Negotiations

US Air Force Photo

SFC Levine poked his head in the door of Colonel Tanaka's office, "Sir, the Duty Officer says he has a guy on the line claiming to be the Chinese general commanding the peacekeepers in New York state."

"Does the guy speak English?" Tanaka asked.

"Negative Sir, but the duty officer actually speaks Mandarin."

"What's the duty officer's name?"

"Roy Feng, he's a Navy lieutenant commander. Line 5, Sir."

"Got it."

"So what's going on Lieutenant Commander Feng?"

"Yes Sir, I've got a guy on the line who claims to be General Liao Yong of the PLA. According to our intel, the guy commanding the Chinese units in upstate New York is a guy named Liao Yong. Not sure how we could verify that."

"What's he want?"

"He wants to surrender, they got hit by A-10s and drones yesterday, apparently caused a lot of damage."

"Why's he calling the Pentagon? Can't he surrender to the guys up there?"

"Quite frankly Sir, he said he can't make contact with anyone up there, but his aide knew the phone number here."

"Well, I'll be damned. Hang on a second." Tanaka checked his notebook and found the New York State Adjutant's phone number. Heck, the Chicoms should surrender to him, it was his state they had invaded. "Okay commander, give him this number, that's Major General Allan Jones, acting commander of the New York National Guard."

"Acting Sir, is New York's governor dead?"

"He is to us, bastard's on the other side."

"Who?"

"Sir, it's the Chicom bastard who invaded us, they want to surrender."

Major General Allan Jones thought for a minute, then asked, "Does the guy speak English?"

"No Sir, he's speaking through an interpreter." Major Morrison was grinning from ear to ear. His guys had been planning to attack the Chinese lodgment on Fort Drum tomorrow, after another A-10 attack. Now it looked like they wouldn't have to, which made him very happy, since this undeclared war had started, he hadn't lost any of his people. Now they might all survive.

"What did the American say?" General Liao was a very unhappy man, he had received orders from his commander up in Canada to "fight your way to us, then we shall march to the sea together and withdraw from this accursed place" were his exact words.

That way was death, he knew that, his commander knew that. He had served the Party for forty years, now they were willing to throw him and his men away. For what?

"We are to come out of the compound, leaving all weapons and equipment behind, hands behind our heads, fingers interlocked. When we have cleared the compound, all personnel are to drop to their knees." his aide explained.

"They mean to humiliate us, Comrade General!" Major Huang Bai protested, jumping to his feet.

General Liao turned to look at him, "Sit down Major, we have already humiliated ourselves. We have been defeated by common citizens and second line troops. If you would prefer to die, then you may do so at your own convenience, but I mean to take my troops home, alive."

"They will shoot you as a traitor!" Major Huang screamed.

At that point, Colonel Peng Yu drew his sidearm. As Huang reached for his own pistol, Peng shot him in the chest. With a stunned look on his face, Huang dropped to his knees, he stared at Peng and began to speak. Peng shot him again.

Sergeant Heather Jefferson had her squad ready for anything. She could see the Chinese troops massing inside the compound, so far it appeared as if they were following instructions. They appeared to be unarmed.

"Damn Sarge, that's a lot of Commies!" Corporal Bill Winston was by Jefferson's side.

"Sure is Corp, gotta be at least five hundred of the bastards. You know what to do if anything odd goes down, do the guys know their jobs?" She knew they did, but she had to ask.

"Yup, anything funny happens, light 'em up. The guys know it, in fact, they're kinda hopin' the bastards try something."

Jefferson turned to look at her assistant squad leader, "Keep 'em under control Bill, I don't want my guys opening up just because they're pissed off."

"Roger that HJ."

"I'll be damned." Colonel Tanaka said as he hung up the phone. "Seven-hundred and seventy-two prisoners, our guys have retaken Fort Drum. The Chicoms wrecked most of their equipment and we did find a couple of booby-traps in some of the offices, but nobody died, nobody got hurt. Upstate New York is back under our flag."

"Now we just need to get those assholes out of Washington and Minnesota." Admiral Harry Fairchild said from a corner of the room.

Tanaka stood up and went over to the situation map, "Is this data up-to-date?" He was pointing at the computer graphics marking up the map over the state of Washington.

"My sub commanders stayed loyal to the Constitution, every man jack of 'em, oh yeah, my two female captains as well. They report in whenever there are no Chicom satellites overhead to intercept their comms. We had no idea the f**kers could detect our transmissions from those satellites. The sonsabitches actually stole most of the tech to make those from us. We reported it to Congress but they didn't care." Fairchild said, with barely restrained anger in his voice.

"What?" Tanka said, turning in shock to the Admiral.

"Yup, bastards said it would 'upset trade negotiations.' They're stealing our stuff while we negotiate how much Chicom-made crap we're going to buy from them."

Tanaka thought for a moment. "Do you have names?"

"Names of the Congress-critters who made that decision? Sure, why?"

"Let's just say, I want to take this coup to the next level."

"Take over the government instead of just ignoring them? Fairchild asked.

"Yup. You got any better ideas?"

Fairchild sat there for quite a while, then he said, "I play golf with an ex-President, can we at least talk to him first before we move on Congress?"

"Which one?"

When Fairchild answered the question, Tanaka's eyes got very big, "You've gotta be shitting me. Him? I would think he..."

"Look the man might have leaned the wrong way politically for our tastes, but he was always a pretty strict Constitutionalist. Hey, we don't have to listen to him, but..."

Tanaka, still slightly surprised at the name Fairchild had given him, finally spoke, "Do it, it might save our asses later, if they need saving."

"Okay, I'm on it."

Tanaka watched the admiral leave the room, he'd done some crazy shit in his time in the Corps, but this had to be the craziest. Hopefully it would work. In the meantime, how do I get the Reds out of Washington and Minnesota?

Just when he thought things might get less complicated...