Force of Arms

you?”

For a moment he couldn’t speak, the tears rolling down his face. He nodded. “They told me my family…”

He couldn’t go on.

“Shhhh,” she told him. “I know. They want to discover who my Manchurian friends are.” She paused. “And the nurse?”

He said he didn’t know about her. She seemed genuine, he said, but no one could be sure of anyone, he said, excusing his own weakness. Alexsandra ignored the plea for pity, though she did pity him. “Then we must leave the train before Beidaihe,” she said.

“Will you come with me?” she asked him. “It may mean punishment for your family if we are caught. You don’t have to.”

“I must,” he said, his face creased with worry. “What could I tell them if I don’t come with you? What could I tell the Public Security Bureau — that I let you escape?”

He was sitting up, wringing his hands and snuffling. The train began to slow in the predawn sky, some of the stars above the gulf so bright one could almost touch them, the wind having shifted, coming from the east now, blowing some of the Gobi dust back to where it belonged.

Alexsandra rose and pulled the padded Mao suit around her and did up all the buttons except the very top one. “Are you coming?” she asked.

“No. Yes. Yes,” he said, and made to hop up from the seat.

“Have you any money?” she asked.

He gave her three yuan, his eyes avoiding hers.

“If you don’t come with me,” she said, “you will be punished. This way if we’re caught you can say I did all the planning.”

“When do we jump?” he asked.

“Don’t be silly,” she said, her tone schoolmarmish, but she was so tired, so utterly tired of betrayal, that it had given an edge to her voice when she meant none. She longed to have Aussie with her. At least he was someone you could trust “We’ll get off at the station before Beidaihe.”

“But — but,” the boy stammered, “we’ll still have to go through Beidaihe if you are to go north.”

“Yes, but don’t you understand they’ll be looking, waiting, for us at the train station. We won’t go near it.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

MAGTAFs — Marine air-ground task forces — come in different sizes, but the one General Freeman ordered in from Korea was a MEF — marine expeditionary force — a total of fifty-one thousand men, forty-eight thousand of these marines, fifty amphibious ships, and armed with everything from sixty Av-8 short-takeoff and — landing Harrier jets, forty-eight F/A18 fighters, twenty A-6E all-weather night-attack aircraft, twelve KC-130 refuelers, sixty Chinook 46 medium-lift and assault choppers, twenty-four attack helicopters, Hawk surface-to-air missiles, and at least eighty Stinger surface-to-air missile teams.

The MEF also contained seventy MBTs, over sixty-five heavy mortars, 150 TOW antitank missiles, plus 216 assault amphibious vehicles, over one hundred 155mm howitzers, and other medium mortars. Such a force could not easily be hidden, yet without the element of surprise it would take at least a four-to-one marine advantage to be able to secure the beach. Air support of course would be telling in their favor, but two or three ChiCom divisions drawn south from the Orgon Tal-Honggor line could soon engage this force of Freeman’s at the beach. And what Cheng lacked in air cover for his own troops would be made up for in having at his disposal the largest coastal navy in the world, its northern fleet headquartered at Qingdao. But surely the Chinese would pick the MEF up at sea on radar.

They did, but Freeman, in another brilliant stroke of strategy, had the naval force set its heading, under Major General Strachan, south to the Formosa Strait and notified Admiral Kuang of the ROC — Republic of China — Navy accordingly.

“Two birds with one stone,” Freeman explained.

“You think they’ll fall for it?” Norton said. “If they send too many divisions south, Kuang could be in for a nasty landing.” Freeman had no sympathy for a man who was indecisive. If Kuang was holding his men off for no good reason, then he deserved a fright. And if Harvey Simmet was right that another monsoon was building over the South China Sea heading into Fukien province across from Taiwan, then the marine force racing south could turn about under cover of bad weather with Kuang meanwhile thinking the Americans were coming to his aid. Once on the beach, Kuang would be as committed in Fukien as the marines would be north at Beidaihe — if they had to land. Norton didn’t like it because it smacked of pulling a fast one on Kuang — it was playing politics, he bravely told Freeman.

“Balls, Norton! Every Tom, Dick, and Angela whines about something being political when it’s not going their way. When it is going their way they call it foresight, brilliance, tactical skill, anything but politics. Man is a political animal, Norton. Ask Cheng and his crew holed up in the Zhongnanhai. Those gentlemen are going to get one hell of an education in politics, in—” He paused and looked at his watch, which was not on top of but under his wrist so that in action there would be no unnecessary glare. “In about six hours,” Freeman continued, “providing Harvey Simmet is right about the bad weather.” Freeman’s face suddenly lost all its lines of happy anticipation. “By God, if he isn’t, the Chinese’ll see the MEF heading back up north.”

“Quite possible!” Norton said nonchalantly.

“Norton.”

“General?”

“Get Harvey up here. On the double.”

“Yes, sir.”

* * *

Harvey had his gloved hands around the tin cup of strong coffee when he saw the rain cape approaching: Norton. He poured the coffee out, muttering, “Goddamn it!” Norton felt bad about it. He didn’t think for a moment that Simmet’s forecast was wrong or needed updating — the barometer was still falling for all to see, and even CNN was saying there’d be monsoons over the South China Sea as far north as China’s Bo Hai Gulf — but Norton hadn’t been able to resist planting a seed of doubt in Freeman’s mind. A little uncertainty did wonders in deflating a prima donna’s ego and for making him think twice. Besides, hadn’t Freeman himself told Norton that if he, Freeman, ever got too cocky to remind him of the Never-Skovorodino road where the fake Siberian tanks had suckered him?

* * *

“Harvey!”

“General.”

“Harvey, you boys down there at the met office are doing a crackerjack job.”

“Thank you, General. I’ll tell the men.”

“Harv!” Freeman said, putting his arm round the met officer. “Norton here tells me that this monsoon could lift— give away the position of our MAGTAF. Is he right?”

“Well if it lifts it could — if they have their coastal boats out that far, but I doubt they’d do that in heavy seas, General. Monsoon is traditionally tie-up-at-the-docks time.”

The general was reassured but not convinced.

“But you would say we’re in for bad weather.”

“Very bad.”

“Thank you, Harvey.”

“Landing in a monsoon,” Norton said, thinking ahead about Beidaihe, “would be considered foolish by some commanders, General.”

“That’s precisely what I want Cheng to think, Norton.”

“General, there could be one heck of a lot of men sick as dogs on those landing ships while we’re playing chess with them.”