Authors: Dale Brown
“Had your heart-to-heart with Phoenix, Joe?” Chief of Staff Kordus asked after the president entered his office. “I know you've been looking for just the right opportunity to tell him the score, and he sure delivered.”
“He came back from that nightmare in Iraq with a big head, and it needed to be shrunk down a few,” the president said. He longed for a cigarette and a glass of rum, but it was way too early in the day, even for him.
“What did he say about running for president?”
“Neither confirmed nor denied it,” Gardner replied. “But we know there's an exploratory committee set up. I don't know what he's waiting for.”
“He's not sure,” Kordus offered. “If you dropped him from the ticket, he'd go for it in a heartbeat.”
“I'm not about to do that, unless he does something really,
really
dumb and there's such a loud hue and cry against him from the party or the public that I'm
forced
to drop him,” the president said. “And with what he went through in Iraq, he's an action hero and rock star rolled into one.”
“Well, we've leaked so many hints about a rift between you and him that today's outburst will put more pressure on him to shit or
get off the pot,” Kordus said. “His speeches on your behalf are less and less about you and more toward your policiesârather,
his
take on
your
policies. Everyone is guessing he'll leave. What's Stacy Anne saying?”
“She's getting real impatient,” Gardner admitted. “Her campaign speeches are packin' 'em in like crazyâshe's a natural, and the public loves her sass. With her actions in Iraq and Turkey, the public really got a good look at her diplomatic experience in the face of hostile actionânot at the same level as Phoenix, but pretty damned close. She keeps on saying that she wished it was
her
that got shot down over Iraq.”
“I heard thatâand I don't think she was kidding.”
“Me neither. But she wants in the West Wing in the worst way.”
“So like you said, Phoenix has to be forced to resign, or do something Agnew-like to voluntarily resign, or something completely egregious that you have no choice but to drop him from your ticket,” Kordus said.
“Too bad I can't fire him.”
“Unfortunately he was elected, same as you, so he can only resign, be impeached, or die,” Kordus said. “But if he keeps on popping off at you in cabinet or NSC meetings, the others might force him to resign for the good of the country.”
The president waved a hand. “Enough about Phoenixâhe'll wait four more years, and then he'll probably just waltz into the White House,” he said. “I won't give a shit thenâI'll be at my beach house in Florida in between seven-figure speaking engagements. My bigger problem is how to explain what in hell we just did today.”
“Give it a week or two for things in South Asia to calm down,” Kordus said, “and then we'll leak the existence of those Pakistani missilesâif it hasn't already been leaked by India or Russia. You'll look like a hero for taking them out. You can just tell everyone that you're not at liberty to discuss how it was done. Then you'll have to
decide if you want to keep those space interceptors up there, or take them down.” He saw the president's upticked eyebrows, indicating the silent question, and replied, “They sure as hell did the job, even if they missed the target.”
“They sure as hell didâ¦and that's what concerns me,” the president said. “If people start believing in space weapons, they may not want aircraft carriers.”
“There's no comparison,” Kordus said. “It's apples and oranges. I remember when the so-called experts were saying carriers were obsolete because of the cruise missile and the stealth bomber. It's not true. Eventually we'll have hypersonic flying ships and laser guns and then maybe the aircraft carrier will go away, but it won't happen in our kids' lifetimes.”
The president looked uneasily at his friend, chief political adviser, and idea machine. “I hope you're right,” he said. “I'm not afraid to say I was impressed. That Kingfisher thing is a game changer. But we've got a lot invested in building up the fleet again, and I don't want some new cool technology to derail our plans.”
“If it looks that way, we'll pull the plug on Kingfisher,” Kordus said. “It
did
miss, after all, and killed a lot of innocent people in the process. It may not be ready for prime time yet.”
S
OUTH OF
H
AINAN
I
SLAND
, P
EOPLE'S
R
EPUBLIC OF
C
HINA
D
AYS LATER
The sea-launched ballistic-missile tube door opened on the spine of the USS
Wyoming,
the seventeenth
Ohio
-class ballistic-missile submarine, but instead of launching a Trident ballistic missile, a missile-shaped vehicle called a Grebe slowly eased out of the missile tube and began floating to the surface as the submarine moved away. It listened for any sign of collision or interference using passive sonars, even halting its ascent at one point when it detected a nearby fishing vessel.
After reaching the surface, it assumed a semisubmerged tail-low stance while it updated its navigation system using GPS signals and continued to listen for threats. Once it determined the coast was clear, wings and skis popped out of the Grebe's body, two rocket engines fired to lift the vehicle out of the water, and a small turbojet engine started when the vehicle reached a thousand-feet altitude. It climbed slowly, using a spiral flight course to avoid flying too close to Hainan Island before it reached its cruising altitude. Once reaching twelve thousand feet, it activated its low-light television and imaging infrared sensors and set a course for the Chinese naval base on Hainan Island. The Grebe's composite structure and small size kept it from being detected by air defense radars on the heavily fortified island.
The objective of the mission was the Wenchang Spaceport, the southernmost and newest of China's four satellite-launch facilities. Because Wenchang was closest to the equator and could therefore use the Earth's spin to help shove bigger rockets into orbit, the launch facilities, seaport, and rail lines had been greatly expanded to allow launches of China's biggest boosters, including the new
Long March-5 heavy booster intended for manned lunar missions, and lifting larger parts of Tiangong-1, China's growing military space station, into orbit.
There were four launchpads at Wenchang, and the Grebe got busy photographing them in detail. It was risky using the Grebe to photograph the base at such a low altitude, but even advanced satellites could not provide the extreme detail that the large drone could; also, satellites were too easy to detect and predict when they flew over the base, making it simple for the Chinese to hide a classified project from sight.
Along with optical and infrared sensors, the Grebe also collected electromagnetic signals such as radar, radio, microwave, and cellular telephone. It would avoid any areas of greater radar-signal activity, especially the naval port on the south side of the island, to avoid being detected. When it encountered a suspected air defense radar lock, the Grebe would automatically stow the electro-optical and infrared sensor domes to reduce its radar signature, then redeploy them when the signals subsided.
The Hainan Island military complex was actually three bases in one: the naval airfield that housed long-range maritime patrol planes, air defense fighter interceptors, and the Chinese aircraft carrier's air wing; the port facilities for the six ships in China's first aircraft-carrier battle group; and an underground submarine base actually carved into the island, which hosted a dozen hunter-killer and ballistic-missile submarines. Although Wenchang was the main target of this mission, the Grebe drone also snapped a few pictures of the rest of the island superfortress when its sensors detected that any radars were no longer tracking it. The Chinese aircraft-carrier group had returned from its encounter with the USS
George H. W. Bush,
and its aircraft were safely on shore.
As the Grebe swept back to the north to take one last pass at Wenchang before returning for its rendezvous with the
Wyoming,
some new details began to emerge. Three of the four main launch
pads were vacant. The fourth main launchpad held a very large rocket with an incredible twelve rocket motors strapped onto the lower section and an enormous cargo fairing atop the rocket.
A new development was the presence of two smaller launchpads situated away from the main launch complex and serviced by roads, not rail lines. These were occupied by large rockets on mobile transporter-erector-launchers, with six concrete shelters large enough to house them built nearby. That was certainly a new developmentâthey hadn't been spotted by any satellite surveillance passes as soon as a day earlier.
Mission complete, the Grebe stowed its sensor turrets and headed northeast. It would take a wide sweeping course away from the island, turn on its transponders so Chinese air defense would spot it heading away, then go back into stealth mode, descend, and turn south for its rendezvous with the
Wyoming,
hopefully sending any pursuers off in the wrong direction. Once at the preplanned rendezvous point, it would ski-land on the South China Sea, sink itself to a safe level, and await retrieval by divers from the
Wyoming
. Although in service for only a few months, the Grebe was proving to be a very valuable intelligence-gathering tool, giving the Navy yet another over-the-horizon asset that allowedâ¦
â¦and at that moment, less than two miles off the northeast coast of Hainan Island, a Type P793 mobile twin thirty-seven-millimeter antiaircraft cannon, guided by passive electro-optical and infrared sensors and therefore undetected by the Grebe's electromagnetic sensors, opened fire. The drone was cut to pieces in seconds, scattering pieces of itself across an entire square mile of the South China Sea.
T
HE
W
HITE
H
OUSE
S
ITUATION
R
OOM
T
HE NEXT MORNING
“They are Dong Feng-21 missiles, sir,” Gerald Vista, the director of national intelligence, said. President Gardner peered with close attention at the images on the large-screen computer monitor at the front of the room. It was an amazingly clear image of the launchpads at Wenchang Spaceport on Hainan Island, China, transmitted via satellite from the Grebe sub-launched unmanned aerial vehicleâthey looked as if they were taken from a platform just above the weapons. “In my opinion they represent a major escalation of weapons in the South China Sea.”
Vista used a remote control to zoom in on two of the launchpads. “Note the differences in the nose section of the missiles between pad number five and six, and the extra set of fins near the top of the missile on the ones on pad five,” he said. “The extra fins allow more maneuvering in the atmosphere. We believe the missiles on pad five are maneuvering ballistic antiship missiles.”
“So the rumors are true, eh?” the president remarked. “I remember they were supposedly experimenting with them when I was at the Pentagon. Any chance they might be fakes set up out there for us to take pictures of them?”
“Of course, sir,” Vista said. “We'd need a clandestine operative, an informant, or a special ops mission to be sure. Until then, we shouldn't take the chance.”
“I know that, Gerald,” the president said perturbedly. “So they finally rolled the big antiship missiles out. Because of the
Bush
incident, I presume?”
“That, and I'm sure the Pakistan strike as well,” National Security Adviser Conrad Carlyle said. He turned to Vista. “The missiles on pad six are the antisatellite missiles?”
“Yes. Officially called the KT-3, but still a modified DF-21 missile like the others. We estimate it can hit satellites as high as six hundred milesâplenty to reach Armstrong and the interceptor garages. It was the same missile that shot down their weather satellite a few years ago.”
“You think they want to attack the space station, Gerald?” the president asked. He turned to Secretary of State Barbeau and National Security Adviser Conrad Carlyle. “That make sense to you, Stacy? Conrad?”
“I think we're seeing the beginnings of the Chinese response to our naval buildup program, sir,” Carlyle said. “They know they or the Russians can't build space weapons or aircraft carriers or train experienced carrier crews fast enough to match us. So while they get up to speed on carriers and space, they bring out the antiship ballistic missiles and ASATs.”
“The Chinese don't want to challenge us, Mr. President, but they don't want to be seen as being restricted at all by the U.S. Navy,” Barbeau said. “We don't want to restrict free access to the world's oceansâ”
“We just want the
ability
to do so if we choose,” the president said. “So what about these damned Dong Feng missiles? Are they something we need to worry about?”
“The DF-21 and KT-3 are mobile solid-fuel missiles with good accuracy even with just an inertial guidance systemâthey get near zero-zero accuracy with a precision system such as electro-optical, satellite, or laser guidance,” Vista said. “They're easy to hide, easy to set up, can be fired and reloaded quickly, and are hypersonic, which makes intercepting them more difficult. Even without a high-explosive or nuclear warhead, just one could probably severely damage an aircraft carrier enough to take it out of action just by sheer impact force.”
“But it
does
have a nuclear warhead, right?”
“Yes, sir, it does,” Vista said. “They can also carry a one-
thousand-pound high-explosive warhead, but it has a much shorter range. The ASAT missile is kinetic-kill onlyâno warhead, hit-to-kill.”