by Larry Bond
Zeus pumped three bullets into the body, catching the Chinese officer in the neck and the back of skull. Jooch jerked back, then glanced up at Zeus, confused.
“Come on! Come on!” Zeus yelled.
By the time they left the room, an explosive charge had been set on the door to the other locked office. Once more they retreated to the stairs.
“Why did you shoot?” whispered Jooch, settling in below Zeus.
“He was going to shoot you.”
Jooch gave him a strange look.
“He moved,” added Zeus. “And he had a gun in his hand.”
“Didn’t move. I don’t think there was a gun.”
The charge blew down the hall. It was a smaller blast, scaled back after the earlier one. They filed quickly into the corridor.
Someone was shouting in Chinese from inside the room.
“What’s he saying?” asked Zeus.
Setco yelled back at the person in the room. Whoever it was responded with a few words. Zeus saw Setco reach into his vest for a grenade.
“If he surrenders,” said Zeus. “Maybe—”
Setco shook his head. But before he could toss the grenade, there was a gunshot inside the room. He hesitated, then tossed in the weapon. As soon as it exploded, he darted forward, sliding on his haunches as he came even with the doorway.
“Clear,” he yelled.
Zeus followed him in. A man lay on his back in front of the communications consoles. At first glance, he seemed eerily calm, his eyes wide open.
Then Zeus saw that his head was surrounded by a pool of blood, soaking into the carpet. He’d shot himself in the mouth; the gun had tumbled off to the side as he fell back, lifeless.
He had a star on his shoulder.
The general.
Zeus bent to get a good look at his face. Something was wrong—this man seemed older than Li Sun, and fatter. Zeus tried to remember the image.
“Take the hall, Murphy,” said Setco. “We gotta get ready to move.
“This isn’t the guy in the briefing.”
“I got it, I got it,” said Setco, pulling out his camera. “Watch the door. We don’t need any more surprises.”
Zeus moved back to the doorway. He checked up and down the corridor, then moved so he could see inside the room.
“Take pictures, check his pockets,” Setco told Jooch, giving him the camera. He took a small black device about the size of an iPhone from his hip pocket and went to the computer.
“What are you doing?” asked Zeus.
Setco smirked at him. He pulled at the side of the device, removing a cover and then pulling a wire from the side. Then he bent and plugged it into the USB port. He slid open the top of the device, revealing a touch screen. He tapped it furiously, then set it down. As the screen flashed, he took another device from a different pocket and set it next to it. He plugged this into the second one.
Jooch took some papers from the dead general, then came out of the room. Setco checked something on the devices he’d just hooked up, then came out.
“What were you doing?” Zeus asked. “What did you put on the computer?”
“You don’t think they sent me all this way just to kill that asshole, do you?”
51
The South China Sea
Silas’s first thought when he heard the missile launch warning was one of triumph: Now I have the son of a bitch.
His second thought was more realistic: Holy shit.
He spewed orders, but in fact the crew responded so quickly it was difficult to know if his words were even heard.
Sixteen 3M54 Klub missiles sprang from the deck of Wu Bei, a virtual forest of weaponry heading for McCampbell. It was half the cruiser’s allotment of antiship missiles, a heavy investment in destruction.
But Silas felt relief when the count stopped at sixteen. He’d drilled the crew to defend against sixty-four—a drill that included a run to the lifeboats.
“ERAMs!” ordered Silas.
The ship’s Aegis system was already picking out targets for the missiles, also known as Standard 6s or Extended Range Active Missiles. They were the product of an unholy marriage between an Air Force AMRAAM antiair missile and a Navy Standard Missile, with the best attributes of both.
But there were only twelve aboard McCampbell. SM2s were launched at the others, guided by McCampbell’s three SPG-62 directors. The ERAMs didn’t need directors—“Thank Neptune,” muttered Silas as the SM2s lofted.
As both vertical launchers spewed missiles, Silas had the ship turn beam-on to the attack. This ensured that he had all his illuminators, mounted on the centerline, bearing on the targets.
A half minute had passed, a lifetime to Silas. His first priority was to protect his ship. But even as the Aegis system selected targets for the launched SM2s, Silas was shifting from defense to offense.
“Now,” he said, talking in shorthand as he followed a plan the crew had rehearsed several times. “One director on Wu Bei. Then the frigate. SM2 missiles. Six and six. Shift the others to attack the ship when appropriate.”
Six SM2s popped up from the launchers and twisted their contrails in the direction of Wu Bei. Another half-dozen launched shortly afterward, heading for the frigate.
* * *
My boat. Your boat.
Silas tightened his hands into fists.
You’re done, Wu Bei. You and your frigate shadow.
* * *
The sixteen Klub missiles skimmed over the ocean only a few meters from the thin tips of the waves. The ERAMs, traveling at Mach 3, roared out to meet them. Though subsonic, the Klub missile presented a small target to the American interceptors; its stealthy radar signature and the low altitude made it a difficult target. But the ERAMs had been designed for this.
The ERAMs began finding the Klubs some four and a half miles from Wu Bei. On paper—or rather in computers—the missiles would strike their targets some 75 percent of the time. In real life, they did slightly better—eight Klubs were destroyed, flaring rather undramatically in the dark space between the two ships.
The SM2s, arriving shortly afterwards, thinned the remaining attackers to two.
The battle was only two minutes old.
Silas listened to his people as they tracked the missiles. Their comments were quick, brief, numbers and a few words. All emotionless.
The crew was a well-practiced machine, as efficient as the weapons they were guiding.
Nice.
“Two missiles in-bound,” reported his exec. “Aegis has them.”
“The Chinese?”
“Reacting. No second launch.”
“Frigate?”
“Negative. Still moving to shield the cruiser.”
The Chinese captain had undoubtedly believed sixteen missiles would be enough, Silas knew. Probably he’d been trained to believe that half that was necessary. It was a fatal mistake.
Now he was concentrating on defense, as well he would have to.
* * *
Two of the SM2 missiles intended for the Klubs were redirected toward the cruiser. They became the lead element of an eight-missile attack, a barrage heading at Mach 2 toward Wu Bei. The size of the missiles made them hard for the Chinese radars to find. When they finally did, SA-N-6 Fort and SA-N-4B Osa 2M SAM began launching.
One of the American missiles that had been diverted was struck by an SA-N-6 missile, whose 90 kilogram warhead met it far enough away to harmlessly disintegrate the smaller weapon. But the second American missile streaked past the Fort missile aimed at it, and also eluded the SA-N-4B. This left it for the cruiser’s 30 mm rotary guns, which threw a furious spray of shells in the missile’s path.
Some of the shells hit the missile a thousand yards from the ship. The fusillade was enough to shred the airframe, but it was a pyrrhic victory: turned into a flying ball of burning debris, what was left of the missile struck the main deck of the cruiser, flattening and spreading like a balloon filled with napalm.
Thirty seco
nds later, the rest of the SM2s arrived. The Fort system managed to destroy two as they came on, and the antiquated Osa system killed one more. But two warheads and another fireball struck the superstructure, shredding it.
Detonating inside the ship, the intact missiles spread shrapnel and fire in every direction. They cut the ship’s electricity, and damaged the steering controls leaving her at least temporarily rudderless.
On McCampbell, the Phalanx 20 mm cannon took aim at the last incoming missiles, a stream of bullets heading toward the two warheads. One of the Chinese missiles, confused by McCampbell’s countermeasures, veered off to the south.
The other continued toward the ship.
At that point, three of the six missiles launched at the frigate struck the escort vessel, as did the remains of a fourth warhead. One ignited directly in the engine room, obliterating equipment and starting an electrical fire that soon did even more damage than the initial explosion. Plumes of toxic smoke poured through the corridors of the ship, choking the crew and hindering damage control efforts. The frigate had already begun taking on water where she had been hit; the fire hindered efforts to cope with the damage and she soon listed heavily to the starboard side.
McCampbell’s Phalanx cannon caught the last Chinese missile. Shrapnel from the warhead rained down on the port side of the destroyer’s fantail, pockmarking the paint but mercifully sparing the ship and her crew any real damage.
Silas, realizing that his enemy had been crippled, changed course, pointing his bow in the direction of the merchant ship so he could get down to help it.
At this point, he could easily have finished off the Chinese vessels with another salvo of missiles. He wanted to do just that. But he also realized that Fleet, as well as the Pentagon, were watching via their satellite and spy plane connections. With the two enemy ships disabled, he called his command for further instructions.
“What the hell is the situation?” demanded CINPAC commander Admiral Meeve, coming on the line with his usual bluster. Meeve hated Silas, and had made those feelings clear on any number of occasions
“I was fired on,” said Silas. “I provided a measured response. Both Chinese ships are crippled. Request permission to sink them.”
“Denied!”
“Should I have let them sink me?” snapped Silas.
It was out of line and he knew it; as soon as the words left his mouth he wished he could grab them back. Meeve didn’t say anything for a moment. Silas started to apologize, but the admiral cut him off.
“You … Keep clear. Watch them, but you don’t do anything until you hear from me. Do you understand?”
“Admiral, I was fired on.”
“Do nothing.”
“I’m going to the aid of a stricken civilian vessel,” said Silas. But the admiral had already cut the line.
52
Hanoi
It cost Kerfer only a hundred dollars American plus gas to get a car for Hanoi, a bargain price considering the circumstances. The gas was potentially more costly, and much harder to find. Kerfer knew there weren’t many stations in the city that still had gas. In fact, the only reliable place that he could think of was the embassy.
But given that was where he was going, Kerfer didn’t mind agreeing.
The Marines at the gate were used to him, but even so made both him and the driver get out while they searched the ten-year-old Toyota. Kerfer told them that he needed the vehicle filled with gas, then told the driver to follow the guards and to meet him out front when he was done. The Marines rolled their eyes but in the end agreed to help while the SEAL officer went inside for his gear.
Kerfer found a sleepy Juliet Greig sitting at a secretary’s desk in the office wing, waiting with a box.
“Keeping you up?”
“Just from dinner,” said Greig, rising from the chair.
The acting consul general’s hair was rumpled; she was wearing an oversized sweatshirt and khaki pants frayed at the seams. Her face looked washed out, as if she hadn’t worn makeup in a month. But she was still damn good-looking to Kerfer, and her handshake was neither too soft nor overtrying hard.
“That for me?” Kerfer asked, pointing to the box on the floor.
“Apparently so.”
Kerfer took the box. It was a large, nondescript cardboard box taped with a special tamper-evident tape.
“Top secret stuff, huh?” she said.
“Just my lunch,” said Kerfer, wondering if the agency idiots could have made it any more obvious.
“What’s this all about?”
He shook his head. “Damned if I know. They just got me running errands. I have to deliver this to Ho Chi Minh City. Or Ho Chi Minh himself, if I see him.”
“Some people think he’ll come back from the dead,” said Greig.
“Hey, you never know.”
“Place is falling apart.”
She crossed her arms, folding them down below her breasts. Beautiful breasts, even under the sweatshirt. Some women were just too pretty for their own good.
“I’d ask you to have a drink,” said Kerfer, fighting off not only the distraction but the urge to be distracted, “but I kind of have a time deadline here. Long drive.”
“Sure.”
Kerfer cradled the box awkwardly under his arm.
“I’m supposed to call home,” he told her.
“SCIF’s empty.”
Kerfer nodded. “You getting out of Hanoi?”
“I don’t know. Probably not. We’re not at war with the Chinese, Ric.”
“We oughta be.”
She gave him a sweet, though slightly sardonic, smile, the sort of grin that in Kerfer’s experience smart women gave you when they thought they were just a little wiser than you were. That was one of the downsides of being a SEAL, even for an officer—the macho image carried with it a stereotype of being not quite that sharp. In reality this was almost always the opposite of the truth—just getting through BUD/S, let alone the advanced schools, took a great of intelligence. But stereotypes and clichés were hard to get beyond.
Shame. She was definitely worth the effort.
“See you around,” he told her, leaving the office.
“Hopefully.”
Kerfer went downstairs to the secure communications room and contacted the agency over the secure video conferencing network for the exact location of the site he was supposed to check. Instead of Mara he got her boss, Peter Lucas. If Greig had been tired, Lucas was exhausted to a point just shy of death. He looked as if he hadn’t slept for a week—and very possibly he hadn’t.
“You’re familiar with Quang Ninh?” asked Lucas.
“We’ve been all through this,” Kerfer told him. “Mara was going to give me some GPS spots.”
“All right, I’m sorry. Here’s a map.”
A satellite image came on the screen. Details began popping in over the terrain, roads and other highlights magically materializing.
“There’s a temple called Chùa Cao,” said Lucas. “You can see it on your screen.”
“You’re blowing up a temple?”
“No.” Lucas frowned. It was one of those agency frowns, Kerfer thought—the “I can’t believe I’m working with this big a dumbshit” frowns. “Where you’re going is about a mile west of that. There are a set of mines. They’re all pretty deep. We need to know which one to hit.”
“And I figure that out how?”
“Inside your package you’ll find a radiation detector. What we need you to do is get readings at the places we suspect where they are. If your readings are positive, we blow the places. As many as it takes.”
“Why don’t you just blow them anyway?” asked Kerfer.
“There are too many. They’re deep, so we have to use special bomb combinations. And we’re afraid if we start at the wrong end of the complex, the Vietnamese may be able to launch before we can get the right ones.”
“All right. So I’m looking for radiation.”
“Right.”
“Enough to fry me?”
“No. You’re pretty far away in any event. It’s just traces. You need technical instructions on the instrument?”
“Hold on.”
Kerfer took out his pocketknife and slit open the box. A plastic box sat inside, snug against the cardboard. He cut away the sides and took out the box. There was a pair of combo locks on the side, similar to those on a briefcase.
“This is all locked up,” he told Lucas.
“We didn’t want anyone to know what we’re doing.”
“You going to give me the combination?” Kerfer asked. He started to fiddle with it, moving the first number around.
“1-2-3,” said Lucas.
“You’re kidding, right?”
He was. Lucas gave him the right combination and Kerfer opened the case. There was a new satcom radio/telephone inside, a GPS locator unit, the bulky laser designator, and the radiation screening device.
The radiation detector looked something like a large garage door opener, with a black sensor end atop a soap-shaped control area. A small screen ran across the body just below the sensor. Kerfer couldn’t see a way to turn it on.
“You squeeze the sides,” said Lucas, watching him on the video.
“OK.” The LEDs in the text window came on. It read 0.000. Then it shut off. “That’s it? That’s how it works?”
“So simple, even a SEAL can use it.”
“Ha-ha.”
Kerfer took the laser designator out of the box. It looked very much like a slide projector with an eyepiece at the back. It weighed about twelve pounds, and was a little larger than a hardcover book.
Lasing targets for a bomber was a battle-tested procedure, but it had fallen largely by the wayside thanks to newer technology and changes in tactics. Common for high-value sites during the first Gulf War, by the time of Operation Iraqi Freedom it had become almost passé, replaced for the most part by GPS-guided missiles and other smart weapons that didn’t put a poor schlep on the ground at risk. But computers and fancy sensors couldn’t completely replace people on the ground, and the capability remained, though mostly confined to exercises.