Colonel Xu Dingfa had just spent a few days with his parents, and it had been exceedingly difficult not to tell them they would soon be reunited with their children. All he could say was that he had a great surprise and that they would know more joy than they'd had in many, many years.

His father, well aware of the current escalation of forces between the United States, Taiwan, and China, had warned Xu, "I hope, dear son, you are not talking about war."

Xu had not answered.

He wished he could have shared the Spring Tigers' great plan. He and his colleagues had waited far too long to set the dragon free.

In the days to come the Third and Sixth Destroyer/ Frigate Flotillas would set up a naval blockade of all Taiwan's principal cities, disrupting the flow of food and oil. The Tigers assumed that Washington would not sanction attacking a Chinese man-of-war patrolling in international waters. Moreover, those carrier commanders could not divert screening assets away from their carriers to shadow the Chinese warships, because that would leave antisub, antiair, and antisurf gaps in the screens protecting them. U.S. officials would be enraged, but their own rules of engagement precluded any military response as a viable option.

Once surface elements from the Third and Sixth were in place, air units from the Fourth and Sixth Naval Air Division would carry out surgical strikes on Taiwan's airfields, command and control centers, and those newly erected Patriot missile sites. This one-two punch would sever Taipei's communications with its U.S. protectors and eradicate the island's fledgling missile defense system.

At the same time, Xu's Special Forces already on the ground in Taipei near the Datong District would link up with two more companies of Chinese sleeper-cell forces and continue with direct-action missions to destroy radar facilities and further disrupt command and control as they moved south to capture the presidential office building.

At this juncture the pendulum could swing either way. The Americans could step up or Taipei could step down. Xu envisioned the inhabitants of the Pacific Rim watching, waiting. Only diplomacy could keep the pendulum motionless, but Xu had allowed for even that.

Those four Shang-class nuclear attack submarines from the Twenty-second and Forty-second Submarine Flotilla would, under Vice Admiral Cai's command, assume key positions in the Taiwan Strait, with their primary objective the two U.S. carriers.

Major-General Chen had argued that if those subs could damage or sink just one carrier, the loss would be catastrophic, and the U.S. Navy would have to retaliate with lethal force to save face. The Americans would hunt down the four Shang-class subs, while Major-General Wu ordered the launch of Dong Hai-10 Land Attack Cruise Missiles (LACM) with 900-mile ranges from the NMR into Taiwan, targeting major seaports.