Tiger's Claw: A Novel (34 page)

“Great!” Brad exclaimed, “except my butt thinks my legs have been cut off.” He unzipped his flight suit to his waist. “Whew! Is it humid out here!”

“We should be getting our usual three
P.M.
thunderstorm any time now, so it’ll feel better,” Patrick said. He handed each of them a bottle of water, then asked Hoffman, “How did he do, Tom?”

“Chip off the ol’ block, sir,” Hoffman said. He added with a smile, “But don’t worry: we’ll make him better.”

“Thanks, buddy,” Patrick said. They headed to maintenance debrief, all chugging cold water. By the time they reached the maintenance hangar, the skies had darkened, and moments later the clouds that had appeared as if out of nowhere disgorged sheets of rain. “You can almost set your watch by the afternoon thunderstorm,” he said.

“And the same for the power outage,” Colonel Warner “Cutlass” Cuthbert said, trotting into the maintenance hangar. “Blackout, usually caused by a tripped breaker at the municipal power station or transformer farm from a lightning strike or surge. Our backups should be kicking in any minute. The computers are all on uninterruptable power supplies, so you can still debrief, but air-conditioning and lights are out. Shouldn’t last long.”

Just a few minutes into the maintenance debriefing the lights and power came back on, but the afternoon deluge had already cut down on the humidity. After the debriefing, Cutlass gave Sondra a set of keys. “Would you show Brad here where his father’s tent is? He’ll bunk in there with him. You can take him by the flight line and show him the other bombers. Don’t forget your flight-line IDs. Be back at the command center in an hour for the mission briefing.”

“Yes, sir,” Sondra said. Brad grabbed his backpack and computer case and followed.

In a few minutes they were slowly driving in a four-door crew pickup truck down the flight line at Andersen Air Force Base, examining the rows of B-52H, B-1B, and XB-1 bombers, KC-135 and KC-10 tankers, and F-22 Raptor and F-15 Eagle fighters in their parking spots. They were stopped frequently for ID checks. Vehicles with carts loaded with munitions of every description, and roving security and munitions maintenance vehicles drove up and down the line as well. “It looks like chaos, but it’s all pretty well orchestrated so no bottlenecks occur that create a safety or security situation,” Sondra said.

They stopped at an XB-1 Excalibur bomber about halfway down the line. A security guard checked their IDs and waved them past a simple yellow nylon rope barrier. “Be sure to only enter and exit here, where the guard is,” Sondra said. “The guards will jack you up if you cross over the rope, and they are authorized to shoot if they think you’re a suicide bomber or something.”

“I remember the security briefing,” Brad said.

They walked underneath and found Ed Gleason preflighting his jet inside the forward bomb bay. “Hello, Sondra,” Gleason greeted them.

“Hello, sir,” Sondra said. “Ed, I don’t think you’ve met General McLanahan’s son. Ed, this is Bradley McLanahan. Brad, meet Lieutenant General Ed Gleason, retired, one of the most experienced B-1 drivers at Sky Masters. He graduated number one in his Air Force Academy class, flew F-15E Strike Eagles as a second lieutenant, flew B-1s as a young captain, and commanded flying wings until finally becoming Twelfth Air Force commander. We’re lucky to have him.” Brad shook his hand.

“Sorry about the Academy, son,” Gleason said.

Brad rolled his eyes in exasperation. “Does everyone on Guam know that I dropped out of the Air Force Academy?”

“
I
know now,” Sondra said. That really turned Brad’s face sour, but she gave him a smile that perked him right back up. “Brad is a flight instructor at Warbirds Forever, and he just completed his first Excalibur ferry flight as second in command. I think he did pretty well. Colonel Hoffman even got him some air refueling stick time from the right seat. No dings on the Bone.”

“We’ll get you trained as an aircraft commander before you know it,” Gleason said. “You going to show Brad around the bird, Sondra?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Great. Nice to meet you, Brad.”

“Same here, sir.” They shook hands again, and Gleason departed, leaving Brad and Sondra alone.

“As you know, Brad, we can put three different payloads in each of the three bomb bays, or we can move the bulkhead between the forward and center bays to accommodate larger weapons.

“The primary mission for this bird is suppression of enemy air defenses, both against surface ships and on land,” she went on. “The forward bomb bay has a rotary launcher with four AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles and four AIM-120 AMRAAM radar-guided air-to-air missiles, which I think all the Excaliburs carry now.” They moved to the intermediate bay. “Here we have a rotary launcher carrying six AGM-158 Joint Air to Surface Standoff Missiles. JASSM has a one-thousand-pound warhead, a range of over two hundred miles, and an imaging infrared terminal seeker along with inertial navigation system and GPS. We can retarget it with the AESA or with target information received by satellite. The aft bomb bay has a three-thousand-gallon fuel tank, which all the Excaliburs carry because of the long overwater legs, even though we have our own tanker support.”

They exited the bomb bay, and she motioned to two clusters of missiles mounted externally under the fuselage. “These are my favorites: the AGM-88 HARM, or High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missile,” Sondra went on. “We have two clusters of two missiles each on the external hardpoints. HARM can detect, home in on, and destroy enemy radars from as far as thirty miles—it can kill any target within range in less than a minute. They’re programmed to detect every known radar in the Chinese or Russian military.”

“Do they fly the Excaliburs armed with JASSMs?” Brad asked.

“They’ll fly them for proficiency or weapon checkouts, but not on patrols,” Sondra said. “Only the birds with the air-to-air missiles are allowed to fly patrols.”

“The patrols sound a little boring.”

“Most of the time we fly airborne radar overwatch for Navy patrols,” Sondra said. “We can send our radar data directly to the Aegis ships, or we just pass on radar or visual information to ships that can’t collect datalinks or digital imagery. They can get boring, but finding and classifying a ship out ahead of a Navy formation is pretty cool. We air refuel every two hours or so, which gives us plenty of fuel for a divert base, so we stay busy.”

“Wish I could fly those patrols,” Brad said.

“I don’t see why you can’t,” Sondra said. “If you fly with Colonel Hoffman, Ed Gleason, or your father, you’ll be flying with an instructor, so those hours count toward your ATP, and once you get that you can get checked out as an Excalibur aircraft commander. You probably need all the security clearances and background checks we had to get to be part of this task force. Tell them you want some patrols. Colonel Cuthbert can get you all the clearances, and you’re good to go.”

They drove to the housing area, not far from the flight line. Brad saw rows and rows of white tents on a coral and sand lot. “My dad lives in a tent?” Brad exclaimed.

“He insisted on living like the other crews and maintainers live—if he gets uncomfortable, he knows how everyone else feels,” Sondra said. “Besides, these things are pretty nice.” She punched in a code on the door—no tent flaps here—and showed Brad inside. It was surprisingly spacious. There was room for two folding beds, two dressers, and two desks.

“I didn’t see any power lines coming in here,” Brad observed.

“The tents are all solar powered,” Sondra said. “A group of six tents shares a big battery, and there are solar collectors on each tent and on each battery enclosure. The battery can be topped off by base electrical power, but that’s rare—the solar cells do a pretty good job.”

“Not much privacy.”

“The task force patrols and works on the flight line twenty-four-seven,” Sondra said, “so everyone is pretty busy. We work a five-days-on, two-days-off rotation, but to tell the truth, everyone makes themselves available on off days because there’s not much to do out here—the hotels and casinos are all but shut down, and lying around on the beaches gets old fast. Privacy isn’t really an issue—you make your own privacy. The sound of planes taking off is a bother, bunking so close to the flight line, but you get used to tuning it out.” She looked at him carefully, gave him a little smile, then reached out and touched his hand. “Besides, Brad, whatever would you do if you had a little privacy?” she asked.

He stepped over to her and gave her a light kiss on the lips, which she seemed to enjoy. “I’d come up with something,” he said in a soft voice.

“Oh, I’m sure you could, stud,” Sondra said, heading for the door. “I’m sure you could. C’mon, we have the mission briefing.”

“Am I allowed to attend?” Brad asked.

“They’ll tell you if you’re not, but I don’t see why not—we all have the same security clearance,” Sondra said. “It’ll get your mind out of the gutter.”

“It wasn’t there before I met you,” Brad said. She smiled but said nothing.

ELEVEN

O
VER THE
S
OUTH
C
HINA
S
EA

S
EVERAL DAYS LATER

“Anytime I get to fly is a great joy,” the weapons officer of the carrier-based JH-37 Flying Leopard attack plane, Lieutenant Du Weiqing, said on intercom to the officer seated beside him, pilot Lieutenant Commander Bo Xueji. The JH-37 was based on the aircraft carrier
Zheng He
operating in the northern South China Sea one hundred and fifty miles southeast of Shantou, on routine patrol. It was armed with four
Ying Ji
(Hawk Attack)-83 missiles, which were sea-skimming ramjet-powered antiship weapons, plus two advanced PL-12 active/passive air-to-air missiles on wingtip pylons. “But these overwater patrols are so damned boring.”

“I agree,” Bo said. “But would you rather be back at the ship doing yet another additional duty?”

“
Bùyòngle, xièxiè,
” Du said. “No, thank you. I got ‘volunteered’ for two more of them yesterday.”

“Which ones?” Bo asked.

“Water survival instructor and assistant flight deck safety officer,” Du said morosely.

“Ah, just more opportunities to excel,” Bo said.

“Of course.” Du put his eyes up to the hood over his attack radar. “I have surface radar contact, twelve o’clock, ninety kilometers,” he reported. He entered commands into his targeting computer, then activated the JH-37’s electro-optical camera. The MFD on the forward instrument panel showed a large replenishment ship. “Looks like a U.S. Navy oiler,” Du said.

“How far are we from Xisha Dao?” Bo asked.

Du called up an electronic chart on one of his MFDs. “Two hundred and ten kilometers,” he replied.

“All warships are supposed to be three hundred kilometers from shore, from other warships, or Nansha Dao or Xisha Dao,” Bo said. “He is in violation of the agreement!”

“It is just an oiler, not a warship.”

“It is a U.S. Navy vessel, and it is in violation of the agreement,” Bo said. “Send the contact information to the carrier and advise we are going to make contact.” Bo began a descent, allowing the Flying Leopard to accelerate past the speed of sound.

“Target image transmitted to the ship,” Du said a few minutes later. “Operations orders us to make contact with the vessel and ask about their intentions.”

“I will
certainly
make contact,” Bo said. He leveled off at one thousand feet above the sea and nudged the power up slightly to maintain supersonic speed, and they closed the distance quickly. Still going over Mach one, they overflew the oiler. Bo started a hard left bank. “Do I have your attention now, my friends?” he asked.

“Unidentified aircraft going supersonic, this is the replenishment ship USS
Laramie,
” came the call on the international maritime emergency channel. “You just overflew us going supersonic! That’s not permitted! Back off!”

“USS
Laramie
, this is
Qiánfeng
Three-Three,” Bo radioed back. “You are sailing too close to Xisha Dao and are in violation of international agreements. State your intentions!”

“
Qiánfeng
Three-Three, we are an unarmed support vessel proceeding to port in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, for refueling and resupply,” came the reply. “We are a solo vessel and not a warship, and there are no restrictions on our movements. Do not overfly us again! We see you have some kind of missiles under your wings, so we will assume you have hostile intentions. Stay clear.”

“Assume anything you like, American bastard,” Bo said on intercom. “You cannot just sail around anywhere you like, especially not around a Chinese island.”

“Operations says they are dispatching a frigate to intercept the American,” Du said. “They order us to maintain contact until we reach return fuel state. They are launching another Leopard to relieve us.”

“As long as we are up here, why not practice some antiship missile attacks?” Bo said. “It will give us something to do.”

“Good idea,” Du said. “Master arm switch is off and switch cover is down.”

“My master switch is off as well,” Bo said, decelerating below the Mach to stay within antiship missile launch parameters.

Du ran his checklists and directed the pilot to fly in different directions, practicing attacks against the oiler from different aspects. It was easy to acquire and target the big oiler from the side, but a bit more challenging to get it from the stern and even harder from the bow. Du tried it with and without the radar and with and without the electro-optical sensor.

“This guy is totally dead,” Du said after their fifth pass. He took his eyes out of the radar hood, checked the navigation and systems readouts, made some flight log entries, and then pulled out a bottle of water and looked outside to relax his eyes. “About fifteen minutes before we have to head back to the ship. We can make one or two more passes and then . . .
What in the world is that?
” he suddenly shouted. Bo followed his weapons officer’s gaze out the cockpit canopy. There, not a hundred meters away off their left wingtip, was an immense light gray bomber aircraft! “Where did that come from?”

“It’s an American B-1 bomber!” Du said. He noticed the American flag painted on the tail, but at the base of the vertical stabilizer it had a U.S. civil aircraft registration number, N-03SM. The wings were swept at about forty degrees. They could see what looked to be a sensor pod under the fuselage on the right side. “How long has he been sitting out there?”

“I never saw anything until just now. Radio contact in to base and ask for interceptors.” While Du radioed back to base, Bo switched to his secondary radio, which was usually set to GUARD, the international emergency channel. “Unidentified American B-1 bomber aircraft,” he radioed in halting English, “this is
Qiánfeng
Three-Three. We are conducting military patrol operations in this area. Identify yourself immediately.”

“This is Masters Zero-Three,” Tom Hoffman replied, piloting the XB-1 Excalibur bomber. “We’re just going to hang here for a while, check out a few things, and take some pictures. We won’t bug you.”

Although his English was better than most of the pilots in his squadron, Bo was having difficulty understanding the American. “United States Air Force bomber, be advised, we are conducting hazardous military flight operations in this area. You are ordered to exit this area immediately. Acknowledge.”

“We’re not an Air Force aircraft, just a civilian job,” Hoffman said. “We are conducting routine patrol and crew checkout operations in this area. We were told you overflew an American ship going supersonic, and we were sent to check you out. I think it’s time for you to go away and fly back to your carrier.”

“Masters Zero-Three, your request will not be followed,” Bo said, his eyes bulging in disbelief. “This is a People’s Liberation Army Navy military operation. No interference will be tolerated! Exit this area immediately or you may be intercepted by fighter aircraft and fired upon without warning. Acknowledge!”

“Look here, boys,” Hoffman said. “It’s a nice day for flying, so why don’t you just relax and we’ll just have a nice pleasant cruise out here—no reason to start getting all belligerent. Besides, we’re almost inside Taiwan’s air defense zone, and I don’t think they’d appreciate armed bombers flying around so close to their shoreline.”

“No interference will be tolerated!” Bo shouted on the radio. “Leave immediately! Acknowledge!”

“A JN-15 is en route,” Du said on intercom. “About ten minutes out. A JN-20 from the carrier
Zheng He
is being readied. We are to head back to the carrier to speed up the intercept.”

“Turn tail and run, with this bastard on my ass?”

“The fighters will chase him away,” Du said. “He is just trying to irritate us.”

“Well, he is doing a good job,” Bo said irritably. He forced himself to relax. “That guy has a civilian registration number. Could it be possible for civilians to . . . ?”

“
Qiánfeng
Three-Three, Operations,” came a radio call from their home base, “advise you . . .” And just then the transmission cut out.

“Operations, do you copy Striker Three-Three?” Du radioed. But as he spoke, his own words were repeated back to him, but delayed about one second . . . and he found it impossible to keep on speaking. He tried his best to ignore his own voice, but it was simply not possible to keep on speaking while his own voice was stepping on him!

“Say again, Three-Three” the operations officer on the
Zheng He
radioed. “You were . . .” But the transmission was again cut off.

“We are being meaconed,” Du said. “Someone is interfering with our radios, injecting a different signal onto our channel.”

“Could it be from that American bastard flying next to us?” Bo asked.

“Operations, this is
Ying
Seven-One leader,” came a new voice on the command frequency, “we are tied on radar with
Qiánfeng
Three-Three and the American aircraft and will take over the intercept. Break.
Qiánfeng
Three-Three,
Ying
Seven-One flight of two, inbound, we have you on radar, we will join in two minutes.”

“Three-Three, acknowledged,” Bo responded. “Seven-One, be advised, use caution, our radios are being meaconed, and I think the American is doing it.”

“We have not picked up anything yet,” the leader of the JN-15 formation,
Hai Jun Shao Xiao
(Lieutenant Commander) Wu Dek Su, said. “We are tied on radar with the American aircraft. Advise you return to base.”

“Acknowledged,” Bo replied. He scowled at the B-1, still steady as a rock on his left wingtip. When he turned left to head back to the carrier, the American B-1 started to turn with him, then quickly descended and was lost from view. “Bastard. Just out for a little cruise, eh?”

“We were done for the day anyway,” Du said.

“Seven-One, tied on visual,” Wu radioed a few moments later. “I will take him on the left side. Take the high perch.”

“Two,” the wingman replied.

In moments the JN-15 fighters had positioned themselves around the American B-1 bomber, the leader off the left side of the nose in good view of the pilot, and the other two hundred feet above and five hundred feet behind the bomber, in a good position to watch all the players and to react if the bomber tried any evasive or dangerous maneuvers. “Operations,
Ying
Seven-One, visual confirmation, the aircraft is a large four-engine strategic bomber resembling an American Air Force B-1B Lancer bomber,” Wu reported on the command channel. “American civil aircraft registration number November dash Zero Three Sierra Mike. American flag painted on the tail, but no other markings. I see what appears to be a targeting pod under the nose on the right side, but otherwise no external weapons or devices visible. Request instructions.”

“Stay in formation and monitor,” came the reply from the operations controller aboard the carrier
Zheng He
. “Continue warnings on UHF GUARD. Get him out of this area immediately.”

“Acknowledged.” On the universal GUARD emergency channel, Wu said, “American B-1 bomber, this is
Ying
Seven-One flight of two JN-15 fighters, warning, warning, warning, you are interfering with military flight operations vital to the defense of the People’s Republic of China. You are ordered to turn east immediately and remain clear of this area. Do you understand? Acknowledge immediately please.”

“Hawk Seven-One, this is Sky Masters Zero-Three,” Tom Hoffman replied, using the English translation for
Ying.
“I read you loud and clear, but we’re not going anywhere. You and your pals can just go pound sand. This is international airspace and we’re entitled to fly in it just as much as you are. We’ll stay away from your ships but we’re not going anywhere. Now
zou kai
,
go niang yang de
!” adding “Go away!” plus a few expletives to his response.

“The American bomber aircraft commander refuses to leave the area!” Wu radioed back to the Chinese controller. “He uses profanity and dares us to attack him! Request permission to fire warning shots!”

“Stand by, Seven-One, stand by,” the operations controller responded. Several moments later: “Negative, Seven-One, negative, do not fire, repeat, do
not
fire. A single-ship JN-20 is airborne and will intercept in three minutes. If the American bomber does not respond to the presence of our fighters, we may take action. Remain in close formation and monitor position from the carrier group.”

As much as it galled him to do so, Wu stayed off the radios and remained in formation with the B-1 bomber, occasionally nudging closer and closer to make out any other details of the aircraft and to see if he could scare the pilot away just by flying dangerously close to him. The B-1 pilot didn’t appear fazed at all when the JN-15 moved closer. He was also galled by the fact that the Hollywood JN-20 pilot was going to be allowed to chase the B-1 away, not the JN-15s.

“
Ying
flight, this is
Laoying
One-One, tied on radar,” the JN-20 Challenger’s pilot reported. It was the JN-20 squadron’s commander,
Hai Jun Zhong Xiao
(Commander) Hua Ji, himself—he should have known the boss would take this intercept, Wu thought. “Say status.”