Into the Fire

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Commander Kate Bigelow had brought Milwaukee to a heading of one-five-zero and a speed of ten knots. They were bow-on to the nearest North Korean frigate that was at twelve thousand yards and closing fast. She had maneuvered her ship to present the smallest radar signature to the North Korean frigates. The South Korean minesweepers had taken Defender’s lead and were making best speed due east for Inchon. They were still in sight but hull down and probably out of radar contact with the North Koreans.

Bigelow stood on the starboard outside wing of her bridge. Under her battle helmet she wore a headset and boom mic that connected her to her mission control center. With the foul-weather jacket and life vest worn over her coveralls, she looked like a preschooler ready to play in the snow. She had not needed her XO’s warning to tell her she was outgunned, but if it came to a fight, she was not without advantages over the two frigates bearing down on them. The first was that their 57 mm BAE Systems Mark 110 gun was probably better than anything aboard the frigates. They had more and bigger guns, but not a better one. Secondly, Milwaukee was built with flat-angled topside areas that gave it a low radar signature. The North Koreans would have a much more difficult time ranging her with radar than she would them. And, finally, there was speed. They’d not done a full power run with the MCM module aboard, but she felt Milwaukee held something close to a ten-knot speed advantage. She hoped it would be enough.

Kate Bigelow spoke into her boom mic and called the watch stander at the Main Propulsion Control and Monitoring System — the MPCMS for short — a console inside the bridge and right behind the OOD and JOOD consoles. The senior petty officer manning the MPCMS kept tabs on Milwaukee’s unmanned engineering plant. Now that they were at general quarters, her chief engineer had stationed himself right beside the MPCMS operator.

“MPCMS, Captain.”

“MPCMS, aye. Chief engineer is here with me, Captain.”

“Okay, Steve. Ready to answer all bells?”

“Yes, ma’am,” her CHENG replied. “Everything is online, and we can give you all we have.” All he had was a great deal — two Rolls-Royce MT30 gas turbines and two Colt-Pielstick diesels driving four Rolls-Royce water-jet propulsion units.

“Understood and thanks. Captain, out.”

She then turned to her comms officer. “We patched in?”

“Yes, ma’am. We’ve been monitoring their bridge-to-bridge circuit, and it’s on your handset.”

Bigelow paused. She was about to make the most important radio transmission of her naval career. With steel in her voice, she began. “North Korean frigate, this is the United States ship Milwaukee. We are conducting a military exercise in international waters. Please state your intentions, over.”

There was a long pause. Bigelow could imagine them looking for an English speaker and wondering about a female voice coming from an U.S. Navy warship.

“American navy ship. This is the captain of Najin Four. You are not in international waters. You are in the waters of the People’s Republic of Korea. You are ordered to stop and prepare to be boarded for inspection.”

Kate called her OOD. “Come right to two-seven-zero and make turns for twenty knots.”

“Najin Four, this is Milwaukee. May I know why you wish to board us, over?” She felt the ship heel to port in the turn and surge ahead as she waited for the reply.

“American warship. You are in our nation’s sovereign waters. You will stop immediately and prepare to be boarded and inspected.”

Kate stepped through the hatch and into the pilothouse. She looked at the LCD display in front of her OOD. The nearest North Korean frigate was just under ten thousand yards away, well within gun range — hers as well as theirs.

“Bridge, MCC.” It was Eric Ashburn’s voice in her headset. “Now that we’re broadside to them, they’re painting us with their surface-search radar. They’re also searching for us on their Drum Tilt fire-control radar.”

“Roger that. Let me know when they have us locked up.” Then, into the handset, “Najin Four, this is Milwaukee. Once again, please state your intentions. We are steaming in international waters.”

Bigelow was playing for time, allowing the minesweepers a few additional minutes to make good their escape. She was now steaming in the opposite direction of them and hoping the two frigates would converge on Milwaukee and allow the sweeps to leave unmolested.

“American warship, you are in waters that belong to the People’s Republic of Korea. You will stop for boarding and inspection. This is your last warning.”

Before Kate could answer, “Bridge, MCC. They have a lock on us with their fire-control radar, and both frigates have altered course. They’re converging on us!”

“MCC, bridge, roger.” Then to the OOD, “Continue right to two-eight-zero and make turns for twenty-eight knots.” The good news, Kate thought, is they’ve turned their attention to us; the bad news is they’ve turned their attention to us. Back on her headset, “You with us, Weps?”

“Weapons here and standing by,” came the childlike voice of Grace Montgomery.

“Light them up and prepare to fire on my command.”

“Emitting now and will prepare to fire on your command,” Montgomery echoed.

Milwaukee had a recently installed modification of the Saab Sea Giraffe fire-control radar that had not been fully tested. It would certainly let the North Koreans know they had been locked on by a sophisticated radar, but would it get shells on target? Time would tell. Fortunately, Montgomery and her gunner’s mates had proved themselves proficient with their gun’s optical systems — at least during gun drills.

“Fire control locked on and tracking.”

“Very well,” Bigelow replied. “Eric, they still following us?”

“Still with us, Skipper.”

At twenty-eight knots, Milwaukee could just stay ahead of the two converging North Korean frigates. Bigelow knew she could outrun them at any time, but she needed to keep them in range, and Milwaukee in their range, to draw them north and away from the fleeing minesweepers. Once those sweeps are at a safe distance, she thought, we are so out of here. But that would keep her in harm’s way for at least another three hours. A lot could happen in three hours. And where is that damned air cover?

“Bridge, Weps. Bridge, Weps, over.”

“Bridge here. Go ahead, Gracie.”

“I have a visual on the enemy. We are under fire! I have gun puffs from their main battery!”

“Roger that, Weps. Battery released. Return fire, return fire, break. You copy this, Jack?”

“Copy, Captain.”

“Inform Seventh Fleet and Seventh Air Force we have been fired on by a North Korean frigate and are returning fire.”

“Captain, you sure you really want to—” It was Jack O’Connor’s voice.

“XO, get that message out ASAP! When that’s completed, would you please come up to the bridge.”

The OOD looked up at her. “Ma’am, from the lookout on the hangar. We have splashes in the water, one on the port quarter and two on the starboard quarter.”

“Very well.”

Then on her headset she heard, “Bridge, Weps. We seem to have found the range and have bracketed the frigate. We may have even hit it.” Her voice was calm, even measured. “But the fire-control radar’s crapped out, and we are now engaging visually with radar ranges generated here in MCC.”

“Very well, Gracie. Keep at them, steady and slow.” Bigelow sighed. This was unfortunate but not unexpected. That’s why Montgomery had worked her gun crew on shooting with a visual solution and radar ranges.

“Okay, Willie,” she said to her general-quarters officer of the deck, a lieutenant junior-grade from MIT and the Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode Island. “We’re now shooting visual. You know what to do.”

“Roger that, Skipper,” and he began to dial in a series of speed and course changes. This had also been worked out in advance, and Bigelow knew she could rely on her OOD to maneuver the ship properly. He was the smartest officer on board, and this complex maneuvering of the ship came easily to him.

For now, there was nothing for her to do but wait and worry. Milwaukee’s gun was forward on the fo’c’sle and could not shoot back through the ship’s superstructure. So with her speed advantage, the ship would follow a zigzag course that would keep them ahead of the twenty-six-knot frigates but allow their only gun to engage the pursuing enemy. These same restrictions applied to the optical gun director that could not see back through the baffles created by the ship’s mast and stack. But this maneuver made for noise and discomfort with the gun shooting back and close to the exposed bridge wings. It was not too bad in the pilothouse, but on the bridge wings it was deafening. They were running at close to forty knots and approximately thirty degrees left, then right, of a steady course of their pursuers. The OOD knew to adjust the course so the gun would bear and at a speed to keep the ship at nine thousand yards from the closest frigate — the maximum effective range of their gun. The gun could fire 220 rounds per minute, for a short period of time. The ship carried close to 1,100 rounds of various types, but 90 percent were high-explosive rounds. Her weapons officer knew to conserve ammunition to make good their escape yet to keep the North Korean frigates in their range to keep them following Milwaukee. All this should work, Bigelow reasoned. The North Korean frigates were following, and each passing moment put Defender and the South Korean minesweepers that much closer to safety. And the periodic change in course and speed was creating problems for the frigate gunners. Yeah, this will work, Kate told herself as she watched a 100 mm shell from one of the pursuing frigates splash a few hundred yards to port and just ahead of them, unless we take a hit and can’t keep this up.

As President Wyatt Midkiff entered the White House Situation Room, his national security advisor, Trevor Harward, was at the doorway to meet him. “Anything more since you called me, Trevor?”

“No, Mr. President. When I called you in the family quarters, I’d just arrived here and was beginning to assess the situation. The North Korean frigates were ordering Milwaukee to stop and prepare to be boarded.” Harward paused and looked at his watch. “About twelve minutes ago, our LCS began taking fire from one or both of the frigates…”

“Taking fire!” the president exclaimed. “They weren’t bluffing?”

“No, evidently they weren’t,” Harward replied as he began to walk toward the Sit Room watch floor. The president followed.

As they entered the small Sit Room watch floor, the Sit Room director, a Navy captain, signaled everyone there with the exception of his watch standers to clear the room.

“Mr. President, you can see the display here on your right,” Harward began, aiming at the display with a small laser pointer. “Our ship, Milwaukee, is in international waters here in the Yellow Sea. The two North Korean frigates, here and here, have taken her under fire…”

“Has our ship been hit yet?” the president interrupted.

“No sir, not yet. Milwaukee has about a ten-knot speed advantage over the North Korean ships, so right now she’s trying to return fire enough to threaten the frigates, stay a bit ahead of them, and count on the North Korean fire not being accurate enough. We know from earlier reports the skipper of the LCS is intent on distracting the North Koreans to give our mine-countermeasures ship, Defender—as well as the six South Korean minesweeps — time to move east towards Inchon, where they’ll be protected by South Korean units.”

“How long will that take … until the other ships are safe, I mean?”

“Captain?” Harward asked, turning toward the Sit Room director.

“Mr. President, it’s hard to say exactly. South Korea has substantial naval assets in and around Inchon, but of course they are trapped due to the mines those three North Korean corvettes sowed west of the harbor approaches. The South Koreans are scrambling aircraft to protect their minesweepers.”

“And Defender and Milwaukee also, right, Captain?” Harward interrupted.

“Yes, sir, although we have no way of knowing that for certain.”

“I assume our ship is seriously outgunned?” the president asked of no one in particular.

“Yes, sir,” the Sit Room director replied. “At this stage it looks like Milwaukee’s captain is using speed and maneuver until Seventh Fleet or Seventh Air Force or other U.S. assets can either take out the North Korean frigates or drive them away.”

“Is there any other help nearby? South Korea? Japan? I understood this was a multinational exercise.”

The national security advisor gave the Sit Room director a measured look to ensure the man didn’t respond.

“We’re checking on that, Mr. President,” Harward replied, then paused. “A moment in one of the conference rooms, sir? I’m sure the captain will keep us informed of developments. In the meantime, he’ll put the tactical picture up in the conference room and we can follow it as we talk.”

The president paused. “Certainly, Trevor, lead on.”

Wyatt Midkiff was mildly annoyed Harward was pulling him out of the Sit Room abruptly. But he had worked with him long enough to know there must be a reason.

“Trevor?” the president began once they were seated in the conference room. The same tactical picture they saw on the watch floor was also displayed on the large LCD display at the front of the conference room.

“Mr. President, I thought some privacy would be best for the moment. The situation is confusing right now, but we will eventually get it sorted out. Of course, we’re worried about our ship that has been taken under fire and for the lives of the captain and her crew.”

“Her?”

Harward smiled. “We can talk about the changes that have occurred in the Navy since you served, but, yes, Mr. President. Milwaukee is commanded by Commander Kate Bigelow. She’s been in command for almost fourteen months, and this is her second ship command. Right now, she appears to be doing everything possible to take evasive action while still, apparently, trying to distract the North Koreans long enough for all the sweeps to escape. As you know, Mr. President, those ships are basically defenseless.”

“I know that, Trevor, but all I want to know is what we can do to help Milwaukee. Is there something intensely private about my trying to get a simple answer to that question?”

“Mr. President, we — and I mean the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State, and my staff — feel strongly we must only use U.S. forces to come to the aid of Milwaukee. North Korea’s intentions are unknown. On the surface, it appears they just want to embarrass us — maybe even with an implicit okay from the Chinese — and disable or even capture Milwaukee. But maybe there’s more here than meets the eye.” Harward paused before continuing, measuring the president, trying to determine how he was processing what he was telling him.

“Go on, Trevor. Tell me more.”

“We’ve briefed you recently on some of the major North Korean troop movements as well as the murder of Vice Marshal Sang Won-hong, deputy chief of the general staff of the KPA. Other moderates within their military hierarchy have been forced out for bogus reasons. For all we know, they could be baiting the South Koreans into attacking those frigates and then use that ‘aggression’ by the South to start a major military crisis on the peninsula, maybe even an invasion…”

“I take your point,” Midkiff interrupted. “But we have American lives on the line. If your counsel is to make this a U.S.-only show to relieve our LCS, what are we doing about it — I mean right now?”

Harward placed his tablet — which already had a large-scale operational display pulled up — in front of the president and began to describe the U.S. response.

Aboard Najin Four, the captain was urging his chief engineer for more speed and his gunners, who were pouring forth a tremendous volume of ineffective fire, to shoot better. Najin Three, which for some unknown reason had a slight speed advantage over his ship, had drawn abreast of Najin Four and taken station a quarter mile to port. The captain of Najin Four was senior, and he had ordered his sister frigate to hold its relative position and not advance. Both captains knew they must find a way to stop the American ship. If it were to escape, then all this careful planning would be for nothing. More than that, the supreme leader and his senior generals of the Korean People’s Army would think nothing of killing a sea captain who failed in his duty — along with his entire family. So I must not fail. The captain of the Najin Three was thinking much the same thing.

Back aboard Milwaukee, Jack O’Connor made his way to the bridge and stood next to Kate Bigelow. “You want to see me, Captain.”

“You bet I do, XO,” and she motioned her executive officer over to step out onto Milwaukee’s starboard bridge wing.

Once out on the bridge wing, Bigelow moved to within a foot of her exec. “All right, Jack,” she began in a low, menacing voice. “Here’s the deal. I’m going to talk, and you are going to listen without interruption. We’re in a fight, and you directly challenged my orders on an open internal circuit. A lot of people on that circuit heard you, and by now it’s all over the ship. How could you?” O’Connor started to reply, but she raised her hand to silence him. “Listen to me and listen carefully. We don’t have time for this shit. You’re supposed to run this ship, and I’m supposed to fight it. Right now, it’s all about the fight. So what now? I want you to agree to go back into MCC and do your job per my instructions and keep your mouth shut regarding my decisions. If I want your input, I’ll ask for it. Or I will have you escorted to your stateroom and put under guard.” O’Connor just stood there, unable to hide his shock. “So if you agree to do as I’ve asked, I want you to step back, give me a parade-ground salute, and a loud, cheery, ‘Aye, aye, ma’am.’ Then get your butt back into MCC. And if you don’t agree, I want to know it right now. I’m going to put you in hack and under guard. So what’s it going to be, Jack?”

After only a moment’s hesitation, he stepped back, rendered a salute, and said, “Aye, aye, ma’am!”

“Very well, XO. Carry on.” And she turned her back to him and brought her glasses up again to inspect the two pursuing frigates.

While the situation was tense in the White House Situation Room, it was frenetic in command centers across multiple time zones. The need for information up, down, and across various chains of command was insatiable. Watch standers sorted through typically conflicting reports, fielded endless demands for information from their commanders, pulled information up on large-screen displays, and updated information on status boards.

Once conflicting information was sorted out and the operational and tactical picture stabilized, it became clear the fastest way to come to the relief of Milwaukee was to call on the Seventh Air Force. Army General Everett Green, commander of U.S. Forces in Korea, picked up the command net and called Seventh Air Force Headquarters at Osan Air Base. Soon, units of the Fifty-first Fighter Wing were on the move.

Aboard Milwaukee, Kate Bigelow again looked at her watch. They had been running and gunning for close to two hours, and she was beginning to think they just might make it. She had just told the OOD to open the range to the North Korean frigates to 10,500 yards — the outer limit of their effective gun range, yet it would probably put them beyond the operational gun range of the North Korean frigates’ 57 mm mounts. It was their 100 mm guns that worried her. One of their 57 mm rounds had crashed into the rear portion of the helo deck, but it had been a dud. Nonetheless, it had cut through a cable tier, a freshwater line, and had scared the hell out of one of the repair parties in an internal passageway. The round had made it through to the lower engineering spaces and had seemingly caused no further damage. But it had come to rest only after bouncing off one of the water-jet units. The unit continued to function but was now emitting a slight vibration. Another round, presumably a 100 mm high-explosive projectile, had landed close aboard to starboard and detonated. The explosion had damaged a seam on Milwaukee’s hull, and they were now taking on a small quantity of seawater, but it was nothing the pumps couldn’t handle.

Grace Montgomery and her gun crew now had both frigates under fire, lobbing a few shells at one, then shifting to the other. She had reported hitting both ships, but they were still coming. Bigelow knew the frigates, being older and more primitive, could probably absorb more punishment than Milwaukee. Being newer and faster had its disadvantages. The LCS was built light and with a thin skin to increase speed. Its dependence on electronics, fiber optics, and computers made it more vulnerable to gunfire. And the LCS was not a true surface combatant. It was built to be versatile and to work close to shore and in restricted waters, but with blue-water Navy protection. It was never designed to slug it out with enemy frigates.

Suddenly, the whole ship rocked as a 100 mm round slammed into the helo hangar. Milwaukee seemed to shake it off and charge ahead, but they had been hit and hit hard.

Bigelow stepped into the pilothouse and stood behind the sailor manning the Main Propulsion Control and Monitoring System console. Her chief engineer was already there. “What’s your status, Steve?”

Job one was to run, and speed was a priority. An engineering casualty would end it all. The reply was several long seconds in coming. “We seem to be intact, Skipper. Probably cracked a few fittings, and our rover is checking everything, but both diesels and both turbines are running within specs.”

“Understood. Let me know if anything changes.” The gun was still firing, so she assumed they were all right. “MCC, bridge. Everything okay there?”

It was Ashburn. “We lost a few displays, and one of our surface radars is down, but nothing we can’t do without until it gets fixed.”

Knowing her assistant engineer for damage control, or damage control assistant, would call her with a status update when he received a report from one of his on-scene damage-control parties, Bigelow paced the bridge impatiently. The DCA was a seasoned chief petty officer and had been in the Navy for over two decades. He could also be taciturn when pushed, so she waited. Then the call came.

“Bridge, DC Central.”

“Bridge, go ahead, Parker.”

“Cap’n, that round went into and through the hangar space, continued down into the mission module, and detonated right in the middle of the module. There was no one there, so all it did was fuck up a lot of MCM gear — beg pardon, ma’am. Some of the conex boxes holding a bunch of the mission module gear have a few shrapnel holes in them, but the mine gear took the brunt of the explosion. I’m glad I’m not signed for that gear.”

“Any casualties?”

“One of the storekeepers took a little shrapnel, and there are some bumps and cuts. Doc Picard is attending to them. We dodged one this time, Skipper. How much longer?”

“I don’t know. As long as it takes. Parker, let me know if there’s any additional damage I should know about.”

“Yes, ma’am. DCA, out.”

She turned her attention to the screen in front of her junior officer of the deck, who was also in charge of navigation. “Skipper, we’re now about fifteen miles south of Yeonpyeong Island, and we’re running out of sea room. If we get much closer to the coast of North Korea, we’ll come under their coastal batteries. If we’re going to do an end run around these guys, we better do it soon.” Bigelow glanced at her watch. They’d managed to keep on the run and keep the frigates in pursuit for just over two and a half hours.

“Okay, let’s pass just to the southeast of Yeonpyeong, and then we’ll swing west and make a dash to get out of range of these two clowns.” She looked over to where her OOD was strapped into his chair. “Willie, when you come left for your next zig, hold that westerly heading and come up to full speed.”

“Aye, aye, ma’am.”

Milwaukee was still firing, but for the last several minutes there were none of the waterspouts around the ship there had been earlier. What was going on with the North Korean frigates? Have they given up? Bigelow wondered.

“Bridge, MCC.”

“Bridge, aye. Go ahead, Eric.”

“Captain, something’s up. Both ships have shut down their surface- and air-search radars, and they’ve quit shooting. Skipper, you know this could mean”—and they both said it together—“Missile launch!”

Bigelow swung her binoculars around to the frigate on the starboard quarter just in time to see a blossom of white smoke from the solid rocket booster. It quickly flamed out, and the liquid-fueled rocket engine took over. Clearly, it was a big missile, and she watched it climb, nose over, and head for her ship. The missile was an old, first-generation cruise missile: a Safflower CSS-N-2. Its pedigree flashed through her mind — initial inertial guidance, then active radar homing on terminal, twelve hundred pounds of high explosive, Mach.8. That means it will be here in thirty seconds — now about twenty.

“Left full rudder; weapons officer, fire chaff, fire chaff; sound the collision alarm,” but she knew there was time to do none of those things.

“Bridge, MCC. I have monopulse active radar on final. That missile is locked on to us!” Ashburn’s voice was still conversational but with a hint of urgency.

After the second gong of the collision alarm, the Safflower cruise missile slammed into Milwaukee’s helo hangar. Because of the light skin of the hangar, the twelve-hundred-pound warhead, which could have broken the back of the ship, did not detonate. But as it passed through the hangar, the liquid fuel tank in the missile ruptured. Most of the propellant in the nearly full tank passed through the hangar along with the missile body, but not all of it. Enough spilled into the hangar and the weather decks to set the after part of Milwaukee ablaze.

The impact of the missile was like a loud clap of thunder. Bigelow felt the ship heel to starboard in a turn as the ship carried a full left rudder. Instinctively, she called out, “Rudder amidships!”

“Rudder amidships,” the OOD answered, as if nothing had happened.

But something had. Bigelow stepped out to the starboard bridge wing to look down the flat metal side of the ship and saw that the whole aft portion of her ship was in flames. She felt Milwaukee begin to lose speed and rightly assumed they no longer had the two gas turbines online — only diesel power. With just the two diesels driving the four water-jet propulsion units, the ship would not be able to outrun the North Korean frigates. But that was now the least of her worries.

“Damage control, bridge, this is the captain. What do you have for me?”

“Bridge, DC central.” Even now, there was a laconic tone in her damage control assistant’s voice. “I have fire-fighting parties moving to the scene, but we have a lot of structural damage and a lot of fire. I have no idea whether or not we can control this fire. When I know, you’ll know, Cap’n. Any chance we can slow down to keep the wind from driving these flames?”

“Not for a while. Do what you can, Parker, and keep me informed.”

The gun on the fo’c’sle barked out another round, so at least they could still shoot. She turned to her chief engineer, still standing behind the sailor on the MPCMS console. “Engineer, what’s your status?”

After a moment, he said, “We got problems, Skipper. That last hit further opened up that seam from the previous hit. We’re taking on water, both from the rent in the side of the ship and water from the firefighting. The pumps aren’t going to be able to stay up with this much water. My gas turbines are offline from the shock, and I’m getting a bad vibration from the port inboard water jet. If it gets any worse, I’ll have to shut it down. Skipper, this ship wasn’t designed to take this kind of punishment.”

“Understood, Steve. Do what you can to keep us running and afloat. I’ll get us out of this just as soon as I can.”

She stepped back out onto the starboard bridge wing and glanced back along the side of the ship. The flames didn’t seem as bad as they were a few moments ago, but they were still visible and spawning clouds of black smoke.

Bigelow moved right behind her JOOD, who was looking at the navigation display. “What’s our nearest land?”

“Captain, it’s the Yeonpyeong Island group. Closest land is Geodo or Little Yeonpyeong Island. We’re about eight miles due south of it.”

“Very well. Give the OOD a course to make for that island.”

“Aye, aye, ma’am.”

His national security advisor had constructed a short list of calls that needed to be made and made urgently. President Midkiff had called the president of South Korea and urged a hands-off approach to the crisis. The secretary of defense and secretary of state had called their respective counterparts in Japan and South Korea and had done the same. On the uniformed side, the U.S. chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had called his South Korean Joint Chiefs counterpart. Now that those calls urging inaction had been made, it was left to the United States’ theater commander to protect Milwaukee and keep the Navy warship from being captured or sunk by the North Koreans.

“You fool,” the captain of Najin Three said over his secure circuit to the captain of Najin Four. “Our orders were to disable the American ship and either tow it into port or at least make the crew prisoners.” He was junior to the captain of the Najin Four, but he was still of the same rank. And he would answer just as severely if they failed.

“What would you have us do,” the senior captain replied, “let them escape? Would you like to explain that to our masters in Pyongyang? See, the American ship is on fire. Now we can overtake them and,” he added with a chuckle, “offer assistance under our terms.”

“But what if it explodes or sinks, then what?”

“We will deal with that if and when it occurs. Meanwhile, we will close on them and offer to help. I will come alongside to port. I suggest that you approach from starboard. We have them now.”

The captains and crews of the two North Korean frigates were so engrossed in their closing on the American ship they failed to notice four black dots that dropped carefully from the overcast some three thousand yards astern of the frigates. The dots separated into pairs. The lead pair fell astern of one frigate and the second pair the other. Then each pair separated, one dot in the lead, the other in trail. As they closed on the frigates, the dots sprouted wings, and then huge air intakes for the jet engines mounted to the rear and high on their fuselages. By the time the radar operator on Najin Four saw the dots on his scope, a lookout on Najin Three reported there were four aircraft directly astern and closing fast. They were U.S. Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt II ground-attack aircraft from the Air Force Fifty-first Fighter Wing at Osan. By coming in low and directly behind the two frigates in their radar blind spot, they had arrived virtually undetected.

The A-10 is an ungainly, heavily armored aircraft built around a GUA-8/A 30 mm Gatling-type cannon that can issue expended-uranium, armor-piercing bullets at a rate of seventy rounds per second. The Warthog, as it is affectionately known by the pilots who fly it and the ground troops who appreciate it, is a tank killer. Three inches of tank armor present no problem for the Warthog. The quarter-inch steel-plate construction of the two North Korean frigates was like punching through paper with a .22 caliber bullet. The bullets from each lead A-10 clawed into the aft superstructure of its assigned frigate and took down the masting and all the communications and radar-antenna arrays. The frigates were now deaf and blind. The trailing A-10s came in from behind at a slightly steeper angle and sent expended-uranium projectiles deep into the machinery and engineering spaces of the vessels. Both frigates began to lose headway. Then, recovering from their first pass, the Warthog pair that had just raked Najin Three from stern to stem wheeled around to set up a firing run on Najin Four. The other pair came around for a head-on pass at Najin Three. This time, the A-10 pilots sent their rounds into the lightly armored forward gun mounts, shredding the gun crews. Then, lifting their noses slightly and with a gentle kick of the rudder, first left and then right, they destroyed the bridges of the two ships, killing both captains and nearly all the bridge watch standers.

The carnage was unimaginable, the chaos complete. The ships lost internal lighting, and most of the emergency battle lanterns were disabled. When the damage control and medical teams began to move about the ships, they had to work through twisted corpses and dismembered body parts to get to the wounded. The ships and a third of their crews would never sail again.

The three Sariwon-class corvettes fared no better than Najin Three and Najin Four. They were ordered to remain on picket duty near the edge of the minefields they had sown. That order proved fatal. Each received a Tomahawk cruise missile dead amidships that broke each ship in half. They sank within minutes. Many crewmen perished on impact. Others died in the sealed tombs of their compartmented battle stations, feeling the air pressure increase as water poured into their sinking ship. Some died when a bulkhead gave way and they quickly drowned. A few made it to the bottom of the Yellow Sea and died slowly as they breathed the last of their trapped air. Those lucky enough to be blown overboard were taken by the relative mercy of a cold-water death. Almost all were taken by surprise. Only Lieutenant Commander Choe Dae-jung, who spent more time on his bridge that the other corvette captains, saw the inbound missile that took out Won Do. His last conscious thought was why it had taken the Americans so long.

Aboard Milwaukee, Kate Bigelow was standing by her bridge chair in the pilothouse and dealing with damage reports and the fire that still burned unabated on the aft part of the ship. Her chief engineer and his damage-control assistant had confirmed they could either deal with the fire or deal with the flooding, but not both. The pumps could either get water to the fire-fighting teams or dewater the ship — one or the other. Sink or burn, Bigelow thought, and as she did, a plan formed in her mind.

She turned to her chief engineer. “Steve, get that fire under control and give me as much speed as you can. We’re going to run for shore.”

“Aye, aye, ma’am.”

As she turned, her XO was there with a grim smile on his face. “Come take a look at this, Captain.”

They made their way out to the port bridge wing, where he pointed to the two frigates on the horizon. Through their binoculars, they saw neither frigate was making a bow wave and one of them was issuing a dark shroud of smoke.

“The Air Force finally got here,” O’Connor said. They watched as the A-10s flashed overhead, waggled their wings, and disappear to the east. “So now that we might not be shot out of the water, and before we sink, I recommend that we begin abandon-ship procedures. It’s the sensible thing to do.”

“Perhaps. For now, we stay with the ship, Jack. You said you visited the Naval Academy once when they were trying to recruit you to play football. Remember that flag on the far wall of Memorial Hall at the Academy?”

“You mean the ‘Don’t Give Up the Ship’ banner.”

“That’s the one. Make all preparations to abandon ship, but not now and not until I give the order.”

“But Captain…,” and he got no further. The look on her face all but told him she neither needed nor wanted any rationalization from him.

“Aye, aye, Captain.” And he left the bridge.

She stepped back into the pilothouse and stood behind her OOD. “How far, Willie?”

“The main island is about six miles dead ahead.”

“Very well.” She looked ahead and saw a trace of land on the horizon under what seemed to be a flat band of haze or smoke. On the screen in front of her OOD, the speed indicator showed fifteen knots — now fourteen. She turned toward her chief engineer, still standing behind her MPCMS console. “Steve, status report?”

“Good news and bad news, Skipper. The fire is not out, but we’re bringing it under control. But with the rent in the hull and the fire-fighting efforts, we’re taking on a lot of water. It won’t be too much longer until the entire plant is underwater.”

“Steve, I need another half hour at this speed. Can you give it to me?”

“No guarantees, Skipper, but we’ll do our best.”

“Understood, but let me know if things change. I need that time and that speed.”

She turned around, took two steps, and eased herself up into her bridge chair and took a deep breath, aware that while the bridge watch standers were tending to their duties, they frequently looked in her direction. They knew that their ship was dying and that she held their fate in her hands. A messenger appeared by her elbow. He was the bridge messenger, a young seaman she had sent to the ship’s wardroom turned surgery suite. During general quarters or action stations, the wardroom was converted to an aid station to marshal and treat casualties. The seaman peered out with wide eyes from underneath his battle helmet, and his color wasn’t good. None of this is good, Bigelow thought.

“What do you have, Robbins?”

“Sir, er, ma’am, Chief Picard sends her respects. So far, we have eight dead and about a dozen wounded. She has converted the ship’s office into a makeshift m-morgue and is using the officers’ staterooms f-f-for wounded who have been treated.” He took a breath and started to speak, but fell silent. He was white as a ghost, and there was a sheen of sweat on his forehead.

“It’s okay, Robbins, you’re doing fine. Just tell me what the chief said.” Bigelow laid her hand gently on the sailor’s shoulder. He’s just a kid, she found herself thinking, I was still at the Naval Academy when I was his age.

“She said that four of the wounded are critical and cannot be moved. The others c-can be moved, but she recommends th-they not be. And she says there are more wounded coming in … ma’am.”

“Good report, Robbins. Go stand over there; I may have another job for you.” She was digesting this casualty report when Lieutenant Ashburn’s voice burst into her ears.

“Bridge, MCC.”

“Go ahead, Eric.”

“There is an artillery exchange between South Koreans on Yeonpyeong Island and the North Korean coastal batteries. We may not want to attempt a landing there.”

“Very well, stand by.” She slipped from her bridge chair and stepped behind the junior officer of the deck. “What are our options, Dennis? I need to park this ship just as soon as I can.” She did her best to keep her tone light, but there was an urgency not lost on her JOOD.

“Well, if we don’t make for the main island, there is Chedo Island that’s a little closer. But there’s no harbor there, or not one that could handle us.”

“Not looking for a harbor, Dennis. I need a good beach gradient where I can get this ship hard aground before we sink.”

He cast her an incredulous look, then turned back to the LCD display and the navigation picture in front of him. “Then I don’t recommend Chedo as it has a steep gradient and a lot of submerged rocks offshore.”

“How about this one?”

The JOOD peered closer. “Kujido Island.” He pulled up another screen and read the navigation summary. “Good gradient and no offshore obstacles. And it’s uninhabited.” He quickly pulled up a local guide to mariners on another screen. “Used to be a crab-processing plant there, but it was abandoned some time ago. About three hundred yards long and a hundred yards across the northern tip. It looks to be an emergent sea mount. It’s about a mile and a half south of Yeonpyeong Island. Might keep us out of the artillery fan of the North’s coastal artillery.”

“Let’s hope. Give me a course to the southern tip of that … what’s it called?”

“Kujido.”

“Right. This is the captain,” she announced to the pilothouse. “I have the con.” Kate Bigelow reached over her OOD’s shoulder and dialed in a course to point Milwaukee toward the little speck of land in the northern Yellow Sea. Then she picked up the handset to the 1MC, the ship’s general announcing system.

“This is the captain speaking. In a few minutes, we are going to beach the ship on a small, uninhabited South Korean island. I’ll put us ashore as gently as I can, but prepare for the impact of the grounding. We’ll stay with the ship as long as we can, but we may be forced to abandon ship at any time and go ashore. You’ve all performed splendidly, and I’m proud of you. For right now, remain at your stations, do your duty, and this will all be over soon. God bless each of you and God bless Milwaukee. That is all.”

The fire was all but out; however, Milwaukee was noticeably down by the stern when Kate Bigelow nudged the LCS ashore on the southern tip of Kujido Island. While she did her best to touch her ship down with bare steerageway, the sound of metal grinding on rock was deafening and unnerving. As the ship scrapped the bottom of the seafloor, it sounded to her as if the hounds of Hades were being released. Only one of her two diesels still functioned. The ship ground to a halt at a forty-five-degree angle to the rocky beach, port side to, and took on a permanent fifteen-degree list to starboard. The stern, still in deeper water than the bow, continued to settle into the seabed. With her ship hard aground, Bigelow left her OOD in charge of the bridge and, in the company of Master Chief Wilbur Crabtree, began an inspection of her ship. Her first stop was the wardroom-surgery suite, where Chief Carol Picard and the corpsmen tended to the wounded.

Aboard the Seventh Fleet flagship, USS Blue Ridge, pierside in Yokosuka, Japan, Vice Admiral Ed Bennett stared at the cryptic message on his computer screen. It read:

Bennett then flicked to another message from Seventh Air Force that detailed the downing of two A-10 ground-attack aircraft over the Yellow Sea by Chinese-made North Korean air-launched PL-8 missiles. The PL-8 was not a terribly sophisticated missile, but then the Mach 3.5 missile didn’t have to be to take down a relatively defenseless A-10. And it served to remind the fleet commander of the dilemma facing him with the stranded Milwaukee. Any aircraft sent to relieve the crew of Milwaukee would be flying into one of the most deadly air-defense envelopes in the world. If there was to be a rescue, it would be seaborne rescue — a fleet action. And when ships moved into an area contested by land-based air, the fleet often ended up on the short end of the exchange. It was true for Pueblo in 1968 and it was true for Milwaukee now.

He pressed the button on his intercom. “Yes, Admiral?”

“Tell the chief of staff I want a meeting of all department heads in the conference room in five minutes.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“And have ops contact Ronald Reagan strike group ops officer. Get them headed for the Yellow Sea at flank speed. I’ll have more for the strike-group commander. Have him contact me on the battle net.”

“Yes, sir.”

Chase Williams had not left the Op-Center command center since his watch team alerted him that a U.S. Navy combatant was in a running gun battle with North Korean ships. Reports were coming in too quickly for him to pause and reflect on the wisdom of sending Brian Dawson and Hector Rodriguez, as well as Major Mike Volner and his JSOC team, downrange the day before, during the early stages of the unfolding crisis. As he monitored the situation, he reflected on his former uniformed career and, specifically, his three years as the Pacific Command commander. He knew the geography and the order of battle of the forces involved. But he did not yet know how Milwaukee was faring in the duel with the North Korean ships, nor did he know the intentions of the North Koreans. So he had no way of yet knowing how Op-Center might be able to help or if it could help at all.

Some of that uncertainty was clarified as Roger McCord and Aaron Bleich appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. “Boss, we have something for you,” McCord began.

“I’ll take anything you fellas have.”

“Aaron?” McCord prompted.

The Geek Tank leader stepped next to Williams and held up his secure iPad, showing him the message that had appeared on the Seventh Fleet commander’s screen minutes ago. “We just got this off the Seventh Fleet JWICS net. Looks like Milwaukee is hard aground on Kujido Island in the Yellow Sea…”

“Hard aground? Make me a little smarter on where Kujido Island is, Aaron.”

Bleich scrolled his iPad as he pulled up the geographic display. “Here it is, boss. It’s part of the Yeonpyeong Island group.” Bleich continued, “It’s about fifty miles west of Inchon…”

“How close is it to North Korea?” Williams interrupted.

“Less than eight miles, sir.”

“I wonder what the hell the skipper was doing there.” Williams mused to no one in particular.

“We’ve been following the live radio feeds,” McCord interjected. “When the North Korean ships appeared on scene and made for the ships in the mine-hunting exercise, Milwaukee’s skipper took on the two North Korean frigates so the South Korean ships and one of ours, the MCM ship Defender, could make good their escape. The Milwaukee’s only option was to run to the north. Tactically, it seems she did the right thing.”

“She?”

“Yes, sir,” McCord continued. “Milwaukee is commanded by a Commander Kate Bigelow.”

Williams paused to consider what his intel team had just told him. Then he was all action. “Okay, Roger, Aaron, good report. Aaron, let’s turn up the gain on what I asked you to do a little while ago. I want you both to get upstream of the immediate action reports and deep dive into why North Korea attacked these ships and what else they may be up to. Brian is the senior man downrange, so I’d like to have him give us his assessment. I don’t know if we’ll get the call on this one yet, but let’s alert our JSOC team at Fort Bragg and let them know we may need additional assets to support Major Volner and the team he has in place.”

As his team moved to carry out his instructions, Chase Williams left the watch floor and headed for his office. He had calls to make.

Roger McCord followed Aaron Bleich back to the Geek Tank, and now the two men sat in companionable silence, considering the task ahead. Then McCord spoke, “The boss has given us a big assignment. Given what we know now, we have to get out in front of this and find out why the North Koreans did this.”

“He started me working on this a little while ago,” Bleich replied, “and it’s not just the ‘why,’ but the ‘why now?’ And why did they seem to want to attack Milwaukee? Why not the Korean minesweepers or Defender?”

“That’s what we need to know. Could be that they just wanted an American ship. Could be that given the poor weather conditions, Defender just got taken for another Korean minesweeper. But until we find that out, we’re operating with one hand tied behind our backs.”

“It would seem to me,” Bleich continued, “the North Koreans are trying to precipitate a crisis to put our forces in the region in check. Taking an American crew hostage would do that. But why? What do they want from us? Or the South Koreans?” Bleich knew it was his job to find the answers to these questions, not McCord’s. He also knew he had to amp up his game. And for the first time he could remember in the longest time, he worried about failure.