Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 06 (29 page)

 
          
Samson
hit a button on his communications panel. “Excuse me, Wrangler. This is
Buster—”

 
          
“You
give Elliott the order to launch those missiles?” Cowen snapped.

 
          
“No,
sir,” Samson replied. “Headbanger reacted to protect the Taiwanese frigate when
the PLAN launched an anti-ship missile and gun barrage. One Taiwanese warship’s
been sunk, and the other is in imminent danger. We need permission to launch
anti-radar and anti-missile weapons and, if necessary, attack the PLAN
guided-missile boats with attack cruise missiles.”

 
          
“Denied,”
Cowen said immediately. “Terminate the mission, recall all aircraft, and get
them on the ground immediately.”

 
          
“Sir,
the captain of the Taiwanese frigate, Captain Sung, reports that the PLAN
carrier battle group is carrying nuclear land attack and antiship missiles,”
Samson said. “We should stop the task force from—”

 
          
“What
do you mean, the captain of the Taiwanese frigate
reports
?” Cowen exploded. “You mean, you’re in
contact
with the Taiwanese vessels? How—?”

 
          
“The
skipper of the lead Taiwanese frigate contacted Headbanger,” Samson said. “I
don’t know how—there must’ve been a security breakdown.”

 
          
“Or
else Elliott gave them the UHF synchronizer codes! ” Cowen retorted. “I’ll bet
he’s
the damned security breakdown! This
mission is
supposed
to be secret,
General! That was your damn idea from the beginning—it was supposed to be
secret even from the ROC. I want those planes recalled and that bastard
Elliott...” he stopped, realizing he was breaking communications security, which
made him even madder, “. . . put on house arrest! ”

 
          
“Sir,
if Headbanger is recalled, that second Taiwanese frigate will be a sitting
duck,” Samson argued. “At least authorize Headbanger to release their defensive
weapons—the remaining Wolverines and the Tacit Rainbow cruise missiles. These
weapons will stay in the area protecting the frigate while they withdraw. ”

 
          
“I’m
giving you a direct order, Buster—recall Headbanger
now
!” Cowen shouted. “They are not to release any weapons except to
protect themselves while they clear the area and recover. Is that clear?”

 
          
“Perfectly
clear, sir,” Admiral Allen, who had been listening in, replied. “I’ll see to it
myself immediately.” And the line went dead. Allen hung up the phone, then
said, “TAO, issue a recall order to the bomber force, and have the order
authenticated—by Elliott personally. The mission is terminated, and he’s on
report.”

 
          
ABOARD THE EB-52 MEGAFORTRESS

THAT SAME TIME

 
          
“Terminated?”
Elliott retorted. “They can’t do this to us
now!
”
He keyed the mike on the secure satellite link: “Hey, Earthmover, tell the
squids to go to hell! We’re going to cover that frigate’s withdrawal! ”

 
          
“Negative,
Headbanger,” Admiral Allen replied. “This is Trident, and it’s a direct order
from Wrangler. Your orders are to terminate and withdraw. You are authorized to
expend weapons only to defend yourself as you withdraw and RTB. Time now,
zero-three-two-two-four-eight, authentication tango. Do you copy?”

 
          
“Hey,
Billy, authenticate this:
fuckyou\
”
Elliott shot back angrily, and he switched the secure satellite transceiver off
his comm panel. “I knew they’d do this,” he said hotly. “First chance they got,
they recalled us.” “We’ve done everything we could,” Nancy Cheshire said. “If
we try to defend that Taiwanese frigate any more, we risk getting sucked closer
and closer in toward that Chinese fleet—and that might not be as bad as the
ass-kicking we’d get by CINCPAC or Balboa once we got back home. You got a
heading to the refueling anchor point, Patrick?”

 
          
“Heading
indicator is good back to the air refueling anchor point,” McLanahan said,
calling up the coordinates on his computer and entering them into his
navigation system.

 
          
“Hey,
we can’t bug out of here now,” Elliott said angrily, as he connected the
autopilot to the navigation computers and monitored the turn to the east. “We
haven’t done squat, and we’re about to watch the PLAN sink a Taiwanese frigate
and kill hundreds more sailors. Doesn’t that mean anything to you guys?”

 
          
“Sir,
we were given an order to withdraw,”
Cheshire
said. “I know you don’t like it, but we’ve
got to follow those orders.” She hesitated for a moment, then added, “Don’t
we?”

 
          
“Patrick,
you’re the mission commander—it’s up to you,” Elliott said. “But you know as
well as I do that if Allen or Balboa had their fingers on the triggers, they’d
shoot.”

 
          
“Maybe,
maybe not—that’s not our problem,” McLanahan said. “We were ordered to
withdraw, so we withdraw. We’ll follow orders.” The interphone got very quiet.
He called up a repeater of Emil Vikram’s large threat display, superimposing it
over his God’s-eye view so he could map out exactly which ships were
transmitting. “Emitter, I see that carrier, the northern destroyer, and those
seven northern patrol boats all hitting us with target-tracking radar. We’re
under attack.”

 
          
“Why,
you sly devil,”
Cheshire
said, turning and grinning at her OSO over her shoulder.

 
          
“I
believe you’re right, Muck,” Elliott said. “The PLAN is attacking us!”

 
          
“The
signal thresholds are too low,” Vikram said, still confused. “Call up my
sigma-echo screen and look for yourselves. They can’t possibly have a lock. ”

 
          
“I
say we’re an item of interest, and we’re allowed to use all weapons to defend
ourselves,” McLanahan said emphatically. “We need to shut down those radars.
Stand by for bomb bay missile launch, crew, twelve Rainbows.” McLanahan
designated the targets for the anti-radar cruise missiles: the carrier, the
northern destroyer, and four of the seven guided- missile patrol boats that
were transmitting anti-ship missile-targeting radar energy. “Doors coming open,
crew.” He hit the command button and spoke: “Launch commit Rainbow missiles.”

 
          
WARNING,
LAUNCH COMMIT TWELVE BOMB BAY TACIT RAINBOW MISSILES, the computer reported,
then entered a launch hold.

 
          
“Launch,”
McLanahan commanded. The launch hold was cleared, and the crew felt the rumble
of the fibersteel bomb doors retracting inside the bomb bay; a few seconds
later, the noise was gone. “All Tacit Rainbows away,” McLanahan reported.

 
          
As
they dropped clear of the bomb bay, the AGM-136 Tacit Rainbow cruise missiles,
each about six feet long, a little more than a foot in diameter, and weighing
less than a thousand pounds, deployed short stubby wings and horizontal and
vertical stabilizers and descended toward the sea. As they got closer to the
surface, they activated their turbojet engines, increasing their speed to over
300 miles an hour, and leveled off at 500 feet above the sea. One missile’s
engine failed to light off despite dozens of automatic relights, and it glided
for another nine miles before hitting the ocean and breaking into pieces.
Another missile, performing its automatic self-test, determined that its
navigational and sensor accuracy was not within its standards; it performed a
systems reset, still found its systems faulty, then automatically performed a
suicide dive straight down into the rock-hard sea.

           
One by one, the missiles took up
five-mile-long figure-eight orbits at its assigned patrol point, took a GPS
satellite fix to nail down its navigational accuracy, and activated its passive
electronic sensors. The frequency and pulse rate of every signal received was
instantly compared to signatures in their computer memories, and if it matched,
the missile immediately began homing in on the signal. Each missile would then
instantly report back to McLanahan by datalink that it was locked on.

 
          
“All
surviving Rainbows tracking,” McLanahan reported. “I’m sending a couple back
into their orbits.” Several Rainbows had locked onto the same radar, so McLanahan
had to divert a couple of them back into patrol racetracks so he didn’t waste
any missiles. “Looking good, guys.”

ABOARD THE CHINESE CARRIER
MAO ZEDONG

           
“Interceptor Group One ready for
launch, sir,” the officer of the deck reported.

 
          
“Very
well,” Admiral Yi responded. “Have Interceptor One establish a high combat
patrol at the last known—”

 
          
Just
then, they heard a loud
booom!
roll
across the sea. Yi ran over to the port rail and saw a cloud of smoke coming
from the destroyer
Kang.
“Something
hit the
Kangl”
the lookout shouted.
Seconds later, another loud explosion rang out, and Yi watched in horror as a
piece of the
Mao's
Kilo-band
fire-control radar for the SA-N-9 antiaircraft missile system crashed to the
deck just aft of the bridge. Seconds later, another loud explosion rattled the
ship. “Smoke coming from the
Kangl
Looks like he took a missile hit! ”

 
          
“Never
mind the
Kangl
Get me a damage report
on
my
ship! ”

 
          
The
phone from Engineering rang just then, and the OOD took the damage report:
“Kilo- and Ku-band fire-control radar array and X-band targeting radar for the
Granit missiles hit, sir,” the officer of the deck reported. “No casualties, no
injuries. The flight deck is clear.”

 
          
Thank
the stars, Yi murmured to himself. Yi had never before been in combat—he had
been based ashore during the Philippine and Vietnamese naval conflicts—and the
speed of the attack, combined with the sudden realization that this big
high-tech steel ship was vulnerable and they were very far from friendly
shores, was beginning to invade his consciousness, replacing pure, abject fear
with all other thoughts about his crew and his ship. “Very well.” He slammed
that phone down and picked up the one to his
Combat
Information
Center
. “Combat, bridge. Status report.”

 
          
“SA-N-9
antiaircraft system is down to optronic guidance only,” the combat officer
responded. “Granit targeting system is degraded. We can tie it to the India- or
Sierra-band navigation _radars for target acquisition—as long as the target
does not go outside the missile’s sixty-degree seeker cone, it will track by
itself.”

 
          
Yi
had to consciously straighten his shoulders and force himself to think to keep
from panicking. “Very well. I want a full damage-control report, weapons
stations first. Switch to backup fire-control sensors.”

           
“Lookouts report missiles inbound!
” the quartermaster shouted suddenly. “Small missiles, one hundred meters above
the water, slow speed, numerous missiles! Should we engage?”

           
Yi felt his knees buckle and his
heart pound in his chest. Enough, dammit,
enoughl
“Signal the formation, secure all fire-control radars,
now
!” Yi shouted frantically. “Shut them down
now\
Order the entire battle group to switch to manual or optronic
fire control.” His instructions were carried out just in time, for a few
seconds later Yi saw a small cruise missile streak overhead with a tiny
whistling sound. It was performing a wide oval pattern about two hundred meters
above the ship. “My God,” he muttered as another missile whistled past,
orbiting a bit lower and in the opposite direction—it felt as if they were
large irritating mosquitoes buzzing just out of reach. “Use the AK-630s and
shoot those damn things down, damn you—but
do
not
use fire-control radars!”

           
“What should we do, sir?” the
officer of the deck asked. “The
Kang
and
Changsha
cannot attack without using their radars.”