Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 03 (54 page)

           
All eyes of the members of the
National Security Council swung toward him.

           
... All but Thomas Preston. The
Secretary of Defense believed that this confrontation was inevitable, but he
obviously saw it not as the beginning of the end of tensions in the
Philippines
, but the beginning of dangerous
hostilities. Like looking down the barrel of a nuclear-loaded gun. Curtis
rarely agreed with him, but this time he very well may be right

           
“Sir, there was a malfunction of one
SM-2 Aegis missile during the cruiser
Bunker
Hilts
response,” Curtis explained. Thirteen more men had died of their
injuries in the past thirty minutes alone; thirty more were given no better
than a fifty-fifty chance of survival. It was hard for Curtis to formulate an
objective, detached analysis of why and how so many men had died. He was numb,
but pressed on:
“
Bunker
Hill
had
positive control of the situation until the time of the mishap. Admiral
Walheim’s antiair-warfare deputy, who was in command of the engagement from
Bunker Hilts
CIC, terminated all the
rest of the missile launches that, in all probability, would have destroyed the
last incoming missiles. Control of antiair functions transferred to the cruiser
Sterett,
and the switch was made
smoothly, but
Sterett
couldn’t put
enough firepower in the air to stop all the missiles.”

           
“What about inner defenses? Didn’t
Ranger
have any guns to protect itself?”

           
“
Ranger's
fighters shot down one of the aircraft carrying the antiship missiles and took
shots at the missiles themselves, but F-14 Tomcats are not really designed for
chasing down cruise missiles, especially with enemy fighters in the area.
Ranger
itself had two operational
short-range RAM launchers—heat-seeking missiles mounted on a steerable box
launcher—plus two Phalanx automatic Gatling-gun defense systems, but although
both systems were functioning neither could hit the incoming missiles. We’re
investigating.” “We also lost two fighters. Why?”

           
Curtis bristled at the notion that
he
was responsible for explaining the
vagaries of aerial combat, but he explained. “Sir, the fighters faced multiple
enemy aircraft at all times— at no time did we have better than a one-on-two
match-up. The fighters were responsible not only for protecting themselves and
their ship, but the Air Force aircraft as well . . .”

           
“But why did we have such poor
odds?” the Vice President, Kevin Martindale, asked. “Why did we have only eight
fighters airborne? We should have had sixteen or twenty . . .”

           
There was a hushed tension in the
room; Martindale followed the furtive glances of those around him to the
President. “We authorized only two escorts per aircraft,”
Taylor
explained to the Vice President. Everyone
could tell that the President’s admission was a stab wound for him. “They were
talking about thirty-plus fighter escorts up there ...”

           
“Sir, our objective from the
beginning was not to get into a big furball with dozens of aircraft in this
area,” Curtis explained. “If we had huge waves of fighters up there, it
might’ve looked like an invasion force. Besides, we had no way of knowing the
Chinese would not only send fighters to chase down our recon planes, but launch
antiship missiles as well . . .”

           
“I should have known.” The President
sighed. “I should have erred on the side of protecting our troops ...” “Perhaps
it would have been better to have more fighters up initially,” Curtis allowed,
“but our aircraft were in international airspace and outside the established
Philippine air- defense zone at all times. Our reconnaissance plane came no
closer than forty miles to a Chinese vessel that was fifty miles offshore—well
within the law. Our aircraft broadcast identification signals, they were in
constant contact with international overwater flight-following agencies, and
they used no type of jammers whatsoever. The
Ranger
was over three hundred miles away and never entered the
Celebes Sea
. We behaved as nonthreatening as we
possibly could . .

           
“It seems that we underestimated the
Chinese, then,” Thomas Preston said. “This is no mere foray they’re involved
in—this is a major military operation. They are prepared to defend their
positions with everything they have and do whatever it takes—including
attacking a
United States
aircraft carrier.”

           
“And that should not be tolerated,”
General Curtis added. “They’re professing their innocence and at the same time
blasting away at our reconnaissance aircraft and carriers—”

           
“Hold on, hold on, Wilbur,” the
President interrupted. “I understand your anger—believe me, I share it. I need
to hear some more options first before I consider a military response.” He
turned to Secretary of State Danahall. “Dennis, you said you had something for
us on the ASEAN meeting?”

           
“Yes, sir,” Danahall replied. “The
Association of South East Asian Nations concluded its emergency session in
Singapore
yesterday. We’ve got Deborah O’Day over
there as our observer.” Curtis glanced quickly at Thomas Preston and detected a
slight edge in his expression. O’Day was once Preston’s Assistant Secretary of
Defense for the Pacific—one of a multitude of positions she held in two White
House administrations—and had been fired from that post for her outspoken
advocacy of expanded involvement in Pacific affairs in general and specifically
her opposition to the U.S. pullout of the Philippines. Curtis could imagine the
reception O’Day got from the predominantly Moslem and generally anti-female
men.

           
“Miss O’Day reports,” Danahall
continued, “that the vote to bring sanctions against
China
was defeated in the ASEAN assembly.”

           
“What?” the President asked,
alarmed. “But they can’t ... The Chinese are tearing up the
Philippines
and ASEAN isn’t going to do anything about
it . . . ?”

           
“That’s not all, sir,” Danahall
said. “After the meeting, O’Day was briefly kidnapped ...”

           
The room crackled with tension.

           
“Kidnapped!”
The
President found himself sitting straight up. “Jesus, is she all right?
What happened . . . ?”

           
“She’s all right, sir. Not a
scratch. Her assailant says he was sent by Second Vice President Samar to
officially request military assistance from the
United States
—and O’Day reports that
Samar
had delivered a warning not to enter the
Celebes Sea
region because the Chinese Fleet Admiral
was ready to attack.” He held up a sheet of paper. “Here’s her communique from
the embassy in
Singapore
, dated sixteen hours before the attack
began.”

           
The President scanned the communique
quickly, then returned to his chair stiff with shock. He turned to
Preston
, then to Curtis. “Did you know about this?”

           
“Yes, sir,”
Preston
replied. “I immediately issued a message to
Admiral Walheim about the warning, but we gave this warning little credence at
the time.”

           
“Why?”

           
“Because the
Ranger
group was never scheduled to enter the
Celebes Sea
in the first place, per your orders,”
Preston
explained. “I decided to go ahead with the
aerial surveillance, since the risk was far less and because we needed the
‘eyes’ up there to see what the Chinese were doing. We never expected the
Chinese to attack our reconnaissance aircraft, let alone the
Ranger
carrier group.”
Preston
looked decidedly uncomfortable, then added,
“Miss O’Day has had a . . . uh, reputation for sensationalizing a situation,
sir. I’m afraid I have to admit I gave her warning little credibility. It
sounded like a fanatical tirade by a Filipino guerrilla soldier . . .”

           
“We did everything we could do to
protect the fleet, sir,” Curtis said. “The proper warnings were issued, the
commanders in the field knew the situation . . .”

           
“I take full responsibility, sir,”
Preston
said uneasily. “I should have brought the
matter to your attention immediately.”

           
The President stared at
Preston
but his eyes seemed dead. After a moment he
shook his head and waved a hand at
Preston
.
“It’s not your fault, Thomas. If you had told me that the Chinese were ready to
attack the fleet, I would’ve said you were crazy and told you to continue as
planned.” He paused, then said, “All right. We’ve got several dozen dead
sailors, a damaged aircraft carrier, and apparently a five Filipino vice
president asking for our assistance. What do we do about it?”

           
“JCS has devised an operation that
we think can send a clear message to
China
, sir . .

           
The President was obviously still
hesitating. That single nuclear explosion, a relatively small burst that
occurred ten thousand miles away, was hamstringing this President, casting
doubts that only served to increase his anger and frustration—like Reagan’s
inner torment about the American hostages held in Lebanon, the nuclear
explosion and the fear of an escalating conflict between the United States and
China was plunging the President into indecision.

           
“Sir, I’ve got to reiterate this point:
every day we hesitate in sending offensive forces into
Guam
and put them into a position to act, the
worse our situation will be. We will reach a point where we will be unable to
respond at all to stop
China
. It’s even more important to send the Air
Battle Force in right now,” Curtis continued, “because they now become the only
offensive weapon we have against the Chinese in the
Philippines
, except submarines and long-range cruise
missiles.” He referred to a wall map of the area as he spoke: “We won’t risk
sending any more warships into the
Celebes Sea
,
and the
South China
Sea
region and the
seas within the
Philippines
are too dangerous or shallow.
China
controls the south, west, and north sides
of the
Philippines
, and they control the
South China Sea
itself.

           
“However, they do not control the
east side of the
Philippines
, and that’s their weakness. Air strikes
from either carrier-based or land-based bombers can come in from the east and
strike at Chinese positions . . .

           
“Using Doctor Masters’ computer
systems on
Guam
as well as the reconnaissance data from
both the RC-135 flight and his lightweight satellites, the STRATFOR has
developed several strike options designed to achieve an entire range of
results. The plans require using the Air Battle Force. Without
Ranger
or another carrier group
available, we simply don’t have the counter-air defensive capability on
Guam
right now. The Air Battle Force is the only
unit we can send on short notice that has the firepower we need.

           
“In short, I think Masters has
developed a workable plan for dealing with the Chinese in the south
Philippines
. We see a pretty good chance of success,
even with anticipated Chinese reinforcements in the
Celebes
. The primary plan is relatively small,
controlled, and does not directly involve any carrier battle groups or any Marine
Expeditionary Units Masters’ war-game computer calls the plan Operation
WINTER HAMMER . .