possible. Tell him we fully support his revolution, but my first responsibility is to the members of my flotilla. Humor him. Tell him anything as long as we are freed and helped back to the ship.” Tran nodded and began to speak with di Silva, slowly at first, but soon he was rambling on and on, his speech becoming less formal and more flowery-he really seemed to be laying it on thicker and thicker, and di Silva was eating it up. A few mo ments later, with di Silva wearing a firm but rather dejected expression, the two men were bowing deeply and smiling to each other. “General di Silva says he admires your sense of duty, ” Tran reported with a sense of relief. “He has agreed to help us back to the ship and organize the surviving officers.” Yin put on his best smile and extended a hand, and di Silva accepted as if Yin had just offered him the Crown Jewels. “Tell him he should be held up as a shining example of the great leaders of Communism-and any other drivel you think he will be impressed by, ” Yin said impatiently. “Then ask him to bring the senior officers in here immediately so that I can organize-” There was a sudden flurry of voices coming from the hallway, and a wave of people pushed their way into Yin’s room. Several of them had small automatic weapons and wore earpieces-Secret Service agents, most likely, or Presidential Guards, Yin thought. Well, the Chinese Admiral thought, he was right all along; his room was bugged, and as soon as the Philippine intelligence agents realized that he was not going to cooperate and try to enlist the aid of the Philippine General in trying to escape or overthrow the country, he was going to be captured like any other enemy of the state and hauled away to prison. … The wall of onlookers and guards parted suddenly, revealing a tall, young, handsome man with fair features, a thin dark mustache, and carefully coiffured dark hair. Doctors and nurses were staring at him as if they were looking at a god from Heaven, while the security guards were now gently pushing them away. General di Silva spoke at length to the man, who seemed to be very good friends with him. The man then stepped up to Yin’s bed, his hands crossed before him, smiled pleasantly at Commander Tran, then said in rather good Chinese, “Welcome, Admiral.” Yin was clearly impressed. “Thank you, sir. Whom do I have the pleasure of addressing?”
“I am First Vice President of the Republic of the Philippines, Daniel Francisco Teguina. Admiral Yin Po L’un, I welcome you to Palawan.” The First Vice President! Yin exclaimed to himself. Well, things were getting very interesting-if he was who he claimed. “So. Am I to be your prisoner, Comrade Vice President?”
“No, ” Teguina replied, struggling through Yin’s sentence and struggling to compose a reply. “You are my guest and are to be welcomed.”
“As a conquering hero?” Teguina made a sideways glance at the receding wall of people around the bed-none were within hearing range, and probably did not understand Chinese in any case-then at di Silva, and then back at Yin. “If you have the strength, Admiral, we will speak of it, ” Teguina replied. “I will speak of nothing until I am reunited with my officers and receive report from them on the status of the men under my command, ” Yin said. His words were obviously too much for Teguina, who shook his head, and Yin motioned for Tran to translate. “You will have what you wish, Admiral Yin, ” Teguina said. He smiled evenly. “Then, we will speak of the future of the Philippines-and of our future.” JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF CONFERENCE CENTER, THE PENTAGON WEDNESDAY, 28 SEPTEMBER 1994, 0730 HOURS LOCAL eral Wilbur Curtis and the other Joint Chiefs of Staff ~ wenere seated around the triangular table in their Pentagon conference room, the Tank, listening to Navy Captain Rebecca Rodgers give her morning briefing. Since the nuclear device had been detonated, things had still not cleared up. If anything, save for the fact that no other devices had gone off, the situation was worse. “The Chinese government continues to deny any knowledge or claim any responsibility for the nuclear blast, ” Rodgers 1 told the assembly. “The official announcement from Beijing stated that People’s Liberation Army Navy Forces came under sustained and unprovoked attack by Philippine naval and air forces, and that an F-4E attacked their flagship in the vicinity of ground zero before the blast. They claim that the attack was a retaliation by President Mikaso for the patrol action against the so-called illegal oil-drilling platform in the Spratly Island neutral zone. The Premier denies that Chinese warships carry nuclear devices, but they do point to the presence of nuclear weapons at several former American bases in the Philippines…”
“That’s bull, ” General Falmouth of the Air Force retorted. “We took all special weapons out of the Philippines years ago. “I know, Bill, I know, ” Curtis said. “We’ve got inspection records from the United Nations and from the Soviet START Treaty inspection teams to verify it-the President will authorize disclosure of those inspection reports soon. Let Captain Rodgers finish.” Captain Rodgers continued. “ASEAN, the Association of South East Asian Nations-the Philippines, Brunei, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, and most recently Vietnam, who are, in effect, a counter-Chinese economic and military coalition-have not made a comment on the disaster. But they are meeting tomorrow in Singapore in emergency session to discuss the issue.” While the Joint Chiefs weren’t surprised at China’s denial of launching the warhead, they were surprised how readily others in power, namely the President and his advisers, were willing-for the time being-to accept it. Whatever was going on, and whoever was behind it, one thing Curtis knew without a doubt was that the situation was going to escalate. In fact, it seemed to have already . Captain Rodgers, standing at the end of the triangle behind the podium, kept going. She informed the Joint Chiefs that in accordance with the 1991 START Treaty, the Soviet Union had activated six mobile ICBM battalions in Central Asia, a response to the United States’ DEFCON Three status. Along the Chinese and Mongolia borders, the Soviet Union had activated four missile battalions, equaling forty missiles, and were generating nuclear-capable forces at four bomber bases in south-central Russia. Although eleven hundred other known main, reserve, dispersal, rail-mobile ICBM, and crosscountry road-mobile ICBM sites were under manual or satellite surveillance, it didn’t appear that the USSR was gearing up for a major counteroffensive-at least with long-range nuclear forces. Rodgers switched to an enlarged chart of the mainland of China. “The source of continuing tensions in the past forty-eight hours continues to be the buildup of Chinese tactical forces in deployments along the Mongolian and Soviet border, ” Rodgers said. “This is being done, according to the Chinese, as a response to the Soviet buildup.” General Curtis and the others listened as Captain Rodgers rattled off the Chinese deployment numbers: nineteen total active divisions, four reserve divisions, four hundred thousand troops along a two-thousand-mile front in the north and northcentral provinces. The units included twenty-one infantry divisions, seven mechanized divisions, one heavy missile division, four air defense divisions . There was an uneasy rustle among the Joint Chiefs. Captain Rodgers was talking about a force that was almost as large as America’s and the Soviet Union’s combined. General Curtis was shaking his head. Thirty-three divisions-over one-half of China’s ground forces and one-third of their total military, and what had the President of the United States given him? Two aircraft carrier groups and the STRATFOR. Worse, the President later cut Curtis and the Joint Chiefs out of the loop by insisting that Admiral Stoval, the Commander in Chief of Pacific Command, who was responsible for the carrier task force moving to the South China Sea, report to Thomas Preston, the Defense Secretary, through the National Security Council. That left Curtis not only seething, but in a rather embarrassing position with the other Joint Chiefs, who knew what the President had done. Rodgers switched her electronic screen to a zoomed-in view of the South China Sea region. Specifically, the Spratly Island chain. “The Chinese are moving half their fleet into the area, Curtis observed with some alarm. The other Joint Chiefs murmured in agreement. Captain, I want to know what ships they’re moving in there and why. I also want a letter from State spelling out precisely what the Philippine government has authorized the Chinese Army Navy to do. This makes me pretty damned uneasy. “Well, it should, ” Chief of Naval Operations Randolph Cunningham grumbled. “We don’t have diddly in the area and the damn Chinese know it. They set off a nuke, then rush in and claim it’s a major threat to their sovereignty. They’re taking over the South China Sea faster than you can blink-and we’re just sitting here. This is bullshit.” It certainly was, but what could Curtis do? He answered his own question thirty minutes later, after the briefing, when he got back to his office. His aide, Colonel Wyatt, entered and said, “Sir, you have a scrambled phone call from CINCSAC-General Tyler. He says it’s a conference call.” “Conference call? With who?”
“General Brad Elliott and a Doctor Jon Masters . Elliott? A smile came across Curtis’ face. He took a sip of the coffee Wyatt had just brought in. He hadn’t seen Elliott in months, even though he was one of his favorites. Elliott had had some up and down times-first as Deputy Commander of SAC, then as Director of HAWC, then as head of the government s Border Security, only to be fired and bounced back to HAWC, again. And Masters?. . . Of Sky Masters, Inc.? The NIRTSats? Curtis took the phone call. After pleasantries were exchanged all around, Elliott and Tyler got right to the point: “General Curtis, we need clearance on something we think we’re going to need down in the Philippines.” Curtis’ ears picked up. “Go on. “We want to deploy the NIRTSat recon system that Doctor Masters has built, with a few of my Megafortress escort bombers that are out at the Strategic Warfare Center. We also want some on a few of the RC- 1355 that’ll be deployed for STRATFOR. We need your blessing, though.” Curtis thought about the briefing he’d just come out of. Two carriers in the face of a possible Chinese land-grab. The President had authorized STRATFOR into position on Guam. They’d have to be ready. “Doctor Masters, ” Curtis said, “you can really put that reconnaissance system on tactical aircraft?”
“You bet I can, General, ” Masters said over the pop of the scrambled line. “We can make the Megafortress
