Ashes of Victory, page 35
The moment of truth had arrived for Shubei and his crew as they prepared to follow their commander’s orders . . .to shower the Carl Vinson Carrier Strike Group and every military installation in Taiwan with JL-2 ballistic missiles.
Staring at his officers in the control room, the submarine captain gave the order.
THIRTY MILES NORTH OF HAINAN ISLAND
AMANDA SPOTTED A MISSILE igniting as it surged above the surface, and the sight certainly warranted breaking radio silence.
“Ricky, are you seeing this shit?”
“Yep. JL-2 for sure. Big sucker. And it’s angled to the northeast.”
“In the direction of the fleet.”
“Liberty Bell, Liberty Bell,” Ricardo said. “Beware of a vampire heading your way! It’s a JL-2!”
A moment later, Lt. Cmdr. Barlow replied from an E-2D Advanced Hawkeye circling south of the carrier group, “Dragons, we just detected it and are already tracking and preparing to intercept.”
“Say, Ricky, we still have half our fuel plus the winders and the SDBs,” she said, referring to their two Sidewinder air-to-air missiles for self-defense and the twin GBU-39 small-diameter bombs for opportunity targets.
“Worth a try, Deedle.”
She powered up her AN/APG-81 radar and immediately started tracking it just as a second missile broke the water surface. “There’s another one!”
“Take it out, Deedle!” Ricardo ordered before roaring away in burner. “I’m going after the first one!”
“Copy that,” she replied as the Lightnings parted ways in the dark.
Amanda also staged her blower as the second missile rumbled by while starting to gain altitude. Unlike the first missile, which they had spotted from almost twenty miles away, this time she had the advantage of being closer, catching it in its initial launch phase. And only now, as Amanda got within three miles of it as it rose through five hundred feet, did she fully appreciate its size, almost fifty feet tall.
“But going nowhere,” she said, achieving lock on its superhot exhaust and firing an AIM-9X Block III Sidewinder from her starboard pod.
The nine-foot-long missile shot away, reaching Mach 2.5 in seconds, quickly closing the gap before its infrared proximity fuse detonated its 20.8-pound WDU-17/B annular blast fragmentation warhead. The blast spread into a large circle that cut through the base of the ballistic missile.
But as the JL-2 trembled in midair before exploding in an impressive fireball almost five hundred feet in diameter, Amanda spotted a third flash by the waterline just aft of her starboard wing.
Seriously?
“One down, Ricky,” she said. “But they just fired a third one!”
RICARDO HEARD AMANDA, BUT he was too busy accelerating like a damn rocket after the first missile while his nose-mounted Electro-Optical Targeting System tracked the JL-2 soaring past twenty thousand feet at Mach 1.8.
It’s getting away, he thought, firing a Sidewinder, which blazed skyward as its IR seeker tracked the superhot plume of the missile rising higher in the night sky.
Reaching its maximum speed of Mach 2.5, the Sidewinder went nearly vertical as it followed its target, but it could not close the gap. The ballistic missile was already rocketing past Mach 3 above forty thousand feet.
“CAN’T CATCH IT, DEEDLE,” Amanda heard Ricardo say as she squirmed from the g-forces halfway through her turn to get a better angle on the third JL-2.
The F-35C sensors tracked and targeted the missile climbing past three hundred feet at her ten o’clock two miles out. The system painted the information on her helmet-mounted display as it provided the seeker head of her second Sidewinder with sufficient information to launch.
“Adios,” she whispered as it shot out of her port pylon, scrambling after the powerful heat source. In the time that she completed her turn and leveled her wings, the Sidewinder had sliced through the ballistic missile’s solid-fuel rocket booster. Reverberating over the water, another impressive fireball stained the ocean in hues of orange and yellow.
“Two down and fresh out of winders,” she reported, coming back around and noticing the three radial ripples where the missiles had surfaced. They were in a line and spaced around three hundred feet.
Checking her timer and doing some quick math—and assuming the sub had continued in a straight course—she took an educated guess at its current position. And if she remembered her Annapolis classes on submarine warfare, the average depth to shoot those ballistic missiles was around 120 feet—give or take.
Pointing the nose of her Lightning at the suspected spot on the water, she armed her three Raytheon SDBs. The precision-guided bombs’ tri-mode seekers responded to radar, infrared homing, and semi-active laser guidance. Amanda selected the latter, staring at the target on the water and locking the laser.
The SDBs dropped from her center rails and immediately deployed their “diamondback” type winglets, gliding beneath the F-35C for a second before dropping right over the painted spot on the water.
As Amanda pulled up, the SDBs stabbed the surface at nearly three hundred feet per second. The 206-pound warheads, set to detonate by a cockpit-selectable delay function, went off twenty feet below the surface with a combined high-explosive charge equivalent to a pair of World War II MK9 depth charges.
CAPTAIN SHUBEI WAS ABOUT to give the order to fire the sub’s fourth missile, when the shock wave from twin blasts at a distance of one hundred feet tumbled the Type 094 submarine on its side, sending him crashing against a console.
Lights flickered and screens turned to snow while sonar operators jerked back, yanking off their headphones. The hull trembled and sailors rolled inside the control room as the ship absorbed the acoustic energy piercing the depths. Resonating across its full length, it popped dozens of rivets like machine guns, shattering panels and consoles, injuring sailors, and sparking off bulkheads.
Water began streaming from several places, short-circuiting systems as panels went dark. The submarine struggled to straighten itself.
Shubei regained his footing under the crimson glow of emergency lanterns. “Take us down!” he finally shouted, holding the side of his bleeding face. “All ahead flank! Right full rudder! Set depth seven-zero-zero feet! And get those leaks under control!”
As his crew went to work, Shubei tried very hard to hide his shock, wondering how in the world someone had managed to drop depth charges right on top of his vessel while operating well within the kill zone of the naval base’s batteries of surface-to-air missiles.
AMANDA CLIMBED TOWARDS RICARDO’S Lightning high up in the sky. But even higher, and barely visible in the upper atmosphere, she spotted the very faint plume of the first ballistic missile.
USS LAKE CHAMPLAIN (CG 57), TAIWAN STRAIT
LT. CMDR. BARBARA GIANNOTTI was the OOD on the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser when the call came in from Liberty Bell.
She immediately placed the ship on general quarters and said, “Get the captain on the bridge, pronto!”
Champlain cruised a mile aft of Vinson, equipped with the general-purpose, multi-mission Aegis weapons system that integrated air, surface, anti-submarine warfare sensors and engagement systems. The globally deployed Aegis provided the first line of defense for the fleet and land-based targets.
Standing behind the Aegis operators, Barbara tracked the JL-2 missile’s speed, altitude, and range as it arced through the stratosphere in a parabolic flight that left little room for speculation as to its intended target: the middle of the carrier group.
“Commander, I have three MIRVs,” the Aegis operator reported the instant the JL-2 missile released its payload of three multiple independent reentry vehicles, each presumably carrying a nuclear warhead.
“What’s happening, BG?” the captain asked, rushing inside the bridge, followed by two more officers.
“Incoming MIRVs, sir,” Barbara replied, pointing to the complex Aegis system already locked on the incoming warheads, one aimed at the front of the carrier group, the second at the center, and the third at the rear.
“Carry on,” the captain said.
“Cut them loose,” she said, giving the order to fire three RIM-174A Standard Extended Range Active Missiles with a range of 250 nautical miles and a ceiling higher than 110,000 feet.
Her heartbeat rocketing and her throat going dry, Barbara turned to see the first stage of the twenty-one-foot ERAMs ignite in a blaze that painted the surrounding night sky in shades of orange and white. The solid-propellant plumes splashed against the sleek outline of the guided-missile cruiser as they shot off from their respective Vertical Launching Tubes.
Don’t fail me, babies, she thought as the ERAMs hurtled skyward toward their respective targets, which were starting their descent through the upper atmosphere, entering their terminal phase.
Reaching a speed of Mach 3.5, the ERAMs became mere specks high in the southwestern skies before a bright flash indicated their second stages igniting, propelling them through their final interception courses.
“Eight seconds to impact,” the Aegis operator reported as Barbara felt a pressure in her chest and realized she had been holding her breath.
She exhaled slowly as three back-to-back flashes sparked high in the sky over the South China Sea, and a few seconds later, she heard their distant sonic booms, the sounds reminding her of Fourth of July reports.
“Targets down,” the Aegis operator replied.
As the bridge exploded in celebration, Barbara turned to her smiling CO and whispered, “Gotta hit the head, sir.” She barely had time to make it before she vomited.
THE FIRST SIGNS OF dawn graced the horizon with a pencil-thin line of lavender as Amanda approached Vinson’s stern.
Using fingertip touch on the sidestick and minute power adjustments, she called the ball and followed the LSO’s commands to bring her Lightning onto the dark flight deck.
Snagging the number two wire, she was thrown into her restraining harness. She felt damn lucky—and grateful—to have a carrier to come home to.
But as she idled the engine and raised the canopy of the finest stealth fighter jet ever made, she spotted Cmdr. Kowalski and Capt. Buchelle standing next to Maintenance Master Chief Cardona—all glaring at her under the lights washing the island in a grayish glow.
Now what?
In unison, as the Lightning’s tailhook released the arresting wire, the navy men brought their right hands up, middle fingers grazing their temples.
And in this night of nights, as the smell of jet fuel and burned rubber tingled her nostrils amid the controlled chaos reigning on the busy flight deck, Amanda proudly saluted back.
— 31 —
SOUTH CHINA SEA, FOUR HUNDRED MILES NORTHWEST OF YULIN NAVAL BASE
HE HAD HOPPED ON his Citation X the moment he’d received word that the Americans had killed the JL-2 missiles and nearly sunk Capt. Shubei’s sub.
Deng still had friends on the Politburo Standing Committee, but after tonight he worried about their loyalty. Of course, the story would have been different had he been successful. The PSC—along with Jiechi and his young politicians—would have had no choice but to go along with him or risk the embarrassment of appearing unable to control one general.
So, he had traded Beijing for Hainan Island, vanishing in the confusion of the nation’s massive blackout. He headed to the place where he was king, supreme commander of the PLA—and where he had direct control of the Type 094 ballistic nuclear missile submarines in a naval base that was, by his own design, impregnable. He had trained and indoctrinated every senior officer on that base. And along with the subs, surface vessels, cruise missiles, land-based ballistic missiles, and the assorted jets and bombers—a combined 220 nuclear warheads—it gave him the leverage he would not have in Beijing.
Sitting in the rear of the cabin, Deng stared at the distant waters of the Taiwan Strait at dawn, where long ago that Sidewinder missile had blown him out of the sky. He had fought honorably that day. The battle, though recorded as a failure by historians, had forged him, turning him into one of China’s most respected military leaders and—
The Citation’s twin turbojets suddenly spooled down as the right wing tipped and the nose dropped.
“What is happening?” he asked one of his half dozen bodyguards occupying the forward cabin.
“Don’t know, sir,” he replied, rushing to the cockpit.
Deng followed him, working to keep his balance as the business jet pitched even more. They were about to enter a steep dive while dropping below fifteen thousand feet.
He found the pilot wrestling with the controls and working through the engine restart procedure and the copilot placing SOS calls to the nearest bases along the coast, but no one was responding because of the power outage.
“The engines, General,” the pilot said with fear in his voice. “They are nonresponsive, and we have lost fly-by-wire control!”
“The radios!” the copilot reported as they descended through eight thousand feet. “They’ve stopped working!”
As he said this, the glass cockpit flickered and went dark, just as his nation had suddenly gone dark.
How is this possible? Deng thought, looking about the plane’s interior, aware of the extreme measures with which his people maintained the business jet.
Unless . . .
It is easier to govern a country than a son.
Deng tightened his jaw as the realization slapped him with the force of a hundred Sidewinders.
Oh, Xi! My son! he thought as the dark waters filled the windshield.
THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, DC
WHILE PRESIDENT CORD MACKLIN’S urgent telephone call to Chinese President Xi Jiechi made its way through secure channels, the angry chief executive directed General Les Chalmers to place the entire US Pacific Fleet and all military installations in the South and East Asia theaters at DEFCON 1. Included in the alert status were Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in California, Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii, Kadena AB in Okinawa, and Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska.
US warships, along with attack submarines based in San Diego, Guam, and Pearl Harbor, were preparing to get under way. Destination: the Western Pacific Ocean and the South China Sea.
The commanding officers of the Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines homeported in Bangor, Washington, and at sea in the Pacific Ocean were standing by for orders from their commander in chief.
“Sir, I have President Jiechi,” an aide announced as he stepped in the room, where Macklin sat behind his desk, polishing his reading glasses. DNI Hartwell Prost and Secretary of State Brad Austin stood nearby, as did Secretary of Defense Peter Adair. A Chinese interpreter also stood ready, if needed, and a technician to handle the recording of the call.
“Remember, sir,” Prost said. “Based on the intel we extracted from Al Saud, Jiechi didn’t know about the activities of General Xiangsui.”
“Believe me, Hart,” Macklin replied as he reached for the speakerphone. “That’s the only reason I’ve contained myself to a power blackout instead of blowing Beijing off the map.”
“Also, sir,” Prost added. “Remember that the fact that we now have proof of the general’s covert activities provides us with future negotiating leverage—something to keep in our back pocket.”
His anger barely contained, Macklin gave his DNI a brief nod before stabbing the button on the phone and saying, “Xi, I would like you to tell me why I shouldn’t immediately launch a full-scale attack on your country.” Raw anger made Macklin’s voice harsh. “Our ballistic missile defense system destroyed three warheads targeted at the Vinson battle group operating in international waters. We have the capability to do that again and again until you exhaust your entire nuclear arsenal. You do not have that capability. We are on the brink of open warfare—nuclear warfare—and while I’m sure the United States will take its share of licks, you will lose.”
“Mac,” Jiechi replied. “I assure you neither I nor my government authorized the launch of the missiles. One of our generals—how do you say it—went off the reservation. He apparently panicked after . . . the most peculiar power outage across China early this morning. But you wouldn’t know anything about that?”
“No idea,” Macklin said.
“Estimates of the economic impact are already coming in the neighborhood of eight hundred billion dollars,” Jiechi replied.
“I imagine what the US has suffered in terms of our economy and lives lost is far greater.”
“Yes, of course. On behalf of the Chinese people, please accept our condolences on the loss of life and this barbarous attack on your country.”
“Stow it, Xi.”
“Ah . . . In any case,” Jiechi continued, “we have ordered a complete stand-down of all of our nuclear forces and have ordered our attack and ballistic submarines to surface and proceed to the nearest port immediately, as well as all surface vessels. We have also started a major recall of coastal forces along the strait. I’m sure your National Reconnaissance Office can confirm this.”
Macklin tilted the glasses at Adair, who signaled an aide to confirm. The aide quickly left to check with General Chalmers and the rest of the Pentagon brass huddled in the Situation Room, waiting for orders to strike.
“Also, Mac,” Jiechi continued. “Though it is an internal matter and one we will be pursuing for some time to come, I wish to inform you that the senior officer who gave the order, General Deng Xiangsui, died this morning when his jet went down in the South China Sea.”
A silence hung in the room as the full meaning of the Chinese president’s words sunk in.
The aide returned and whispered in the secretary of defense’s ear. Adair looked at the president and mouthed, Confirmed.
Macklin set his glasses on the table and rubbed his eyes with thumb and forefinger, fighting exhaustion. Lowering his voice, he said, “Xi, I’m going to take you at your word. However, I want to make something very clear: One more attack, or incident, and I will begin systematically dismantling your military forces, all of them. If you launch another missile at one of our cities, or at one of our allies, including Taiwan, or at any of our forces anywhere in the world, I will not hesitate to destroy Beijing.”
