Ashes of Victory, page 20
“Clever bastard,” Adair said.
The muscles in Macklin’s jaw worked as he clenched his teeth in anger.
Slowly he stood and walked up to the 1868 painting of the Peacemakers, by George P. A. Healy, depicting Abraham Lincoln conferring with his generals. The president had had it hung next to his own photo posing in front of the F-105G.
For a moment, he tried to imagine the level of pressure that a Lincoln or a Wilson or a Roosevelt had felt during some of our nation’s darkest hours.
Or a Kennedy.
His eyes shifted to Aaron Shikler’s masterpiece that he had ordered hung in this room: JFK with his arms crossed and his head bowed in thought.
And now it’s my turn in the barrel.
Turning to Prost and Adair, Macklin said, “I did not start this war. But I sure as hell am going to finish it.” Pointing at the door, he added, “Now go and do what you must to get it done.”
PROST GOT IN THE rear of his sedan and told the driver to take him to the brownstone on Thirty-Eighth Street. He needed to think and regroup. The message from Cmdr. Jake Russo, via Capt. Blake, indicated that they had taken out pretty much everyone aboard except the damn HVT.
“Splendid,” he mumbled as he left the White House behind.
“Sir?” the driver asked, looking at him in the rearview mirror.
Prost ignored him, just as he tried very hard to put the failed mission behind him and focus on the next steps. Unfortunately for the DNI, the only image that filled his mind was that of the late William F. Buckley Jr.
Operation Night Out had indeed all the earmarks of a bundled agency job.
USS MISSOURI (SSN 780), 300 MILES WEST OF MANILA
PETTY OFFICER SECOND CLASS Marshon Chappelle leaned back in his chair, eyes closed, listening to a very different concert this afternoon: pods of western gray whales entering their winter breeding grounds after their yearly migration from Russia.
The music of the large baleen creatures was one of clicks, faint whistles, and pulse calls. Each lasted about two minutes at a fundamental frequency ranging from ten to forty hertz, as reported by Missouri’s BQQ-10 bow-mounted spherical active/passive sonar array. The lowest frequency sound a human ear could detect was around twenty hertz, but the system easily captured them, providing Chappelle with the full range of their courting songs—truly a perk of the job.
Across the control room, Cmdr. Frank Kelly stood arms crossed, regarding his operators from his position next to his XO, Lt. Cmdr. Robert Giannotti.
Kelly was in a foul mood. It had been more than four hours since breaking off from the tanker and starting his racetrack pattern, but aside from distant contacts off the coast of Vietnam, there had been no sign of anything remotely resembling a Type 212A submarine. And to put a cherry on his shit cake, the COMSUBPAC had not been pleased at his continued resistance to get his butt over to guard Stennis, instead of toiling around in the middle of the South China Sea wasting the taxpayers’ money. After a short and somewhat heated negotiation, Kelly had bought the Mighty Mo five hours before having to set course at flank speed toward the wounded carrier, and that meant he could hang in the area for less than one more hour.
“What do MLB and the US Navy have in common, boss?” Giannotti asked.
Kelly pinched the bridge of his nose. “Not in the mood, Bobby.”
“Three strikes and you’re out,” Giannotti responded anyway. “You’ve struck out twice with COMSUBPAC. I wouldn’t make it a habit, boss.”
Kelly shrugged. “I can handle a COMSUBPAC ass-chewing, Bobby. What I can’t handle is that bastard running loose after what he did to us . . . to my family.”
Tilting his head toward his commander, and leaning back in an exaggerated manner, the XO glanced down and said, “Well, sir, for what it’s worth, the admiral still left you with a little ass.”
The two closest sailors manning the weapons systems chuckled.
“Fuck off, Bobby.”
“Aye, sir.”
Kelly checked his watch, then turned toward the sonar station. “Chappy’s in one of his trances,” he observed. “Hopefully he’ll find something. We’re running out of time.”
“Doubt it, sir,” Giannotti replied. “Not while he’s getting a woody.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Last I checked, he was listening to humping whales.”
“I didn’t know there were humpback whales in these waters.”
Giannotti laughed. “No, sir. Humping whales, as in copulating.”
Kelly looked up and found Giannotti’s gaze as the strapping Italian American grinned. “C’mon. Are you shitting me?”
“Can’t make that stuff up, boss. The boy’s gifted, all right, but sometimes I really worry. I mean, look at him.”
Kelly turned back to see the native from Harlem, headphones on, eyes closed, leaning back, hands on his lap, palms up, fingers stretched. For a second the commander of the Mighty Mo thought the kid’s lips were moving.
“Yeah,” Giannotti added. “Forty-five-million-dollar sonar system and he’s listening to whales screwing.”
Kelly glanced down at his watch. He had less than forty minutes before he had to change course or there would be hell to be paid with COMSUBPAC, who would get in trouble with Commander, US Pacific Fleet, who would in turn get in trouble with Commander, US Pacific Command, and so on. The American armed forces, like most military institutions around the globe, had a chain of command when it came to ass-chewings.
Turning back to his sonarman, Kelly silently prayed that the kid from Harlem would give him something—anything—he could use to convince his superiors to let him hunt a submarine that every last fiber of his being told him had to be in the area preparing for a hunt of its own.
THE CLICKS AND WHISTLES flowed in stereo through his headphones, transporting Chappelle to another world. He imagined the forty-foot-long creatures dancing in the deep, their music streaming in patterned sequences that repeated in bouts lasting hours, and even days.
But somewhere in the middle of this undersea romantic serenade, he detected another sound, mellower, deeper, but faint, distant. A tenor saxophone came and went amid the clicks and pulses of the baleen whales, there one second and gone the next, floating somewhere beyond the realm of the mammals, at times almost in harmony with their wooing ballad. But there was no hiding the cavitation of a large seven-blade screw cruising at two hundred feet below the surface. And, a moment later, the vessel’s hydrogen fuel cells blew gently in his ears.
Leaning forward, he said, “Contact! Bearing zero-four-zero. Range five-three miles. Speed one-zero knots. Depth two-one-zero feet. Definitely our girl, sir.”
KELLY JUMPED INTO ACTION. “Turn to intercept. All ahead flank and set depth to six-zero feet.”
Giannotti relayed the commands to the pilot and copilot, while Kelly stepped behind the electronics technicians manning the radio station. “Who’s in that grid now?” he asked.
One of the sailors looked over his right shoulder and said, “The Morgenthau, sir. Sailing two hundred fifty miles west of the Philippines.”
With a look of confusion, Kelly asked, “But . . . isn’t that a Coast Guard cutter?”
“Yes, sir,” the technician replied.
“From Subic Bay?”
“Honolulu, sir.”
“What’s it doing so far from home?”
“Maybe the admiral ordered it to go meet up with Stennis, since you refuse to follow orders?” Giannotti offered with a shrug, before looking at his watch and whispering to Kelly, “and speaking of that, boss . . . our time’s almost up.”
Kelly frowned at his XO.
“Negative, sir,” the electronics technician replied, checking his system before adding, “Morgenthau isn’t going after Stennis. It’s been decommissioned.”
“Decommissioned?” Kelly said. “When?”
“Don’t know that, sir, but it says here it’s been purchased by the Republic of Vietnam.”
“Vietnam?”
“Yes, sir. A skeleton crew’s doing the delivery.”
Kelly made a face and looked at Giannotti. “Wasn’t Morgenthau used heavily during the Vietnam War, Bobby?”
“Yep,” Giannotti said. “My uncle was on it.”
Kelly shook his head. “Of course he was.”
“The ship got a bunch of commendations for its long service there,” the XO continued. “And now it’s being purchased by the same asshole that Uncle Lou, rest in peace, spent his career fighting.” Giannotti made the sign of the cross and looked up at the overhead pipes. “We truly live in a screwed-up world, sir,” he added.
“Copy that,” Kelly replied. “And what’s even more screwed up is that Morgenthau is the only warship within pissing distance of the bastards who made Swiss cheese of Stennis and blew up North Dakota.” The comment inexorably made him think of his family back in Danbury. He knew that by now the whole Kelly gang would be in tears, including his girls. His late nephew, Charlie, had been like an older brother to the twins. And speaking of older brother, his operational orders prevented Kelly from making contact with his brother, who had to be a complete mess by—
“What are your orders, sir?” Giannotti asked, tapping his watch again, his eyes pleading with Kelly not to piss off COMSUBPAC a third time.
Looking down at the sailor, Kelly ordered, “Contact Morgenthau as soon as we reach periscope depth, and brief them on the situation . . . and pray to God they have weapons aboard.”
Shifting his gaze to his XO, he added, “And then get me on the horn with the admiral.”
THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, DC
PRESIDENT CORD MACKLIN SAT alone in the Treaty Room watching the scroll on the bottom of the TV, drinking his first cup of coffee. Normally he enjoyed his morning caffeine, but lately he had a permanent sour taste in his mouth. He wondered, often, how a president like Roosevelt or Truman would have done the job in the age of the internet and cameras on every mobile phone. Information constantly flowed—and most of it not good. Every decision analyzed and criticized in minutes, not days or even hours.
A knock interrupted his thoughts. When he looked up, he saw General Les Chalmers in his Air Force Service Dress Uniform standing in the doorway looking tired and concerned.
Macklin managed a faint smile. “Morning, Les.”
“Good morning, Mr. President,” Chalmers replied.
“What’s on your mind?” he asked, pointing to a chair across from him.
“We’re seeing more activity at the Chinese missile sites,” Chalmers explained, sitting down. “In addition, the Chinese destroyer Qingdao is closing on the Vinson group currently approaching the strait. Also, the aircraft carrier Liaoning is steaming south from Shanghai escorted by a Type 096 ballistic submarine.
“That’s their brand-new sub, sir, which approaches the capabilities of our Ohio-class subs, packing twenty-four ballistic missiles. The Liaoning’s expected to reach the strait in twenty-four hours, along with its complement of twenty-four Shenyang J-15 fighters, which are based on the Sukhoi-33—very capable birds.
“In addition, they have deployed over thirty Su-30MKKs and a similar contingent of Su-35S Flanker-Es to Fuzhou. That’s on top of the fighters already stationed there. They’ve also trucked over a million soldiers along the coast between Fuzhou and Shantou, supported by artillery, plus over two hundred amphibious-warfare ships. And further to the southeast, there has been a significant increase in naval activity at Yulin.”
“Jesus,” Macklin said. “That’s a hell of a lot of flexing.”
“It’s almost like D-day flexing, sir, Chinese-style. Our friends in Taiwan have been burning up the phones at State and at the Pentagon. I want to counter their movements with more air force assets in the immediate region. This time around, we no longer have the option to run GPS interference, like we did in ’96 to screw with the Chinese navigation systems.”
Macklin remembered it well. During the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis, back in the Clinton years, the US had owned the only GPS satellite constellation, made up of thirty-one satellites in geosynchronous orbit above Earth. Therefore, it had been able to adjust the encryption of the satellites covering the Taiwan Strait to mess with the guidance systems of the missiles that China fired at Taiwan, as well as the navigation systems of their airplanes and ships. It resulted in a huge embarrassment for the PLA. In response to that, China had begun developing and launching its own GPS constellation, called BeiDou, named after the Big Dipper. At the last count, BeiDou had nineteen operational satellites with plans to expand to worldwide coverage in five years with a total of thirty-five satellites.
“Back in ’96, China had around forty short-range ballistic missiles that could reach Taiwan, sir,” Chalmers added. “But we splashed them with our GPS interference. They now have roughly twelve hundred SRBMs, plus another four hundred land-attack cruise missiles capable of reaching our bases in Japan, Korea, and Guam. And their limited GPS constellation does cover the region.”
“I got it,” Macklin said. “What about surveillance coverage? How far can they see?”
“Their space assets have full coverage of their roughly nine hundred thousand square miles of coastal waters, as well as coverage over the Taiwan Strait, with plans to expand in the next few years to encompass all the way to the Philippines. Back in ’96, China had a total of ten satellites. Today they have almost 180. By comparison, the Russians have 140 and we have 570. And a few years ago, they began launching their Leung class of satellites to safeguard the country’s maritime rights. Those are the ones over the strait, sir, with EO, SAR, and ELINT capabilities that match our space assets.” Macklin was aware of the Electro-Optical, Synthetic Aperture Radar, and Electronic Intelligence reconnaissance technologies inside those satellites—meaning they could see through all kinds of weather conditions.
“I think it’s safe to say that China has surpassed the Russians on satellite muscle and are moving in on us,” Chalmers added.
“What’s Pete Adair’s take on this?”
“He’s at Eglin today, and he agrees we need more air force muscle in the region to counter the PLA buildup,” Chalmers replied with a trace of anxiety in his voice. “Secretary Adair suggested we send our F-35As from the 34th Fighter Squadron at Hill Air Force Base and from the 61st and 62nd Fighter squadrons at Luke Air Force Base on deployment to Kadena Air Base in Okinawa. He also wants to deploy our F-22 Raptors from Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii to bolster the ones we keep at Kadena. Though I’m not sure if we want that many of those expensive assets that close to mainland China, especially given their cruise-missile capabilities.”
“That’s what they’re for, to rattle nerves and cause confusion,” Macklin replied firmly. “We have them as a deterrent, and we might as well use them to advertise that fact loud and clear. Let them see those planes with their damn surveillance satellites. Just make sure we have enough missile defenses to protect them in case someone gets trigger-happy.”
“Yes, sir.”
Macklin’s stern expression turned into a smile. “Besides, those Lightnings give us one hell of an edge. The enemy can’t detect them, so they don’t know when they’re being stalked by them . . . until it’s too late. I wish I’d had one of those back in the day. Get them over there.”
“Yes, sir. I’m going to send the 34th, the 61st, and the 62nd, plus six KC-10s to supplement the KC-135 Stratotankers and support aircraft as soon as we can work out the logistics.”
“Good. What about Vinson? Do they have the navy variant?” Macklin asked, referring to the F-35C.
“Just two, sir.”
“Two? What the hell are they going to do with just two?”
“They’re there for recurrence training, sir.”
“Where are the rest of the F-35Cs we ordered for the navy?”
Chalmers frowned. “There are two more aboard Lincoln, for the same training purpose, and the rest, ah, they were split between Truman and Stennis, sir.”
“Christ,” Macklin hissed before standing and walking up to JFK’s painting. He crossed his own arms and gazed at the painting for a moment, before turning back to the chairman.
“Bastards hit us where it hurts, Les. Now our turn to hit them back.”
— 19 —
USCGC MORGENTHAU (WHEC 722), 250 MILES WEST OF MANILA
IN HER TWENTY-YEAR CAREER with the United States Coast Guard, Commander Briana Sasso had seen her fair share of action. The list included bagging drug runners in the Gulf of Mexico and multiple deployments in the Arabian Gulf, running patrols to discourage pirates, and training the Iraqis in how to protect their offshore oil rigs.
From gulf to shining gulf, and everything in between, she thought. Until last week, when her CO gave her a new assignment: Deliver the legendary Morgenthau to the Vietnamese.
Her father had fought in the Vietnam War, and she really couldn’t wrap her head around selling a highly decorated ship like Morgenthau—her commission for the past five years while on assignment in Honolulu—to the Vietnamese.
“Put it in a war museum,” she had argued. “Or just sink it. Turn it into an underwater reef. Make it an attraction for recreational scuba divers. Anything but this.”
But orders were orders.
Briana sighed. At least now she had something to do besides dread the upcoming delivery. The call from Missouri thirty minutes before had given the commander, and her beloved cutter, a chance for one last mission.
Assisting in the high-priority search were Morgenthau’s HH-65 Dolphin helicopter, which had been included in the deal made with the Vietnamese government.
She stood on the bridge of the Hamilton-class cutter scanning the horizon with a pair of binoculars. A quarter moon hung overhead. Along with her, five other sailors scanned the sea, looking for any sign of a submarine, as the ship cruised at fifteen knots, or one-third propulsion of its dual gas turbines.
The rest of her skeleton crew pinged the hell out of the surrounding ocean. But Briana wasn’t certain how much damage she could do if they found the sub, since the Coast Guard had removed all depth charges from the vessel before departure, leaving her with just enough ammunition in some of her guns to piss somebody off.
