Black Star Rising

by Robert Gandt

  He drew a deep breath and considered the close encounter. Who fired the missile?

  In a flash of clarity, the explanation came to him. Of course. It could only have come from one source.

  <>

  “They went dumb,” said O’Toole. He couldn’t keep the disappointment out of his voice. “The Sidewinders lost the emission source.”

  The wavy red trace of the stealth jet was gone on their screens.

  “At least we scared the shit out of him,” said Maxwell.

  “Or pissed him off so much he’s gonna come after us.”

  That thought had already occurred to Maxwell, but he dismissed it. If the Dong-jin had detected the Black Star, the Chinese pilot would already have taken his shot. They were playing blind man’s bluff. The Dong-jin crew was as blind as Maxwell and O’Toole.

  “Keep scanning with the sensors. If we pick him up again, we’ll take another shot.”

  For another twenty minutes they swept the sky between the last trace of the Dong-jin and the area where the helicopters were searching for survivors of the Hawkeye. They had rescued the two who managed to bail out. No others had been found.

  “Who’d they pick up from the Hawkeye?” Maxwell asked Boyce over the discrete frequency.

  “The aircraft control officer and the radar officer.” Boyce’s voice was somber. “The pilots and the Combat Information Center officer, Deb Abruzzo, didn’t get out.”

  Maxwell shook his head. He knew most of the E-2C crews. The Hawkeye squadron shared the Roadrunners’ ready room. Deb Abruzzo was one of the best intercept controllers in the business.

  After the CAP fighters and the tanker, a Roadrunner F/A-18 with an in-flight refueling store mounted on its center fuselage station, had recovered, Maxwell was cleared to land the Black Star back aboard the Reagan.

  Maxwell swept over the ramp, keeping his eyes riveted on the yellow ball. Still in the center.

  Whump. On center line, on glide slope. He snagged a two wire—the target. His second carrier landing in the Black Star was better than the first. He was getting the hang of it.

  After the short pullback to free the wire from the hook, he shoved the throttles up and powered the Black Star out of the landing area, to the number one elevator on the forward deck. Within minutes, the stealth jet was chained to the deck. Maxwell and O’Toole climbed down the boarding ladder.

  Maxwell saw the faces of the deck crewmen. They already knew about the Hawkeye. No grins, no high-fives, no bawdy jokes today. It was not a day for celebration.

  Chapter 15 — Face of the Enemy

  The White House

  0715 Sunday, 29 April

  “It didn’t happen,” said the President of the United States.

  As Benjamin expected, a stunned silence fell over his audience. In the video screen, he could see Boyce giving him that narrow-eyed, I can’t believe this shit look.

  Sitting beside the President was the Chief of Naval Operations, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and the Secretary of Defense. Stationed on second row were the National Security Advisor and the President’s chief of staff. On the other end of the link were admirals Boyce and Hightree aboard Reagan, and Ambassador Joe Ferrone in Hanoi.

  Boyce spoke up first. “Mr. President, with all due respect, it damned well did happen. The little bastards just murdered three of our people and took out some very high value assets.”

  “Stand by, Red. You’ve known me long enough to know that I don’t take the killing of our airmen lightly. What I’m saying is that the U.S. will not protest this incident publicly. Instead, we’re going to come down hard on them in a way that will make them regret what they did.”

  “You mean we’re going to kick some ass?”

  “I couldn’t put it better myself.”

  Boyce nodded his approval.

  “Mr. President,” said Joe Ferrone in the monitor screen, “has the PRC offered an explanation for the incident?”

  “I put in an immediate call to the President of the Peoples Republic,” said Benjamin. “He hasn’t returned the call, but I know from experience what his response will be. He will deny any knowledge or culpability.”

  Ferrone said, “Has anyone considered the possibility that the PLA, or some unit commander, might have acted without a direct order from Beijing?”

  Benjamin glanced over at the Joint Chiefs Chairman, General Matloff. Matloff cleared his throat and spoke up. “It’s happened before. Remember when one of their fighter pilots went too far and collided with an EP-3 of ours? The EP-3 crew made an emergency landing at Lingshui, and the incident snowballed out of control. They held its crew captive for twelve days.”

  “And our response was to roll over and let them do it,” said Boyce.

  “There weren’t any good options,” said Matloff. “None short of going to war, which the Chinese were betting that we wouldn’t do.”

  “And they’re making the same bet this time,” said Benjamin. He rubbed his chin for a moment, seeming to be deep in thought. Finally he said, “Red, are you convinced it was a stealth jet that shot down our two aircraft?”

  “No doubt about it, sir. The classified details are in the after action report that just went to you.”

  Benjamin nodded. “Without going into the details, can I assume we’re no closer than before to detecting this stealth jet of theirs?”

  “Yes, sir, I’m afraid that’s true.”

  “What about, ah, our own similar assets?”

  “The action report would indicate that it was also undetected.”

  “A stand off, you mean?”

  “Yes, sir. So far.”

  Benjamin made a note on his yellow pad. He looked into the video cam again. “That’s it, gentlemen. What you saw happen out there didn’t happen because we’re going to deal with it off stage. I can’t tell you what our specific action will be, but I can assure you that it will not be a speech by our ambassador to the United Nations. The Chinese are going to receive a wake up call. Questions?”

  There were none.

  “Good. You can expect a tasking order in the next twenty-four hours.”

  The President rose from his seat. The screens went blank.

  <>

  Lingshui air base, Hainan Island

  “You incompetent idiots!” roared General Zhang.

  He slammed the door of the chromatics laboratory so hard that one of the framed photographs fell from the wall. It was a portrait of the PLA commanding general.

  Each of the six technicians froze in place. They stared with terror-filled eyes at the apparition before them. Zhang was still wearing his flight gear—laced-up anti-G suit, survival vest, and helmet with the hinged spectrum-sensing goggles still attached. From a shoulder holster jutted the grip of his Type 64 7.62 semiautomatic pistol.

  “You see this?” Zhang held up his helmet with the goggles dangling from their hinge. “Junk. These goggles are worthless.”

  Zhang hurled the helmet and goggles at the man nearest him, a research scientist named Fong. The object missed Fong’s head and crashed into an LCD monitor on the table behind him. Hunks of glass and plastic exploded against the wall. The technicians crouched in a cowering position, waiting for the next missile.

  “You have failed miserably,” said Zhang. “The Americans have a stealth jet that is undetectable with these useless goggles.”

  The technicians looked at each other. None was sure what to say. Fong, who was the director of the lab, finally spoke for them. His voice quavered. “General, we are abjectly ashamed of the poor quality of the goggles. We offer a thousand apologies for our incompetence.”

  “Never mind your apologies. Your task was to develop sensing goggles that would detect the American stealth aircraft.”

  “It is a task we welcomed with great joy, General. But the specifications for the goggles were developed from our most current intelligence information about the American cloaking technology.”

  “Do not presume to tell me what I already know.
”

  “I am sorry, General.” Fong’s voice was regaining some of its normal timbre. “I would only suggest that we obtain information about the most recent developments in the American cloaking technology.”

  Zhang continued to glower at Fong. The blundering fool was correct, of course. Zhang himself had been instrumental in placing the network of spies in the U.S. whose purpose was to acquire the secrets of the American Black Star. Since then, most of the network had been compromised. The flow of precious stealth data had nearly stopped.

  But not all of it. Still in place in the U.S. were a dozen or so sources. Zhang had already placed an urgent request for new data on the American stealth program.

  “Listen to me,” said Zhang. “You have one more week to develop goggles that work. If you fail, you will finish your lives within the walls of a labor camp. Do you understand?”

  They did. In unison they nodded their heads affirmatively.

  Zhang wheeled and left the laboratory. For emphasis he slammed the door behind him. He heard the satisfying tinkle of another photograph crashing to the floor.

  <>

  USS Ronald Reagan

  “What the hell’s going on, Brick?”

  Bullet Alexander was standing in the passageway outside the intel compartment. His arms were folded across his massive chest. His eyes blazed with anger.

  “Bullet. What are you doing here?”

  “Suppose you tell me what you’re doing here.” Alexander pointed to the sweat-dampened sleeve of Maxwell’s flight suit. “You just came back from flying, right? Flying what? And don’t give me any of that bullshit about bumming a seat in somebody’s Hornet. I know better.”

  Maxwell just shrugged. When you were wearing a flight suit that smelled of fresh sweat and adrenaline, there was no point in saying you just came from the gym.

  “Sorry. There are some things you don’t need to know.”

  The answer ignited more anger in Alexander. “Go down to the ready room and try telling that to the Hawkeye crews. Tell ‘em they don’t need to know what just killed their squadron mates.”

  Over Alexander’s shoulder, Maxwell saw someone coming out of the intel compartment. It was Boyce, giving them a curious look.

  “I know how you feel,” said Maxwell. “I wish I could tell you more, but I can’t.”

  “Oh, yeah? Well, let me tell you what I do know, shipmate. There’s something out there that we can’t find with radar or IR, and it just killed Deb Abruzzo and Pete Schlemmer and their skipper, Herb Dooley. It was the same thing that killed my wingman, Hozer Miller. You know what it is, don’t you?”

  “You know the answer. No comment.”

  “And now you’re flying something that looks like a goddamn Frisbee on steroids. How do I know? Because every seaman no-class on this boat knows it and they’re talking like magpies about it.”

  “If you know so much, then why are you bugging me?”

  “Because I want to know what you were doing out there while a ChiCom stealth pilot was killing our guys.”

  “Leave it alone, Bullet.”

  Alexander locked gazes with Maxwell. “Fuck you, Brick. You used to be a good guy until that blockhead Boyce hired you to do this black ops shit. Now you’ve turned into a—”

  “That’s enough out of you, Commander Alexander.”

  Alexander flinched at the sound of the voice behind him. He turned to see Red Boyce, cigar in his teeth, glowering like a grizzly bear.

  “Ah, sorry, Admiral. I didn’t know you were standing there.”

  “What were you just saying? Something about that blockhead Boyce hiring someone to do what? Black ops shit?”

  Alexander’s eyes widened. He looked like a condemned man meeting his executioner. “Well, sir, what I meant was—”

  Boyce broke into a belly laugh. His laughter seemed to feed on itself, forcing him to remove his cigar and lean against the bulkhead. It was contagious, spreading to Maxwell who couldn’t help laughing with him.

  Alexander stared at them. “Sir, may I offer an apology?”

  “No.”

  “I was venting some anger, Admiral. I was out of line, and I—”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Sir?”

  “I know what you meant to say.”

  “Well, I take back the part about the—”

  “Blockhead? Hell, I’ve said a lot worse about the blockheads I’ve worked for. Tell you what, Skipper Alexander. Come with me and Brick to the intel vault. I’m gonna make an exception and add your name to an eyes-only need to know list. Then you won’t have to keep making an ass of yourself in the presence of senior officers.”

  Alexander exchanged a quick glance with Maxwell. “Ah, thank you, sir. That would be a good thing.”

  <>

  Alexander’s eyes widened. “And the ChiComs have those things too?”

  “Something very close,” said Boyce.

  Maxwell watched in silence while Boyce showed Alexander the images of the Black Star. They were in the intel compartment, seated at the steel briefing table. Boyce was working the bulkhead-mounted screen with a remote controller.

  “How’d they get them?” asked Alexander.

  “Same way they got most of their technology. They bought it, or stole it.”

  Maxwell noticed that Boyce was omitting most of the sensitive details—the Black Star’s performance, the weapons load, the fact that they couldn’t penetrate the Dong-jin’s skin cloaking sheath.

  Alexander said, “And that’s what they used to get Hozer Miller? And the Hawkeye?”

  “That’s it,” said Boyce. “Now, do you want to see the guy who did it?”

  Maxwell sat upright. He saw Boyce watching him. Boyce was up to his old tricks again.

  A face flashed on to the screen. It was of a Chinese man. He wore the uniform of a colonel in the PLA air force. It was a handsome face, but the nostrils were flared as if he were in a seething rage. The corners of his mouth turned down, and the eyes blazed with some kind of inner fire.

  “Who’s that?” said Maxwell.

  “Col. Zhang Yu,” said Boyce. “Recognize him?”

  An electric jolt ran through Maxwell. “I remember that name.”

  “You should,” said Boyce. “Zhang was in command of the Dong-jin program when it was being developed. During the war with Taiwan, he was credited with at least eleven aerial kills and a slew of ships sunk.”

  Maxwell stared at the image. It was all coming back. He had never met Zhang face to face, but he had come within a few yards of him, once on the ground during the raid at Chouzhou, once in the sky over the Taiwan Strait. And that had been the end of Colonel Zhang.

  “He’s dead,” said Maxwell.

  “Oh?” Boyce was enjoying himself. “How can you be sure of that?”

  “Because I killed him. We had good intel that it was Zhang flying the Dong-jin that I engaged over the strait. I saw the jet explode.”

  “Maybe you did, maybe you didn’t. Take a look at this.”

  Alexander was switching his gaze from Boyce to Maxwell and back. He looked more confused than ever.

  The face on the screen vanished, replaced by another image. It was almost unrecognizable as a face.

  Maxwell recoiled at the sight. He heard Alexander suck in his breath.

  “Not a pretty sight,” said Boyce. “The face belongs to the same gentleman. Meet General Zhang, the most decorated hero in the PLA air force. Zhang survived his shoot down in the Taiwan Strait, but not without a few injuries. His disfigurement is his ticket to fame. He’s the rock star of the Chinese military and, according to reports, a favorite of the president himself. He’s also a heavy in the Te-wu—the secret police that purges the PLA of suspected dissidents.”

  Maxwell felt a chill run through him. He knew what Boyce was going to say next.

  “Zhang still flies the Dong-jin. He heads up the Hainan military district, and he also commands the PLA air force’s elite stealth squadron at Lingshui. Even though
he’s a general officer, he flies combat missions in the Dong-jin. We have good information that he’s been active in the most recent operations in the South China Sea.”

  “Let me guess,” said Alexander. “He’s the guy who’s been killing our people.”

  “CIA gives it a ninety percent probability it was Zhang who whacked the Viet transport and two fighters. They’ve got confirmation that he ran the mission against the Global Hawk and the Hawkeye.”

  “What about Hozer Miller?” said Maxwell. “Was it Zhang?”

  Boyce nodded. “It fits his profile. He’s reputed to be a scalp collector. Zhang wants to rack up the biggest kill score possible so he can make himself a legend.”

  “A real sweetheart,” said Alexander. “Are we gonna get him?”

  Boyce didn’t’ t answer. He looked at Maxwell.

  Maxwell just nodded. He couldn’t take his eyes off the face in the screen. The blazing brown eyes stared back at him.

  Chapter 16 — Sensors

  Shahezhen Capital air base, Beijing

  People’s Republic of China

  1825 Sunday, 29 April

  General Han Jianli tried to contain his anger, but he was unable. Damn him. Damn Zhang and his impudence.

  Han took a deep breath and spoke again into the microphone mounted on his desk. “Are you aware that you may have triggered a war with the United States?”

  “Please don’t insult my intelligence, General Han. We both know the Americans will not go to war over the loss of two aircraft that were spying on our territory.”

  “President Xiang has demanded a full explanation of the affair.”

  “And correctly so. Do you wish for me to fly immediately to Beijing to brief the President?”

  “It is my duty to brief the President, not yours.” He let this sink in for a moment, then added, “He will want to know the disposition of the commander who conducted the attack on the American airplanes. What do you think I should tell him?”

  “Tell him whatever you wish. It is of no interest to me.”