Fourth Crisis: The Battle for Taiwan by Peter von Bleichert

  The operator’s specific
identifier block was spoken, and was then followed by an activation and
verification code.   Momentarily stunned,
he abandoned the table, went to the closet, and removed a trunk from behind
piles of clothes.   He lugged and set the
trunk upon the sofa and unlatched it with a resounding snap.
    The operator emerged from behind wafting curtains and stepped
onto the apartment’s balcony.   Wearing
dark protective goggles, he emerged with a loaded rocket-propelled grenade
launcher, and surveyed the enemy’s air defense site from on high.   Several bulbous reloads of grenade-tipped rockets,
he hastily tossed onto the balcony’s chaise lounge.   He then rested the RPG on his shoulder and
raised the weapon’s metal sighting rail.
    The rail included four drill holes. The Chinese operator
settled its central one on the air defense site’s radar set.   Then he angled the weapon up and re-centered
the radar on the next drill hole down, to compensate for distance.   Happy, he squeezed the weapon’s trigger
bringing forth a familiar, satisfying and friendly surge.   Hot gas kicked out the launch tube and
ignited the apartment’s willowy curtains.   The first rocket-propelled grenade shot away.
    Fins that sprang from the grenade’s control column
stabilized the missile as it flew over the fences and outer berm of the
Taiwanese PATRIOT missile site, before it hit the radar dead center, shattering
it with explosives and fragments.   With
the living room engulfed in flame behind him, the Chinese operator clicked
another rocket into the launcher.   A
neighbor peeked around the balcony partition, choked on smoke and covered his
mouth and nose before retreating from the nightmarish scene.   The Chinese operator braced himself against
the balcony railing and fired another grenade at the site’s control
center.   It hit, exploded, and tore into
the trailer.   After a millisecond delay,
the trailer burst, its metal skin peeling back in sheets to vent the
overpressure within.   With a dark giggle,
the operator reloaded and sent another round.
    This one went wild, slamming into the air defense site’s berm.   Dirt and rock bounced.   He cursed and clicked another rocket into the
launcher.   This one connected with the nearest
PATRIOT missile station and consumed it in a massive fireball, swallowing it
and the truck-mounted launcher and interceptors it contained.   Elated by the spectacle of his work, the
Chinese operator loaded again and fired.
    The rocket-propelled grenade whooshed away, and impacted the
concrete beneath another missile station.   It cooked off an interceptor that broke free and, uncommanded, shrieked
toward the hillside building before it pitched up and corkscrewed into the
sky.   Accepting it as a salute to his
masterful destruction, the Chinese operator paused to watch the missile dive
and slam into the ground some miles away.   Despite the raging fire in his apartment, the screams of fleeing
neighbors and the sirens in the distance, the operator—high on adrenalin and
rocket fumes—laughed.   He did not see the
puff of concrete dust kicked-up behind him.
    “Right and high one meter,” the Taiwanese sniper’s spotter told
him.
    The sniper lay across the roof of a Humvee inside the air
defense site’s perimeter.   He had seen
the RPG’s smoke trail that led his attention straight to the apartment
balcony.   He then had used this trail to
guide his magnified scope and settled it on the center of mass of the
perpetrator.   He settled the reticle of
the high-powered rifle on the man’s chest.   Then the sniper clicked the scope’s dials to compensate for the breeze,
bullet drop, and range.
    “Send it,” the spotter said.
    The sniper rifle barked and bucked.
    700 grains of lead punched the Chinese operator in the chest,
tearing through his breastplate before fragmenting.   The shards of lead from the broken bullet then
spread out and bored through