Ashes of Victory

— 29 —

The hastily called evening meeting of the Chinese Communist Party leadership caught some of the members off guard. The message behind the destruction of the Guangdong missile site had not been lost on President Xi Jiechi and the senior leadership of the party.

And the day before, the navy’s new Type 096 ballistic missile submarine, operating in the Luzon Strait, had failed to report. A search had been launched and enough floating debris spotted that it has almost certainly sunk. An accident, perhaps, or an intentional act by the United States?

Now the nuclear attack on Newport News had raised the stakes dramatically. One simple miscalculation on either side could prove disastrous.

It had been decades since the Chinese leadership had been so divided and debate so acrimonious. The majority of senior military officers, led by General Deng Xiangsui, argued that now was the perfect time to take advantage of the US Navy’s loss of multiple aircraft carriers. The officers wanted to exploit the American navy’s weakened forward-deployed forces in the Pacific Fleet, including the reports that Vinson had been damaged — as well as USS Bush at Naval Station Norfolk — and finally reunite Taiwan with the mainland.

President Jiechi insisted on looking at history, primarily the aftermath of Japan’s sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. In an all-out war with China, he argued, the Americans might suffer tremendous losses. However, the Chinese survivors would be left a country in smoking ruin.

The harsh arguments continued, with both sides refusing to alter course. The military argued that now was the time to strike, while the US forces were weak and the American people in shock.

“Besides, Mr. President,” Admiral Deng Xiangsui vehemently pointed out, “the American people aren’t like the Americans from the World War Two generation. They aren’t going to band together to join the ranks of the military, buy war bonds, or suffer any kind of rationing.”

Frowning, Deng looked directly at his mild-mannered protégé and paused for a moment. “The risk-averse politicians in Washington, and the vast majority of the self-indulgent American citizens, don’t have the backbone to even consider a military confrontation of such proportions. Now is the time for us to strike a crippling blow to their forces and fully reunify China! Let us finally end our pretense regarding Hong Kong and Taiwan and use our strength to pull them back fully under our control.”

Deng stared at the president and the most powerful civilian leaders in the group. “Now is the time to test the American leadership. This unexpected gift, this incredible window of opportunity, will not stay open indefinitely.”

Glancing at President Jiechi, Deng raised his voice. “One thing is certain, absolutely certain,” he thundered. “Those who are indecisive and vacillate will be looked upon as squanderers of China’s future as the world’s most powerful country!”

After a few moments of silence, President Jiechi slowly rose to speak.

“General, your passion is appreciated and your bravery without dispute. I have no doubt you would gladly lead our forces into battle with the Americans and emerge victorious. But at what cost? You say the American people are weak and cowardly. And this may be true. But they are also wealthy, and China has benefited greatly from that wealth.

“However, the average American has no love of China. In fact, there is much hatred of China. Crowds chant and riot about jobs that have left America and reappeared in factories here. I have no doubt that many Americans would be pleased at the thought of missiles destroying large swaths of China’s industrial capacity, as well as welcome the inevitable buildup of US manufacturing capacity in response.

“So, no, General, they will not lie down. They will rise up, as will the Japanese and the South Koreans and the Australians and the British, and even India, Germany, and Canada — and, of course, Taiwan, with its three hundred thousand trained soldiers and over four hundred advanced fighter jets, including the F-16A Falcon outfitted with the latest weaponry.

“This is not a war we can risk. Nor is it a war the Americans can risk, but I suspect they feel the losses they would incur would not be as significant. We do not have a fleet poised off the west coast of the United States. And to use our nuclear missiles would be to ensure not just our own destruction, but that of the world.

“In addition,” Jiechi added, signaling to an aide, who brought up a series of satellite images onto a large projection screen. “I have received evidence that the two Sukhois that were shot down had not been flying inside our airspace, as previously reported. They were on a direct attack vector over international waters toward the American fleet, a fleet that had already suffered losses from a ghost submarine. Only a fool would think the Americans would tolerate our planes flying over them. Only a fool would think the Americans would risk another attack from any direction.

“The Americans simply defended themselves. Moreover, the American jet we shot down wasn’t invading our airspace. It was flying over international waters. So, it was we who erred here. We were the ones to act foolishly.”

Jiechi could see the blood rising in Deng’s face.

Jiechi continued. “Now is not the time to escalate, to continue this foolishness. Now is the time to be smart. It is the time to defuse this situation before it gets out of hand. We must offer the United States our full assistance following this abhorrent attack on their soil. We must reassure them that we are not their enemy.”

“How did you obtain this?” General Xiangsui demanded, rage in his voice.

“My… own intelligence sources. There are too many satellites today to be able to hide something like this, General,” Jiechi replied calmly as the six PSC members present pointed at the images. His accusation against the general did not go unnoticed.

Deng ignored everyone but Jiechi, staring at the president, holding his eyes and struggling to maintain his composure. In truth, Jiechi’s speech had impressed him, showing more backbone than he’d ever seen before in his protégé. And this intelligence surprised him, but Deng would not telegraph his surprise, nor be cowed by the new president’s sudden courage, or his attempt to go gather his own intelligence. Deng planned to demonstrate how fainthearted the American politicians — and the American people — really were.

“I will have my people review these images,” Deng said. “And make sure they are not… fabricated. Then we can continue this discussion.”

The general stood and looked around the room at the civilian leaders, none of whom made eye contact with him except Jiechi. Then he turned on his heel and left the room, followed quickly by the rest of the military officers in the room.

Col. Lian Guõ could feel the tension between her shoulders and neck as she taxied the Xian H-6 strategic bomber — the Chinese version of the Russian Tupolev Tu-16 “Badger” long-range bomber — toward the end of the runway.

The top-secret mission seemed too risky even to the maverick pilot, but she would never disagree with General Xiangsui’s direct order. Her jiujiu had personally requested that she lead the sortie. A copilot and an electronics officer accompanied her on this covert flight. The latter would manage weapons and defense systems. Normally, a communications officer would also be on board, but given the secrecy, Lian had decided to handle that task and lean more on her copilot for flight management.

It had been at least two months since she had last flown the twin-engine bomber, during “refresher” training intended to keep Chinese pilots qualified in multiple types of aircraft.

With permission from the control tower, Lian crossed the runway threshold and aligned the nose with the centerline. Advancing the twin throttles, she took off at precisely four o’clock in the morning.

Once airborne, she contacted departure control with her call sign: China Southern Airlines Flight 463.

A Leung-2 reconnaissance satellite provided timely updates on the position of their target as Lian leveled the bomber at a cruising altitude of thirty-one thousand feet and speed of 450 miles per hour, appropriate to the Boeing 737–700 passenger plane that normally used that call sign.

As soon as they left Fuzhou airspace, Lian shut off all external lights.

“I guess boring is good,” Lt. Cmdr. Juan Ricardo mumbled under his oxygen mask as they started the final racetrack of their BARCAP this turbulent predawn morning.

“Boring is always good,” replied Lt. Amanda Diamante from Dragon Two-Zero-Four, which had been speedily repaired by Master Chief Gino Cardona’s team, though not without receiving her fair share of “bend-over time” from Commander Benjamin Kowalski. Besides the damaged fuel line that had caused the engine to flame out, the rest of the damage to her Super Hornet had been cosmetic, just more character-building scars, easily patched.

In fifteen minutes, two relief F/A-18Es from the “Bounty Hunters” (VFA-2) would be launched to relieve the Dragons, and then Ricardo could look forward to a steaming cappuccino.

The darkness concealed a thick layer of clouds obscuring the stars and the moon. But even in spite of the poor weather conditions and the added difficulty of flying a tight formation in it, Ricardo felt at ease.

He keyed his radio. “Dragon Two, how’s the fuel?”

“Lookin’ good. No problems,” Amanda answered in a tired voice. “How about you?”

“I’m fat,” Ricardo replied as he moved his head back and forth to relieve the muscles in his neck and shoulders. “Looking forward to sleeping in for a change.”

“Yeah,” Amanda said. “This nightshift business sucks.”

“Dragon One, Liberty Bell.”

Ricardo recognized the voice of Lt. Cmdr. Steve Barlow, the CICO aboard an E-2D Advanced Hawkeye.

Ricardo sensed trouble. “Dragon One, go.”

“We have a situation,” Barlow said in a tight voice. “I have a single bogie thirty miles out at your seven for three-one-zero. The aircraft is using the call sign China Southern Air Four-Six-Three. I just checked, and that’s a flight number that normally is a Shanghai-to-Hong Kong shuttle. But the departure time doesn’t line up, and they’re several miles off course. When I inquired, the pilot said she was a check airman and they’re breaking in a new crew on the route.”

“And I sense you don’t buy it?” Ricardo asked, glancing back at Amanda’s jet remaining just behind his starboard wingtip.

“Nope,” Barlow replied. “I mean, who the hell lets a trainee get seven miles off course, especially when every airline in this hemisphere knows we’re out here?”

“Good point, my friend,” Ricardo replied. “We’ll check it out.”

“Roger that,” Barlow said. “Dragon, your unknown is heading three-four-zero at three-one-zero. Now twenty-eight miles away.”

“Three-forty and up to thirty-one thousand,” Ricardo replied as he began a shallow turn to a heading of 340 degrees and a climb to Flight Level 310, or thirty-one thousand feet. “You catch that, Deedle?”

“Roger, moving in a little tighter.”

“Comin’ up on the power,” Ricardo signaled, easing the nose up a tad.”

“I’m with you,” Amanda replied.

Col. Lian Guõ was concerned. The person who had inquired about the call sign had spoken English on the radio frequency for the Chinese air traffic control sector.

Fortunately, she spoke it well enough, certainly as well as any CSA pilot. Unfortunately, she could tell the voice did not believe her, and a moment later, she noticed on her radar screen that the two American jets flying BARCAP twenty-eight miles away were turning toward her.

Showtime, she thought before telling her crew, “Prepare for battle.” The H-6 carried four C-301 supersonic anti-ship missiles in its large payload compartment.

Breathing deeply, she pushed the throttles to the forward stops and dropped the nose as she turned straight for Vinson, seventy miles away.

Vectored by the Advanced Hawkeye, Ricardo and Amanda were twenty-five miles from the mystery jet when it suddenly accelerated to almost the speed of sound and entered a diving turn toward Vinson.

“Whoa, Liberty! Seeing this shit?” Ricardo said. “It can’t be a jetliner.”

“Copy that, Dragon One,” Barlow said. “It’ll reach mother in six minutes. We just tried contacting it again, and there is no reply, so I’m calling it a bandit. Do you have a visual?”

“Negative. We’re in the clouds, and it’s darker up here than nine feet up a bull’s ass. Arming weapons,” he said, going into burner, followed by Amanda.

“Copy that, Dragon One.”

“Deedle, master arm,” Ricardo said, throwing the switch to arm his weapons systems.

“Roger,” Amanda replied.

“Liberty Bell, Dragon One has a lock on the bandit,” Ricardo said when achieving infrared lock with a Sidewinder. “Permission to fire.”

“Permission granted, Dragon One,” Barlow replied. “Splash the bandit.”

Ricardo released the missile from a distance of seventeen miles, watching it flash under his starboard wing before disappearing in the dark clouds.

Lian’s crew had just opened the H-6’s bomb bay doors in preparation to release the C-301s when alarms blared and her electronics officer screamed.

“Missile! Incoming missile! Impact in thirty seconds!” he warned over the intercom.

“Countermeasures,” Lian replied. Dammit.

Her electronics officer released a load of flares from the pods on the tail as Lian cut hard right toward the coast to try to place themselves at a ninety-degree angle from the incoming threat.

The missile closed in on them before abruptly turning toward the red-hot cloud of flares. Unfortunately, this being a subsonic jet, it had not provided her with the speed required to achieve enough separation, and it detonated somewhere off to the bomber’s starboard.

The blast blinded her as shrapnel tore into the right side of the H-6 bomber. Alarms blared inside the cockpit.

“Damage report!” she demanded, wrestling for control of the Xian. Her ears hurt from the rapid loss of cabin pressure, and the control column vibrated in her hands.

“We’ve lost pressurization!” her copilot announced. “The fuselage is breached!”

A scan of her instruments conveyed her predicament. The sturdy Badger was designed to take quite a bit of abuse, but the blast had pierced the fuselage somewhere aft of the right wing.

“Release the missiles!” she ordered. Even though they were not pointing toward the carrier, the C-301s would turn toward their preordained target.

“Weapons system nonresponsive,” the electronics officer replied.

Lian glanced at the array of warning lights between them and saw the red and yellow ones belonging to the system governing their payload.

Cursing under her breath, she pushed the center stick forward and dove below the clouds, back toward the Chinese mainland at just under the speed of sound. She tried to close the payload bay doors to minimize the vibration on the flight controls, but the hydraulics were not responding.

Sorry, Jiujiu, she thought. We tried.

And that’s when she spotted the Super Hornets approaching from her starboard side.

“Definitely not an airliner,” Ricardo said as he came up behind and under what he now recognized as a Xian H-6 bomber, and it had its payload bay doors open. Beyond them, he spotted the long shapes of at least four long missiles.

No, you don’t, he thought, easing his throttles back to give himself some room to use his M61A2 Vulcan 20 mm cannon. Squeezing the trigger for just three seconds, he unloaded almost two hundred armor-piercing incendiary rounds, tearing through the starboard fuselage and the starboard wing.

The dark night blazed with light when the Badger’s right wing exploded in a blinding flash before breaking off the large bomber.

Ricardo flew through the expanding cloud of flaming debris, breaking away as caution lights came alive in his cockpit.

The h-6 spun toward the strait in flames.

Lian watched the ocean rushing toward her but could not move. The rounds that had pierced the cockpit, killing her copilot and electronics officer, had also penetrated her seat from behind, severing her spinal cord.

As the altimeter shot below ten thousand feet, she tried to move her arms to reach between her legs for the dual red handles of her K-36LM ejection seat, but they would not obey her.

Damn you, she thought as the image of General Xiangsui flashed in her mind, along with Hai’s corkboard memorial, before the fire engulfed her.

Amanda watched the bomber explode in midair, a massive cloud of flaming shrapnel raining over the strait like a Fourth of July fireworks display.

“Deedle, when you’re through watching the show, I need you to rendezvous with me and check the jet, see if I have any missing parts. Controls are getting a little nonresponsive.”

“Copy,” she replied, easing under Ricardo’s jet and carefully checking the aircraft fuselage and wings.

“Don’t see anything major, Ricky. You do have some hydraulic fluid leaking, but all the important parts are still attached.

“Okay,” Ricardo responded as they closed in on the carrier. “I’m going to dirty up and see if everything works.”

“Roger that,” Amanda acknowledged, watching for anything unusual as the wing flaps, landing gear, and tail hook dropped into place. “Looks good to me; nothing fell off.”

“Deedle, you take the lead and land first. I’ll extend downwind.”

“That’s a negative,” Amanda replied as she settled her Super Hornet wingtip-to-wingtip with Ricardo. “My turn to hold your hand.”

“Don’t be a hero, Deedle. Get your Rhino on that flight deck.”

“I’m not leaving my wingman. Switching to the LSO,” Amanda replied as the carrier’s wake appeared fifteen hundred feet below them.

“We’ll talk about this later,” Ricardo replied while Amanda drifted five hundred feet off his port wing. Switching to the LSO frequency, he said, “Hornet, ball, losing hydraulics, controls a little sticky.”

“Roger ball,” the LSO replied. “Easy does it, Dragon. Fly a long downwind leg while we rig the barricade.”

Ricardo clicked his mic twice, slowing down the Super Hornet while flying over the carrier before making a 180 turn and coming back on the requested downwind leg. By the time he flew abeam the carrier stern, he could see the barricade already raised.

The moment he aligned the nose with the carrier’s stern, the LSO said, “Level your wings.”

Slowly Ricardo inched the power setting and centered the stick.

“Nice,” the LSO said. “Just give me a little more power.”

Working the stick and throttles, Ricardo shifted the nose to place it along the centerline of the angled deck.

“More power, Dragon. Get that nose up.”

Inching the throttles again, Ricardo kept his eyes on the deck, but the meatball kept climbing on the Fresnel lens, indicating that he was dropping below the required flightpath.

“Power!” the LSO radioed as the jet flew over the stern.

Ricardo shoved the throttles to the forward stops just as the jet slammed onto the deck.

The hook caught the number two wire, which brought the aircraft to a sudden stop well before the barricade, and a couple of seconds later Ricardo idled the engines.

He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, trying to get his breathing — and his heartbeat — to settle down. When he finally opened them, he saw Cmdr. Benjamin Kowalski and Lt. Cmdr. Ed Stone, clipboard in hand, standing stoically at the edge of the flight deck.

Then, slowly, Kowalski stretched the index finger of his right hand at Ricardo, and pointed his thumb at the open bulkhead behind him, before disappearing through it with the safety officer in tow.

Fifteen minutes later, Ricardo stood at attention next to Amanda in the ready room as Kowalski slowly sipped an espresso and regarded the two sweat-soaked aviators who stood before him, still in their flight gear. Lt. Cmdr. Vince Nova stood behind him, already deep into making notes on his damn clipboard. And on top of that, the air boss, Capt. James Buchelle, sat at a corner table watching the show while also enjoying a cappuccino, his equally intimidating gaze focused on the two pilots. Next to him sat Vinson’s skipper, Capt. Peter Keegan, who kept his arms crossed and looked like he’d swallowed something that tasted very bitter.

“Did you fire your guns on that bomber after it was headed back to China, Commander?” Kowalski asked.

“Sir,” Ricardo began, “that bomber—”

“See, Vince?” Kowalski interrupted, glancing over at Nova. “I just can’t get a straight answer anymore.”

“What’s the world coming to?” Nova said, making another note.

“It’s a yes-or-no answer, Mr. Ricardo,” Kowalski said.

“Yes, sir.”

“And were you fired upon?”

“Negative, sir.”

“Then why did you choose to break our rules of engagement?”

“The bomber, sir, it had opened its payload doors and—”

“And you fired in such proximity as to damage an airplane that’s the property of the United States Navy!”

“Sir, I—”

“And you,” Kowalski said, turning to Amanda. “Exactly which part of ‘take the lead and land first’ did you not understand?”

“Sir, I… I wanted to—”

“Were you not satisfied with crashing one Rhino and getting another one all shot up, Lieutenant?”

“Sir, I—”

“Did you learn nothing from Mullet’s death — from his failing to obey a direct order?”

“I—“

Getting right in her face, Kowalski asked in a loud voice, “Have you no respect for the tens of millions of taxpayer dollars provided by the hardworking citizens of our country and entrusted to you by the US Navy?”

Amanda stammered, “I–I just—”

“Do you think you own that Rhino, Miss Diamante?”

“No, sir!”

“That’s the first smart thing I’ve heard you say since you came under my command! That’s right, Lieutenant, the taxpayers do! So, when the taxpayers — as represented by your flight leader — tell you to land it, you damn well better LAND IT!”

“Yes, sir!”

Kowalski stepped back and calmly sipped more coffee, his eyes shifting between the two aviators. “What do you think, Vince?”

Nova slowly nodded. “Definitely rebellious.”

“Yep. Most definitely,” Kowalski agreed before turning to Buchelle and Keegan, who had remained quiet the entire time.

The skipper of Vinson looked over at the air boss, who gave him a slight nod. Standing, Keegan finally said, “Brief them,” and he turned to leave, followed by Buchelle.

Ricardo made a face. Brief us?

But just before disappearing through the bulkhead, Buchelle looked over his shoulder, his tight face softening a bit. “But Dover, we’re not animals. Let them have a cup of coffee first. God knows they’ve earned it.”