Jack Ryan 11 - Bear And The Dragon (133 page)

After the initial fire, Lieutenant Colonel Giusti found that he had no targets. He sent one troop through the gap while holding the north side of it himself, taking no fire at all. The falling 155s on the hills to his front and rear explained much of that, for surely it was a storm of steel and explosives. Someone somewhere fired off a parachute flare, but nothing developed from it. Twenty minutes after the initial barrage, the leading elements of First Brigade came into view. He waited until they were within a hundred meters before pulling off to the east to rejoin his squadron in the shallow valley. He was now technically inside enemy lines, but as with the first good hit in a football game, the initial tension was now gone, and there was a job to be done.

Dick Boyle, like most aviators, was qualified in more than one sort of aircraft, and he could have chosen to fly-lead the mission in an Apache, which was one of the really enjoyable experiences for a rotary-wing pilot, but instead he remained in his UH-60 Blackhawk, the better to observe the action. His target was the independent tank brigade which was the organizational fist of the 65th Type B Group Army, and to service that target he had twenty-eight of his forty-two AH-64D Apache attack helicopters, supported by twelve Kiowa Warriors and one other Blackhawk.

The Chinese tank force was twenty miles northwest of their initial crossing point, agreeably sitting in open ground in circular formation so as to have guns pointing in all directions, none of which were a matter of concern to Dick Boyle and his men. It had probably made sense to laager them that way forty years ago, but not today, not in the night with Apaches nearby. With his OH-58Ds playing the scout role, the attack formation swept in from the north, down the valley. Whatever colonel was in command of this force had selected a place from which he could move to support any of the divisions in the 65th Army, but that merely concentrated his vehicles in a single spot, about five hundred meters across. Boyle's only worry was SAMs and maybe flak, but he had Dark Star photos to tell him where that all was, and he had a team of four Apaches delegated to handle the threat first of all.

It was in the form of two missile batteries. One was composed of four DK-9 launchers very similar to the American Chaparral, with four Sidewinder-class heat-seekers mounted on a tracked chassis. Their range would be about seven miles, just a touch longer than the effective range of his Hellfire missiles. The other was their HQ-61A, which Boyle thought of as the Chinese version of the Russian SA-6. There were fewer of these, but they had ten miles of range and supposedly a very capable radar system, and also had a hard floor of about a hundred meters, below which they couldn't track a target, which was a good thing to know, if true. His tactic would be to detect them and take them out as quickly as possible, depending on his EH-60 electronic-intelligence helicopter to sniff them out. The code for one of these was HOLIDAY. The heat-seekers were called DUCKS.

The Chinese soldiers on the ground would also have simple man-portable heat-seekers that were about as capable as the old American Redeye missile, but his Apaches had suppressed exhausts that were expected to defeat the heat-seekers -- and those who had voiced the expectations weren't flying tonight. They never did.

There were more air missions tonight, and not all of them were over Russian territory. Twenty F-117A Stealth fighters had deployed to Zhigansk, and they'd mainly sat on the ground since their first arrival, waiting for bombs to be flown over, along with the guidance package attachments that changed them from simple ballistic weapons to smart bombs that went deliberately for a special piece of real estate. The special weapons for the Black Jets were the GBU-27 laser-guided hard-target penetrators. These were designed not merely to hit objects and explode, but to lance inside them before detonating, and they had special targets. There were twenty-two such targets tonight, all located in or near the cities of Harbin and Bei'an, and every one was a railroad bridge abutment.

The People's Republic depended more on its rail transportation than most countries, because it lacked the number of motor vehicles to necessitate the construction of highways, and also because the inherent efficiency of railroads appealed to the economic model in the heads of its political leaders. They did not ignore the fact that such a dependence on a single transportation modality could make them vulnerable to attack, and so at every potential chokepoint, like river crossings, they'd used the ample labor force of their country to build multiple bridges, all of heavily-built rebarred concrete abutments. Surely, they'd thought, six separate crossing points at a single river couldn't all be damaged beyond timely repair.

The Black Jets refueled from the usual KC-135 tanker aircraft and continued south, unseen by the radar fence erected by the PRC government along its northeastern border, and kept going. The heavily automated aircraft continued to their destinations on autopilot. They even made their bombing runs on autopilot, because it was too much to expect a pilot, however skilled, both to fly the aircraft and guide the infrared laser whose invisible grounded dot the bomb's seeker-head sought out. The attacks were made almost simultaneously, just a minute apart from east to west at the six parallel bridges over the Songhua Jiang River at Harbin. Each bridge had major pier abutments on the north and south bank. Both were attacked in each case. The bomb drops were easier than contractor tests, given the clear air and the total lack of defensive interference. In every case, the first set of six bombs fell true, striking the targets at Mach-1 speed and penetrating in for a distance of twenty-five to thirty feet before exploding. The weapons each had 535 pounds of Tritonal explosive. Not a particularly large quantity, in tight confinement it nevertheless generated hellish power, rupturing the hundred of tons of concrete around it like so much porcelain, albeit without the noise one would expect from such an event.

Not content with this destruction, the second team of F-117s struck at the northern abutments, and smashed them as well. The only lives directly lost were those of the engineer and fireman of a northbound diesel locomotive pulling a trainload of ammunition for the army group across the Amur River, who were unable to stop their train before running over the edge.

The same performance was repeated in Bei'an, where five more bridges were dropped into the Wuyur He River, and in this dual stroke, which had lasted a mere twenty-one minutes, the supply line to the Chinese invasion force was sundered for all time to come. The eight aircraft left over -- they'd been a reserve force in case some of the bombs should fail to destroy their targets -- headed for the loop siding near the Amur used by tank cars. This was, oddly enough, not nearly as badly hit as the bridges, since the deep-penetrating bombs went too far into the ground to create much of surface craters, though some train cars were upset, and one of them caught fire. All in all, it had been a routine mission for the F-117s. Attempts to engage them with the SAM batteries in the two cities failed because the aircraft never appeared on the search-radar screens, and a missile launch was not even attempted.

The bell went off again, and the ELF message printed up as EQT SPEC OP, or “execute special operation” in proper English. Tucson was now nine thousand yards behind Sierra-Eleven, and fifteen from Sierra-Twelve.

“We're going to do one fish each. Firing order Two, One. Do we have a solution light?” the captain asked.

“Valid solutions for both fish,” the weapons officer replied.

“Ready Tube Two.”

“Tube Two is ready in all respects, tube flooded, outer door is open, sir.”

“Very well, Match generated bearings and...shoot!”

The handle was turned on the proper console. “Tube Two fired electrically, sir.” Tucson shuddered through her length with the sudden explosion of compressed air that ejected the weapon into the seawater.

“Unit is running hot, straight, and normal, sir,” Sonar reported.

“Very well, ready Tube One,” the captain said next.

“Tube One is ready in all respects, tube is flooded, outer door is open,” Weps announced again.

“Very well. Match generated bearings and shoot!” This command came as something of an exclamation. The captain figured he owed it to the crew, which was at battle stations, of course.

“Tube One fired electrically, sir,” the petty officer announced after turning the handle again, with exactly the same physical effect on the ship.

“Unit Two running hot, straight, and normal, sir,” Sonar said again. And with that, the captain took the five steps to the Sonar Room.

“Here we go, Cap'n,” the leading sonarman said, pointing to the glass screen with a yellow grease pencil.

The nine thousand yards' distance to 406 translated to four and a half nautical miles. The target was traveling at a depth of less than a hundred feet, maybe transmitting to its base on the radio or something, and steaming along at a bare five knots, judging by the blade count. That worked out to a running time of just under five minutes for the first target, and then another hundred sixty seconds or so to the second one. The second shot would probably get a little more complicated than the first. Even if they failed to hear the Mark 48 ADCAP torpedo coming, a deaf man could not miss the sound of 800 pounds of Torpex going off underwater three miles away, and he'd try to maneuver, or do something more than break out the worry beads and say a few Hail Maos, or whatever prayer these people said. The captain leaned back into the attack center.

“Reload ADCAP into Tube Two, and a Harpoon into Tube One.”

“Aye, Cap'n,” the Weapons Officer acknowledged.

“Where's that frigate?” he asked the lead sonarman.

“Here, sir, Luda-class, an old clunker, steam-powered, bearing two-one-six, tooling along at about fourteen knots, by blade count.”

“Time on Unit Two,” the skipper called.

“Minute twenty seconds to impact, sir.” The captain looked at the display. If Sierra-Eleven had sonarmen on duty, they weren't paying much attention to the world around them. That would change shortly.

“Okay, go active in thirty seconds.”

“Aye, aye.”

On the sonar display, the torpedo was dead on the tone line from 406. It seemed a shame to kill a submarine when you didn't even know its name...

“Going active on Unit Two,” Weps called.

“There it is, sir,” the sonarman said, pointing to a different part of the screen. The ultrasonic sonar lit up a new line, and fifteen seconds later --

-- “Sierra-Eleven just kicked the gas, sir, look here, cavitation and blade count is going up, starting a turn to starboard...ain't gonna matter, sir,” the sonarman knew from the display. You couldn't outmaneuver a -48.

“What about -- Twelve?”

“He's heard it, too, Cap'n. Increasing speed and -- ” The sonarman flipped his headphones off. “Yeow! That hurt.” He shook his head hard. “Unit impact on Sierra-Eleven, sir.”

The captain picked up a spare set of headphones and plugged them in. The sea was still rumbling. The target's engine sounds had stopped almost at once -- the visual display confirmed that, though the sixty-hertz line showed her generators were still -- no, they stopped, too. He heard and saw the sound of blowing air. Whoever he was, he was trying to blow ballast and head for the roof, but without engine power...no, not much of a chance of that, was there? Then he shifted his eyes to the visual track of Sierra-Twelve. The fast-attack had been a little more awake, and was turning radically to port, and really kicking on the power. His plant noise was way up, as was his blade count...and he was blowing ballast tanks, too...why?

“Time on Unit One?” the captain called.

“Thirty seconds for original plot, probably a little longer now.”

Not much longer, the skipper thought. The ADCAP was motoring along on the sunny side of sixty knots this close to the surface...Weps went active on it, and the fish was immediately in acquisition. A well-trained crew would have fired off a torpedo of their own, just to scare their attacker off, and maybe escape if the first fish missed -- not much of a play, but it cost you nothing to do it, and maybe got you the satisfaction of having company arrive in hell right after you knocked on the door...but they didn't even get a decoy off. They must have all been asleep...certainly not very awake...not very alert...didn't they know there was a war going on...? Twenty-five seconds later, they found out the hard way, when another splotch appeared on the sonar display.

Well, he thought, two for two. That was pretty easy. He stepped back into the attack center and lifted a microphone. “Now hear this. This is the captain speaking. We just launched two fish on a pair of ChiComm submarines. We won't be seeing either one of them anymore. Well done to everybody. That is all.” Then he looked over at his communications officer: “Prepare a dispatch to CINCLANT. 'Four Zero six destroyed at...Twenty-Two-Fifty-Six Zulu along with escorting SSN. Now engaging Frigate.' Send that off when we get to antenna depth.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Tracking party, we have a frigate bearing two-one-six. Let's get a track on him so we can Harpoon his ass.”

“Aye, sir,” said the lieutenant manning the tracking plot.

It was approaching six in the evening in Washington, where everybody who was somebody was watching TV, but not the commercial kind. The Dark Star feeds were going up on encrypted satellite links, and being distributed around Washington over dedicated military fiber-optic lines. One of those, of course, led to the White House Situation Room.

“Holy God,” Ryan said. “It's like some kind of fucking video game. How long have we had this capability?”

“It's pretty new, Jack, and yeah,” the Vice President agreed, “it is kind of obscene -- but, well, it's just what the operators see. I mean, the times I splashed airplanes, I got to see it, just I was in a G-suit with a TOMCAT strapped to my back. Somehow this feels dirtier, man. Like watching a guy and a gal go at it, and not in training films -- ”

“What?”

“That's what you call porno flicks on the boats, Jack, 'training films.' But this is like peeking in a window on a guy's wedding night, and he doesn't know about it...feels kinda dirty.”