by Robert Gandt
While he watched his image in the wall mirror, Zhang put on his flight suit. It was the new fire-resistant model, the kind he wasn’t wearing when he was shot down by the American. Perhaps it wouldn’t have saved his face, but it would have spared him the agony of the third degree body burns.
He retrieved the Model 67 semi-automatic from his desk, checked the magazine, then shoved the pistol into the holster sewn into his harness. He could feel the familiar buzzing in his brain—the hyper-alertness he always experienced before flying into combat. Never before had he felt such confidence going against the Americans. The Black Star pilots had already demonstrated that they were unable to penetrate the Dong-jin’s cloaking.
Now Zhang had the improved goggles. He could see, they couldn’t.
With that thought, he returned to his desk and pulled out the sliding wooden tray beneath the desk top. On it was taped the magazine page with the color photograph. Zhang lowered himself into his desk chair while stared at the photograph.
Zhang Yu was a man who believed in destiny. He knew with an intuitive certainty that Maxwell would be out there today. And it would be Maxwell’s style to assign himself the target of highest value.
Maxwell would attack the Ilyushin AWACS ship. And Zhang would be waiting for him.
Chapter 18 — Red and Free
12,000 feet
South China Sea
1605 Monday, 30 April
It was hard for Maxwell to believe that this cluster of atolls was worth fighting over. On the display they looked like bird droppings in a parking lot.
They were climbing through a scattered cumulus deck. Fifty miles ahead lay the first of the specks in the ocean that were the Spratly Islands.
“Dragon One-one, Sea Lord. Your bogeys twelve o’clock, forty miles, high and low. Confirm Dolly.”
Maxwell didn’t answer . He was still maintaining EMCON—emissions control, meaning no radio transmissions unless they were critically urgent. Instead, he thumbed a button marked ACK on his radio console, which sent a silent, data-linked acknowledgment.
Sea Lord was the E-2C Hawkeye. Maxwell was confirming that the bogey information—the multiple contacts at twelve o’clock—was being data-linked to his onboard situational display. The Hawkeye was monitoring enemy movements, controlling fighters, and relaying “Dolly”—data-linked real time information— not only from their own powerful radar array but also from satellite and shore-based assets.
Maxwell admired the guts of the Hawkeye crews. He’d seen their faces before the launch. No one could forget what happened to their squadron mates.
The slow-moving turbo-prop early warning aircraft was just as vulnerable as before—with one difference. In addition to the BARCAP—barrier combat air patrol—of four F/A-18s from the Roadrunners, the Hawkeye had an invisible defender—Dragon Three-one, the Black Star flown by Crud Carruthers and Gypsy Palmer.
“Dragon One-one, Sea Lord. Your contact bears 025, thirty-two miles, 28,000 feet. Four more bogeys.”
Maxwell pushed the ACK button.
There was a pause on the scrambled tactical frequency. Maxwell guessed that the controller in the Hawkeye was communicating with the air warfare commander on the Reagan. He could also guess what they were talking about.
He was right. Ten seconds later he heard, “Bravo Golf clears Dragon One-one red and free.”
Again Maxwell hit the ACK button. Then he flipped his master armament switch to the hot position. Cleared to engage, cleared to fire.
<>
USS Daytona Beach
A classic ambush, thought Commander Al Sprague.
He studied the plot on his display. The PLA navy convoy had cleared the jutting land mass at Macau. It was heading southwestward at nine knots toward the Spratly Islands. Sprague counted four large ships, freighters for sure, and six smaller vessels. Four of the smaller ships were darting back and forth like leashed watchdogs on either side of the convoy. The other two vessels Sprague’s sonar officer had already tagged as frigates. One led the convoy while the other steamed in trail.
A well-protected convoy, reflected Sprague.
“Sovremennys,” said Dale Schirmer, his XO. Schirmer was standing beside him in the control room.
Sprague nodded. The small fast ships were Russian-built Sovremenny class destroyers, the cream of the PLA navy. They carried an arsenal of missiles and torpedoes that could eliminate anything in its theatre—surface, air, or submerged.
Sprague wasn’t surprised to see the Sovremennys. Nor was he surprised at the anti-submarine helicopters working the sea around the convoy. If the intel reports were correct, the freighters carried at least a thousand Chinese amphibious troops and all their armament. The PLA intended to reinforce its garrison on Swallow Reef.
What did surprise Sprague was that they were making so much noise. Not just the freighters, which was normal, nor the pair of frigates, but even the swift and normally quiet-running Sovremenny destroyers. They were roiling the water like paddleboats in a creek.
Why?
Sprague could think of only two good possibilities. Either the convoy commander was stupidly incautious, so sure of his invincibility against enemy attack that he didn’t have to worry. The excessive noise was cancelling out their ability to obtain good sonar returns on submerged threats.
Or else they were screening something.
The thought caused Sprague to frown. Throwing up an acoustic wall was a primitive but effective way to hide assets. The more Sprague thought about it, the more sure he was that something else was out there. A PLA navy submarine was escorting the convoy.
Nothing was showing on Daytona Beach’s four BSY-1 sonar consoles except the PLA navy surface vessels. But that was not surprising. No passive sonar array would detect a nearly motionless Kilo class submarine.
Sprague had taken Daytona Beach to this station twenty minutes ago. On the opposite side of the convoy was USS Melbourne, another Los Angeles class SSN. On Sprague’s console desk lay the print-out from the COMSUBPAC order.
Daytona Beach and Melbourne to execute simultaneous intercept of PLA navy convoy at approximate position N24° 23’ E112° 13’. If convoy alters course to return to Guangzhou, Rules of Engagement preclude any further attacks on PLAN vessels except as commander deems necessary for defense and withdrawal.
The order and the details of the ROE—Rules of Engagement—continued for a page and half. Sprague had read it enough times that he knew it by heart. Each submarine was assigned geographic sectors of responsibility. Daytona Beach would operate on the convoy’s starboard side, while Melbourne would remain on the port. Daytona would target the lead freighter, and Melbourne the last. Each submarine would take out one escorting warship each, their choice. To Sprague, the obvious choice was a Sovremenny—the most dangerous of the surface escorts.
Unless I find a Kilo submarine. Sprague had already promised himself he would torpedo any PLA navy submarine he could locate in the vicinity of the convoy.
He was still thinking about this when he heard, “Captain, Sonar. Track 1013 and 1016, bearing 275 and 314 respectively. Range 15,400 and 13, 800.”
Sprague took a deep breath. Those were the designated targets—the lead freighter and the fast-moving Sovremenny off its starboard flank. The torpedomen were ready, the one and two tubes already flooded, each Mk 48 ADCAP torpedo preset for its target. The firing solutions had been derived by the TMA—target motion analysis—specialist and verified by the manual plotting team using their own computers to obtain a separate solution. Daytona Beach and Melbourne were supposed to initiate their coordinated attacks at 0145Z.
Twenty seconds to go. Sprague watched his timer, letting the seconds click by.
“Stand by one and two.”
“Aye, one and two ready,” acknowledged the weapons control officer.
“Last bearing check.”
“Bearing 276. . .SET.”
Sprague watched the timer count down. Four. . .three. . .two. . .
“
SHOOT. Stand by two.”
A tremor ran through the ship.
“Track 1016, bearing 316. . .SET.”
“SHOOT.”
Another tremor as the second torpedo cleared its tube. And then silence.
<>
South China Sea
“Dragon One-one, Sea Lord.”
The voice of the Hawkeye controller broke through Maxwell’s concentration. He was peering into the right MFD, sorting out the multiple contacts in the screen. The Black Star was still climbing, passing through 25,000 feet.
The controller said, “Purple Net reports two, possibly three Stogies off Lingshui ten minutes ago. No further contact.”
Three stogies. “Stogie” was the brevity code for the Chinese Dong-jin stealth fighter. Purple Net was a real-time feed from Navy EP-3, Air Force Rivet Joint intelligence-gathering aircraft, and current national asset data. At least one of those national assets, Maxwell knew, was a surveillance satellite positioned to observed Hainan Island and Lingshui air base. The satellite’s electro-optic system couldn’t see a Dong-jin, but if it were one of the advanced KH13 IMINT—image intelligence—satellites, it would have IR detecting capability. The satellite’s receptors had picked up enough heat emission from the Lingshui runway to indicate the launch of stealth fighters.
Maxwell was getting a bad feeling about this. If the Dong-jins had entered the game, it meant they had sufficiently good intel to alert them to the presence of the Black Stars. Their own satellite? Their AWACS? Or surveillance from the PLA submarine that had been snooping around the strike group?
He pushed the ACK button.
<>
USS Daytona Beach
Watching the torpedoes on the display, Sprague felt like a witness to an impending train wreck. The wire-guided MK-48s were running at speeds pre-calculated to put them on their targets simultaneously.
“Both weapons under guidance, Captain.”
Sprague acknowledged. The torpedoes were responding to the commands issued by the controllers aboard Daytona Beach. It was the quietest and most efficient way to move the weapons to a close range on their targets. When they were close enough that evasion was impossible, he would order them released to their own active sonar guidance.
“Two more torpedoes in the water,” announced sonar. “Mk 48s,” he added.
Sprague felt like cheering. Melbourne had fired its own weapons. The torpedoes from Daytona Beach and Melbourne would not strike at exactly the same moment, but they would be close enough together that—
“Detonation bearing 207,” called out the sonarman. “Second detonation bearing 223. The last freighter and a destroyer.”
Melbourne’s torpedoes had struck first. They’d fired at a closer range than Daytona Beach.
Sprague felt the tension mount in the control room. The danger level had just ratcheted up to the top of the scale. The Chinese convoy would be going to maximum search and destroy mode.
He waited. More seconds ticked past.
Finally, “Both weapons switching to active homing.”
Sprague said, “Release both weapons.”
“Weapons released on contacts 1013 and 1016, sir.”
The sounds of the detonations, two seconds apart, were received at 0146Z. The lead freighter took the torpedo sixty feet aft of her bow, just below the waterline. The second torpedo caught the escorting Sovremenny as it was in a hard starboard turn, ripping its hull in half beneath the surface.
Now we earn our pay, thought Sprague. The Chinese would be launching every anti-submarine device at their disposal, or they would turn tail and run. He was fairly confident that Daytona Beach could egress the area without being detected. The two surviving Sovremennys were racing around like dogs in a junk yard. They wanted to kill something—but they didn’t know what. If either became a threat, Sprague would exercise his discretion and put another MK 48 in them.
“Torpedo in the water!” called out sonar.
Sprague felt a chill run through him. His eyes snapped to the display.
He saw the trace, and at first it didn’t make sense. The torpedo was definitely not a MK 48 or anything that resembled an American weapon. And it wasn’t tracking toward Daytona Beach. It had originated from an empty space in the sea to the north. It was steering toward another empty space on the port flank of the convoy.
In a flash of clarity, it came to him. Oh, sweet Jesus. There was a Chinese submarine out there. It had been out there all along, and it was firing at a contact in its own vicinity. The sonofabitch had just fired a torpedo at the USS Melbourne.
But not an ordinary torpedo. This thing was moving at high speed. Extremely high speed. On the BSY-1 console screen, it appeared to moving at something over a hundred miles per hour.
A moment later, the sonarman confirmed it. “It’s gotta be a Shkval. A Shkval in the water, Captain.”
A feeling of helplessness passed over Sprague. The Shkval —squall in Russian—was a super-cavitating, rocket-propelled weapon that moved through the water at 200 mph. It had long been rumored that the PLA navy was buying the super torpedoes from the Russians.
The Melbourne had reached the same conclusion. Through the acoustic clutter of four sinking ships and the Sovremennys racing churning the water, Sprague discerned the elements of a deadly duel. Melbourne was deploying decoys, accelerating, going into an evasive maneuver to throw off the Chinese torpedo.
For a fleeting moment Sprague considered obtaining a firing solution on the Chinese sub. He dismissed the idea. He would be as likely to hit the Melbourne as he was the enemy boat. In any case, it was too late. The fight between Melbourne and the Chinese sub would be over before he could get a torpedo into the game.
“Active homing!” called out sonar. “The torpedo’s locked on.”
<>
USS Ronald Reagan
It was too good to be true, thought Boyce.
The formations of Chinese airplanes looked like gaggles of geese converging on Swallow Reef, halfway down the Spratly archipelago. Boyce knew that a convoy of surface ships was en route to the reef. The PLA was reinforcing its new base on Swallow Reef.
What are these guys thinking? Boyce wondered. It was as if they were practically begging to be shotgunned.
He was sitting at his console in the red-lighted Reagan CIC—Combat Information Center. The CIC compartment was the battle control nerve center of the ship. The red-lighted space had rows of terminal stations where controllers and special warfare officers peered into their screens.
Boyce glanced over his shoulder. Dana Boudroux smiled back at him from the elevated platform against the bulkhead. She had her arms wrapped around her, protecting herself from the frigid temperature of the compartment.
She was there at her own request. She’d been waiting in the passageway when he arrived at the door of the CIC. She wanted to observe the mission.
Boyce had almost said no. “Sorry, Doctor. I don’t need your advice on how to run a combat operation.”
“I apologize for what I said earlier, Admiral. It was stupid of me. If I promise to shut up, will you let me observe?”
He considered for a moment. She appeared to be sincere. None of that in-your-face, I’m-smarter-than-all-of-you research scientist attitude.
Technically, of course, she wasn’t supposed to be there. Even though she had the security clearance, she didn’t have the need-to-know requirement to be in CIC during a combat operation.
But what the hell. He was the air warfare commander, and it was his call. She might even be useful.
“Remember what I said about the bucket seat back to Nevada?”
She nodded.
“The seat’s still open. Remember that and you can be my guest in here today.”
“I’ll remember.”
So far she was keeping her word. The scientist was sitting in her padded seat, watching the screen over Boyce’s shoulder. Her arms were still wrapped around her.
“Sorry about the Klondike temperature,” said B
oyce. “The electronics geeks like to keep it freezing in here to protect their fancy equipment.”
“I’m okay.”
In his plasma display Boyce could see the two formations of PLA air force fighters, each accompanying an in-flight refueling ship. Like mother hens, the tankers were leading the fighters from Hainan to their new base at Swallow Reef, topping them off with fuel before they landed. The fighters were flying high and low combat air patrol for the big, swept-wing H-6s. The H-6 was a knock off of the Russian aircraft TU-16 Badger bomber, converted to a tanker.
On the eastern side of the display was the AWACS—the Ilyushin IL-76—also accompanied by fighters. Unlike the other PLA air force jets, the Ilyushin was not a knock off. It had been purchased in hard cash from Russia, complete with cutting edge phased array, wide-area radar.
The Ilyushin was in an elongated north-south orbit. The southern end of the orbit was nearly over the topmost islands of the Spratly group.
Which was peculiar, thought Boyce. Even with the four Flankers covering it, the AWACS was too valuable to risk being that close to a combat zone. Even more peculiar was the converging paths of the two flights of aircraft. As the tankers and fighters neared the Spratlys, they would fly within fifty miles of the Ilyushin’s orbit.
Boyce tried to imagine what they were thinking. Chinese commanders behaved in ways that defied western logic, but they weren’t stupid. They wouldn’t put their AWACS or the tankers at risk, even when defended by SU-27s.
Boyce thought about this while he unwrapped a Cohiba. He was wearing his battered G-1 leather jacket with the patches of a dozen different squadrons and ships. Not only was the jacket a talisman—he had worn it during every combat event of his career—it was his defense against the numbing cold.
On his display were three little yellow triangles—the data-linked images of the Black Stars. One was close by, in the same orbit as Sea Lord, the E-2C Hawkeye early warning ship orbiting a hundred miles west of the Reagan. Dragon One-three, flown by Crud Carruthers and Gypsy Palmer, would back up the four Super Hornets flying CAP for the Hawkeye.