Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 03 (36 page)

           
The President looked indecisive and
exasperated. He turned to Defense Secretary Tom Preston. “What is it exactly
that you want to do, Thomas?”

           
“Just what General Curtis is recommending:
send in the STRATFOR to Guam. SAC will back it up with the Pacific Tanker Task
Force, which will provide air refueling support for the deployment.”

           
“Uh huh.” The President nodded,
still not entirely convinced, but leaning toward a yes.

           
“Oh . . . and, Mr. President?”
General Curtis said. “CINCSAC is recommending, and I agree, for Major General
Richard Stone to be the STRATFOR commander— he’s an ex-SAC division commander
and was the former base commander at Clark. He knows the Philippines like the back
of his hand. General Stone will make his recommendations to Pacific Air Forces
and Pacific Command on the type of response necessary and they make
recommendations to you. Once approval is granted from you through Pacific
Command, the STRATFOR will form the Air Battle Force.”

           
The President paused for a few
moments, then nodded his head. “All right, General—I have my doubts, but let’s
do it. Send in the two carrier groups only, put the Marines on standby, and
send out the STRATFOR to Guam to help check things out. We’ll wait on whether
to send your Air Battle Force until we find out what in hell the Chinese are up
to. Got all that?”

           
“Yes, sir, I understand,” Curtis
replied, and quickly added, “There are a few more items—”

           
President Lloyd Taylor had had enough,
but he said, “Yes, General, make it quick . .

           
“CINCPAC has requested an increased
‘safe zone’ around his fleet assets in the region ...”

           
“Sink—
who?"

           
“Sorry, sir . . . Admiral Stoval.
Commander in Chief, Pacific Forces. He’ll be in overall charge of operations in
the
South China Sea
; he is asking permission to order the fleet
that is sent down there to engage unidentified or hostile vessels or aircraft
out to a range of two hundred miles instead of the usual one hundred miles.”

           
“Why does he need that?” President
Taylor grumbled.

           
“Sir, if it was a Fei Lung-9 missile
that was launched from a Chinese ship, the missile has a range in excess of one
hundred miles and is supersonic, which makes the task of shooting it down very
difficult. With a nuclear warhead, the kill radius of the missile is that much
greater. The commanders in the area will want to keep all unidentified aircraft
as far away as possible from their ships and to provide air cover for the
reconnaissance planes,” Curtis said. “They all operate no closer than two
hundred miles from Philippine waters . . .”

           
“Air cover? I said
no
air operations!” the President
snapped.

           
“This would be for the STRATFOR
reconnaissance jets, sir,” Curtis explained. “Those jets—the AW ACS, the EC-
135, and the RC-135 are unarmed recon planes. We have to provide air cover for
them if they’re operating so close to the Chinese forces . . .”

           
“I thought you said this would be a
simple
operation, General...”

           
“Sir, for safety’s sake, each
STRATFOR aircraft should have a minimum of eight fighters with it at all times
. . .”

           
“Eight fighters!” the President
exploded. “And how many aircraft will you send from the STRATFOR?”

           
“Four, sir,” Curtis replied.

           
“You want
thirty-six
aircraft involved in a ‘simple’ reconnaissance mission?
That’s out of the question. If I saw that many planes near my ships, I know
I’d
be angry. Good God, man, don’t you
get it? I’m trying to
avoid
a fucking
war! We’re sending in all this force and we don’t even know what the hell is
going on!”

           
“Our aircraft need that kind of
protection ...”

           
“Do it with
less,
” the President ordered. “If you can’t protect the
reconnaissance aircraft with
two
fighters each, you can’t send them in—we’ll rely on satellite data to gather
intelligence information instead.”

           
Curtis paused for a moment, then
said, “I’ll confer with General Falmouth ...”

           
“Yes, yes, fine,” the President
said, waving his hand as if dismissing a bothersome insect. “Do what you want,
just make sure you cover those planes with
two
jets each. I don’t care how you do it.”

           
“Of course, sir.”

           
“And, Curtis?” the President added,
pointing his index finger at the General. “If this thing blows up in our face
... if this puts my ass in a sling? Guess what?
Your
ass is going to be in a sling.”

           
And with that, Curtis was dismissed.
Other aides and staffers were already being buzzed into the Situation Room
before Curtis reached the door. Curtis’ aide, Colonel Andrew Wyatt, met the
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the corridor next to the Marines guard
desk. He fell in beside Curtis as they headed for the elevator.

           
“Well, how’d it go?”

           
“Don’t ask,” Curtis said as Wyatt
punched the elevator call button.

           
“That bad?” Wyatt asked.

           
Curtis said nothing. Instead he was
too busy thinking about what was going on halfway around the world. . . .

Buenavista
Hospital
,
Ulugan
Bay
,
Palawan
Province

The
Philippines

Monday, 26 September 1994,
2109 hours local

           
Admiral Yin Po L’un awoke to find
himself lying on a very soft bed under clean white sheets. Through blurred
eyes, he saw several nurses—Filipino nurses, he soon realized—surrounding his
bed. One of them, after realizing that he was awake, ran off out of sight.

           
“Who... who are you?” Yin asked in
Chinese. The nurses looked at each other, then turned back toward him and shook
their heads, replying something in English that obviously meant they did not
understand him. But a nurse bent forward to wipe sweat and mucus from his face
and eyes, and he was able to see—

           
—several Filipino soldiers marching
into the room, with M-16 rifles slung on their shoulders. So. He was a prisoner
of the wretched Philippine Army, or worse, the damned Americans. Even though he
saw no American-looking faces, he assumed he would be turned over to them soon.

           
Presently, a physician in a white
lab coat appeared before him, along with, to his great surprise, the senior
ship’s doctor from the
Hong Lung,
a
Vietnamese immigrant named Commander Tran Phu Ko. Finally, a man who appeared
to be an officer stood at the foot of the bed, bowing slightly at the neck when
he noticed Yin looking at him.

           
Commander Tran bowed to Admiral Yin.
“Thank the gods you are well, Comrade Admiral.”

           
Yin struggled to rise to a sitting
position, and Tran helped him. “Report, Doctor. Who are these men? What is the
status of the ship? What of the crew?”

           
“The men are well, Admiral,” Tran
replied. “Many casualties, but we can speak of that later. The ship is damaged
but safe. It is secured in
Ulugan
Bay
, not far from here. Several other ships of
our task force are there as well.”

           
Ulugan
Bay
.
Palawan
Province
, the
Philippines
. So they
were
prisoners. . . .

           
Tran motioned toward the officer at
the foot of the bed. “This is General Robert Munoz di Silva, commander of the
provincial defense force,” he said. “He is our . . . host. He speaks no
Chinese. I know English, sir; I can interpret for you.”

           
“Ask him then if we are his
prisoners,” Yin said, “and what sort of treatment my crew and myself can expect
from them.”

           
Tran looked puzzled, then relieved.
“No, sir, you do not understand ...”

           
“Ask him,” Yin ordered.

           
Tran was about to speak once again,
but, at a stern glance from Yin, bowed and relayed the question in broken,
hesitant English. But obviously General di Silva understood, because the
pig-faced bastard threw back his head and laughed out loud, right in Admiral
Yin’s face!

           
Then, to Yin’s complete surprise,
the Philippine General walked over to Yin and kissed him on both cheeks! Yin stared
at the man, flabbergasted, while General di Silva babbled on enthusiastically
about something or other.

           
Yin shook his head warily. They must
have given him morphine. Or worse. Something was wrong here.

           
Dr. Tran read his thoughts: “You do
not understand, Comrade Admiral. We are not prisoners of General di Silva—we
are their liberators and allies.”

           
“What?” Yin asked, sitting up
straight. “What are you saying? Their liberators? But—”

           
“According to General di Silva, he
no longer considers his force to be part of the Philippine military,” Tran
said. “He and his men have been secretly opposed to the capitalist pro-American
government in
Manila
for over forty years. They’ve been waiting for such an opportunity to
strike out at the puppet of the Americans. He is asking for our help in
supporting his movement and assisting him and his fellow Communists in severing
ties with the rest of the Philippines and establishing a pro-Communist state
here on Palawan.” With that, they watched in complete surprise as di Silva
stripped off his blue and gold epaulets of the Philippine Integrated National Police
and tossed them over his shoulder. A few of the nurses and doctors who had
filled the room looked ashen at the demonstration, but most of the others were
smiling broadly, some even applauding.

           
But Admiral Yin couldn’t believe his
eyes. Although he knew a potential enemy would go to extreme lengths to confuse
a prisoner into cooperating or giving up information, this di Silva seemed
sincere. Could they have drugged him? Was this all some kind of grand hoax . .
. ? “Doctor, ask him what is happening. Ask him if we have been drugged. Tell
him I wish to be released immediately and reunited with my crew.”

           
Commander Tran had to raise his
voice a bit over the impromptu celebration there in the room, but eventually he
communicated the Admiral’s question and received a reply: “Sir, he says he is
empowered to release all of us and our vessels if we so desire,” the physician
translated, “but he wishes to say that the revolution has begun and that you
are the catalyst for constructive change in Palawan, and perhaps all the
Philippines, for all true Communists. He is prepared to offer us protection
until we are well enough to function, then he pledges that his loyal forces
will rally behind us to free
Palawan
and
create a powerful, respected Communist nation.” Di Silva spoke again, and Tran
added, “General di Silva is putting you in command of his provincial defense
force, sir. You may order him and his men to do as you please. But he asks that
you accept the challenge. It would be a dishonor for you and the Republic of
China not to . . .”

           
Admiral Yin Po L’un’s head was
reeling in confusion. This . . . this was too strange. It had to be a trick of
some kind. But what? This charade was different than any other kind of
interrogation or con scheme he’d ever heard of—it didn’t make sense. At least
to him. A foreign militia commander laying down his weapons before a prisoner,
then asking the prisoner to take over? It was absurd.

           
Yin sat back in the bed, trying to
absorb it all. Maybe they had given him drugs and weren’t admitting to it. But
what would be the purpose of this . . . acting?