Tiger's Claw

THREE

SOUTH CHINA SEA

THAT SAME TIME

“Who said it looks ugly? I think it’s cute,” U.S. Navy Lieutenant Paula “Cowgirl” Caraway commented as she studied the image on her multifunction display from her station in the aviation warfare section of the P-8 Poseidon reconnaissance plane, based in Hawaii but temporarily deployed to Taiwan. Caraway, a trim, athletic blonde with an almost perpetual smile, was the patrol plane navigator/communications officer, or NAVCOM, aboard the aircraft. The P-8A Poseidon was a naval variant of the Boeing 737–800 airliner outfitted with extended-range fuel tanks, a small bomb bay for torpedoes or cruise missiles—they were currently unarmed—electronic intelligence-gathering and antisubmarine warfare equipment, and sonobuoys for detecting and tracking submarines.

“It’s kinda sleek,” Caraway went on, “with its upturned nose, like a supermodel. Graceful.” She had switched one of her digital radar displays so she could see the high-resolution inverse synthetic-aperture radar image from the Poseidon’s AN/APY-10 multimode radar. Even at a range of almost forty miles, the APY-10 produced an image as sharp as a black-and-white photograph—she could easily count and identify the aircraft sitting on her deck. “A little princess.”

“I was the one who said it was ugly, and it is,” her partner seated beside her, Lieutenant Commander Richard “Beastie” Sykes, said. Sykes, a veteran maritime patrol plane officer with almost fifteen years of service in P-3 Orion and S-3 Viking patrol planes, was the patrol plane tactical coordinator, or TACCO, directing the activities of the P-8’s naval warfare crew. “So they slapped some paint on it and gave it some interesting new bulges. It’s still an antiquated pig.”

Sykes and Caraway were talking about the main subject of the day’s surveillance mission over the South China Sea: the Zhenyuan, the People’s Republic of China Navy’s first aircraft carrier. Formerly the Kuznetsov-class Russian carrier Varyag, it had first been transferred to Ukraine after the fall of the Soviet Union. It was purchased by Iran purportedly to be used as a work platform for offshore oil rigs, but it had been secretly made operational and based in the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman as the carrier Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the first aircraft carrier operated by a Middle East nation. After a brief skirmish with American Air Force bombers, where the ship was severely damaged, the carrier was stripped of all its weapons and sensors and sold to China, again purportedly to be used as a floating hotel and casino near Hong Kong. It appeared briefly as the aircraft carrier Mao Zedong and was involved in the conflict between mainland China and Taiwan after the island nation declared independence, and then retired once again after being severely damaged. The Chinese announced it was an environmental hazard and transferred to the northern port of Dalian to be scrapped.

Instead, several years later, the ship emerged from dry dock with newer, more powerful engines and improved digital sensors. It successfully completed sea trials in 2011. According to the Chinese navy, the carrier, renamed the Zhenyuan, would only be used for “experimentation, training, and research,” and stay near the Chinese mainland. The world was surprised when it appeared in the Gulf of Aden a year later as part of an eight-ship carrier battle group that at first drilled with the Russian aircraft carrier Vladimir Putin battle group, then attacked the Yemeni port city of Aden and participated in attacks against pirates in Somalia, using advanced JH-37N fighter-bombers flying off its decks. Few analysts in the world would have guessed that the Chinese would have an aircraft carrier battle group operational before the year 2020, let alone actually use one in combat. When China agreed to withdraw its troops from Somalia in 2013, the Zhenyuan and its escorts returned to home waters and rarely left the South China Sea. The Chinese navy began intensive carrier flight operations training aboard the Zhenyuan in anticipation of outfitting its second aircraft carrier, the Zheng He, planned for 2015.

Although more than twenty miles away, the Poseidon’s synthetic-aperture radar provided very detailed images of the Zhenyuan. Like British Invincible-class carriers, instead of aircraft-launching steam catapults, the Chinese carrier used an up-sloped forward deck called a “ski jump” to throw fixed-wing aircraft far enough into the sky for them to accelerate to flying speed before they descended and hit the water. It had a very large island superstructure on the starboard side, with light-colored smoke billowing from stacks in the rear. The island bristled with antennas and electronics domes, as well as phased-array radar panels and self-defense missile launchers and gun emplacements; there were more missile launchers and gun turrets midships on both sides along the gunwales. There were six arresting gear wires aft to recover fixed-wing aircraft. Four very large twin-tailed aircraft were parked forward of the island and six more smaller jets aft on the starboard side, plus two large helicopters parked on the port-side elevator and an aircraft waiting to launch from the ski jump. The sensor measured the Zhenyuan’s forward speed as twenty-five knots.

“The planes forward of the island look like JH-37s,” Sykes remarked as he studied his right-side multifunction display, which was displaying radar images, “but the ones aft of the island and the one getting ready to launch look smaller than the others. Are they JN-15s?” The Shenyang JN-15 was an unlicensed copy of the Russian Sukhoi-33 carrier-based fighter, reported as the original aircraft to be deployed on Chinese carriers until the surprise appearance of the much larger JH-37 fighter-bomber.

“Can’t tell yet,” Caraway said as she made reconnaissance log entries and took a sip of water from a hip flask. “I’d expect to get a visit from one of those JH-37s any time now. I can’t wait to see one up close. I hope they . . .”

At that moment they heard on the international emergency GUARD frequency: “United States Poseidon naval reconnaissance aircraft with the unit number of VP-9, this is the combat controller aboard the People’s Liberation Army Navy carrier Zhenyuan on GUARD channel. How do you hear this transmission, please?”

“He read off our squadron number?” Sykes exclaimed. “Unless they got a very high-powered telescope or made a really good guess, they must’ve intercepted us. Pilot, TACCO, any visual?”

“Negative!” the P-8’s pilot, U.S. Navy Commander Renaldo “Nacho” Sanchez, another veteran patrol aircraft crewmember, responded. “Let me try some turns to see if . . .”

“Wait, wait, I see him,” the copilot, Lieutenant Helen “Troy” Lister, radioed, her voice high pitched from excitement. “Four o’clock, high. Boy, that is one tiny plane. It’s . . . hey, I think it’s a J-20!”

“What?” Sanchez exclaimed. He strained forward in his seat to get a better look out the copilot’s side window. “I think you’re right, Troy.” The Shenyang J-20 Tiaozhàn zhe, or “Challenger,” was the People’s Republic of China’s answer to the American F-22 Raptor: sleek and stealthy, reportedly able to cruise at supersonic speeds without afterburners, with internally carried air-to-air missiles, a powerful active electronically scanned radar, and telescopic infrared sensors that allowed it to engage targets without using its radar. “I thought it was experimental only.”

“Grab some pictures and I’ll upload them to the satellite,” Sykes said.

Lister immediately pulled out a digital camera and began taking pictures. “I don’t see any external weapons,” she commented as she snapped away.

“They’re supposed to be internal, like the F-22,” Sanchez said. “Do you think it came from the carrier or from a land base?”

“A Chinese carrier-based stealth fighter—that would be huge,” Caraway said. “We don’t even have anything like that yet.”

“Pretty good job sneaking up on us like that,” Sykes remarked. “Not one squeak on the ‘raws.’ ” The “raws,” or Radar Warning Receiver, warned of any ground, ship, or airborne radar that might be tracking them.

“He could be using AESA or IRSTS,” Caraway said. AESA was Active Electronically Scanned Array, an advanced radar that shifted frequencies more quickly than most RWRs could identify; IRSTS was Infrared Search and Track System, a sensor that detected and tracked heat sources. Both systems could allow a fighter to track and target another aircraft and guide missiles with a very low probability of being detected.

“Carrier Zhenyuan, this is Nickel Five-One-Five, U.S. Navy reconnaissance aircraft,” Sanchez announced on the UHF GUARD channel. “We have visual contact on an aircraft at our seven o’clock position. Is that one of yours?”

“That is confirmed, Five-One-Five,” the controller responded. “There is another aircraft approaching on your left.”

Sure enough, when Sanchez swung around to look out his window, he saw another J-20 flying close formation. “It’s another J-20!” he exclaimed. “They have two of those suckers out here? How far are we from a Chinese air base?”

“At least four hundred miles,” Sykes said. “How about that? Looks like the Chinese built themselves a carrier-based stealth fighter.”

“Are you sending all this to headquarters, Cowgirl?” Sanchez asked.

“I’m typing like crazy,” Caraway said. “I’ll come up for your camera after I get the acknowledgments, Troy.”

“State the purpose of your flight near our ships, please,” the Chinese controller radioed.

“Routine reconnaissance flight, carrier Zhenyuan,” the pilot replied.

“Are you armed, sir?”

“Negative,” Sanchez replied. “We are unarmed.”

“Please open your bomb bay and lower your landing gear, Five-One-Five,” the Chinese controller said, “so our fighters can visually inspect your weapons bay.”

“What?” Caraway exclaimed. “He’s nuts!”

“We cannot comply, Zhenyuan,” Sanchez replied. “That would be unsafe at our current airspeed, altitude, and weight. We are on a peaceful routine reconnaissance flight over international waters.”

“It is well known that your aircraft can be fitted with antiship cruise missiles in the internal weapons bay,” the Chinese carrier’s controller said. “Such aircraft are not permitted to fly within cruise missile range of our vessels or of our petroleum facilities unless their armament status is visually confirmed and your peaceful intentions verified. You must turn north immediately and exit this area. Continued flight in this area will be considered a hostile action and an appropriate response will be initiated without further warning.”

“Pilot, TACCO,” Sykes called on the intercom, “what do you want to do, Nacho?”

“The ROE says we don’t mess around with a couple of Chinese fighters on our tail,” Sanchez replied, referring to the Rules of Engagement operations plan briefed before each and every mission. “We briefed the possibility that we might get intercepted—just not by freakin’ naval J-20s. Cowgirl, send home plate a text and advise them of our situation. Troy, give me a heading back to the refueling track.”

“Not completely unexpected, especially since what happened last year,” Sykes said on intercom. “After what the Air Force did in the Gulf of Aden to the Russians, I’m surprised they let us get this close.” Tensions between the United States, Russia, and China following the previous year’s skirmishes in the Middle East had decreased markedly, but they were still uncomfortably elevated. “They definitely got the drop on us, sneaking up behind us.”

“Steering bug is on the air refueling initial point,” Lister said. Sanchez started a right turn to center up the steering indicator. As they turned, Lister turned in her seat to look out the windscreens and make sure the Chinese fighters were turning with them. The last thing they wanted was another midair collision like the one that happened in 2001 when Chinese J-8 fighters collided with a Navy EP-3 Orion patrol plane near Hainan Island, killing one Chinese pilot and forcing the EP-3 to land on a Chinese military base. The crew was detained for ten days and the plane for three months while the Chinese scoured every inch of it for intelligence and engineering information. “Hey, I don’t see our little friend anymore. Looks like he went home.”

“The one off our port side is gone too,” Sanchez said.

“We can expect some more little friends soon—we saw one ready to lift off the carrier,” Sykes said.

“What’s our range to the carrier, Beastie?”

“Forty-six miles,” Sykes replied. “Boy, I’d love for them to kiss my narrow hairy ass,” he went on. “Being forced to get jerked around in international airspace is bull. But we wouldn’t let them come any closer than a hundred miles from our ships, so I guess . . .”

And at that moment, completely without warning, the entire interior of the Poseidon went instantly and completely dark, the engines started to spool down, and the cabin depressurized.

“Holy shit!” Sanchez shouted, right after his last breath whistled out between his lips in a loud “BARK!,” and air that hadn’t leaked away instantly became a thick fog. Sanchez and Lister immediately slipped quick-don oxygen masks over their faces with well-practiced ease. “Troy, can you hear me?” he shouted through his oxygen mask.

“Roger!” Lister shouted back. She was surprised at how calm she felt—this was very much like a scenario they might practice in an emergency procedures simulator session. Strangely, the quiet inside the plane was eerily relaxing—or was that hypoxia kicking in, the sudden lack of oxygen lulling her into a false sense of security? She checked her oxygen regulator just to be sure it was working. “You got the plane, Nacho?”

“I . . . I think so,” Sanchez replied. He wasn’t yet sure. The full-color MFDs were dark, so he had to search for the standby engine instruments. “Christ, all the engine instruments read zero.” He moved the throttles. “No response to throttles, and flight controls feel like they’re in ‘mechanical’ mode.”

“The freakin’ batteries are off-line too?” Lister asked.

“We’ve got squat, Troy, except for standby pitot-static instruments—altitude, vertical speed, and airspeed,” Sanchez said. “Both engines flamed out, no battery power, no generators, no alternators, nothing! Let’s get the power back on, then do an airstart.” While Lister retrieved her paper emergency checklists, Sanchez immediately began doing the first few steps of the checklist by memory, shutting off the aircraft electrical systems, checking circuit breakers—several were popped, an indication that the aircraft had experienced a massive power surge of some kind—and preparing to recycle the battery and generators.

Richard Sykes, the designated message-runner between the cockpit and sensor cabin in emergencies such as this, entered a few minutes later wearing an oxygen mask and carrying a walkaround oxygen bottle in a green canvas sack slung over his shoulder. “Sensor cabin is secure, everything is shut down to shed the load, and everyone’s on oxygen and reporting okay,” he said. “No injuries.” He scanned the instrument panels. “You lost everything? Both generators and the batteries? Can you get them back online?”

“We’ll find out as soon as we reconfigure,” Lister said.

“Any idea what happened?”

“No friggin’ idea.”

“Need an extra hand up here?”

“No,” Sanchez said. “Better get strapped in. Tell the crew to run the ‘Before Ditching’ checklists, in case we can’t restart.”

Sykes’s mouth dropped open in surprise, but he nodded. “What about the classified stuff?” he asked.

Sanchez hesitated, but only for a moment before replying: “Better start destroying it. If we ditch, helicopters from that Chinese carrier will be on us in just a few minutes.” Sykes swallowed, finding his throat instantly dry, and headed back to the sensor cabin to order the crew to destroy the classified equipment and documents.

“Okay, circuit breakers reset, all systems in the ‘Emergency Power Distribution List’ are off, and sensor cabin main power buss is open,” Lister said, reading through the items in her checklist. “Ready to recycle the battery switch.”

“Here we go,” Sanchez said. “Battery switch off . . . battery switch moving to on.” He flipped the switch again . . . and nothing happened. “Oh, crap,” he muttered, then shut it off again. “Double-check everything, Troy.”

Lister swept the left and right instrument panels with a flashlight, confirming that all the switches and circuit breakers were in the proper position. “It all looks good,” she said. “What the hell happened, Nacho? What could have knocked out the generators and the batteries all at once?”

“The only thing I know is an electromagnetic pulse from a nuclear detonation,” Sanchez said. “If we got hit by one of those, this goose is cooked. Even the standby instruments are out. I’m going to activate the ELT.” The ELT, or Emergency Locator Transmitter, was a battery-powered radio that transmitted a coded location signal that could be picked up by rescue aircraft, ships, or satellites. The transmitter was completely separate from the other aircraft systems, and the location signal contained the aircraft’s call sign and GPS coordinates to make it easier to find in a search.

“I’ll get my survival radio,” Lister said. She quickly unstrapped, donned her survival vest, strapped back in, then pulled out a portable combination radio/GPS/satellite messenger unit, powered it up, and waited for it to lock on to satellites. “Heading is steady at south-southeast . . . no, wait, we’re in a slight left turn.”

“I’ll keep the turn coming around and head north,” Sanchez said. He used the ocean horizon to judge a standard-rate turn, counted sixty seconds to himself, then rolled out. “How’s that?”

“North-northeast.”

“Close enough,” Sanchez said. He raised the nose a bit, but he didn’t want to risk slowing down below best glide speed. “How’s our altitude?”

“Nine thousand five hundred.”

“Speed?”

“Two-twenty.”

He raised the nose a bit more, which slowed them down and extended their gliding range, then removed his oxygen mask because they were below ten thousand feet, where the air was denser. Lister did likewise. “Let’s go over the ‘Before Air Restart’ checklist again, slowly and carefully,” Sanchez said. They rechecked everything, then attempted to bring the battery back online . . . still nothing. “Read off the numbers again, Troy.”

“Ground speed one-sixty, altitude six thousand three hundred, still heading north-northeast.” She began tapping on the portable unit’s tiny keyboard. “I’ll text a message to headquarters advising them of our situation. The portable will append our position to the message.”

Sykes came back into the cockpit, noticed the pilots were off oxygen, then did likewise. “ ‘Before Ditching’ checklists complete, and classified circuit board and memory chip demolition is under way,” he said. “Nothing yet up here?”

“Nope,” Sanchez said. “We’re at six thousand. We’ll have time for maybe two more restart attempts before we hit the drink.”

“Message received at headquarters,” Lister said. “We should be getting a reply as soon as . . .” She looked at her portable unit in confusion. “Oh shit, it looks like it’s dead!”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“It was working fine a second ago.” She tried to turn it back on, but it didn’t respond. She tried switching batteries, but that didn’t help either. “It’s dead.”

“I’ll see if anyone else has a GPS,” Sykes said. A few moments later he returned with a similar unit and powered it up, but a few minutes later it too shut off and wouldn’t power back on.

“I don’t know what the hell is going on,” Sanchez said, “but something is frying all the electronics on this plane.” He looked at his watch—it was a mechanical Rolex, and it was still running. “You got a digital watch, Troy?”

“Yes.” She glanced at it. “It’s dead.”

“We got hit by something that toasted our electronics,” Sanchez said. “Let’s do the checklist again.” But the batteries still would not come online.

“Three thousand seven hundred, speed one-sixty,” Lister read off.

Sykes came back up to the cockpit. “Nothing?”

“Nothing,” Sanchez said. “We’ll try a couple more times. Tell the crew to prepare to ditch.” Sykes hurried back to the sensor cabin. “Is there anything we haven’t tried, Troy?” Sanchez asked cross-cockpit.

“I can’t think of anything, Nacho.” They ran the emergency checklist twice, but still got no results.

“Okay, screw it,” Sanchez said. The standby altimeter said they were less than a thousand feet above the South China Sea, but that could be off by hundreds of feet. “We’re ditching. Tighten your straps as tight as you can, Troy.” He reached around, grabbed an air horn canister, pressed the button to warn the crew to prepare for ditching, then started to tighten his straps. “Remember, let’s get a good read of our attitude in the water before we start opening hatches, and remember not to . . .”

“Hey, look!” Lister shouted. There, off to the right of their nose, was a Chinese JN-20 fighter, flying in very close formation. “It’s back! His electronics seem to be working fine.”

“That means ours might work this time,” Sanchez said. “Whatever we were being hit with, they may have shut it off. Run the airstart checklist, fast!” This time, as soon as he cycled the battery switch, lights popped to life on the instrument panel. “Hot damn, the batteries are back! Port starter-generator to start!”

As soon as Lister activated the switch on the overhead panel, the standby engine instruments responded. “We’ve got RPMs and turbine power!” she shouted. “Five . . . ten . . . fifteen percent power!” Sanchez moved the left throttle over the detent, and engine power and temperatures steadily began to rise. “We’ve got a light! We’ve got power! Temps are stable . . . temps are good. Starter switch to generate . . . good voltages . . . batteries are in good shape, charging normally . . . avionics power switch on.” Moments later, the primary flight and multifunction displays came to life.

“C’mon, baby, fly,” Sanchez said, and he slowly and carefully moved the left throttle forward. The engine gauges responded, and for the first time in what seemed like an eternity, the vertical speed indicator moved to zero. They were close enough now to the ocean that they could see the contours of waves clearly, but they weren’t going down. “Thank you, Jesus,” he muttered. “Troy, get the avionics on, then let’s get the right engine . . .”

At that instant there was a brilliant flash of light from the left side of the plane, a massive explosion that drowned out all other sensations, and a wave of searing heat. The P-8 swung hard first to the right, then to the left so hard that it felt as if they were inverted. Sanchez mashed the mic button and yelled, “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, Nickel Five-One—”. . .

. . . just as the Poseidon hit the ocean. It flip-flopped end over end for nearly a half mile, shedding pieces of itself in all directions and cracking the fuselage in several places, before coming to rest upside down. In less than five minutes it had slid under the surface, leaving only a few pieces of the wing and tail behind.