High Flight

by David Hagberg

  “We think so,” Yamagata said. “At least in principle. Of course there would be many obstacles to overcome.”

  “How do you see that?” Saunders asked.

  “It’s a matter of trust—on both sides of the Pacific. After the unfortunate incident a few days ago in Yokosuka, and the demonstrations in Tokyo, I’m told that anti-Japanese sentiment is building in America.”

  “Not in this house,” Saunders said heartily. A few of his other guests gathered closer. They nodded their approval. The Kennedys were the only Guerin executives here tonight, but the other guests were influential in Portland’s business community.

  “The American Northwest has traditionally understood Japan,” Yamagata said. “It is why so many Japanese emigrate to this region. But that understanding may not be entirely shared in New York or Washington.”

  “I think the attitude in the White House will change after the Tokyo Economic Summit next month. This President seems to be committed to working with your government.” Saunders turned to Kennedy. “The big surprise is Al Vasilanti’s about-face. About time, I’d say.”

  “It may be premature to talk about any sort of a deal between us,” Yamagata cautioned. “We’re still in the very early exploratory stage.”

  “Mr. Yamagata is right,” Kennedy said tightly. “It’s too early to be making any announcements.”

  “Not to worry, David. You know the house rules: No journalists allowed within a hundred yards, and absolutely nothing said here gets repeated outside.”

  “A sensible set of rules,” Yamagata said, smiling directly at Chance.

  The Faraday cage was completed and in place around the heat monitor/alarm subassembly. No stray electrical or electromagnetic impulses would emanate from the device, nor would any signal from outside penetrate the protective screen. Louis Zerkel had studied the connections for the engine mount for several hours, trying to puzzle out what he was seeing with his own two eyes versus what he knew he should be seeing.

  “Something’s wrong,” he muttered. A second supposedly spare pin on the replacement module in the subassembly was connected through a small amplifying circuit not to one of the engine-frame sensor plugs but to the frame ground. It made no sense. A signal was spit out by the module, its strength amplified, and it led to ground.

  “Is something the matter with the unit?” Mueller asked.

  “No,” Zerkel said, looking up. “I don’t know. Something doesn’t add up.”

  “A manufacturing mistake?”

  Zerkel interrupted. “Not likely. InterTech doesn’t work that sloppy. This was designed this way. But I don’t know what they meant by it. Could be crucial, but maybe not. Perhaps if the output signal were modulated maybe the frame itself could turn out to be resonant. But again, for what purpose? Why energize the frame?

  “If it were possible to get the frame and harness I could isolate the module and pull it apart to see just what they were aiming for. Either that or run it through the mainframe circuit analyzer. But there’s no going back. I haven’t looked at the television all day, but I’m pretty sure that my face is plastered over every newscast as a killer and saboteur. The question is are they making the connection between me and the crash right here in our backyard? Because if they are then it’s going to get real hot around here.” Zerkel looked up at Mueller. “And you know what? If none of that part has hit the news then we’re in even bigger trouble than I thought. Because it’ll mean that the Japs are looking for me.

  “The real problem here is that I don’t know diddly squat about Rolls-Royce jet engines. The board says an overheat caused the fan blades to disintegrate, which means they’re homing in on Rolls. But in order for me to understand what they’re talking about I have to know engines, and that’s not possible. So I’m going to come up with another approach.

  “The idea is to bring down a bunch of airplanes all at the same time, or near enough the same time so there’s no chance the fleet will be grounded before we’re done. But if they’re guarding the back door as well as the front, and you really don’t know what’s inside, then there’s only one thing left to do, and that’s tear the house down. What do you think about that?”

  “I don’t understand you,” Mueller said. “Can you do this thing or not?”

  Zerkel grinned, his eyes wild. “Hell, yes, I can do it. But it’s going to be crude, nowhere near as sophisticated as I wanted it to be. It’s simple lack of data, or even access to data. I could get into the Rolls engineering computer, but I’d have to educate myself on engine design parameters. Not that I couldn’t do it, but it would take time. I don’t think we’ve got much time.”

  “What is it you’re going to do?” Mueller asked.

  “I’m pretty sure that there’s nothing wrong with the jet engines on those airplanes. The triggering device is definitely integral to the heat monitor system. But until I understand completely what’s going on, I’m going to back off from trying to trigger it. It’s just a feeling, but for now I’ve got something else to do.”

  “Distributing the trigger signals?” Mueller prompted.

  “Right on.” Zerkel keyed up a map of the United States on one of the computer monitors. The areas around most of the major metropolitan centers were shaded in red. “Washington, New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, they’re all designated TCAs—Terminal Control Areas—by the FAA. Any airplane flying under a certain altitude within those TCAs must be equipped with a transponder and an encoding altimeter.”

  “Continue.”

  “When an airplane shows up on an Air Traffic Control radar screen, its transponder sends an identifying signal to the ground that tells ATC its exact type and tail number. The encoding altimeter tells the scope dope the airplane’s exact altitude.”

  “Yes, I know this,” Mueller said. It was the same in Europe.

  “That means ATC computers and airplanes within every Terminal Control Area in this country talk to each other electronically,” Zerkel said brightly. “What do you think about that?”

  “The signals go both ways?”

  “Exactly. When the time comes for us to strike, the triggering signals will be sent out by the Air Traffic Control centers on orders from InterTech’s mainframe.”

  “How?”

  “It’ll be up to Mr. Reid how many centers you want to hit. But in each Terminal Control Area’s ATC facility someone is going to have to install a repeater.”

  “There’ll be risks,” Mueller said softly. He didn’t like what he was hearing.

  “There are risks for all of us, but I’ll make it easy. The repeaters that I’ll build will be about the size of a package of cigarettes. You won’t have to make any electrical connections, or anything like that. Just hide the units behind the computers or radar consoles. When they receive the signals from InterTech, my repeaters will pass them through to the outgoing radar signals. Every airplane within the TCA will get the extra spike, but only Guerin’s airplanes will know what to do with it.” Zerkel chuckled.

  “But this has to be blamed on the Japanese,” Mueller said.

  Zerkel’s grin broadened. “InterTech will send out the trigger pulse on electronic orders from Tokyo Bank’s computer center.”

  “Will he continue to follow us?” Lieutenant Minori asked. He and his captain were hunched over the chart table at the forward end of the cramped attack center.

  In the past thirty-six hours since they’d made contact with the American destroyer they had varied their speed from eleven knots to twenty-two knots and their depth from seventy meters to two hundred meters, careful not to show the Americans the Samisho’s true best speed submerged nor dip below the thermocline. They wanted to make sure the American skipper would stick with them. But like all submarines they were blind aft when underway. Cavitation noises made by the propeller drowned out all passive sonar sounds behind them. Therefore they had turned inboard twice in the past twenty hours and stopped their motors so they could listen. Both times the destroyer had be
en behind them on the same course and speed. And both times the American captain had turned inboard and had reduced his speed in response.

  “By now he has to know where we’re heading,” Kiyoda said. He stabbed a blunt finger at a point on the chart just south of Kyushu where the Takara Strait connected the Pacific Ocean to the East China Sea. It was one region of the world’s oceans that the MSDF knew much better than the American navy. Once through the strait the advantage would belong to the Samisho, something the destroyer’s captain had to know. And once in the East China Sea Kiyoda could take his boat to Okinawa’s back door.

  It would make for some interesting choices on the surface, Kiyoda thought. These were Japanese home waters, but the destroyer captain would know that the submarine he was tracking was the same one that had sunk the Russian frigate. If Seventh Fleet Intelligence was any good it would have informed its ships at sea that the Samisho had slipped out of Yokosuka with its captain and full stores aboard.

  “He’ll have to make his move within the next few hours,” Minori said. “Maybe he has called for help.”

  Kiyoda looked up at his XO. “What is your thinking, Ikuo? What will he do? Shoot?”

  Minori studied the chart. “He has superior speed. He might try to block our passage through the strait. The deepest channel is quite narrow.”

  “It would still put him in a position where he would have to shoot or lose.”

  “The thermocline is holding at about three hundred meters. We could fool him by heading south, on the outside, and once he took our bait we could dive deep and circle back.”

  Kiyoda smiled. “Admirable. If I wanted to lose him it is exactly what I would do. But that is not what I wish. We’re not here for that purpose.”

  “If we sink this one our homecoming will not be so benign as it was before.”

  When—not if—that American warship goes to the bottom in Japanese territorial waters the circle will be complete. Kamiya-san’s Morning Star will begin.

  “Only if we fire first,” Kiyoda said. “Come left to three-one-five.”

  “Hai, turning left to three-one-five degrees,” Minori repeated the order.

  “Come to all-ahead stop.”

  “Yo-so-ro, kan-cho!”

  “Target has turned inboard again and is fading, new course three-one-five,” Don Sattler, the Thorn’s Combat Information Officer said.

  “Bridge, aye,” Ryder replied. He put down the growler. “He’s stopping for another look, skipper. New course three-one-five.”

  Hanrahan studied the chart. “He’ll try for the strait this time. I can feel it.”

  Ryder joined the captain. “He’d be a fool to go for it out in the open like this. All he has to do is duck below the thermocline where’d we’d lose him, and the option would be his. Wouldn’t be a damned thing we could do to stop him. If we hung around the narrows he might continue south and pop inside someplace else. If we took the bait he’d switch back and sneak under us.”

  “He’s not going to do that, Red,” Hanrahan said. “Because I’m going to lean on him again.”

  “Still might force him to duck and run.”

  Hanrahan looked up. “Then our assets coming from Okinawa will handle it. But it’s not going to happen that way. He wants to confront us. Maybe here, maybe farther south. But I’m getting a definite feeling that the crazy sonofabitch wants to have it out with us.”

  “Seventh will be on our ass.”

  “I’m not going to shoot unless I’m shot at first,” Hanrahan said. “But we’re damned well going to be ready for it, and we’re going to let him know that we are.”

  “Let’s put the choppers up again, Skipper.”

  “Do it now, X. And call the Orion back. I want as much help as possible.”

  “Aye, aye, Skipper.”

  “Helm, come right to three-one-five,” Hanrahan said. “Give me turns for thirty knots.”

  “Coming right to three-one-five, aye,” the helmsman responded. “Engineering answering for speed of thirty knots, aye.”

  Hanrahan got Sattler on the growler. “Don, I think he’s going to try for the strait this time. I’m going to end-run him and try to get at least ten thousand yards out front.”

  “That’ll give him a pretty good firing solution on us if he wants to take it, Skipper.”

  “I know that. So I want no mistakes here. The choppers are going up again, and I’ve called for an Orion, so we’ll have backup. In the meantime, I want sonar to go active. I want to know exactly what he’s doing and how he’s doing it.”

  Sattler lowered his voice. “Mike, that’s an MSDF sub out there. We’re allies, not enemies. Have you thought this out?”

  “All the way, Don. Keep me posted.”

  “Will do, Captain.”

  The American destroyer was so close that when her sonar went active everybody aboard the Samisho could hear it. Kiyoda watched his attack-center crewmen. All of them, including Minori, looked up as if they could see through the skin of the hull and through eighty meters of water.

  “Conn, sonar.”

  Kiyoda answered the comms. “This is your captain. We hear it, Nakayama.” He felt a sense of well-being.

  “Hai, kan-cho, but she’s making turns for thirty knots, on a new course of three-one-five.”

  Kiyoda brought the data up on his command console and overlaid a chart outline showing the Takara Strait, Tanegashima and Yaku islands to the north, and the tiny rock, Kuchino, to the south. The target designated sierra-zero-nine was running directly for the entry to the strait, and within minutes she would be well out ahead of the Samisho.

  “It’s what you thought he would do, kan-cho,”his XO said.

  Kiyoda nodded. “A little sooner than I thought. It would appear that he has concerns about us roaming the East China Sea.”

  “He has made his intentions very clear to us. Once he’s in the strait he’ll turn back and confront us bow on.”

  “Pinging us continuously.”

  “Hai, kan-cho. He’ll want to know exactly what we’re doing, and he’ll want us to understand his interest. No mistakes.”

  Kiyoda keyed the comms. “Sonar, conn. What’s his range and bearing?”

  “Range five thousand meters, and now his bearing is changing. Estimate his new course two-nine-five.”

  The data was showing up on the command screen. “He’s turned twenty degrees inboard,” Minori observed.

  “Still running around us. But on that course he’ll cross our bows.” Kiyoda smiled cruelly. It was for this moment, and the subsequent moments of strategy and battle, that he had been born. It was for this task that he’d been selected by Kamiya-san, and for which he had picked and trained his fine crew.

  “We can help him, kan-cho, if it is still your desire to confront that destroyer captain,” Minori said.

  “Continue.”

  “I recommend that we come to fifteen knots and turn right seventy degrees—which will place us perpendicular to his port flank—while we make our depth twenty meters.”

  “Do it now,” Kiyoda said, and he turned to his weapons control officer. “Flood tubes one, two, three, and four.”

  Minori turned back. “With their sonar active they might not catch it.”

  “I hope they do not,” Kiyoda said. “When we are in position and have a firing solution, we need only open our doors and fire. But they will not expect such fast action. They will be waiting for flooding noises, and if need be we shall catch them by surprise.”

  “Hai, kan-cho, it will catch them by surprise.”

  The weather over Yokosuka was gray overcast, windy, and chilly, which suited the dark mood of Seventh Fleet Commander-in-Chief Vice Admiral Albert Ryland. He stepped out of his staff car in front of fleet HQ and sniffed the air. It smelled of the sea, and tidal flats, and of other mostly oriental odors: fermenting soya beans perhaps, raw fish, ginger. A foreign place that had always been a mystery to Westerners. Americans no longer belonged here, and yet he told himself a hun
dred times over that had the U.S. had a bigger presence in Japan in the 1930s maybe Pearl would never have happened. A lot of very intelligent people were predicting an all-out war with the Japanese within the next fifteen years. Ryland for one was a nonbeliever, yet he felt in his military gut that a confrontation between the U.S. and Japan was inevitable. Not an all-out war—the incident would fall far short of such insanity. But people would get killed. Of that he had absolutely no doubt. But was it happening now? Was that MSDF sub-driver getting into position to take the opening shots?

  The weather was developing from the south. It meant that for now the tactical advantage lay slightly in favor of the submarine. Surface conditions would make operations aboard the Thorn difficult in the narrow strait where seas could build up rapidly. And these were Japanese waters that the MSDF knew a lot better than we did.

  “We’re supposed to get some rain, Admiral,” Ryland’s driver said.

  “Don’t I know it, Chief. Don’t bother waiting. This one looks like an all-nighter.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Ryland went in and took the elevator up to Operations on the fifth floor. It was 3:00 P.M. When he’d been recalled to headquarters, he’d been at a meeting with the mayor of Yokosuka about the recent trouble between U.S. Navy personnel and Japanese nationals. The Samisho was apparently heading into the East China Sea, the Thorn right on her tail. Some hard decisions were going to have to be made, and made soon.

  His Operations Officer, Captain Thomas Byrne, was waiting for him. “We’re running a three-way link between Mike Hanrahan aboard the Thorn and Fred White in one of our Orions. It looks as if that sub-driver wants to force the issue.”

  Byrne was a big, tall black man who’d played defensive end for Navy and who’d graduated number six in his class. Ryland, who was from Birmingham, Alabama, initially had some difficulty accepting a black man as his Ops officer. But that trouble had lasted only one day. Since that time Byrne was, in the admiral’s book, one of the best officers in the navy.