curiously, and then handed it to him.
Behind Li a large helicopter with PLA markings on it, on-loan to the North Korean army, descended carefully into the canyon, hovered over the flat ground for a brief moment and then landed softly.
The Arabs turned from the wind blast and covered their eyes with their robes. The Special Forces operators simply pulled down their combat goggles and kept watching their targets.
The helicopter was of Russian origin, an Mi-8TBK, “Hip-E” in NATO parlance. It was outfitted with 24 tip-up seats along the sidewalls of the cabin, and carried a nose-mounted 11.7mm Gatling gun. The 192 S-5 rockets and four 9M17P AT-2 “Swatter” anti-tank missiles and their pods, heavy weapons systems with which it normally was armed, had been removed to increase the range of the helicopter. Additional deck armor also had been removed to decrease the overall weight of the aircraft. In the place of the external weapons stores, external fuel tanks had been added, doubling its range to the 1,000 kilometers necessary for the mission.
The pilot disengaged the rotor and brought the turbines to a stop. The blades slowly spun down and the dust settled. The canyon quieted again.
The Arab turned and motioned forward one of the men in his group. A young man stood and quickly walked over. The Arab handed the laptop to him.
Sitting down in the sand, placing the laptop computer on his crossed legs, he opened it and turned it on.
The Arab watched his technician fruitlessly try to boot the machine. After two tries the younger man looked up and spoke a brief sentence to his leader.
Turning to the Colonel, the Arab looked a question to Colonel Li.
The Arab reached for the laptop. The technician gave it to him, stood and walked back to the group of men at a wave of dismissal. The Arab turned to Li, irritation on his face.
The Colonel looked at the Arab. “You bought missiles, warheads and targeting and launching assistance. Did you think we would give you the ability to re-target these weapons on others, perhaps ourselves?”
The Arab listened, and then tossed the laptop to the ground, angry. “I have many men here. How are you confident you will be able to leave without doing what I tell you?”
Colonel Li ignored the question and looked at the Arab for a long moment. Finally he said, “The missiles are ready for launch. They have been targeted. The launcher for the weapons is inside the helicopter, where it will remain. We will launch them as we leave – from our helicopter as soon as we are out of range of any weapons you have in your possession.”
The Arab for the first time looked surprised as well as angry. “You think we will trust you to do this?”
Colonel Li regarded him expressionlessly. “What choices have you?” He asked.
The Arab angrily looked over at the large helicopter, noticing for the first time the machine gun under its nose, and that the aircraft had landed facing directly toward him and his men at a distance of under seventy meters.
“I will tell you shortly the launch time,” he said in impotent fury as he turned his back and strode angrily across the gravel canyon floor.
On reaching his men, the Arab asked his young technician if all was ready.
“Yes, Imam. The website update is ready to go out with your words that Allah, praise His name, will destroy the infidels tonight, and avenge your great father. This message will go out as soon as you command. The videotape of your greeting to the people of Islam that Allah in His righteousness will tonight bring His fire to the palaces of the devils, the places of their worship, their houses of government, has been delivered to the television studio under guard. They are not being allowed to view it before broadcast, Imam. They are awaiting your word by satellite telephone to start the broadcast and release the web pages.”
The technician held out the handset of the satellite telephone.
Satisfied, the Arab nodded. He turned and looked at the sleek weapons systems readied behind him, imagining their ends. Jerusalem. Tel Aviv. Haifa. Gone! In his mind’s eye he could see the hated Jews screaming to the seas to put out the fire that could not be quenched. The Zionist Jews would not be able to recover from this attack.
It was true that Palestinians also would be killed – many Palestinians. This was a small price to pay for removing the hated enemy from the lands given by Allah, praise be to Him, to the Arabs as recorded by the Prophet Muhammad, may He rest in Paradise. He would remind the people and Imams in the afterglow of victory that this was an operation of martyrdom by the brave Palestinian people. Selfless sacrifice of many of their own for the sake of Islam, for the rebirth of the Caliphate.
Nodding, he turned back to his technician and accepted the satellite telephone handset. Speaking into it he released the broadcast and the web pages, then returned the handset and walked back to the infidel colonel. He knew it would take at least three hours for his message to be heard around the world.
“We will eat now. You will launch the missiles in three hours. That is the time that the hands of Allah, peace be upon Him, will strike.” Not awaiting a reply in which he wasn’t interested, he turned his back on Colonel Li and strode back to his men.
The Colonel watched his retreating back for a long moment, considering, and then turned and walked back to his combat team. Three hours he could stand. He ordered his communications sergeant to send a pre-encrypted transmission, appending a simple “+3h” to the message, told his men to begin eating their dinner rations in teams, and sat down to wait.
High overhead a Chinese reconnaissance satellite orbited. The satellite could image in frequencies from infrared to ultraviolet, from microwave to gamma ray. At a command a small steering rocket motor fired and the satellite moved to a new orbit.
14
Indian Ocean
Thursday, 11 April, 13:50 hours GMT (19:20 Local)
Looking from the Captain’s bridge of his new command, the Chinese aircraft carrier Lanzhou, pennant number 170, the first carrier in the history of the Chinese navy, Admiral Ying gazed across the expanse of sea covered by his battle group of surface combatants and transport ships.
Having transited the Strait of Malacca without incident, Admiral Ying led the group south with a published goal of rounding Australia and returning to the South China Sea after the two-week shakedown cruise.
When queried by an earlier American secretary of defense on China’s need for a blue-water navy, and in particular, an aircraft carrier, General Hu, head of the Chinese military, seemingly surprised, had replied, “America has for years asked us to bear a greater security role, one commensurate with our economic size. Our now offering to do so, in fact, to provide more sea-lane protection than America seems able to provide to ships in the far-western Pacific and Indian Ocean, is something for which we should be thanked, not criticized, no?”
He, of course, had been correct. America’s navy had seemed unable – or unwilling (the result was the same on the crews of ships taken by pirates) – to protect the sea lanes for which America ostensibly needed such a huge navy. The rest of the world seemed not to be worried about a single carrier and a small task force thousands of kilometers from Europe or America. If it kept merchant ships safe and their cargoes protected, what was the problem?
Accompanying
