Читать книгу Brother's Keeper - Joaquin De Torres - Страница 8

Deep Strike Command

Yokosuka, Japan

Bob Marrion shook his head in despair. He exhaled laboriously and looked back up to the massive wall-mounted screen in his conference room. Divided evenly in two large squares were the members of this video call: NSA Imagery Director and OPTICA specialist Carol Bishop, and NSA China Forces Analysis Director, Laura Chang. The news these women brought was ill-timed and unwelcomed to Marrion who in just two hours would host the most important meeting of his career. Nevertheless, the news was critical and possessed damning implications that would directly impact his later meeting.

“Go on,” said Marrion.

“As you know, OPTICA monitors the Chinese coast along the strait and all of the Ring,” stated Bishop. “We are particularly interested when Taiwanese pilots are fired upon for infringing into Chinese airspace. We’re able to pinpoint mobile launching platforms and fixed sites for our databases and for the Taiwanese analysts.”

“You were mentioning something disturbing,” Marrion lead.

“Yes, Admiral. While it is pretty much routine how the Chinese react to such intrusions, last night’s incident made our analysts conclude that the stealth missile, the “Dragon Fang”-is now being deployed, or at least being tested.”

“Are you sure?” Marrion’s face was now etched in worry.

“Look at this OPTICA overview map, Admiral.” The screen partitioned, separating the women; between them was a detailed map of the China coast, the Taiwan Strait, and Taiwan proper. “The red dots show the fixed SAM sites; the green dots show the mobile sites, and the red stars show airfields. Laura, jump in whenever you like. Now this is a static OPTICA image from last night. Everything is in place. It was a clear, starry night over the Fujian province.”

Bishop enhanced the image and zoomed down. “Now look at the image from 40,000 feet. Beautiful. You can see the city and village lights, roads, everything. Now let’s go to 35,000 feet. There. See that speck?” Bishop’s electronic pointer highlighted a dot.

“What is it?” Marrion asked as he squinted his eyes. Bishop increased the zoom by 100. Marrion sat back, looking at an amazingly clear rendering of a dark plane.

“It’s an F-15, Admiral,” mentioned Chang. “A Taiwanese

F-15 from the Holy Shield squadron out of Hsinchu.”

“Look how far inland it is! That must be more than 30 miles from the coast!”

“Forty-five miles to be exact, sir.”

“Who is it? And what’s it doing in there?”

“That would be Captain Chen, Admiral,” answered Chang bluntly. Marrion looked at both women incredulously.

“The Captain Chen? Famous for his aerial skills and his notorious jaunts into Chinese airspace?”

“That’s him.”

“So, what’s this all have to do with the Dragon Fangs?”

“Before I answer that question, Admiral, first look at these images from past Captain Chen intrusions.” Bishop used her slideshow button to slide various images across the screen. “In all of these images, we can see SAM and anti-air gun sites lighting up the sky with tracers, firing at Chen. These shots show his skill in escape maneuvers. He’s never taken a single hit.” The screen reverted back to last night’s image.

“He’s damn good,” breathed Marrion.

“Probably the best Taiwanese pilot they have,” added Chang.

“But there’s something else, Admiral,” continued Bishop. “In those shots you’ve just seen, Chen had not ventured more than three or four miles inland before they opened fire. Now look at last night’s image again. He was 45 miles deep and still not one battery, not one SAM site opened fire. Look at the difference again.” She put up one of the past images next to last night’s; the past image was dotted and streaked with light and tracer trails. The caption at the bottom read:

DAZUO & XIAOZUO – 2 MILES INLAND. TIME: 2348.

“Now that’s damn peculiar,” huffed Marrion. “So, what am I missing?”

“Sir, something happened to Captain Chen last night.”

Chen slammed the stick hard right when the high-pitched RWR tone pierced his ears. The maneuver flipped the plane into a high-G starboard roll and inverted power dive. Automatically the countermeasure dispenser pod triggered, shooting flares and chaff from beneath the fuselage. Two missiles flew past him and towards the 1000-degree flare balls. Chen pulled out of the emergency dive and snapped his head to see the missiles disappearing into the night sky. When he turned his head back around the RWR warning tone speared his ears again.

He had no time to check his radar display. He banked hard left which ignited another cluster of flares and chaff. Again, a missile sailed past him. He rolled back level and glanced outside of the canopy. What he saw made the blood in his veins turn to ice.

“So, he eluded three Dragon Fangs?” asked a stunned Marrion.

“Yes,” answered Bishop. “Obviously, they knew he was coming and drew him in, tracking him from the moment he crossed into Chinese airspace. It was a clear night; a perfect night to test their new weapon.”

“Not to mention the bounty the PLA has put up for Chen,” added Chang. “Everyone in the PLA wants him dead.”

“It seems rational,” said Marrion. “If they miss, they have plenty of time and room to shoot him down by other means. And if he ejects, he’s trapped in China.”

“There are over four hundred mobile and fixed SAM sites in Fuzhou province; 20 of them in the Fuqing area alone,” said Bishop as she put up another digital map. “From Fuqing City to the strait there are launchers in almost a straight line along the track where Chen would have to fly to escape.

“Admiral, these points, these SAM locations, represent what the Taiwanese call the “Gates of Hell.” Once he goes feet wet, he’s got to make it past Dongbi Island, Jidiao Island, Yutou Island, Changyu Island, Dalian Island and finally the massive island of Haitan. These islands all possess at least one mobile SAM launcher. Haitan is the fifth largest island in China, sitting on the Taiwan Strait itself, and has over 70 launchers alone.”

“Jesus!” breathed the admiral.

“We’ve got video of this flight, Admiral.”

“Don’t tell me. You’re going to show me footage of Chen getting obliterated as he goes through the Gates of Hell.”

“Not exactly, Admiral.”

When Chen looked out of his canopy, the city had disappeared. He knew exactly what this meant: The air raid sirens had begun wailing. When this occurred at night, the city’s lights would automatically shut off. This was done to not only give air defense units a clear view of the target in the night sky, but also deny an intruder the use of landmarks for navigation.

The power grid switch was in the hands of the regional commander who coordinated the defense of the outlying areas in his jurisdiction. With the lights off, all Chen could see now were the glowing tracers of anti-air munitions whizzing past him, flak explosions around him, and fire trails of SAMs leaving their rails and silos from the ground beneath him.

He checked his altitude: 28,500 feet. He was still in Fuqing and needed to get to sea as soon as possible. But first he had to factor in some variables within the seconds he had. He knew the fastest route for escape would be through the Gates of Hell, but he quickly dismissed it, knowing that all those island SAM sites were waiting for him.

He knew that of the six airfields in the province, Longtian—about 20 miles south, would already have fighters in the air, ready to ambush him as he made for the Gates. In fact, his air-search radar already alerted him that aircraft were waiting for him at around 45,000 feet. He had plenty of fuel, so there were options. He could go vertical, hit afterburner and outrun the fighters and the SAMs. However, it was something that they’d expect him to do and would probably have planes at higher altitudes to ambush him on the way up.

He could meet and tangle with the fighters themselves, having shamed them in the past, until he found a corridor to escape. But again, it’s something they might expect knowing that he was flying a more advanced fighter. He decided on a different tactic altogether. After a few defensive rolling maneuvers, he hit afterburner and shoved the stick all the way forward.

“Amazing!” exhaled Marrion as he watched the OPTICA footage. “Look at him! This man is going supersonic at treetop level!” All three watched in awe as Chen roared out of the power dive less than 100 meters from the skyline. He blew over office buildings, twisted past massive blocks of apartment complexes, and slipped between Fuqing’s darkened skyscrapers, blowing out windows, roof shingles and human eardrums with his back blast. OPTICA captured the flight in super high definition as it meandered through the suburban town.

Avoiding Fuqing Bay, the first gate of the Gates of Hell, Chen banked left and north to the smaller town of Nanling, then banked right and southeast to Songxia. Too low, too fast and too close to the community to be locked onto by SAMs, he was able to navigate his route in the pitch of night and virtually unmolested. PLA fighters tracked him from above, but did not engage him because the pilots had no training in low altitude maneuvers, and didn’t want to risk being defeated-at home-against Taiwan’s best pilot.

Five miles until the East China Sea, Chen would face one final SAM challenge as he flew over Dongluo Island. He easily jammed the SAM’s radar and evaded the missiles. He left China airspace, increased his altitude and soared towards Taiwan at Mach 2.3.

“That was unbelievable!” Marrion sat back in his chair and looked at both women, shaking his head. “How close were those Dragon Fangs before Chen’s RFR detected them?”

“OPTICA tracking barely registered them, but they came as close as 80 meters.”

“Christ! Imagine what they could do to our pilots! Especially the newer, less experienced ones!”

“What’s worse, Admiral,” added Chang grimly. “Imagine what these things could do if sold to terrorists. There’s no Chen flying airbuses or passenger liners.”

Suddenly, the gravity of Chang’s statement and his mission hit Marrion like a freight train. It wasn’t so much that combat pilots were at risk by the Dragon Fang, but civilian aviation would be sitting ducks. This is why this was such a high priority mission. Chang was right: There were no Chens flying airliners.

Although some international airlines had installed flares in the fuselage of certain classes of planes on certain flights, the U.S. had no such equipped planes. Budget analysis studies on the proposal estimated that it would cost the U.S. government at least $12 million per plane to install anti-missile flares, chaff and lasers on airliners, and therefore the proposal was never pursued. And 15 years after 9-11, the demand for such systems was drowned by the Bush Recession. There simply was no demand since U.S. planes were never targeted by hand-held weapons in any country.

But times were different now. Radicals had more money than before, and were willing to spend it on better technology. Dragon Fangs answered their prayers, and would be hot commodities to heavily financed third world governments, militias and international terrorist cells now mobile internationally.

“Are you alright, Admiral?” Bishop asked. Marrion nodded and rubbed his face in his hands.

“Can you send that video to my office?”

“Yes, sir. I’ll have it downloaded directly into your files as usual.”

“Thank you, Carol. And Laura, can you send me everything you have on Captain Chen, including the contact number of his commanding officer?”

“Certainly, Admiral. I’ll get right on that.”

“Thank you. Lord knows I could use a pilot like him. He should get a medal. Okay, ladies, anything else for me today?”

“No, Sir,” they answered in unison.

“Very well. Update me with anything you can. In the meantime, I’ve got a meeting I need to go to.”

“Thank you, Sir. Good-bye.”

Marrion buried his bald head in his hands, gripped in the clutches of this reality. This has to work! Yet, no amount of forced or perceived enthusiasm could shake the feeling that he was so far behind the power curve that he might never catch up. The Chinese not only already created the first stealth missile, but were field testing it. The next step was to improve it, tweak it, then mass produce it. And he still had no clue where the factories and laboratories were that were responsible for it.

He took several deep breaths, then peaked at his desk calendar from between his fingers. The meeting was late tomorrow, but it might as well have been in an hour. More unease washed over him. He sat back and took one of several thick files off his desk and leafed through it. He pulled out a photo and gazed at it with stern intensity.

“After tomorrow, it’s out of my hands,” he said wearily. “After tomorrow, it’s up to you.”

He stood up to leave the office, placing the photo of Jason Li back inside the folder.

41^st Tactical Fighter Group

Hsinchu, Taiwan

Air Squadron Commander Colonel Tang Chao-chen sat with his staff facing Captain Chen. Chen had been standing at attention for several minutes while the staff of air officers went through the documents scattered before them. Tang finally raised his head.

“What you’ve done is inexcusable, Captain.” The colonel’s voice was calm, but ice cold. “You’ve almost put us on the brink of war. Do you realize the ramifications, both national and international, if you had been shot down?”

Chen remained silent, the requirement when getting grilled for misconduct and insubordination. He would speak only when given permission to do so.

“What were you thinking?” asked one air marshal. “Seventy-two kilometers into China! Are you an idiot!?”

“We give you this new plane and you treat it like it’s your personal toy!” said another sternly.

“Call in Major Gao,” ordered Tang. An officer posted at the door opened it and Gao Chunming came in. He came to attention beside Chen, who looked at him curiously. Tang’s orders were quick.

“Major Gao, until further notice you are squadron leader.”

“Colonel, I object on grounds!” Gao protested immediately.

“On grounds of what?”

“On grounds that Captain Chen has done nothing wrong.”

“Crossing into enemy airspace for more than 10 minutes; for causing a coastal panic and having set off over 40 miles of air alarms is not enough grounds for you?” thundered one marshal.

“On grounds that Captain Chen is free to exercise certain strategic judgments because he is the best pilot in the Taiwan air force, sir. He also knows the F-15, and the Chinese defenses better than anyone else.”

“Then we suggest you start studying, Major!” spat another air marshal.

“You’re making a big mistake, Colonel.”

“Chunming, don’t,” whispered Chen.

“What mistake is that, Major?”

“His job and his destiny is to be in the air. Captain Chen inspires the men. Day after day, they pour over the aircraft manuals, watch his training clips, and spend hours in the simulators, trying desperately to emulate him.”

“That’s admirable Major, but that’s their job!”

“Colonel—”

“Chunming, stop,” interrupted Chen. “Don’t fight this.” This prompted Gao to turn his head towards his good friend.

“I will not stop, Xiwang!”

“If you have something to say, Major, say it to us,” Tang stated in his soft, professional tone. Gao turned back to the staff members.

“Sir, we are all ready to fly to our deaths for our country. We know what we’re up against. We know that just across the strait over 1,200 short-range ballistic missiles sit waiting to destroy our island. A 3-to-1 advantage in troops, artillery and tanks stand poised for their invasion on our soil. And in the air, we know that they outnumber us 8-to-1. We know this!”

“What’s your point, Gao.”

“In the shadow of such hopeless odds we need a leader whose courage and confidence will keep us fighting no matter what comes over that horizon.” He turned and pointed at Chen. “This is that man! He proves every day that we will not be bullied by those mainland dogs! He proves that when that day comes, the Taiwanese air force will not only fly over the water to engage them, but we’re going to fight them in their own country!”

“Chunming, please!”

“No Captain,” waved off Tang. “Let him speak.”

“My only regret is that I never followed him into Chinese territory. I should have. As his superior officer, I should have never let him complete those flights alone. But I had my doubts about what he was doing, and about my own skills. I will admit that I never had the courage.” He swallowed hard, suppressing the lump in his throat.

He turned to Chen, whose humbled expression and tearing eyes remained trained on the floor ahead of him. “But after what I saw last night, I have no more doubts, and I have no more fear! I will fly with Chen to the Forbidden City if need be! All of us will!” With that, Gao popped to attention and remained silent as he forced back the tears. The staff members, impressed but still resolute, turned to Tang who was still looking at Gao.

“Your loyalty to your friend is commendable, Major. But don’t forget your loyalty to your country, the air force and the squadron. Is this not the conduct of an officer?”

“Yes it is, sir.”

“You are correct in your summation of our forces versus the Chinese. Man for man, missile for missile, ship for ship—we don’t stand a chance. But in the air, we do have some measure of equality against them, and if we’re going to maintain this small but significant advantage, we have to support our chain of command and trust in its decisions no matter how we feel emotionally. Is this not true, Major?”

“It is, sir.”

“Then you can appreciate why we must protect Captain Chen?”

Gao lowered his head as the bigger picture crystallized in his mind.

“I do, sir.”

“Very well, Major. You will assume command of the squadron and continue your missions and training as scheduled.” Tang then looked at Chen.

“Captain Chen, you are grounded until further notice.” Both Chen and Gao closed their eyes and lowered their heads before the colonel completed the sentence. “However, there is an upside to this.” Instantly the men raised their heads.

“We received a call from an American naval command in Japan that is studying the flight recording from the OPTICA satellite which was tracking you.”

“I was tracked by OPTICA?” Chen’s voice reflected surprise laced with flattery.

“Yes, Captain. They even sent the footage to us and we reviewed it this morning. It appears that your flight uncovered a few important details that they would like to discuss with you.”

“Discuss? With me?”

“That’s right. Some representatives from that command will be coming here to discuss your flight, the OPTICA footage, and the footage recorded from your wing camera. They will arrive sometime within the month, and they’ve asked that all intrusion flights be put on hold.” Tang nodded to the air marshal on his right who then spoke.

“Because the 41^st is the only squadron with F-15s, you will conduct squadron training, focusing on defensive maneuvers and aerobatics with the F-15. It’s important that any of our pilots be able to answer any questions from the Americans concerning the aircraft’s handling and performance.”

“I agree, sir.”

“You can use the simulators, classrooms and hangers initially for this training. But then you will get to use the MPD.”

“MPD, sir?” asked Gao.

“Manual Pilotless Drone,” answered Tang. “It’s like a radio controlled plane that can be flown from the ground. Chen will actually sit in a simulator-type cockpit located in the new flight control hanger. “From take-off to maneuvers to landing, the modified F-15 will be in the hands of Chen although its cockpit will be empty. The live views using cameras embedded throughout the cockpit, body and wings are remotely beamed to Chen’s virtual cockpit and will give him all the real-time angles he needs to see all of you.” Tang looked at the members of his staff.

“Do we have anything else for these men?”

“No, sir,” several voiced while others shook their heads.

“Very well. You two are dismissed.”

“Thank you, sir!” both men said in unison. They took one step back and performed an about face towards the door.

“Captain Chen,” called Tang. Chen turned around.

“Yes, Colonel!”

“You must have done something amazing for the Americans to come out here for a visit.” The colonel’s lips formed into an admiring smile. “Don’t get into any trouble before they arrive.”

“I’ll personally make sure of that, Colonel!” blurted Gao to the laughing delight of the staff members.