Tiger's Claw: A Novel (38 page)

“Sounds like you’re resigned to accepting the current state of affairs, Mr. Vice President,” Phoenix said.

“I try to be realistic and pragmatic, sir,” Gao said. “America used its prosperity and status after World War Two to build a great navy with which to secure the seas so as to expand trade throughout the world. China is merely doing the same. We must export goods, so we must have unfettered access to the world’s oceans—and thus a military force capable of guaranteeing that access.”

“That is a very honest and forthright view of the situation, Mr. Gao,” Phoenix said. “So why don’t you say that in your speech tomorrow? Why accuse the United States of trying to start a war with China by stationing a few aircraft on an island a thousand miles from China? Why invent half-truths about our naval forces?”

“Because the people of the world and the politicians who will listen to my speech do not care about pragmatism,” Gao said. “Pragmatism does not increase defense budgets or inspire boys and girls to become sailors or airmen or work on the docks or in the factories. My speech is designed to show the people of the world that China faces danger and we need to do something about that danger. I want to focus the world’s attention on what is happening around China’s shores, and to put the world on notice that China is developing the modern resources to protect itself. China is no longer an isolated third-world country with old outdated ideas, tactics, politicians, soldiers, and weapons. China is on the rise.”

“Sounds very ominous and fatalistic, sir,” Phoenix observed.

“Not at all, Mr. President,” Gao said, a slight smile forming on his lips. “I enjoy watching American football when I visit your country. When the receiver and the safeties are racing down the field, occasionally there is contact between them.” For the first time in their meeting, Gao raised both hands, extended his index fingers, and tapped the sides of each together. “No one meant to contact the other—they are both intent on watching the ball in the air. Usually no one is hurt, play is continued, and a touchdown, and interception, or an incompletion results. It is when one player decides to intentionally play the man and not the ball that a penalty has taken place.”

“Our job is to make sure no one commits a foul.”

“Exactly, sir.” Gao smiled again, proud of the president accepting his football analogy. “Contact I believe is inevitable. America’s imperative is domination and control of the seas; China’s imperative is no obstacles to continued worldwide growth and prosperity. They appear to be conflicting. But contact does not have to lead to disaster.” He paused for a moment, then said, “May I ask, sir: What do you think of our proposal?”

“Complete demilitarization of the South China Sea?” Phoenix asked. “I’m all for it, Mr. Gao. But what do the bombers on Guam have to do with the South China Sea?”

“They can obviously patrol with ease over the South Sea,” Gao said, “and each represents significant firepower directed at China. Reducing their numbers on Guam to the level before the tensions began, six maximum, or at least withdrawing them to Hawaii, would go a long way to reducing tensions in the region.

“At the same time you withdraw the bombers, China will withdraw its two aircraft carrier battle groups and its helicopter carrier battle group to our territorial waters, which I mean within twelve nautical miles of the mainland,” Gao went on. “We will no longer patrol around the Paracel or Spratly Islands. We still reserve the right for our warships to transit the region, and port visits and exercises would not be protested if announced in advance, but we will not patrol it with surface vessels or submarines.”

“That is certainly a good start, sir,” Phoenix commented, the surprise on his face obvious. “What about air patrols?”

“We still reserve the right to conduct air patrols of the South China Sea,” Gao said, “but they will be conducted solely for reconnaissance, customs and fisheries, and search and rescue, and the aircraft will be unarmed. We would like to see the United States use patrol aircraft other than B-1 bombers or P-8 Poseidon aircraft, because they can be armed with offensive weapons, but if you guarantee that the aircraft will be unarmed, and we are allowed to visually inspect them for verification on a short-notice basis, that will be sufficient. Of course, China will continue to research the ecological damage to the South China Sea and pay any cleanup or restoration costs, as well as costs associated with recovering the Taiwanese submarine and repairing the Vietnamese warship.” There was a rather long silence, then: “Naturally, in the spirit of cooperation, we expect the United States to follow all these guidelines as well,” he said.

“I will certainly discuss this at length with my national security staff, Mr. Gao,” Phoenix said, “but it sounds very promising. I would like to see details, of course, but I think this is a very good place to start.”

“Excellent,” Gao said. “I will have Foreign Minister Tang, Defense Minister Cao, and General Zu draw up details. The plan will need to be ratified by the Central Military Committee and the Politburo, but I think you can expect swift agreement.” Gao got to his feet. “Now I must go.”

Phoenix stood, somewhat surprised. “We haven’t talked about Taiwan or the disputed islands in the South China Sea, Mr. Gao,” he said.

“It must wait for another time, I am afraid,” Gao said. “But I will say this: they belong to the People’s Republic of China.” He looked at Phoenix’s suddenly stony expression. “I know you do not accept this. You believe the South Sea belongs to the entire world and that Taiwan should be an independent country, but those are not the views of my government or most of my people. These issues will someday be resolved.” He tapped his forefingers together again. “Contact, infrequent and not deliberate, but no penalties. That is our mission.” Gao gave Phoenix a slight bow of his head, and they shook hands. “Thank you for receiving me today, Mr. President. Good-bye.” The door of the Oval Office was opened from outside by a Secret Service agent, and Gao departed.

Phoenix returned to his desk, and Vice President Ann Page entered the Oval Office a few moments later. “How did it go?” she asked.

“Very well,” Phoenix said. “What an interesting meeting. He doesn’t sound at all like any Chinese politicians I’ve ever listened to. He’s part of the new breed of politicians, probably the first generation that didn’t fight in a civil war or was subjected to a cultural revolution. Did you read his proposal on demilitarizing the South China Sea?”

“Yes,” Ann said. “I think it’s a big step in the right direction.”

“I hate to pull those extra B-1s from Guam,” Phoenix said. “But, unfortunately, our good buddy Patrick McLanahan got in China’s face, and I think withdrawing some of those planes and going down to a maximum of six long-range bombers on Guam at any one time will go a long way to defusing tensions out there.”

“I feel we’re giving up too much, but I agree: I don’t think things will get better if we keep the status quo,” Ann said.

“Very good,” Phoenix said. “Let’s get a meeting set up with the national security staff and the congressional leadership, and we’ll look at that proposal. I’ll give Patrick and the colonel in charge of that task force a heads-up that they should start packing up some of their bombers for a flight home.”

A
NDERSEN
A
IR
F
ORCE
B
ASE
, G
UAM

S
EVERAL DAYS LATER

“It was fun while it lasted,” Sondra Eddington said as she began packing her clothes in a suitcase. “But it’ll be nice to get stateside again. I can’t wait to do some skiing. Ever been heliskiing at Ruby Mountain near Elko, Brad?” She got no response. “It’s the most incredible experience. They fly you up to the tops of these ridges, where the snow is powder dozens of feet deep and hasn’t been touched by another living creature, and they drop you off and you ski down. It’ll blow your mind. I flew the helicopter for a couple years but thought I’d never try skiing it, but when I finally did, I was hooked. You’ve got to come with me this season—you’ll love it.” Still no response, so she looked over at Brad and noticed him looking at her. “What?”

“I am just getting to know you,” Brad said in a quiet voice, “and now we’re going to leave.”

“Hey, we’ll see each other again,” Sondra said. “I work for your dad, remember—that is, if they keep the Excalibur project going. If you finish up your certificates and ratings and get your degrees, maybe you’ll get hired on at Sky Masters.”

“That’s the plan.”

“Besides,” she said, taking his hand and pulling him toward her, “we still have to unload and pack up the weapons on the birds, and that’ll take a couple days at least with no flying. We’ll have a few days to hang out at the beach, get some sun, and learn more about each other.” And she leaned forward and kissed him gently on the lips. “How does that sound, stud?”

“Sounds great,” Brad said.

“Good,” she said. She waved a hand at the door to her tent. “Now get out of here and let me finish packing before I get too distracted and we start doing something we’ll be embarrassed about if someone walks in.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Brad said, and he left.

O
VER THE
P
HILIPPINE
S
EA, SEVEN HUNDRED MILES WEST OF
G
UAM

T
HAT NIGHT

“Siren One-Eight flight, Spyglass, radar contact aircraft, bearing two-eight-five, range two-eighty, altitude thirty-one thousand, heading eastbound at four hundred knots,” the radar controller aboard an E-3C Sentry AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System) radar aircraft radioed. The E-3C Sentry had a thirty-foot rotating radome mounted atop its fuselage that provided three-dimensional air and surface search, IFF identification interrogation, and over-the-horizon communications relay, and it could share its radar imagery with other aircraft, ships, and battle management areas through JTIDS, or the Joint Tactical Information Distribution System. “Looks like a formation of two aircraft. Squawking a civilian mode three code, negative mode Charlie.”

“Roger, copy,” Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy “Juju” Maili, the leader of the flight of two F-22A Raptor fighters on patrol west of Guam, replied. Maili was also the commander of the 199th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron of the Hawaii Air National Guard based at Joint Base Pearl Harbor–Hickam, Honolulu, Hawaii, in charge of the four Raptors deployed to Guam. The two Raptors were flying loose formation with a KC-135 Stratotanker, making sure the fighters had plenty of fuel during their long-range patrol. “Brewski, why don’t you get topped off, then I’ll top, and we’ll go check it out.”

“Two,” replied Major Robert “Brewski” Carling, Maili’s wingman. “Break. Esso Three-Six, Siren One-Nine, clear me to precontact position, please.”

“Roger, One-Nine, you are cleared to precontact position,” replied the pilot of the KC-135. With Maili still on the tanker’s right wingtip, Carling smoothly slipped down off the tanker’s left wing and slid expertly into precontact position beneath the refueling boom. After making contact and topping off his fuel tanks, he went back up to the tanker’s left wingtip, and Maili was cleared in. A few minutes they were all topped off, and they left the tanker and headed west.

“Your bogeys are at twelve o’clock, two hundred miles, still at thirty-one thousand, still at four hundred indicated airspeed,” the AWACS radar controller reported. “Still squawking just mode three.”

“Any report from Guam Oceanic?” Maili asked. While out of direct radar contact, civil aircraft used satellite position reporting to Guam Oceanic Control to keep track of their flights and deconflict with other aircraft.

“Several airliners are transiting the area,” the controller reported, “but they’re all in the upper thirties or forties. These guys are fairly low. Their squawk code doesn’t match any assigned codes.”

“Roger,” Maili responded. Not unheard of, but not common either.

It took another thirteen minutes for the Raptors to close the distance, and Maili set up for a visual identification, putting Carling high and to his right while he turned left to close in on the formation. They used night-vision goggles to fly formation and for the visual identification. The NVGs had an effective range of about five miles for detection and two miles for identification, so he had to be patient. He spotted the formation right at five miles. “Tied on visual,” Maili reported. “You got me, Brewski?”

“Two,” his wingman responded. “Tied on visual with the bogeys too. Weird-looking aircraft so far.”

“Moving in,” Maili said, and he maneuvered in and above the formation. He wished the Raptor had a nice powerful forward-looking infrared and a searchlight for these identifications, but the NVGs did the job. “Okay, guys, who do we have here tonight?” He slid in closer and was soon able to get more detail . . .

. . . and suddenly he realized he was not looking at two planes in formation, but
several
! “Spyglass, Spyglass, One-Eight, this is not two aircraft, it’s . . . shit, it’s two formations of
six
aircraft, repeat, two formations of six in ‘V’ formations, twelve in all! They are large swept-wing jets and . . .” And the closer he got, the worse it got: “Spyglass, One-Eight, the two jets at the ends of each ‘V’ look like tankers, and they . . .
they are tanking fighters
! I see two . . . no, I see
four fighters
with each tanker
! I count at least sixteen fighters up here, Control!”

“Do you have an ID on the large jets, One-Eight?”

“I don’t recognize them yet,” Maili said. “They look like old Stratojets, like big fighters, but I can’t . . . wait, I recognize them now—they’re H-6s! Control, I think they’re Chinese H-6 bombers! And the fighters they’re dragging look like J-20s!”

“Are you positive, One-Eight? Can you get a positive ID?”

“Stand by.” Maili swerved left and descended until he was below the southernmost formation. “Okay, it looks like they have two engines, one in each wing root, elevator midway up the vertical stabilizer, and . . . holy shit, Spyglass, they are carrying large missiles under the wing, repeat, three large missiles under each, they are
all
carrying missiles except the tankers! These guys are loaded up to their eyeballs! I cannot identify the missiles, but they are big and mean-looking! Request instructions.”

“Juju, this is Brewski,” Carling radioed. “Several of the fighters that were on the tanker are breaking off and climbing, heading northeast. I’m going to lose them in a second.”

“You still got me visual, Brewski?”

“Affirmative.”

“I’m coming up.” Maili turned away from the formation heading northeast and started a climb. “Join on me.”

“Two,” Carling acknowledged.

“Siren One-Eight flight, Control, we have contact with the aircraft that broke away,” the radar controller reported. “Four bandits, eleven o’clock, eight miles high, accelerating past six hundred knots.” A few moments later Maili’s radar warning receiver lit up. “Siren flight, Siren flight, we have music,” the controller said, using the brevity word that he was picking up enemy radar. A few moments after that: “Siren flight, eyeball, repeat
eyeball
!” “Eyeball” was the brevity word meaning that the controller determined that the AWACS was the enemy fighters’ target!

“Light ’em up, Brewski,” Maili said, activating his AN/APG-77 attack radar and electronic countermeasures system.

“Two.” Because they had the AWACS radar plane giving them vectors, that was the first time in the entire engagement that they had turned on their own radars . . .

. . . which meant that now for the first time the Chinese J-20 fighters realized that the Raptors were there. “Siren flight, be advised, several high-speed aircraft breaking off from the formations and turning northeast! Four . . . now six bandits, repeat six bandits, at your six o’clock, fifteen miles, accelerating!”