Counter Strike (Command and Control Book 2), page 19
To distract himself, Lester made coffee at a small brew station. The smell filled the room. With his back to Lewis, he checked his watch: 0317. He could feel the tension building in his shoulders.
“I’ll take some of that if you’re offering,” Lewis called.
Lester poured a cup and delivered it to Lewis’s desk. “Cream and sugar?”
“Black and bitter, sir,” came the reply. “Just like my attitude.”
Lester forced a laugh and returned to his pacing.
He tried not to look at his watch and failed: 0323. Their window was closing, Lester realized. He poked his head out of the office door and spoke to Tsai in a low tone. “Get the team ready to roll in five.”
When he closed the door and turned, Lewis pushed back from the keyboard.
“I’m in.”
Lester was at her side in three strides. She had the Dropbox website pulled up on the screen. He dictated his login information. She opened a new folder in his account.
“What do I call it?” she asked. “Chinese secret battle plan?”
“Call it Texas,” Lester replied.
“Texas, it is.” Lewis plugged the thumb drive containing the information taken from the PLA battle network into the station computer.
“Moment of truth.” She tapped the keyboard to start the download. A progress bar showed six minutes to complete the download.
Lewis switched screens and stood up.
“I’ll let you do this part,” she said.
Lester took the chair and logged in to his email account. He started a new email and addressed it to his wife.
He and Lewis had discussed this part of the plan at length. If they tried to send a blind email to the FBI or CIA or anyone in government, it would almost certainly end up in a spam folder. They needed to send a note to someone they trusted with coded instructions on how to find the data and what to do with it.
I’m fine, Lester typed in the subject line of the email. He blew out a breath, then continued with the rest of the message:
Honey –
I’m okay and staying with friends. I need you to pick up a package at our dropbox and take it to Liz Soroush. She needs it for a very important meeting at work.
We’ll always have Paris,
Mike
Lewis read over his shoulder. “We’ll always have Paris?” she asked.
“That’s how she’ll know it’s me,” Lester replied. “It’s an inside joke about our honeymoon. We went to Paris, Texas.” Lester fought back a sudden wave of nostalgia. “It’s a long story.”
“I’d like to hear it sometime,” Lewis said.
Lester checked his watch: 0331.
“And I’d like to tell you, but it’s gonna have to wait.” He snatched the thumb drive from the computer’s USB socket and stood up. “Do your computer thing, Ash.”
While Lester cleaned up their coffee cups, Lewis erased all the logs containing evidence of their activity and restored the software lock the Chinese engineers had installed on the system.
At 0333, Lester shut the door to the cable relay station and followed the last of his men out of the compound. They entered the shelter of the mango groves and jogged toward the mountains.
31
USS Enterprise strike force
North Pacific Ocean, 800 miles east of Taipei, Taiwan
Rear Admiral Sharratt watched the BattleSpace display with unseeing eyes, his thoughts lost in a memory.
Thirty years ago, on the first day of Plebe Summer at the Naval Academy, he’d met Seth “Bulldog” Denton. Short, stout, with jet-black hair and a five o’clock shadow that lasted all day, Denton had dumped the contents of his seabag on the floor of their shared room. When Sharratt arrived, he was trying to stow the piles of uniforms, underwear, socks, gym gear, shoes, and books into his assigned shelf space.
Sharratt smiled at the thought of his closest friend. It was impossible not to. Denton had earned the nickname Bulldog from his time on the rugby team, but not for his tenacious play. Whatever the circumstances, Denton always had a crooked smile on his face.
Since they were both commissioned, Sharratt and Denton had leapfrogged one another in the milestones that made up a Navy career. Both made rear admiral in the same promotion cycle. But it was Sharratt who had become an aircraft carrier strike force commander first.
“Congrats, Bulldog,” he muttered to himself. “Be careful what you wish for. It might just come true.”
The Lincoln single-carrier strike group had stopped in Singapore to reinforce its ranks with United States allies. In addition to the Royal Navy’s flagship, the aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth, they’d also plussed up with destroyers and frigates from the German Navy, the Royal Australian Navy, and the Canadians. Also in the mix, but not directly part of combat operations, were ships from the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force, the Indian Navy, and the French.
You can’t surge trust, thought Sharratt. Building this coalition was years in the making. All the combined exercises, naval exchanges, and partnered training programs US Indo-Pacific Command had initiated years ago were paying off right now.
The BattleSpace avatars of the USS Abraham Lincoln coalition strike force, under the command of Rear Admiral Seth “Bulldog” Denton, sailed across the holographic display.
Although pressured by President Serrano, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations had declined to contribute combatants. Instead, they offered logistical support, such as air and sea refueling capabilities.
Better than nothing, Sharratt reflected. Not that he blamed them. No country in ASEAN wanted to get sideways with the PLA in the South China Sea.
Sharratt did his best to tamp down his bitterness. His orders were to stand by while his best friend in the world sailed into harm’s way. That’s what passed for diplomacy these days.
Serrano was playing a weak hand, and playing it pretty well, in Sharratt’s view. Although the President—and everyone else—had been fooled by the Chinese, Serrano hadn’t tried to shirk his duty. He gave as good as he got in this matchup with the PLA. Taking out Chinese satellites was a bold move, and from what Sharratt knew about the privateer operation on Chinese commercial shipping, the President had put the Chi-Commies on notice that he wasn’t taking this lying down.
But neither of those tactics were going to remove the PLA from Taiwan. That was going to take sacrifice. Real sacrifices of blood and treasure.
Today was the first real test of how far the Chinese were willing to go. There would be shots fired in anger, but not from the Enterprise strike force.
“They’re launching aircraft, sir,” CAG said. “Mongoose” Collins would have looked at home on the back of a horse in the middle of a Montana prairie, but he was also one of the finest pilots Sharratt had ever flown with. “Won’t be long now,” CAG concluded.
“No reaction from the Chinese yet,” Chief of Staff Tom Zachary added.
The three men each took a side of the BattleSpace table, their attention riveted on the display. The Spratly Island chain lay four hundred miles to the northeast of the Lincoln coalition strike force. In historical terms, calling them islands was overly generous. For centuries, the dots of land were more accurately bits of reefs poking out of the waves of the South China Sea.
More than two decades ago, the Chinese claimed a few of the reefs and began a dredging and building operation. The reefs became islands, and the islands grew into fortified military bases complete with sheltered harbors, piers, and runways capable of handling military aircraft. The manmade islands bristled with the latest PLA sensors and weapons.
There were protests, of course, but no one actually did anything about it. The United States, distracted by the Middle East and the war on terror, managed to run regular FONOPS, but not much else.
Meanwhile, the People’s Republic of China announced the First Island Chain policy, which essentially annexed the South China Sea, one of the most trafficked sea lanes in the world. The Hague Tribunal ruled against China in the territorial dispute, and China had completely ignored the ruling. No nation had done anything about it for fear of sparking a shooting war.
Until now, Sharratt thought. That false Chinese claim on the Spratly Islands was now the political fig leaf being used to justify an allied attack on the PLA in the South China Sea.
The blue arrows, signifying friendly contacts, grew thick over the Lincoln strike force as the US and UK carriers launched their warplanes. The escorts made a protective ring around the valuable aircraft carriers. Beyond the cluster of ships, four friendly submarines, a six-pack of maritime patrol craft, and a horde of ASW helicopters searched the waters for PLA Navy subs.
“Here we go,” Zachary said. The chief of staff’s face was an unreadable mask, and Sharratt wondered if Zachary had friends in the Lincoln strike force. Probably, he decided. The Navy was a small family.
Instructions from the INDOPACOM command center at Camp Smith in Hawaii scrolled down one side of the BattleSpace display. For this attack, there were no voice comms, just text messages.
“Last aircraft is off the cat,” CAG said.
The cursor on the INDOPACOM link blinked.
Weapons free. Missile launch authorized.
Within seconds, the holographic display bloomed with hundreds of blue arrows as the strike force launched missiles. The first wave of missiles, mostly Tomahawks traveling at subsonic speeds, moved like a wall of blue toward the Spratlys. Within minutes, Sharratt started to see separation as the missiles peeled off to attack their designated targets. The bulk of the missiles were allotted to the largest PLA strongholds of Fiery Cross Reef, Subi Reef, and Mischief Reef. For each island, the missiles were targeted at SAM sites, radar installations, fuel depots, command bunkers, and runways.
Although launched first, these missiles would not impact the targets first. The coordinated strike package had three waves, each timed for maximum effectiveness. Subsonic missiles would take over a half hour to reach their destination. Once they were on their way, the strike force would launch hypersonic missiles. Due to their speed, the superfast weapons would overtake their subsonic cousins and strike the Spratlys first. Hypersonics were also much more difficult to shoot down, so the PLA would be forced to waste valuable defensive weapons to protect themselves.
The last wave was aircraft. They followed right in the smoke of the Tomahawk missile attacks, but their mission changed midflight as satellites assessed bomb damage and retasked individual aircraft. Once the multirole F-35s released their GPS-guided ordnance, their mission changed from bomber to fighter as they engaged the PLA Air Force planes that would surely come out to meet them.
“Here they come,” CAG said.
“Multiple missile launches from Fiery Cross and Subi, Admiral,” the watch officer reported.
The holographic space over the Spratly Island targets began to fill with red arrows as the PLA responded by launching aircraft and missiles.
The minutes ticked by. It was a surreal feeling, Sharratt realized, to watch a battle being fought in real time 1,600 miles away. It felt like he was playing some kind of computer game. No, he decided, a computer game would have sped up the attacks to hold the viewer’s interest. This battle progressed in real time. Second by painful second.
The red and blue wall of missiles met on the BattleSpace table. Some of the colored arrows disappeared as the red defensive missiles found their blue marks. The blue arrows continued on to their island targets. The red arrows, missiles and PLA fighters, traveled toward the carrier strike force.
Sharratt’s sense of helplessness increased.
Minutes later, the first US hypersonic missiles struck their targets. The number of PLA defensive missiles being launched from the Spratlys slackened considerably.
Damage reports began to flow in. Dozens of incoming Tomahawks were knocked out of the air before they reached their targets. Sharratt tried to do the math in his head and gave up.
“Two F-35s out of contact, sir,” the Battle Watch Officer reported. A euphemism for “shot down.” Sharratt offered a quick prayer for the pilots.
“Three more,” the watch officer reported a moment later.
The missile waves had passed each other, leaving a melee of dogfights. The incoming data tracks sputtered and glitched under the sheer volume of information. Sharratt saw two more F-35s wink off the screen, and the pit of his stomach hardened into a knot of tension.
“The HMS Richmond has been hit, sir,” the watch officer said. “The Chinese missiles are getting through the air defense screen.”
There was nothing they could do. Sharratt, Zachary, and CAG stood helplessly at the BattleSpace display, gripping the steel railing and grinding their teeth in frustration. Watching their friends and comrades come under fire.
The Battle of Fiery Cross Reef lasted for an hour and twelve minutes. Sharratt unclenched his fingers from the railing and unlocked his knees. His arms and legs trembled from the strain, and he felt sore all over.
The Lincoln strike force turned west. The PLA did not pursue them.
Sharratt ticked through the list of ships and aircraft lost or damaged in the battle.
HMS Defender, one of the Royal Navy’s newer destroyers, had been damaged but was still mission-capable. Not true of HMS Richmond. She was on fire, taking on water fast and listing. Her commanding officer gave the order to abandon ship.
Lincoln had taken a missile hit, damaging her port side, but she was still in the fight. The news for the US carrier escorts was not as promising.
An even dozen of the US escorts had suffered some sort of damage in the battle. The USS Leyte Gulf, an old Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser, was savaged. She’d been in the shotgun position along the threat axis covering both Lincoln and the HMS Queen Elizabeth. After unloading her entire inventory of missiles to blunt the Chinese attacks, she’d absorbed three missile hits. Still afloat, she was on fire, and her crew was losing the battle to save their ship.
The strike force had lost thirteen F-35s in total, eight US planes, and five from the Royal Navy.
It could have been worse, Sharratt thought as he surveyed the initial missile inventory reports for Denton’s strike force, but if the Chinese chose to pursue the attack, the strike force would be in danger.
And what would the Chinese do now? he wondered.
The PLA bases were hammered. No signals emanated from any of the islands, according to SIGINT. Initial bomb damage assessments showed the SAM batteries, radars, buildings, and airfields were either destroyed or required major repairs. The Lincoln strike force would make sure the PLA Navy couldn’t send any resources forward to effect those repairs.
A draw, then, Sharratt decided, but not really. It could have been—should have been—much worse for the attacking forces.
“What do you think, Tom?” Sharratt asked.
“No hypersonics, sir. No Dong Feng ‘carrier killer’ missiles.” Zachary’s eyes were red from the strain of staring at the display. “I think the Chinese held back.”
From his post at the end of the BattleSpace table, CAG nodded agreement.
“And what is your considered opinion of that strategy, Captain Zachary?” Sharratt continued.
“If I were a diplomat,” Zachary said, “I’d say that’s a signal that the Chinese don’t want to escalate this thing.”
“And your non-diplomatic assessment?” Sharratt asked.
“I’d say they’re saving their missiles for us.”
32
White House
Washington, DC
Don Riley followed Secretary of Defense Kathleen Howard and Secretary of State Henry Hahn into the Oval Office.
What the hell am I doing here? he thought. He’d been summoned to the Oval Office by text. Howard and Hahn were there when he arrived. To Don’s mind, they didn’t seem surprised to see him.
President Serrano sat behind the Resolute desk. Chief of Staff Wilkerson leaned against the desk, arms folded as he spoke to the President. He looked up as Don entered with the two cabinet secretaries.
“Good, you made it,” he said, then went back to his conversation. It seemed to Don that the comment was directed at him, but he couldn’t be sure.
Through the bulletproof windows behind the President, dusk was falling on the nation’s capital. Having just come from the Situation Room, Don’s thoughts were half a world away.
It was dawn in Taiwan. The battle between the PLA and the alliance carrier strike force was over. Both sides had taken a beating, but neither was out of the fight.
Mischief Reef, Fiery Cross Reef, and Subi Reef, the three Chinese islands targeted in the attack, were in ruins. From a military standpoint, the bases were not a serious threat now.
The Lincoln strike force had not emerged unscathed. Lincoln herself was damaged, and the USS Leyte Gulf was beyond saving. The HMS Queen Elizabeth’s escorts had also sustained damages. Don hadn’t seen the casualty numbers yet, but he was bracing himself to see hundreds.
Despite the apparent tactical victory, the President’s military advisers believed the Chinese had held back, choosing to engage the allied forces only with assets that were already deployed in the South China Sea. The PLA had not sortied any additional ships from Hainan, nor had they launched any Dong Feng missiles from batteries based on the mainland.
The Dong Feng anti-ship missiles were the crown jewel of the PLA strategy against the US aircraft carriers, the so-called “carrier killer” missile. The latest model, the DF-26, was capable of hypersonic flight with maneuverable terminal warheads.
Most of the President’s advisers were briefing reporters at the Pentagon and in the White House. More were fanned out across the evening news programs to push the message that the United States would not stand by while the island of Taiwan was invaded by the Chinese. The President was scheduled to speak to the nation in just a few hours.
