by Don Brown
over the South China Sea
altitude 18,000 feet
6:45 p.m. local time
The gray “Fire Scout” robotic helicopter, a small pilotless aircraft with elements of stealth technology, chopped through the dusky sky over the South China Sea at 18,000 feet, its infrared camera focused on the waters below.
More than one hundred miles to the east, Navy Lieutenant Bradley Lucas sat in an electronic cubicle in the Combat Information Center aboard the Ticonderoga-class cruiser USS Shiloh. Holding an electronic joystick, Lucas controlled the Fire Scout and monitored live images being fed from the high-powered in-flight camera.
The GPS computer feeding data to the screen showed that the Fire Scout was about to approach the position matched by the homing beacon signal that had been briefly picked up by US satellites.
Daylight was fading, but so far, the weather had cooperated. Visibility was clear with no cloud cover to obstruct the greenish seascape below.
Lucas pulled back on the control stick. On the screen, still nothing but a green expanse below.
And then …
The outline of a ship. A warship!
And then a second ship! Much larger than the first. The Emory S. Land!
A third ship, same design as the first, was on the other side of the Emory Land. The Chinese were guarding the Emory Land with a destroyer escort on each side.
“CIC to Bridge.”
“Bridge. Go ahead, CIC.”
“Good news, Skipper! Fire Scout has located the target!”
CHAPTER 30
The Situation Room
the White House
6:55 a.m. local time
Admiral Roscoe Jones hung up the telephone. “Mister President, we’ve found the Emory Land.”
“Okay!” Surber’s heart raced. “That’s a positive step.” He wanted to feel relieved, but could not. Finding the ship did not mean that Stephanie was safe or that she would survive a firefight to retake the ship. “Recommendations, Admiral?”
“Are you asking for my recommendations on how we should try to recapture the ship?”
“That’s precisely what I’m asking you.”
Admiral Jones glanced at the secretary of defense, and then back at Surber. “Mister President, the Chinese are guarding the Emory Land with two destroyers, one on each side. They aren’t moving at the moment, just maintaining their position in the water.
“The nuclear sub USS Georgia can be in that location in about thirty minutes. The Georgia has a SEAL team aboard, which can approach the Emory Land in a mini-sub launched underwater from the mother sub.
“As long as the drone flying above the targets remains undetected, we have an opportunity to take out the destroyers with cruise missiles launched from the USS Shiloh and coordinate that attack with a SEAL assault against the Emory Land.” The admiral removed his wire-rim glasses. “However, Mister President, even if we are able to recapture the ship, I cannot guarantee the safety of the officers and enlisted personnel on board.”
Surber hesitated. “Admiral, I know what you’re saying. The Chinese might kill my daughter during the course of this operation. Right?”
“Well, sir …”
“Listen. And this goes for all of you. Am I worried sick about my daughter? You bet I am. And does a part of me as a father scream on the inside to give in to Tang’s demands? Of course. But I believe that the right thing to do, ethically and morally, is to not turn over the Shemnong. Therefore, I cannot let my actions as commander in chief be dictated by the fact that my daughter’s life may be in danger, especially when others who serve also are in danger.
“I’m ordering all of you, until this is over—and I know you mean well—but I don’t want you feeding me special information about Stephanie above and beyond the general military situation at hand. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir, Mister President.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now then,” Surber continued, “Admiral Jones. Are you recommending that I authorize this mission to try to recapture the Emory Land?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Very well. Execute the order. The minute that operation is under way, I’m going on national television, even if that’s before 8:00 a.m. Americans are waiting to hear from their president, and I’ve waited too long already.”
“Yes, Mister President.”
Interior Ladder 4
USS Emory S. Land
7:00 p.m. local time
With the .45-caliber pistol stuffed into his back belt and a silencer screwed into the barrel, Gunner climbed the steel utility ladder.
According to the senior chief, this ladder would lead straight up to a hatch that would open onto the ship’s main deck, about thirty feet from the bridge, but not within direct sight of the bridge. Chinese Marine guards would be milling about on deck in the area.
He stepped off the ladder onto an inner deck. The hatch was over to the right. It had a porthole in the middle of it, allowing a view of the outside.
Gunner pulled the gun from his belt and pressed his back against the interior bulkhead. He slid over close to the hatch to get a look out the porthole.
So far, nothing outside but sky.
He decided to go outside and scope out the situation. He could always return to the ladder if he needed an escape. He put his hands on the latch to push open the hatch.
Two Chinese Marines, with rifles slung over their shoulders, walked by, heading forward in the direction of the bridge. As Gunner started to open the hatch, two more walked by.
He quickly opened the hatch, climbed out and aimed his pistol. He squeezed the trigger four times. The gunshots were muffled by the silencer, barely audible over the evening sea breeze.
The four Chinese dropped to the deck, piled on top of each other, with bullets in the back of their heads. He had to move quickly.
He grabbed the four assault rifles and lined them up against the bulkhead.
Yanking one body off the pile, with his boot, he shoved the Marine under the steel safety wire and over the side of the ship. By the time the fourth body splashed into the sea below, the only evidence left was blood on the deck.
He slung the four rifles over his shoulder and stepped back inside the ship just as one of the petty officers from the engine room was rushing up the ladder.
“Commander! You’ve got to come quick!”
“What wrong?”
“It’s Ensign Surber, sir. She’s been shot!”
Control Room
USS Georgia
7:15 p.m. local time
When the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia forced the Navy to reduce its big Trident missile submarines to a total of fourteen, a decision had to be made on what to do with four submarines whose presence would have exceeded the maximum number.
To comply with the START treaty, rather than scrap these billion-dollar boats, the Navy removed their ballistic-missile silos in order to reconfigure them for another mission.
In the aftermath of 9/11, the subs were reconfigured for special operations in the war on terror. Carrying SEAL teams of up to sixty members, the reconfigured super-subs were equipped with multiple SDVs—the Navy acronym for SEAL Delivery Vehicles—which were open-water mini-subs allowing SEAL units to strike anywhere, anytime, on any open water in the world.
Three of the submarines selected for reconfiguration—nicknamed the “Tactical Tridents”—were the USS Ohio, USS Michigan, and USS Florida.
A fourth, the USS Georgia, under the command of Captain Roger Stacks, United States Navy, was currently operating in the South China Sea.
From the command post in the boat’s control room, Stacks contemplated the Georgia’s role in the mission that was about to unfold.
Georgia had been ordered to launch a SEAL team assault on the USS Emory Land in order to recapture the ship from Chinese Marines and rescue the daughter of the president of the United States.
“Mister Moore. Range to target,” Stacks said.
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br /> “Range to target, two thousand yards, sir.”
“Very well. All ahead one-third.”
“All ahead one-third. Aye, sir.”
“Up scope.”
“Aye, sir. Up scope.”
Stacks waited a few seconds for the boat’s periscope to reach the surface. Then, as the sub’s engineers carried out his commands to slow their approach to one-third power, he stepped behind the periscope for a look up top.
The infrared images on the screen showed not one, but three ships. The ships were barely moving. They had settled outside the heavily trafficked sea lanes in an area where they were less likely to be spotted by other ships or aircraft.
In the center was the large fat-bodied Emory Land. Stacks had seen this very same image in the periscope yesterday morning, just before the Georgia was resupplied by Emory Land. On each side of Emory Land, lying lower in the water, a Chinese destroyer stood guard.
The destroyers were targets in this operation, but they were someone else’s targets. Right now, the Georgia’s mission was to get SEALs on board Emory Land.
Captain Stacks stepped back from the periscope. “All engines stop!”
“All engines stop!”
“All engines stop! Aye, Captain!”
“Mister Moore, is the SEAL team prepared to launch?”
“Aye, sir. SEAL team in place in tubes one and four, ready for launch.”
“Very well,” Stacks said.
Combat Information Center
USS Shiloh
7:20 p.m. local time
Fire Scout. Bridge.”
“Go ahead, Bridge.” Lieutenant Bradley Lucas, sitting in the Shiloh’s Combat Information Center, continued to monitor the three ships on the screen that were 18,000 feet below the Fire Scout drone helicopter that he was piloting remotely.
“Fire Scout. USS Georgia reports SEAL team deployed. Initiate targeting.”
“Roger that,” Lucas said. “Initiate targeting.” Lucas punched two buttons on his control panel. The first was the ACTIVATE LASER button. The second was the TARGET LASER button.
Within seconds, miniature laser beams shot down from Fire Scout into the superstructure of each of the two Chinese warships. They provided precise targeting information back to the Fire Scout, which fed data to the fire-control computer aboard USS Shiloh. That computer fed targeting data into the internal guidance computers of four Tomahawk cruise missiles that were in launch position on the Shiloh.
“WEPS. Bridge.”
“WEPS. Go ahead, sir,” the missiles officer said.
Lucas listened to the open communications over his headset. “Prepare to launch Tomahawks One and Two.”
“Tomahawks One and Two. Prepare to launch on your order, sir.”
“All hands. This is the XO. Prepare for missile launch in fifteen seconds.”
“WEPS. Bridge. Stand by to launch in five seconds … four … three … two … one … Fire missiles!”
“Fire missiles! Aye, sir.”
Lucas glanced to the right of the center monitor, at the monitor set to show the Tomahawk launch via closed-circuit television all over the sub.
A massive burst of fire, followed by billowing white smoke, filled the screen. Two Tomahawk cruise missiles streaked into the darkening night sky.
“Stand by to launch Tomahawks Three and Four in five seconds … four … three … two … one … Fire missiles!”
“Fire missiles! Aye, sir.”
More smoke and fire on the screen. Two more Tomahawks fired off into the night sky.
The Tomahawks, all four of them, would initially ascend and then descend to level off at fifty feet above the sea, flying to the east, destined for a deadly rendezvous with the two Chinese destroyers.
Lucas looked up at the center screen. This was a risky surgical-strike attempt.
The descending time clock in the lower right corner of the center screen showed initial impact with target—now T minus nine minutes.
For this to work, those Tomahawks had to strike with absolute precision. If the targeting sequence malfunctioned, if any of the missiles veered off course and struck the Emory Land, the results would be catastrophic.
The Situation Room
the White House
7:25 a.m. local time
His guts felt like tangled spaghetti, but Surber set his jaw, focused on the flat-screen, and listened as the chairman of the joint chiefs, Admiral Roscoe Jones, explained the military operation that was unfolding half a world away.
“Mister President, we’ll be watching this operation in real time, from a high-tech camera on board a stealth Navy drone flying 18,000 feet above the ships.”
Although Surber heard every word, his eyes and his mind and his heart were glued on the image of the big ship in the middle. Through the eye of the powerful infrared camera, the ships on the screen glowed whitish against the dark water, replicating the sensation of viewing an illuminated X-ray. Crew members, taking on a glowing, ant-like appearance from the camera’s altitude, could be seen moving about on all three ships. Somewhere within the middle ship, she was there—so deceptively close by the surrealistic image on a television screen, yet so impossibly far away.
As he prayed silently, memories and visions swirled within him—of Steph as a little girl, of their travels as a young family at a more innocent time when he was a young naval officer in San Diego. Memories of him spinning her on the merry-go-round at Coronado’s Glorietta Park to her chants of “Faster, Daddy, faster!” Of chocolate smeared all over her chubby little cheeks on those “secret” daddy-daughter excursions to the chocolate factory in La Jolla, when they would get away while “mummy” was at the Mission Valley mall buying designer clothes. And of their East Coast vacation to Hilton Head when, as a four-year-old, perched high up on his shoulders, her big brown eyes as big as pancakes at her first sighting of a live alligator, she defiantly proclaimed, “Alligator! She won’t bite me!”
She was a daddy’s girl then, and she was a daddy’s girl now.
She was just like him. Defiant. Determined. Hardheaded. And she was smart.
Followed him into the Navy over Hope-Caroline’s pleadings …
“As I have explained,” Admiral Jones continued, “this is a risky and dangerous operation. Our success depends on the accuracy of those Tomahawks. If the Tomahawks strike the Chinese destroyers, this will give cover to our SEAL team to board Emory Land.
“The SEALs are en route to the ship aboard small open-water mini-subs launched from USS Georgia, submerged about a mile astern of the ships. The SEAL teams should be in place now. So, to recap, the success of this mission depends on accuracy, chaos, and surprise.” Jones paused. “Any questions, sir?”
Surber thought for a second. “Admiral, on the missile strikes. What do you estimate our percentage of success?”
“You mean how do I rate the chances that those missiles strike the Chinese destroyers and not the Emory Land?”
“Precisely.”
“We’re operating in tight quarters here, sir. As you can see, these ships are all floating within about one hundred yards of each other. The good news is they aren’t moving much in the water. They’ve cut their propellers to make them harder for passive sonar to pick up. A stationary target is easier to hit. But the ships are still jam-tight together, and there’s a chance the missiles could get confused on targeting.
“As long as we don’t have any hitches, I’d say the chance of all four Tomahawks finding their targets is about 70 percent. But if something goes wrong with that drone, it’s a crapshoot, sir. And if Emory Land gets hit …” Jones slipped on a pair of glasses. “Mister President, if you want to cancel the missile strike, we can detonate the Tomahawks midair. But you have to tell me now, sir.”
Surber looked up at the screen. In the lower right of the screen, the digital countdown running in reverse order displayed: TIME TO IMPACT … 2:23 … 2:22 … 2:21 …
“We’ve got about two minutes before the missiles strik
e?”
“Correct, sir. Two minutes fifteen seconds to initial missile strike. If you’re going to abort, sir, we need to know within the next thirty seconds.”
The screen went blank, all except the countdown clock in the lower right.
“What the—” Admiral Jones picked up the hotline to the Pentagon.
Combat Information Center
USS Shiloh
7:26 p.m. local time
Lieutenant, what’s going on down there?” the skipper’s voice boomed over the radio headset.
“Not sure, sir!” Lieutenant Lucas punched a series of backup codes into the control panel. “We’ve lost contact with the drone!”
“What’s the problem?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe they shot it down! We’ve lost targeting feed to the missiles!”
“Well, get it fixed, Lieutenant! Last thing we need is for one of those Tomahawks to slam into the Emory Land!”
The Situation Room
the White House
7:26 a.m. local time
Sir we’ve lost all contact with the drone,” Admiral Jones told the president in a cool, matter-of-fact voice.
“Explanation, Admiral?” Surber watched the clock tick down.
1:30…
1:29 …
“We’ve lost real-time targeting feed to the Tomahawks. The missiles will fly to the last position beamed to them from the drone. If they miss, their internal radar will start looking for targets. It could get dicey.”
“Is it too late to abort?”
“Yes, sir. Too late.”
“Jesus, please help us.” Surber wiped cold sweat drops from his forehead.
Combat Information Center
USS Shiloh
7:27 p.m. local time
Come on, baby!” Brad Lucas said.
“T minus one minute to impact.” The automated voice from the fire-control computer.
“Come on … come on …” Lucas punched yet another backup code onto the uplink keyboard.
“Lost Connection …”
“Let me think.”
He stopped a second. “God, please help me.”
Officers crowded behind Lucas in a semicircle. He felt their breath on the back of his neck.
“Let me try one more thing.” He thought, trying to remember.