An enlisted member of the ROC, he inherently understood that a mistake here would be catastrophic, but also that his life was to follow orders.
Ryan said, “Let me go tell Colonel Wang.”
He raced to the office, finding Colonel Wang on the floor, bleeding out from his neck, a secure phone handset dangling off of the desk. Zhi said, “He tried to call his higher command. That wouldn’t work.”
Ryan began to panic. “What have you done? I thought this was automatic! You murdered him!”
“I did, but it’s really irrelevant. He would have been dead anyway in fourteen hours. And I’ll murder you if you keep this up. Get out there and have them launch the missiles.”
She showed him her bloodied nail and he staggered back to the door. She said, “Go launch the missiles.”
He nodded and backpedaled out of the room, racing to Fei.
“Colonel Wang is still talking to the command, but Kinmen is definitely under assault. He told me to launch the missiles from Penghu. The ones working with MANTIS.”
Fei said, “Launch?”
“Yes, damn it! Launch the missiles! We are under attack!”
Now fearful, Fei said, “Where is Colonel Wang? I can only launch on his command.”
“He is on the phone to the Ministry of National Defense! He’s trying to coordinate, but we have no time. I am your superior officer. Do as I say, now.”
Fei nodded and turned to his computer screen. He put on his headset, gave some commands to the men to his left and right, and they all began punching in commands to their keyboards. Within five seconds, it was done.
Chapter 88
A fisherman off the coast of Penghu Island hauled in his nets, the water calm and the weather balmy, the setting sun giving the sea a glow that he always enjoyed. He stacked the nets into a locker, his burly short arms strong from years of working at sea. He closed the locker, and then took a seat, just enjoying the twilight for a moment before he returned home.
He saw a flash of light from the coast of the island, and then four more. He sat up just as a Yun Feng hypersonic land attack cruise missile streaked over his boat, low enough to cause his craft to bend over in the water, the noise incredible. He leapt up, his boat still rocking, but the missile flew so fast it was lost to sight in a matter of seconds.
He had no idea what it was, but knew it couldn’t be good.
George Wolffe entered the Situation Room of the White House to find chaos, the room broken up into small bands of men and women all trying to solve an intractable problem. Alexander Palmer saw him enter and came over, saying, “Things in Taiwan are growing a little tense. Are your men still there?”
George chuckled. He’d seen the CNN feed. He said, “Yeah, things a little ‘tense.’ And Pike is still there.”
He didn’t mention why Pike was still there.
Instead, he asked, “Did you prove the videos are fake? Do we have that shit Jerry Tribble on the hook with BackRub?”
“We do, but it’s just him. BackRub ran the tests and have now disavowed him. We can’t absolutely prove it was him, because anyone could have done the videos using his algorithms, but BackRub wants no part of it anymore. According to them, he never let anyone see his algorithms or the coding of his personal projects in the past, so the chance of someone else in China being responsible for it is pretty small.”
“Then why don’t you get that out there? Let the world know?”
Palmer shook his head and said, “Let the world know that an American firm created deep fake videos to alter an election in Taiwan? How in the hell can we do that? Putin will immediately start crowing, and the Chinese will bury us. We can’t. That’s just not going to happen. What we need to do is stop the protests, because we’re about to be in a war.”
“Why does it have to be an American? All you really need to do is prove they’re fake. Tell them it was the Chinese. Why do we even have to mention Jerry Tribble? Or, hell, arrest his ass as a Chinese asset. Wouldn’t that work?”
He nodded, saying, “Yeah, yeah, maybe you’re on to something, but the problem right now are the protests in Taiwan. We can’t overtly support the Taiwanese government without antagonizing China. All we can really do is offer platitudes about fair elections and warn China to stay away—even if we know they’re involved. They’ve really got us in a bind, because it looks like China’s preferred candidate is going to win the election now. But none of that is why I asked you to come tonight. What I want to know is if another shoe is about to drop. What’s up with that traitor from Australia? Did Pike interdict him?”
George exhaled and said, “He did, sir. Jake Shu is dead.”
Palmer’s eyes went wide and he said, “What? The Taskforce killed an American citizen in Taiwan? Pike had no authority for lethal action. It was a capture mission. We didn’t even know what he was doing there.”
George held up his hands. “Hang on a second. Pike didn’t kill him. The Chinese did, and we still don’t know what he was doing, but it’s apparently continuing. Pike is on the thread right now.”
Palmer said, “What do you mean, ‘continuing’? What was Shu working on?”
“We honestly don’t know, but Pike thinks it’s still going even after he was killed.”
A man entered the Situation Room, saying, “I have an emergency action message from the NMCC.”
Palmer turned around and said, “Bring it here.”
The NMCC stood for the National Military Command Center. Buried in the basement of the Pentagon, it was the coordination mechanism between all strategic elements in an event of an attack on the United States. Focusing on missile launches and nuclear options, it was the means by which the United States could conduct a counterstrike should the worst happen, coordinating even as the missiles were inbound. As such, it continuously monitored any launch around the world from satellites in space and other sensors, a sole purpose of early warning. An EAM from them wasn’t a good sign.
The man said, “We have a launch detected in the Taiwan Strait. Land attack cruise missiles.”
Palmer said, “China just launched cruise missiles against Taiwan?”
“No, sir. Taiwan launched them against China. ETA on impact ten minutes.”
The head of Pacific Command received the same emergency action message as the hapless members of the National Security Council, but unlike them, he had something he could do about it, with contingency plans in place. He took one look at the message and realized they were now about to be at war. He sent an immediate action alert to Carrier Strike Group 5, currently conducting freedom of navigation exercises in the South China Sea.
Aboard the USS Ronald Reagan, the commander received the same EAM as everyone else, but then had a follow-on message from the PACOM commander to steam directly to the Taiwan Strait. The commander saw that order and began moving the entire monolith of American power.
Comprised of an aircraft carrier, several antimissile frigates, destroyers, and a subsurface component of hunter-killer submarines, it was the most lethal force in the history of naval warfare.
And it was now turning toward Taiwan.
Chapter 89
We remained outside the protests, waiting on the target car to exit, the tension within the crowd growing greater by the minute, with some eyeing us like we were against them. Like maybe we were secret police.