Two Peasants and a President (59 page)

“Use them only when you have a clear avenue of escape, because the police become very angry when they realize they are stranded.  When you have used them successfully and escaped, find a another group that is gat
h
ered around a police car with a flattened tire and plead with the officers to join us.  It is critical that we do not attempt to injure the officers in any way for if we use violence, then we become like them.  Can you do that?”

Ming looked at the spiked devices tha
t
Nuan
was holding out and
said: 

“But how can this make a difference; there are so many
police
?”

“There are many of us too and every minute, more like you join the movement.  Already some of the police a
re joining us too. 
We must have faith in each other and in the righteousness of our cause.  Soon there will be millions and the government will be forced to acknowledge the futility of resistance.”

Ming cupped her hands around the caltrops that
Nuan
proffered.

“Be strong,”
Nuan
said, “and one day you will tell your grandchildren tales of your bravery and ours and how together we saved our great nation.”

Ming looked down at the tiny weapons of freedom in her hands and smiled.  When she looked up again,
Nuan
was gone.

******

The taxi pulled to the curb and one of its five passengers disembarked.  Three blocks later, it made its way around a disabled police car and continued on for approximately a quarter mile before dropping off the next passenger.  It was more than a mile to the next drop off point, and along the way they passed a motorcycle that had been pushed to the side of the road, a police officer cursing no one in particular as a group of people began to gather around it.  Each of the remaining three passengers was dropped at a strategic point before Jun turned back to Beijing to gather more. 

While there was no way to know exactly how many, there were ce
r
tainly hundreds of police cars and motorcycles whose tires had been flattened and whose drivers were now the subjects of impassioned pleas to join the
movement.  Most fell on deaf ears, and several came very close to provoking angry police to use their side arms.  In fact, guns were brandished by quite a few officers, but perhaps finding themselves isolated tempered their resolve.  Not a single police officer had decided to join the movement yet, but as they waited for backup that would never arrive, a few were on the fence. 

If the officers felt isolated now, they were about to experience a new level of isolation.  It seems that among the authorities’ vast network of computer, surveillance, radio, and cryptography specialists were a few tra
i
tors.  At a pre-arranged time, they began jamming the frequencies that the police use to communicate.  This was accomplished with powerful tran
s
mitters periodically transmitting over all police frequencies in ten second bursts, overwhelming calls to and from individual cars.  The fact that these transmissions were intermittent and the transmitters were concealed in mo
v
ing vehicles made apprehension extremely difficult.   In addition, hackers had reprogrammed the software that switches and allocates calls for the entire system, causing massive confusion as officers received calls meant for others and calls from the base were routed back to itself.  Pandemonium could not adequately describe the effect. 

While some levels of the military were equipped with fr
e
quency-hopping equipment to foil jamming, the police had nothing so s
o
phisticated.  Some had scramblers that could garble transmissions to prevent eavesdropping, but even those were not available to many street-level off
i
cers.  In a nation where scanners and walkie-talkies are forbidden to the a
v
erage citizen, they were never thought to be necessary.  There was a delicious irony in all of this: some of those responsible for the chaos had helped to develop the electronic warfare systems that were to be used against the West in the event of conflict.  An unplanned trial was now in progress.

Every route in and out of a precinct police station had, by this time, one or more dissidents with concealed caltrops ready to stop any movement by official automobile or van.  The numbers of disabled vehicles and stranded officers had reached a level that was crippling operations.  At first, there were some in the police hierarchy who believed that this was a prelude to bank robberies or jewelry heists.  Accordingly, they attempted to direct officers to protect these places, only to be puzzled when the cars that were dispatched didn’t report back.  Because few realized the extent of the disruption, it was at first attributed to some sort of glitch in the equipment.  In desperation, individual officers began to use personal cell phones, a move that would present a new challenge to authorities. 

Jun had picked up five more passengers.  Now all of the men who had been hiding in Hong’s warehouse were in strategic locations near the hospital. 
The foreigner who had instr
ucted them along with two other ‘attachés’
who, after a lengthy game of cat and mouse, had finally shaken off their Chinese tails, were in a grocery supply warehouse several miles away.  Jun made another circuit of the neighborhood around the hospital, noting that the police car that had been parked nearby was gone.  The plan would be executed during shift change, an hour away.   

******

Captain
Geng
Huichang
had no way of knowing there were Russians aboard the Vietnamese frigates, though he should have considered the poss
i
bility since both China and Russia had used ‘advisors’ to augment allies’ militaries in the past.  For the Russians, the invitation had been irresistible.  In return for exchanging the frigates’ existing anti-ship missiles and other defensive systems with upgraded versions that had not yet even made it onto some of their own vessels, the Russians would reap billions in profit from sales of these systems to countries who considered China a potential threat.  With videos of sinking Chinese ships playing on monitors in their next weapons expo exhibit, the orders would come flooding in. 

It had been no simple feat and had involved non-stop, around the clock modifications which had barely been completed in time.  Both because there was no time for training and because there were certain features that would be surreptitiously altered after the battle to ensure that only Russia retained the most capable weapons systems, Russian technicians would be manning the weapons.  They were confident that the upgraded version of the SS-N-25 ‘Switchblade’ anti-ship missile would burn through the jamming equipment on the Chinese frigates.  Furthermore, the new defensive systems would defeat the Chinese YJ-83’s that had just been fired.  Finally, the Vietnamese captains, knowing full well that they would be fired upon when they refused to come about had fired their missiles immediately upon the second warning from the Chinese warships, not waiting to be fired upon themselves.  

“Enemy missiles fired, Captain,” the Din
Tien
Hoang radar intercept officer shouted, momentarily forgetting that the captain was only feet away. 

“Activate countermeasures,” answered the captain calmly.

Aboard the
Yulin
:

“Our missiles have acquired the Vietnamese ships, Captain,” inte
r
jected the weapons systems officer, then abruptly adding:

“Enemy missiles inbound!”  

“Activate jamming,” responded Captain
Geng
, confident that the ship’s
countermeasures would defeat the Vietnamese weapons.

The electronic jammers immediately began to saturate the area in front of the enemy missiles with powerful signals designed to disrupt the missiles’ guidance system, but the updated Russian Switchblade missiles bored through the electronic noise.

“Enemy missiles still tracking, Captain!”

“Launch counter-measures rockets!” barked the captain, his eyes now betraying fear. 

The PJ-46 six-round decoy rocket launchers immediately fired their rockets.  Designed to create a large ‘bloom’ to distract the seeker head on the missile, they likewise did not fool the updated Russian missiles.  Everyone in the CIC (Combat Information Center) realized that what was in essence a large machinegun was now all that stood between them and the incoming ordinance.  The missiles switched to terminal guidance mode, ducking to within less than 20 feet of the sea and began to jink from side to side as they closed at nearly 600 mph. 

During the final seconds of the missile’s flight, every sphincter muscle on the Chinese ships tightened as their crews stood astride the line that separates life and death.  With a roar that penetrated even the armored CIC, the Gatling-like point defense cannon erupted, spewing enormous 30mm shells at the rate of several thousand per minute.  A thundering explosion scarcely fifty feet off the ship’s port bow showered the ship with large chunks of destroyed missile, to which the men responded with a cheer.  But their celebration was cut short as the second missile, evading the curtain of d
e
pleted uranium shells, struck amidships, its 225kg shaped
-
charge warhead penetrating to the center of the ship, where it exploded in a white-hot fireball.

More than thirty men were instantly incinerated, and an intense fire began to consume the interior of the ship.  The engineering spaces were relatively unscathed as yet, and the engines continued to propel the ship forward.  But on the bridge all were either dead or gravely injured and there was no one to man the helm, leaving the ship charging forward at its most recent rudder setting.  Those assigned to damage control who were not a
l
ready dead or injured
,
bravely tried to fight the fire, but it quickly became a raging inferno that was nearing the forward magazine where the ammunition for the 100mm gun is stored.  Had
Captain
Geng
Huichang
been alive, he would have ordered ‘abandon ship’ to save what remained of his crew.  But some were still courageously manning their damage control stations when the forward magazine exploded, blowing off the front of the ship clear back to the bridge.  Bowless and with the engines still propelling it forward, the
Yulin
dove into the abyss. 

The
Yuxi
defensive systems had not managed to stop either of the missiles targeting it and both struck amidships, nearly cutting the ship in two.  It was quickly sinking as those still alive struggled to find the means to evacuate.  They would have less than four minutes before the ship, now split in two, sank beneath the waves.  Only eleven would survive. 

Aboard the Song-class submarine trailing the convoy, the captain, hearing the unmistakable sounds of the two warships breaking up, ordered a firing solution for each of the Vietnamese frigates, intending to send them to the bottom with torpedoes.  But the 20 knot speed of the container ship had necessitated that his submarine match it in order to keep up, and this speed markedly diminished the ability of its sensors to listen to the surrounding waters.  It was only when the trailing Vietnamese Kilos opened their torpedo doors that the Chinese captain realized his mistake.  He was scarcely able to get off a snap-shot at the Kilos before their torpedoes sent him to the bottom. 

6
8

The unmistakable sound of diesel engines starting alerted the young man that something was afoot inside the Beijing Military Garrison. 
Chao
, who had been drinking tea nearby, opened his cell
phone to alert those along the
route leading from the base into the city.  Twenty minutes later, the first of three dozen trucks could be seen emerging from the base, each with twenty fully armed soldiers seated in the back.  Again,
Chao
opened his cell phone, this time to let his comrades know that the soldiers were seated facing out, clearly in a position to fire at anyone attempting to interfere.

Slightly more than a mile away, six lorries whose beds contained drums of cooking oil were pulled into a blocking position across the highway, at a point where it would be difficult go around.  Their drivers punctured the tires and opened the drums before taking up positions astride the highway.   The roar of diesel engines could already be heard approaching.  As men with the now familiar bows and arrows peered around corners, they noted that rather than slow for their roadblock, the heavy army trucks were accelerating.  The first truck slammed into the lorries at nearly forty miles per hour, shoving one aside and upending another. 

The next truck aimed at the intersection between two other lorries and managed to flip one over before continuing unimpeded, but the collisions had created a sufficient tangle of wreckage to snag the undercarriage of the fo
l
lowing truck.  It rode partway up over the mangled lorries before becoming high-centered.  The follow-on trucks now had no choice but to slow.  A slick of vegetable oil beneath the wreckage had begun to spread outward.