“Bruno’s doing okay,” McLanahan said. “So is Denton. We can all use a little comic relief. ”
“If Bruno does her Star Trek routine in training, she’ll do it in combat,” Elliott said. “You know it, I know it.”
“Okay, Brad, okay,” McLanahan said. “Yes, you’re right, we’re supposed to be training like we’re going to fight. But you’re being a little hard on Bruno. Wouldn’t be because she’s sitting in Vikram’s seat, is it?”
“Screw you and your amateur psychoanalysis, Muck,” Elliott snapped. “I know how to train newbies.” McLanahan heard the click that meant Elliott had switched back to normal interphone.
McLanahan fell silent as he followed Elliott back to normal interphone. In the past two weeks since the skirmish near Quemoy Island, Brad Elliott had been quiet, moody almost to the point of irritation, and demanding of everyone with whom he came into contact. He flew the EB-52 with practiced, methodical precision, strictly by the book—which he should know, because he had personally written most of it and reviewed all of it for many years—but he did it more with dogged impatience, without his usual sense of happiness and purpose.
Well, there was certainly nothing going on to get too excited about right now. The worldwide hue and cry over the nuclear detonations near mainland China had quieted all participants down considerably. Only about a third of the world media believed the People’s Republic of China’s Liberation Army was responsible for the dreaded nuclear explosions; the rest of the blame was equally divided between the United States and Taiwan. This was considered a major propaganda victory for China and a complete propaganda disaster for Taiwan and the United States.
As a result of the heavy media and governmental scrutiny, however, the Formosa Strait was relatively free from heavy military presence—a fact that McLanahan was able to verify by looking at the EB-52 Megafortress’s God’s-eye display on the supercockpit monitor, which was now being operated by Captain Denton. The fifty-plus-vessel People’s Liberation Army Navy carrier battle group was gone, dispersed to various bases or sent south toward Hong Kong to participate in Reunification Day festivities. As far as McLanahan could tell, the PLAN had only one ship of any size in the region; it had just appeared on the latest NIRTSat inverse synthetic aperture radar sweep.
“Okay, did you get IDs on the ships closest to the frigates?” McLanahan asked.
“Yep,” Denton responded. “Coastal trawlers and fishing vessels, both less than fifty tons. Neither moving faster than nine knots.”
“Good,” McLanahan said. “Remember, the system can squelch out small vessels like that if necessary, based on size or speed, but it’s always best to check out everything. Also remember that the ISAR system isn’t infallible, so even if those ships show as not hostile, even if you recheck six times, don’t ignore them. But right now they’re far enough away from the frigates to be safe, so you can mark those ships as noncombatants.”
That action turned out to be a mistake, because precisely at that time, crew members aboard the two Chinese “noncombatants” were dropping the last of a dozen large SS-N-16 missile canisters overboard. The SS-N-16, code-named “Stallion,” was an air- or submarine-launched rocket-powered torpedo, except these weren’t going flying before releasing their deadly cargoes. Once sailing clear of all torpedoes, they were activated by radio command. Simultaneously, the canisters activated their sensors, detected the distinctive high-speed, high-powered screws of the U.S. Navy warships, and turned toward them. Once perfectly aligned with their targets, they powered up their payloads—each canister carried a E45-75A torpedo with a 200-pound penetrating-blast high-explosive warhead, sitting atop a solid-fueled rocket booster—and the countdown commenced . . .
New NIRTSat satellite radar data was being downloaded every eight minutes; in less than a minute, the supercockpit God’s-eye view was automatically updated, and the map of the surveillance area had to be reexamined as if for the first time. “Okay, we see the ‘noncombatants’ are still poking along—in fact, it looks like they’re heading away from the frigates, cruising at ten knots,” McLanahan said to Denton. “What else you got?” When Oakley didn’t answer in a few moments, McLanahan pointed to the screen. “Looks like we got a newcomer, probably pulled out of Xiamen a couple sweeps ago. Remember, the NIRTSat data isn’t really God’s-eye—it’s better than turning on a radar and letting the bad guys know we’re up here, but it’s not perfect.. . yet. Let’s get an ID on that ship there, Jeff.”
“Rog,” Denton responded, expertly rolling the trackball cursor over the stored NIRTSat radar image. Jeff Denton, a former F-16 Fighting Falcon pilot, Gulf War vet, and F-15E Strike Eagle backseater, had had the bad luck of joining HAWC just weeks before it closed last year. Unable to get another fighter-bomber assignment anywhere, he had been forced to accept an early-out bonus and found himself unemployed right near the holiday season of 1996. Fortunately, just as the bonus money had started running low, he’d gotten the call from General Samson to do some flying for a private defense firm he had never heard of, Sky Masters, Inc., in Blytheville, Arkansas, which was working on some former HAWC projects.
Denton had jumped at the opportunity—never expecting to be suddenly flying a hybrid B-52/B-1B/B-2 monster over the Formosa Strait in Asia, near where a nuclear war had almost broken out just a few days earlier.
“Identify this return,” Denton ordered the computer, being careful to make the command short and sweet, lest he bring down the wrath of the legendary General Brad Elliott on himself.
identification unknown, the computer responded, searching ...
TARGET IDENTIFIED AS SLAVA-CLASS CRUISER . . . TARGET IDENTIFIED AS KIROV-CLASS CRUISER . . . TARGET IDENTIFIED AS FEARLESS-CLASS ASSAULT SHIP . . . TARGET IDENTIFIED AS TYPE 82-CLASS ACCOMMODATIONS SHIP . . .
“You got a cruiser, Muck?” Nancy Cheshire, flying as copilot, asked. A warship of that size always got a lot of attention from every member of the crew, especially the ones who had once faced those fearsome vessels. “Where is it?”
“Cancel the report,” McLanahan said. Denton double-clicked the voice command switch. “Looks like the computer’s a little confused— either there’s not enough radar data, or the data quality isn’t good enough. It’s a big sucker, though, and it’s moving pretty good—over twenty knots, and crossing in front of the frigates’ course. After what’s happened in this area recently, I might not call that a friendly move. So what do you do now?”
“Ask the DSO if they got any idea what it is, based on electronic emissions,” Denton replied.
“Excellent,” McLanahan said. “The attack computer system is supposed to get that information from the defensive computer suite automatically, but sometimes it won’t make the connection. Try it.”
“Way ahead of you,” Bruno responded. She had briefly looked at the God’s-eye view and matched the signals received by her system with the computerized charts. “Nothing but a commercial nav radar from that contact—looks like a Furuno or Oki system—and wide-spectrum radio transmissions, everything from HF single sideband to UHF. I get an occasional IFF interrogator, too, maybe a Square Head.” The old Soviet IFF interrogator code-named “Square Head” sent radio triggering signals out to another vessel or aircraft, asking for a coded radio response to help identification—of course, the EB-52 Megafortress or the U.S. Navy ships in the area would never respond to a foreign IFF, so all they would get would be silence.
“Not much help there,” McLanahan said. “What else, Jeff?”
“Test the system, see if it’s working okay?”
McLanahan shrugged. “In a combat situation, I wouldn’t waste time on that. But now, with things quiet, press on.” Denton rolled the cursor onto one of the nearby U.S. Navy frigates, and the system quickly and correctly identified it as a Perry-class frigate; he tried IDing one of the previously classified “noncombatants”—it again reported as a trawler. “What else, Jeff? Times running out.”
“Call the Navy and ask if they can
get an eyeball on it,” Denton suggested.
“Excellent suggestion,” McLanahan said. “Never forget to ask someone else in your formation or task force to help out.”
“Fat lot of good asking the Navy for anything does,” Elliott grumbled.
McLanahan ignored him. “Do it. Think about what you need to give the Navy pukes first, get the data together, then call.”
“Rog,” Denton nodded, pleased at himself for keeping up with the almost legendary Patrick McLanahan. He measured out a quick range and bearing from the prebriefed target reference point, called the “bull’s-eye,” then keyed the mike: “Crew, OSO is going out over Fleet SATCOM.” He waited for any negative replies, then switched over to the secure satellite frequency. “]ames Daniel' this is Headbanger. ”
A sailor with a very impatient voice that sounded as if he were sixteen years old responded, “Calling ]ames Daniel on FLTSATCOM, go ahead.” The voice sounded as if it didn’t recognize the call sign “Headbanger,” although it was the one briefed to all participants and the one they had been using since the beginning.
“Headbanger requesting a visual or optical ID on radar target bearing two-four-three at fifty-seven bull’s-eye, over.”
The answer came back almost immediately from a different and far more annoyed operator: “Headbanger, unable at this time due to weather.” The weather was marginal, but it certainly wouldn’t keep a Navy helicopter from its patrol under normal circumstances, McLanahan thought. “Keep this channel clear. Out.”
“Told you,” Elliott said. “The squids hardly know we exist, and they sure as hell don’t care.”
McLanahan ignored that remark, too, but he was starting to get a little exasperated. “Okay,” he said, turning his attention back to Denton. “Anything else you can try?”
“We could launch a Striker or Wolverine at it and take a look on the datalink,” Denton deadpanned.
“That sounds like an expensive suggestion,” McLanahan said, “not to mention the fact that it could cause an international incident—or worse. You might have to just go with incomplete information. If you had time, you could go through all of the computer’s guesses and try to get a feel for the analysis; in less hostile or non-stealth situations, you could turn on the attack radar and get an ID from the inverse synthetic aperture radar. ”
“But Td assume at this point that it was hostile,” Denton interjected. “The computer guessed at two Russian cruisers; that sounded like the worst-case analysis, so I’d go with that—either the Russians decided in the past couple days to send a cruiser down the Strait to see what all the excitement was about, or the Chinese have a really big destroyer or cruiser patrolling the area.”
“I’d buy that,” McLanahan said. “So give us the rundown on your worst-case scenario. Remember, you’re the surveillance and intelligence officer on the Megafortress, along with the DSO, as well as the weapons officer—you’ve got to be ready to sing out with important information the rest of the crew might need to make decisions on how to press the attack.”
“Rog.” He opened a small window on his supercockpit display and hit the voice command switch: “Display and read order of battle on Slava-class cruiser.”
SLAVA-CLASS CRUISER, VERTICAL LAUNCH SA-N-6 ANTIAIRCRAFT MISSILES, MAX RANGE 60 MILES, X-BAND TOP DOME DIRECTOR, the computer began, reading the information as well as diagramming the weapons and radar information on the supercockpit display. TWO twin sa-n-4 antiaircraft MISSILES, MAX RANGE FIVE MILES, FOXTROT, HOTEL, AND INDIA- BAND POP GROUP TARGET TRACKING WITH OPTRONIC BACKUP; ONE TWIN 130-millimeter dual-purpose gun, max range fifteen miles, x-band FIRE CONTROL WITH OPTRONIC AND MANUAL BACKUP; SIX 30-MILLIMETER ANTIAIRCRAFT GUNS, MAX RANGE THREE MILES, X-BAND BASS TILT FIRE CONTROL WITH OPTRONIC BACKUP; SIXTEEN SS-N-12 ANTI-SHIP MISSILES, MAX RANGE THREE HUNDRED MILES, JULIETT-BAND TARGET TRACKING ...”
“That’s good enough,” McLanahan said, and Denton stopped the computerized report. “The computer always reads the antiaircraft order of battle first, and now you know the reason—that SA-N-6 system can eat our lunch right now, if they ever got a lock on us. You should also know that the SA-N-6 is a very devastating anti-ship weapon, too. You might want to scan through the ship’s radar fit, too—it’s unlikely that a cruiser has a commercial Furuno or Oki nav radar, but sometimes the military radars will look like commercial or civilian sets at long range or low power—”
Suddenly, an alarm rang out in all their headsets, and a blinking icon appeared on the supercockpit display. “What is that?” Elliott asked.
McLanahan urged Denton to start talking as they both studied the display: “High-speed low-altitude missile,” Denton said. “Looks like it came from the Chinese cruiser... second missile launch, same azimuth... shit, it looks like they’re headed for the Duncan and James Daniel! The Chinese are firing missiles at our frigates! More missiles . . . I’ve got at least four, no, five ... six missiles in the air! ”
“Brad, let’s try to get within Scorpion range,” McLanahan shouted. The Megafortress immediately banked right and began a fast descent in response. “DSO, you got those inbounds?”
“No—no uplink signal, no terminal radar detected,” Bruno reported.
“We need the attack radar,” McLanahan said.
“Rog. Crew, attack radar coming on,” Denton announced.
“What do you got, Muck?” Elliott shouted on interphone.
“Six supersonic ballistic missiles,” McLanahan said. “Not sure, but I think they were fired from the large ship cruising west of the Navy frigates.”
“What do you mean, you ‘think’ they were fired from that cruiser?”
“Because we didn’t get an exact ID on the ship and they didn’t come exactly from that ship’s azimuth,” McLanahan explained.
“But it’s the only warship around, right?”
“I’m not sure if it is a warship, Brad.”
“I think we can assume six supersonic anti-ship missiles were fired from a ship that big,” Elliott said. “Spin up the Strikers and let’s take that sucker down.”
“Missiles will impact in less than one minute,” Denton reported. “We should be in range to intercept with Scorpion missiles.”
“I’ll get on the horn with the Navy and warn them of the inbounds,” Nancy Cheshire, the crew copilot, said.
“What kind of ship is that out there?” Elliott asked.
“It’s a cruiser,” Denton responded.
“We don’t have an exact ID on it, I said,” McLanahan corrected him. “Computer couldn’t match it, and we couldn’t get an eyeball.”
Elliott was on the secure satellite channel in an instant: “Atlas, this is Headbanger,” he radioed. “Are you getting the picture here? We’ve got six inbounds heading for our frigates.”
“Headbanger, this is Atlas,” the operator at the U.S. Pacific Command headquarters responded. “We copy. Stand by.”
“Stand by?” Elliott retorted. “Where the hell is Allen—having dinner with the Chinese ambassador? We need a decision up here, Atlas!”
“The James Daniel reports they have contact on the inbounds,” Cheshire reported.
“Checks—both frigates opening fire,” Denton shouted as he watched missile icons speeding away from the frigates toward the incoming Chinese missiles. “Looks like they got a clear—”
“Fighters!” Bruno shouted. “Large formation at four o’clock, five- zero miles, high . . . another large formation at one o’clock, four-seven miles and closing, high.”
“This is starting to smell like a trap,” Elliott said. “Secure the attack radar and let’s—”
“More fighters! ” Atkins reported for Bruno, who appeared to be getting a little overwhelmed by this sudden attack. “Three o’clock, five-zero miles and closing ... first formation is breaking into two, we’ve got four formations of fighters inbound on us! ”
“Attack radar down,” McLanahan said, as Denton deactivated the Megafortress’s radar.
“The inbound Chi
nese missiles disappeared!” Denton interjected. “Just before the frigate’s missiles hit, they vanished!”
“Stallions,” Atkins said. “Russian-made rocket-powered torpedoes. They’re sea-skimmers until they get within SAM range of a target, then dive underwater.”
“More fighters inbound!” Bruno shouted. “Two fighters, very high speed, two o’clock, four-five miles and closing fast! Range forty miles ... they might have a radar lock on us! ”
“Might be a Foxbat or Foxhound,” Elliott said. The Russian-made MiG-25 Foxbat and MiG-31 Foxhound fighters, designed to intercept the American B-70, B-56, FB-111, andB-1 supersonic strategic bombers, were all-titanium built Russian superfighters, the fastest fighters in the world, capable of high-altitude supersonic dashes well over three times the speed of sound; they had been on the international export market for many years. “Get those damn things! ”
“C’mon, Ashley, get on ’em ... stand by for pylon launch, crew! All countermeasures systems active! ” Atkins shouted over interphone, reaching over Bruno’s shoulder and activating the Scorpion antiaircraft missiles. Seconds later, he had designated two missiles apiece against the incoming fighters, and the AIM-120 missiles were on the way . . .
. . . but Bruno’s delay in launching the antiaircraft missiles proved decisive. The incoming fighters started a descent at thirty miles that accelerated to well over three times the speed of sound, heading directly at the Megafortress. The Scorpion missiles expended all of their thrust in powering toward the attackers, so by the time the missiles closed in on their targets, they had no energy to maneuver and exploded several dozen yards aft of the high-speed attackers.
“Clean misses,” Atkins said. “Stand by for pylon ...” But just then, they heard a fast-pitched deedledeedledeedle! warning tone. “Missile launch!” Atkins shouted.
“Break!” Bruno shouted.
Just as Elliott was going to ask which way to break, Atkins interjected, “Hold heading, pilot! They’re trying a nose-to-nose launch—very low percentage, especially against us. I’ve got the uplink shut down!” The Megafortress’s powerful jammers shut down the fighters’ attack radar and the steering signal between the missile and the launch aircraft; when the missiles’ own terminal homing radar activated, the jammers shut them down too. At the same time, the HAVE GLANCE active countermeasures system destroyed the missiles’ seekers with laser beam blasts. But the Megafortress’s own attack radar automatically shut down so the enemy missiles couldn’t home in on it, so they were temporarily blind again. “You see them out there, pilot?”
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