To ward off an invasion, the beaches had been fitted with long metal spears that protruded from the sand to face the sea. The water, a brilliant crystal green by day, was now an endless black mass, surging and withdrawing with the waves. The wind off the sea had bent the gnarled island pines. In the darkness he found the sandy path that could lead him safely down a hill laden with land mines. The few who tried were exceedingly rare, though the consequences were vivid the most recent case had occurred less than a month ago. After thirty years of turmoil, China was appealing to the people of Taiwan to reunify the 'great Motherland.' Any soldier who tried to defect to the mainland would be shot on sight. Captain Lin had awoken to a sense of history gathering around him. His devotion had earned him the assignment to the most sensitive place on the front line: the tiny island of Quemoy, known in Mandarin as Jinmen, barely one mile, across the water, from the rocky coast of mainland China.īut Captain Lin had a secret so dangerous to him and his family that he did not dare reveal it even to his wife, who was home with their son and pregnant with their second child. Lin Zhengyi (pronounced 'Jung-yee') stood nearly six feet tall, with ramrod posture, a broad, flat nose, and jug ears that protruded from the rim of his hat. For three decades Taiwan had defied Communist control, and Captain Lin was a symbol of that resistance: in college, he had been a star student who'd given up a placid civilian life to join the military, a decision so rare that Taiwan's future president made a point to shake his hand, and the picture was splashed all over the newspapers, turning Lin into a poster boy for the 'Holy Counterattack,' the dream of retaking mainland China.

Lin Zhengyi was a model soldier, one of the most celebrated young officers in the army of Taiwan, the island province ruled by opponents of the Chinese Communist Party. If his plan were discovered, he would be disgraced and executed.Ĭapt. He moved as calmly as possible, over the pine scrub to a ledge overlooking the shore. Under a sliver of moon, on an island off the coast of China, a twenty-six-year-old army captain slipped away from his post and headed for the water's edge.

Age of ambition