Fatal Terrain

CHAPTER SIX

“Here it comes,” the sonar operator aboard the Los Angeles-class nuclear-powered attack submarine USS Miami reported. He flipped open the intercom channel: “Bridge, sonar, target alpha is in the channel, bearing three-one-four, range six thousand yards, speed six knots.”

The first officer acknowledged the call, then rang the captain in his quarters. “Skipper, the Taregh’s moving.” The captain joined his first officer on the twelve-year-old, 7,000-ton submarine’s bridge a few moments later.

“Sonar, what d’ya have?” the captain ordered.

“Positive contact, sir,” the sensor operator said. The WLR-9/12 acoustic emission receiver/processor suite was an extensive computerized system that in effect “pointed” the sensor operator to a particular sound picked up from the myriad of noises from the sea, allowed the sensor operator to scan the suspect, fine-tuned the sound, and attempted to identify it. “Target alphas coming out of Bandar-Abbass, heading south. Shes making noise, probably getting ready to blow her tanks.”

The captain took a deep breath in anticipation. For the past several weeks, their only assigned target had been staying close to home — but now it was on the move, and that probably spelled trouble. “Target alpha” was the Taregh, which meant “Morning Star”—the Islamic Republic of Iran’s first attack submarine. Purchased from Russia in September 1992, the Taregh had sent the world into a tailspin by introducing yet another advanced weapon system into the hands of an aggressive, fundamentalist Islamic nation in the Persian Gulf.

Although the Iranians had purchased a second Kilo-class sub from Russia and were threatening to buy more, the threat of Iran filling the Persian Gulf with attack subs, and thereby threatening nearly half of the world’s oil supply, had never come to pass. The Taregh had never ventured far from Bandar-Abbass and had spent most of its time cruising the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman between Bandar-Abbass and its as-yet-uncompleted home port of Chah Bahar.

Since the recent conflict between the United States and Iran, the United States had assigned one nuclear-powered attack sub to monitor the Taregh's whereabouts. Fortunately, the Taregh had proven to be an easy shadowing assignment — while Iran’s aircraft carrier Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had been busy attacking other Gulf states during the brief naval and air skirmishes in the area, Iran’s attack subs had played no part. The Miami had simply stationed itself in the Strait of Hormuz just outside Bandar-Abbass, concealed by the noise of the hundreds of ships crowding the channel, and waited. While stationed in the Strait, the crew of the Miami had been able to extend its antennas and collect vast amounts of information on the Iranian fleet’s deployment, and occasionally intercept important communications from fleet headquarters. But their primary assignment, the Taregh, had always been a nonplayer, stuck in port except for brief cruises and exercises. During the U.S.-Iran crisis, the United States and its Persian Gulf allies had not been flying anti-submarine patrols over the Strait of Hormuz, Persian Gulf, or Gulf of Oman, which meant that, if it was not shadowed as soon as it left port, the Taregh could sneak out of the Strait and make its way into the Persian Gulf itself, where it would be much harder to detect and track, and it could lay waste to all commercial shipping traffic heading in or out of the Persian Gulf.

“Looks like we’re going sailing,” the captain announced. He ordered that the ship be made ready to answer bells immediately. Thirty minutes later, the Miami pulled out into the Strait for the first time in almost four weeks.

Tailing the Taregh was easy as long as it was on the surface. Other vessels got out of its way, so it traveled a straight course, and its large, blunt nose and wide hull meant that it had to churn out a lot of rpms from its big six-bladed propeller just to maintain steerageway. The Taregh was escorted by two tugboats as it left the crowded naval base and headed south toward the center of the Strait of Hormuz; one tugboat eventually dropped away as the channel traffic cleared. The tugboat would also help mask the Miami’s noise. The captain of the Miami ordered the distance increased to 12,000 yards, almost seven miles — the maximum useful range of his passive sonar system.

The Taregh finally made its dive at the absolute worst place its skipper could pick — at the narrowest and shallowest part of the Strait, between Bandar-Abbass and the eastern tip of Qeshm Island. The shallower water restricted the Miami to less than periscope depth. The Taregh was making minimum steerageway even while submerged, and now it was getting more difficult for the Miami to maintain course at the slower speed. Channel traffic was increasing as well. Qeshm Island was a busy petroleum drilling and refining area, and commercial-vessel traffic was heavy all day and all night in this area. The Miami maintained 12,000 yards’ distance from the Taregh, even when the Iranian attack sub seemed as if it was barely moving.

It suddenly seemed as if the Taregh was getting a lot of visitors — large, slow-moving vessels flitting nearby, centered generally over the sub. It was unlikely that the Iranian navy would allow onlookers to get within a mile of one of its subs. “What in hell are those things?” the captain muttered. “Service vessels? Supply vessels?”

“Shit, it’s going to turn around,” the first officer said, as they waited. “Something on the tub broke, they can’t fix it, and they’re going to turn around and head back to the barn.”

“We’re not that lucky,” the skipper said. “That’ll cut our patrol time down, that’s for sure. Who the hell knows? We’ll maintain our distance until he starts motoring.”

They did not have to wait long — soon, the Taregh started to pick up speed, now reaching twelve knots, and the skipper ordered the Miami back on the pursuit. With the steam turbines running at a more comfortable speed, the Miami felt steadier and more seaworthy in the shallow waters, and the skipper even began to relax a bit, although he wouldn’t relax completely until they were safely out of Iranian waters, out of the Strait of Hormuz, and out of this weird, unfriendly water. The warm, dirt-laden, polluted salt water of the Strait of Hormuz always played havoc with sensors, and it was harder to maintain depth and control roll and yaw. But the Taregh was starting to move faster, now above fifteen knots, and the faster they went, the steadier the ol’ Miami—

“Bridge, helm.”

The skipper clicked open the intercom: “Bridge, go.”

“We’ve got a problem. Recommend emergency stop.”

“All stop,” the skipper said immediately — when the quartermaster at the helm suggests an emergency maneuver, you make it and sort out the problem later. “I hope it’s your imagination. On my way.” He arrived at the sub’s helm station as fast as he could. Both diving plane helmsmen had their arms extended full out, and they appeared to be struggling with the airplane-like control wheels; the quartermaster standing between them was watching the navigation and performance instruments, while technicians were checking the hydraulic, pneumatic, and electrical panels. “What in hell’s going on?”

“I think we snagged something,” the quartermaster said, in a quiet, exasperated voice. “Lots of pressure on the controls, and we’re losing response.”

“Shit,” the skipper said. “Back two-thirds.” The skipper waited until their speed through the water had decreased to zero, then ordered, “All stop. Rudder amidships.”

“All stop. Rudder amidships, aye… sir, my rudder is amidships,” the helmsmen responded.

The Miami had a closed-circuit zoom TV camera in a pressure vessel on the top of the sail, and the captain and quartermaster studied the picture. Sure enough, a large black net had completely enveloped the nose of the submarine. The net was huge — it engulfed the entire front of the sub all the way from the nose up to the sail. Swiveling the camera athwartship, they saw the net covering the sailplanes; aiming the camera aft, the net was angled upward away from the rudder and propeller, but was even now starting to drift down toward the stern. The top of the net could not be seen, but it appeared to extend far beyond camera range, even possibly to the surface.

“I think we’re caught in a damned drift net,” the quartermaster muttered. “It’s got to be a thousand feet long and two hundred feet high, at least. Japanese drift nets are dozens of miles long sometimes.”

“That’s impossible — you can’t stop a seven-thousand-ton submarine with a nylon net,” the captain remarked. “Besides, what’s a damned drift net doing in a big ship channel? Who would…?” The skipper answered his own question: the Iranians were hunting for American submarines. “Let’s get a diving team suited up and ready to assist if needed. It looks like the stern’s still clear — let’s see if we can back out of this thing. Helm, all back slow.”

But it was too late. As they began to try to extract themselves from the drift net, the top of the net began to sink even faster, and minutes later, the rudder and propeller appeared to be covered by the net. “Damn, the net’s in the prop,” the captain muttered.

“That’ll be the end of the net, then, sir,” the quartermaster said. “Our prop would break even a steel cable net.” But he was wrong. Instead of slicing the net up into pieces, the net simply began winding itself around the propeller blades.

“What in hell… all stop, allstop\ ” the captain ordered. “Christ, what in hell is that net made of? Helm, all ahead slow, let’s see if we can kick that net clear.” But it was no use — the net was completely fouling the propeller. “Dammit, dammit… all right, looks like we’ve got to put the divers over the side,” the captain said. “Once we cut the prop free, we’ll go as close to the bottom as we can and try to turn north and sail out the side of the net.” He flipped on the ship-wide intercom: “Attention all hands, this is the captain. Looks like we’re caught in a big drift net. Chief of the boat, report to the helm, stand by to deploy diver salvage team.”

“Bridge, sonar, heavy high-speed screws bearing three-two-zero, range eight thousand yards and closing fast. Large patrol vessel or small corvette or frigate. I’m picking up a patrol helicopter flying low over the water, too.” Moments later, they heard the first active pings of a sonobuoy dropped just a few hundred yards away — the search for the trapped sub had begun. The next several sonobuoys were much closer — they had been pinpointed. The patrol vessel was soon joined by several more, all converging on their location.

The captain’s jaw dropped open in surprise. Not only was this not a random, unlucky accident — it now appeared to be an intentionally set trap. The Iranians had deployed some kind of unbreakable net in the ship channel right behind their attack submarine Taregh, and they had snagged themselves an American attack submarine.

“I think the fuckers found us,” the captain said. He hit an intercom button: “Comm, this is the captain. Deploy the satellite antenna buoy, send a distress signal immediately.”

The antenna buoy had reached the surface and was transmitting for about three minutes when the first depth charge was launched from the Iranian frigate and splashed into the water over the trapped American sub.

The Central Military Commission meeting broke into loud cheers and uncharacteristically hearty applause as the members watched their TV monitors. The CNN “Early Prime” news broadcast from the United States — practically all TV sets in Government House had been tuned to CNN twenty-four hours a day since the conflict with Taiwan had begun— opened with video taken from Iranian navy sailors in the Strait of Hormuz south of Bandar-Abbass. They showed an American nuclear- powered attack submarine on the surface, covered with an immense net in which they had become entangled while spying on the naval facilities near Bandar-Abbass. Iranian warships surrounded the sub, with dozens of guns of all sizes trained on the helpless American warship and its crew, who had been forced to surrender after a massive depth-charge barrage, and who were now kneeling up on the sub’s deck, hands on top of their heads. The video was being transmitted directly from Iranian vessels to the Islamic Republic News Agency offices in Tehran, where CNN had a news bureau, and from there the Iranians allowed the live video uplinked directly to the United States for rebroadcast in the middle of the afternoon in the United States and in “prime time” in Europe.

Proudest of all in the room was Admiral Sun Ji Guoming himself. After leading the successful bombing raids against Chinese Taipei — and performing the secret missile attack against North and South Korea, which only a few members of President Jiang’s command post staff knew about — he had returned like a conquering hero to Beijing to receive the praise and gratitude of Paramount Leader Jiang Zemin and the entire Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party. But this latest action was icing on the cake — the ignoble capture of an American attack sub well within Iranian territorial waters.

Sun was proud because he had suggested the trap. He had devised a plan years ago to use huge drift nets made of Kevlar, as light as nylon but stronger than steel, to try to trap enemy submarines. Each net cost millions of yuan to make, but Iran, North Korea, and several other nations were happy to make the investment. It was simply a matter of patience: creating an inviting target for enemy spy subs, then laying out the net and hoping that an unwary, complacent sub captain sailed into it.

A louder volley of laughter erupted when the American news showed three old fishermen in their dilapidated old boat, which the Iranian Navy had allowed into the patrol area, their dirty canvas trousers pulled down around their ankles and their bare asses hanging over the side of the junk, defecating into the Strait of Hormuz next to the American submarine. CNN also showed people of all ages throwing buckets of trash and sewage onto the captured sub, burning American flags and then tossing them into the Strait. A piece of video even captured a brief glimpse of an antenna buoy that had broken loose from the American sub when the depth-charge attack had begun, and retrieved by a small motorboat with young children at the helm. The children circled the area, scanning the water with flashlights and torches to try to find more souvenirs.

“Excellent, excellent!” President Jiang shouted, clapping and smiling like a schoolboy at a football match. “I am almost embarrassed for the American president and his submarine sailors! He must be the laughingstock of the entire world!” He received congratulations and acknowledgments from several Politburo and CMC members, then stepped over to Admiral Sun. “What do you think the Iranians will do with their American captives, Admiral?”

“I have already been in contact with the Iranian military’s chief of staff,” Sun replied, rather wistfully. “The crew will be tried as spies, and their vessel held. It is quite a catch for them, and it is perfect payback for what the United States did to the aircraft carrier Khomeini when it was in their hands. In time, the crew and the vessel will probably be released, but not until the Iranians have examined and photographed every square centimeter of that submarine.”

“You seem disappointed, comrade,” Jiang said. “Their violation of international law is obvious to all. Should they not be made to pay for their crime? ”

“I believe they are paying more severely now than anything the Iranians could possibly do to them,” Sun said. “Destroying a helpless, hapless submarine and its crew would be cruel, and the Iranians would lose face in the eyes of the world. Sun-tzu tells us that to attack the enemy’s tao is more hurtful than attacking his armies. I respectfully suggested that the Americans be released, but I do not think the Iranians will listen to my suggestion. Perhaps if you could call the Ayatollah Khamenei directly, he might listen to you.” China and Iran had forged a strong new military alliance in the past few months, and the level of cooperation between the two nations had grown rapidly despite the severe damage the aircraft carrier Khomeini, now the Mao Zedong, had sustained while in Iranian hands.

“Very well — I shall do as you suggest, Comrade Admiral,” Jiang said, with a smile. “I will of course issue a communique demanding an explanation from President Martindale as to why his submarine was so far into Iranian waters.”

“May I suggest you follow up the communique with a live televised address on CNN or the British international news network, demanding an apology?” Sun added. “Nothing galls the American people more than to be forced to offer an apology, especially to an Asian or to one from the Middle East — both are seen as far inferior races. It will help to solidify the opposition to President Martindale’s military and foreign affairs policies.”

“Very good — I shall instruct my staff to do as you suggested,” Jiang said happily. He turned to accept the congratulations of more high-level Party members, then turned back to Sun and asked, “So. What is the next step, Admiral?”

“My task is nearly complete, Comrade President,” Sun said. “My objective was to eliminate the United States as a threat to Zhonggua and to pave the way for us to retake Formosa. My task is done.”

President Jiang looked startled. “Your task… is finished?” he asked incredulously. “But we have not retaken any territory, and the armies of the world are on heightened alert against us.”

“General Chin and the Peoples Liberation Army may retake any of the rebel-held islands at his leisure,” Admiral Sun said casually. “There is none to oppose him now. But I suggest we do nothing but offer overtures of peace, friendship, and reunification to everyone — I predict our loyal brothers on Formosa will choose to be reunited with us very soon. The elimination of the rebel Nationalists’ major weapons of war, and the erosion of the Western alliance structure in Asia, means that the Nationalists are defenseless. They can choose reunification… or death.” “But what about the Americans, Comrade Admiral?” Jiang asked. “Will we not soon face the wrath of the American military? Certainly the threat from them has not yet diminished?”

“The United States dares not attack us now — they are in the wrong, and will be forever chastised throughtout the world if they attack,” Sun said confidently. “The North Korean Peoples Army is massing on the demilitarized zone and will probably attack, and now the Iranians have captured proof of additional American aggression against them, so the conflict in the Persian Gulf may threaten to reignite. These conflicts will occupy all of Americas attention — Taiwan is not as serious a concern to the United States compared to Korea or the Persian Gulf.”

“You are obviously correct,” a Politburo member commented, “because the United States does not directly threaten China as yet. They have their nuclear missiles and bombers on alert, but even their lawmakers are opposed to their deployment and urge negotiations. They may even sponsor legislation to kill President Martindale’s attempt to recognize the rebel Nationalist governments independence, and support reunification.”

“We do not know what will happen in Washington, comrade,” Sun Ji Guoming said. “But all in all, it does not matter. America is confused and splintered, and it has confused and fractured its Asian alliances as well. It can no longer oppose us.”

“But what about the invasion of Quemoy?” Jiang asked. “Our troops are restless as medieval warhorses, biting at the bit and ready to honor themselves in battle. Why not begin the attack now?”

“Is there still a danger of radiation or fallout from the surface-to-air missile attack?” one of the Politburo members asked. “Is this why you do not begin the invasion?”

“It is not because of radiation, comrade,” Sun replied. “We do not invade because we do not need to invade.”

“What…?”

“Sun-tzu teaches us that victory is best achieved by attacking an enemy’s tao instead of its armies or cities,” Sun explained. “We have three hundred thousand troops stationed around Quemoy Bay, ready to begin the assault. We may take the island and capture nearly fifty thousand rebel troops anytime we wish. So we have already won the battle, comrades. With the tip of our sword touching the rebels’ chest, we do not need to thrust it into their heart to prove our domination or power. The rebels have been defeated, but it would be better for them to surrender to us. I expect to receive terms of surrender at any moment.”

The attack began with a single AIM-120 Scorpion missile launch, but it was the deadliest — because it downed the Chinese Ilyushin-76 airborne radar plane stationed over the Formosa Strait near Quanzhou, which was monitoring all air traffic between Fuzhou and Shantou, the vital Chinese military bases opposite Formosa. The EB-52 Megafortress was thirty miles away, flying just a hundred feet above the sea, tracking the 11–76 with its 360-degree radar array on the dorsal fuselage fairing; the Scorpion air-to-air missile hit the fuselage of the 11–76 squarely at the right wing root, shearing off the wing and sending the Russian-built plane and its twenty-two crew members spiraling into the Formosa Strait. Within seconds, almost all of the Chinese military’s long-range surveillance capability had been eliminated.

It was David Luger’s first kill after returning to the Megafortress’s crew; and if he hadn’t been so busy finding and lining up more targets, he would have stood up and whooped for joy. But the mission, and the killing, had just begun.

Because of the completely unknown performance capabilities taking off from the Republic of China’s Kai-Shan underground airfield complex, the Megafortress was lightly loaded for this mission. Each of the two rotary launchers in the bomb bay contained four Wolverine cruise missiles and two Striker attack missiles, the configuration mixed so the attacks could continue even if one launcher was damaged or had malfunctioned. The Megafortress also carried one Striker attack missile on each wing weapon pod, along with four AIM-120 Scorpion air-to-air missiles in each pod — there were no Stinger airmine rockets in the tail cannon. The weapon load was a full 12,000 pounds under normal mission capacity. To save even more weight, no fuel was carried in the fuselage tanks, except the lowest amount necessary to stay within the weight and balance center-of-gravity envelope, which saved an additional 50,000 pounds.

“Crew, stand by for bomb-bay missile launch,” Patrick McLanahan announced. “Quadruple Wolverine missile launch. Radar coming on… radar stand by.” McLanahan took a thirty-second satellite update for the navigation computers, in order to tighten down the accuracy of the system as much as possible prior to launch. Then he checked the accuracy of the nav computers by taking a three-second attack radar fix and then comparing where the aiming crosshairs lay on the stored radar image. When McLanahan moved the crosshairs onto the exact preprogrammed spot, the difference between the radar fix and the nav computers was only fifty-seven feet. He decided to accept the satellite fix.

“Launch point fix in, bomb doors coming open.” He clicked on the voice command switch: “Commit Wolverine attack.”

WARNING, MISSILE attack initiated, the computer replied, and automatically entered a launch hold until the order could be verified.

“Commit Wolverine attack,” McLanahan repeated to verify the order.

LAUNCH COMMIT, warning, bomb doors open, the computer’s female voice responded. The Megafortress’s bomb doors slid inside the fuselage, and the forward rotary launcher in the bomb bay released the first AGM-177 Wolverine cruise missile. In eight-second volleys, three more Wolverine missiles dropped clear of the bomb bay, two total from each of the forward and aft rotary launchers. The missiles glided in a shallow descent as their flight computers sampled the air mass and did a microsecond flight-control check, exercising hundreds of tiny microhydraulic actuators built into the skin, then ignited their turbojet engines, throttled up to full power, and sped off toward their targets. As they began their 500-mile-per-hour flight, they downloaded navigation data from the GPS navigation satellite constellation and adjusted course, following the flight plan transferred to their computers from the Megafortress.

All four Wolverine missiles carried SEAD, or Suppression of Enemy Air Defense, packages in its sensor bay and three internal munitions bays. The missiles’ sensor section contained combination infrared and radar-homing sensors, which would lock onto an enemy radar, then slave an infrared sensor onto the vehicle or building carrying the radar, and send targeting data to the missile’s navigation computer. Two munitions compartments contained a total of eighteen anti-vehicle “skeets,” and one weapon bay contained twelve Sky Masters ADM-151 decoy devices. The Wolverines had a preprogrammed flight plan based on Jon Masters’s NIRTSat satellite data showing where some known garrisoned road- mobile SA-5 surface-to-air missile (SAM) sites, Honggi-2 SAM sites, and heavy antiaircraft artillery sites were located.

When the missiles flew within the estimated lethal range of the mobile SAM sites, the Wolverine missiles ejected a decoy glider. The decoys were tiny gliders with a specially designed shape, and contained tiny transmitters that made each glider appear as big as a full-size fighter— to a Chinese SAM radar operator scanning the skies for enemy aircraft, the decoys made it appear as if an enemy attacker had suddenly appeared out of nowhere right on top of them. When the SAM site operators activated their target-tracking radars to try to shoot down the “attacker,” the seeker head in the Wolverine missile detected the signal and locked onto the location of the emitter, then used that new position plus its satellite navigation system fix to update its flight plan.

The Wolverine cruised over the target location and seeded the area with anti-vehicle skeets. Each skeet had a canister that contained infrared sensors and several copper rods. The canister would spin as it was ejected from the Wolverine missile. When the infrared sensors detected a vehicle-size target below, it would detonate a small explosive charge that would instantly melt the copper rod and shoot it at the target. The highspeed slug of molten copper was powerful enough to penetrate the thin steel of heavy trucks or light tanks. Each skeet could fire several slugs at once in all directions, sometimes shooting several slugs into one vehicle.

The Wolverine missile would fly its preprogrammed flight plan, cruising over the area, dropping decoys, and then dropping skeets over any SAM sites detected. Each Wolverine missile had the capability of destroying dozens of targets on its flight, so with four Wolverine cruise missiles operating in a thirty-by-thirty-mile target box, almost a thousand targets were instantly at risk. The skeets worked their devastating magic with gruesome efficiency. Not only were surface-to-air missile sites at risk, but any hot vehicles within a hundred yards of the skeets were likely targets — troop carriers, transports, supply trucks, even small buildings, anything with a warm core. Once a copper slug burned through the outer layer of its target, it had cooled sufficiently so that the second hard surface it hit caused the slug to break apart instead of burning through. For most targets, this meant that the copper slug first penetrated inside a passenger or crew compartment of a vehicle, ricocheted off a second hard surface, then instantly turned into thousands of bits of bulletlike projectiles that bounced around inside, shredding anything in its path.

The results of the Wolverine missile’s deadly flight was evident to the crew of the Megafortress as they approached the Chinese coastline. Off in the darkened distance, they could see numerous patches of bright red flashes as the skeets went off, followed seconds later by bright yellow or white flashes as a truck, tank, or other vehicle was hit and destroyed. Many times they saw spectacular secondary explosions, as a skeet activated over a missile or antiaircraft artillery site, causing missiles to explode or entire ammunition magazines to cook off. After each Wolverine missile’s deadly cargo was expended, the missile would do a kamikaze crash into the next SAM site it detected.

The net result: by the time the Megafortress was “feet dry” over the Chinese coast, more than fifty mobile antiaircraft weapon sites had been destroyed or put out of commission in the area, another three hundred vehicles of all shapes and sizes had been hit — plus over a thousand soldiers and sailors had been killed or injured.

But the Megafortress wasn’t the heavy hitter in this attack. Following the EB-52 and coming in from several directions at once was a twelve- plane attack formation of Taiwanese F-16 Fighting Falcons. The Republic of China’s F-16s — all but four of their surviving fleet of sixteen — had lagged several minutes behind the EB-52, waiting until the long-range Ilyushin-76 radar plane and the ground-based air defenses had been destroyed before making their move. Spread out over forty miles in six flights of two, the F-16s dashed in at 300 feet above the Formosa Strait, the waves acting as their only terrain-masking feature. But although the air defense sites along the coast had detected the F-16s a full six minutes before they attacked, they could do nothing about it — because the Wolverine missiles were knocking out the missile-control and targettracking radars long before the Chinese defenders could launch a counterattack.

The EB-52’s Wolverine cruise missiles had destroyed the air defense units and many of the larger vehicles arrayed around Quemoy Bay preparing to invade Taiwan’s Quemoy Island — the F-16 Fighting Falcons’ mission was to destroy or disrupt the estimated three hundred thousand troops getting ready to cross the bay and retake Quemoy for mainland China. Each F-16 carried six 800-pound CBU-59 APAM (AntiPersonnel, Anti-Materiel) cluster bomb units, which scattered 670 one- pound bomblets over a football field-size area. When the CBU-59 releases were computer-sequenced, laying the dispersal footprints end- to-end, the swath of destruction for each F-16 equaled over 350,000 square feet, the size of a suburban shopping mall. Some of the bomblets were fuzed to detonate on impact; others used tiny trip wires that would cause the bomblet to explode if disturbed or if a vehicle passed nearby. All unexploded bomblets would self-detonate after a period of time, anywhere from five minutes to twenty-four hours after being sown. One baseball-size bomblet could destroy a small vehicle, damage a large wheeled vehicle — or kill anyone standing within thirty feet.

Since the majority of Chinese amphibious and infantry forces ready to invade Quemoy were either traveling in trucks or bivouacked in tents along Quemoy Bay, awaiting orders to begin the main assault, they were caught mostly in the open and fully exposed to the cluster bomb attack. Except for sporadic, unguided antiaircraft cannon and small-caliber fire, the F-16s began their egress from the target area completely unopposed. One Taiwanese F-16 Fighting Falcon was hit by cannon fire and was forced to eject, but not until he flew his stricken fighter east of Quemoy Island, practically into the arms of waiting Taiwanese patrols.

“Center up on the steering bug, heading two-eight-three, five minutes thirty seconds to the next turnpoint,” McLanahan reported to the Megafortress crew. They had crossed the Chinese coastline forty miles south of Xiamen, over Futou Bay; the new heading would take them south and west of the city of Zhangzhou and along the southern edges of the Boping and Wuyi Mountains. “Minimum safe clearance altitude, five thousand five hundred feet. High terrain twelve o’clock, twenty miles.” They were flying at treetop level using the EB-52’s COLA (COmputer-generated Lowest Altitude), in which the satellite-based navigation system compared its present and projected position, along with airspeed and heading, with a huge database of terrain elevations to compute the lowest possible altitude the Megafortress could fly without hitting any terrain or known man-made obstructions, and without using any radar emissions that might give their location away.

“Bandits, twelve o’clock, no range, no altitude yet,” Luger called out. “Just popped up… got a range estimate now, about forty-one miles and closing fast… speed five hundred knots. I think we got a couple Chinese Sukhoi-27s in the area, guys — and the son of a bitch might have gotten a look at us.”

A group of Chinese Communist Party Politburo members had joined Jiang in congratulating Sun Ji Guoming for his service. Jiang continued his praise for Sun, saying to all of his colleagues, “A stroke of genius, igniting a conflict on the Korean Peninsula at the same time as your attacks against the Nationalists. The Chinese Taipei issue certainly does pale in comparison to the prospect of a new Korean War. ”

“In your address to the world, Comrade President, may I also suggest that you offer to mediate a resolution of the conflict between North and South Korea, and perhaps go as far as to refuse to commit any of our troops to assist President Kim Jong-il if he refuses to participate in negotiations,” Sun suggested. “That might prevent the South from beginning its own offensive. Of course, if the South or the United States attacks the North first, we should threaten to use all of our resources to assist President Kim. The same for the Iranian conflict, if one should develop— we can offer to convince the Iranians to halt any aggression, in exchange for a greater presence in that region.”

President Jiang was obviously impressed by Sun’s ideas. “I still find it hard to believe,” the Paramount Leader said, “that we have used nuclear weapons against the rebel Nationalists and even against the United States, and we still apparently face no threat of retaliation. What has happened to the vaunted American military machine?”

“The machine is still there, Comrade President, and it is still powerful,” Sun warned. “That American submarine was probably sitting near Bandar-Abbass for weeks, and no doubt there are American submarines near most of our coastal military bases and ports as well that we have failed to detect — perhaps even with nuclear attack missiles. And if the Americans ever get proof that we planted the nuclear explosive on the Independence, we may indeed find ourselves at war with the United States. But as long as Martindale and his generals do not have a clear target, they cannot strike without being labeled as ‘warmongers,’ which is a hated name in America. We must not act rashly, but we must continue to keep the American president unbalanced and uncertain.”

“Excellent advice, comrade Sun,” Jiang said warmly. At that moment, an aide came up to Sun, bowed to the president, and handed Sun a message. “You have been a trusted and most valuable adviser to me. Your hard work and loyalty have been favorably noted by the Party. ”

“Thank you, Comrade President,” Sun said. He glanced at the note, then went on, “It is my honor as well as my duty to carry out the wishes of the—” And then he froze in complete surprise and muttered, “What in blazes?”

“What is it, comrade Sun?”

“The Quemoy invasion forces at Xiamen Bay are under air attack! ” Admiral Sun Ji Guoming exclaimed. “Air defense sites, missile emplacements, amphibious assault staging areas… it is a massive attack force! But where? Where did it come from?”

“What about casualties?” President Jiang asked breathlessly. “Did we stop them? Did we sustain any losses?”

Sun Ji Guoming read the message carefully, his eyes widening and his jaw slackening further and further as he read. Finally, he responded in a quivering voice, “The air defense sites… they were hit by precision weapons, some kind of armor-piercing weapon that homed in on our antiaircraft radars. Then more aircraft, believed to be Nationalist F-16 fighter-bombers, flew over and dropped cluster munitions on the infantry staging areas. Casualties are… believed to be high.”

“High? How high? How many casualties?”

“There is no report, sir,” Sun explained. “This is obviously a preliminary report—”

“What do you mean, Admiral?” Jiang exploded. “There have been high casualties, but you do not know how many? Where did this attack come from? I thought you told me the rebel Nationalist air force had been destroyed!”

“It has been destroyed, sir,” Sun said, his mind swirling in confusion. “I am sure of it! We hit every major rebel air base with a nuclear missile, and we have attacked every known alternate rebel air base with gravity weapons. The attack must have come from another base in the region, perhaps South Korea or Japan, perhaps even the Philippines.”

“But all of those countries pledged not to support the rebels or the United States in any offensive military missions,” Defense Minister Chi Haotian interjected. “They promised that the United States would not be permitted to stage attacks against us from their soil.”

“Then the attackers must have come from Formosa,” Sun said. “I do not know how they managed to sneak past our radar planes and elude our air defenses, but they cannot destroy all our air forces. My Tupolev- 16 heavy bombers are standing by — I shall order another heavy bombing attack against the rebels, this time attacking their civilian airfields and alternate bases — any field capable of staging F-16 fighter-bomber attacks against us.”

“It is so ordered,” President Jiang said. “You must execute this mission immediately. We must retaliate against the Nationalists right away.” “Yes, sir,” Sun said, relieved that the president and Politburo members weren’t turning this bad news against him. “I also ask permission to use the entire fleet of Tupolev-26 supersonic bombers to spearhead the attack. If some of the rebels’ F-16 fighters survived our air raids, we must use the high-speed bombers to penetrate their fighter screen and attack the targets.”

Jiang Zemin hesitated. He did not approve of Sun using the newly acquired Russian-made supersonic bombers — at one and a half billion yuan each, the six Tupolev-26 supersonic bombers and the other weaponry, spare parts, test equipment, and support items necessary to maintain the high-tech machines, purchased from Russia amid great international fear and outrage, represented one of China’s biggest single defense outlays. But Jiang also did not want to appear too reluctant in front of the Chinese Communist Party Politburo members to do all that was necessary to defend the country and subdue all its enemies. If he asked the Politburo for permission to use the Tu-26s, he would probably be refused — but now, with an apparent disaster confronting them, each Politburo member was wondering why Jiang was taking so long to give Sun Ji Guoming the weapons he needed to win. “Permission granted,” Jiang said finally.

“Thank you, Comrade President,” Sun said. “The rebels will be put back in their place, I guarantee it. This was the Nationalists’ ‘Battle of the Bulge’—it does not represent a change in fortunes for them.” Sun turned and strode purposely out of the chamber, feeling the concerned and dubious stares of Jiang Zemin and the CCP Politburo on the back of his neck.

President Jiang was immediately joined by General Chin Po Zihong, the chief of staff of the People’s Liberation Army, who looked at the retreating form of Admiral Sun Ji Guoming with obvious distaste. Jiang motioned for Chin, his foreign minister Qian, and his defense minister Chi to join him in a private office. “I want a full report on this attack, Comrade General,” President Jiang ordered. “This is unthinkable and totally unacceptable!”

“Yes, Comrade President,” Chin said. “The admiral has clearly lost control of the situation. He thinks that the Americans will simply retreat like scared rabbits. This situation proves how wrong he is.”

“But his plan seemed to have been working so well.”

“How so, Comrade President?” General Chin retorted angrily. “Your original orders were for the People’s Liberation Army to return Zhong- gua to its rightful position in the world, with all of the lands taken from us returned and our country unified once again. Despite all our losses, civilian and military, and despite the loss of face we have suffered by using nuclear weapons, have we actually taken any territory away from our enemies anywhere? Our thirteenth province, Formosa, has been blasted into a charred rock. We spent billions of yuan mobilizing our invasion forces, but Sun has not even landed one battalion on either Quemoy or Matsu — he sends his little ‘probes’ out, but he has not mustered the courage to lead the People’s Liberation Army on a true mission, only these long-range aerial bombardments. Now, with hundreds of thousands of our best troops exposed and vulnerable, the rebel Nationalists and their capitalist masters have struck hard against us. We may not have the forces available to accomplish an invasion now. No one is to blame except Sun Ji Guoming.”

President Jiang was clearly horrified by Chin’s argument. “What can we do?” he asked.

“The American-led attack on our forces near Xiamen could have come from one place only — Andersen Air Force Base on the American- occupied island of Guam,” Chin said. “Our intelligence clearly showed that several of the stealth-modified B-52 bombers were secretly sent there — no doubt more of them, and other long-range bombers as well, had been dispatched since Sun’s indiscriminate bombardment of Formosa.” He paused, drawing Jiang’s full attention to him; then: “We must destroy Andersen Air Force Base. We must destroy the American bomber base that threatens us.”

“Destroy an American air base?” Jiang repeated in a horrified voice. “A direct attack against one of America’s most important bases in the Pacific theater? We cannot!”

“We must, Comrade President,” General Chin said urgently. “Otherwise we will be open to attack at any time by American bombers. We must strike quickly and decisively.” Jiang hesitated, clearly fearful of even thinking of making such a decision. “This is not an act of aggression, Comrade President,” Chin went on. “This is retaliation for their attack against our ground forces. We have the right to defend ourselves against American stealth bomber attacks.”

“But destroying this base will not stop the American long-range bombers,” Minister of Defense Chi Haotian, who had joined the discussion after Sun had departed in such a hurry, interjected. “We now know that the Americans were able to fly stealth bomber attacks into Iran from their North American bases.”

“With Andersen Air Force Base shut down, the Americans will have to use far more resources to attack us,” Chin argued. “We are far stronger than Iran — where one stealth bomber nearly decimated the Iranian military, it would take many more even to begin to affect the People’s Liberation Army. This will only serve to bring all the parties involved to the bargaining table sooner.”

“I wish I could believe this to be true, General,” Jiang said. “I want to believe that we can accomplish peace by using force.”

“We have already started on this path, Comrade President,” Chin said in a flat, matter-of-fact tone. “Admiral Sun made a compelling argument, and the decision was made to support his unorthodox plan. He was successful in convincing America’s allies to cease their support. But now his plan has stalled, and the attacks are coming from a colonial base near China that is wholly occupied by the Americans — Sun’s plan did not affect American military operations out of Guam. We must show the Americans that we will not tolerate their slaughter from the skies. We must attack and neutralize Andersen immediately. ”

“How do you propose to do it, Comrade General?” Minister Chi asked.

“The best way possible — a missile attack using our Dong Feng-4 intermediate-range ballistic missiles,” Chin said. “We have ten such missiles on alert, headquartered at Yinchuan and deployed throughout Ningxia Huizu and Nei Monggol provinces. I would propose launching all ten missiles at Guam — because of the poor accuracy of our missiles and the strong anti-missile defenses erected on Guam, we may need all of them to neutralize the American military installations on the island. The missiles carry different warheads, depending on the serviceability of the missile itself: most missiles carry a single sixty-kiloton warhead, although some carry a single two-megaton warhead, and the most advanced missiles carry three sixty-kiloton warheads.”

Jiang Zemin was astounded by the power at his command — he had never, ever considered using these weapons in all his years of service to China. “You must find out exactly what we have ready to attack,” President Jiang said, his voice heavy and shaking with emotion. “I want to limit the number of launches so it will not appear to Americas long-range sensors that we are starting a large-scale intercontinental war. The missiles with three warheads is my first choice, followed by the low-yield single-warhead weapon, and finally the large-yield missile. What other strategic forces will we have in reserve that hold the United States at risk?”

“This will leave us all twenty of our DF-5 missiles in reserve,” Chin replied. “Ten of these reserve missiles have small, multiple warheads; five of the remaining ten have single one-megaton warheads, and the other five have single five-megaton warheads. The Dong Feng-5 missiles are our largest, most accurate, and deadliest weapons — we can target American intercontinental ballistic missile sites and ninety percent of the population of North America with them. Of course, we still have approximately one hundred H-6 bombers that could possibly reach Alaska or the West Coast of the United States; they can carry nuclear bombs or nuclear-tipped cruise missiles. We also have a number of road-mobile Dong Feng-3 missiles and Q-5 attack planes deployed, but these are only capable against targets in Asia, such as South Korea, Singapore, or Japan.”

Jiang nodded, understanding but not quite believing the awesome power that lay at his fingertips, waiting for his word to send them on their deadly way. “This is incredible,” Jiang said breathlessly, shaking his head. “The Party has promised we would never be the first to use nuclear weapons. We have already broken our pledge by using these horrid weapons against Taipei, but we reasoned that we were using these weapons against a rebel government within our own territory, not against a foreign power. But I ordered a nuclear attack against a Nationalist warship, then an American warship, and then a nuclear attack against an ally, simply to try to distract the Americans from attacking us. Now I must consider a full-scale nuclear attack against an American military base. I do not know if I can make this decision, Comrade General. It is too much.”

“You have almost the entire Politburo and Central Military Committee assembled here this morning, Comrade President,” Chin reminded him. “Call an emergency meeting with them right now. I will speak to them; together, without all the philosophical ramblings from Sun, we shall get their full support before issuing your orders.”

Jiang relented and gave a faint nod. In three minutes General Chin Po Zihong had called an emergency meeting to order on behalf of the president to present his plan to stop the Americans — and twenty minutes later, he had his orders.

“I’ve got an L-band Phazatron pulse-Doppler radar beating us up,” David Luger called out. “It’s a Sukhoi-27, all right. Clear me for maneuvers and all countermeasures.”

“Clear!” Brad Elliott shouted, tightening his grip on the side- mounted control stick. “You’re clear for all maneuvers as long as you nail that bastard! Just keep us out of the rocks! ”

Patrick McLanahan called up a God’s-eye view of the area surrounding their bomber. “Very high terrain northeast,” McLanahan said. “River valley west and northwest, almost sea level.”

“Then let’s start with northeast and take this son of a bitch into the rocks,” Luger said. He put his fingers on the manual decoy dispenser button. “Stand by for maneuvers, crew. Pilot, break right! ”

Elliott jammed the Megafortress hard to the right, feeling his butt press into the seat as the EB-52 started a hard climb to start cresting the rapidly rising terrain of the Boping Mountains. When he reached sixty degrees of bank, Elliott pulled on the control stick until he heard a stall warning tone, then released the back pressure but maintained the turn right at the edge of the stall. As Elliott started the hard turn, Luger punched out one small tactical decoy. The glider decoy, similar to the ones used in the Wolverine SEAD cruise missiles, had radar cross-sections dozens of times larger than the Megafortress itself. “Roll out, pilot,” Luger ordered, when they reached ninety degrees heading change, and Elliott quickly rolled the big bomber left.

The jink worked — but for only a few seconds. The Chinese Sukhoi- 27’s Phazatron N001 pulse-Doppler radar was a “look-down, shoot- down”-capable radar — it could stay at high altitude and look down to find enemy aircraft because the pulse-Doppler radar could reject radar clutter caused by terrain. One way to beat a pulse-Doppler radar system was to reduce the closure rate between aircraft, so in effect the aircraft looked like a piece of terrain on radar. By dropping a cloud of chaff and then turning ninety degrees to the Su-27’s flight path, the closure rate between the Megafortress and the Su-27 equaled the airspeed of the Su-27, which caused the system to reject the Megafortress as a possible target. And since the decoy glider proved to be a much more inviting target and still carried a good closure rate on the Su-27, the fighter’s attack radar programmed the decoy as the new target.

The Chinese Su-27 fighter pilot selected a Pen Lung-2 radar- and infrared-guided missile, received a lock-on tone, and got ready to press the launch button — until he realized his target was rapidly slowing down. The unpowered glider decoy made an inviting, easy-to-kill target, but it could not maintain the same airspeed as the Megafortress. The Chinese pilot canceled the attack when the target’s airspeed began to decrease below 300 knots — no military attack plane was going to fly that slow unless it was getting ready to land. He verified his decision by closing within five miles of the target, then attempted to lock onto the target with his Infrared Search and Track System. It would not appear on the IRSTS — the pilot knew it had to be a decoy, then. Any military attack plane would show clearly in the large supercooled eye of the IRSTS. He broke radar lock and commanded another wide-area search.

That delay gave Luger an opportunity: “Stand by for Scorpion launch, crew! ” he shouted. He hit the voice command button: “Launch one Scorpion missile at target number one.”

WARNING, LAUNCH command initiated, the computer responded in a soft, calm, female voice.

“Launch,” Luger ordered.

SCORPION MISSILE pylon launch, the computer announced, and a single AIM-120 AMRAAM collected target azimuth from the threat warning receiver, streaked out of the right wing weapon pod, climbed a few hundred feet, then arced left toward the Sukhoi-27. A few seconds after launch, the computer said, warning, attack radar to transmit, and the omnidirectional attack radar activated for four seconds, enough to lock onto the fighter and feed updated target range and bearing to the Scorpion missile, attack radar stand by, the computer said as it shut the radar down itself. With a fresh target update, the AIM-120 missile activated its own on-board radar seeker, instantly locked onto one of the Su-27 fighters, made a slight correction as its pilot detected the brief Megafortress radar lock-on and tried to make a last-ditch evasive break, then exploded just as it detected that it had closed to well within lethal range of its forty-four-pound high-explosive warhead.

The attack worked. The explosion occurred just a few feet behind the Su-27’s right wing near the fuselage, sending shrapnel through the fighter’s right engine and piercing right wing fuel tanks. The Chinese pilot was quick, and managed to save his prized jet by immediately shutting down the right engine before it seized or tore itself apart, but this jet was out of the fight — he had just enough fuel and control of his plane to keep himself upright and limp home. Even more important, his wingman, another Sukhoi-27, was ordered to lead his stricken comrade back to base— a Su-27 was too valuable and too expensive a weapon to be allowed to make an emergency single-engine landing at night in rugged terrain without assistance.

“Threat scope’s clear, gang,” Luger reported, with a sigh of relief. “Clear to center up.”

“Left turn heading three-three-two to the next turnpoint,” McLanahan said. “High terrain twelve miles, commanding on it. Minimum safe altitude in this sector, six thousand one hundred feet.”

“Good going, Major Luger,” Nancy Cheshire offered. “Sounds like you’ve been doing your homework.”

“I’ve never left this thing, Nancy,” Dave Luger said, wearing a broad smile under his oxygen mask. “Even after all these years, it’s as if I’ve never left. I’ve…” He hesitated, studying the new threat signals, then reported, “Looks like bandits at ten to eleven o’clock, well below detection threshold, closing in on us but not locked on. Now I got fighters at five o’clock, not locked on but heading this way. We got fighters all around us.”

“One of our subs is caught in a fishing net in the Strait of Hormuz?” Senate Majority Leader Barbara Finegold asked incredulously, the surprise and exasperation etched in her elegant features. “How in the world did that happen?”

As Senator Finegold spoke, the President of the United States moved from the high wingbacked chair near the fireplace, where he and leaders from both the House and the Senate — which the media were calling the “President’s crisis team”—had had their most recent “crisis team photo opportunity,” and back onto his more comfortable leather chair at the head of the coffee table in the formal meeting area of the Oval Office. He made a show of loosening his tie and taking a sip of orange juice, as if he were ready to settle down and get comfortable while talking to the Senate Majority Leader.

Seated beside him was Vice President Ellen Whiting; and seated around them were members of the President’s national security team— Secretary of Defense Chastain, Secretary of State Hartman, and National Security Advisor Freeman, along with chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Balboa and Chief of Staff Jerrod Hale. Seated next to Senator Finegold was the Senate’s chief political counsel, Edward Pankow, then House Majority Leader Nicholas Gant, and House Minority Leader, Joseph Crane.

“It was obviously not a normal fishing net — the crew characterized it as a large drift net made of Kevlar, a synthetic material used in protective armor, as light as nylon but stronger than steel,” Philip Freeman replied. “It was obviously a trap.”

“Where was the sub trapped, General Freeman?” Finegold asked.

Freeman hesitated, but the President nodded, and he responded, “About three miles south of Bandar-Abbass, in the Strait of Hormuz. It’s a busy channel, used by hundreds of deepwater ships a day. The Miami was shadowing the Kilo-class attack missile submarine Taregh when it was—

“Was it in international waters?” Finegold asked warily, as if afraid of the answer.

“That is in some dispute,” Philip Freeman said. “The Iranians claim all waters up to the center of the Strait of Hormuz, plus three miles around its islands. The International Maritime Court gives Iran three miles from the mean high-water line.”

“Then I’ll rephrase the question, General Freeman—was the Miami in Iranian waters at all? Did we provoke the Iranians in any way?” Fine- gold asked.

“Senator, we seem to provoke the Iranians simply by our very existence/' Freeman responded. “Yes, our submarine was on patrol in Iranian waters, but I don’t think it’s fair to say we provoked any kind of action against our submarine or its crew. ”

Finegold shook her head and gasped in amazement. “We had a nuclear attack submarine that actually sailed up to an Iranian naval base, in Iranian waters? That’s like an Iranian attack sub sailing up into the Mississippi River all the way to New Orleans, isn’t it?”

“Senator Finegold, we’ve briefed the Senate on our intelligence procedures before,” Secretary of Defense Chastain said. “Our mission is to monitor the whereabouts of the Iranian missile submarines. Normally, that can be done by satellite or patrol planes flying out of Saudi Arabia or Bahrain. The current emergency situation between China and Taiwan, and the recent events between us and Iran, prevent us from flying patrol planes in the area, so we need attack subs to shadow the Iranian subs. To prevent the Taregh from sneaking past us, as well as to monitor the Iranian fleet at Bandar-Abbass and in the Persian Gulf, we made the decision to send our patrol subs right near the Iranian naval bases. Normally, the mission is relatively safe. The channel is deep and wide, and the subs can roam around fairly freely.”

“But they’re inside Iranian waters, Mr. Chastain!” Finegold said incredulously. “We’ve committed an act of war\”

“We do missions like this all the time, Senator,” the President interjected. “You’re reacting as if you’ve never heard of such a thing before. It’s a cat-and-mouse game. Once in a while, one side gets caught. The information we gather about Iranian naval forces is valuable enough to take the risk.”

“What if the Iranians decided to sink the Miami, Mr. President?” Representative Joseph Crane interjected. “Would the deaths of one hundred and thirty more sailors still be worth it?” The President seemed to wince at that remark. The loss of the aircraft carrier Independence to a nuclear blast was still obviously very painful to him. “I’m very sorry, Mr. President,” Crane added, without any real conviction, as he saw the ashen expression on the Chief Executive’s face.

“But they didn’t sink it,” Chastain said. “The crew was under attack and, unable to maneuver, the captain made the correct decision and surfaced. The captain is guilty of nothing more than trespassing, and we expect our crew and our sub to be returned to us in short order.”

“But not before the entire world gets a look at our nuclear attack sub on CNN, caught in a fish net well within Iranian territorial waters!” Crane retorted. “One of our best Los Angeles-class nuclear attack subs, flopping around in a fish net like a big steel mackerel, while a hundred Iranian boats drop garbage and sewage on it — they even showed one old fart taking a shit over it! And the Iranian sub still managed to get away. We look like incompetent assholes.”

“Iran knows better than to provoke us,” National Security Advisor Freeman said. “They know—”

“That if they piss you off, you’ll fly another B-2 stealth bomber over their cities and bomb the hell out of them — or drop glue bombs on their air bases and ships?” Crane interjected derisively. “Is that what you did to them earlier this year, General Freeman?”

“Yes, that’s what we did, Mr. Crane,” the President said sternly. Both Crane and Finegold were shocked at the sudden revelation. “Yes, I flew B-2 stealth bombers over China and Afghanistan to strike targets in Iran, including dropping special nonlethal weapons on that ex-Iranian aircraft carrier. Satisfied?”

Crane nodded in triumph. “I will be, after a few more questions, Mr. President. ”

“They will have to wait, Mr. Crane,” President Martindale said. “And I want that information held in strictest confidence, top-secret classification.”

“And I respectfully decline, sir,” Crane said defiantly. “I will call for House special hearings on the attacks, closed-door if necessary, to investigate whether it was necessary and appropriate for you to conduct such attacks.”

“Hearings now, when Iran and China are on the warpath, won’t help the situation one bit, Mr. Crane.”

“Mr. Martindale, perhaps now that we understand that it was an American bomber responsible for attacking those targets in Iran and crippling its carrier, we have to look at other suspects, such as Iran, rather than focusing on Chinese or reactionary Japanese-saboteurs.”

“Congressional investigations will only show a divided government and feed the foreign propaganda machine,” Jerrod Hale said. “It won’t keep China or Iran off the warpath.”

“Then maybe it will get you off the warpath, Mr. President! ” Crane shot back.

“With all due respect, Mr. President,” Senator Barbara Finegold interjected, holding up a hand to silence her overheated congressional colleague, “we do not understand your position regarding your use of military forces overseas. Your current actions are confusing and completely indefensible, and your intentions are not clear, especially with regard to Iran, China, and Chinese Taipei. My colleagues in the Senate need some guidance from you as to your intentions before we can even begin to formulate a support strategy.”

The President noted with distaste that Finegold had fallen into the new convention, popular in the media since the conflicts had started about a month ago, of calling the Republic of China “Chinese Taipei” instead of the ROC or Taiwan. It demonstrated to Kevin Martindale exactly how far a lot of persons, especially the opposition, had gone in believing anything that might help stop the nightmarish conflict brewing between mainland China, Taiwan, and now the United States. Chinese president Jiang Zemin and the government of the People’s Republic of China had engineered a major publicity campaign, to criticize the Martindale administration’s reactivation of America’s nuclear forces, especially the actions that violated the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty warhead limits.

After China used nuclear weapons against Taiwan, the President of the United States announced that he was putting ten nuclear Multiple Independently targeted Reentry Vehicles (MIRVs) on each of the fifty Peacekeeper land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, and ten nuclear MIRVs on the Trident D5 sea-launched ballistic missiles. But the angriest response came when the media announced that all of America’s sixteen B-2A Spirit stealth bombers were now on nuclear alert, loaded with sixteen B83 thermonuclear gravity bombs, and twenty B-1B Lancer bombers were loaded with eight AGM-89 nuclear-tipped cruise missiles and four B83 nuclear gravity bombs.

America was back in the Cold War game, and almost no one, either in the United States or elsewhere, liked the idea.

“My intentions are simple, Senator,” the President responded. “I’m going to support President Lee and the Republic of China against President Jiang and mainland China’s military aggression. The reactivation of the Triad nuclear forces remains in effect, as well, especially given the cowardly attack on the Independence, the Chinese nuclear attacks against the Republic of China, and the sudden nuclear attack in North Korea and the volatile situation there. The capture of our sub by Iran doesn’t change things one bit — in fact, it makes me even angrier and more positive that I’m doing the right thing.”

“By what treaty or force of law can you do this, Mr. President?” Fine- gold asked. “The Taiwan Relations Act does not authorize you to defend Chinese Taipei; it is not a member of ASEAN or any other alliance of which America is an ally. ”

“Senator, I don’t need a treaty or membership in an alliance to make a commitment to a friendly, peaceful, democratic nation,” the President said. “I’ve pledged my support, because I don’t think that China or anyone else has a right to impose its will by force on another country.”

“Mr. President, my legal experts, as well as several think tanks we’ve commissioned, not to mention the Congressional General Accounting Office itself, have all taken a position that in a legal sense, Chinese Taipei is not a separate nation but in fact a province of China, as Beijing has asserted since 1949,” Finegold said. “As I see it, that’s the only logical conclusion that can be made. The Nationalist government fled the mainland and established a rebel government on the island of Formosa, which was Chinese territory recently returned to China from Japanese occupation. The Nationalists were nothing more than a deposed government.

“The fact that the United States supported the Nationalists’ goal of someday retaking control of the mainland government, or that the Nationalists occupied the seat in the United Nations, doesn’t alter the facts,” Finegold went on. “The government in Beijing is the lawful and legitimate government of all the Chinese people, a fact which has been recognized by the United States since 1972 and by most of the rest of the world; and the Nationalist government is not the legitimate government, and therefore has no right to declare independence or ask for assistance from anyone, especially the United States of America. The conflict between China and Taipei is an internal matter, and therefore we have no responsibility to risk American lives or threaten the peace of the world by getting involved militarily in that conflict.”

“Do you really believe this nonsense, Senator?” the President asked scornfully. “Can you seriously look at those two countries and then tell me that you truly believe that the Republic of China is nothing more than a deposed government living on an isolated province?”

“Mr. President, what I believe is that Chinese Taipei is running out kicking mainland China in the shins, then running behind the United States’ skirts — and we get the bloody nose from it,” Finegold said. “Taipei is not an innocent victim here. As long as they continue to illegally declare independence and try to instigate nuclear conflicts, they are dangerous. What purpose do you have for backing them?”

“The Republic of China meets the traditional benchmarks that the United States has applied to any nation seeking assistance in the last sixty years,” Secretary of State Jeffrey Hartman interjected. “We require the new nation to have formed a pluralistic, democratic government with a written constitution, based on free, open, and regular elections with universal suffrage; we require a formal exchange of credentialed ambassadors; we require the new nation to provide for the common good, the common defense, and provide free and open access to its markets and communication between its people and the rest of the world; we require that the new nation apply for membership in the United Nations; and we require that the new nation openly and publicly ask for our assistance. The Republic of China has met each and every one of these criteria, Senator.”

“In fact, Senator,” Vice President Ellen Whiting interjected, “Taiwan has met more of these five traditional criteria than other nations that you have supported in the past have done, such as Bosnia, Kurdistan, and East Timor. Taiwan has proven to be a strong and true friend to the United States.”

“One that apparently is taking advantage of this friendship to attack mainland China, oblivious to threat of global nuclear war,” House Minority Leader Crane argued. He now saw his role in this debate as Barbara Finegold’s defender.

“I seriously doubt that Taiwan is oblivious to the nuclear threat, Mr. Crane,” Secretary of Defense Arthur Chastain pointed out, “since it has just recently been devastated with nuclear attacks three times as severe as Japan ever endured.”

“I didn’t mean that Chinese Taipei hasn’t been hurt by recent attacks by China, and I certainly don’t mean to blame the dead,” Crane said. “But it was Taipei’s aggression that started this entire series of conflicts.”

“My intelligence information suggests otherwise, Mr. Crane,” the President said. “China was, and still is, in position to invade the island of Quemoy — there’s no doubt about this. Taiwan was acting in selfdefense when the attack first started on the Chinese aircraft carrier. The other incidents involved a carefully calculated string of actions by China to make it appear that Taiwan was the aggressor, when in fact it was China all along. ”

“Of course, I’ve heard this one from your advisor’s press briefs— China attacked its own carrier with torpedoes, China put transmitters on its own ferryboat to make us think it was a warship, China planted a nuclear device on the Independence, and China even shot a nuclear missile at its own ally, North Korea, to make us think that the United States or South Korea or some other boogeyman was diverting attention away from China by starting another war. ”

“Those are the facts, Mr. Crane,” National Security Advisor Freeman cut in.

“There’s plenty of doubt about your so-called facts, General Freeman,” Crane argued hotly. “But I have plenty of questions about the role that secret B-52 bomber played in igniting the conflict! I think that’s the question facing us this afternoon, Mr. Martindale!”

“I suggest you calm down and be careful how you address the President, Mr. Crane,” Jerrod Hale cut in.

“Relax, everyone, relax,” Finegold said, holding up her long, slender fingers to both Crane and Hale. “We’re not here to accuse or make demands.” She allowed a few moments of silence in the room; then: “Mr. President, we in the Congress want to get behind you in this—”

“The House is one hundred percent behind the President already,” House Majority Leader Nicholas Gant interjected, “and there seems to be a floor fight brewing concerning your blatant, public criticism of the President. Whatever disharmony is present on the Hill is from your media tirades, Senator Finegold!”

“We realize the tremendous pressure you’re under, and we want nothing more than to show a united front to China and the rest of the world,” Finegold went on, ignoring Gant’s comments. “You are the nation’s chief diplomat, but you should not operate in a foreign-affairs vacuum. Give me something positive I can take back to the Hill, something that shows we have room to compromise, something that shows we’re not being intractable and demanding.”

“I made a decision, and I’m sticking with it, Senator,” the President said. “It might not be comfortable or popular, but I’ve got no choice. I’m counting on Congress’s support, but I’m prepared to continue on without it.”

“Mr. President, the financial markets are collapsing, the price of oil is nearly at a record high, and our allies are in a panic about whether or not you’re leading them to the brink of World War Three,” Crane said. “You’ve suddenly got nuclear missiles and stealth bombers all over the place, threatening a nuclear showdown with China. With Hong Kong and Macau rejoining the PRC, China is one of the world’s richest countries and America’s largest trading partner by far. You may have already destroyed any chance we had of normalizing relations and expanding trade with China. If there is any chance of salvaging some ties with China, you’ve got to reverse this deadly course you’ve set us on.”

“You’re suggesting we sell out Taiwan, Mr. Crane?” the President asked. “Do you think it would be a good idea to simply abandon them now? ”

“You don’t have any choice, Mr. President — unless you’re ready and willing to fight China, economically and militarily, and risk a nuclear war,” Crane responded. “According to the news reports, China is apparently ready to start the occupation of Nationalist Taipei by invading Quemoy and Matsu Islands with four hundred thousand troops. We can’t stop that many Chinese troops from moving forward.

“Face reality, Mr. President — the island of Formosa and the Nationalist army have been blasted to hell, South Korea is on alert for its own invasion from the north and is under its own nuclear threat, Iran is threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz again because they caught us with our hands in the cookie jar, and Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and the Philippines won’t let U.S. troops stage combat operations from their islands,” Crane went on hotly. “And even if they did, it would take months to put together an invasion force, and they’d be under constant threat from Chinese air and rocket assaults. The death toll would be enormous. And then if China decided to mobilize its entire army? That’s nearly two million active-duty soldiers, and almost two hundred million reservists, paramilitary, border guards, militia, and national police.

“You have got to think of something else, Mr. President! There’s no way you can win! You’ve lost any tactical advantage we ever had. The only way to dislodge China’s troops and stop them from reoccupying Taiwan is to use nuclear weapons, and we in Congress, on both sides of the aisle, will not support such a move. And we’re willing to make that a public statement.”

“The President of the United States does not respond to threats or blackmail, Mr. Crane,” Vice President Whiting said angrily. “Not from the Chinese, not from the Iranians, not from the North Koreans — and not from a U.S. congressman.”

“No one is threatening anyone here, Madame Vice President,” Barbara Finegold said. She decided to use a bit gentler approach in trying to reach the President: “Mr. President, the Chinese government’s suggestion is rational and logical, and it’s in the best interests of the United States of America.” Martindale made an exasperated “here we go again” expression, but Finegold went on quickly: “Mr. President, if China unites with Taiwan, the industrial and financial nation that results will be the largest potential marketplace ever conceived on this planet. Nearly a billion customers, many of whom are still living in turn-of-the-century conditions. Think of the investment needed to bring those people up to Western living standards.”

“So you’re concerned about the money aspect of a conflict with China,” the President said.

“Of course I’m concerned about the financial aspect, and so are you,” Finegold said, stepping a bit closer to Martindale as she spoke, letting the language of her body speak to the most powerful man on planet Earth as much as her words. “We’re concerned with whatever it takes to make America grow and prosper, and one of the largest untapped resources in the world that we need to exploit is China, especially a strong, capitalist-leaning China united with Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan.

“Mr. President, you know, and I know, that China will become the next United States of America in terms of its economic and industrial strength,” Finegold went on. “China is where America was three generations ago — mostly agrarian but becoming more urban, isolationalist, suspicious of all foreigners, but expanding rapidly and embracing change, as innovation and new ideas sweep across the frontier. China will not be ruled by warlords forever. We must stake our position to steer China in a direction that’s right for them and right for America. You want to be instrumental in shaping China to meet America’s needs. We cannot allow China to become isolated.”

“Barbara, I agree with your sentiment…” the President began.

“Then stop this saber-rattling,” Finegold said, her bright eyes locking tightly onto his. “Be the peacemaker, be the visionary. Let us join forces, Kevin. You and me. We can take control of this situation together. ” She knew she had far overstepped her bounds by calling the President by his first name, but her powers of personal seduction were one of her formidable strengths, and she was determined to use them — even here, in the Oval Office, with her adversary surrounded by his generals and chiefs, a place where she had almost no leverage at all.

“First, keep the carriers and the fighters away from China,” Finegold went on. “Their very presence is destabilizing and a direct threat to China. Besides, we’ve proven that we can’t keep our carriers safe from saboteurs. If the carriers aren’t within striking distance, China won’t feel as if they need to use nuclear weapons to counterbalance the threat.”

“I’ve already ordered that the George Washington and the Carl Vinson stay in the Pacific for the time being,” the President said. “Our fighters based in South Korea, Japan, and Alaska are committed to the defense of South Korea right now. They’re not a threat to China.”

“Very good,” Finegold said. “Second, keep the long-range bombers out of the fight. Admiral Balboa has explained to me that the bombers are all on nuclear ground alert. I don’t agree with the decision to put nuclear weapons on them, but keeping them on the ground in the United States is the best option.” The President merely nodded, casting an irritated glance at Balboa. So he had continued to talk with Finegold, he thought.

“Thirdly, agree to make a statement saying that we support eventual reunification. You don’t have to mention or reverse your statement supporting Chinese Taipei’s independence — the press reports say that Lee Teng-hui’s government won’t survive for long anyway, that they’ve all fled the country. If the Nationalists can’t survive, how can you be expected to support them?”

“The facts don’t agree with your sentiment, Senator,” the President said firmly. “First of all, we have no independent confirmation that President Lee has fled the country and his government has collapsed, and I am not going to abandon him at his greatest hour of need.” Finegold heard how Martindale said the word “Senator” instead of “Barbara,” and she could feel their intimate connection breaking down — she realized that the President was made of sterner stuff than she had ever given him credit for. He stepped back from her, reincluding the others in their conversation as he went on: “Second, it’s obvious that China is not willing to peaceably wait a hundred years for Taiwan to join them — they are not willing to wait a hundred days, or even a hundred hours. Their uninhibited use of nuclear weapons proves that.”

“China pledges to cease all military attacks and withdraw its troops from disputed territory.”

“That’s not what Foreign Minister Qian said, Senator,” Secretary of State Hartman said. “China promised to stop all nuclear attacks and withdraw troops as soon as it is safe to do so. That’s not the same as a military withdrawal.”

“You’re mincing words, Mr. Secretary,” Finegold said. She watched the President relax, allowing his advisor’s words to surround him like a stone wall. The spell was now broken, Finegold realized — they were back to being adversaries again. So be it. “What it means to me is that we’ll stop the nuclear threat, and that’s what’s important here.” She turned to the President again. She had tried to use reason and logic, tried to use a little vainglory, and tried a little sweetness — and failed. Now she had to try the direct approach, in none-too-subtle earnest: “It is very important that you carefully consider this opportunity to make peace with the Chinese, Mr. President.”

The President turned toward Finegold, both curled locks of silver hair suddenly, angrily visible now on his forehead. Jerrod Hale uncrossed his arms, his body stiff with anticipation; at that same instant, Philip Freeman shut off and checked his pen-size pager in his jacket pocket, cleared his throat, and stood to use the phone on the President’s desk. Both men’s actions did nothing to relieve the thick tension that had just invaded the Oval Office. “Excuse me, Senator, but that sounded like a threat to me,” he said.

“It’s not a threat, Mr. President,” Barbara Finegold said. “But there have been… rumblings, from certain important government quarters, that cast some doubt on your legal and ethical motivations in this crisis, beginning with the Persian Gulf conflict—”

“No doubt bolstered by your Senate hearings and your statements in the press,” Nicholas Gant interjected.

“We are not going to tolerate intimidation or political blackmail, Senator,” Vice President Whiting said angrily. “Your attacks on the President are nothing more than partisan politics, taking advantage of the crisis in Asia to further your own political agenda. The American people don’t buy it.”

“My political agenda is not the topic of discussion, Mrs. Whiting— its the President’s I’m worried about,” Finegold said bitterly. “I’m worried that the President will sacrifice the lives of more brave soldiers and sailors just to try to show who’s the cock of the roost! ”

“That is enough, Senator! ” Jerrod Hale exploded. “You are way out of line!”

“Hold on, Jerrod, hold on,” the President said after listening to the message Philip Freeman had just whispered in his ear. “I’ve just been informed that an attack is under way against mainland China. An air raid has severely crippled the Chinese armies that were poised to invade Quemoy Island.”

“An attack? Air raids?” Finegold sputtered. “Excuse me, Mr. President, but we’ve been sitting here listening to you explain how you’ve got things under control, that you’re not trying to stir up a military free-for- all in three different regions of the world, that the capture of our sub by Iran was nothing more than a cat-and-mouse game gone awry — and now you tell us that you’ve staged a sneak attack on the Chinese army? ”

“You don’t understand, Senator — this attack doesn’t involve any American military forces,” the President said. “I haven’t authorized any air attacks against China.”

“But whoever’s done it really did a good job,” Freeman added. “Initial estimates say that up to one-tenth of the Chinese invasion force that had amassed in southern Fujian province near Xiamen was destroyed or crippled — that could be as much as fifteen, twenty thousand troops and thousands of vehicles. Components of four infantry divisions have been badly hit.”

“Four divisions?” Secretary of Defense Chastain remarked. “It must’ve taken three or four heavy bomb wings to do that kind of damage.

“You’re joking, right?” Senator Barbara Finegold asked, searching the President’s and each of his advisors’ faces carefully for any signs of playacting. “You’re telling me that someone — you don’t know who — has just killed as many as twenty thousand men, and you don’t know who it was?”

“That’s right, Senator,” the President replied with a sly smile. “But whoever it is, they probably deserve a medal… unless they plunge us into global thermonuclear war in the next few minutes.”

“Jesus Christ…” Joseph Crane gasped. “You seem pretty damn casual about this, Mr. Martindale! ”

“There’s not a damn thing I can do about what’s happening out there, Mr. Crane,” the President said, with his sly grin again. The only sign of concern on his face were the two silver locks of hair curling down over his forehead, but both Crane and Finegold were too stunned to notice. “If you’ll excuse us, we’re going to start monitoring this situation.” The President and his advisors did not wait until the members of Congress recovered from their surprise before he stepped quickly out of the Oval Office to his private study.

David Luger counted no fewer than twenty Chinese fighters buzzing in their area — it was a miracle the EB-52 Megafortress did not collide with them.

Luger and the crew of the Megafortress were skimming less than 200 feet above the southwest side of the high, steep Tienmu Mountains. The area was dotted with dozens of small mining towns, and it took a lot of course changes to stay away from them as they headed northbound. McLanahan and Elliott would have liked their overall cruising altitude to be much lower — some of the Chinese fighter patrols were going down as low as 10,000 feet to look for the Megafortress — but that was impossible in this area. The valley floors were 500 to 1,000 feet above sea level, but would rise to 5,000, 6,000, even 7,000 feet in less than ten miles. The EB-52 was operating at peak efficiency, but even lightly loaded it could not climb more than 3,000 feet per minute without ballooning over a ridge.

Finally, even after all their aggressive maneuvering, there was no place for them to hide. Northeast of the city of Jingdezhen were ten small- to medium-size mining towns; to the west was the Poyang Lake flood-plain, along with a Chinese fighter base at Anqing, just fifty miles to the northwest. “Crew, I’m going to take us between two of those mining towns to the north,” Patrick McLanahan said. “We can’t go any farther west. High terrain is east and northeast; min safe altitude is five thousand feet on this leg, then six thousand one hundred on the next leg. We’re five minutes to the release point. I’m setting five-hundred-foot clearance plane for this leg so we don’t balloon over these upcoming ridges.”

It was a good plan of action, but the odds were turning against them.

As soon as the Megafortress climbed to establish the new clearance plane settings, a large S symbol appeared on Luger’s threat display, which immediately went from blue to yellow and then briefly to red. Luger activated the Megafortress’s trackbreakers, designed to “walk” a targettracking or height-finder radar away from a solid lock with the bomber, but not before the radar got a good two- or three-second track on the bomber. “Search radar, eleven o’clock, momentary height-finder lock- on — ah, shit, that’s why, they got a repeater radar off at one o’clock, up on a mountain peak,” Luger shouted. “I think they got us. Trackbreakers are active. They’ll keep the height-finder shut down, but we can expect company. ”

“Looks like we might have to attack a target of opportunity here,” McLanahan said. He quickly expanded his God’s-eye picture on his supercockpit display, then touched the icon for the Anqing fighter base. Anqing North was a small but active airfield that sat almost directly on a marshy tributary of the Chang Jiang River and right at the base of a 2,500-foot peak. The base had two medium-length runways, forming a T, and was laid out in typical fashion: the main base was located on the west, the housing area to the south, and the flight operations area to the northeast. McLanahan zoomed into the flight operations area of the base, which automatically called up recent NIRTSat photoradar satellite reconnaissance data from the EB-52’s downloaded satellite data memory banks.

Although the raw reconnaissance images did not identify each particular building, Patrick McLanahan knew enough about the layout of a military air base to identify what he needed to know: the mass aircraft parking area, where over fifty J-6, J-7, and J-8 fighters were parked and fueled in preparation for a mission, was concentrated in one spot, in front of a very large building in the north-central portion of the flight operations sector of the base; and the big building housed the fighter wing headquarters, flying squadron headquarters, and the wing command post and communication center. McLanahan immediately programmed one Striker missile for the center of the mass parking ramp, and one missile for the center of the headquarters building.

“Stand by for pylon Striker launch, crew,” he called out. He hit the voice-command switch: “Launch one pylon Striker missile on new target zulu.”

WARNING, STRIKER LAUNCH COMMIT ORDER.

“Commit Striker launch,” McLanahan repeated.

WARNING, STRIKER missile launch, the attack computer responded, and the Striker missile in the left-wing weapons pod ignited its first-stage rocket motor and blasted skyward. It unfolded its large fins seconds after launch, reaching 10,000 feet in just a few seconds. It glided efficiently for about fifteen miles, dropping down to about 6,000 feet, before firing its second-stage rocket motor and climbing back up to 15,000 feet, when it began its powered ballistic dive onto its target. “Second Striker pylon missile launch coming up, crew,” McLanahan said. “Pilot, give me a slight climb up to six thousand feet so we can get a good datalink signal.”

The first Striker missiles terminal guidance sensor activated just eleven seconds prior to impact, and McLanahan switched to low-light TV mode. It showed the lights of the city of Anqing to the south and the smaller blotches of light a few miles north. As the missile closed in, McLanahan could start to make out the air base itself — the missile was guiding in perfectly. He could then see sparkles of light around the base — antiaircraft artillery fire. The missile continued its deadly plunge. McLanahan s fingers nestled on the steering-control trackball, but he never had to touch it — because the Striker missile plowed directly on target, right in the middle of the parking ramp. He could barely make out the outlines of a half-dozen blunt-nosed jets and a fuel truck just seconds before the 2,000 pound high-explosive missile hit. McLanahan switched to the second Striker missile just as its terminal guidance sensor activated. Good, the second missile appeared to be going right on target.

“Baudits, close in, nine o'clock!” Luger shouted. At the same instant, a loud, fast-pitched deedledeedledeedle tone and a verbal “MISSILE LAUNCH! ” warning sounded in their headsets. “Break left!” A Chinese Sukhoi-27 fighter leading a flight of two J-8 fighters had used the information from Anqing’s brief search radar lock on the EB-52 Megafortress to guide themselves within range of its Infrared Search and Track sensor, so it could close within missile range without using its attack radar— only the Megafortress’s passive infrared threat warning system had seen them coming. The Chinese fighters launched their heat-seeking missiles at optimum range, less than four miles away.

Brad Elliott yanked the Megafortresss control stick hard left until the bomber rolled right into a full ninety-degree bank, then he pulled until he heard fibersteel screeching in protest. Luger was pumping decoys and flares out the right-side ejectors. Elliott ignored the stall warning horn, ignored Nancy Cheshire’s screams that they were going to stall, ignored the initial buffet, the point at which disturbed airflow over the wings starts pounding on the trailing edges of the wings.

The Megafortress could lose 300 knots of airspeed and be for all intents out of control — but Elliott knew, from over ten years’ experience in this creation of his, exactly what the point of no return was. It was the departure break, the point at which the turbulent airflow over the wing that was causing all the pounding and shaking suddenly starts to break free of the wing completely, and lift rapidly bleeds off. The Megafortress’s crew were crushed down into their ejection seats as Elliott pulled to tighten the turn, but seconds later they felt light in their seats as the bomber started to drop out from under them. The Megafortress would stop flying in less than two seconds — time to roll wings level. At that point, the Megafortress was turning at four Gs, sixty degrees per second, as fast as or even faster than the Chinese fighters could ever turn. The Megafortress flew out of the lethal cone of five PL-2 missiles…

… but not away from the sixth deadly missile. One of the six Pen Lung-2 missiles was fooled by the hot, noisy decoy gliders, missed by several dozen yards, and exploded as its fuzing timer battery ran out — but the fast-turning EB-52 flew right into the exploding missile’s lethal radius. Its shaped-charge high-explosive warhead blew a continuous rod of steel into the left rear side of the cockpit, decompressing the cabin and hitting Dave Luger with small pieces of shrapnel and fibersteel.

The cabin was already partially depressurized, but the sudden breach of the cabin seemed to have sucked the air out of every one of the crew members. But Dave Luger still found enough air in his lungs to scream aloud. “Shit!” he swore, holding his head with his left hand. A piece of shrapnel had ripped through the bulkhead and ricocheted off his instrument console before cutting painfully into his left thigh and left fore-arm and pinging off his helmet near his left temple. Luger looked down in surprise at the dark bloody gashes that had appeared as suddenly as a stroke of lightning. He felt no pain — yet. It was almost humorous for him to think that he had just been injured — again — flying a Megafortress mission. “Cripes, Muck,” he said to McLanahan, as his partner turned to him in horror. “I think I just got nailed again.”

McLanahan was out of his seat in a second, leaving the second Striker missile on its own. The second Striker, with no guidance inputs, relied solely on its own GPS satellite updates and its onboard nav computers and flew itself to its preprogrammed target coordinates, hitting sixty-eight feet north of the center of the Anqing fighter base’s headquarters building. The 2,000-pound high-explosive missile leveled half of the three- story concrete building in a blinding flash of fire and a powerful earth-shattering blast.

“This is bull, Muck,” Luger was saying. “How come I always get injured on one of these things? When is it going to be your turn? I always…” But then he looked down and saw that three long, angry red rips like huge tiger’s claws arced across McLanahan’s left shoulder and side across his back. “Jeez, Muck, you got hit too, dammit.” A surge of energy coursed through Luger, and he helped his longtime friend and partner back into his own seat and helped him strap back in. McLanahan was already looking woozy, and Luger helped him reattach his oxygen mask, secured up to his face, and made sure he was on 100-percent oxygen.

“Stay with me, Patrick,” Luger said, cross-cockpit. McLanahan nodded wearily, as Luger strapped himself back in and made sure his oxygen was on and 100 percent too.

“Where are the fighters, guys?” Nancy Cheshire shouted on interphone. The Megafortress was still mushy, right at the edge of the stall. Elliott and Cheshire could do nothing but keep the wings level, the nose below the horizon, and wait for the airspeed to come back — they hoped that would happen before they ran out of altitude. Cheshire shouted, “How are we on the cumulogranite, Muck?” No immediately reply. “You guys okay back there?”

“We’re both hit, dammit,” Luger responded.

“What?” Both Elliott and Cheshire snapped their heads around to look. “You guys okay?”

“Clear of terrain ahead, head westbound only — very high terrain north, south, and east,” McLanahan shouted by way of response, his voice strained. “You’re cleared down to three thousand feet in this area if you need it. When you can, give me a heading of three-four-zero. We’re okay.”

“Turns are a no-no right now,” Cheshire said. “They don’t sound very good. I’ll go check them over. You got it, General?”

“I got the plane, Nance,” Elliott acknowledged. They transferred controls with a positive shake of the control stick. Cheshire stepped out of her seat and crawled under the aft instrument console to check on both navigators.

“You’re both bleeding like stuck pigs,” Cheshire said as she examined their wounds. She looked across and saw small, jagged shrapnel holes in the fuselage. “Pilot, better check the instruments — we might have taken some damage.”

“I got my hands full as it is, co,” Elliott said.

“Dave took a crack in his head and a couple in the leg and arm,” Cheshire reported on interphone. “Muck got a bunch in the back, left side, and left shoulder. You guys are going to have some cool scars to show your grandkids. Your seat-attachment shoulder harness is cut, Patrick— if we get in trouble, and if you get the time, think about using one of the downward-ejecting seats.”

“Thanks, Nance,” McLanahan said. “I’ll keep it in mind. But as long as we’re sucking dirt here, I’ll stay in this seat.”

“Okay.” Cheshire found the first-aid kit and slapped as many large bandages and compresses on the biggest gashes as she could. “You GIBs will live,” she said to the “Guys In Back.” McLanahan’s wounds looked the worst, but the blow to Luger’s head worried her the most — he would have to be checked carefully for signs of a concussion or other head trauma. “Just please advise us before you pass out, okay, Dave?”

“Anything for you, Nancy,” Luger replied. Cheshire gave Luger a wink and went quickly back to her seat and strapped in tightly.

“Where are those fighters?” Elliott asked.

“I’m going to do a radar sweep,” Luger said, fighting off a wave of dizziness and nausea every time he moved his head. “Radar coming on.” He activated the omnidirectional radar for a few seconds, then turned it back to standby. “Fighters are turning right to pursue, at five o’clock high, eight miles.”

“We’re coming to the river floodplain area,” McLanahan said. “Set for COLA altitude again. We’ve got four minutes until we get into any high terrain again.”

“The search radar is down,” Luger announced, “so they’ll have a tougher time finding us. We’ll—” Just then, the threat warning receiver bleeped again: “Fighters at six o’clock, coming inside six miles, I think they got a lock on us! Give me a hard turn to the right.”

“Can’t turn yet!” Cheshire shouted. “We’re still not above three hundred knots!”

“I need a right turn fast! ”

“Where are they?”

“Radar coming on…” Luger activated the attack radar, and immediately the warning tones sounded again: “Bandits, six o’clock, five miles! ” he shouted. He instinctively activated the Stinger tail airmine cannon… before realizing with shock, “Shit! No tail cannon rounds! Activating Scorpion missiles!” But before he could command a AIM-120 launch, the crew heard, “MISSILE LAUNCH, MISSILE LAUNCH!”

“Break right!” Luger shouted.

“We can’t!” Cheshire shouted back. “We got no airspeed! No airspeed!”

Luger ejected flares and decoy gliders again — but it was too late. The missiles were in the air, headed right for them…

… no, not for them! Seconds before they launched from four miles behind the EB-52 Megafortress, the two Chinese J-8 fighters were hit by Sidewinder air-to-air missiles, fired by two Taiwanese F-16 fighters. The F-16s had broken off from the returning bombing pack to escort the EB- 52 Megafortress on its separate strike route. The F-16s could receive datalink information from the EB-52’s radar, so it knew where to look for the Chinese fighters; then, using their Falcon Eye infrared sensors, similar to the Sukhoi-27’s Infrared Search and Track sensor, the F-16s were able to sneak up on the Chinese fighters without being detected themselves.

The Chinese Sukhoi-27 was still alive, however, and now he was fighting mad. He broke off the attack on the Megafortress, wheeled, immediately pounced on the two F-16s, and fired two PL-2 missiles into one of the F-16s. The second F-16 was alone, trapped right in the crosshairs of the faster and equally nimble Su-27…

No, not quite alone. “Attack radar on… commit Scorpion launch on air target X ray,” Luger ordered, and he fired two over-the-shoulder AIM-120 missiles at the Su-27. Moments before the Su-27 closed in for the kill, he was blasted apart by a double hit of Scorpion radar-guided missiles. “Splash one -27,” he announced.

“Thank you, Headbanger,” the Megafortress crew heard over the emergency UHF channel in heavily accented English. “Good luck, good hunting. ”

“The F-16 is heading home,” Luger said, as he studied his threat display. “But he’s three hundred miles off his flight plan. I don’t know if he’ll have the fuel to make it all the way back to Kai-Shan.”

“Yes, he will,” McLanahan said. He quickly composed a satellite transceiver message on his terminal. “I’ll send in Jon Masters’s tanker aircraft. They can do a low-level pickup emergency refueling over the coast.”

“Jon’s tanker ever do an emergency refueling before?” Elliott asked.

“Hell no,” McLanahan said. “I don’t think Jon’s tanker has ever refueled any other plane except a Megafortress and a couple others, and I know for sure that none of the Taiwanese pilots have refueled from Jon’s DC-10. But now’s a damned good time to learn. We don’t need the fuel right now — the Taiwanese F-16 does.”

In less than four minutes, the Megafortress sped across the wide, flat Chang Jiang River valley and across to the protective sanctuary of the Ta- Pieh Mountain range, just as another wave of fighters arrived from the neighboring Changsha fighter base to search for the mysterious attacker. The Megafortress continued northwest bound through the mountains for a few minutes, then cut northeast until they were at the extreme northeast end of the Ta-Pieh Mountains. From there, they launched their next attack: two Wolverine antiair defense cruise missiles against the surface- to-air missiles and antiaircraft artillery units defending the bomber base at Wuhan, followed by two Striker missiles.

As the Striker missiles sped inbound, McLanahan suddenly whooped for joy: “Hey, crew, I think we hit the jackpot! ” He could clearly see two separate parking areas at the huge bomber base at Wuhan — both filled with heavy bombers. One area was reserved for at least forty H-6 bombers, lined up almost wingtip to wingtip; the other parking area had four H-7 bombers, former Russian Tupolev-26 supersonic heavy bombers. “I’m going to program the last two Striker missiles for the base, too — might as well nail the targets as we get ’em. The navy base at Shanghai will have to wait for our next attack opportunity.” McLanahan steered the two Striker missiles already in flight at the H-7 supersonic bombers, planting one Striker in between two bombers so the tremendous blast knocked out both bombers at once, then launched the two remaining Strikers at the H-6 parking ramp. All four H-7 bombers went up in huge clouds of fire, and the Strikers destroyed eight more H-6 bombers and damaged several more.

As a parting gesture, McLanahan quickly programmed the last two Wolverine missiles to orbit over Wuhan bomber base and attack any targets of opportunity with the anti-vehicle skeets — any H-6 bomber that tried to start engines and taxi clear of the devastated parking ramp for the next forty minutes would be treated to a personalized demonstration of the power of an anti-vehicle skeet shooting molten copper slugs into it from out of the darkness. Another thirteen H-6 bombers, plus a number of fuel, security, and maintenance vehicles, were damaged or destroyed by the skeets launched from the Wolverine cruise missiles.

As the Chinese air defense fighters from Nanjing and Wuhu air bases converged first on Anqing, then Wuhan, to try to find and destroy the unidentified attacker, the crew of the Megafortress turned southeast through sparsely settled Zhejiang province, going feet-wet directly between the two Chinese naval bases at Wenzhou and Dinghai. Chinese air defense sites were in an uproar over the invasion on the garrisons at Xiamen, which meant that all available naval air fighter units had been sent on patrol to the south to try to stop any more Taiwanese invaders. Like a ghost riding the rising coastal fog, the Megafortress quietly slipped out of Chinese airspace and disappeared over the East China Sea.

The first detection was from the U.S. Space Commands Pacific Satellite Early Warning System, or SEWS, a large heat-sensing satellite that detected the bright flash of fire from the first 65,000-pound Dong Feng-4 ballistic missile lifting off from its fixed launching pad in east-central China. Since the launch detection was immediately correlated with a known DF-4 launch site, an automatic ICBM launch warning was issued by Space Command to all American, Canadian, and NATO military units throughout the world through the North American Aerospace Defense Command at Cheyenne Mountain. The entire Space Command complex, known as Team 21—the Space Operations missile detection wings, the worldwide communications network, and the crisis management team of the Cheyenne Mountain Strategic Defense Combat Operations Center— were on full alert when the next seven DF-4 missiles were detected moments later.

The commander of U.S. Space Command was called out of a lunch meeting with some of his visiting wing commanders, and he was quickly escorted to the Air Force Missile Warning and Space Operations Command Center. General Joseph G. Wyle was the new commander of “the Mountain.” A father of three daughters, a former F-4 Phantom fighter WSO (weapons systems officer) turned computer engineer, Wyle was one of the U.S. military’s few “triple hats,” a commander of three major military commands: U.S. Air Force Space Command, in charge of all of the Air Force’s satellites, boosters, land-based missiles, and launch facilities; U.S. Space Command, in charge of all of America’s strategic defense systems, such as surveillance satellites and radars; and the North American Aerospace Defense (NORAD) Command, the joint U.S. and Canadian military team dedicated to detecting, tracking, and identifying all incoming threats against the North American continent. The four-star general had been the deputy “triple hat” commander under General Mike Talbot during the last major international crisis in Asia, when China had first started flexing its blue-water muscles against its neighbors.

“Still waiting for SEWS confirmation of a Chinese IRBM launch,” the senior controller reported on the commander’s net in the command center.

“Let’s hear what you do know,” Wyle ordered.

“SEWS Pacific detected a total of ten missile launches in east-central China,” the senior controller reported. “Subsequent sensor hits showing large rocket plumes rising through the atmosphere, heading east. We have course and speed and approximate missile weight and performance data correlated through SEWS.”

“So we’re positive that we’re looking at Chinese ballistic missiles?”

“The latest intelligence data says the Chinese still had DF-4 missiles at all of the ten known launch sites in the area of the current launches— not the longer-range DF-5, not any of the experimental long-range ICBMs, nor any civil or commercial Long March boosters,” one of the intelligence officers reported. “So we can rule out with very good probability that the Chinese are not launching satellites, and that the attack is not against any targets in North America.”

That basic information saved a lot of time and wasted efforts — and a lot of officers and technicians who were holding their breath finally could breathe. It was well-known to everyone that Peterson Air Force Base would be a likely target for any enemy seeking to wipe out America’s defense network — but these missiles were not heading for the continental United States. “Good,” Wyle said. “Let’s notify the Pentagon and the NCA, but put it out over the non-emergency priority net.”

“We’ve got a BMEWS confirmation of ten, repeat ten, inbounds powering up through the atmosphere,” another controller reported. Space surveillance radar sites in Alaska, South Korea, and the Philippines called BMEWSs, or Ballistic Missile Early Warning Systems, now started tracking the inbound missiles, and trajectory projections appeared on the large full-color monitors in the operations center; they were backed up by radar satellites called DSSSs, or Defense Surveillance Satellite Systems. The probable target was pinpointed less than a minute from first detection: “Impact area, Guam,” the controller said.

“Ah, shit — the Chinese launched an attack on Guam,” Wyle muttered. “Get it out on the network — target Guam. Time to impact?”

“Twelve minutes,” the controller responded.

“Dammit. I hope the Army toads are on their toes this afternoon.” “Sir, now we have a track update via BMEWS and DSSS,” the controller reported. “We’re showing three of the missiles taking a different trajectory—”

“Where?” Wyle asked. “South Korea? Japan? Alaska?”

“No, sir — it’s a flatter trajectory, possibly a satellite insertion profile,” the controller responded. “The three missiles are using power to maintain a two-hundred-and-ninety-mile altitude. They could be ready to insert satellites into orbit.”

“FOB warheads?” Wyle speculated. He knew the Chinese had FOB, or Fractional Orbital Bombardment technology — the ability to put a nuclear warhead into low Earth orbit, then deorbit it anytime it circled the Earth. The warheads could stay aloft for weeks, virtually untouchable, and could threaten targets all over the globe.

“Unknown, sir,” the controller said. “We should be able to get an eyeball on the payloads when they separate.” Space Command maintained space surveillance telescopes all over the world, which would allow technicians to visually observe and identify a satellite in orbit — the telescopes were powerful enough to read a newspaper fifty miles away!

As the Chinese missiles reached apogee, their highest point in their ballistic trajectory at almost 400 miles up, the long-range Space Command radars detected the warheads separating from the boosters and beginning their reentry. “We have one missile making an erratic track — looks like it’s breaking up in reentry,” the controller said. Wyle muttered a silent prayer, hoping more would follow suit. “Three boosters are inserting payloads into low Earth orbit, repeat, three payloads entering orbit. We have three boosters MIRVing, repeat, three MIRVing… DSSS now reporting a total of twelve reentry vehicles, repeat, twelve MIRVs inbound, target Guam. BMEWS confirms that track, twelve reentry vehicles inbound, target Guam.”

“Confirm for me that an air attack alert has been issued to all installations and on civil defense nets on Guam,” General Wyle asked in a low, somber voice.

“We’ve confirmed it, sir,” a communications officer said. “Full military and civil EBS notification.” Wyle thought about all the times he had heard the Emergency Broadcast System tests on TV and radio and simply ignored the nuisance interruption. Of course, he had been in many places where people paid attention to EBS — during the floods near Beale Air Force Base in Marysville, California; the tornadoes near Omaha, Nebraska; and even on Guam during frequent typhoon warnings in the summer. But civil defense was a thing of the past, and suitable hardened, underground shelters outside of the military bases were rare on Guam. The population of that tiny, sleepy tropical island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean was going to take the full force of the Chinese missile attack… unless the Patriot missiles could stop them.

As fast as the information could be beamed out by satellite, the air defense units on the island of Guam were scrambled and activated. Two U.S. Army Patriot surface-to-air missile batteries were stationed on Guam, one on Andersen Air Force Base in the northern part of the island, and one at Agana Naval Air Station in the central part. Each Patriot battery consisted of a command trailer, three large flat “drive-intheater screen” radar arrays, and twelve transporter-erector-launcher trailers, with four missiles per trailer, plus associated electrical power and communications relay trucks. The radars did not mechanically sweep the skies, but they electronically scanned huge sections of airspace up to fifty miles in all directions, so between the two sites the entire island of Guam was covered.

The phone at his console buzzed, and he picked it up — he knew exactly who it would be. “Wyle.”

“General Wyle, this is Admiral Balboa,” the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said. “Fm at the White House. The President and the SECDEF are here with me. What’s the situation?”

“We detected ten missile launches from central China,” Wyle reported. “We’re tracking a total of twelve inbound ballistic vehicles, all heading for Guam. All tracks confirmed. We believe with high confidence that the missiles are Chinese East Wind-4 intermediate-range nuclear ballistic weapons. The reentry warheads are believed to be everything from sixty-kiloton to two-megaton yield.”

“Sweet Jesus,” Balboa muttered. “Any other launch detections anywhere?”

“None, sir.”

“Anything headed for us at all?”

“Three missiles launched from China inserted small payloads into two-hundred-and-ninety-mile orbits, inclined approximately thirty degrees from the equator, sir,” Wyle said, reading information off the large monitors in the command center. “We haven’t identified them yet. Their orbits will take them over the Pacific, within about two hundred miles of the Hawaiian islands, but not over the CONUS. They fly over central China on the backside of their orbits, so they might be weather or communications satellites, or just decoys.”

“I want those payloads positively identified as soon as possible, General,” Balboa said sternly. “Status of the air defense sites on Guam?”

“Two Patriot batteries on Guam. Both are on full alert and will be directly tracking the inbounds in about five to six minutes,” Wyle responded.

“The NCA wants an immediate notification on any other launches,” Balboa ordered.

“Yes, sir, Fll do it personally,” Wyle said. “Is the NCA going airborne?”

“Negative, but we’ve got Marine One and Two standing by.”

“Might be a good idea to get them airborne until we sort this out,” Wyle said. “If any of the inbounds hit, we’ll lose the 720th Space Group on Guam — that cuts out a lot of missile and satellite tracking and control functions in the Pacific. The warning net might go down, or suffer a bottleneck. ”

‘Til pass along your recommendation, General,” Balboa said. “We’ll keep you advised.” And the line went dead.

Everything that could be done was being done. Along with providing land-based nuclear intercontinental missiles to Strategic Command in case of a crisis, Space Command’s primary function was surveillance, detection, tracking, and notification of an attack from space on the United States, its territories, and allies. That function was completed— now it was up to the last line of defense to minimize the damage.

The Patriot air defense missile batteries first detected the inbound warheads at ninety seconds time-to-impact, but they could not begin firing the first two-missile volleys until thirty seconds time-to-impact. The launches were done completely by computer control, sequencing the launches from both batteries so each salvo would not interfere with another. Every battery fired all of its missiles — that meant that every incoming nuclear warhead had eight Patriot missiles flying up to attack it, launched in four different volleys of two missiles each.

But despite software and hardware upgrades on the system since its debut as a ballistic-missile killer during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the Patriot antiair missile system had never been designed to be an anti-ballistic missile weapon. The Patriot had the advantage of its own onboard terminal guidance radar, which meant it was much more responsive and agile and was more capable against fast-moving targets such as inbound ballistic missiles or warheads, and the new Tier 3 PUG (Patriot Upgrade Group) gave the missile a larger warhead and a new high-pressure hydraulic actuator system, so it could move its control surfaces faster to chase higher-speed targets. Nonetheless, it was still a matter of “bullet-on-bullet,” nose-to-nose precision aiming that was still several years from perfection.

Out of twelve inbound warheads, three survived the onslaught of Patriot missiles. One sixty-kiloton warhead exploded two miles west of Orote Peninsula, a total of eight miles southwest of Agana, just 3,000 feet above the ocean, leveling most of the high-rise oceanfront hotels and condominiums and creating an instant killer typhoon. Another sixty-kiloton warhead was blasted off course by a nearby exploding Patriot missile and was harmlessly fratricided by the preceding nuclear detonation near Agana. Although the blast damage, heat, and overpressure effects were enormous, casualties in the central part of the island would be termed minimal.

But one two-megaton warhead exploded just one and a half miles north of Andersen Air Force Base at an altitude of less than 3,000 feet— and every aboveground building on the base was wiped away in a blast that was greater than the power of five hundred typhoons. The nearby village of Fafalog completely disappeared in the fireball. Mount Santa Rosa, the verdant green hill overlooking the military airfield, was instantly denuded of all vegetation and then sliced nearly in half. The entire northern one-fifth of the island was immediately set ablaze, which was extinguished only by the 200- foot nuclear-spawned tsunami and typhoon-force winds that ripped into the scarred tropical island.