Read Online Fourth Crisis: The Battle for Taiwan by Peter von Bleichert - Free Book Online Page A

jumped out and reached for a Stinger
man-portable air defense system.   He brought
the anti-aircraft missile to his shoulder and its reticle to his eye.   He led the fast-moving East Sea and waited
for a tone from the weapon.   When a buzz
like an electric razor indicated the seeker had locked-on to a heat source, he
squeezed the trigger.   The small blue
interceptor leaped from its tube and ignited.   It streaked for the East Sea, but blew right by, missing the Chinese
cruise missile before careening toward one of the hot ground fires.   A tardy HAWK interceptor also plummeted from
the sky, nose-diving into the pavement, and sacrificing itself to the
pyre.   The East Sea approached Kadena’s
control tower.
    The Chinese cruise missile crashed through the tower’s
concrete wall, penetrated to an interior stairwell, and exploded.   The tower burst, and the upper floors hung
weightless for a moment, before telescoping down into a cloud of grey
dust.   Debris fell on firefighters and
the damage control teams that dashed around.   The thunder of an orbiting airplane drew nervous glances skyward until relieved
personnel recognized its outline as friendly.
    The Lancer’s second pilot contacted Guam’s naval base,
transmitting imagery of the raid.   A few
minutes later, the Lancer received orders from command, instructing them to
meet a tanker over Thailand before continuing on to their original destination,
Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.
    ◊◊◊◊
    The Ronald Reagan carrier strike group passed north of Wake Island on its westward odyssey.   The supercarrier’s hull buzzed with speed,
her lower decks warmed by Pacific waters.   Startled from a disturbing dream, Lieutenant Pelletier showered again
and walked to one of the commons’ video phones where she waited with shipmates to
contact family and friends.   Pelletier
watched a Marine typing a familygram and a pimpled sailor chatting and smiling
in front of a small screen.   Each had a
three-minute allotment to communicate with home.   Her turn came, and she sat down at a terminal,
logged-in, and saw her dad already online.   He answered her video call immediately.   Pelletier combed her hair with her fingers and leaned into the
camera.   Her father’s stuttering face
tiled with interference as they made their greetings through limited bandwidth.
    “How’s Hobbes?” Cindy asked.   She’d had that damn cat since he was a kitten, sharing an almost psychic
link with the no-good, lollygagging, mollycoddled rabble-rouser.   Besides her dad, that damn all-terrain feline
flea transporter was all she had known.   She remembered her dream: Old Hobbes was gravely ill, yellowed with
jaundice, and crying a pathetic meow for help.
    “Uh… he’s fine,” her dad lied.   “Hey, you won’t believe who called.”
    Cindy let her father off the hook about the cat, allowing him
to change the subject.
    “Who?”
    “Robby.   Robert
Gerardi.   Can you believe it?   He wanted to know if you were part of the
fighting, and…” Pelletier’s father continued, although his voice was drowned out
by the music in her head.   For a moment,
she flashed back to high school and the night of her prom.   She was looking at the boy with the broken
heart, the husband that might have been.   Seeing his little girl taken aback, Pelletier’s father wrapped up the
conversation with: “Give ‘em hell,” and the usual, “I love you.   Be safe.”   The video screen went black.   Pelletier
sat for a moment.   A sailor waiting to
use the kiosk cleared his throat.   Pelletier
gathered herself and got up.
    She made her way toward the fantail through the twists and
turns of Ronald Reagan ’s cramped
corridors.   The inescapable, maddening
hum of machinery was louder than usual.   She needed a moment of peace.   She
swung open a final hatch, felt the blast of cool air and tasted salt.   Pelletier stepped out onto a wide balcony.
    The balcony hung low to the water,