by Marc Cameron
Sensors and cameras on board the mocked-up destroyer would record impact data and send it back to the Makin Island. It was going to be a hell of a top-secret show.
Skeet used his index finger on the glass panel to access his weapons stores and highlight the LRASM. He opened the bay doors.
Admiral Peck gave the command to fire.
Missile selected, Skeet said, “Pickle,” and pulled the trigger. “Weapon awa—”
His plane hit the same sort of downdraft Schmidt had experienced earlier, shuddered momentarily, then resumed straight and level flight. “Three minutes—”
The jet shuddered again. The glass panel with all his instruments went dark. The visor display in his helmet clicked off, leaving him virtually blind.
In cases like this, altitude was your friend. He pulled back on the stick, only to have the aircraft pitch violently, nose-down, entering the beginning of a spin. Compensating, he pushed the stick forward. The airplane did exactly the opposite of what it was supposed to do. He pulled back again, applying enough rudder to come out of the spin, going against all his training to push the stick forward and climb. He fought the urge to call for help. Aviate, navigate, communicate. There was nothing Schmidt could do for him, anyway. The ship would have him on radar, so if he went down—which was becoming more and more likely—they’d know where to come looking for him.
The airplane fought him at every turn, like she had a mind of her own. As soon as he thought he had the control glitch figured out, the jet bucked in the other direction. The world around him became a blur of gray sky and blue water, like a spinning globe that wouldn’t stop spinning. With eight thousand feet to play with—and nothing but his instinct to tell him how much altitude he still had—there was little room for error.
The powerful Pratt & Whitney engine suddenly flamed out, leaving the cramped cockpit oddly quiet but for the scream of buffeting wind and the clatter of his helmet against the headrest.
With his stomach in his throat and zero control, Skeet reached for the grab handles on his seat. Severely doubting any part of this airplane would work, he said the words no pilot ever wants to say: “Eject! Eject! Eject!”
* * *
—
Calliope left a copy of her code on Skeet’s onboard computer when she rode the weapons-data-link to the LRASM. This Calliope clone began to send opposing signals to the flight controls the moment the missile was away, causing the airplane to dive, then pitch violently upward. She searched weapons stores, flight controls, and every subdirectory in an attempt to locate the computerized ejection seat. Fortunately for the pilot, the ejection seat was manually activated. Seconds after he ejected, the F-35 Lightning hit the surface of the Pacific in a flat spin like a one-hundred-million-dollar skipping stone. It bounced three times, striking the water with such force that pieces of it had not yet fallen back into the water when Major Skeet Black’s parachute set him none too gently in the waves.
68
The executive officer stood across the bridge from Admiral Peck, handset to his ear. “PRIFLY advises no contact with either jet.”
PRIFLY was primary flight control—the ship’s equivalent of the air traffic control tower.
“No contact?”
“No radio contact, sir. No radar contact.”
“I recommend we get the Cobras over the last known locations,” the captain said.
“Preble and Halsey?” Peck asked, checking the status of the two destroyer escorts.
“Unable to reach them via radio, sir,” the XO said. “We’re trying the satellite phone now.”
Peck nodded, his stomach in knots. “Launch the MH-60s in case the pilots went into the drink. I want recovery in the air yesterday.”
The radar tech tracking the LRASM from the console on the bridge raised his hand. “The weapon is slowing, deviating east from target by . . . twenty . . . no, forty degrees.”
“Well, shit!” Peck said. “How slow?”
“Two hundred knots . . . one fifty . . . one hundred . . .” The radar P2 turned and looked at his captain, wide-eyed. “It’s heading toward that trawler . . . still slowing.” He turned back to his screen. “Sir! Contact fifty nautical miles southeast of the trawler.”
“And we are just now seeing it?” the admiral said. This was just getting better.
“There’s a small atoll there. We knew about it, but the vessel blended in when it was sitting there.”
The XO was still on the phone with PRIFLY. “One of the Cobras just spotted what looks like a Chinese vessel, moving toward the trawler. Looks to be a Shanghai-class gunboat.”
“Have the Cobra keep it in sight,” the admiral said.
The Shanghai-class vessels were small, about thirty-six meters, but they were relatively fast at twenty-five knots and decked out with weapons including depth charges for chasing subs.
“Status report on the missile,” Peck said.
“Still tracking directly for the trawler. One hundred knots. At present speed she’ll have contact in four and a half minutes.”
“Abort,” Peck said. “Destroy the missile.”
The captain, then the XO, repeated the order.
The XO put the line with PRIFLY on speaker while he listened to fire control on his headset. He looked up. “No go, sir. We have no control of the LRASM . . .”
PRIFLY spoke next over the speaker, patching through the Cobra pilot. “The trawler is deploying its arms with . . . looks like a net.”
“Sound general quarters,” the admiral said. “Someone has taken control of that missile and both our F-35s.”
“General quarters,” the captain repeated.
The XO looked up from the handset and shook his head. “Onboard communications, alarms, and intercoms are inoperable, sir.”
Music from Iron Man, the last movie the crew had watched on the big screen in the enlisted mess, began to pour out of the speakers over the entire ship.
Peck nodded to the captain. “You have the com.” He tapped the XO on the shoulder. “You, come with me.”
The two men burst from the bridge hatch, heading for the Ready 5 Ospreys and FAST Marines. With the intercoms down, none of the sailors on the ship were aware anything was amiss. They were startled to see the XO and the admiral running.
Peck hated to be an asshole with men and women who didn’t know any better, but he growled as he shoved them aside.
As the old Navy saying went: “Gangway or sickbay.”
* * *
—
Someone was piping Black Sabbath over the intercoms, which was odd, Captain Goodrich thought, but pretty great for morale.
There was always good-natured ribbing between Marine FAST platoons and SEAL detachments. SEALs seemed to have classes of instruction on scrounging and were known to huddle around small camp stoves boiling water for coffee while they waited on Ready status. A few of them joked that FAST stood for Fake Ass SEAL Team, but calmed down after they worked together a few times. For his part, Captain Goodrich was content to sit along the sides of the Osprey with his eight-man squad, while the SEALs lounged on the tarmac, half submerged in big plastic tubs that were normally used to clean aircraft wheels—cooling off in their wet suits.
The FAST assistant platoon commander’s voice buzzed on the Sonitus Molar Mic. He was sitting under similar circumstances on an adjacent Osprey with his squad. “Goodrich, Arthur. You have commo with PRIFLY?”
“I’m not hearing anything.” Goodrich was seated up front, forward of the “hellhole” just aft of the cockpit. He glanced toward the open hatch.
As in most rotary-wing aircraft, the pilot in command sat in the right seat. Her name was Captain Avery Denny, call sign Scooter. She’d flown Goodrich and his platoon before. They’d sat together at dinner a couple of times. She was an extremely capable Marine—which, in Goodrich’s estimation, was about as high a
compliment as he could give a person. She was engaged in an animated conversation with her copilot, tapping the side of her headset as if she, too, was having trouble reaching primary flight control.
Goodrich leaned forward in his seat, looking out the open aft ramp. The SEAL Det commander was out of his tub, braced at attention, his black wet suit draining water onto the deck.
Captain Goodrich unfastened his seat belt and, motioning the rest of his platoon to stay seated, made his way aft.
Something was happening.
Admiral Peck met him at the ramp. “Follow me, Captain,” he said, striding toward the cockpit in the way peculiar to a man who had zero doubt that his order would be followed.
Captain Avery glanced up in time to see the admiral. She started to get out of her seat but he shushed her back down with an open hand before waving Goodrich forward so he could talk to them both.
He took thirty seconds to give them a thumbnail sketch of the situation—the details of which were meager at best—then looked Goodrich in the eye. “The Chinese must be denied that missile. Are we clear?”
“Aye, sir,” Goodrich said.
“Do you have explosives on board?”
“Breaching equipment is with the second squad on the other bird.”
“You have commo with each other?”
“We do, sir.”
“Very well,” Peck said, gathering himself up to get off the Osprey. “Destroy the missile. Captain Denny, if Captain Goodrich and his men fail, send the trawler and the missile to the bottom. The Chinese will just go down and pick her up, but some of the tech might be destroyed.”
“Due respect, Admiral,” Denny said. “I know the MH-60s are in the air, but why do we not send the 35 to drop a torpedo down the trawler’s smokestack?”
“I’m moving on to that crew next,” Peck said. “With no commo on board we have to do it all in person. Nine-tenths of the people on this ship still believe everything is hunky-dory right now. But here’s the deal. The virus or whatever it is has infected the ship and both F-35s. I’m not a hundred percent sure you won’t fall out of the sky as soon as you leave the ship.” He bounced a fist on the back of the pilot’s headrest. “Now go! And Godspeed.”
* * *
—
Goodrich took his seat as the rear ramp began to close, and began to brief his men, including those on the adjacent Osprey. They had trained with the SEALs for this very thing and at the back of the bird, the lieutenant in charge of the SEAL Det was briefing his men as well. The Ospreys would come in low, pooping out the inflatable that now occupied the center of the hold. The SEALs would follow their boat out, then approach the trawler low from the water. FAST Marines would come in by air, fast-roping onto the deck as the Ospreys went into a hover, squad two covering squad one with the GAU .50-caliber from the second Osprey above.
“So,” Goodrich said, finishing the mission brief. “We destroy the missile or die trying!”
“Oorah!” his men said, as the Osprey’s engines spooled up.
* * *
—
Captain Avery “Scooter” Denny was oddly at ease, considering the gravity of her mission. She understood the admiral’s orders completely. If Captain Goodrich and his men were not able to destroy the missile, she was to destroy the Chinese ship—even if FAST Marines were still on board.
Correct takeoff procedures had to be followed, even under austere or emergency conditions. She and her copilot had already performed the necessary checks. She had no way to speak to PRIFLY, so she coordinated her takeoff with her wingman—the second V-22 she referred to as 12. As the lead aircraft, she was 11.
She turned to her copilot. “You ready to get this plopter in the air?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She spoke to her wingman again, advising her status and fuel state. “Eleven is ramps up. Ten-point-eight.”
“Twelve is ramps up. Ten-point-six.”
Captain Denny used her left thumb to set the nacelles on either wing to 90 degrees, then turned to the sailor on deck. The sailor, who’d received instructions from Admiral Peck, saluted. Denny returned the salute and increased power to eighty percent to pick up into a hover. She checked to ensure that her gauges were in the green, then looked out her cockpit window directly at the sailor on deck. He pointed forward. Cleared for takeoff, she input left cyclic and full thrust control lever to slide out over the water.
The instruments looked good. She still had commo. Relieved, she set the nacelles to 75 degrees, then checked the airspeed indicator.
“Gear is up,” she said. “Lights out. Doors closed. Cleared fast.”
69
Aboard USS Fort Worth, Ding Chavez used the satellite telephone to call Mary Pat Foley—and, as suggested by IT2 Richwine, see what “big things” were going on in the world. If anyone was in a position to have that information, it would be the director of national security. She mentioned the LRASM missile test off the Makin Island right off the bat. PACOM had lost radio contact with the ship. Someone was talking to them via satellite phone at the moment, and Foley was waiting to be briefed so she could brief the President.
Chavez got the number for the sat phone and hung up, turning to Commander Akana.
“You know anyone on the Makin Island?”
“I know the XO.”
Chavez passed him the satellite phone and then tapped the Faraday bag. “Sounds like this baby has infected their boat.”
Akana did not need to be told what he needed to do. He punched in the number Chavez had written down and called IT2 Richwine over.
“I’ll get them on the horn,” Akana said. “Then you talk your counterpart through what he or she needs to look for in order to fix their ship.”
* * *
—
Captain Goodrich had no flight computer to calculate the distance to the Chinese fishing trawler from USS Makin Island, but the admiral had said the trawler was approximately one hundred miles east of the mocked-up target vessel. The target vessel was roughly forty miles south of the LHD. He had two legs of the triangle. A squared plus B squared equals C squared . . . Sixteen hundred plus ten thousand . . . He started to factor, working to reach the square root of 11,600 in his head.
“One hundred and seven miles!” Captain Denny turned in the cockpit and looked at him as she spoke over the intercom like she was reading his mind. She must have seen him drawing imaginary triangles on his knee. “ETA sixteen minutes.”
The SEALs were already up, ready to follow the rigid hull inflatable off the ramp when they reached the two-mile mark. The crew chief had already rigged a thick 120-foot fast-rope to the trapeze above the rear ramp, and had it secured out of the way so the SEALs could egress.
* * *
—
Captain Scooter Denny wished she had one of those belly-mounted mini-guns on board. The Interim Defense Weapon System could lay down three thousand rounds per minute firing from the rear cargo hole, but it was a weight thing. At eight hundred pounds, the IDWS added a lot of weight. The scenario that involved attacking an enemy Chinese fishing vessel that had stolen a U.S. anti-ship missile had obviously been overlooked by her superiors.
They started to take small arms fire from a half a kilometer away. It wasn’t effective, but she could see the tracers flashing past. Both Ospreys had their ramps open now, GAU-21 .50-cals banging away as they flew past, gunners careful not to shoot toward each other.
“That’s like no fishing trawler I’ve ever seen,” Denny said into the intercom. “Looks like armor plating around the wheelhouse. No sign of the missile, but the crew is all making for the fortified wheelhouse.”
“Copy that,” Goodrich said. “Do you have the Chinese gunboat on radar?”
“Thirty-five miles southeast of us,” Denny said. “And closing. I don’t know if they can see him on the ship, but he’s just over an hour
out, probably in contact with the trawler and coming for the missile. Wouldn’t be surprised if we start to see Chinese fighters any minute.”
“This is a shit show,” Goodrich said.
“Indeed,” Denny said. “SEALs should be on station anytime. I’ll make one more pass with the gun to clear the decks and then pull up into a hover. My wingman will keep anyone on the bow occu—”
A loud hiss, audible over the roar of the Osprey, streaked by the aircraft.
There was a sudden thud, like someone kicking a metal barn, and then a muffled explosion.
“RPG!” Denny yelled in the intercom. The pilot of the second Osprey responded that they’d been hit and they were about to get wet.
* * *
—
Captain Denny put her Osprey in a hover above the rear deck of the trawler. The SEALs had managed to get the other inflatables deployed before the second Osprey splashed. They now engaged the crew from the water, giving the FAST platoon a window to hit the ropes.
Goodrich’s natural instinct was to worry about his fellow Marines that had gone down. The Sonitus Molar Mics remained operational, and he could hear Captain Arthur, his assistant platoon commander, organizing his guys in the water. He said they, along with the crew chief, were all accounted for and were working to find the pilots. Focusing on the mission ahead, Goodrich isolated his squad on the comm and trusted Arthur to take care of his Marines.