Fourth Crisis: The Battle for Taiwan Read Online Free

long kiss.   Walking again, their step quickened.   Jade giggled with anticipation.   Once through the apartment door, they began to strip each other.   Richard was slow to indulge at first,
seemingly preoccupied with his discouraging encounter.   However, when Jade guided his hand to her
moistness, he soon forgot all.
    Panting heavily, Jade slid off Richard and collapsed beside
him.   Now at the outer edges of sleep from
the powerful, shared orgasm, Richard flashed into a dream: The world was on
fire.
    “I’m hungry,” Jade declared, startling Richard awake.   “You men,” she laughed.   “If I were a spider, I’d sting and kill you
now.”   She donned a robe and went to the
kitchen.   Richard stirred from his cocoon
of sheets, and clicked on the bedroom television with the remote.   Breaking news from Taiwan came on.   Richard squinted against the glare and sat
up.
    “Hon,’ come here.   You
need to see this,” he exclaimed with urgency.   Jade ambled back into the bedroom cupping a bowl of chocolate
syrup-covered ice cream.
    “What is it?” she asked, as she fell into her favorite
overstuffed chair.   She shoveled some ice
cream into her mouth.
    “Look…”   Richard turned
up the volume.
    A reporter explained that Taiwan had launched ballistic
missiles at Communist China, killing thousands of innocent civilians in a
blatant act of war.   Taiwan, in turn,
claimed the attack was unauthorized—the act of a rogue missile captain—and
offered profuse apologies while warning China against escalation.   Beijing promised retaliation for the act of
terror, and to solve the Taiwan question, ‘once and for all.’   The United States had called for calm on both
sides.   As a prudent precaution, the
American president ordered the nuclear supercarriers George Washington , John C.
Stennis , and Ronald Reagan to the
area.   The journalist then concluded her
report with, “Ladies and gentleman, the events of the last few hours are
undeniable—the Fourth Taiwan Crisis has begun.”
    Jade swore in Chinese, and Richard dropped the f-bomb in
English.   They both looked at each other
with mouths agape.   Richard’s cell phone
began to ring.   He glanced at the
flashing, vibrating thing, and then back to the news.
    “There goes the weekend,” he sighed.   Richard stood and walked to the nightstand.   Wanting privacy to take the call, he carried
the phone into the kitchen.
    ◊◊◊◊
    On the San Diego embarcadero, near the Spanish colonial
revival Santa Fe Depot, and past the tall masts of the Maritime Museum’s full-rigged
sailing ship, Star of India , a white
pickup truck pulled up outside a tall glass hotel.   Wearing US Navy dress white, Lieutenant
Cynthia Pelletier hopped out of the pickup and blew a last kiss to its driver,
her dad.   He smiled widely and told her
to be safe, and that he was very proud of her.
    The hotel’s bellhop took Lieutenant Pelletier’s sea-bag from
the truck and nearly collapsed under its weight.   He shuffled off, groaning, maneuvering the
unwieldy canvas sausage to a luggage cart.   Out of breath, he directed Pelletier to the front desk.   She entered the air-conditioned lobby and
tucked her short blond hair behind a smallish ear.   Her long bare legs carried her quickly past
the gawking concierge who slammed his open jaw shut.   Pelletier placed her plain handbag on the
cold marble check-in counter, and pulled a reservation confirmation from the bag’s
side pocket.   When her green eyes locked
on the manager, he flushed for the first time in years.   She’s
too pretty to be a sailor , he thought.
    Pelletier had grown up surrounded by Colorado’s saw-toothed
and snow-peaked mountains.   At a young
age, she had traded a love of horses for that of airplanes.   While others her age swooned for Tom Cruise,
she instead was seduced by the movie’s other star: the big swing-wing F-14
Tomcat fleet defense fighter.   Cindy
would sit on her pink bike at