by Dale Brown
cover any naval flight operations in progress, but I don't want any
heavy American military aircraft airborne during daylight hours, with or
without escorts." He then thought of Dr. Jon Masters' satellite
system-what the hell did he call them, NIRTSats?-and said, "I want to
talk with General Stone on Guam immediately."
"Yes, sir. Curtis turned to Cunningham. "We got a satellite system up
there that can find a Chevy in a parking lot full of Fords, on a cloudy
night, from four hundred miles in space-now's the time to use it."
"Amen to that, " Cunningham said. "Sir, the Independence carrier group
should be notified of the incident and briefed on their actions. I'd
like to set up the two-hundred-mile exclusion zone and put fire-first
provisions in the ROEs." "Two-hundred-mile exclusion zone approved, "
Curtis said. "Fire-first provisions only for aircraft on antiship
cruise-missile profiles. Any other actions have to come through the
NCA. "Get a full report from Admiral Walheim on Ranger, then brief me
ASAP on what we need to send to Manado to assist our troops in
Indonesia; I need a laundry list for the State Department. Find out
what ships are available to replace Ranger-including submarines. I want
to be able to take control of those waters as quickly as I can."
Cunningham turned to his communications console to begin issuing his
orders. The orange light on his console illuminated, and Curtis donned
a headset and plugged it into the phone jack. "Curtis here."
"Hold for the President, please." A moment later: "Yes, Wilbur, what's
going on?"
"Mr. President, we have an incident near the Philippines. The aircraft
carrier Ranger was hit by a Chinese air-launched cruise missile and
damaged with loss of life. Two Navy fighter planes were shot down as
well."
"Oh, no.. ." the President murmured, obviously not wishing his
feelings to be heard by others with him. He was speaking on a scrambled
cellular phone, but from the background noise Curtis heard, it sounded
as if he were at a luncheon and were still right at the table. "I'll be
out of here in ten minutes. Ask 'laddie' to come up and see me when he
can." The line went dead. Curtis could not help but smile at the
casual, almost backwoods code words the President liked to use during
conversations like this: "laddie" was this month's code word for the
National Security Council, whom he wanted assembled in the White House
Situation Room immediately. To his communications officer, Curtis said,
"Call the White House communication office and get the NSC in the
Situation Room ASAP." The phone line began to come alive at that moment,
and Curtis motioned for someone to get him a glass of water as he
settled in. Two or three calls to get a better picture of the
situation, then formulate a plan of action during the car ride to the
White House. It was as it always was: he was cut out of the loop for
most of the really important policy decisions, but when the shit hit the
fan, he was expected to have all the answers. Well, he told himself, he
was going to have all the answers when the National Security Council
met. The next call came from Guam: "General Stone here, sir."
"Rat, got a report for me?" "The Ranger got jumped by B-6 bombers and
Q-5 or B-7 fighters, sir, " Stone replied. The exhaustion in his voice
was obvious, even over the scrambled satellite link. "We didn't see
them coming until about a hundred and fifty miles out. We had the radar
planes bug out, and we thought the Navy fighters turned them away, but
they weren't after the radar planesthey were going after ships right
away. Only two of the first flight of six were armed for air defense;
the other four were carrying two each C60 1 missiles as well as
heat-seeking air-toairs. "Are you sure they were 601s?"
"Pretty sure, judging by the flight profile and the damage they caused.
They were a hell of a lot bigger than C801s or Exocets."
"No evidence of... special warheads?" It was possible that the C601
missiles were carrying nuclear warheads but they simply failed to go
off. Curtis could hear a genuine sigh of relief even through the
static-charged transmission: "No, thank God." The alternative, as
Curtis well knew, could have been much worse. In 1946, during secret
tests code-named OPERATION CROSSROADS, the Navy wanted to see the
effects of a twenty-kiloton nuclear blast on an aircraft carrier. CV-3
USS Saratoga was towed out to Bikini Atoll and the device set off five
hundred yards away. The blast of that one warhead threw the
forty-thousand-ton aircraft carrier nearly fifty feet out of the water,
pushed it sideways nearly a half-mile, crushed its seventeen-inch armor
plating and caved in the flight deck, then sank it in seven hours.
Ranger would have suffered much the same fate. "We got pictures of the
aircraft on the ground in Zamboanga after the attack-they were B-6
bombers all right, " Stone continued, shaking Curtis out of his reverie.
"The Chinese put their top-of-the-line maritime-attack plane in
Zamboanga. Each one had two C601 missiles and two PL-7 or PL-9
missiles. No definite ID on the fighters-only the B-7, F-8, or the A-5
with air reftieling have the legs these guys had to go after Ranger from
that distance. We also got pictures of Y-8 reconnaissance planes and
PS-5 antisubmarine-warfare planes out there." The Chinese were moving a
major naval air force into the south Philippines, Curtis decided. With
this force they could seal off the entire area and conduct bombing raids
on the government bases on Mindanao. Curtis asked, "Do they own the
Celebes Sea, Rat Killer?"
"I'm afraid so, sir, " Stone replied. "Air, land, sea, everything. We
gotta go in hard if we want to have access. Curtis knew what that
meant-no more fucking soft probes, no more RC- 1355 no matter how many
escorts they had. Sending Sterett into the Celebes Sea now would be a
big mistake. "I copy. Looks like Doctor Masters' gadgets are going to
be the only intel we get for a while." "He's giving us some great poop,
sir, " Stone said. "His gadgets are working just fine. I've already
transmitted some pictures to you via Offutt; they should be in your
hands very soon. You should have some more detailed shots of the
Chinese positions in Zamboanga within a couple hours."
"Good. I meet with the boss in thirty minutes; he's going to want to
see them. What else have you got for me?"
"With Masters' gear set up here, General Harbaugh from Third Air
Division, General Houston from Fifteenth Air Force, and I have already
played out a couple strike scenarios for the south Philippines, " Stone
replied. "We're definitely going to need the Air Battle Force-and then
some-to dislodge our Oriental buddies."
"What kind of scenarios have you come up with?" Curtis asked. "Can you
send me some of your data?"
"I sent the scenarios to you along with the photos, " Stone said. "It'll
make interesting reading for you. Masters practically duplicated the
entire Air War College and Naval Postgraduate School war-gaming
computer
models right here in my command post, complete with up-to-the-minute
intelligence data, and we've built and revised data tapes for the B-52's
Offensive Avionics System suite and for the B-1's AP 1750 strike
computers for the Air Battle Force aircraft. We've fought the battle of
Mindanao three times already." Curtis remembered the old saying, "Don't
ask the question if you can't stand the answer, " but he asked anyway:
"Who won?"
"It depends, sir, " Stone replied. "Exactly how bad do we want the
Chinese out of the Philippines?"
"What I want is to send a ship into the Celebes to search for the downed
crews from the Tomcats we lost. I also want to get the Navy back in
there just to tell the Chinese they can't lock us out. I need some air
cover. The Navy planes are grounded for now. "Sorry, sir. Don't think
we can help, " Stone said. "We've only got seven F-15 fighters on
station-we'd need at least twenty to cover a rescue operation. None are
modified for air-to-surface ops. Curtis swore to himself. With Ranger
out of the fight, they were really stuck for both offensive and
defensive punch. It would take time to send in another carrier group,
and that would allow the Chinese to fortify their own sea and land
forces. What they needed was real offensive and defensive power. They
needed the Air Battle Force in there-right now. THE WHITE HOUSE
SITUATION ROOM THIRTY MINUTES LATER "You told me the carrier battle
groups could protect themselves, General, " the President began. "One
hit, and now we've got sixty dead and hundreds more injured." All eyes
of the members of the National Security Council swung toward him. All
but Thomas Preston. The Secretary of Defense believed that this
confrontation was inevitable, but he obviously saw it not as the
beginning of the end of tensions in the Philippines, but the beginning
of dangerous hostilities. Like looking down the barrel of a
nuclear-loaded gun. Curtis rarely agreed with him, but this time he
very well may be right.... "Sir, there was a malfunction of one SM-2
Aegis missile during the cruiser Bunker Hill's response, Curtis
explained. Thirteen more men had died of their injuries in the past
thirty minutes alone; thirty more were given no better than a fiftyfifty
chance of survival. It was hard for Curtis to formulate an objective,
detached analysis of why and how so many men had died. He was numb, but
pressed on: "Bunker Hill had positive control of the situation until the
time of the mishap. Admiral Walheim's antiair-warfare deputy, who was
in command of the engagement from Bunker Hill's CIC, terminated all the
rest of the missile launches that, in all probability, would have
destroyed the last incoming missiles. Control of antiair functions
transferred to the cruiser Sterett, and the switch was made smoothly,
but Sterett couldn't put enough firepower in the air to stop all the
missiles."
"What about inner defenses? Didn't Ranger have any guns to protect
itself?"
"Ranger's fighters shot down one of the aircraft carrying the antiship
missiles and took shots at the missiles themselves, but F- 14 Tomcats
are not really designed for chasing down cruise missiles, especially
with enemy fighters in the area. Ranger itself had two operational
short-range RAM launchers-heatseeking missiles mounted on a steerable
box launcher-plus two Phalanx automatic Gatling-gun defense systems, but
although both systems were functioning neither could hit the incoming
missiles. We're investigating."
"We also lost two fighters. Why?" Curtis bristled at the notion that he
was responsible for explaining the vagaries of aerial combat, but he
explained. "Sir, the fighters faced multiple enemy aircraft at all
times-at no time did we have better than a one-on-two match-up. The
fighters were responsible not only for protecting themselves and their
ship, but the Air Force aircraft as well . . "But why did we have such
poor odds?" the Vice President, Kevin Martindale, asked. "Why did we
have only eight fighters airborne? We should have had sixteen or
twenty... There was a hushed tension in the room; Martindale fol lowed
the furtive glances of those around him to the President. "We authorized
only two escorts per aircraft, " Taylor explained to the Vice President.
Everyone could tell that the President's admission was a stab wound for
him. "They were talking about thirty-plus fighter escorts up there.
"Sir, our objective from the beginning was not to get into a big furball
with dozens of aircraft in this area, " Curtis explained. "If we had
huge waves of fighters up there, it might've looked like an invasion
force. Besides, we had no way of knowing the Chinese would not only
send fighters to chase down our recon planes, but launch antiship
missiles as well . "I should have known." The President sighed. "I
should have erred on the side of protecting our troops. "Perhaps it
would have been better to have more fighters up initially, " Curtis
allowed, "but our aircraft were in international airspace and outside
the established Philippine air-defense zone at all times. Our
reconnaissance plane came no closer than forty miles to a Chinese vessel
that was fifty miles offshore-well within the law. Our aircraft
broadcast identification signals, they were in constant contact with
international overwater flight-following agencies, and they used no type
of jammers whatsoever. The Ranger was over three hundred miles away and
never entered the Celebes Sea. We behaved as nonthreatening as we
possibly could.. "It seems that we underestimated the Chinese, then, "
Thomas Preston said. "This is no mere foray they're involved in-this is
a major military operation. They are prepared to defend their positions
with everything they have and do whatever it takes-including attacking a
United States aircraft carrier." "And that should not be tolerated, "
General Curtis added. "They're professing their innocence and at the
same time blasting away at our reconnaissance aircraft and carriers-"
"Hold on, hold on, Wilbur, " the President interrupted. "I understand
your anger-believe me, I share it. I need to hear some more options
first before I consider a military response. He turned to Secretary of
State Danahall. "Dennis, you said you had something for us on the ASEAN
meeting?"
"Yes, sir, " Danahall replied. "The Association of South East Asian
Nations concluded its emergency session in Singapore yesterday. We've
got Deborah O'Day over there as our observer." Curtis glanced quickly
at Thomas Preston and detected a slight edge in his expression. O'Day
was once Preston's Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Pacific-one of
a multitude of positions she held in two White House administrations-and
had been fired from that post for her outspoken advocacy of expanded
involvement in Pacific affairs in general and specifically her
opposition to the U.S. pullout of the Philippines. Curtis could imagine
the reception O'Day got from the predominantly Moslem and generally
anti-femal
e men. "Miss O'Day reports, " Danahall continued, "that the
vote to bring sanctions against China was defeated in the ASEAN
assembly."
"What?" the President asked, alarmed. "But they can't . . . The
Chinese are tearing up the Philippines and ASEAN isn't going to do
anything about it...?"
"That's not all, sir, " Danahall said. "After the meeting, O'Day was
briefly kidnapped..." The room crackled with tension. "Kidnapped!" The
President found himself sitting straight up. "Jesus, is she all right?
What happened...?"
"She's all right, sir. Not a scratch. Her assailant says he was sent
by Second Vice President Samar to officially request military assistance
from the United States-and O'Day reports that Samar had delivered a
warning not to enter the Celebes Sea region because the Chinese Fleet
Admiral was ready to attack." He held up a sheet of paper. "Here's her
communique from the embassy in Singapore, dated sixteen hours before the
attack began." The President scanned the communique quickly, then
returned to his chair stiff with shock. He turned to Preston, then to
Curtis. "Did you know about this?"
"Yes, sir, " Preston replied. "I immediately issued a message to
Admiral Walheim about the warning, but we gave this warning little
credence at the time."
"Why?" "Because the Ranger group was never scheduled to enter the
Celebes Sea in the first place, per your orders, " Preston explained. "I
decided to go ahead with the aerial surveillance, since the risk was far
less and because we needed the 'eyes' up there to see what the Chinese
were doing. We never expected the Chinese to attack our reconnaissance
aircraft, let alone the Ranger carrier group. Preston looked decidedly
uncomfortable, then added, "Miss O'Day has had a... uh, reputation for
sensationalizing a situation, sir. I'm afraid I have to admit I gave
her warning little credibility. It sounded like a fanatical tirade by a
Filipino guerrilla soldier . "We did everything we could do to protect