Flash Point

by Kenneth Andrus

  He cupped his hands and roared across the water. “The outboard! Use the outboard. Get out of here!”

  When he heard the sound of the Zodiac’s engine, he yelled toward the bow. “Mantanong. You got the cable?”

  “On it.”

  The Gloria’s captain did not require coaxing and pushed the ignition button. The engine turned over with a belch of stack gas. He engaged power to the shaft. The boat stirred, the bow veering to port.

  “The anchor’s dragging us around,” the captain screamed. “We’re still anchored.”

  Torres bolted out of the pilothouse. “Chief, we’re going to run aground. Cut the damn cable.”

  Muzzle flashes winked along the shore. Three rounds thunked into the wooden superstructure of the pilothouse.

  The thick anchor cable began to slide across the deck. The bow pivoted further. The boat gave a jerk when the cable caught on the corner of the deckhouse. Mantanong rushed to free it. The weakened line parted, the free end whipped through the air.

  The Gloria responded with an uncontrolled surge propelling it toward the opposite shore. The captain felt the pull of the wheel in his hands and spun it, countering the turn. The unexpected movement of the boat ruined the bead drawn on them from an AK-47.

  Torres ducked into the pilothouse to place a call to Reyes. “Mako, Mako. Cutlass.”

  “Cutlass, we copy.”

  “Mako, we have a hot reception. Repeat, a hot reception.”

  “Roger that, Cutlass. You have a hot reception. What is your status?”

  “The Zodiac has cleared the lagoon. The fishing boat is underway. We are . . . Hold one.”

  “Cutlass, we have lost your transmission. Repeat your last.”

  Torres would have preferred to continue his update, but the evolving situation aboard the Gloria and the Chinese patrol boats demanded his immediate attention.

  The random automatic rifle fire was now more deliberate and numerous rounds were impacting the pilothouse. One bullet struck the compass, shattering its glass cover. The other two bullets of the three-round burst splintered the instrument panel. Slivers of metal and wood flew across the wheel.

  The Gloria’s captain cried out in pain, blood welling from his hands. “Take the wheel.”

  Torres grasped the spokes and corrected their course. Spotting his Chief, who had moved from his exposed position on the bow to seek cover behind the superstructure. “Mantanong, the captain’s wounded. Get in here and bandage his hands, then take the wheel. Keep the bow aimed at the center of the channel.”

  No sooner had Torres completed his order than he saw the forward 37mm gun mount of the nearest patrol boat swing in their direction.

  “Oh, shit. Gunner. Gas. Gas. Gas. Put a round on the bridge.”

  Ramirez shouldered the launcher, adjusted his aim, and lobbed a grenade.

  Yellow-white tongues of flame erupted from the twin cannons of the patrol boat. Torres gripped the sides of the doorframe and heard the shells whistle overhead. They impacted on the distant palms sending a cascade of fronds to the beach.

  Torres focused on the shattered palms, astonished that the Chinese had missed. They couldn’t depress their gun barrels low enough to hit the fishing boat without blowing holes in their own ship. He also realized that when the Gloria closed the mouth of the lagoon, they would be in point-blank range.

  The second patrol boat’s turret traversed in his direction. He stared wide-eyed at the open mouths of the dual cannon pointed at him, suppressing the reaction to duck. “Ramirez. Two rounds on the near boat.”

  “Will do.” Ramirez sighted his launcher and fired. The tear gas canister exploded with a whitish puff. The Chinese sailors abandoned their gun in a panic, scrambling to escape the toxic cloud.

  “Hey, Ramirez, Torres hollered. “We just may pull this off.”

  * * *

  “Mako, Mako. Cutlass.”

  Beside himself at the loss of contact and the sound of heavy gunfire, Reyes managed to respond with a steady voice. “Cutlass, we copy.”

  “Mako, the Zodiac should be nearing your location. We’re closing the mouth of the lagoon and receiving small arms fire. The captain is wounded.”

  “Roger that, Cutlass.”

  “Captain, we have the Zodiac in sight twenty points off the starboard bow,” Santos confirmed.

  Reyes looked to his right, spotting the blinking red light in the distance. “Cutlass, we have the Zodiac.”

  Before Torres could respond, the Chinese guns erupted; 14.5mm shellfire churning the water around him.

  “Ah, Mako, we have a situation.”

  Chapter 11

  CHINESE PATROL BOAT, SHANGHAI 1331

  06:10 FRIDAY 21 FEBRUARY

  The captain of Shanghai 1331 was no longer rational, his judgment clouded by rage and loss of face. Their prize was being stolen from under his very nose. Headquarters would be infuriated. They would never accept any excuse for failure. His career was over and the sting he felt was only due in part from the tear gas. He screamed his orders with uncontrolled fury.

  The deck crew re-manned their stations and cast off the lines tethering the patrol boat to shore. The pressured gunners rammed home their shells into the automatic feeder and fired their first rounds. The shells landed long and wide of their target. Correcting their aim, the next rounds walked up the lagoon. Fountains of water chased down the stern of the fishing boat.

  * * *

  Ramirez and Flores dove for cover. The 37mm rounds impacted the transom, demolishing the entire stern quarter. Splinters and shrapnel sprayed in all directions, wounding both of them.

  Ramirez reacted first, ignoring his own pain, and crawled to Flores. Blood stained his friend’s utility jacket.

  Torres reached them a moment later. “How is he?”

  Ramirez rolled his friend over searching for the wound. “I don’t know, Skipper. Maybe not too bad.”

  Torres saw the jagged splinter protruding from Flores’ back and gave it a tentative pull. “This has to come out. Hold him steady.”

  “Arghhh.”

  “Hold on, buddy. It’s out,” Ramirez said while he held pressure over the wound and fumbled for a battle dressing with his other hand. He looked at Torres, “Looks like things are getting pretty hairy, Skipper.”

  “Time to call the cavalry. Throw me one of your flares.”

  Ramirez pulled a signal round from his bandoleer and pitched it underhand. Torres grabbed it with his right hand and fed it into the breech of the launcher. He aimed skyward and squeezed the trigger. The red signal flare arched across the sky.

  * * *

  Two kilometers seaward, Reyes spotted the flare. “Romblon, close the lagoon. Provide covering fire. Barracuda, execute Operation Retrieval. Repeat, execute Operation Retrieval.”

  Romblon’s gunner’s mates were standing by their weapons. Hidden by the darkness, they waited in ambush just beyond the mouth of the lagoon. Several muttered prayers when the Gloria passed.

  “The Chinese are right behind us.”

  The gunners disengaged their breech locks and charged their weapons. Their eyes were riveted on the black expanse between the white water breaking on the shore defining the channel. They wouldn’t have long to wait.

  “Mako, Mako. Barracuda. We have a hostile exiting the lagoon. Permission to fire.”

  “Barracuda. Mako. We copy. Engage.”

  Reyes competed his transmission, a grim smile crossing his face. The squat gunboat’s maximum speed of eighteen knots and lines didn’t match those of the sleek barracuda, but the comparison with the predator’s rows of razor-sharp teeth did.

  * * *

  First to fire were the Barracuda’s 60mm mortar crew. They fed their tube from the pile of shells stacked near the ammunition ready locker and lobbed a cascade of high-explosive rounds over the palm trees.

  The Romblon’s gunners gripped the handles of their weapons holding fire, waiting their turn.

  Barracuda’s commander anticipated hi
s gunner’s first instinct would be to sweep the Chinese vessel with their weapons. He directed their fire to the bridge. “We will first decapitate the serpent, then cripple it.”

  A withering hail of lead ripped into the patrol boat. The Naizhu’s bridge disintegrated in a cloud of smoke, flashes of exploding shells, and flying metal.

  The Filipinos turned their 20mm cannon and .50 caliber machine guns on the stern. They were certain that nothing could have survived their initial fusillade. The results were no less lethal. The patrol boat went dead in the water, black, acrid smoke pouring from the engine room.

  The Romblon’s guns fell silent, smoke curling from their muzzles. An eerie silence permeated the air following the sheer violence of the preceding minutes. Stunned, the Philippine sailors tried to sort out what to do next.

  Their answer came when the Huey appeared and began circling overhead. Operating from the LST, the squadron’s helicopter had just finished inserting a Marine rifle squad on the island. It now had the second Chinese patrol boat under observation.

  “Barracuda. Proud Eagle.”

  “Proud Eagle. Barracuda.”

  “Barracuda, you’ve got trouble headed your way.”

  Reyes listened to the communications between his two units with increasing concern. Romblon was in significant peril. His plan to keep the Chinese bottled up in the lagoon had failed. “XO, have we recovered the Zodiac?”

  “Yes, sir. The fishermen have been escorted below.”

  “Very well. Order the Abcede to close and provide supporting fire for Romblon. The situation for our small barracuda will become ugly unless we stop the Chinese. We’ll hit them with triangulated fire.”

  The exposed mortar crew on the forward deck of the Romblon couldn’t have agreed more with their squadron commander. The second Chinese patrol boat was emerging from the lagoon. The boat was so close they could read the hull number. When its forward gun mount began to traverse in their direction, they scrambled for whatever cover they could find.

  * * *

  In the cramped engine room of Shanghai 1331, the Chinese engineer was unaware of the evolving battle. His world was enveloped in noise. The pair of cruise diesels were at full throttle and he had just brought the two boost engines on line when the four 25mm antiaircraft guns overhead added their percussion to the din.

  He listed to the pitch of his roaring diesels over the hammering cannons. He throttled his engines to full power.

  The first hint of trouble caught his eye. A wavering needle on the number-two booster diesel fuel injector gauge. The engineer stared at the gauge as it swung further to the right. The inner casing pressure of the engine swung past the red line.

  The vessel’s age and lack of yard time to perform required maintenance had caught up with him. A crack in a fuel line buried deep inside the diesel was spraying vaporized fuel directly onto the red-hot engine.

  A thunderous explosion ripped through the engine room turning it into a blazing inferno. Water cascaded through the twisted plates of the hull and the patrol boat began to settle by the stern. Black, oily smoke billowed from gaping hole in the deck where the antiaircraft guns had been. The gun’s high-explosive shells began detonating in the fires adding to the carnage.

  Those sailors who could swim struck out for the Naizhu. Their comrades could offer them no assistance. Their sister ship had been pushed by the waves of the approaching storm onto the coral reef and was now hard aground.

  * * *

  Reyes spun at the sound of the distant explosion. “What the hell was that?”

  The overhead speaker provided the answer. “Mako, Mako. Abcede. Over?”

  “Abcede. Mako.”

  “Mako, we have secured our weapons. The Naizhu has grounded on the reef. The Shanghai is on fire and sinking. Romblon is standing by to rescue any sailors in the water. We have not approached because of the secondary explosions.”

  “Do what you can without endangering your vessel.”

  “Roger that, Mako. It’s going to be tough maintaining station off this lee shore. I’d prefer not to join the Naizhu on the reef.”

  Reyes pulled his eyes away from the amber glow illuminating the horizon. “Do not endanger your command.” He turned to Santos. “XO, you have the con. I must get a message to headquarters.”

  * * *

  While Reyes gave his report, others halfway around the world listened in. Intelligence officers from the NSA were eavesdropping on the Philippine captain, his communications intercepted from a satellite positioned hundreds of miles above the South China Sea.

  These men shared Reyes’ surprise when the Chief of the Philippine Armed Forces’ voice came over the radio:

  “Mako, this is General Medeiros. We have something in mind.”

  Chapter 12

  THE WHITE HOUSE

  08:15 SATURDAY 22 FEBRUARY

  Stuart slammed down the report containing a formal protest from the Chinese. “Damn it, Justin. Why does this stuff always happen on a weekend?”

  Brown shifted his weight from his right leg to his left.

  “Have our experts at State had a chance to analyze the wording in this thing?” Stuart didn’t wait for a response. “How could Beijing possibly believe we had anything to do with sinking those two ships?”

  There was not much the administration could do to defuse this latest crisis, but this fact did little to blunt Stuart’s displeasure. Brown stole a sideways glance at Dan Lantis hoping to find some support. None was forthcoming. Lantis appeared to be focusing his full attention on a large scuff marring the shine of his left shoe.

  Brown ventured a guess. “Mr. President, the Chinese may have caught word of Richard’s meeting with the Philippine ambassador and concluded we received advanced notice.”

  Somewhat mollified, Stuart replied, “That would make sense.”

  “We’re querying PACOM to see if there has been any contact with the AFP.”

  Stuart relented. “Take a seat. When I get a better feel for what’s going on, I’ll convene the NSC to consider our options.”

  THE PENTAGON

  08:35

  The briefing officer came to rigid attention when Payne entered the room. “Good morning, Mr. Secretary. I have just presented the status boards to Admiral Lawson. With the exception of the Pacific theater, activity in the rest of the world is low. The Gulf remains quiet and the Iranians haven’t challenged any of our aircraft for several days.”

  Payne looked over the LAD screens in the Pentagon’s command center displaying the deployment of U.S. forces throughout the world. “I understand our friends in Manila have gotten the Chinese stirred up.”

  “It’d be safe to say Beijing’s not real happy at the moment,” Lawson replied.

  “Let’s see what we’re up against,” Payne said. “Major, you may begin.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The Major’s assistant typed a series of keystrokes on her laptop. Three separate images were projected in response to her commands: a map of the South China Sea, a naval base, and a small island with several vessels scattered about.

  “Mr. Secretary, we highlighted several islands to provide an overview of the contested areas. Those occupied by the Chinese are in red, Philippines in blue. Those claimed by the Vietnamese, green. Hainan Island is at the upper left. The star represents Likas Island where the confrontation took place.”

  “How bad?”

  “The Chinese took a beating, Mr. Secretary,” the Joint Staff’s Chief of Intelligence answered. “We don’t know the casualty count, but the combined crews of the two patrol boats total around eighty. The Filipinos have picked up a number of survivors.”

  “What do we have on surveillance?”

  “A Naizhu class patrol boat is grounded on the reef. There is no sign of the second vessel, a Shanghai-II. We presume it sank.”

  “Any idea what they’re going to do with the survivors?”

  “No, sir,” the Chief of Naval Operations said. “If we can take anything
from the absence of back channel diplomatic communications or public pronouncements from the Foreign Ministry in Manila, they don’t have any idea either.”

  “And the Chinese?”

  “We have strong indicators they’re preparing a retaliatory strike.”

  Payne twisted in his seat to address the Chief of Naval Operations. “Admiral?”

  “The PLAN’s rapid deployment squadron is ready for sea.”

  “Their base?”

  “Hainan.”

  “Composition?”

  “A mix of frigates and destroyers. The Fu Zhou, a Sovremmenny class guided missile destroyer, two Luhu class destroyers, and two Jianghu class frigates.”

  “Can they cause a problem for us?”

  “No, sir. As configured, the flotilla presents only a minimal threat. I can’t say the same for the Filipinos.”

  “Submarines?”

  “We’ve accounted for all of them except a new diesel boat. It put to sea several days ago and is believed to be conducting routine training off the mainland.”

  “What else?”

  Lawson flipped open his briefing book. “Major, would you please put up the other shot of the harbor?”

  “Mr. Secretary, this is a view of another part of the base,” the CNO continued when the picture appeared. “I would like to point out the activity around the three ships clustered in the center of the image. The three from top to bottom are a replenishment oiler, a fleet supply ship, and a repair ship. If these auxiliaries join the combatants, the Chinese plan an extended deployment. What caught our attention was the two amphibs at the top of the picture. They’re completing an onload of combat troops.”

  “Well, that’s just great.”

  Payne’s retort reflected his growing exasperation with Manila. The administration could be dragged into this mess whether it wanted or not. He recognized his comment didn’t contribute anything positive to the analysis and posed a pertinent question. “Bob, do y’all have any specifics on what they’re up to?”

  “No, sir. But we have some ideas based on the characteristics of these two vessels. The ship with the helicopter pad on the stern is a Yuting class amphibious assault ship. It’s capable of embarking two-hundred and fifty troops. The other is an older Yukan class with essentially the same capability. It just returned from delivering heavy construction equipment to their installation on Fiery Cross Reef. The Chinese are lengthening their runway and building the infrastructure to handle a broad range of combat and support aircraft.”