Sky Masters

Captain Han watched the spectacular firestorm that was once a Philippine oil derrick for several moments until he realized that the Wenshan had returned to an even keel and that the forward 76-millimeter gun had opened fire on the platform, pounding the mountain of flames with twenty kilogram radar-guided shells. “Cease fire!” Han shouted at his officer of the deck, who was staring in rapt fascination out the forward windshield at the maelstrom. “Cease fire!” he repeated before the forward 76 was silent. “Helm! Move us out to two kilometers from the island. Signal the motor launches and the Hong Lung that we are maneuvering out of shoal water.”

As Wenshan eased away from the huge fires still raging on the Philippine oil barges, Xingyi launched two more missiles at the barge until Admiral Yin on the Hong Lung ordered him to stop. One Fei Lung missile was quite enough to suppress any hostile fire from the small oil facility, and two missiles would have completely destroyed it — four missiles, half the Xingyi’s load, could devastate an aircraft carrier.

Admiral Yin’s intent was clear — he wanted no one alive on that platform.

“Seven, this is the Dragon,” the radio message began. “Recover your boarding parties and rejoin the group. Over.”

Captain Han picked up the radio microphone himself. “I copy, Dragon,” Han replied. “I recommend that one of my motor launches search for survivors. Over.”

“Request denied, Seven,” came the reply. “Dragon Leader orders all Dragon units to withdraw.”

One hour later, all traces of the Philippine oil derrick and barges were swept away in the rising tide of the windswept South China Sea currents. Except for a few pieces of pipe^- and half-burned bodies, the oil platform had ceased to exist.

Malacanang Palace, Manila, the Philippines

Thursday, 9 June 1994, 0602 hours local

Since the Marcos years, the official residence of the Philippine President, Malacanang Palace, had undergone a major transformation. Concerned for his security, Marcos had transformed the graceful eighteenth-century Spanish colonial mansion into an ugly fortress — he had blocked most of the windows and replaced stained glass and crystal with steel or reinforced bulletproof glass. Wishing to distance her government from the dictatorial excesses of the Marcos regime, Corazon Aquino had chosen to live in the less pretentious Guest House and had turned the palace into a museum of shame, where citizens and tourists could gape in wonder at Marcos’ underground bunker — some called it his “torture chambers” — and Imelda’s cavernous bedroom, stratospheric canopy bed; her infamous shoe closets and her bulletproof brassiere.

The new President of the Philippines, seventy-year-old Arturo Mikaso, changed the Malacanang Palace back into a historical landmark that his people could be proud of, as well as a livable residence for himself and a workable office complex for his Cabinet. The style and grace of the precolonial Philippines were restored, the heavy security barriers were removed, and, like the American White House, large portions of Malacanang Palace were now open for tours when they were not in use by the President. In time the palace again became a symbol for the city of Manila itself.

But now, in the growing summer dawn, the palace was the scene of a hastily arranged meeting of the President’s Cabinet. In Mikaso’s residential office, where the President could see the Pasig River that wound through northern Manila, President Mikaso sipped a cup of tea. Mikaso was the elder statesman, a white-haired man who was taller and more powerful-looking than most Filipinos, a wealthy landowner and ex-senator who was immensely popular with most of his people. Mikaso had been elected as President of the nation when Corazon Aquino’s second four-year term came to an end. He won the election only after forming an alliance with the National Democratic Front, the main political organ of the Communist Party of the Philippines; and the Moro National Liberation Front, a pro-Islamic political group that represented the thousands of citizens of the Islamic faith in the south Philippines.

“How many were killed, General?” Mikaso asked.

“Thirty men, all civilians,” the Chief of Staff of the New Philippine Army, General Roberto La Loma Santos, replied somberly. “Their barge came under full attack by a Red Chinese patrol. No orders to surrender, no quarter given, no attempts to offer assistance or rescue after the attack. The bastards attacked, then slinked away like cowardly dogs.” A tall, dark-haired man, standing alone near the great stone fireplace, turned toward General Santos. “You have still not explained to us, General,” Second Vice President Jose Trujillo Samar said in a deep voice, “what that barge was doing in the neutral zone, anchored to Pagasa Island…”.