Into the Fire

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Milwaukee and Defender continued to operate in the mine-exercise area, deploying their gear throughout the night. They were mine hunting, not mine clearing. Defender was equipped with embedded high-frequency, high-resolution, target-classification sonars. Milwaukee was similarly outfitted with the equipment that comprised its MCM module. They were basically mapping the bottom of this portion of the Yellow Sea and cataloging minelike objects. Defender was a bit more proficient at the task since this was its sole mission. The data collected by each vessel was transmitted, collated, and displayed on a bottom-contour flat-screen image. A team of analysts on both ships worked to sift through the information to identify and classify what might be a mine and what might be man-made junk or natural rock formations.

Every few hours, Kate Bigelow made the trek from the bridge back to the mission control center — what she had grown up in her career calling the combat direction center — which contained both her ship’s-company control team and the specialized team of operators who came aboard to control and monitor the gear that was part of their mine-countermeasure module. There, she was briefed by Lieutenant Ashburn or one of his leading petty officers. She timed these visits carefully, wanting both to be informed and to show a command interest in their progress, but not wanting to be disruptive. The work was going well despite the weather. A front had just blown in from the East China Sea, reducing the visibility to a half mile. There was a heavy overcast and a strong promise of fog. The sea state was moderate with waves three to four feet, but, with a steady ten-knot wind from the southeast, it was bound to get worse. Unless it got really bad, the weather just made their work uncomfortable, not impossible. Like modern-day farmers, they tilled their field, in this case the sea bottom, with the precision afforded them by an extremely accurate GPS running fix. Anything they found and marked on their bottom topographies, they could return and find at a later date.

And they were finding mines. Each hour Milwaukee sent a status report on confirmed exercise mines found or objects classified as minelike to Commodore Park on his flagship. Park acknowledged the reports but seemed more intent on the formation and station keeping of his South Korean ships. Just after midnight, Jack O’Connor found his captain on the bridge. She was well bundled and sitting in her bridge chair. Her eyes were closed, and she was on the edge of sleep when O’Connor moved to her side holding his iPad. Before he could speak, her eyes snapped open.

“What you got, XO?”

“I’m not sure, but it can’t be anything good.” O’Connor knew Bigelow liked to be briefed by her officers. Rather than handing her the iPad, he continued, “Seventh Fleet is telling us there are three North Korean corvettes now between us and the approaches to the Han River and Inchon, and they seem to be conducting some sort of a mine-laying exercise. That, plus two of their frigates — their only two operational frigates — have just sortied from Haeju. One of our low-orbit radar surveillance satellites caught them in Haeju Bay heading for the northern Yellow Sea at about twenty hundred — some five hours ago.”

“Where are they now?”

“They don’t know. We’ll not have another satellite pass until about zero eight hundred. A section of F-16s are being scrambled out of Osan at first light to check out the three corvettes.”

Bigelow held out her hand, and he passed her the iPad. She studied it for several minutes.

“Want to call off the MINEX?” O’Connor asked. Bigelow didn’t answer, still studying the message. After a minute, she looked up.

“Not yet. See this is passed to Commodore Park immediately. And get me a rundown of whatever we have aboard in the way of intel on the capabilities of both the corvettes and the frigates. I want to know how fast they are and how they’re armed. See that information is passed around to the department heads and is a pass-down item for senior watch standers.”

“Aye, aye, Captain, right away,” he said, and he left the bridge.

Kate Bigelow sat lost in thought for several minutes. The captain of Defender would have this same information as well, and she would want his opinion on these developments. It seemed there was just too much activity on the part of the North Koreans and too little intelligence coming in from communications intercepts and electronic sources about just what they were up to. Though she was well bundled against the cold sea air, the hair on the back of her neck was starting to bristle, and she was getting goose bumps. She reached over to the IVOX and punched in the button for the mission control center.

“MCC, bridge.”

“MCC, aye, ma’am,” came the reply from a watch stander who recognized her voice.

“Is Lieutenant Ashburn there?”

“Roger, ma’am, wait one.”

A moment later, “Ashburn here, Skipper.”

“You saw the last from Seventh Fleet?”

“Yes, ma’am, I did.”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t like it. There’s a lot we don’t know, and we’ve got a ton of gear over the side. If something comes our way, there’s not much we can do right now.”

There’s probably not a lot we can do about it anyway, Bigelow thought. “How long will it take to bring everything aboard and get it secured?”

Ashburn paused, and then said, “Maybe ninety minutes.”

“Okay, let’s keep hunting, but I want all gear aboard and stowed by first light.”

“Aye, aye, ma’am.”

Kate then called the skipper of Defender and told him what she intended. He agreed with her course of action and said he’d have his gear aboard and stowed by dawn as well. Bigelow then called Commodore Park to keep him informed. He did not agree with her assessment or her decision. In his limited English, he ordered her to continue with the exercise — that no North Korean vessel would dare interfere with South Korean vessels in international waters. She tactfully reminded him the North Koreans had done just that, and fairly recently, but he was adamant. The MINEX would continue. After she broke the connection, she pondered his order to continue mine hunting. But he doesn’t have his movements severely restricted by gear in the water and a crew working in worsening weather. O’Connor was back on the bridge and had heard the exchange between Bigelow and their commodore.

“So what do we do, Captain? Continue on?”

“I think not,” she replied. “Get a message out to Seventh Fleet and info the Reagan strike group and Defender. I will be suspending both ships’ participation in the mine exercise until the intentions of the North Koreans become clear.”

“Uh, Captain, if this turns out to be just more posturing by the North, you’re going to get a reprimand for going against the orders of Commodore Park.”

Bigelow shrugged. “It will in all probability be just posturing on their part, Jack, but it’s my call. The safety of the ship and the crew comes first. It could be different in time of war, but not now, not for an exercise. We’ll not go back to hunting mines until this gets sorted out.”

“What do we tell the commodore?”

Bigelow smiled. “I’ll deal with that when the gear is aboard. Now, get that message out.”

She watched O’Connor leave the bridge, back through the pilothouse on his way to radio. Then she frowned. Is he ready to command this ship — and make the right decisions once I step down? She put that thought out of her mind for the moment — but knew she would need to return to it in time. Then she eased herself from the chair and elected to go back to the MCC.

Behind her, just after she’d stepped from the bridge, the JOOD said, “Captain’s off the bridge.”

While Milwaukee and Defender were thrashing about in the early-morning hours in the Yellow Sea, Chase Williams was having lunch at his desk the day before. Shortly after Dawson, Rodriguez, and Volner and his JSOC team headed toward Okinawa, Williams and Sullivan adjusted their watch teams to accommodate the time difference between Washington, D.C., and the Korean Peninsula. Korea was fourteen time zones away — and on the other side of the international date line — from Washington. It was important that Op-Center’s watch teams were mindful of this difference and manned appropriately at the right times. Williams was looking ahead, anticipating Op-Center’s next actions, when there was a loud, insistent knock on his door. He didn’t need to look up to see who was there.

“Come in, Aaron!” Williams said as he rolled the last bite of his sandwich in a napkin and pushed it aside. He looked up and could see Bleich was alarmed. “Talk to me,” he continued as he motioned for him to sit down.

“It’s the North Koreans,” Bleich began without preamble, and then quickly added, “I just briefed Roger, and he told me to come see you immediately.”

“Good,” Williams replied, smiling. My Geek Tank leader is a quick study, Williams thought. I never thought I’d count on someone this young for so much.

“First, their comm channels were strangely quiet,” Bleich continued. “Now they’re extremely active, especially the chatter coming from their naval headquarters. What bothers me is they have an unusual number of their larger warships at sea. The strength of their navy is their fleet of patrol boats and their submarines. The patrol boats are crude and dated, but they’re simple to operate, and they have a lot of them. Their subs are coastal boats with limited range but well suited to coastal maritime defense.” Williams had spent over three decades in the U.S. Navy, had risen to four-star rank, and he knew all this, but he declined to interrupt his Geek Tank leader. “The threat posed by their patrol boats is their surface-to-surface missile capability. They’re designed to engage and sink other surface craft. The same with their subs and their torpedoes. But they’re all in port. Now they have the best of their corvettes and frigates at sea. Except for the Silkworm-type surface-to-surface missiles carried by their frigates, these are gunships. They’re a threat to no one, but…”

“To no one,” Williams interjected, “but a lightly armed mine-hunting flotilla.”

“Exactly,” Bleich replied. “If I had to bet, the North is plotting something that has to do with American and South Korean minesweepers. And given all the land-based military movement, it’s something big. My guess is the North is going to move against the ships of that mine exercise, either as a primary objective or as a diversion for some ground action along the DMZ.”

“And if the ships are the target,” Williams asked, “what’s your best guess of what they might be up to?”

“Well, if they just wanted to sink one or two of those ships, they’d have a lot better luck with their missile-patrol boats or one of their submarines. I think they want to make a capture at sea and take some hostages — a ship or some sailors, or both.”

“The Pueblo again?”

“Just conjecture, boss, but that would be my guess.”

Williams considered this. Op-Center did not fight engagements at sea, but it did plan for the odd contingency and operate where major-military action was deemed inappropriate or unwise.

“Are Brian and Hector on the ground yet?”

“As of about fifteen minutes ago.”

Even though their G-5 had to make a fueling stop in Alaska, they set down at Kadena thirty minutes ahead of the C-17 carrying Mike Volner and his JSOC team. The big Globemaster III had twice made rendezvous for aerial refueling, but it was much slower than the Gulfstream. Per the request from Op-Center, the two aircraft were directed to a small hangar on a remote part of the airfield. Once the aircraft were parked, Brian Dawson, Hector Rodriguez, their Geek Tank analyst, and the twelve-man JSOC contingent, with their five-man support team, unloaded their gear into the small hangar and made themselves at home. This included a small but capable communications suite, cots, a field kitchen, and a generous variety of operational gear. They were a self-contained element, prepared to do just about anything and to wait for as long as it took.

As the last of the gear was unloaded, a blue Chevy Suburban pulled up to the hangar. It was 0300. The base was quiet except for the whine of the jet engine run-ups coming from a maintenance hangar across the field. The front passenger door opened, and an aide leaped out to open the rear door for the base commander. He was dressed in long-sleeved Air Force fatigues with bloused boots. There were silver eagles perched on his collar points as well as on his utility cap. He looked at the C-17, an aircraft that came and went daily from Kadena, and the Gulfstream, which was a rarity. He made no move toward the hangar but waited by the car. His was a courtesy call, but it was also a curiosity call. Brian Dawson was alerted to the Suburban’s arrival by the sentry posted at the door. He walked over to the Suburban.

“Good morning, Colonel. My name is Brian Dawson, and I’m the element leader of this contingent.”

“Colonel Bost here, Dawson,” the colonel said neutrally. “Welcome to Kadena.”

Dawson stepped away from the Suburban, motioning Bost to follow.

“Colonel,” Dawson said in a quiet voice, “we are a special-operations contingency force that reports to an organization called Op-Center that answers directly to the president. I’m sure you’ve been given our clearance and operational mandate.” Bost nodded. “There’s something brewing in the Yellow Sea that may or may not come to a head and may or may not require our attention. In all probability, we’ll just sit here for seventy-two hours or so, pack up, and then go home. If we get tasked, it could be anytime, day or night, and then we will move quickly. That’s about all I can tell you. We’re completely self-contained, and we should be out of your hair one way or another within just a few days.”

Bost again nodded. “Thank you for that. My aide will give you an on-base contact number that’s good twenty-four/seven. If you need anything, just call that number. And if there are any problems, have them call me.” He offered his hand, which Dawson took. “Otherwise, good luck.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Moments later, the Suburban and the colonel were gone. If he resented their presence or felt neglected because he had been told so little, he had the good sense or good manners not to show it.

When he reentered the hangar, Dawson was met by his staff analyst, who also served as a communicator. “Sir, I have a real-time, secure voice link established with Op-Center. It’s a lot clearer than the Iridium satellite phone.”

Jesse Carpenter was the Geek Tank’s utility infielder. He was not a programmer, but he could set up and manage a computer network, and he knew just about all there was to know about military and corporate communications. He also had a good grasp of military intelligence and intelligence analysis. Carpenter had a degree in mathematics from the University of Phoenix online, as well as a master’s degree. He was a self-starter and prided himself on being such. Bleich had hired him away from NSA, where he was considered a rising star. Jesse Carpenter was thirty-five, five ten, a hundred and sixty pounds, and extremely fit. As an enlisted soldier, he had served with the Seventy-fifth Ranger Regiment and the Fifth Special Forces Group, where he qualified as an 18-Delta medical sergeant and an 18-Echo communications sergeant. Hector Rodriguez said he was as useful as a Leatherman tool and as handy as a pair of pants.

“Sir,” Carpenter continued, “I’ve got us set up over in the corner of the hangar, where there’s a little privacy. I’ve tested the comm link. We’re up, fully operational, and Mr. Williams would like you to call him as soon as it’s convenient.”

“Thanks, Jesse. Great work.” I know the boss knew what he was doing sending us downrange just in case, Dawson found himself thinking, and I’ve got good men here with me trained and ready to go on hot standby. But for the life of me I can’t conjure up a scenario where they’d be able to get their guns in the fight.

Just before 0400, about the time the crews of Milwaukee and Defender began the cold, wet work of retrieving their mine-hunting gear, two F-16Es with extended range tanks lifted off the runway at Osan Air Base, made their way out over the Yellow Sea, and turned north. Both were two-place aircraft but differently configured. One carried an AN/ASD-11 Theater Airborne Reconnaissance System pod attached to its centerline station. The second was riding shotgun and carried a complement of AIM-120 air-to-air missiles. Each aircraft carried five hundred rounds of 20 mm ammunition in their M61A1 Gatling-gun system that, at six thousand rounds per minute, gave each F-16E a brief but lethal five-second squirt. Just before takeoff, Senior Chief Ed O’Gara managed to get one of the pilots of the reconnaissance bird on a secure line and told him what he was looking for on a visual pass.

The two North Korean captains who now commanded Najin Three and Najin Four had been selected for their seagoing experience and their political reliability, of which the latter took precedence. Their mission, as Op-Center’s Aaron Bleich had rightly guessed, was to capture one or both of the American ships in what the North Koreans claimed to be their waters. Najin Three was to take a station just west and south of Yeonpyeong Island to block the American escape to the west and south while Najin Four would make for a station southeast and south of Yeonpyeong with the intention of herding them north, closer to the coastline of North Korea.

Both captains knew it was a bold and dangerous plan — and one likely concocted by military bureaucrats and political sycophants in their air-conditioned offices in Pyongyang. And both knew failure was not an option for either of them.

The Yeonpyeong Island group had a curious history and geographic location. Yeonpyeong was situated off the North Korean coast and south of the United Nations — created Northern Limit Line. Yet Yeonpyeong Island and a smaller inhabited island of the group, Soyeonpyeong Island, were located north and inside of what the North Koreans called the Inner-Korean Military Demarcation Line. The North allowed ferry service between Inchon and the two islands through a maritime corridor that ran approximately north and south through the Yellow Sea to the island group. Except for an occasional exchange of artillery between the Yeonpyeong Island garrison and the North Korean coastal batteries, the arrangement had worked for more than sixty years. And the Chinese seemed to permit it as well. It was not unlike their own aggressive history regarding the Taiwanese islands of Quemoy and Matsu off the coast of China.

Now, with the Americans operating at sea close by and just south of the Military Demarcation Line, Pyongyang saw this as a chance to change the calculus. With the capture of an American ship in waters they claimed, the North Koreans hoped to see South Korean forces removed from Yeonpyeong and the islands returned to North Korea — along with an extension of North Korean waters into the Yellow Sea to include the recently discovered oil and gas deposits. The attention and leverage gained by the capture of USS Pueblo in January 1968 was not lost on the North Korean leadership. It was still considered one of the great victories of the People’s Republic of North Korea. They knew the premium the Americans placed on POWs, and they wanted to bring this about again. What they would ask the Americans for in return for the precious U.S. POWs should matter little to a nation on the other side of the Pacific, they reasoned. As the sun began to turn the low-hanging fog over the Yellow Sea from black to a dark, dirty gray, both frigates were on station. When word came from the People’s Army Naval Headquarters, Najin Three began to move west at twenty knots, while Najin Four made for the Korean-American mine flotilla at flank speed.

The two F-16Es found the Won Do and her two sister ships just after first light. Per their orders, the corvettes had set up a picket line with twenty miles between each of the three ships and just west of the arc of their minefield. There they were to await further instructions. Their standing orders were to allow any South Korean vessels to pass by and enter the minefield. They were to warn off or take under fire any American warships that attempted to escape east through the mines.

Since Won Do was the southernmost of the three pickets, the F-16Es found it first. Lieutenant Commander Choe Dae-jung watched the two aircraft flash past, one after the other at two hundred feet off the surface. After a second pass, they disappeared into the overcast, headed north. Choe’s crew was on full alert. His two missilemen were ready with their Strela-2 shoulder-fired surface-to-air launchers, but the two fighters were moving way too fast for the infrared homing device of either Strela to obtain a lock. Much to Choe’s relief, they zoomed off unmolested. The next corvette received the same basic treatment, but on the third ship, a trigger-happy missileman fired his rocket. The missile had a weak signal, so the rocket went ballistic after its intended target juked away from the flight path. But the F-16s did not keep moving this time; they turned to fight. Twenty mm rounds from their internal cannon ripped into the superstructure of the unarmored corvette. After two gun passes, the cries of dying crewmen echoed within the ship and rendered several passageways slick with blood. And there was fire — not a fire that would completely disable the corvette, but one that created enough smoke to asphyxiate several more crewmen. In a matter of seconds, eight North Korean sailors were dead with that many again dying from shrapnel wounds. The first blow had been struck.

On clearing the third ship, the two F-16Es headed for Osan with their reconnaissance pod full of images and electronic intelligence. The second pilot in the recce F-16E called back to his base with the information Senior Chief O’Gara wanted most. He reported the mine racks of all three ships were empty. This information was quickly passed to O’Gara at Seventh Fleet. He confirmed again that satellite imagery from the day before showed the racks to be full. The corvettes had indeed mined the waters west of Seoul and Inchon.

Op-Center was not on the Seventh Fleet distribution list for classified intelligence traffic, but with the computer-generated sifting of the Geek Tank’s electronic eavesdropping programs, they had the information within minutes of Senior Chief O’Gara’s receiving it. Fifteen minutes after one of the F-16Es reported the empty mine racks on the North Korean corvettes, Aaron Bleich was in Chase Williams’s office, even as the Op-Center director was reading an electronic copy of the F-16E transmission to Seventh Fleet on his desktop computer. It was 0930 in Washington.

“What do you make of it, Aaron?”

“It would appear that the mines and corvettes are an attempt to block our ships and the South Korean ships from returning to port, either by way of the Han River or to Inchon.”

“Not entirely,” Williams replied.

“Sir?”

“The corvettes are too widely spaced to intercept many, if any, of the South Korean or American ships. And the minesweepers, both the Korean sweeps and Defender, are wooden ships and designed to be able to move relatively freely in a minefield. Only Milwaukee is at high risk from the mines.” Williams was silent for a moment, then continued as if thinking out loud. “Perhaps the corvettes and the mines are there to serve a dual purpose — to keep Milwaukee from escaping to a friendly port and to prevent the South Koreans from coming to the rescue. Their frigates and destroyers, not to mention a very capable patrol-boat force at Inchon alone, are enough to overpower just about anything the North can put to sea. Only a minefield could keep them in port.”

“What about our air assets at Osan and Kunsan? Can they intervene?”

“They could,” Williams smiled ruefully, “but it’s not that simple. Our ships and the South Korean ships are well within the coastal air defenses of North Korea. China has given them some pretty sophisticated stuff, and the Russians have sold them the best they have. You’ve been reading their mail, Aaron. You know they’re in a high state of readiness. Our fighters can protect the ships, but we’re going to lose some aircraft in the process. I’m reaching back a ways to my time as PACOM commander, but as I recall they have a wide array of anti-aircraft missiles. They have the full range of Russian SA-class missiles — from the SA-2 up into the teens to the SA-17. And they have the S-25 Berkut and the Strela-10 to boot. But let’s not trust my memory. Get me an order of battle of what they might have in the way of air defense. Meanwhile, I need to make a call.”

After Bleich left, Williams tapped a number on his secure phone console, one he had committed to memory, not to speed dial. It was answered on the first ring.

“I need to speak with the president … no, it absolutely cannot wait until morning.”

Back at his desk, Aaron Bleich’s fingers flew over his keyboard. He was determined to get the Op-Center director the information he needed ASAP. And he wanted to do it quickly, for he felt he had an equally urgent task. I walked into the director’s office, he asked for my assessment, and what I gave him didn’t answer the mail completely. That won’t happen again. I’m better than this. I need to get smarter on the capabilities of our ships and game the likely scenarios if shooting starts.

“You shock me, Commander,” Commodore Park said in his broken English. “I specifically told you that I wanted the mine exercise to continue without interruption. You have disobeyed my order — my direct order.” Park had called on the open bridge-to-bridge circuit, which was line-of-sight, unencrypted, and on the bridge speaker. The anger in his voice was plain to Jack O’Connor, the OOD, and all the bridge watch standers. As it was an open circuit, it could be heard by those on the bridges of Defender and the other Korean minesweepers. But Park was not done. He launched into a tirade, called Bigelow a coward, and threatened court-martial. While he was in full rant, a sailor ran onto the bridge from radio and thrust an iPad into Bigelow’s hand. She motioned O’Connor to her side to read it with her. It was flash precedence, the most urgent of all military traffic.

“Commodore, stop right there!” Bigelow barked into the handset, and a chagrined Park fell silent. “I’ve just received a message from Seventh Fleet saying the North Koreans have mined the waters off the Han River and the Port of Inchon. The report also indicates two of their major combatants put to sea last night and may be in our area.”

Park knew his minesweepers were defenseless. “Wha — what are you going to do?”

Bigelow hesitated, but only for a second. “I’m going to request continuous air cover and clear my ship for surface action. I recommend that you do the same. Bigelow, out.”

“Jack, sound general quarters. OOD, find Mr. Ashburn and have him report to me here on the bridge.” Then she took up the handset for the secure comm link to the bridge of the Defender. “Defender, Milwaukee, over.”

“Defender actual, here, over.”

“You get all that, Tom?” Lieutenant Commander Tom Welch was commanding officer of Defender, a University of San Diego NROTC graduate, and a capable MCM skipper.

“I did, ma’am. What are your instructions?”

“Let’s start moving south at twelve knots with you in the lead. I don’t want to abandon the sweeps, but we need to get some sea room from them just in case. I’ll ask Osan for some air cover — and meanwhile get your best people on your surface-search radars.”

“Roger that, ma’am. Turning to zero-eight-zero at twelve knots. Good luck, Captain.”

“Same to you, Tom. Milwaukee, out.”

Moments later, Eric Ashburn was on the bridge, helmet strapped into place, life jacket on, and his trousers tucked into his boots — proper general-quarters dress.

“Eric, get a message out to Seventh Air Force at Osan and request immediate and continuous air cover. Tell them we’ll be moving south from the exercise area. Info Seventh Fleet and Reagan strike group.”

“Got it, Skipper.” And he was gone.

Bigelow had just clipped the chin strap on her battle helmet and was shrugging into her life vest. Both were embossed with COMMANDING OFFICER, on the front of the helmet and the back of the vest.

“Bridge, MCC,” came the call on the IVOX phone. MCC — mission control center — was the tactical and electronic nerve center of Milwaukee. On previous classes of U.S. Navy ships it was called either the “combat information center” or “combat direction center.” During general quarters, Bigelow might be in the MCC, or she might be on the bridge — it all depended on the threat and the tactical situation. She could direct the ship’s operations from either location. For now, she chose to be on the bridge.

“Bridge, aye,” the OOD replied.

“Bridge, we have a surface contact twelve miles at one-seven-five true. It’s coming straight at us at twenty-six knots.”

Shit, now what? Bigelow beat the OOD to the IVOX phone. “What’s your evaluation, Chief?” The watch officer was a chief operations specialist and a good one. Bigelow recognized his voice.

“I’m showing a Square Tie air search radar and a Pot Head surface-search radar, Captain. Got to be a Najin-class frigate and it’s coming hard.”

Bigelow looked off to the south, knowing the North Korean frigate was still below the horizon, especially in this weather. Again, shit. She was considering her options when the IVOX phone on the bridge squawked again.

“Bridge, combat, Chief Jones again. You there, Captain?”

“Right here, Chief.”

“Ma’am, I have another paint on yet another Najin-class frigate. At first I thought it was an echo, but it’s definitely a second frigate. She’s west of us and on a heading of zero-eight-five at twenty knots — no, make that twenty-five knots. She’s putting on speed.”

Double shit. Warships were no longer referred to as “she” and “her.” But Chief Jones was old-school, and Bigelow didn’t really care. What she did care about was the unfolding trap the North Koreans were about to spring. Instantly, her mind’s eye captured the full implications of the tactical situation. And she immediately knew she had but two choices — run or fight. Running was the simplest solution. Milwaukee could easily outrun these frigates, even with her heavy MCM package. And even with the minefield to the east and North Korean waters to the north, there was enough seaway to the west to maneuver and stay out of potential gun range of the North Korean frigates. But Defender couldn’t run, at least not fast enough. The flank speed of the MCM ship was fourteen knots. The South Korean minesweepers, not quite that. They could scatter, but the two frigates would run them down like wolves on a pack of sheep on the open prairie. There was one and only one course open to her, or one course open until she could get air cover. She turned it over in her mind once again, but saw no other option.

“OOD!”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I want to see the weapons officer and the operations officer here on the bridge, ASAP.”

“Aye, aye, ma’am.”

Bigelow’s eyes locked on Jack O’Connor’s for a brief instant as she reached for the secure bridge-to-bridge net with Defender. His mouth was open and he looked like a deer in the headlights. She turned her attention to the handset.

“Milwaukee actual to Defender. You there, Tom?”

“Right here, ma’am.”

“Do you have the North Korean frigates?”

“Yes, ma’am. We just picked them up.”

“Okay, these are your instructions. I want you to come left to a course of zero-eight-zero and run east for that minefield. Commodore Park is on his own, but I will recommend he do the same. Those frigates’ll not follow you into a minefield.”

“Understood, ma’am, but it’s too far. With their speed advantage, they’ll run us down.”

“No, they won’t, Tom. Milwaukee will see to it.”

“I don’t see how … Hold on, Kate. You can’t do this. No way!”

“This is the only way. Do you understand your orders?”

“Yes, but…”

“No buts, Lieutenant Commander Welch. Do you understand your orders?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Then execute them. Good luck, Tom. Milwaukee, out.”

She made a similar call to Commodore Park. He understood the tactical situation as well as Bigelow and had turned his ships east. “Thank you, Commander Bigelow. God willing, we will see you in port in Inchon.”

“God willing, Commodore,” she replied and broke the connection.

Jack O’Connor, Eric Ashburn, and Ensign Grace Montgomery were waiting for her on the port bridge wing. Montgomery was her weapons officer. It was a lieutenant junior grade billet, but she had been aboard for fifteen months and had proved her worth as the ship’s gunnery officer. When the previous weapons officer had been rotated ashore, Bigelow had fleeted her up to the job. Grace Montgomery was a slightly built woman who looked younger than her twenty-three years. In her battle helmet, she looked like a kid playing war. Bigelow stepped over to meet them on the bridge wing.

“Okay, Roberts, take a coffee break,” she said, dismissing the port lookout. When he was gone, she turned to the others. “We don’t have a lot of time, so I’m going to make this quick. We’re going to put ourselves between Defender and the closest frigate and shield Defender while it makes for Inchon. Eric, have the chief quartermaster put us on a course to keep us between that closest frigate and Defender. Then I want you supervising the watch team in MCC. This could turn out to be a game of chicken or the real thing, but let’s let them make the first move. They radiate us with a fire-control radar, then we light them up. They shoot; we shoot. But we let them make the first move. Gracie?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“That gun of yours ready to do business?”

“Yes, ma’am. My gunner’s mates have run their prefiring checklists, and the fire-control techs have the radars calibrated with the gun. We’re ready to shoot.”

“Very well. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to a shootout, but if it does, we’re counting on you. Questions? Okay, let’s get to it.” She motioned O’Connor to wait while the others went to their stations. “Jack, I want you to make a tour of the ship and make sure all stations are manned and ready. Make sure Chief Picard has the wardroom fully converted to a surgery suite and ready to receive casualties. Then I want you in MCC with Eric as well. Eric will run the show, but I need you there to back him up. I’ll also want you to ensure Seventh Fleet is kept informed of whatever takes place. If this turns into a surface action, I’m going to want to be on the bridge.”

“Captain,” O’Connor said in a low voice, “you can’t be thinking about a surface action with these frigates. They have two 100 mm guns and four 5 mm guns—each! We have a single 57 mm gun. We have no business mixing it up with them. We’re totally outgunned.”

Bigelow regarded him carefully. “What would you have me do, Jack?”

“Negotiate. Talk to them. Anything but challenge them like this. If we provoke them, they’ll fire on us, and we have one lousy gun.” As he spoke, a messenger from radio came up and handed Bigelow an iPad. She took it, scanned it quickly, and typed in a quick acknowledgment.

“Thank you,” she said to the messenger. Then, turning back to her executive officer, “Well, Jack, it seems the shooting’s already started. One of those corvette minelayers fired on a section of our F-16Es, and they fired back.” She lowered her voice a notch. “Look, I’m not looking to make this ship a martyr, and we will do all we can to avoid a confrontation. But we’re in international waters, and those sailors on the Defender are helpless. Their best offensive weapon is a fifty-caliber machine gun. I’ll not abandon them to the North Koreans.”

O’Connor took a step closer, making the mismatch in their sizes more apparent. “What about us? What about the sailors aboard Milwaukee?”

“XO, don’t think I’ve forgotten about them for one minute. But this is a United States warship, and our duty is clear. We’ll stand with Defender. Now, get with the program, Jack. You do your job, and I’ll do mine.”

O’Connor stiffened, but took a step back. “Aye, aye, Captain,” he said, and left the bridge.

Bigelow looked around and saw that the bridge GQ watch section was at their stations and in battle gear. Then she looked out to sea to the south. The weather was worsening, and the cloud cover was now down to three hundred feet, making it difficult for the air cover she had requested.

Staff officers and senior enlisted personnel were now streaming aboard USS Blue Ridge as it sat pierside in Yokosuka, Japan. The Seventh Fleet commander had ordered the Reagan battle group to head back toward the Yellow Sea at best speed. The staff intelligence section had shed no new light on the situation except to note that the North Koreans had mined the northern portion of the west coast of South Korea and that aircraft from the Seventh Air Force had disabled a North Korean corvette. Now word had just come in that two North Korean frigates were bearing down on an American — South Korean mine-hunting flotilla of eight ships — eight extremely helpless ships.

Vice Admiral Edmond Bennett had been in the Navy for twenty-six years. He was new to the Seventh Fleet, having come from a two-year tour in the Pentagon. Before that, he had commanded the Carl Vinson carrier strike group. He was a solid, seagoing officer; an efficient administrator; and, like all naval officers who rose to three-star rank, a capable politician. And he knew a nasty encounter at sea brewing when he saw one. He was discussing the matter with his chief of staff and his intelligence officer, both senior Navy captains, when Lieutenant Hugh Risseeau interrupted.

“Excuse me, Admiral, gentlemen, but you wanted to see anything new about the North Koreans in the Yellow Sea.” He handed Bennett a hard copy of a message. The admiral studied the sheet for several minutes and then passed it to his chief of staff, who then read it with the intelligence officer looking over his shoulder.

“This originated from an outfit called Op-Center,” the COS said. “I’m not familiar with them. Who are they?”

“And they seem to feel strongly,” the intel type offered, “the North Koreans are looking to capture one of our ships. Seems a little far-fetched to me.”

Ed Bennett was now more worried than he had been at any time since the crisis broke. He was far enough up the military food chain to know who Op-Center was and, more importantly, who was running it. As such, he was inclined to take the capture scenario at face value. Bennett, like every line officer at Seventh Fleet, or the entire Navy for that matter, knew the limitations of the littoral combat ship. And on his desk, he had a listing of the speed, armament, and combat capabilities of the Najin-class frigates. On paper, the LCS was terribly overmatched, the MCM ship slow and essentially defenseless. But capabilities only told a part of the story. Sometimes it was not how big the dog in the fight but how big the fight in the dog. In this case, what was the combat readiness of the crew, and how good was the captain?

“COS, get me a file on the skippers of our two ships over there, and I’m specifically interested in the skipper of the LCS.”

“Right away, Admiral.”

After they had left, Bennett asked for a line to the Pentagon operator. It took routing through several exchanges, but in a little less than ten minutes, he was put through to Chase Williams.