"Is this new?" asked Huang, his eyes widening as he ran fingers over the Brave Warrior's hood.
"You like it?"
"Very much."
"Perhaps I can get you one."
"No. I don't believe it."
"Believe it."
"All right. Now come inside for tea. You have no choice." Huang smiled tightly.
Fang followed him through the open gates and into the central courtyard. He glanced up at the women pinning clothes on lines strung between the curving balconies.
"I assume you've come to plan another meeting?" asked Huang as they crossed the yard.
"Yes."
"Well, the other elders have grown squeamish about all this. And the helicopters make too much noise."
"So your price has increased?"
Huang paused, turned back. "Yes, it has. And I will need one of those trucks."
Fang tensed. "I'm sure we can reach an agreement."
They turned into a narrow hallway that took them into a modest-sized eating area with wooden tables and fireplace.
But before Huang could fetch them tea, Fang glanced back, making sure they were alone.
Abruptly, he drew the sword cane he kept buckled to his side, reared back, and struck a solid blow to Huang's shoulder, knocking the old man to his knees.
Huang gasped, one hand going to his wound. "Fang! What are you doing?"
Fang lifted the sword, balancing it a hairsbreadth away from Huang's nose. "I'm reminding you, old man, that we are not to be threatened. We've made you a generous deal. And I will get you that truck, but our price is the same."
"All right. All right."
"You tell the elders that they should remain squeamish, because if they change their minds, I am unsure what terrible things will happen here."
"Fang, you don't have to do this."
"It would seem I do. Now then, I won't be staying for tea. Tell the others we will be coming soon." Fang pulled a cell phone from his hip pocket and placed it on the ground beside him. "Keep this turned on. Keep it with you at all times. I will call. Be ready. Do you understand?"
"Yes."
Fang's sword hissed as he slid it back into the cane, then he offered a hand to Huang, who glanced at it, then finally accepted. "You see?" Fang asked with a broad grin. "Everything's better now."
SEVENTEEN
CENTRAL MILITARY COMMISSION (CMC)
MINISTRY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE COMPOUND
BEIJING, CHINA
APRIL 2012
Captain Zuo Junping, the twenty-eight-year-old military attache to Deputy Director Wang Ya, crawled out from beneath his stack of intelligence reports and greeted the leonine Major-General Chen Yi. The general had flown up from Xiamen three times in the past month and had remained in Beijing for a week, meeting daily with the deputy director.
That one commander from a single military region could gain so much of the deputy director's attention might have struck outsiders as odd were it not for recent events.
Since the U.S. had announced the sale of that submarine to Taiwan nearly thirty days prior, the entire Nanjing region had been at the highest military alert, and the office had been flooded with intelligence. The PLA's "training" exercises in the Taiwan Strait, along with the repositioning of troops, had resulted in the U.S. deploying a second carrier task force to the area as the American president continued to rattle his saber and caution the Chinese government about making any moves against Taiwan.
In response, China's air force had repositioned fighter and aircraft bomber squadrons, and on recommendation of Deputy Director Wang, the commander of the PLA Navy had ordered two Shang-class nuclear fast-attack submarines from its North Sea Fleet at Qingdao to the East Sea Fleet. That action doubled the number of Shang-class subs under operational control of ESF Vice Admiral Cai Ming, a fact quickly publicized online via the PLA Daily English News.
And just today, after a long month of uneasiness, the president, vice president, and premier of Taiwan, obviously threatened by China's significant show of force, had agreed to declare martial law. Chinese agents and sympathizers were being rounded up and imprisoned while the government and the Pan-Green Coalition--composed of the Democratic Progressive Party, the Taiwan Solidarity Union, and the Taiwan Independence Party--now threatened to declare Taiwan's independence from mainland China.
The Americans had a metaphorical term for such a situation; they called it a powder keg.
Zuo showed the general into the deputy minister's office, closed the door, then returned to his chair. He wrung his hands and thought of slowing his pulse. It was just another day. Nothing to worry about. When it was over, he would return home to his little apartment and relax with a bottle of Tsingtao and a pack of cigarettes.
Life had been much easier back in the United States. Zuo had done his undergraduate work at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, earning an engineering degree. The following year he had enrolled in a joint program with Drexel University in Philadelphia to earn his graduate degree.
While in the United States, he had stayed with a host family whose son was an army captain, and they had developed a strong friendship. Moreover, Zuo's perceptions of America and American culture were transformed during his four years of study. A country he had once described in a school paper as the home of the corrupt and selfish had become something very different.
His home.
Knowing that Zuo would return to China to perform his "sacred duty" as a citizen and serve in the military, representatives of the U.S.'s Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) had recruited him as an operative with the promise that if he worked for them for no less than six years, they would help him defect and become an American citizen.
Zuo had agonized over the decision for months, but finally he had agreed.
After returning to China, he had assumed his military duties and also taught classes at the Chinese Academy of Military Science, where Deputy Director Wang had discovered him teaching the Citizen-Soldier in American Society course. Wang had been impressed by Zuo's scholarship, public speaking abilities, and keen sense of humor. Despite Zuo's youth and lack of experience, Wang had taken him under his wing and become his mentor. Wang's own ego was bolstered with every success that Zuo achieved.
Indeed, Zuo's remarkable ascension in the PLA was beyond his American employers' wildest dreams, and they had made him offers to extend his contract for another four to six years (he had already worked five). It seemed the higher Zuo rose, the less chance he would have of actually leaving the country.
Consequently, he had turned down their offer and had responded with one of his own: begin plans to get him out of the country immediately. If they did so, he would turn over intelligence he had gathered for the past two years on an operation known as Pouncing Dragon, one the DIA had queried him about in 2009, when they had first heard the phrase in Waziristan.
Zuo told them he had names, dates, and a forthcoming meeting day and time, but he would not deliver them unless they got him out of China. He was waiting for their reply.
As much as it pained him to abandon his post and leave his mother and ailing father behind, Zuo knew that the United States was where he belonged.
And he knew that if he remained at his post much longer, the deputy director would eventually discover his activities and, on a cold, dark night while Zuo was sleeping, a man would come into his apartment. They would call it robbery.
The deputy director clearly had a lot to hide, and Zuo's eavesdropping had yielded some puzzling blanks in his routines that left Zuo even more unnerved about the boss's connections and influence.
On the third Tuesday of every month, at exactly one in the afternoon, Wang made a phone call to a number in Geneva. And at least twice per month he took a clandestine lunch meeting outside the office.
Zuo wondered if the deputy director, like Zuo himself, had his own agenda. Zuo had considered asking the DIA if Wang was actually working for them. How ironic that would be, but no, that was hardly the case.
With a shivery sigh, Zuo returned to sorting and compiling his reports. In two hours he would need to brief the deputy minister on what was currently happening in the Taiwan Strait. However, Wang would only be half listening as he watched CNN via satellite and interrupted Zuo to decry the inaccuracies of the American media.
That night, as Zuo returned home to his apartment in a heavy rainstorm, he spotted a man in a dark blue raincoat huddled in an alcove across the street from his building.
Zuo hesitated a moment to squint through the storm and realize that his DIA contact was waiting for him.
Lo Kuo-hui was about Zuo's age, and he, too, had been an international student studying in the United States and had been recruited by the DIA.
Zuo crossed the street and reached the alcove, where he lowered his umbrella to shield them both from the wind. "I thought it would take longer."
"Not with what's happening now," said Lo.
"So?"
Lo grinned weakly. "They have accepted your offer. But they need your intelligence first."
"What guarantees do I have?"
"None, unless the intelligence is good."
Zuo reached into his pocket, withdrew his wallet, and produced a small flash drive the size of his thumb-nail. He handed it to Lo. "Tell them to review this. They can verify the GPS coordinates by satellite. The data is current as of today. Any changes that occur are beyond my control, but I will update them as I learn more."
"Very good. I hope this all works out for you."
"What about you?"
"I leave tonight. My work for them is finished."
"And they are getting you out?"
"Yes."
Zuo sighed. Maybe he could trust the DIA after all. There had always been lingering doubt. "Who will I meet next?"
"I don't know, but I'm sure they will send someone. Good-bye, Zuo." Lo turned up his jacket's collar and rushed off into the rain.
EIGHTEEN
ROBIN SAGE
" PINELAND "
NEAR FORT BRAGG, NORTH CAROLINA
APRIL 2012
Captain Scott Mitchell tucked himself tighter into the underbrush as the sputtering whine of a diesel engine broke the morning silence. The mud road just ahead wove away like a rusty red bloodstain through the forest.
A moment later, the old truck with a tattered tarpaulin covering its flatbed rounded a cluster of pines and jostled forward, trailing rooster tails of clay.
Mitchell, dressed in black civilian clothes with a black shemagh on his head, clutched the paintball gun replica of a Beretta Cx4 Storm rifle.
Today Mitchell's name was Jawaad, and he was the local guerrilla chief, or G-chief, in this part of "The People's Republic of Pineland," a fictional country whose unassuming name suggested a land of trailer parks rather than a war-torn nation. For the past six months, insurgents from OpForland, a country of political and religious unrest, had been smuggling themselves across the border to terrorize Jawaad's village. They had killed his father and two brothers.
Jawaad was here to strike back at the insurgents, liberate his country from oppression, and send a message to the enemy. He was here for revenge. To that end, he and his guerrillas, or Gs, had linked up with Operational Detachment Alpha 927, a twelve-man team of American Special Forces soldiers who had armed and been training them for the past two weeks.
In point of fact, the entire scenario was part of Robin Sage, a nineteen-day field training exercise (FTX) and the final phase of the eighteen- to twenty-six-month-long Special Forces Qualification Course taught at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center at Fort Bragg. The name Robin Sage was derived from Robbins, a nearby town, and from the man who had developed the exercise, Colonel Jerry Sage, one of the school's original commanders.
The exercise was conducted throughout fourteen counties and put operators through a grueling series of unconventional warfare situations in which they had to rely upon every aspect of their training, from mission planning to execution. Robin Sage was the final exercise before graduation and assignment to one of the operational Special Forces groups. To the men taking the course, passing the exercise meant everything.
But they had to make it past Scott Mitchell first.
Being the G-chief, Mitchell had already made it clear to the detachment commander, Captain Fred Warris, and the warrant officer, CW2 Baron Williams, that this was his show, and those guys had initially argued over that. Out there in the real world you sometimes had to trust the local chief you'd only known for a month, because if you didn't, you'd never get the job done. What's more, sometimes you had to let him lead because it was his fight and his honor at stake. That was difficult for many operators to accept, men who thrived on being in control.
Robin Sage training also incorporated the experiences of real-life soldiers like Mitchell, who had designed this particular scenario based upon an experience he'd had in Eritrea. The young Captain Warris was about to be overwhelmed.
Mitchell's breath grew shallow. The truck was about twenty meters from the trigger line now.
Close enough.
He burst from cover, ran onto the road, and began firing wildly at the vehicle, screaming at the top of his lungs, "For my father! For my brothers!"
Behind him, Warris began hollering, "Jawaad, what the hell are you doing? Come back!"
Mitchell kept firing, his paintballs exploding on the windshield of the truck.
Warris hollered even louder, "Jawaad, get back here!"
The truck's driver threw it in park and hopped out, along with a passenger: both OpForland soldiers armed with rifles. They dropped to their bellies and began returning fire, paintballs whirring past Mitchell, who was grinning to himself.
G-chief Jawaad had screwed up the entire ambush.
The ODA team and the guerrillas were supposed to lie in wait until the truck hit the trigger line, at which time one of Jawaad's men would toss a smoke grenade while a simulated claymore exploded, tearing apart the vehicle's front end.
Mitchell had, in his own way, just welcomed his students to Unconventional Warfare 101, where no battle plan survived the first enemy--or friendly--contact.
He continued running at the truck, taking fire from the enemy soldiers, paintballs striking his thighs and chest. He squeezed off a few more rounds and staggered forward, shouting once more about revenge until he dropped to his knees in the mud, fired again, then fell and rolled onto his side, crying, "Help! I've been hit! I'm hit!"
Now it was up to Warris and Williams to gain control of the chaos.
Mitchell lay there and watched as, across the path, one of the team's evaluators, Captain Simon Harruck, rose from the scrub to watch as the sergeant assisting him lifted his small camera to digitally record the event.
Warris ordered his engineers who'd been standing by on the claymore to circle around to the vehicle's rear, while everyone else opened fire on the truck, paintballs thudding and fountaining across metal.
Within five seconds the two enemy soldiers were "dead," and Warris called a cease fire. His engineers were the first on the vehicle and began unloading and busting open crates containing Meals, Ready-to-Eat and weapons caches.
Mitchell got to his feet. "ODA team? Guerrilla team? The exercise is terminated. On me right now!"
It took several more minutes for everyone, nearly thirty in all, to rally around Mitchell in the middle of the road. He shook his head at Warris. "You got two medics. Couldn't spare one to save my life?"
The captain furrowed his brows in confusion. "You ran at the truck, blew the whole ambush. You looked like you were trying to commit suicide."
"And now every G here is pissed off at you for letting me die."
"But you killed yourself."
"No, I was getting my revenge. And maybe that was more important to me than my own life. Or maybe I was trying to show my men how important their cause is. I was trying to teach them how to fight to the death."
"By running into fire."
"Maybe I ma
rtyred myself." Mitchell sighed and adopted a more conversational tone. "See, you don't know what these guys will do when it comes down to it. You always have plan B, which involves them betraying you or doing something crazy, like running into the road."
Warris nodded. "But we still accomplished the objective. Truck stopped, cargo seized."
"Maybe not. You put so much gunfire on that truck that you blew it up. Everybody should have held fire. You send out your medic and put your snipers to work to pin down the bad guys."