Ashes of Victory

— 18 —

You know the drill, gentlemen,” Javier Ibarra told Jorge Diaz and Sammy Chen, spotting his reflection in their mirror-tint sunglasses as they fished for tuna on the rear deck wearing bathing suits and sandals. “And don’t forget to smile.”

Chen gave him a quick salute. The tattoos of red and white dragons on his forearms continued up to his shoulders, before merging right over his chest. The Taipei biker-gang body art was definitely an eye-catcher, and in sharp contrast with Diaz’s bronzed but virgin skin. Up on the bridge, Mario Mendoza remained at the controls.

Wearing a pair of navy shorts and a white shirt, Ibarra walked up to the starboard side of the motorsailer as a Marine Protector — class patrol boat from the US Coast Guard pulled up alongside his ship. He had recognized the eighty-seven-foot-long cutter from a distance as it radioed Erasmus to prepare for a routine safety inspection.

Since the seas were calm, they were able to connect the vessels with mooring lines and buoys. Three armed inspectors hopped aboard. The one in charge, Petty Officer Jim Montoya, stepped up to him with a clipboard and a pen. He was tall and well-tanned, dressed in a solid dark-blue Operational Dress Uniform and a matching cap bearing his rank.

“Morning, sir,” he said before looking down at his form and saying, “Under Title Fourteen of the United States Code, we’re authorized to board vessels subject to the juris—”

“It’s no problem, Lieutenant,” Ibarra interrupted before pointing at Diaz. “That’s Lieutenant Jorge Diaz, Spanish Navy, retired. We know the rules. We’re just out on a pleasure-fishing trip. Please carry on.”

Montoya glanced over at Diaz as he gave him a brief salute from his chair on the rear deck next to Chen. Both were hanging on to tall fishing rods.

Montoya just nodded and turned back to Ibarra. “Will get right on it.”

As Ibarra went over the paperwork and permits of Santo Erasmus with Montoya, his two inspectors worked their way through the vessel, conducting a quick safety inspection that included the Boston Whaler, the engine room, and all cabins. But he was able to keep the inspectors from roaming too long inside the main salon. And as had been the case on the occasions this had happened to Ibarra and his crew, Erasmus passed with flying colors.

Twenty minutes later, as the smuggler watched the cutter get under way, they resumed their course to Virginia.

They came in from the north at a depth of fifteen feet holding six knots.

Cmdr. Jake Russo sat behind Lt. Gustavo Pacheco piloting the SDV, the battery-powered submersible “wet boat” cruising silently to the HVT — high-value target — coming up on their bow. Upon receiving the green light from Prost, a Super Stallion had lowered them fifteen miles from their target into the dark waters as a single unit — the SDV and a team of eight SEALs dressed for violence.

Breathing in slowly through his LAR-V Draeger, a front-worn breathing apparatus that ran on 100 percent oxygen, Russo checked their GPS positioning on the SDV’s advanced electronics panel.

As he exhaled, his breath was recycled into the closed circuit, which filtered the carbon dioxide and injected a small amount of oxygen before recycling it back to him. This eliminated the bubbles of open-circuit scuba systems.

“Thirty seconds,” he spoke into the microphone built into his mask, connecting him to the other members of his team.

Pacheco killed the motor, allowing the midget sub to drift in the dark waters.

The moment the SDV reached a position a hundred feet from the yacht’s stern, Russo ordered the SEAL team into position, minus the copilot, who would remain with the minisub.

Wearing only a plush robe on the rear main deck of his megayacht, Omar Al Saud stood behind the bar and mixed a double bourbon and Coca-Cola, ignoring the bodyguards patrolling the vessel armed with Uzi Pro submachine guns.

Launched in 2013 by leading German shipyard Lürssen, the Azzam was not only the largest private yacht in the world but also the fastest, capable of reaching speeds of thirty-two knots. At a cost of more than six hundred million dollars and three years to build, it represented the very finest in luxury and high technology in all of its seven levels. And being Al Saud’s primary base of operations, it included the latest in high-tech communications and security, including its own missile-defense system.

And that’s all great, Al Saud thought. Except that the satellite internet connection was down, preventing him from making his evening calls to Riyadh City.

“How long?” he asked one of his guards.

“They’re working on it, sir. Any moment now.”

Sighing, Al Saud shook his head at the irony of owning a six-hundred-million-dollar boat, plus the half dozen techs working inside the electronics room on the lower level, but the damn internet was broken.

Walking across the deck, he dropped his robe and stepped down into a warm, bubbling spa, relaxing in the swirling water, sipping his drink. He was alone tonight. No guests, friends, or even the whores, whom he had dispatched to the mainland two hours earlier. After the failed attempt on Lincoln, he needed time to think and regroup. The attack on Truman and Stennis had put a significant dent in America’s war machine, and soon his Russian crew would go after a third carrier. But given his submarine’s proximity to the Vinson’s battle group approaching the strait of Taiwan, Al Saud had agreed to Deng’s request to go after it rather than Roosevelt, if possible. To that end, he had already used his satellite phone to message the request to Sergeyev — whenever he surfaced — and also to the captain of the rendezvous ship scheduled to resupply K-43 near the Philippines. If Sergeyev and his crew could only pull off just another miracle…

And then there’s still Ibarra’s mission, he thought, thinking of the capable smuggler as he closed his eyes and let the hot water work its magic.

Russo removed his diving mask and hooked it to his vest before breaking the calm surface gradually, without ripples — just enough to survey the massive utility/swim platform along the ship’s stern under the star-filled night.

Two personal watercraft and a runabout boat monopolized the port side of the sixty-foot-wide platform. But his eyes focused on the two figures a dozen yards away, wearing dark clothes and standing by the starboard side, flanking the steps leading up to the yacht. According to the intel Prost had forwarded, which included real-time UAV coverage of Azzam, the mammoth yacht had a total of seven levels and at least a dozen armed guards.

Exhaling slowly through his Draeger, the SEAL commander glided toward the runabout on the opposite side of the platform from the guards, carefully removing the Hecker & Koch MP5SD-N 9 mm compact submachine gun strapped to his side.

His head now just a couple of feet from the edge of the platform, Russo held the pistol grip with his right hand and placed his left one under the barrel.

Keeping the weapon submerged, he extended the retractable metal stock of the version of the venerable MP5 specifically designed for the US Navy, and pressed it against his right shoulder. Then, very slowly, almost imperceptibly, he raised the weapon enough to settle his shooting eye behind the PVS14 night-vision monocular attached to the top of the MP5SD-N. The guards came into focus, now forty feet diagonally from his vantage point.

The monocular amplified the available light, turning the darkness into palettes of green as he panned the scope picture between them, working the timing for the shots.

Flipping the safety and making sure that the fire-selection level was set in semiautomatic mode — or single-shot — Russo leveled the integrated stainless steel sound suppressor, designed to be fired with water inside, on the closer of the two guards.

Then he tapped his throat mic once, marking the start of the raid.

A moment later, water splashed on the starboard side of the platform. Both guards immediately swung toward the noise, away from Russo, Uzi Pros ready as they stepped up to the edge to inspect the dark waters.

Russo fired once, scoring a direct hit into the back of the guard’s head, the momentum pushing him and the Uzi Pro overboard.

He switched targets just as the guard fell right on top of Pacheco and another SEAL, who caught him to avoid unnecessary splashing.

Russo squeezed the trigger again, scoring a second head shot. And once again, the energy transfer pushed the guard over the edge and into the waiting hands of his team, who dragged him under quietly.

The SEAL commander paused, his eyes surveying the vacated platform, waiting to see if any of the 176 wireless security cameras identified in the blueprints of the high-tech yacht had captured the event.

The silence that followed made him grin, for he knew why the yacht’s internet wasn’t working, as well as the cameras and anything else with a signal.

Two EA-18G Growlers, specialized electronic warfare versions of the dual-seat F/A-18F Super Hornet, were flying a racetrack pattern thirty miles northeast of Azzam, blasting the yacht with their AN/ALQ-99 High Band and Low Band jamming pods.

Satisfied the element of surprise remained intact, he tapped his mic again and whispered, “Let’s roll.”

A noise made him sit up in the spa, and Al Saud saw his men moving about with sudden purpose. Turning to the closest guard, he said, “What is happening?”

“Maybe nothing, sir, but the video cameras have stopped working. Could be related to the internet problems.”

For the love of…

Al Saud’s pulse quickened as he thought of another possible explanation for the evening’s electronic blues. But he had been very careful, staying clear of the scene of the crime, just another yacht enjoying a Mediterranean cruise. Then he had left the area well before any of those missiles had reached Lincoln. And by the time the Americans had figured out what had hit them, he had landed in Jeddah and even changed helicopters just to be on the safe side—

Before he finished the thought, he saw three guards collapse at the edge of the deck overlooking the stern, the backs of their heads exploding in small clouds of crimson.

Leaping from the spa, the naked Al Saud rushed belowdecks as alarms blared across the large cruiser.

Russo moved methodically across the teak floors of the large salon on the main level. He led a four-man stack, covering the front, while Pacheco and a third SEAL handled their flanks and a fourth operator took the rear. A second team of three managed the violence one level above.

His trained eyes looked past the luxurious interior, ignoring the lavish furnishings as he searched for—

A guard emerged from behind a glass and steel bar, his features washed in hues of blue by accent lights.

Russo put two rounds through his chest as Pacheco handled a second threat coming at them from behind a grand piano along the panoramic windows lining the starboard side of the massive room.

The team above reported three more guards down, bringing the count to ten.

Russo reached the two glass doors at the front of the salon leading to the helipad… and paused. The craft was still tied down. Checking with his man at the SDV, he got confirmation that the PWCs and the runabout boat were still secured to the stern platform, where the SEALs had also shed some of their underwater gear.

“Clear,” his team above reported.

“So, where is the bastard?” Pacheco whispered behind him.

Russo frowned at his decision to head straight for the two main levels to cut off any chance of Al Saud reaching the bow helipad, while his guy in the water managed any attempt to escape by water.

“Below,” he said to his stack, before ordering the second team to check the top two levels.

Rushing back into the salon, they made it to the level below without encountering any resistance, checking ten cabins, each with a spectacular view of either the Abu Dhabi skyline or the ocean.

But no sign of Omar Al Saud.

Too long, he thought. This is taking too long. They approached the final set of stairs winding down to the lowest level, and Russo came up to two guards protecting the landing. They fired their Uzis in unison.

He jumped back up as a volley of 9 mm rounds pounded the wood veneer on the stairwell wall where he had just been.

“Having fun, boss?” Pacheco asked, reaching for an MK3A2, the waterproof version of the standard MK3 concussion grenade.

Russo checked himself, and Pacheco pulled the ring atop the cylindrical weapon, counted to three, and then tossed it down the steps.

The eight ounces of TNT detonating inside the stairwell reverberated in his ears as the SEAL commander paused before rushing through the haze, finding the guards rolling on the floor, disoriented and unable to stand.

He let his team handle them, focusing on the hallway leading beyond the landing, spotting three more guards huddled by a pair of metal double doors a dozen feet away, seemingly disoriented.

Russo and Pacheco fired their suppressed MP5SD-N weapons in unison as they ran toward them, the barrage lasting just two seconds. Kicking the bodies aside, Russo reached for the door handle and signaled to Pacheco, who removed a second MK3A2.

Inching it open just enough to toss the grenade inside, Russo let go before both stepped back into the hallway.

The blast swung the heavy doors outward, and Russo grabbed one before it closed, scurrying inside. Scanning the smoky interior, he ignored four more guards rolling by the side of a large interior pool with their hands over their ears.

The smell of seawater tickling his nostrils mixed with the cordite hazing the air.

Though the smoke, he saw an Aurora-3C personal submarine hanging from a thick cable, connected to an electric winch on a steel beam running the width of the compartment.

“Shit,” Pacheco said, pointing his MP5SD-N at the bubbling surface a dozen feet from the minisub, where lights suddenly glittered below, under another cable already in the water.

Russo instinctively opened fire, and so did Pacheco and the other two operators, emptying their magazines in the hopes of collapsing the acrylic clear dome of the runaway minisub. But instead of a sudden burst of bubbles, the lights slowly dimmed as the getaway vehicle vanished in the dark waters.

The SEAL commander stood there for a moment, as alarms continued blaring across the vessel. The second team, upon reaching the yacht’s top level, reported a flurry of activity by the shoreline, presumably coastal law enforcement.

Pacheco leaned over and said, “Don’t know about you, boss, but I’m getting that sitting-fucking-duck loving feeling again.”

President Cord Macklin sat in the Treaty Room with DNI Hartwell Prost and Secretary of Defense Pete Adair. Like most of his predecessors, the president used the historical room as a private study, a place to work alone or in the company of his closest advisers.

While Adair briefed the president on Chinese movements in the South China Sea, an aide to Prost stepped into the room, passed him a folded note, and conferred with him in a hushed voice.

The aide left and all eyes turned to the DNI, who read it, then sat staring at it in obvious disbelief.

“Hart?” Macklin asked. “Anything you wish to share with the class?”

He looked up and caught the president’s eye. “One of our space-based assets picked up an unusual satellite phone message originating from the Virginia Beach area. They located the receiver about six hundred nautical miles west of Lisbon, Portugal.”

“Did they get a fix on the receiver?” the president queried.

“Yes, for a short period of time,” Prost replied in a tempered voice. “They’re certain it was a ship headed toward our Eastern Seaboard. The message was brief, but the course and speed were confirmed. After the transmission ended, they lost track of the ship.”

“What did it say?” Macklin asked.

Prost looked down and read, “Entering bay from sea trials in four days.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it. And the message is two days old.”

“But it’s plenty,” SecDef Adair said. “The only vessel of significance currently undergoing sea trials out of NS Norfolk is the Ford, and it’s indeed planning to return to port at midnight tomorrow, so the intel looks good. Plus, the carrier is most vulnerable during transitions in and out of the base because it lacks the concentric protection of its escorts.”

“Dammit,” Macklin cursed then glanced at Prost. “Hart, I don’t care what you need to do, we’d better locate the person who made that satellite call.”

Adair nodded. “We’ve kept the Ford’s whereabouts hush-hush, sir. Always going out to sea at night and returning to port at night with just their navigation lights on to avoid attention. From shore, it looks like any other ship. And we’re keeping her in one of our remote piers, out of sight from the general public and even our own people. If someone’s talking, my guess is that it’s a crew member, and since the carrier is just going through sea trials, the crew is minimal.”

“Then we need to take a close look at everyone on the vessel,” the president said. “Who knew what, why and when, and more to the point, who did they tell?”

“I’m on it,” Prost answered. “I’ll contact NCIS and have their people put a priority on this. I’m also going to work with the Coast Guard, see if we can locate the ship that received the message.”

“We have to get on top of this intelligence breach,” Macklin said with a frustrated expression. “Bastards have already come after us with suicide planes, with some ghost submarine, and with Iranian missiles. God knows what they’ll try next.”

An aide walked in and whispered something to Secretary Adair, who turned to the president and said, “Ardent has cleared the canal. The convoy’s under way again.”

President Macklin smiled for the first time that day. “Well, good news for a—”

Prost’s phone dinged twice. He looked at it and frowned.

“What now?” Macklin said.

The DNI sighed, then said, “It’s about Night Out. HVT got away.”

To minimize any leaks, knowledge of Prince Omar Al Saud’s likely involvement had been kept within Prost’s secret dealings on Thirty-Eighth Street, the people in this room, plus Secretary of State Brad Austin. And that included the decision to move forward with Operation Night Out, the kidnapping of a member of the Saudi royal family by SEAL Team Six.

“Fuck!” Macklin growled. “How? I thought we had that yacht covered from every angle.”

“Minisub, sir. Not in the blueprints.”

“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.

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.”

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.”