The Shark Mutiny

the principal casualty was a large carved ivory Dragon Boat from the Qing Dynasty, again early seventeenth century, perfectly created, right down to the eight oars, the 16 pennants, and the deck canopy, all set in a gold- painted lacquer box. The Russian-made bullets hit it broadside on, reducing it to shards of split white ivory: a destruction of history sufficient to reduce any curator of any museum to unashamed tears.

Two paintings, set high on the west wall, above a colossal stone table, also were raked with machine-gun fire. The large one to the left was priceless, a sixteenth-century work by one of the four masters of the Ming Dynasty, Ch’iu Ying. Entitled Late Return from Spring Outing, it was a world-acclaimed picture, ink and color on silk, executed by one of the greatest artists of the Emperor’s Imperial Painting Academy. The bullets had ripped right across it in two lines, and it would never be restored.

The slightly smaller picture to the left, however, was in ruins, and its demise would be mourned by art historians for years to come. It was a rare and magnificent work by Chao Kan, the tenth-century painter from Nanking, and its title evokes the elegant quality of the landscape: Early Snow on the River. It was a masterpiece by a great master who had trained at the Academy of Art of the southern T’ang court. He had used just ink and light color on silk, outlawing any trace of worldliness, as his fisherman worked the icy river, with a small band of travelers wending their way wearily along the windswept bank. Twenty million modern greenbacks would not have bought one half of it.

Two of the security guards, sheltering under the stone table, were hit and killed; the others begged for mercy and were permitted to surrender. And they trooped outside to join their colleagues with their faces to the wall, hands high above their heads, under the scrutiny of the Chinese raiders.

Room by room, the Special Forces took the museum, the staff was taken prisoner, the last tourists ejected from the building and the machine guns placed strategically on front and rear balconies.

At 1445, the sound of helicopters could be heard, out over the surrounding park. The Special Forces commander, in conference with Major Chiang Lee, knew they must be Taiwanese reinforcements, because the signal had not yet been sent back to the beachhead at Chinsan that the museum was secure.

Instantly they ordered all prisoners out onto the steps with instructions to clear the area, and they radioed Bus 213 to open fire at will on the incoming helicopters. Crammed with special police and the remnants of the Army still in the area, the choppers came clattering in over the trees, and immediately flew into a hail of bullets, from the high front balcony and the area to the rear of the bus.

The lead aircraft took the brunt of the heavy fire from the balcony and suddenly exploded, veering over almost in a full somersault and crashing, rotor first, bang into the green tiled roof. The second helicopter was hit from below and its main engine stopped dead, which caused it to drop like a stone from 100 feet, obliterating itself on the stone forecourt and then exploding, killing 15 tourists and injuring 39 others.

The third one banked left across the trees and flew swiftly back to the nearby Army garrison. Meanwhile Major Chiang Lee sent in the signal to the beachhead that the National Palace Museum was safely in Chinese hands for the moment, save for the underground tunnels and vaults, which still contained resisting security forces of an unknown number.

Twenty minutes later, the first of two waves of Chinese airborne battalions came in over the park, the big helicopters and transporters containing two antiaircraft detachments equipped with QW-1 SAMs. This new modified missile with its 35-pound warhead is equipped with a lethal IR homing device accurate to three miles.

The incoming battalion was also equipped with portable antitank weapons and light mortars, and the troops began to jump out into the park, swarming out of the aircraft onto the wet, green grass below, and forming an instant steel ring around the museum. They tied up with the commandos on the Special Forces that had originally taken the museum, and swiftly moved their missile defenses into position.

The museum was not yet completely secure from attack. But it would need a formidable modern force to break through right now. Taiwan had no chance of recapturing the palace, and only a remote shot at destroying it from the air at this point, because its air force was tragically weak and its missile defenses just about spent.

But the treasure trove of the Chinese centuries was firmly under the control of Beijing for the very first time since Chiang Kai-shek’s 14 trains, bearing the very soul of his vast country, had rumbled down to the east coast ferries, almost 60 years previously.

9

0900. Wednesday, May 30.

The White House. Washington, D.C.

News of China’s tightening stranglehold on the island of Taiwan was emerging with leaden slowness. Beijing, unsurprisingly, was releasing nothing. And there had been no time for any of the Western media’s Far Eastern correspondents even to reach Taipei before the iron grip of the Chinese military took hold of the region.

Add to this the complete rupture of all Taiwanese military communications, and the West was left with no sources, no information and no prospects of obtaining any. The only news emerging from the island was the occasional sly and undercover dispatch from the pseudo-embassies, and they had access to very few hard facts. The air battles, which had now been fought over several days, had taken place more than 60 miles from mainland news reporters, out of sight, out of earshot, basically out of reach.

And on this Wednesday morning, the mood in the West Wing of the White House was very somber. The hard men of the United States armed forces, Admiral Arnold Morgan, Defense Secretary Bob MacPherson, the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Alan Dixon, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Tim Scannell, had been proved powerless to fight two enemies in two separate theaters. They were tied up in the Strait of Hormuz, guarding the world’s main oil routes, and China was effectively left to do whatever it liked.

News was trickling in of a very large Chinese force landing on Chinsan Beach. It was already moving southeast to the port of Keelung. It had taken three days to muster, and the Chinese airborne troops had accepted very heavy casualties as the depleted but still determined Taiwanese forces constantly attacked them on the ground.

Nonetheless, the tide of warriors sweeping across the strait from the mainland, by both air and sea, was just too great, too engulfing for the Taiwanese to stop. Tens of thousands of Chinese troops made the beaches from the vast flotilla of civilian boats, merchant freighters and naval ships. This was a mission that had all of China behind it. And all the efforts of the remaining battalions of Taiwan’s northern army proved unable to break through the “screen” of Chinese marines who fought doggedly to protect their beachhead from attack.

And now they were on the move, and Admiral Dixon considered they would swiftly attempt to capture the port of Keelung. Early reports, telephoned in secret from the pseudo-embassies, had the Chinese growling along the road, marching behind tanks and armored vehicles. But the Admiral offered a ray of hope here, because there was a major Taiwanese defensive force in this area. It had been formed six years previously with the express purpose of holding off a Chinese attack on Keelung, and the invaders would have to fight for every inch of ground in the port city.

It would perhaps come down to attrition, like most of China’s wars. And then there could be only one winner. In Arnold Morgan’s opinion, the Taiwanese would be suing for peace within 10 days.

This was Black Wednesday, no doubt. And at 0915 a White House agent entered the office of the National Security Chief to inform all four men that the Navy helicopter taking them to Andrews Air Base was on the lawn.

From there they were flying up to Cape Cod, landing at the sprawling Otis Air Force Base, and then heading on by Navy helicopter to Marblehead, Massachusetts, 20 miles up the north shore from Boston, for the funeral of Lt. Commander Ray Schaeffer. Admiral Morgan himself had insisted that the SEAL Team Leader be awarded, posthumously, the highest possible decoration in the United States Armed Forces, the Medal of Honor. As a SEAL, Ray Schaeffer’s award was for many, many services rendered to his country. It would be awarded with no public announcement whatsoever.

Three thousand miles away in California, the funeral of U.S. Navy SEAL Charlie Mitchell was also taking place, and it would be attended by Admiral John Bergstrom and the Pacific Fleet C-in-C, Admiral Dick Greening. CINCPACFLT had personally recommended that the rookie combat SEAL quietly be awarded the Navy Cross.

In Marblehead, there was an air of terrible sadness. The Schaeffer family had lived there for generations, and