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showed promise, and no signs of aggression, he might be returned to his family on Taiwan—if his family hadn’t been moved to a labor camp in China. He wished he had been killed on Penghu.
    Instead, his tank had been hit by an antitank missile fired from a Chinese attack helicopter within the first few minutes of the battle, killing the rest of his crew and disabling the tank. He spent the next seventy-two hours sprinting from one blasted structure to the next with a Marine infantry squad, occasionally stopping long enough to fire on an unsuspecting Chinese patrol. Chen and the two remaining Marines were captured at night on the third day of the invasion while swimming across Magong Bay to an outlying island.
    They had hoped to find a serviceable boat on one of the islands so they could retreat to the mainland. They felt useless on the island. At night, they saw flashes across the channel between Taiwan and Penghu. The battle for Taiwan raged on while their fight dissolved into a pointless game of hide and seek with the Chinese. Their families needed them.
    His wife and children lived in the West District of Chiayi City. They would no doubt see heavy fighting as the Chinese fought their way east through the city to the provincial government complex. Chen had seen the Army Reserve battle plans for defending the mainland. It would be a fight to the bitter end for the regular and reserve units assigned to defend the city, and the civilians caught in the middle.
    They hadn’t been the only ROC Marines with the same concern. The Chinese patrol boat that pulled them out of the water held several Marines from the 66 th Marine Brigade, all plucked out of the jet-black water. Less than twenty-four hours later, he was deposited at Camp 78 with the clothes on his back and a pair of cheap plastic sandals. Made in China, no doubt.
    Chen shivered, knowing it was time to return to his overcrowded tent and the worn bamboo mat so graciously “loaned” to him by the “people.” The propaganda had started immediately. People’s this and people’s that. Intolerable on every level .
    Headlights appeared in the hills, approaching the camp. One pair turned into several, as the road turned gradually toward the entrance on the northern side of the camp. More prisoners. Just what they needed.
    A high-pitched noise drew his attention away from the trucks. The sound grew louder over the next few seconds, resembling a jet engine. He caught movement in his peripheral vision and jerked his head left—just in time to see a long, dark object fly over the eastern half of the camp. The sound rapidly faded as Taiwanese prisoners streamed out of the tents, cheering at the sky. Like Chen, many of them knew exactly what had passed overhead: a cruise missile.
    Moments later, the watchtowers lining the camp bathed the prisoners in blinding light. Whistles blared, and amplified voices ordered them back to their tents. A few bursts of automatic fire emphasized the guards’ urgency to restore order to the “people’s camp.” Chen wondered where the missile was headed, and if it signified anything beyond a random, desperate, retaliatory shot fired by one of their submarines or destroyers. He hoped so.
    Chen had barely settled onto his mat when the tent went dark—the intense light from the watchtowers no longer penetrating the thin brown canvas. The sudden change quieted the tent, only a few whispers penetrating the silence. Absolute silence. Something was wrong.
    He scrambled to the tent flap on his knees, pushing through a sea of huddled prisoners. He crawled out of the tent and lay still in the rocky dirt. Aside from a few flashlight beams sweeping across the fence line in front of the closest guard barracks, the camp was completely dark. Only the lights on the inbound trucks penetrated the night—but the trucks had stopped moving. He stood up, fixated on the lights.
    Why the hell would they stop in the open?
    The guards in the tower to his right