“Radar absorbent material. Feingold is a physicist.”
“Okay, fine. What about him?”
“Well, just that lately it seems that Herb — he’s a bachelor too — seems to be spending a lot of money.”
“On what?”
“Oh, the night life I guess you’d call it. He’s taken up heavy gambling, something he didn’t do before. He always loses a bundle, thousands sometimes, which he never seems to mind.”
Swinford was writing furiously in his notepad. “Where do you think he gets the money?”
“I wouldn’t want to—”
“But you have an idea.”
Lutz shook his head. “I know what you’re suggesting, but it doesn’t make sense. It’s just too hard to believe that a guy like Herb Feingold would ever do anything, you know, disloyal.” He looked at the three agents. “But there were those little hints. I guess you just never know about some people, do you?”
Maxwell was right. Boyce was up to something.
They were alone in the air wing office. Boyce had sent Catfish Bass off to flag plot to retrieve the day’s air plan. He was taking special pleasure in having the Air Force pilot run errands for him. Bass invariably got lost wandering the passageways, still bashing his shins into the knee knockers. Boyce loved it.
Now Maxwell was seeing all the usual warning signals. Boyce was pacing the narrow compartment like a caged bear, gnawing on the cigar, hands jammed in his pockets.
He made one more circuit of the compartment, then stopped and removed his cigar. “Okay, now hear this. I’ve got an idea. We have to run it by the admiral, of course, and when he cleans out his underwear he’s gonna forward it up the chain. This one will go all the way to the commander-in-chief. But this President has a set of balls. I’ll bet a case of twelve-year-old Scotch that he signs off on it.”
“Signs off on what?”
“The Black Star, Chinese version.”
Maxwell could hear the warning bells, loud and clear, going off on his head. “Ah, what exactly are we going to do, CAG?”
“Do?” He removed the cigar and looked at Maxwell as if he were a retarded sixth-grader. “What do you think? We’re going to steal their little toy.”
CHAPTER 11 — SOVREMENNY
It took eighteen hours.
When the Flash Priority message arrived on the Reagan—transmitted at the highest level of urgency via the carrier’s Athena satellite connection — Boyce let out a war whoop. “Ha! I told you, didn’t I? This is a president with cojones.”
Boyce, Maxwell, Admiral Hightree, and the Group Operations Officer, Captain Guido Vitale, stood around the long steel table in the SCIF — the Special Compartmentalized Intelligence Facility — located deep below decks in the ship’s Surface Plot spaces. On the bulkhead next to them was an illuminated map of the Taiwan Strait, covering all of Taiwan and the coastal mainland of China.
Maxwell glanced at the tasking order. “How do we know this came via the President?”
“We know,” said Hightree. “The spooks have an authentication system that verifies the origin of Flash Priorities.”
Boyce said, “You can bet there’s no way in hell CNO and the Joint Chiefs would give this the go ahead without the Commander-in-Chief signing off.”
Hightree looked worried, like a man whose destiny was slipping out of his control. “Gentlemen, this operation has fallen into my lap, whether I wanted it or not. But listen to me. Every detail of the plan will be reviewed by me and my staff before your people lift a finger.” He looked pointedly at Boyce. “Is that understood?”
Maxwell had to sympathize with Hightree. He was new to strike group command — less than three months — and he was not eager to take risks.
Not as eager as Boyce. “Yes, sir,” said Boyce. “Understood.”
“It’s supposed to be a Taiwanese operation,” said Hightree, “which means we get a sign off from the ROC government before we go anywhere, do anything. They supply the logistics, the insertion team, all the firepower.”
“So why do we have to be involved?” said Guido Vitale. He was a former patrol plane pilot who served as Hightree’s group operations officer. Vitale and Boyce butted heads on a daily basis. “Why do they need us at all?”
“Because it’s our problem too,” said Boyce. “The Black Star poses an immediate threat to Taiwan, but in the long run it’s a huge danger to the United States. It’s our own stolen technology being turned against us. We’re just gonna steal back what is rightfully ours.”
Vitale had a sour look on his face. “And who did you have in mind to do the stealing?”
Boyce was studying the remains of his cigar. The end was gnawed into a wet sliver. “Well, obviously he has to be a pilot. But not an ordinary pilot. Someone capable of climbing into an exotic jet he’s never seen before and flying the thing away.”
Hightree and Vitale were nodding. Boyce was deliberately keeping his eyes on the map of the Strait.
Maxwell was getting an old feeling. It was the same feeling he always got when he sensed something coming up with his name on it.
“Of course, he has to be a volunteer,” Boyce went on. “We all understand that it’s a high risk operation. But if I know my man, he’ll take the job.” His gaze swung away from the map.
Maxwell felt all the eyes in the room on him. That damned Boyce. Some things never changed.
Don’t let them see you cry.
Charlotte Soong made a frozen mask of her face, trying her best to appear expressionless. She could feel the eyes of the general staff — senior officers of the Air Force, Army, Navy — all watching her, waiting for her reaction.
The news was devastating. Another frigate blown out of the water. A destroyer severely damaged. F-16s falling from the sky like shotgunned pigeons. Something — an invisible airplane — was killing Taiwanese jets.
Now it was killing ships. Her senior officers were divided about what to do next.
They were in the war room, a fortified chamber inside a bunker that extended for three hundred meters into the side of a hill. Connected by tunnels to the executive palace in Taipei, the bunker contained a military command center, an executive office and private quarters, and a communications post.
She had not yet told the general staff about the proposed raid on Chouzhou and the stealth fighters. The plan had been developed in secret and was known only to a handful of her aides and officers. General Wu had been involved with the planning, and he was not pleased. He considered an operation on Chinese soil to be too risky. If the mission failed — and he predicted it would — it would only embolden China to launch its own invasion force.
“What should I tell our flotilla commander?” said Admiral Weng-hei, the navy chief of staff.
“What do you mean?”
“Should I tell him to withdraw his forces from the Strait?”
Charlotte still didn’t understand. “You mean, turn over control of the sea to the Chinese navy?”
“If we wish to preserve our surface forces, we have to withdraw.”
She tried to read Weng-hei’s face. Nothing. She looked then at General Wu, standing at the wall-sized graphic display. Wu wore the same blank expression, giving her no guidance.
A feeling of despair swept over her. The war was turning against them, and the senior officers were making sure that the responsibility — and blame — fell on her.
“I need time to consider the situation,” she said, struggling to keep her face impassive. “I’ll be in my quarters for the next hour.” She could feel her lower lip beginning to tremble.