Two Peasants And A President Part 17

Clad in a crisply pressed uniform, a coast guard lieutenant jumped onto the deck of the Dawn Flower followed by a sailor with a Kalashnikov. Waiting for neither acknowledgement nor invitation, he entered the wheelhouse and mounted the steps to the bridge, leaving the sailor standing guard in the doorway below. From the bridge, Zhou could see a sailor manning the machine gun on the bow of the cutter, but he was at ease and the gun pointed skyward, a good sign. Without so much as a greeting, the lieutenant demanded to see the fishing license and paperwork for the vessel, which Zhou provided. After examining it carefully, he said: "Where are you fishing today, Captain?"

"We intend to start about one hundred miles or so further east," Zhou replied, "The stocks are too depleted here."

The young lieutenant knew this to be true, which was one of the reasons for his country's bellicose stance regarding the rights of its fisherman to fish in what had heretofore been considered foreign waters. China's coastal waters had been over-fished for decades and now offered little to keep its fishing fleet alive. If they did not seek waters where the fish were more abundant, they would perish.

The eyes of the sailor standing just inside the door to the wheelhouse slowly traversed the room as he waited for his lieutenant. A small nook for cooking and a well worn table occupied one corner. Around the perimeter were several other small areas, more cubbyholes than rooms, where he could see rumpled bedding and filthy pillows. The heads of sleeping fisherman protruded from beneath the covers. Two old women, one of them ancient were preparing something in the tiny kitchen.

"How many aboard, Captain?" the lieutenant asked Zhou, noting that counting the two youngsters and the elderly man in the wheelhouse with the captain, there were four. It was not a question Zhou had antic.i.p.ated.

After a moment's hesitation he answered "Thirteen," wondering if the lieutenant had noted the delay. The officer looked at him for a moment and then moved toward the door leading below.

"Get me a count of those on board," he shouted to the sailor below. "A rather large crew, don't you think, Captain?" the lieutenant said. Zhou responded carefully: "I have a large family that needs to make a living; here aboard they can always be useful."

The seaman stuck his head into each cubbyhole, added the women to his count and started down the ladder to the engine room where he found one man. Then he made his way to the stern where he found two others mending nets.

In the concealed s.p.a.ce, m.u.f.fled conversation, like that emanating from a confessional, was all the Americans could hear. It seemed too long for a routine boarding. They were struggling to get enough oxygen in the enclosed s.p.a.ce and knew they needed fresh air soon. Holly thought she might throw up.

The seamen shouted 'seven' up to the lieutenant in the wheelhouse. Then he noticed something unusual. The hand holding a blanket over a sleeping man in one of the cubbyholes had a ring on it. It was not a wedding ring, but had it been, it would still have been unusual because fishermen never wear rings due to the danger of snagging them on machinery or nets. Likewise, coast guardsmen are forbidden to wear rings while on duty.

The seaman approached the sleeping man and was about to lift the blanket off with the barrel of his Kalashnikov when he heard footsteps descending the wooden stairs behind him. He turned to see his lieutenant beckoning him to return to the cutter. He thought briefly about bringing what had caught his eye to the attention of the lieutenant, but the heat and stench of dead fish along with the likely trivial matter of a ring made the choice of fresh air too appealing. He turned and followed the lieutenant out onto the deck.

When the cutter had pulled away, the Americans were freed from their fetid and airless prison. Told to remain on the starboard side where they couldn't be seen from the cutter, they ducked out the door and sat against the railing, gulping drafts of fresh air. Holly was feeling seasick again and began to vomit.

As the giant red orb was slowly extinguished by a vast ocean, the pa.s.sengers gathered on the deck to watch. To the Americans, it represented the closing of the most horrific chapter of their lives, or so they hoped. For the Chinese sitting together on the deck, a door had closed on their lives too, behind it their friends, their memories, their heritage, everything they knew, including many things they dearly loved. They would never be able to return but, unlike the Americans, their way forward was unclear.

South Korea is not a terribly welcoming place for Chinese; it has its own problems, economic and otherwise and Beijing's belligerent stance of late had endeared it to few in Asia. The new refugees could not even be certain that the Korean government would not simply return them to China where they would likely find themselves back at the very hospital they had just escaped a horror beyond imagining. Captain Davis had a.s.sured them he would do everything in his power to help them emigrate to the US and they did not doubt his word. But what exactly did 'everything in his power' mean? The reality of the decision they had made now hung heavily in the air.

Furthermore, though they had pa.s.sed Dalian to the north and were now beyond the Liaodong Peninsula, they were not yet past the Shantung Peninsula which protrudes like a giant maw into the Yellow Sea to their south. So they were, by anyone's definition, still well within Chinese territorial waters. Zhou had been monitoring the radio but didn't really expect to hear anything about their escape. After all, China couldn't exactly announce publicly that they were looking for escaped American prisoners from the hospital.

By dawn, Zhou said that they would be in open ocean, well beyond the coast, but beyond the coast did not mean beyond China's grasp. Given China's bellicosity and the potential ramifications of their escape, it was not inconceivable that a Chinese warship might pursue them to the very sh.o.r.es of South Korea. In spite of a magnificent sunset, they were all on edge, occasionally lifting an ear as if hearing somewhere in the darkness the sound of a distant motor. Each tried to rea.s.sure himself that, as Zhou had pointed out, there are hundreds of fishing boats, pleasure craft, tankers and freighters of all descriptions plying the seas around them and, as far as Chinese authorities knew, they could be on any one or none of them.

Holly was starting to feel better and sat quietly next to Ping, thinking about what this amazing lady next to her had been through. Other than her grandmother, Holly had yet to lose a close family member and the thought of losing not only Ray but a child they did not yet have was unimaginable. By contrast, Ping seemed so placid now; it was as if, having done her part, she had committed herself to fate. Holly knew one thing: she would never abandon this woman; she would fight to her dying breath to give her what she had earned and so richly deserved.

It had now been more than twenty-four hours since the first officials learned that something had happened at Tianjin Central Hospital #77. Given the sheer numbers and resources devoted to the task, it was not surprising that the pieces were starting to fall into place.

The guard outside Holly's room had unwittingly led them to the handful of others in the police department who knew what was going on. Judicious pressure or electricity applied to certain areas of the human body generally provides results rather quickly and this had been no exception. They had learned the names of those in Hong Kong who had ties to the organization and through them had discovered the names of both Holly and her husband as well as Maggie and Brett, though Maggie had already been released from the Hong Kong jail and flown home.

They now had photographs of Ray and Holly from their entry doc.u.ments but had thus far failed to make good use of them. No one, as far as they knew, had seen them and the authorities could not televise the manhunt without revealing to the American Emba.s.sy what was afoot. Because of the precautions the Americans had taken, the authorities had not yet learned of Captain Davis' involvement or, for that matter, even his existence. In fact, at that point, Chinese authorities were of the opinion that he might be CIA, which in their minds would explain how the two young Americans had apparently evaporated into thin air.

The American Emba.s.sy, at least the Hong Kong Consulate, was only partially aware of events, in spite of attempts to learn what was going on. Commander Moore, who was as Captain Davis had suspected, CIA, had already contacted his counterpart in Langley where discussions were taking place regarding if and how they might help aside from certain steps they had already taken. The commander had not revealed the extent of his knowledge or activities to consular officials because they reported directly to the State Department and no one expected, under the circ.u.mstances, that the State Department would be of much help. In fact, in some quarters it was thought that State might intentionally impede a.s.sistance for political reasons.

The role of the cleaning lady and, indeed even who she really was, had thus far eluded Beijing. A combination of the fact that her entire family was gone, mostly due to the actions of the bureaucracy, and the ma.s.sive paperwork snafu that attended the displacement and resettlement of tens of thousands of Chinese citizens had left them with a name but no accurate, verifiable history. Apparently she had no close friends in the building where she worked or anywhere else so far as they could ascertain. Like the tall American male, she was a mystery, as was her involvement, though no one doubted that she was involved.

In truth, the leaders of the largest police state on the planet had run into something of a dead end. They were still attempting to trace the recent activities of the ambulance driver, a police officer and a doctor who had likewise disappeared. While the doctor's horrific duties in the hospital certainly provided a motive, interviews with the friends and family of the others had as yet not been fruitful. And in what was the most frustrating aspect of all, the investigators had no idea where the suspects were. For all they knew, the escapees could be hole up somewhere, which was thought unlikely, or could have already fled. But to where? And by what means?

Had those now asleep on the deck of the Dawn Flower known that their pursuers were still in disarray, they would perhaps have slept more soundly.

52.

It had become obvious, for some belatedly, that China's enormous military buildup and preposterous claim to practically all of the South China Sea did not portend well for its neighbors. j.a.pan was beefing up its navy by increasing its submarine fleet by fifty percent. To anyone with even a smattering of familiarity with twentieth century Far East history, that alone should have started ringing bells. j.a.pan, more than anyone, understood that all this was a prelude to armed conflict. After all, in the 1930's, they had embarked on a similar path while the world looked the other way.

And, of course, while Hitler turned Germany into an aggressive military power, Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister, had not only allowed Germany to seize, without opposition, the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia via the Munich Agreement in 1938, but had proclaimed that Hitler wasn't such a bad guy after all. The following year, Germany invaded Poland on a pretext. Thus began World War II.

The problem for the Philippines was that they were low-hanging fruit. With their most powerful naval a.s.set, a WWII American destroyer that was older than anyone in the Philippine Navy, now sitting on the bottom, they were the proverbial sitting duck and they knew it. They did, however, have a card or two to play. The former US base at Subic Bay is one of the best deep water ports in the world. Until its closure in 1992 due to pressure from Filipinos who felt that the US occupation of Subic Bay and Clark Field was a stain on their honor, the Philippines had enjoyed the safety of the American military umbrella. In addition, their economy had greatly benefited from the rent the Americans paid, as well as the dollars thousands of American sailors and airmen spent.

Now Manila was rethinking that decision. While some of the dimmer bulbs in the Philippine government still felt that their 'honor' was more important than a stagnant economy and an aggressive military power at their back door, the president and much of his cabinet knew that sooner or later China could and would have its way with their country if they did nothing. So the president announced that his government was re-inviting the Americans to use both the Subic Bay and Clark Field bases, reasoning that with large American naval and air a.s.sets positioned there, China's ambitions would be slowed, if not stifled.

Reaction in Beijing was swift and predictable. The Chinese president, in an interview broadcast on national television, said that China could not stand idly by while peace in the Far East was threatened by a war-mongering nation, a thinly veiled reference to the Philippines. The speech was widely excerpted in the West where cartoonists had a field day. One drew a cartoon whose caption was: 'Turning the other cheek.' In it a dozen-cheeked caricature of the president had his head revolving round and round on a swivel as the Chinese president repeatedly slapped him. Once again the American president sent out his timid press secretary to feebly a.s.sert that the United States had the Philippines' back so there was no need to reactivate the bases there. This was quickly followed by the all too familiar plat.i.tudes from the United Nations.

Even the late night talk show hosts, who until now had more or less faithfully carried the president's water, sensed a change in the wind. Their jokes and monologues were becoming increasing biting and derisive. While some Americans would continue to believe that weakness and indecision on the part of their government was a n.o.ble expression of compa.s.sion and civility, the 'man in the street' was beginning to feel that his country had allowed itself to be pushed around for too long. Pundits on the left were not immune either and found themselves increasingly excoriated for defending what was clearly a weakened and compromised administration.

Senator Baines, who had never been accused of a lack of timing, saw an opportunity. Standing in the well of the Senate, he announced that he had a present for the president and held up a case of canned spinach, an obvious reference to Pop Eye, whose biceps and courage would suddenly sprout upon eating the vegetable.

More and more attention was now focused on the upcoming visit by the Chinese vice-president and presumed heir to the presidency. Commentators were increasingly posing the same question: What would the American president say to him?

53.

The logjam in Beijing was finally broken by a lowly capitalist. The authorities there decided that it would be more expedient to simply avail themselves of a time-honored American tradition: a private eye. It did not take the man long to discover that the tall American was likely Holly Petersen's grandfather. His neighbors said that he was out of town; they didn't know where and furthermore, he was a naval hero. The nurse on the seventh floor of the hospital and several others quickly confirmed that the photo transmitted to Beijing by the private eye was indeed the man who had accompanied the conspirators.

Captain Richard J Davis, US Navy Retired had, in an instant, become both the most wanted and feared man in China. It hadn't taken long to learn that the captain was a most resourceful and courageous man, one who could be a formidable foe. At that point, no one had any clue where exactly the captain was, but his background pointed to an obvious possibility the sea.

A twenty-first century tool was quickly employed. Known as 'Live Ships,' it is a free world-wide computer map of the paths and locations of international shipping. Colored symbols denote tankers, cargo vessels, high-speed craft, pa.s.senger vessels, yachts, fishing boats and others, as well as navigational aids. A quick look at the map for the Tianjin area showed a mult.i.tude of cargo vessels and tankers rounding the Shantung peninsula and heading south. A much smaller number of vessels were headed east.

An a.n.a.lyst tasked with locating the fugitives, who was examining 'Live Ships', noted that there were no large vessels at sea which had departed from Tianjin for South Korea over the past two days. In fact, that part of the Yellow Sea was virtually devoid of ships of a size that would be denoted with a symbol on the chart. This told him that the escapees could be on one of the tankers and freighters headed south, and that he could narrow the list substantially by clicking on each to ascertain by their position and speed if it had departed during the time frame in question. Those could then be targeted for more investigation and possible boarding by coast guard and naval ships, of which China has many.

There was another possibility, one that could prove significantly more challenging. Hundreds of fishing boats ply the seas around northern China at any given moment. While the 'Live Ships' computer/GPS tool is amazing in its own right, not all fishing boats are depicted since there are so many that the map would be completely obscured by their symbols. Thus, only the largest are shown. This was a problem. It was certainly possible that the escapees were aboard a fishing boat. For that, two twentieth century tools would be employed radar and satellites.

A simple compa.s.s line drawn on the map would show the maximum radius of a slow moving fishing boat leaving port during the time in question. Radar could locate all those fitting the criteria A ma.s.sive deployment of Coast Guard and Naval a.s.sets was immediately required, and all vessels within range would be tasked with the search, especially those whose high speed could be especially useful. It would be an ambitious operation, to say the least, but given the secrets in possession of the escapees, there was little choice.

Within the hour, every Coast Guard and Navy ship in Bohai Bay and the Yellow Sea had been provided with the locations of radar and satellite contacts in its area of operations and ordered to board and, if warranted, search them. All told, there were more than three hundred tankers, freighters and fishing boats that fit the criteria, all of them moving away steadily.

Night had pa.s.sed uneventfully aboard the Dawn Flower. Zhou and his father had taken turns manning the helm. The fugitives had found whatever unoccupied spots they could topside to stretch out and sleep in the fresh air. Holly and Ping had slept curled up together on a large coil of rope. The rest lay single file in the narrow walkways along the rails. The captain had remained in the wheelhouse, occasionally napping. He had watched Zhou as he listened to radio traffic between other boats and ships. It was clear from his expression that he did not like what he was hearing.

Shortly before sunrise, Zhou had awakened Dr. Min and asked him to rouse the others and tell them to move inside. Dr. Min confirmed to the captain what he already suspected: a ma.s.sive search was underway. As the fugitives ate a simple breakfast inside the wheelhouse, they talked in subdued voices about what was going on in the seas around them. It would take the Dawn Flower approximately one more day to reach the nearest port in South Korea. They would enter South Korean waters well before that. At present they were in international waters, which in another time and place would have meant that they were virtually untouchable, but not here, not now.

Two questions were on their minds: how far would the Chinese pursue them and how close would the South Koreans allow them to get? There was considerable animosity between the two nations, which had been greatly exacerbated by the murder of the South Korean coastguardsman. Chinese fishing boats were now greatly reviled because they invaded fishing grounds which did not belong to them and did so very aggressively.

The fugitives had one hope, and one hope only, that when the South Koreans learned there are Americans aboard, they would allow them to come into port. When Captain Davis had been a skipper, he had made a port call in South Korea on two occasions and had met several of his counterparts. He knew that all South Korean naval vessels had one or more English speakers aboard.

At the first approach of any South Korean Coast Guard or Navy vessel, he would have Zhou radio and explain their plight. He had already shared his plan with Dr Min, who had in turn translated for Zhou, who concurred. He was reasonably confident that would work, but if they were being pursued by a Chinese ship at the time, would it just decide to blow them out of the water and let the South Koreans sift through the wreckage? The answer, unfortunately, seemed obvious; they would be sunk.

South Korean coastal radar suddenly lit up with contacts streaming east out of Tianjin, north from Qingdao and as far away as Shanghai. The upper reaches of the Yellow Sea were now churning with Chinese naval and Coast Guard ships of all sizes. Since there had been no warning of pending naval exercises, an alert was flashed to Seoul. Calls to the Chinese Emba.s.sy went unanswered and there was real concern as to the intentions of the largest naval power in Asia.

American satellites quickly focused on the Yellow Sea as the Pentagon watched in amazement. When it was learned that North Korean naval a.s.sets were also putting to sea and its army and air force had been put on alert, the entire world turned its attention eastward.

In the White House, a president already besieged by anti-China factions sat transfixed by the unfolding drama, his advisors unable to provide any explanation whatsoever. The US relationship with China had become an underpinning of his presidency, and China's continued investment in America, a foundation of his much-touted economic recovery. Now their navy was streaming into the open sea without any apparent reason.

The White House switchboard was already afire with demands from the media for some explanation. He simply couldn't respond that he didn't know what the nation whose vice-president he would soon be meeting was doing. It would be a disaster. The Chinese Emba.s.sy was silent.

Decoded radio intercepts from NSA indicated only that the Chinese were searching for something very important. Was it possible that a nuclear weapon had gone missing? Or a nuclear armed ship had defected? What else could possibly explain the ma.s.s exodus of China's northern fleet?

Viet Nam and j.a.pan, nations that had been involved in naval skirmishes with China recently and, in the case of Viet Nam, had suffered significant loss of life, had ordered their naval a.s.sets out of port for safety's sake. There was mounting fear that in the absence of any explanation on the part of China, a nervous trigger finger could start a war.

South Korean coastal radar now showed several warships moving at high speed toward its coast and, more alarmingly, aircraft taking off from two Chinese military airfields. With its own naval a.s.sets now potentially threatened, South Korea had no choice but to scramble its own jets to provide an air umbrella for its ships.

South Korean military leaders were now meeting with their US counterparts on the Korean peninsula regarding the possibility that a rogue group had stolen a Chinese nuke and that it could be on one of the ships headed east toward its coast. Since there was as yet no other explanation for the unprecedented naval deployment, the intent to start a war could not be discounted. Therefore, it was imperative that no Chinese vessel be allowed close to the South Korean coastline. The implication was clear: one or more Chinese ships might have to be sunk.

What had been a speck in the sky become a four-engine propeller driven reconnaissance plane. Flying out of Shanghai, the Chinese Y-8X maritime patrol craft were familiar sights in the skies over Shangdong Province and had been carrying out long-range intelligence missions near the coast of South Korea. In numerous instances, the South Koreans had scrambled interceptors to meet them. This was once again the case.

As the lumbering craft flew low over the Dawn Flower, Zhou was startled by the sudden scream of two South Korean jets slashing through the sky overhead. There was no longer any doubt that both China and North Korea knew they were here. What they would do about it was the only question. Zhou thought it likely that there were at least ten other fishing boats in the vicinity; he had seen three in the past two hours alone. Boarding and searching each would take time. He hoped the fact that he had already been boarded once would at least place him at the bottom of the list, if not exclude him altogether.

There was one other problem that Zhou and the captain had discussed. At the 38 parallel, North Korea juts far into the Yellow Sea. The straighter the line from Tianjin to South Korea, the closer to North Korea. That the North Koreans were more likely to open fire than open a line of communication was a fact no one doubted.

The State Department had finally succeeded in reaching an aide to the amba.s.sador at the Chinese Emba.s.sy. Valerie Waters, the Secretary of State, had asked to speak to the amba.s.sador himself but was told that he was indisposed at the moment, leaving her no choice but to, in diplomatic speak, ask the aide what the h.e.l.l was going on. He at first feigned ignorance of what she was referring to, but with the decibel level of her voice rising steadily, he moved on to the subject they both knew was the reason for her call.

"Madame Secretary," he began unctuously, "aside from certain naval training exercises that were planned months in advance, I am unaware of any ship movements that should be of any concern to the United States."

"So, let me get this straight," said Waters, her irritation growing, "you wish me to believe that when China's entire northern fleet suddenly sorties into open ocean, it is nothing that should be of any concern to the United States?"

"May I remind you," he continued in a condescending tone he made no attempt whatsoever to conceal, "that China is on one side of the Earth and the United States is on the other. Therefore, what goes on in our waters need not concern you."

"I think it's time that we discontinue this charade and you put the amba.s.sador on the line," Waters said curtly.

"As I said," Madame Secretary, "he is indisposed."

Then the line went dead. Waters found herself wondering how a once powerful nation had been reduced to a supplicant in the eyes of China and much of the world. That the United States Secretary of State had not even been afforded the courtesy of speaking with the amba.s.sador was in itself an insult. But the far greater insult was that there wasn't a d.a.m.n thing she could do about it. The current situation was the inevitable result of the actions of a nation whose greed and mismanagement had allowed it to become subservient to another. It was hardly unique from a historical perspective, but then few politicians in America knew or cared much about history. By contrast, China always kept history in mind and, more importantly, China learned from it.

As the president listened, it quickly became clear from his conversation with the Secretary of State that they were no closer to understanding what was going on than they had been several hours ago. During the morning press briefing, his press secretary had stood lamely claiming that as far as he knew, there was nothing terribly unusual about the activities in the Yellow Sea. His a.s.sertion was met with open skepticism bordering on revolt by a press corps that was well aware from world-wide sources that virtually China's entire northern fleet had suddenly sortied east and south from their bases. One media outlet published a cartoon of a sky-full of intercontinental ballistic missiles headed toward the US, while the president's press secretary explained that it was nothing to be concerned about.

Several Republican senators, including of course Virgil Baines, had asked in interviews with various media how it was that the United States seemed so clueless as to the reason for this? The pressure was mounting on the President and, aside from ascribing the uproar to purely partisan politics, to which he resorted ever more frequently, he was left with few options. As the clock ticked closer to the meeting with the heir-apparent to the Chinese presidency, his unease mounted. That he was as facile a speaker as any US president in recent memory did not lessen his dread at having to tell the country that he had no clue what was going on.

Captain Davis calculated that they had crossed into South Korean waters, but any solace that might be derived from that fact was purely theoretical since China would doubtless disregard any such distinction. The captain was scanning the horizon for any signs of a warship or coast guard cutter when Ping appeared behind him with a cup of tea.

"For our hero," she said in heavily accented English.

"Dear lady," he replied, "it is you who are our hero." As Dr. Min translated, Ping smiled and as she did, the captain looked into gentle eyes reaching out from a n.o.ble soul that had risen above so much tragedy and pain to help two young Americans.

"I'm going to do everything in my power to help you and your friends come to the United States, if that is your wish." A wide smile answered his question.

Zhou's deep voice broke the spell and the captain turned to see his outstretched arm aiming at a point off the stern. He had seen a glint of sunlight reflected off something, but even with binoculars, it was hard to make out what type of ship it was. Whatever it was seemed headed in the direction of two small fishing boats they had pa.s.sed earlier. What went unsaid was that if it was a naval ship, the search was getting closer.

Holly appeared at the top of the steps with a tray filled with bowls of steaming rice topped with something unrecognizable. Everyone was hungry and no one questioned what they were eating since it was obviously what they were going to get. Holly triumphantly held up a spoon like it was treasure from the bottom of the sea. With it she proceeded to scoop what she a.s.sumed was fish and rice into her mouth. To her surprise it tasted quite good. Zhou's grandmother, who had prepared the food, joined them carrying her bowl and chopsticks. Everyone held his bowl up in a toast to her cooking. She beamed a toothless smile.

When they were finished, Zhou reached into a locker and held up a bottle of rice wine. His grandmother disappeared down the steps, returning with a tray of tiny gla.s.ses. The objects of one of the largest manhunts in history looked at each other for what they knew might be the last time and raised their gla.s.ses.

The captain handed his empty gla.s.s to Zhou's grandmother and picked up the binoculars again. Perhaps three miles away, the bow of what appeared to be a warship was aimed squarely at the Dawn Flower.

"Trouble," he said. It needed no translation. Zhou took the microphone off its cradle and handed it to the captain.

"To any South Korean naval vessel, this is Captain Richard J. Davis, United States Navy Retired. I repeat: To any South Korean naval vessel, this is Captain Richard J. Davis, United States Navy Retired. We are being pursued by unknown Chinese warship attempting to return us against our wills to Tianjin. There are three Americans aboard who were kidnapped by Chinese authorities and are attempting to escape. Please acknowledge. Out."

Zhou then broadcast in Chinese the emergency call. Thirty seconds later he repeated the radio call and an updated position report. Then he picked up the binoculars again as the captain repeated the distress call in English. The warship was now close enough to make out its forward gun mount and the red flag atop its mast.

The radio's speaker crackled with a response in Chinese: Dr. Min listened, then confirmed that they were being hailed by a Chinese frigate, ordered to heave to and prepare to be boarded. Everyone aboard had agreed that they would go as far as they could and if they were overtaken and sunk, so be it. To a man (and woman) everyone on the Dawn Flower preferred death on the high seas to bullet in the neck on the dirt field outside in Hospital #77.

The captain repeated his radio call again. The only response was the howling sound of a 100mm round as it screamed over the wheelhouse and geysered a quarter mile off the bow.

"Mayday, Mayday," the captain shouted into the microphone, repeating his distress call. Everyone ducked reflexively as the next round pa.s.sed even closer. This time the geyser was barely two hundred yards in front of them. As the captain repeated his mayday call, his voice was drowned out by the slapping of air that could only be a helicopter. It had lifted off the frigate's stern and was now hovering fifty yards off the starboard bow, a machine gunner sitting in the open door, his weapon trained on the Dawn Flower.

The captain yelled to everyone but Zhou to get below decks where they would at least stand a chance of surviving what was now inevitable. He intended to continue his mayday call until he was dead. As he began to speak into the microphone one more time, he could see the machine gunner pull back the charging handle and prepare to fire. He shoved Zhou to the deck as the first rounds exploded the gla.s.s in the wheelhouse. The heavy steel-clad bullets tore away chunks of the wood which, along with shards of metal and gla.s.s, rained down on Zhou and the captain, now flattened on the wheelhouse floor.

The machine gunner paused while a loud speaker announced something in Chinese that did not require translation. Then Captain Davis did something that amazed Zhou. He pulled out the 9mm pistol that had belonged to the hospital guard, got to his feet and, using a shot out window frame as a rest, carefully aimed it at the machine gunner.

Fifty yards is a long shot for a pistol with a five inch barrel but, using a rest, it is well within the capability of a skilled shooter. More importantly, as far as the captain was concerned, it would send a message to the Chinese navy that the United States Navy would not ever surrender without a fight Ever!!

The absurd sight of the tall, grey-haired American aiming a pistol at him startled the machine gunner just long enough for the captain to get off three quick shots. The first was low and right and ricocheted off the open door of the helicopter, the second startled the gunner as it flew past the his head, buying the captain another second to compensate. The third tore into the right shoulder of the gunner. Enraged, he ignored the searing pain and aimed his sight squarely at the chest of American, who would continue to fire until he was cut down.

The captain could see a smile on the face of the machine-gunner as he prepared to end the life of the impudent American, but the second of the next two rounds from the Chinese pistol found the center of his chest just above his body armor. The machine gunner looked down in disbelief at the hot blood now flowing out of the wound. In his final act, he pressed the trigger of his machine gun, but the last thing he heard was not the sound of bullets, but the scream of South Korean jets.

The two American-made F-16's were doing more than five hundred knots when they pa.s.sed in full-afterburner on either side of the helicopter. The 32,000 pounds of back blast from the big General Electric engines picked up the helicopter like a child's toy, cart-wheeling into the sea. Captain Davis ran out on the deck, waving as the jets made another pa.s.s, this time to make it clear to the Chinese frigate that it would be well-advised to withdraw. The frigate's captain concurred, knowing that his frigate's armament was no match the F-16's missiles and cannon. He radioed his situation and came about.