have to make that statement today."
"I agree, General Secretary. With your blessing, I'll task a member of the CMC staff to work with your team on that."
General Fan chimed in. "The folks working on the rescue plan already include a press officer, so they'd be a nice addition to whatever roster you're putting in place to handle the PR angle."
The General Secretary nodded. "Good idea. General Fan, get them on board as well." Then he paused, glanced down at his tablet, and looked back up. "Okay, here are our priorities: first, we need to avoid escalating this incident any further. Everyone here has done an admirable job of keeping this low-key, let's keep up the good work. Second, we need to rescue Captain Kang--both for his sake and for our country's sake. If the Japanese pluck him out of the water or off the island, it would make the rest of the world into think they own the islands. General Yuan, I assume you know what to do?"
The Vice Chairman nodded.
"Good. On the civil side, we need to get our message out in front of the world with whatever evidence we have--long-range radar records, anything. And--someone needs to figure out what this means for Sino-Japanese relations over the next year. I'm not convinced this is going to completely wreck things, at least not yet. Vice-Premier Zhang Shenghan will be in charge of the civil side." He turned to face the room. "All of you might remember him as the bright kid who cleaned up the mess at Shenyang twelve years ago."
Then he pushed back his chair and stood up. "Thank you, Admiral Sun, General Yuan, General Fan, and the rest of you as well. Admiral Sun, after you meet with the CMC staff, meet me at Zhongnanhai with whoever you've tasked this to. I'll let you know the exact time."
Captain Fuchida Hideo's legs itched. They always did during his flight missions. It was the flight suits, he knew, but when he complained to the base doctor, he got a response lifted straight from the Lockheed marketing brochure.
"...keep pilots warm and enhance combat functionality in high-G maneuvers...constrict the legs to keep blood from pooling in them during long combat missions..."
Keep him from passing out. He got it. And the helmet wrapped around his bald pate had to pump pure oxygen into his system to assist in that duty, oxygen which only added irritated lungs atop his endless itch. It had to, because his cockpit was only "lightly pressurized" to guard against explosive decompression. The cockpit couldn't be strengthened because the engineers had to save weight. The plane had to save weight to be a better combat machine. The plane had to be a better combat machine so that Fuchida Hideo could live up to his namesake.
"Fuck," Hideo breathed into his headset. Always, always, always his great-grandfather would intrude on his private thoughts, as if the old gray gentleman was still alive, his ancient Nakajima B5N fluttering alongside Hideo's F-35, the leather-jacketed arm reaching out to fire the green flares signalling the swarm of two hundred planes behind him to vomit their deadly hail upon an unsuspecting enemy, the cocky voice breathing the three-word code phrase that would launch the American Era.
Of course, no one at the base mentioned his great-grandfather to his face. And no one descended from his great-grandfather mentioned him. After the war, Fuchida Mitsuo, flight commander of the air group that bombed Pearl Harbor, had become a committed pacifist and Christian evangelist. Hideo was the black sheep in his family, the one who had, in his father's words, "thrown away the lessons that his forefathers acquired at the cost of three million dead."
Being estranged from his family only spurred Hideo to train harder. Mitsuo's ghost was the only relative who acknowledged him. Sometimes, it would scowl at him when he tried to slack off in the mundane mechanical tasks of peacetime piloting. And sometimes, in the most inopportune of times, it would appear next to him, distracting him from the task at hand.
"C'mon, pops. Not the time," Hideo muttered to no one in particular.
Hideo was the best pilot in his unit. As such, he led the deterrence patrols against Chinese aircraft that tried to intrude on the disputed rocks some eight kilometers below him.
Barely fifty meters to his right, a Chinese J-31 rocked its wings to tell Hideo that he was getting too close. Hideo ignored the signal. Eighteen hundred meters behind them, another J-31 and F-35 followed at a thousand kilometers an hour. The four planes had been flying concentric rings around, but just outside, the island's territorial waters for the past half-hour, and Hideo's legs kept itching.
The J-31 began to descend, and Hideo was followed to maintain contact. His orders had been the classic ones used in territorial disputes between countries since the deadly clockwork of the nuclear era had been first set in motion. Bug the other guy so much that he either backs off or is forced to shoot first. The American pilots called it "road rage with fighter jets."
The J-31 kept dropping lower and lower, approaching the clouds. Hideo was glad. A lower altitude meant thicker air, which meant everyone would run out of fuel faster, which meant a shorter mission. Then the dark triangle kept dropping, disappearing into the fluffy white carpet beneath them, and Hideo's confidence wavered. He toggled his mike.
"How low does this bastard want to go?" Hideo said to his wingman.
The wingman, a fresh-faced trainee pilot, was some right-wing politician's son who was on the patrol mission to burnish his father's nationalist credentials. In spite of the nepotism, the lieutenant's response was crisp and professional.
"I'm not sure, Captain, but his wingman is staying at eight-two-zero-zero. Should I maintain contact with him?"
Hideo gave a curt "Yes", then resumed pitching his F-35 downward. The last two digits on his HUD altimeter blurred as the angle of descent steepened. He punched through the cloud cover, found the Chinese plane, and cursed.
"Crazy son-of-a-bitch!" Hideo realized that the J-31 pilot was daring him to follow the Chinese jet into the flat, flawlessly blue ocean. To his left, the white band of the horizon had turned nearly perpendicular to his wings. Without terrain features, it would be nearly impossible to judge the distance to the water until it was too late. And Hideo had to closely watch the J-31, which meant he couldn't really keep an eye on the altimeter.
Hideo tapped the air brakes and stretched the distance between the planes to three hundred meters. Now, if the J-31 pilot really flew into the ocean, Hideo thought, his splash would serve as a prior warning.
At about one hundred fifty meters of altitude, the J-31 pilot suddenly leveled out. Gritting his teeth, Hideo yanked hard on the stick and followed. The suit did its job, fighting the G-forces and squeezing his lower body and torso so hard Hideo knew he would have marks on his skin for a week.
Hideo began to pull closer to the J-31, and he saw the wings rock once more. He ignored it. He was now barely one hundred meters behind and to the left of the J-31. The J-31 began to descend slowly, taunting Hideo. He followed.
The itch returned, much worse now. Hideo finally gave in and reached down for a scratch. At that precise moment, the Chinese plane banked right, passing barely a hundred meters in front of Hideo's F-35. The jet wash buffeted him around in the seat. Then his HUD flared red as warning kanji blanketed his field of view.
The F-35's engine had flamed out upon breathing a load of concentrated jet exhaust instead of oxygen. At five thousand meters, this was a simple issue to fix--simply pull up gently and press the re-ignition button--but Hideo was at barely twenty meters. His turbines flared to back life just as the stealth jet clipped the top of the waves.
Hideo's last conscious thoughts touched on how ironic it was to push the gears which his great-grandfather had set in motion.
Captain Kang Zongqi saw the F-35 disintegrate behind him and gasped with shock. He had never meant for that to happen--to him and his wingman, the job was just a dance to keep the netizens placated, to fill the weekly helmet-cam videos the Nanjing Military Region released on the internet showing how the Air Force was "defending the motherland's inviolable territorial integrity."
His wingman spoke immediately. "Flight leader, what happened down there? My dance partner just started screaming at me."
Zongqi dialed up the volume on the international comms channel. A sea of static, then the unmistakeable sound of angry Japanese cursing. Then his wingman cut back in. "Wait a sec, he's climbing and slowing down. He's on my six now, six o'clock high. What the fuck is going on?"
Kang Zongqi responded guiltily. "My bogey crashed. I don't think his wingman saw it through the clouds, though."
Zongqi's wingman responded brusquely. "Great. That's just fuckin' great. He probably thinks you brought him down on purpose. What are we gonna do?"
Zongqi fought to remember the vague and poorly-delivered lessons on incident management. "We need to contact higher to get a translator on the channel, and immediately disengage from the mission area."
Just as Zongqi finished his phrase, the cursing stopped and became a phrase which Zongqi half-remembered from old Chinese propaganda films.
"Tenno Heika, BANZAI!"
Oh shit, Zongqi thought. "Watch out, watch out, I think he's about to--"
The radio suddenly filled with hard thumps and screaming, then cut to silence.
Zongqi was momentarily stunned, then awakened from his state of reverie by the triple beeps of his radar warning receiver. A cold sweat broke out across Zongqi's shoulders. At such close ranges, the relative intensity of radar illumination nullified the stealth shaping of both planes, and worse yet, the bogey was somewhere above him, giving his missiles a normally inescapable energy advantage.
In spite of his thousands of hours in the simulator and cockpit, Zongqi found real combat wildly disorienting. The expected pair of short-range missiles poked through the clouds, like the fingers of God. Zongqi popped chaff, then flares, then wrenched the black stealth jet into a hard turn directly towards the bright, modern arrows. His twin engines whined with the redlined abuse. Fighting his instincts to run, he counted on the knowledge that against radar seekers, the front of his stealth jet offered the smallest radar cross-section, and thus the greatest chance to survive. Turning into the missiles also gave Zongqi the opportunity for an instant reply instead of waiting around for the F35 to finish him off after the initial attack.
His neck jerked left, right, upward, but the F35 was nowhere to be found. Going off a blind, caveman, instinct to fight back, he popped off a heat seeker into the incoming missile contrails while slamming the active jamming suite to full power, cracking his LCD screen with the force of an outstretched, panicked, palm. The white streaks grew closer and closer; a sticky wetness at his crotch told him he would need new underwear--if he could make it back to base. At the last possible second, Zongqi dove hard to his right, the negative G forces forcing thirty percent more than the normal volume of blood into his eyeballs and forehead for a brief second. Zongqi felt as though his world was being crushed by a vise, but didn't know why.
A roar, sudden, to his left. One missile slid harmlessly past Zongqi's aircraft. Zongqi silently exhaled, but was cut mid-breath by a blast wave that tossed his plane about like a champagne cork, followed by a sickening shredding sound from his port side. The second missile's proximity fuse had set it off about fifteen meters from his left wing.
Beep beep beep.
The Japanese jet, too, had been busy--cutting afterburners to decrease its heat signature and popping flares like a madman. This kid must be new, Zongqi thought, as his maneuver rendered the F35 a slow-moving target marked by the classic, smoky, angel-shaped bullseye of burned-out flares caught in wing vortices.
The radar reciever was now silent. His radar locked on to the fat tail section of the F-35. "My turn," Zongqi muttered, then launched everything he had--two radar missiles and a heat seeker--straight for the F35.
Beep beep beep. Beep beep beep.
The F35 waggled its tail and popped chaff immediately, then engaged afterburners. But the heat-seeker was not so easily fooled. It picked up the scent trail of the afterburners, then dove into the F35's engine like a rabbit into its warren. A split-second later, the F35 disintegrated in a fifty-meter wide fireball.
The age-old truism of air combat: tt's always what you don't see that kills you. "Chaff and flares, always chaff and flares, never just one or the other," Zongqi muttered.
Beep beep beep. Beep beep beep. BEEEEEP.
"What's that sound?" Zongqi fumbled at his plane, then his helmet, before realizing one side of his helmet mounted display was completely dark.
"That's strange," Zongqi thought. Shifting his helmet around, he realized with a sickening finality that his left eye was completely blinded. Zongqi thought back to the dive, the blood rushing to his head from the negative Gs, popping all his retinal capillaries. "Fuck!" He'd always treasured his eyes growing up, jealously guarding them from books and computer screens, all so he could eventually become a pilot. Now he would never fly again.
BEEEEP. BEEEEP. BEEEEP.
Zongqi felt a violent death rattle coming from the left engine. Adjusting his helmet, his right eye finally caught a wall of warning symbols down the left side of the helmet-mounted display. Turn around to get a visual on the damage--more curses. The port wing was completely shredded. The left engine was on holed and spitting pieces of flaming scrap sideways and upwards.
Nothing more to do, no time to think. Zongqi's training kicked in. When he awoke from the knockout blow of the ejection seat, he was already peacefully drifting into the East China Sea. Directly below him, an emerald island jutted proudly from concentric rings of white froth.
A final wave of sweat coursed over Zongqi's body. He was still in disputed waters. Fighting the urge to vomit, Zongqi dialed home base on his emergency radio.
TWO
Colonel Wu Taifu set down his head-mounted display and reached for a steaming mug of straight black coffee. Through an opened window in base headquarters, the morning sun glittered off a row of parked fighters, as if the runway and apron were a display case of jewelry made for giants. He closed his eyes and took a sip, letting the strong, clean, aroma--mixed with hints of jet fuel--clear his head.
There had been three times in his life when he wanted to quit the air force. The first had been eight years ago, when he was shuttling aid down storm-wrecked Jamaican runways in the aftermath of Hurricane Claudette, with Hurricane Erika still bearing down on the island. It was there that he'd picked up a taste for the excellent local coffee beans and met his wife, then a relief worker. They'd helped calm his nerves, but each time he had to thread the big military transport through sixty-kilometer-an-hour crosswinds on tarmac littered with fallen palm trees, he'd promised himself that he would quit when he accomplished the mission.
He didn't.
The second time had come five years later, when he'd overseen the closure of an air base. He played honest and inadvertently scuttled a land deal that would have made his superior officer rich. Someone then messed with his controls on a routine training flight, and when they pulled him out of the wreckage, he was miraculously alive, but got the message. He'd come within a final few signatures on the resignation forms when his daughter had asked if he could take her into the sky for her birthday.
Since they couldn't get rid of him, they kicked him upstairs. He went to command school, watched the land deal get done, and came back a regiment leader. Now, as his eyes opened on his spartan office, he thought about quitting once again.
His command and control monitor centered on two flashing red and white crosses, marking the locations where the planes had been downed thirty minutes ago. From the screen's upper right corner, six white triangles and two dotted blue triangles inched closer at an estimated speed of seven hundred kilometers an hour. A Chinese destroyer had picked up six JASDF fighters on its radar shortly after they left Naha Air Base, and a real-time satellite feed recorded a pair of F-22s scrambled out of Kadena on a direct flight path towards the disputed islets. The information, once cleared by the MI analyst, had passed through the new C4ISR network in a matter of seconds, without any need for additional human intervention.
Eight fighters. Eight fighters total. He'd have to wait until they were gone before mounting a rescue operation, Taifu thought. He shifted in a cushioned office chair borrowed from his wife's office for his bad back and jotted some brief notes down on his military-issue tablet. Then he donned his display headset and dialed the division commander again.
The official photo of a crinkled, salt-and-pepper man in Air Force blues filled his visor. "General Liang, this is Colonel Wu calling from Feidong Air Base regarding the collision and shoot-down accidents this morning. I just spoke with the flight leader again, Captain Kang."
"Hold on. Before you go further, let me get the Military Region commander on the line. I just emailed him." His portrait blurred out, and then split in two. The right half was still the same, but the left half was now the grainy webcam view of an ancient-looking man with hair dyed jet-black, cramped beside an infant's carseat. Behind him, tinted glass shaded the crowded mosaic of a morning commute.
The division commander cleared his throat and spoke, softly. "General Fan, this is Colonel Wu Taifu, commanding officer of the regiment involved in this morning's... incidents. He just spoke again with the pilot involved. It seems we have a problem: our pilot ditched in disputed waters."
The old man grimaced. "Got it." He then tapped some keys on his laptop. "I have to brief the Central Military Commission as soon as I get into the office. Colonel, did the flight leader give you a detailed breakdown of events?"
Taifu nodded. "General Fan, please find attached Captain Kang's debriefing." He tapped his tablet and sent over the notes to General Fan's inbox. "At 0640, Captain Kang and his second element, Captain Guo Ling, departed from Feidong Air Base for a demonstration of sovereignty over the disputed islands. At 0750, they reached the islands. At 0752, a pair of Japanese F-35s showed up. At 0812, Captain Kang was engaged in aggressive maneuvering versus a JASDF F-35 when the Japanese plane caught his jet exhaust and suffered an engine flameout, which caused the Japanese plane to crash. The second Japanese plane did not see the flameout due to intervening cloud cover, and assumed Captain Kang had shot down the first plane. Then it intentionally destroyed our flight's second element at 0813, and engaged Captain Kang with missiles and cannon fire, damaging our fighter in the process. Captain Kang returned fire and destroyed the second Japanese plane at 0815, but his plane was so badly damaged that he had to ditch as well. The ejection knocked him unconscious. When he awoke at 0821, he contacted me with a quick after-action report, and added that he didn't see any parachutes or emergency beacons from the other three downed aircraft."
The old man flashed a wry grin. "Glad to know our pilot did his job." Then his expression turned serious. "Did you"--the old man paused and grimaced--"did you give him an ETA on any rescue attempts?"
Taifu shook his head. "No."
"Good. He won't like it, but it's the right answer. We can't promise anything at this point." The old man's expression softened. "How long will he last in the ocean? Is there any way we can talk to him?"
Taifu nodded. "His ejection seat should have a shortwave radio built into it, but the batteries won't last more than five hours. If that's damaged, his helmet's emergency transponder can double as a receiver for manual Morse. He should have a 95% chance of surviving for at least 60 hours, if he didn't lose his emergency water and food supplies in the ejection. However, he has retinal bleeding in his left eye, most likely from the violent maneuvering. Without quick medical care, he may lose his sight, permanently."
The old man grimaced again. "I don't think we can get to his eye in time. I'd advise him to swim for the island, just in case." He asked another question, in an innocent tone. "General Liang, how badly does a flameout affect a modern fighter plane?"
Taifu bit his lip. He knew where this question would lead, and so did the air division commander, who mumbled out a response. "N-not that much, General Fan. Most modern fighters can recover from a flameout in a second or two, at most."
"So how could it lead to a crash?"
The division commander was silent for a moment, then replied, "Because our flight leader and his Japanese counterpart were flying at very low altitudes."
The old man's eyes hardened. "How low?"
"I'm not sure, General Fan. Perhaps Colonel Wu knows."
Taifu instinctively glared at General Liang's unmoving avatar. "General Fan, Captain Kang said the aircraft were maneuvering at under a hundred meters. Until the black boxes are recovered, though, we won't be able to get an exact altitude figure."
The old man frowned and shook his head vigorously. "General Liang, didn't you order our guys to stay above five hundred meters while maneuvering near the contested islands?"
"Y-yes."
"So why was he flying under a hundred meters?"
"I cleared them to, last week."
The old man's fist pounded his thigh. "Dammit, we worked those rules out to keep something like this from happening. Can you give me a good reason why I shouldn't cashiere you this instant?"
"Sir, the netizens were complaining that the videos on the internet weren't 'exciting enough.'" Taifu recognized the classic tone of a schoolboy before the headmaster.
General Fan facepalmed, hard. "For heaven's sake, Xiao Liang, our pilots are not Hollywood stuntmen! One man lost an eye, and three others--three lives--are gone today because of your idiocy." The General turned sideways, looked out the window, and let his expression settle before continuing. Behind him, the expressway had become the twisting confines of an underground parking lot. "Okay. Get a few non-escalatory recovery options on my desk. I'll send our attachés in Tokyo and Washington our version of the events, and ask them what the other side thinks. General Liang, I'm sending you the contact info for the Military Region's press officer and political commissar--you, Colonel Wu, and those two are going to draw up the response. Send me your initial set of plans at 1100. Dismissed." General Fan's image froze, then cut out.
General Liang spoke up. "Colonel Wu, let's meet in the lobby in five minutes." Then he cut out as well.
Colonel Wu Taifu sat back in his chair and dialed his wife to tell her he would be coming home late.
THREE
First Lieutenant Nakano Kenichi surveyed the ocean below him for a sign of life. He shook his head.
It had been thirty minutes already, and both friendly transponders were dead. He recorded the warble of a single Chinese transponder, but did not focus on it. They were, after all, the clear aggressors in this engagement. Why should anyone worry about rescuing them? Let the bastard die of thirst in the salt water, he thought.
Both his squadron leader and wing leaders had been especially nervous after hearing the panicked transmissions from First Lieutenant Ishii, and insisted on accompanying the eight-plane formation out personally. It was no surprise, Kenichi thought, that they were nervous, and even less of a surprise that Ishii had reacted to the Chinese provocation this way.
First Lieutenant Ishii Akira was his roommate at Naha Air Base. His father, Ishii Shinobu, was a rabid nationalist, a former nuclear engineer who advocated revising Japan's pacifist constitution, massively increasing the defense budget, and acquiring nuclear weapons. He also happened to be the governor of Tokyo prefecture. Akira spoke of his father in reverent, even worshipful, tones. Yet as far as he knew, the relationship was not reciprocated. From time to time, Kenichi had to cheer his rooomate up when his father would chew him out for a poor classroom or training result; the elder Ishii had a close relationship with the base commander and got free access to his son's performance record. And, since, truth be told, Akira was not all that talented of a pilot, those lectures came fast and often.
Lieutenant Ishii's garbled broadcast had mentioned cloud cover, but the sky outside was clearing. White-specked wavepeaks appeared and disappeared at random across the brilliant blue water as the eight planes continued to circle over the crash site like enormous aluminum vultures.
Kenichi's mind dwelled briefly on how the old man must be feeling now. Confused? Angry? Hurt? Maybe even a little... vindicated? No, Kenichi, thought. It was wrong to ascribe thoughts like that to a man in such an unfortunate situation. With a silent flush of shame, Kenichi forced his mind to the task at hand. Scan for friendly debris. Circle the area and prevent further Chinese incursions. And await the arrival of two JMSDF destroyers racing up at combat speed.
The flag behind the emcee was nearly as tall as he was.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, the Japan Restoration Party thanks you for attending this fundraising brunch today. Our first speaker is the esteemed Governor of Tokyo Prefecture, Ishii Shinobu."
Applause. Applause for the future Prime Minister of Japan, he thought. It was practically inevitable; in the cannibalism of post-bubble Japanese politics, the chairs were soon due to revolve around to him. And yet, he thought, blinking back tears, he would give it all up for one more chance to see his boy, to tell Akira how much loved him, and how happy he made him, happy, and yes, even proud...
Ishii Shinobu stood up from his seat onstage and approached the podium with firm, purposeful steps. His smooth face betrayed no hint of the turmoil brewing inches behind his eyes. He extended a warm smile, the smile that he knew won him so many votes. "Kuruni", as he was called, was consistently considered not only among the most attractive politicians in Japan, but around the world. He had gained the nicknamed at a Hollywood dinner in the prior decade, when a keen-eyed Asahi Shimbun journalist photographed him sitting next to George Clooney and captioned the picture with one simple word: "Twins."
Shinobu began to speak, and his smile disappeared.
"My fellow Japanese, today I come to you not as a Governor, or a Party member, or even a citizen of Japan. Today, I come to you as a father. A father who has recently received the most terrible news possible."
Shinobu paused, waiting for the murmurs to die down in the audience.
"As some of you may know, my son, Ishii Akira, joined the JASDF to serve his Emperor and people last year. Recently, he has been defending our sovereign islands against the unrestrained aggression of our western neighbor. Some time ago, I was notified that he--my son, my firstborn--was shot down by forces of that... that country which you are all too aware of, and of which I shall not name."
The crowd looked amongst each other. Behind Shinobu, a military officer's face blanched as he realized what a gross breach of operational security Shinobu's speech was becoming.
"For far too long, we have suffered under the aggression of our revanchist enemies and, I daresay, the occasional negligence of our friends. I wish to let you know that if I am elected to lead our people in these next tumultuous years, I will draw the line. No more. I will not apologize for Japan. Never. And should any of those neighbors use our common history to justify their aggression, I will stop at nothing to teach them a lesson, a lesson to respect the absolute safety of the Japanese people, and the absolute integrity of our territory. I give you my word as a loyal subject of our Emperor, and father to a true hero."
Ishii Shinobu left the podium with steps as firm as those he took to approach it. In his wake, the other speakers heard applause, deafening applause, but all Shinobu could hear was the voice of his son, suddenly a child now, whispering in his ear to wreak a vengeance ten thousand times greater than the hurt which he had received.
FOUR
"Want a smoke?"
Colonel Wu Taifu shook his head. "No, thank you."
General Liang, commander of the air division, closed his silver cigarette case. "Your loss. Yves Saint Laurent stopped making 'em a year ago." Then he placed them into a shirt pocket and sat down on the curb next to the colonel.
They'd walked from the lobby to a spot behind a maintenance shed, right next to its rattling air-conditioning unit. The general lit up, took a drag, then spoke in an oddly cheery tone. "Look, I think we're both going to get screwed by this shoot-down--hard. General Fan chews nails and spits napalm, and having to brief the CMC on something like this happening in his Military Region is going to give him a bad case of heartburn." Another puff, followed by a smoke ring.
Taifu listened, nodded, gave a non-committal grunt of assent.
"But--I have something that's going to save both of us." The division commander withdrew a small flash drive from his pocket, followed by a red envelope filled with two equally thick bundles of paper documents and yellow 1000-RMB bills. "Here you go. Happy Spring Festival. Keep it safe."
Taifu stared at the gifts in the division commander's hands. "What is this?" Belatedly, he added, "General Liang."
"Electronic and paper copies of files on General Fan's son. Seems like Fan the Younger has been engaged in some, uh, extracurricular activities in his capacity as a trader at the Bank of China." The general took another drag.
Taifu stared at the ground, unmoving. The cigarettes. The furtive conversations. The words which others tossed around casually, but which boggled his mind, the way it had been before his near-death crash. He responded with a voice held low by a wooden sense of dread. "And no one found out?"
"Nope. General Fan knows of the matter, of course, so when he lifts the axe, let me do the talking."
Taifu nodded. He took the envelope and flash drive with hands made of lead, stuffing them stiffly into his air-force-issue messenger bag. He knew better than to ask how General Liang had gotten the files, or why he was passing them on.
General Liang smiled, puffing on his cigarette.
Both said nothing for a long minute. Then General Liang stood up and clapped his hand on Taifu's shoulder. "Come, my old friend. I scheduled a meeting at 0920 with the press officer and the commissar. Let's figure out how to beat those Jap devils."
A thousand kilometers to north of Nanjing, in a windowless conference room, the Central Military Commission of the Communist Party of China gathered. The room was arranged as usual for their meeting. Name cards arranged in a never-changing order sat with parade-ground precision down each side of a long, dark, oval of mahogany. A pad of paper and two sharpened pencils sat ready for each committee member, although the pads were never used.
At the head of the room, on a large screen, the wizened face of General Fan, head of the Nanjing Military Region, loomed over sets of tea prepared for Admiral Sun Jianguo, Exective Vice Chairman and day-to-day boss of the CMC, and Army General Yuan Kun, the Chief of Staff.
Other senior officers and officials filed into the room, dropping their own notepads at the usual places along the sides of the wide table. The room felt crowded, though it was actually less full than usual. It had been cleared of the aides and staff officers who normally sat against the side walls, ready to provide their bosses with the details of any issue.
General Fan was not the only one who wondered why they were not at the table with the generals and Party officials.
He recognized why the room was crowded, though. Even through his webcam, the tension was so thick, he could almost cut it with a knife. The VIPs gathered in small clumps, immersed in separate conversations, but the tone of chatter was far from banal.
In the last twenty minutes, General Fan had hurriedly conferred with the Chief of Staff, General Yuan Kun. The Chief of Staff was the senior operations officer in the Chinese military. Together, they went over the details and discussed likely questions and answers on operational matters that he and Yuan would address at the 1000 meeting.
Over the past five years, General Fan had learned that General Yuan liked to look as though he were in control and could handle every question brought up by his boss, the Executive Vice Chairman, or any of the dozen or so officers and Party officials gathered around the large conference table. But Fan also knew that Yuan expected him to jump in quickly if Yuan's sometimes shaky grasp of relevant details threatened to become apparent. As had become glaringly obvious over the years, when General Yuan dumped a problem into a Military Region commander's lap, he left it there.
Far better to prep the kindly gentleman so he could blather his way past any uncertainty and then clean up problems later, Fan thought. He pawed at his tablet again, checking his slides and the corrected version of Colonel Wu's briefing notes. As he glanced up, Executive Vice Chairman Sun Yan marched through the door with the Chief of Staff, and unexpectedly, the General Secretary himself. Admiral Sun motioned the General Secretary to take his own chair while a staff officer hurriedly brought another ot the head of the table for the Vice Chairman as the attendees took their places.
The Executive Vice Chairman sat down, looked at the Chief of Staff, and commanded immediately, "Let's hear it." His sharp tone brought all eyes to General Yuan he stepped up to the podium.
"General Secretary, Vice Chairman, esteemed comrades, I'll begin with a video clip we recorded ten minutes ago. Then I'll provide a brief situation report on this morning's incidents. General Fan will provide greater detail on the operational background, and then the Executive Vice Chairman will give us his thoughts on future operations." He looked down at his script while his staffer swapped General Fan's face for the video of Ishii Shinobu.
"This clip," Yuan continued, "was recorded at 0920 hours from the Japan Broadcasting Corporation, NHK."
The Chief of Staff nodded at his staffer and Ishii Shinobu's smile appeared, stretched a half-meter wide. Subtitles scrolled below it.
"As some of you may know, my son, Ishii Akira, joined the JASDF to serve his Emperor and people last year. Recently, he has been defending our sovereign islands against the unrestrained aggression of our western neighbor. Some time ago, I was notified that he--my son, my firstborn--was shot down by forces of that... that country which you are all too aware of, and of which I shall not name.
For far too long, we have suffered under the aggression of our revanchist enemies and, I daresay, the occasional negligence of our friends. I wish to let you know that if I am elected to lead our people in these next tumultuous years, I will draw the line. No more. I will not apologize for Japan. Never. And should any of those neighbors use our common history to justify their aggression, I will stop at nothing to teach them a lesson, a lesson to respect the absolute safety of the Japanese people, and the absolute integrity of our territory. I give you my word as a loyal subject of our Emperor, and father to a true hero."
The tape ended abruptly and General Fan's face reappeared. While Yuan returned to his notes, the commission sat silent, except for the Chairman, who shifted in his chair, reached for a pencil, and began to calmly take paper notes.
The Chief of Staff resumed his presentation. "This morning, two of our fighters were engaged with their Japanese counterparts in a demonstration of sovereignty over the disputed islands. One of the Japanese fighters suffered an accident and crashed, which the other Japanese fighter interpreted as due to hostile action. The other Japanese pilot fired upon and destroyed one of our fighters, and was in turn engaged and destroyed by our second pilot, Captain Kang Zongqi of the Ox Squadron, 771st Regiment, 3rd Fighter Division. During the engagement, Captain Kang's aircraft sustained heavy damage, and shortly afterwards, he successfully ejected into the water." On cue, a map of the islands with red and white crosses appeared beside General Fan's looming face. "Approximately fifteen minutes after the engagement, the Japanese and Americans scrambled eight fighter planes to the islands. Also, at this time, our satellites have spotted two Japanese destroyers operating in the vicinity, and the US 7th Fleet is making emergency preparations to sally forth from Yokosuka Naval Base. Stealth bomber assets at Andersen Air Force Base also appear to be going on high alert."
"In addition to the American and Japanese response, there are three further factors that complicate the situation." Yuan paused for a drink of water. "First, as the video hints at, one of the Japanese pilots--we are not sure which--was the son of Ishii Shinobu, the far-right leader of the Japan Restoration Party, and the likely Prime Minister following the Japanese elections in the next few months. Captain Kang did not report any parachutes from the three other downed airplanes, which means his son is likely dead. This will likely make future diplomacy with Japan extremely difficult."
"Second, there is no hard evidence to corroborate with Captain Kang's version of events, since all aircraft ditched in disputed waters. This means that the Japanese or Americans may be able to spin an alternate version of events as the truth, at least until we recover a black box or flight recorder."
"Third, Captain Kang is still floating in disputed waters. We can communicate him, but his food and water supplies will only last him for another two and a half days, and we might, for the same reason as the second issue, have problems trying to rescue him. Furthermore, he has an eye injury that may render him partially blind if he does not recieve timely medical treatment."
"General Secretary, Vice Chairman," Yuan continued, "we have put our sea- and land-based air-defense networks on alert, scrambled interceptors and AWACS to patrol over international waters in the East China Sea, and tasked a team from the Nanjing MR to draft up a non-escalatory rescue plan for Captain Kang. We've also sent our version of events to our attaches in Tokyo and Washington, and tasked them with getting a pulse on the reactions of the Japanese and American national security establishments. These responses have been limited to defensive preparations only, so as not to unduly alarm the Americans--we are treating the incident as a regrettable multiple mid-air collision, and downplaying the shoot-down angle." Yuan put down his notes, a signal for questions.
The General Secretary sat up. "Admiral Sun, General Yuan, that message can't hold given Ishii's remarks. The Politburo will have to make a public statement confirming briefly what we know and what we're doing about it. And we'll have to make that statement today."
"I agree, General Secretary. With your blessing, I'll task a member of the CMC staff to work with your team on that."
General Fan chimed in. "The folks working on the rescue plan already include a press officer, so they'd be a nice addition to whatever roster you're putting in place to handle the PR angle."
The General Secretary nodded. "Good idea. General Fan, get them on board as well." Then he paused, glanced down at his tablet, and looked back up. "Okay, here are our priorities: first, we need to avoid escalating this incident any further. Everyone here has done an admirable job of keeping this low-key, let's keep up the good work. Second, we need to rescue Captain Kang--both for his sake and for our country's sake. If the Japanese pluck him out of the water or off the island, it would make the rest of the world into think they own the islands. General Yuan, I assume you know what to do?"
The Vice Chairman nodded.
"Good. On the civil side, we need to get our message out in front of the world with whatever evidence we have--long-range radar records, anything. And--someone needs to figure out what this means for Sino-Japanese relations over the next year. I'm not convinced this is going to completely wreck things, at least not yet. Vice-Premier Zhang Shenghan will be in charge of the civil side." He turned to face the room. "All of you might remember him as the bright kid who cleaned up the mess at Shenyang twelve years ago."
Then he pushed back his chair and stood up. "Thank you, Admiral Sun, General Yuan, General Fan, and the rest of you as well. Admiral Sun, after you meet with the CMC staff, meet me at Zhongnanhai with whoever you've tasked this to. I'll let you know the exact time."
Still in 2001
Shenghan crinkled his nose at the smell of sterility, eyeballed the hospital hall. One security guard at a wraparound desk, busy flipping through a Hong Kong softcore rag under a sign that read "Long-term Care Ward". Shenghan moved silent, appeared before the guard before he knew what was going on. A red-faced glance upward, fumbling the porno into a pile of papers under the desk, followed by a phrase, too quick. "Is there anything I can do for you?"
Shenghan tapped a square card the guard had knocked askew that read DOCTOR ZHAO MEIREN. "Can I see the doctor?"
The guard's head was fat. He shook it. "Can't. Busy."
Shenghan noted the other card on the table, one NURSE CAO YIQIE, then walked to a crack in the door. The guard shrugged, resumed his surreptitious reading of the erotica. Through the door, Shenghan could faintly hear grunts and the creak of a hospital bed. No wonder the guard was reading the softcore rag, he thought. The guy had a free audio track to go with the book. Shenghan shook accumulated snow off his shoulders, sat down by the chair, and waited.
Ten minutes later, a strikingly handsome male nurse walked out of the room, adjusting his gloves and hairnet. He saw Shenghan, turned, and yelled into the room. "Doctor Zhao, there's a visitor!"
Rustles, then a rail-thin, thirtysomething doctor appeared, hurriedly buttoning up a white lab coat. "Zh--Zhang Shenghan. Of course, do come in."
Shenghan stepped in. The office was still the same. "Doctor Zhao, it's a pleasure." He noted the smell in the air; distinctly less sterile, he decided.
The doctor lit a cigarette to clear the air. "Sorry to keep you waiting like that." A moment of embarassed silence. "So what brings you here?"
Shenghan withdrew a cash envelope from a messenger bag, and a bottle of baby blue pills. "With compliments. These are the latest from America. They should help with your husband's... performance."
A small giggle, a flirtatious glance. Delicate hands encircled the bottle and envelope. "Thanks."
Shenghan inhaled the thick odor of lovemaking, and breathed an inward sigh of the relief. When Doctor Zhao's husband, some obese party functionary, had first encountered performance issues, she'd attempted to make Shenghan responsible for solving them. Good to know she's found someone else, he thought.
The Doctor counted the money with practiced fingers. "Oh, it's too much. Far too much. How could you--"
"Can it. You have a very important patient here, and you've taken good care of him." Shenghan did the mental tally again. Twenty thousand for the next month's long-term care fees, five for the doctor. "Just make sure he isn't disturbed for the next few weeks."
The Doctor nodded. "Got it. Anything else I should know?"
Shenghan looked out the window, then towards another closed door marked PATIENT ROOM NUMBER 1. "No."
From behind, the door crashed open. Shenghan turned around into a slap. The hand felt familiar. So did the voice.
"You!"
A blur: the security guard wrestling with an attractive lady in a black sweater, the male nurse rushing back down the hall.
"Let me go!"
Lines of sight: Shenghan to the angry woman, the angry woman to Doctor Zhao, Doctor Zhao to the security guard, the security guard to the needle in Nurse Cao's hands.
Shenghan looked at the women, moved the guards hands off her shoulders. "Miss, he's not here. He's dead. We sent you the ashes."
"Liar! This hospital showed me a photo of the body, but it wasn't him. And now you're here, paying everyone off like the low-life you are."
A photo of three fingers and a jawbone? Shenghan turned to Doctor Zhao, who shrugged. "Miss, look, I'm sorry, but your husband is undoubtedly dead. We're certain of it--"
Nurse Cao jammed something into the woman's neck. She slumped. Shenghan caught her. Gasps--what the fucks--puzzled glances--then a single voice ringing out to claim credit for the novocaine.
Shenghan leaned in close, his breath blowing flakes of ash off the end of Doctor Zhao's cigarette. "You guys sent her a picture?"
"Y-yes. We felt it would be more convincing--"
"Come on. This isn't her father or brother we're talking about. This is her fiance, who she slept with every night. Don't you think she'd have a better idea of some hidden mole on his butt cheeks than we would?"
Shenghan stared, cold as the arctic winter, at the grouping. Nervous glances reflecting off the faces. Then he shook his head. "I'll drive her back home." Then, with sarcasm: "Feel free to send an invoice for the injection."
Nurse Cao disappeared and reappeared with a wheelchair. Shenghan sat the woman into it and left without a backward glance. Behind him, the security guard resumed reading the softcore magazine.
To everyone who's just checking in--I'd advise you reread the last part of the 2001 storyline and the 2023 storylines, as I changed the, a little. (The discussion starts from page 2 of this thread). Thanks!
Shenghan crinkled his nose at the smell of sterility, eyeballed the hospital hall. One security guard at a wraparound desk, busy flipping through a Hong Kong softcore rag under a sign that read "Long-term Care Ward". Shenghan moved silent, appeared before the guard before he knew what was going on. A red-faced glance upward, fumbling the porno into a pile of papers under the desk, followed by a phrase, too quick. "Is there anything I can do for you?"
Shenghan tapped a square card the guard had knocked askew that read DOCTOR ZHAO MEIREN. "Can I see the doctor?"
The guard's head was fat. He shook it. "Can't. Busy."
Shenghan noted the other card on the table, one NURSE CAO YIQIE, then walked to a crack in the door. The guard shrugged, resumed his surreptitious reading of the erotica. Through the door, Shenghan could faintly hear grunts and the creak of a hospital bed. No wonder the guard was reading the softcore rag, he thought. The guy had a free audio track to go with the book. Shenghan shook accumulated snow off his shoulders, sat down by the chair, and waited.
Ten minutes later, a strikingly handsome male nurse walked out of the room, adjusting his gloves and hairnet. He saw Shenghan, turned, and yelled into the room. "Doctor Zhao, there's a visitor!"
Rustles, then a rail-thin, thirtysomething doctor appeared, hurriedly buttoning up a white lab coat. "Zh--Zhang Shenghan. Of course, do come in."
Shenghan stepped in. The office was still the same. "Doctor Zhao, it's a pleasure." He noted the smell in the air; distinctly less sterile, he decided.
The doctor lit a cigarette to clear the air. "Sorry to keep you waiting like that." A moment of embarassed silence. "So what brings you here?"
Shenghan withdrew a cash envelope from a messenger bag, and a bottle of baby blue pills. "With compliments. These are the latest from America. They should help with your husband's... performance."
A small giggle, a flirtatious glance. Delicate hands encircled the bottle and envelope. "Thanks."
Shenghan inhaled the thick odor of lovemaking, and breathed an inward sigh of the relief. When Doctor Zhao's husband, some obese party functionary, had first encountered performance issues, she'd attempted to make Shenghan responsible for solving them. Good to know she's found someone else, he thought.
The Doctor counted the money with practiced fingers. "Oh, it's too much. Far too much. How could you--"
"Can it. You have a very important patient here, and you've taken good care of him." Shenghan did the mental tally again. Twenty thousand for the next month's long-term care fees, five for the doctor. "Just make sure he isn't disturbed for the next few weeks."
The Doctor nodded. "Got it. Anything else I should know?"
Shenghan looked out the window, then towards another closed door marked PATIENT ROOM NUMBER 1. "No."
From behind, the door crashed open. Shenghan turned around into a slap. The hand felt familiar. So did the voice.
"You!"
A blur: the security guard wrestling with an attractive lady in a black sweater, the male nurse rushing back down the hall.
"Let me go!"
Lines of sight: Shenghan to the angry woman, the angry woman to Doctor Zhao, Doctor Zhao to the security guard, the security guard to the needle in Nurse Cao's hands.
Shenghan looked at the women, moved the guards hands off her shoulders. "Miss, he's not here. He's dead. We sent you the ashes."
"Liar! This hospital showed me a photo of the body, but it wasn't him. And now you're here, paying everyone off like the low-life you are."
A photo of three fingers and a jawbone? Shenghan turned to Doctor Zhao, who shrugged. "Miss, look, I'm sorry, but your husband is undoubtedly dead. We're certain of it--"
Nurse Cao jammed something into the woman's neck. She slumped. Shenghan caught her. Gasps--what the fucks--puzzled glances--then a single voice ringing out to claim credit for the novocaine.
Shenghan leaned in close, his breath blowing flakes of ash off the end of Doctor Zhao's cigarette. "You guys sent her a picture?"
"Y-yes. We felt it would be more convincing--"
"Come on. This isn't her father or brother we're talking about. This is her fiance, who she slept with every night. Don't you think she'd have a better idea of some hidden mole on his butt cheeks than we would?"
Shenghan stared, cold as the arctic winter, at the grouping. Nervous glances reflecting off the faces. Then he shook his head. "I'll drive her back home." Then, with sarcasm: "Feel free to send an invoice for the injection."
Nurse Cao disappeared and reappeared with a wheelchair. Shenghan sat the woman into it and left without a backward glance. Behind him, the security guard resumed reading the softcore magazine.
To everyone who's just checking in--I'd advise you reread the last part of the 2001 storyline and the 2023 storylines, as I changed the, a little. (The discussion starts from page 2 of this thread). Thanks!
Sometime in 2008
I first met Zhang Shenghan at the wedding between Patricia Kwok and her second fiance. I remember it like a movie, and--were it one--I would have been a bit player to advance the plot. There were plenty of cameras on hand, mainly because a flock of migratory hacks had landed a week ahead of the Olympic Torch, and Patricia had eloped from her first fiance in favor of a tall, lanky English diplomat. If it bleeds, it leads--and nothing bleeds like a broken heart.
Even though it was nearing May in Hong Kong, the weather felt cool, a Venetian breeze lapping at my freshly shaven face. We stood under these white outdoor tents laden with champagne and chocolate-covered fruit, waiting for the music to start. Some Apple Daily reporter did his best impersonation of a whirling dervish, his camera trying to capture three hundred and sixty degrees of excess. I hoped I didn't stand out. My tuxedo was a rental, and there was the small issue of a briefcase handcuffed to my left wrist. "Not your right," Anson, the bespectacled secretary to Patricia's widowed mother, had told me. "You want to be able to shake hands with guys twice your age as naturally as any other young man. You want to be forgettable."
Utterly forgettable, because being remembered was not my job that day. "Your job is to deliver the contents of the briefcase--several contracts--to Patricia, and have her sign them our special Board meeting can begin." My phone buzzed. Anson, ever helpful, had sent me a photo of Patty Kwok. The picture included the blue contact lenses she got the prior month.
Elton and James, her two brothers, were entertaining the other directors on the nominal 58th floor, empty because none of the other numerology-obsessed directors wanted their offices there. (If you didn't skip over the 4th, 13th, 14th, 24th, and 40th to 49th floors, that would be the 44th floor of the building.) Elton and James didn't care about those numbers. They were the new generation--one Kellogg, one Fuqua--and the only numbers they cared about were either locked in a safe thirty meters underneath the Bank of China building, or chained to my wrist.
They ranged from 00000001 to 99000000, and denoted the relative ownership of the Class B shares of one of the largest and most lucrative conglomerates south of Victoria Harbor. There were about one hundred million of them in total.
What are Class B shares, you might ask?
Let's say that you've devoted your life to setting up an enterprise for the big time, like elder Kwok did. Somewhere over the horizon, massed like the Persians at the Dardanelles, are the waves of hot money, just itching to find a way into every single vaguely profitable, quarter-baked idea being pitched by someone who isn't White and Protestant. They call this "seeking hidden returns in emerging markets". The investment bankers across the table from you know this, and that's why, under their Hermes and fitted Armani, they're grinning like John Kerry's wife on Botox.
1997 hasn't happened yet, the mainland and the WTO haven't finished their little dance yet, so you're the only fucking game in town. Of course, the Nikkei's still hurting, but really, all that did was keep those poor Nipponese banks benched on the sidelines. And just in case the trust fund kiddies ever wised up and wondered where all their money was going, they even came up with a nice, sanitized name for you--"Asia ex-Japan". "Opportunity, ex-the-one-time-we-got-it-wrong," land of hopes and dreams, the Wild Wild East.
But back to you. You're seasoned, you're a pro. You know dumb money when you see it, no matter what language it speaks. You'll take their checks, easy, no problem.
But there's one catch. With normal equity, they can buy control. Take over enough of your public shares, and you might end up having to kiss asses every single month in board meetings. That's intolerable. Not only would that be annoying, but they'll have their hands on your company. Your baby. Your raison d'etre, your magnum fucking opus. No way.
You're just about to tell off the investment bankers at the other end of the table when one of them, a little cleverer than the rest, says the magic words. Class B. Create Class B shares with ten times the voting power of Class A shares, restrict the buying list to yourself, and voila, you can get the best of both worlds. All that gweilo captial, going straight into your pocket, but you'll retain 85% of the voting power in your firm.
So you go ahead and sign on the dotted line. It's the first time you've signed your name in English. You phone your loyal secretary Anson, ask him if he can come up for a moment, and when he comes out, he becomes the owner of a cool million Class B shares. You finish giving yourself the other ninety-nine million, and then you die.
For most people, death is a round, firm, period, but if you're rich, death becomes a squirrely semicolon, followed by the endless terms that make up a professionally drafted will. If you're rich, and your relatives are also selfish assholes, death becomes a comma, running on and on until one side can no longer pay its legal bills.
Old Man Kwok left behind a question mark. Seven businesses--two hotels; a real estate developer; a bankrupt brokerage house; a shipping line; a chemicals company; a media conglomerate. Three descendants--two legitimate, ungrateful, sons who split the yacht and the apartment--and one illegitimate, beloved, daughter to whom he bequath his actual legacy. Cue a collective 'hak diu' through the Hong Kong grapevine, and panicked phone calls over the hotline from Governor's House to Zhongnanhai.
It was the media chunk Party Central wanted. Elton and James could keep the other pieces. The capos had passed a new dictate: if you wrote in Chinese, you could write whatever you wanted, but at the end of the day, your editors had to belong to the Party.
The first attempt was a fiasco. Intrusions into a Skadden Arps database failed to locate all the electronic copies of the will. On top of that, our 'window washer' slipped off the fog-slicked seventeenth floor of the Cheung Kong building, impaling himself on a streetlight. In spite of our efforts, Patricia got her Class B shares.
Then we played nice, and got another strike. Six weeks before the wedding, the Bank of China, through a Cayman Islands intermediary, approached Patty Kwok with close to two billion dollars. She gave them the finger, then proudly announced she would give the media assets to her English diplomat fiance. Zhongnanhai was not amused.
Upper management then decided to use the Luca Brasi approach. First, the Bank of China lowered its offer by eighty percent, to just over four hundred million. The middlemen were replaced with Patty's own two brothers. They would take the four hundred million, buy the company at the ridiculously low price from their sister, and then slice the Kwok empire into pieces for public consumption at fair market value. Then, the Bank of China would offer close to a billion for just the media conglomerate--which Elton and James would bundle with the bankrupt investment brokerage to further discourage competing bids.
Finally, yours truly would kindly inform Patty that either her signature--or her brains--would be layered on the dotted-line contracts in my briefcase. I was going to do it before her husband could have a say in the decision.
One more minor detail: Patricia was a nympho on the level of Taylor Swift. The gun to her head was a fourteen-year-old Filipino boy the triad girls affectionately dubbed Ma Gor, or "Horse Brother". The age of consent in Hong Kong was sixteen, and our asset was willing to testify.
I ducked past a throng of cheongsam-clad office ladies, glanced at the photos on my phone. In the first, Patty and her boy toy were still clothed. By the fifth, she was riding cowgirl. I grinned. Then a warm hand on my shoulder turned me around.
"Your racehorse won't make it." A smiling gentleman, weight resting casually on one foot, cologne and vermouth and whiskey on his breath, an old-fashioned gold pen in his left hand. His right let go of my shoulder and extended into a handshake.
"Zhang Shenghan. You must be the gambler with the lucky streak."
I nodded, mumbling something. Cold sweat slicked my palm. Shenghan felt it on his hand, grinned, then went on. "But your luck's run out. Listen, kid, they're fishing him out of Victoria Harbor right now. Unfortunately for you, that means he can't run at the races next month."
Another sip of the Manhattan. I sat, numb.
"The house won't be happy with the bets you've made. But I can fix that for you, if you put me on the line with the brothers and your man inside."
I put him on the line to Anson. Shenghan kept one hand on my shoulder while he spoke. "The horse drowned, but I made a tape of the jockey having an accident with him at the docks... How much? I want the chemicals firm at the four hundred million valuation... deal." Then he hung up and pressed the pen into the USB port. "The movie should be on your phone. You've got thirty minutes until they exchange vows. Now go give Patricia Kwok her Oscar for Best Actress."
Patricia Kwok wound up signing over the shares for only two hundred million dollars.
I first met Zhang Shenghan at the wedding between Patricia Kwok and her second fiance. I remember it like a movie, and--were it one--I would have been a bit player to advance the plot. There were plenty of cameras on hand, mainly because a flock of migratory hacks had landed a week ahead of the Olympic Torch, and Patricia had eloped from her first fiance in favor of a tall, lanky English diplomat. If it bleeds, it leads--and nothing bleeds like a broken heart.
Even though it was nearing May in Hong Kong, the weather felt cool, a Venetian breeze lapping at my freshly shaven face. We stood under these white outdoor tents laden with champagne and chocolate-covered fruit, waiting for the music to start. Some Apple Daily reporter did his best impersonation of a whirling dervish, his camera trying to capture three hundred and sixty degrees of excess. I hoped I didn't stand out. My tuxedo was a rental, and there was the small issue of a briefcase handcuffed to my left wrist. "Not your right," Anson, the bespectacled secretary to Patricia's widowed mother, had told me. "You want to be able to shake hands with guys twice your age as naturally as any other young man. You want to be forgettable."
Utterly forgettable, because being remembered was not my job that day. "Your job is to deliver the contents of the briefcase--several contracts--to Patricia, and have her sign them our special Board meeting can begin." My phone buzzed. Anson, ever helpful, had sent me a photo of Patty Kwok. The picture included the blue contact lenses she got the prior month.
Elton and James, her two brothers, were entertaining the other directors on the nominal 58th floor, empty because none of the other numerology-obsessed directors wanted their offices there. (If you didn't skip over the 4th, 13th, 14th, 24th, and 40th to 49th floors, that would be the 44th floor of the building.) Elton and James didn't care about those numbers. They were the new generation--one Kellogg, one Fuqua--and the only numbers they cared about were either locked in a safe thirty meters underneath the Bank of China building, or chained to my wrist.
They ranged from 00000001 to 99000000, and denoted the relative ownership of the Class B shares of one of the largest and most lucrative conglomerates south of Victoria Harbor. There were about one hundred million of them in total.
What are Class B shares, you might ask?
Let's say that you've devoted your life to setting up an enterprise for the big time, like elder Kwok did. Somewhere over the horizon, massed like the Persians at the Dardanelles, are the waves of hot money, just itching to find a way into every single vaguely profitable, quarter-baked idea being pitched by someone who isn't White and Protestant. They call this "seeking hidden returns in emerging markets". The investment bankers across the table from you know this, and that's why, under their Hermes and fitted Armani, they're grinning like John Kerry's wife on Botox.
1997 hasn't happened yet, the mainland and the WTO haven't finished their little dance yet, so you're the only fucking game in town. Of course, the Nikkei's still hurting, but really, all that did was keep those poor Nipponese banks benched on the sidelines. And just in case the trust fund kiddies ever wised up and wondered where all their money was going, they even came up with a nice, sanitized name for you--"Asia ex-Japan". "Opportunity, ex-the-one-time-we-got-it-wrong," land of hopes and dreams, the Wild Wild East.
But back to you. You're seasoned, you're a pro. You know dumb money when you see it, no matter what language it speaks. You'll take their checks, easy, no problem.
But there's one catch. With normal equity, they can buy control. Take over enough of your public shares, and you might end up having to kiss asses every single month in board meetings. That's intolerable. Not only would that be annoying, but they'll have their hands on your company. Your baby. Your raison d'etre, your magnum fucking opus. No way.
You're just about to tell off the investment bankers at the other end of the table when one of them, a little cleverer than the rest, says the magic words. Class B. Create Class B shares with ten times the voting power of Class A shares, restrict the buying list to yourself, and voila, you can get the best of both worlds. All that gweilo captial, going straight into your pocket, but you'll retain 85% of the voting power in your firm.
So you go ahead and sign on the dotted line. It's the first time you've signed your name in English. You phone your loyal secretary Anson, ask him if he can come up for a moment, and when he comes out, he becomes the owner of a cool million Class B shares. You finish giving yourself the other ninety-nine million, and then you die.
For most people, death is a round, firm, period, but if you're rich, death becomes a squirrely semicolon, followed by the endless terms that make up a professionally drafted will. If you're rich, and your relatives are also selfish assholes, death becomes a comma, running on and on until one side can no longer pay its legal bills.
Old Man Kwok left behind a question mark. Seven businesses--two hotels; a real estate developer; a bankrupt brokerage house; a shipping line; a chemicals company; a media conglomerate. Three descendants--two legitimate, ungrateful, sons who split the yacht and the apartment--and one illegitimate, beloved, daughter to whom he bequath his actual legacy. Cue a collective 'hak diu' through the Hong Kong grapevine, and panicked phone calls over the hotline from Governor's House to Zhongnanhai.
It was the media chunk Party Central wanted. Elton and James could keep the other pieces. The capos had passed a new dictate: if you wrote in Chinese, you could write whatever you wanted, but at the end of the day, your editors had to belong to the Party.
The first attempt was a fiasco. Intrusions into a Skadden Arps database failed to locate all the electronic copies of the will. On top of that, our 'window washer' slipped off the fog-slicked seventeenth floor of the Cheung Kong building, impaling himself on a streetlight. In spite of our efforts, Patricia got her Class B shares.
Then we played nice, and got another strike. Six weeks before the wedding, the Bank of China, through a Cayman Islands intermediary, approached Patty Kwok with close to two billion dollars. She gave them the finger, then proudly announced she would give the media assets to her English diplomat fiance. Zhongnanhai was not amused.
Upper management then decided to use the Luca Brasi approach. First, the Bank of China lowered its offer by eighty percent, to just over four hundred million. The middlemen were replaced with Patty's own two brothers. They would take the four hundred million, buy the company at the ridiculously low price from their sister, and then slice the Kwok empire into pieces for public consumption at fair market value. Then, the Bank of China would offer close to a billion for just the media conglomerate--which Elton and James would bundle with the bankrupt investment brokerage to further discourage competing bids.
Finally, yours truly would kindly inform Patty that either her signature--or her brains--would be layered on the dotted-line contracts in my briefcase. I was going to do it before her husband could have a say in the decision.
One more minor detail: Patricia was a nympho on the level of Taylor Swift. The gun to her head was a fourteen-year-old Filipino boy the triad girls affectionately dubbed Ma Gor, or "Horse Brother". The age of consent in Hong Kong was sixteen, and our asset was willing to testify.
I ducked past a throng of cheongsam-clad office ladies, glanced at the photos on my phone. In the first, Patty and her boy toy were still clothed. By the fifth, she was riding cowgirl. I grinned. Then a warm hand on my shoulder turned me around.
"Your racehorse won't make it." A smiling gentleman, weight resting casually on one foot, cologne and vermouth and whiskey on his breath, an old-fashioned gold pen in his left hand. His right let go of my shoulder and extended into a handshake.
"Zhang Shenghan. You must be the gambler with the lucky streak."
I nodded, mumbling something. Cold sweat slicked my palm. Shenghan felt it on his hand, grinned, then went on. "But your luck's run out. Listen, kid, they're fishing him out of Victoria Harbor right now. Unfortunately for you, that means he can't run at the races next month."
Another sip of the Manhattan. I sat, numb.
"The house won't be happy with the bets you've made. But I can fix that for you, if you put me on the line with the brothers and your man inside."
I put him on the line to Anson. Shenghan kept one hand on my shoulder while he spoke. "The horse drowned, but I made a tape of the jockey having an accident with him at the docks... How much? I want the chemicals firm at the four hundred million valuation... deal." Then he hung up and pressed the pen into the USB port. "The movie should be on your phone. You've got thirty minutes until they exchange vows. Now go give Patricia Kwok her Oscar for Best Actress."
Patricia Kwok wound up signing over the shares for only two hundred million dollars.
Captain Kang Zongqi gasped, strings of sticky, salty spit mixing with the warm sand under his right cheek. Two hours ago, Colonel Wu Taifu had ordered him to throw what food and water he could gather from the ejection pod into a waterproof bag, tie it to his leg, and swim for the island.
A muscle cramp rippled through his right leg. He'd gotten it sixty meters from the island; somehow, the current carried him onto a beach jutting from a flat shelf of rocks. From somewhere behind his left temple, a dull throb joined the pain in his leg. With a sense of trepidation, he closed his right eye, wincing as his vision blurred, a thick, dim halo shrouding his field of view. Retinal bleeding. Zongqi remembered the manuals now. If he didn't get treatment in another twenty hours, he'd lose his left eye. Even if he did, he knew it would be slim odds that he could ever fly again. And if he couldn't fly...
Tears rose. "Not now," Zongqi muttered. Tears would just make the pain worse, inflame the wound ticking underneath the left side of his world.
The radio chirped. "Captain Kang, sitrep request, over."
Kang lifted his head, shaking free the sand lodged in his close-cropped hair. "Colonel Wu, this is Captain Kang. Have reached main island. Retained thirty percent of original supplies."
"Your eyes?"
"Left eye deteriorating. Right eye fully functional."
A brief pause, then Colonel Wu said, "We're still working on a rescue plan. In the meantime, find some shelter and running water. Try to avoid drawing the attention of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces. Get me an inventory list in ten minutes."
Zongqi rolled over, unlatching his belt and flight harness, then untied the waterproof bag and removed his helmet. He sat up and laid the belt, harness, bag, and helmet on the sand beside him, like a panhandler spreading his wares atop one of Beijing's pedestrian overpasses.
The knife was easy to identify. Zongqi undid the clip that held it to his belt, then withdrew the black matte blade from a hard plastic sheath, testing the edge. Mindful of the salt air, he resheathed it, set it down on a nearby rock.
Next came the hard black plastic of a semi-automatic pistol, its barrel no wider than the dilated pupils of an alley cat. Zongqi looked up at the horizon, saw a pair of nine-thousand-ton Japanese destroyers making loops. He doubted the gun would be of much use against them, that is, if the seawater had not permanently corroded the action already.
The only other item of note attached to his belt was a palm-sized GPS tablet. Zongqi threw it aside--he wouldn't be making any long treks, and he doubted high command needed his exact coordinates on an island barely one-tenth the size of downtown Beijing.
On his flight harness, two magazines of 5.8x21mm rounds, a silvery autoinjector filled with penicillin, and a deep red one with eight doses of morphine--"the cyanide substitute", his wingman had called it. Banter that had seemed harmless now made his spine run cold. Zongqi checked the indicator strips for green, then gingerly set them on the rock beside the knife, careful not to break the thin plastic syringes inside.
The final two items from his harness were a thumb-sized butane lighter and a half-crumpled packet of Hongtashan filters. They smelled of a mix of ocean water and sweet tobacco that reminded Zongqi of a salted caramel from Dairy Queen. Zongqi placed them next to the bullets.
Finally came a four-pack of water and three brick-sized zein packages, each filled with a three thousand two hundred calories of food, laxatives, a pack of amphetamine-laced chewing gum, chlorazine tablets, and a flameless ration heater. The plastic water bottles felt rough in his hands; upon closer inspection, Zongqi found salt crusting the rims of the caps. He drank from one. The water, thankfully, was still potable.
Holding the bottle with both his hands, Zongqi turned his right eye to the island around him. Waves crashing on rocks. Goats. A forested mountain rose from the beach, forming a jagged, but lush, ridgeline against the blue sky. Were it not for the jet contrails and the pain behind my temple, I could fool myself into believing this was a vacation, Zongqi thought.
His helmet, slightly scorched from the explosive ejection bolts that had blasted the canopy open, stared at him from a rock. Zongqi stared back. Gritting his teeth, he gathered up his kit and set out into the trees.
Colonel Wu Taifu rubbed his temples. Hearing the words of the Japanese side from the innocent, bubbly voice of the press officer-cum-translator lent an air of absurdity to the conversation. But no matter how nice she sounded, the message was clear. The Japanese side would not budge.
"No. Please inform us of his emergency transponder frequency, and we will recover your pilot on your behalf."
The air in the conference room had grown stale. Taifu rose from his seat to push open a window, caught an intense stare from the video screen, thought the less of it.
The team had now grown to six. Immediately to the right of Taifu, hunched over a laptop, was the air division commander, General Liang. Two uniforms sat on the other side--one wrapped around the slim, angelic-looking press officer, curly black hair running down her shoulders, far past regulation length. She had a cute button nose, big brown eyes, and faint freckles. Her name read Ma Yuanwei, and her shoulderboards indicated an underage captain. At least she had a decent grasp of how things would look to the public, Taifu thought, which was not always his experience in the Chinese military. The other held an overfed, sour-looking, major general of political affairs, who had come on board as the ranking officer, but now found himself grossly overmatched by the power couple staring back from the Beijing end of the video link.
The video screen was split in two. One side was empty--five minutes before it had held a clean-shaven, crisp-looking staff colonel, who had spoken to the Nanjing team as if they were a group of lost out-of-town relatives.
The other side gave Taifu chills in his gut.
When Vice Premier Zhang Shenghan had first signed on, the screen had shown an avatar, a color photo against a white background likely taken when Shenghan had first joined the Party over twenty years ago. A slightly plump, friendly face had stared out on the Nanjing team, dispensing words clothed in a metallic, yet strangely soothing baritone.
Then the background and face came alive, and Zhang Shenghan aged twenty years before their eyes. Some features had not changed, like the sleek, blood-red tie hanging below a prominent Adam's apple, both of which bobbed as one unit when Shenghan took a sip from an ever-present teacup, or the carefully sculpted wave of jet-black hair above a prominent forehead. But his face had grown a mask of impassivity, and thinned from cherubic to Mephistopholean. And what scared Taifu the most were Shenghan's eyes, which looked dead, yet danced about as if they were alive of their own accord.
The baritone sounded again. "If the Japanese side is unwilling to allow Chinese rescue operations, tell him we'll push a story across all of our media assets that the Japanese side is attempting to use the death by starvation of Captain Kang Zongqi as a bargaining chip to force Chinese recognition of their territorial claims."
The press officer translated. Angry curses replied from the Japanese side, which the press officer dropped from her Chinese translation. "The Japanese side wishes to inform the Chinese side that any repeat of the managed rioting and property damage in 2012 and 2016 will be treated as a hostile act, and Japan will reserve the right to respond with financial and trade sanctions on Chinese exports to Japan."
Shenghan responded, a hint of ice drifting through his voice like cool menthol through a mint julep. "Inform the Japanese that 2016 was not managed rioting, but restrained rioting--or have they forgotten the policemen in Jinan who burned to death protecting a Japanese department store?" Shenghan paused, sipped tea. "If the Japanese side expects the Chinese side to ensure the safety of their overseas property and citizens, they should refrain from any official reaction to the spontaneous, legitimate, and wholly patriotic actions of Chinese citizens."
Again, the press angel translated Shenghan's voice. The Japanese minister on the other end dropped his voice low, almost to a growl. "The Japanese side reserves the right to take any and all measures to guarantee the safety of Japanese citizens, the sovereignty of the Chinese government over Chinese soil notwithstanding."
The hint of ice disappeared, replaced by the original, soothing baritone. "The Chinese side will treat any violation of its sovereignty as a formal casus belli, with no limit on retaliatory measures." A wry smile danced across Shenghan's face. "Inform the Japanese minister that this round of conversations was productive, but unfortunately now must come to an end."
Taifu clicked off the talkbox. At that moment, the staff colonel reappeared with a thick dossier. "I have the answer you requested, Vice-Premier. The General Staff can support your proposed course of action. It is the opinion of the General Staff that the China can--"
Shenghan spoke again. "Keep it to yourself for now. I'm just glad to know that if the Japanese do anything funny, we'll be ready. And--we're going to push the starvation story." Another sip of tea. "Colonel Wu, General Liang, how's the rescue plan coming?"
General Liang looked up. He had not noticed Shenghan's shift from an avatar to a live feed, and tried not to jump up in his seat. "Vice-Premier Zhang, we are basically finished. The destroyer Yinchuan will launch a special forces team from approximately 150km southeast of the disputed islands via two inflatable speedboats. Once the speedboats close within 50km of the islands, we will openly prep and scramble four regiments of fighter and strike aircraft at select Nanjing MR airbases. To the pilots, it will resemble a standard alert drill, except with live stand-off weapons loaded, and on a much larger scale. The Americans will likely see the planes taking off via SIGINT and ELINT, and prepare a response."
The staff colonel chimed in, voice eager. "Vice-Premier, four regiments is approximately one hundred and sixty aircraft."
Shenghan nodded. "If the Americans don't catch that, they're not worth their golden toilet seats. But--first, how does that help the rescue team, and second, what is the risk of accidental escalation?"
Taifu spoke. "The answer your second question--our pilots will be instructed to cruise north along the Chinese coast, then east for only two hundred kilometers or so, then back south--a slim triangle, entirely over the Chinese EEZ. However, as they cruise northward and then back home, they will put Japanese airbases from Okinawa to Kyushu at risk of being hit with stand-off weapons with less than twenty minutes' warning, which, in our estimation, will draw Japanese assets away from the islands, including the two destroyers currently patrolling there."
"Why would they pull them off?"
"Because if they don't get eyes on the strike grouping at a set distance from the Home Islands with whatever they already have in the water, they would have to put nearly all their AWACS and interceptors in the air across a broad swath of the Honshu, Kyushu, and Okinawa, and that would be painfully expensive, and prohibitively slow."
Shenghan nodded. "So be it. General Liang, when will we execute this plan?"
"At 0700 tomorrow."
"Good. I'm going to clear the story for publication in the next hour, and hold a press conference after that. We want the Japanese to think we don't have any intention of sneaking Captain Kang out, that we're only going to apply some economic pressure and saber-rattling. This rescue plan meshes neatly with that approach. Thank you all for your time."
Shenghan smiled. It was not a smile that made Colonel Wu Taifu comfortable. And with that, the face blended into the friendly, cherubic avatar from twenty-two years ago.
A muscle cramp rippled through his right leg. He'd gotten it sixty meters from the island; somehow, the current carried him onto a beach jutting from a flat shelf of rocks. From somewhere behind his left temple, a dull throb joined the pain in his leg. With a sense of trepidation, he closed his right eye, wincing as his vision blurred, a thick, dim halo shrouding his field of view. Retinal bleeding. Zongqi remembered the manuals now. If he didn't get treatment in another twenty hours, he'd lose his left eye. Even if he did, he knew it would be slim odds that he could ever fly again. And if he couldn't fly...
Tears rose. "Not now," Zongqi muttered. Tears would just make the pain worse, inflame the wound ticking underneath the left side of his world.
The radio chirped. "Captain Kang, sitrep request, over."
Kang lifted his head, shaking free the sand lodged in his close-cropped hair. "Colonel Wu, this is Captain Kang. Have reached main island. Retained thirty percent of original supplies."
"Your eyes?"
"Left eye deteriorating. Right eye fully functional."
A brief pause, then Colonel Wu said, "We're still working on a rescue plan. In the meantime, find some shelter and running water. Try to avoid drawing the attention of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces. Get me an inventory list in ten minutes."
Zongqi rolled over, unlatching his belt and flight harness, then untied the waterproof bag and removed his helmet. He sat up and laid the belt, harness, bag, and helmet on the sand beside him, like a panhandler spreading his wares atop one of Beijing's pedestrian overpasses.
The knife was easy to identify. Zongqi undid the clip that held it to his belt, then withdrew the black matte blade from a hard plastic sheath, testing the edge. Mindful of the salt air, he resheathed it, set it down on a nearby rock.
Next came the hard black plastic of a semi-automatic pistol, its barrel no wider than the dilated pupils of an alley cat. Zongqi looked up at the horizon, saw a pair of nine-thousand-ton Japanese destroyers making loops. He doubted the gun would be of much use against them, that is, if the seawater had not permanently corroded the action already.
The only other item of note attached to his belt was a palm-sized GPS tablet. Zongqi threw it aside--he wouldn't be making any long treks, and he doubted high command needed his exact coordinates on an island barely one-tenth the size of downtown Beijing.
On his flight harness, two magazines of 5.8x21mm rounds, a silvery autoinjector filled with penicillin, and a deep red one with eight doses of morphine--"the cyanide substitute", his wingman had called it. Banter that had seemed harmless now made his spine run cold. Zongqi checked the indicator strips for green, then gingerly set them on the rock beside the knife, careful not to break the thin plastic syringes inside.
The final two items from his harness were a thumb-sized butane lighter and a half-crumpled packet of Hongtashan filters. They smelled of a mix of ocean water and sweet tobacco that reminded Zongqi of a salted caramel from Dairy Queen. Zongqi placed them next to the bullets.
Finally came a four-pack of water and three brick-sized zein packages, each filled with a three thousand two hundred calories of food, laxatives, a pack of amphetamine-laced chewing gum, chlorazine tablets, and a flameless ration heater. The plastic water bottles felt rough in his hands; upon closer inspection, Zongqi found salt crusting the rims of the caps. He drank from one. The water, thankfully, was still potable.
Holding the bottle with both his hands, Zongqi turned his right eye to the island around him. Waves crashing on rocks. Goats. A forested mountain rose from the beach, forming a jagged, but lush, ridgeline against the blue sky. Were it not for the jet contrails and the pain behind my temple, I could fool myself into believing this was a vacation, Zongqi thought.
His helmet, slightly scorched from the explosive ejection bolts that had blasted the canopy open, stared at him from a rock. Zongqi stared back. Gritting his teeth, he gathered up his kit and set out into the trees.
Colonel Wu Taifu rubbed his temples. Hearing the words of the Japanese side from the innocent, bubbly voice of the press officer-cum-translator lent an air of absurdity to the conversation. But no matter how nice she sounded, the message was clear. The Japanese side would not budge.
"No. Please inform us of his emergency transponder frequency, and we will recover your pilot on your behalf."
The air in the conference room had grown stale. Taifu rose from his seat to push open a window, caught an intense stare from the video screen, thought the less of it.
The team had now grown to six. Immediately to the right of Taifu, hunched over a laptop, was the air division commander, General Liang. Two uniforms sat on the other side--one wrapped around the slim, angelic-looking press officer, curly black hair running down her shoulders, far past regulation length. She had a cute button nose, big brown eyes, and faint freckles. Her name read Ma Yuanwei, and her shoulderboards indicated an underage captain. At least she had a decent grasp of how things would look to the public, Taifu thought, which was not always his experience in the Chinese military. The other held an overfed, sour-looking, major general of political affairs, who had come on board as the ranking officer, but now found himself grossly overmatched by the power couple staring back from the Beijing end of the video link.
The video screen was split in two. One side was empty--five minutes before it had held a clean-shaven, crisp-looking staff colonel, who had spoken to the Nanjing team as if they were a group of lost out-of-town relatives.
The other side gave Taifu chills in his gut.
When Vice Premier Zhang Shenghan had first signed on, the screen had shown an avatar, a color photo against a white background likely taken when Shenghan had first joined the Party over twenty years ago. A slightly plump, friendly face had stared out on the Nanjing team, dispensing words clothed in a metallic, yet strangely soothing baritone.
Then the background and face came alive, and Zhang Shenghan aged twenty years before their eyes. Some features had not changed, like the sleek, blood-red tie hanging below a prominent Adam's apple, both of which bobbed as one unit when Shenghan took a sip from an ever-present teacup, or the carefully sculpted wave of jet-black hair above a prominent forehead. But his face had grown a mask of impassivity, and thinned from cherubic to Mephistopholean. And what scared Taifu the most were Shenghan's eyes, which looked dead, yet danced about as if they were alive of their own accord.
The baritone sounded again. "If the Japanese side is unwilling to allow Chinese rescue operations, tell him we'll push a story across all of our media assets that the Japanese side is attempting to use the death by starvation of Captain Kang Zongqi as a bargaining chip to force Chinese recognition of their territorial claims."
The press officer translated. Angry curses replied from the Japanese side, which the press officer dropped from her Chinese translation. "The Japanese side wishes to inform the Chinese side that any repeat of the managed rioting and property damage in 2012 and 2016 will be treated as a hostile act, and Japan will reserve the right to respond with financial and trade sanctions on Chinese exports to Japan."
Shenghan responded, a hint of ice drifting through his voice like cool menthol through a mint julep. "Inform the Japanese that 2016 was not managed rioting, but restrained rioting--or have they forgotten the policemen in Jinan who burned to death protecting a Japanese department store?" Shenghan paused, sipped tea. "If the Japanese side expects the Chinese side to ensure the safety of their overseas property and citizens, they should refrain from any official reaction to the spontaneous, legitimate, and wholly patriotic actions of Chinese citizens."
Again, the press angel translated Shenghan's voice. The Japanese minister on the other end dropped his voice low, almost to a growl. "The Japanese side reserves the right to take any and all measures to guarantee the safety of Japanese citizens, the sovereignty of the Chinese government over Chinese soil notwithstanding."
The hint of ice disappeared, replaced by the original, soothing baritone. "The Chinese side will treat any violation of its sovereignty as a formal casus belli, with no limit on retaliatory measures." A wry smile danced across Shenghan's face. "Inform the Japanese minister that this round of conversations was productive, but unfortunately now must come to an end."
Taifu clicked off the talkbox. At that moment, the staff colonel reappeared with a thick dossier. "I have the answer you requested, Vice-Premier. The General Staff can support your proposed course of action. It is the opinion of the General Staff that the China can--"
Shenghan spoke again. "Keep it to yourself for now. I'm just glad to know that if the Japanese do anything funny, we'll be ready. And--we're going to push the starvation story." Another sip of tea. "Colonel Wu, General Liang, how's the rescue plan coming?"
General Liang looked up. He had not noticed Shenghan's shift from an avatar to a live feed, and tried not to jump up in his seat. "Vice-Premier Zhang, we are basically finished. The destroyer Yinchuan will launch a special forces team from approximately 150km southeast of the disputed islands via two inflatable speedboats. Once the speedboats close within 50km of the islands, we will openly prep and scramble four regiments of fighter and strike aircraft at select Nanjing MR airbases. To the pilots, it will resemble a standard alert drill, except with live stand-off weapons loaded, and on a much larger scale. The Americans will likely see the planes taking off via SIGINT and ELINT, and prepare a response."
The staff colonel chimed in, voice eager. "Vice-Premier, four regiments is approximately one hundred and sixty aircraft."
Shenghan nodded. "If the Americans don't catch that, they're not worth their golden toilet seats. But--first, how does that help the rescue team, and second, what is the risk of accidental escalation?"
Taifu spoke. "The answer your second question--our pilots will be instructed to cruise north along the Chinese coast, then east for only two hundred kilometers or so, then back south--a slim triangle, entirely over the Chinese EEZ. However, as they cruise northward and then back home, they will put Japanese airbases from Okinawa to Kyushu at risk of being hit with stand-off weapons with less than twenty minutes' warning, which, in our estimation, will draw Japanese assets away from the islands, including the two destroyers currently patrolling there."
"Why would they pull them off?"
"Because if they don't get eyes on the strike grouping at a set distance from the Home Islands with whatever they already have in the water, they would have to put nearly all their AWACS and interceptors in the air across a broad swath of the Honshu, Kyushu, and Okinawa, and that would be painfully expensive, and prohibitively slow."
Shenghan nodded. "So be it. General Liang, when will we execute this plan?"
"At 0700 tomorrow."
"Good. I'm going to clear the story for publication in the next hour, and hold a press conference after that. We want the Japanese to think we don't have any intention of sneaking Captain Kang out, that we're only going to apply some economic pressure and saber-rattling. This rescue plan meshes neatly with that approach. Thank you all for your time."
Shenghan smiled. It was not a smile that made Colonel Wu Taifu comfortable. And with that, the face blended into the friendly, cherubic avatar from twenty-two years ago.
Sometime in 2011
Politics, as they say, is a cruel, jealous mistress. Maybe that's why Old Zhang was single. Not just single--he never made a move. Never ever, ever. Bad mission efficiency, I say, but he would always sit there, one eye on us, another on his phone, flipping through whatever work he had for the day.
Here he was, this hotshot forty-year-old cadre of vice-ministerial rank, with a resume longer than my--well, you get the idea--straddling a corner couch in some dark, strobe-lit Beijing nightclub, paying for everyone else's drinks while twentysomethings around him pissed away mommy and daddy's money trying to get laid. Sometime in the prior year, he'd traded his trademark Manhattans for cocktail glasses filled with ice water. Sure, sometimes a girl or two or three would crowd him, ask him what he did, try to get a rise out of the old man, but soon they'd grow tired of his monotonic, monosyllabic answers and leave.
He said he liked to hang out with us, that we made him feel young again. Once, as he was leaving the club and walking us to his black Audi, his Burberry trenchcoat flapping behind him like the wings of an enormous bat, I thought I caught him wiping away tears with one gabardine sleeve.
Then he met Persephone. It was one of those moments, you know? Something corny out of a Matthew McConaughey flick. One minute, Shenghan was sitting at our table, making love to his ice-water martini, the next, he was talking to Ms. Fang.
Talking.
To a girl.
With complete sentences.
I nearly dropped the scotch and advocaat I was bringing back from the bar.
We had just wrapped things up with Persephone that last Friday. I'd installed a keylogger into her laptop and swapped her cell for a hacked model. I was going to let her go that night, break it to her gently. Shenghan solved that problem for me.
Mr. Zhang stopped joining us at the club. A few months later, I caught him at a coffeeshop, holding her hand. She had a ring.
The old man and I never mentioned Persephone with each other, even though she was a newly important piece of his personal jigsaw puzzle, and a fading piece of mine. Instead, we busied ourselves with work. I was his bagman by that point, gathering dirt for Old Man Zhang on a dozen other people.
Then I got transferred to the Third Bureau, hunting people doing what I used to do. Takes a thief, as they say. My initial assignment was in Shenyang. It was there that I had another first: Zhang Shenghan and I would have to work with each other on an official basis. We pretended like we were friendly strangers instead of strange friends. It worked.
The firm was some research bureau with a prototype factory attached. They had trouble making high-performance turbine blades for the engines of fighter jets--more trouble than normal, and they thought something was up. All the bad news had drained their balance sheet, too, and Shenghan's equity fund had been brought in as a white knight. The old man told me that before he would open his purse, however, he "needed to figure what the fuck was going on out there."
For once, my official duties and side business coincided. Promotion and a payoff? Hell fuckin' yeah.
But life, as they say, is never that easy.
Politics, as they say, is a cruel, jealous mistress. Maybe that's why Old Zhang was single. Not just single--he never made a move. Never ever, ever. Bad mission efficiency, I say, but he would always sit there, one eye on us, another on his phone, flipping through whatever work he had for the day.
Here he was, this hotshot forty-year-old cadre of vice-ministerial rank, with a resume longer than my--well, you get the idea--straddling a corner couch in some dark, strobe-lit Beijing nightclub, paying for everyone else's drinks while twentysomethings around him pissed away mommy and daddy's money trying to get laid. Sometime in the prior year, he'd traded his trademark Manhattans for cocktail glasses filled with ice water. Sure, sometimes a girl or two or three would crowd him, ask him what he did, try to get a rise out of the old man, but soon they'd grow tired of his monotonic, monosyllabic answers and leave.
He said he liked to hang out with us, that we made him feel young again. Once, as he was leaving the club and walking us to his black Audi, his Burberry trenchcoat flapping behind him like the wings of an enormous bat, I thought I caught him wiping away tears with one gabardine sleeve.
Then he met Persephone. It was one of those moments, you know? Something corny out of a Matthew McConaughey flick. One minute, Shenghan was sitting at our table, making love to his ice-water martini, the next, he was talking to Ms. Fang.
Talking.
To a girl.
With complete sentences.
I nearly dropped the scotch and advocaat I was bringing back from the bar.
We had just wrapped things up with Persephone that last Friday. I'd installed a keylogger into her laptop and swapped her cell for a hacked model. I was going to let her go that night, break it to her gently. Shenghan solved that problem for me.
Mr. Zhang stopped joining us at the club. A few months later, I caught him at a coffeeshop, holding her hand. She had a ring.
The old man and I never mentioned Persephone with each other, even though she was a newly important piece of his personal jigsaw puzzle, and a fading piece of mine. Instead, we busied ourselves with work. I was his bagman by that point, gathering dirt for Old Man Zhang on a dozen other people.
Then I got transferred to the Third Bureau, hunting people doing what I used to do. Takes a thief, as they say. My initial assignment was in Shenyang. It was there that I had another first: Zhang Shenghan and I would have to work with each other on an official basis. We pretended like we were friendly strangers instead of strange friends. It worked.
The firm was some research bureau with a prototype factory attached. They had trouble making high-performance turbine blades for the engines of fighter jets--more trouble than normal, and they thought something was up. All the bad news had drained their balance sheet, too, and Shenghan's equity fund had been brought in as a white knight. The old man told me that before he would open his purse, however, he "needed to figure what the fuck was going on out there."
For once, my official duties and side business coincided. Promotion and a payoff? Hell fuckin' yeah.
But life, as they say, is never that easy.
Mid-air incident over disputed islands results in four missing Chinese and Japanese pilots
(Reuters) - An armed engagement occured between Chinese and Japanese fighters over a set of disputed islands earlier this morning. All four pilots involved are currently unaccounted for. Chinese and Japanese authorities have issued conflicting statements regarding the event.
Earlier today, two pairs of Chinese and Japanese aircraft engaged each other during "sovereignty patrols" over waters bordering a set of disputed islands in the East China Sea. All four pilots involved were reported missing by noon.
The fighter engagement and the fate of the missing pilots loomed over upcoming multilateral security consultations in Seoul, underscoring tensions that threaten to derail talks started under the prior set of East Asian leaders.
In a noon press conference held in Beijing, newly appointed Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Shenghan lodged "a formal complaint" over the latest territorial quarrel between Asia's two biggest economies. He demanded that Japan allow China to search the disputed islands for fighter wreckage and its missing pilots. The Japanese side refused, citing security concerns and the fact that the islands were Japanese territory.
Zhang also demanded an apology from Japan, stating that a Japanese Air Self-Defense Force fighter opened fire first, after the other Japanese plane malfunctioned and crashed into the water. When pressed for flight records or transcripts that would support China's account of events, he demurred, citing confidentiality and national security concerns.
In an afternoon press conference held in Tokyo, Japanese Foreign Minister Minobe Naoko rebutted China's account of this morning's events, stating that they were based on pure speculation and that Japan would release its own version of the events by noon the next day.
Minobe also requested that China share its emergency transponder frequencies and shortwave communications codes, to allow Japanese authorities to conduct a search for any Chinese survivors of the engagement.
In a written statement, United States Deputy Secretary of State Rexon Ryu called for restraint on all sides. He also said that while the US does not take a position on the sovereignty of the islands, they do fall under a treaty which obligates the US to defend Japan if it were attacked, but noted the Japan-US alliance should not be construed by China as American support for the Japanese point of view on the island standoff.
At a fundraiser for the right-wing Japan Restoration Party, Japanese MP Ishii Shinobu, widely expected to become Prime Minister following the upcoming Japanese parliamentary elections, gave a speech implying that his son was involved in this morning's events. In the speech, Ishii referred to him as a "true hero". Japanese government officials refused to comment on the veracity of the speech, instead stating that their thoughts went out to Ishii and his family.
The incident overshadows the third round of the Northeast Asia Security Summit, an annual forum for disarmament talks set up in the wake of the devastating Indo-Pakistani War of 2019. China and Japan are both full participants, along with Russia, the United States, and South Korea. Peace activists in the region had hoped the invitation of North Korea and the Republic of China (Taiwan) to the latest round of talks would lead to an opportunity for peaceful resolution of sovereignty issues in both conflicts.
Paul Bergmann, senior research fellow at the Brookings Institute, noted that the goals of the talks were "too ambitious anyways" and expected that the talks would become "even less productive" as a result of the incident.
Dong Xiumei, a researcher at the Chinese Institute of International Studies, believes that neither China nor Japan will back out of the talks as a result of the morning's events, although she noted that "both sides may substantially harden their positions and make negotiations difficult as a result."
Asian markets reacted mildly to the incident, with the Nikkei, Shanghai, and Hang Seng indices all registering initial selloffs but ending the day with net gains. Goldman Sachs analyst Jack Ferriman believes a successful conclusion to the security summit would be a "positive surprise" for the market.
Captain Kang Zongqi, helmetless, sat and watched the sun dissolve into the receding tide beyond his bare, salt-encrusted toes. The rocky outcropping was an ideal spot to keep an eye on the Japanese destroyers circling the island, and also offered a reasonable level of concealment. Now, one hand on a rolled-up tube of Hunan pork, the other on his military-issue tablet, he set about composing a formal after-action report.
"Began engaging Japanese fighter at... what was the altitude?" Zongqi mumbled to himself, then drew an eight and zero on the touchscreen. "Number of missiles fired? How many did I shoot?" Even though the day's aerial combat had occured barely ten hours ago, a fog had descended across his memory. He set the tablet down, lay back and stared the advancing evening sky, and breathed. To the east, the stars were beginning to show, bright pinpricks in a curtain of purple. His nostrils inhaled sweet ocean air, colored by a smell he could not identify.
The helmet buzzed. Turning over, he reached for it, heard the voice of Colonel Wu Taifu. "White Horse calling Archer One, White Horse calling Archer One. Please respond, over."
"Colonel, this is Captain Kang."
"Finally got you on the line. Did you go bathing in the ocean or something?" A laugh, distorted into crackling popcorn by the shortwave. "Anyhow, everything fine?"
"Good, boss, thanks for asking." Their tone had become decidedly more conversational as the day wore on. Zongqi sensed that command was trying to put him at ease--or maybe throw off the Japanese or American SIGINT that was no doubt monitoring their channel. "When I look out of my left eye, it's still pretty blurry, but it seems to be getting better. The Japanese ships are still sticking around, too. Earlier, I thought I saw them launching small boats into the water--recovering wreckage, maybe--although they don't seem to be interested in coming ashore."
"Got it." A pause, muffled voices, sounds of fingers on a keyboard. "Well, just sit tight for now. Come tomorrow evening, we'll have an action plan in place. Which side of the island are you on?"
"I'm currently sitting on the southwest side, although I can move if needed."
"Good, stay there. If it gets cold at night, feel free to light a fire. Our intel suggests the Japanese haven't decided to try and pick you up anytime soon, so you should be safe." Then a click.
Zongqi stood up, gathered his helmet and shoes, and made his way back to his small camp at the edge of the treeline. The wind picked up speed, bringing a slight chill. He gathered some twigs and leaves from the forest floor into a pile, but his lighter failed to ignite the sodden mass. He scratched his head, then turned back towards the beach, seeing sun-dried piles of driftwood scattered across the sand. Shrugging, he walked back towards the outcropping, gathering driftwood along the way, then stopped. The smell had returned, oily, pungent, stronger than ever.
Zongqi cocked his head, set down the driftwood, and began following his nose. Around a hundred meters past the outcropping, he sliced his toe open on a one-meter-long piece of jagged metal protruding from the sand. He stared at it for a good ten seconds before recognizing it as a vertical stabilizer. Curiosity drove him to dig and made him forget the pain in his foot. The piece grew looser, until with one final pull, it came free. A large red dot stared back at him, the sign of the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force.
Then he heard a cough. Two meters to his right lay another pilot, face-up in a thin sheet of sand cemented by dried blood. He tried moving a leg, screamed. Zongqi fell backwards in shock. The man coughed again, turned to face Zongqi, and repeated a single word:
"Mizu..."
Zongqi shook his head and rotated his palms up in the universal sign of "I don't understand." The man snorted soft, bitter laughter, in response. Then he reached out, held up a pale, shaking index finger. On the sand beside them, he drew the common Chinese and Japanese kanji for water.
Zongqi blinked, understood, limped to and from the camp. After the Japanese pilot finished off one salt-encrusted bottle, he asked for more water, but Zongqi was busy speaking into his helmet.
Colonel Wu Taifu phoned his wife when their conversation was over. He would be staying at the office all night.
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