Andrew Watts
Global Strike
Also by Andrew Watts
The War Planners
The War Stage
Pawns of the Pacific
The Elephant Game
Overwhelming Force
Global Strike
Glidepath
The Oshkosh Connection
Epigraph
Therefore he who desires peace, let him prepare war.
History teaches that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap. To keep the peace, we and our allies must be strong enough to convince any potential aggressor that war could bring no benefit, only disaster.
1
The inverted bow of the USS Michael Monsoor cut through the dark waters of the Pacific Ocean, the ship’s distinct silhouette nearly invisible on the moonless night. A thin layer of scattered clouds allowed the occasional window of starlight to illuminate patches of sea.
“Any sign of them?” Captain Harris asked.
“Nothing yet, sir,” replied the officer of the deck.
The captain stood in the center of the dark bridge with a small watch team. They were surrounded by flat-panel video feed that provided them with an artificial 360-degree view of the outside world, dimmed down to the lowest level so as not to affect their night vision. Two petty officers steered the ship with a trackball, keyboard, and the click of a button.
The officer of the deck touched his headset. “Captain, the TAO requests your presence in combat.”
“On my way.”
Captain Harris hustled into the ship’s combat information center, the envy of most modern warships. Nearly a dozen personnel sat in four rows of multi-screen computer terminals, monitoring the electronic signals, passive sonar, and communications. The captain and XO had hand-picked the combat watch team, and the varsity players were on duty tonight.
As the captain entered the space, someone announced his presence. “Captain in combat.”
Captain Harris approached the Tactical Action Officer, or TAO, who managed the ship’s combat systems and sensors. “What’s up, TAO?”
“We’re starting to get some ESM hits. Chinese commercial surface search radars.”
“Got any fixes yet?”
“Not yet, sir. They just started showing up.”
“Bearing?”
“Two-four-zero to two-seven-zero. Sure would love to illuminate with the SPY, make sure no surveillance aircraft are out there…” The TAO gave him a frustrated look.
“You know we can’t.”
“I know, sir.”
All electronic emitters, including radar, had been powered down. Task Force Bruiser, which included both the Monsoor and its embarked special operations team, was a covert assignment. However much the captain would love to use his surface search radar to detect contacts in their vicinity, he wouldn’t risk it for fear of detection. Their destroyer was well below the equator, further into the Chinese-controlled South Pacific than any American ship had operated for more than a year.
“How are we doing on fuel?”
“Getting close to our bingo, sir, as the aviators like to say.”
“Might have to move our RAS further to the south if these guys don’t show up today. Talk to the Navigator. Have him come up with a plan and run it by me tonight.”
“Roger, sir.” The TAO looked up. “Sir, the SEAL commander has an update for you.”
Captain Harris glanced up at the second-level balcony, where a row of men were overlooking the combat information center. The SEAL commander and a few intel officers were embarked with them. Usually the SEALs would run this type of mission off a submarine like the USS Jimmy Carter, but in the year since the war began, US submarines had more missions than they could handle. And their reconnaissance deployments were significantly closer to Chinese shores than the Michael Monsoor could get.
But the Monsoor, one of only three stealthy Zumwalt-class ships ever made, was almost invisible on radar. And when she went dark, she could be forward deployed to places like this, where the Chinese were suspected to be operating, but not in such significant numbers that the American stealth ship couldn’t avoid detection.
Captain Harris climbed the ladder to the upper-level combat space, where the SEAL team commander and a DIA officer stood behind a mustached submarine tech rep. The submarine expert was monitoring a dashboard of numbers and technical data.
The SEAL commander turned to face Captain Harris. “Sir, good evening. We just received a short-range burst transmission. They’re on their way. Should be about thirty minutes.”
“Excellent. Please let the TAO know to prepare for recovery.”
A half-hour later, the captain watched from the internal bay’s peripheral platform at the ship’s aft. The massive, cavernous space had a central track normally used to deploy and recover the ship’s rigid hull inflatable boats. Waves sloshed up onto the angled deck below.
A silent, black monolith surfaced from the deep, barely visible at first but growing larger as it drove up the ship’s wake.
Members of the ship’s crew, the SEAL team leader, and intelligence personnel watched as the newest mini-submarine lodged itself onto the rear of the ship’s ramp. Specially trained enlisted men attached lines and then used electronic devices and the moving tracks to pull the submarine into the bay.
The whole operation took about twenty minutes, as fast as they could safely go. When they were finished, the rear bay door closed, the submarine’s hatch opened, and four SEALs exited. One of them handed an object to the SEAL team leader.
Moments later, the captain, along with the SEAL commander and intel officers, listened as the SEAL team reviewed the reconnaissance data.
“That’s the first rocket, right there,” one of the men said, pointing at the image on the screen. “The next one comes a few minutes later. They recovered about twenty of them, I think. One crashed into the water.”
The DIA officer said, “That’s their new series 8 rocket. They’re launching about forty mini-satellites from each one of these babies. Times twenty…”
“That’s a lot of satellites.”
“Why are they recovering them here?”
“Based on the trajectory, this must be the optimal spot. Then they’ll have about a fifteen-day haul back to Hainan. Their space launch facility is right near there.”
A phone on the wall rang. Captain Harris picked it up. “Captain.”
“Captain, TAO, sir, we’ve got a problem.”
Captain Harris looked out the glass window and onto the watch floor below. The TAO was holding the phone to his ear, looking up at him.
“Sir, we now have at least twenty electronic fixes on what I think are Chinese warships. Sonar is picking up corresponding noise. Some merchants. But also what we think are Type 52 destroyers. Sir, if those are here, they’ll be flying surveillance helicopters…”
The captain hung up the phone and headed toward the ladder. “Make a hole!” Two seamen scattered from the ladderway. The captain slid down on his palms, his steel-toed boots landing with a thud, and then headed over to the TAO’s station, glancing up at the tactical display at the front of the room. Nearly two dozen red tracks were dangerously close to their position, the speed indicators all pointing toward the USS Michael Monsoor.
“What’s their ETA?”
“About thirty minutes until they’re in visual range, based on our tracks, sir. Hard to say without radar…” The watchstanders surrounding the TAO glanced up, listening intently to the conversation.