He shook his head. “Fine. I don’t care. XO, you take care of it.” The captain stormed out of the room.
When he was gone, the XO spoke in a softer tone. “Alright, folks. Everyone, let’s just learn from this. Air Boss, why don’t you have your second crew go get ready to launch? I’ll speak with the captain.”
She nodded and made the call. The XO kept speaking with the team in combat, going over what they had seen. She called Plug and the senior chief, who were waiting back in the hangar. She told them to get the helicopter ready to fly again, and that they would continue the ASW training in a little while.
When she was off the phone, the XO called her over. “Sorry about that.” He said it softly enough that no one else heard.
She shrugged. “Nothing you could really do.”
He gave her a knowing look. “Yeah. Hey, on another note — I was just going over the tapes with our sonar tech and your AWR1. You got a sec?”
“Sure.”
They walked over to the two enlisted men, who were standing next to the ship’s high-tech sonar equipment. The XO said, “Tell her what you guys told me.”
“Boss, we were looking at the tapes,” AWR1 said. “You know how we had two tracks?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I had assumed that we just got some bad data back when we were pinging our dipping sonar, but we looked at the replay here. And it looks like the Farragut was getting contact on the two separate tracks as well.”
Victoria frowned. “What do you mean?”
The ship’s sonar technician pointed to his screen. “You see this here? This is the Colombian submarine. We know that because it corresponds to the location of the Colombians when they said they sunk us.”
“Okay. What about that one?” She pointed to the obvious other marking on his screen.
“That’s what we aren’t so sure about.”
“The second track we had was going ridiculously fast,” AWR1 said. “Like thirty-five or forty knots fast. I just assumed that was fake. And I think I mixed them up. It was actually the other track — that turned out to be the Colombians — that was going five knots. The one that we were chasing was the second track. And that one really did appear to be going over thirty-five knots.” His face was a mix of worry and skepticism.
Victoria looked up at the XO. “We don’t have any US nukes around here, do we?”
He shook his head. “Not that I know of.”
“What about the acoustic signatures? You get anything?”
The ship’s sonar technician said, “Almost nothing.”
“Almost?”
“Well, there was this one line here… but at that frequency it could have been a couple different types of subs, if it really was a sub.”
“What types?”
“Well, it could have been a Los Angeles class. Or…”
“Or what?”
“Well, supposedly the Chinese have a new type of nuclear fast attack submarine that just came out that has the same characteristics at that frequency range.”
“Chinese?”
“Yeah. But that would be kind of crazy for them to be operating out here, near the Galapagos.”
Victoria nodded. “Alright. Let’s make sure that we’re looking at this stuff during the next flight. Let’s see if we hear it again.”
“Roger, ma’am.”
Victoria remained in the combat information center for the second training flight. It went better than the first one, with Plug’s helicopter and the ship both claiming to have successfully attacked the Colombians.
And this time, no more suspicious second track.
That evening, the XO checked with COMSUBPAC and verified that there were no US submarines in the area. It had to be a system error.
The only other alternative would have been that it was the new Chinese Shang-class attack submarine. That would have been highly unlikely. The Chinese didn’t deploy their submarines to this area of the world. Plus, it would have been near impossible for them to operate out here in the vicinity of the USS Farragut and remain undetected.
After going over the data with the sonar experts on the ship, the XO and Victoria agreed that the second track must have been a fault in the sonar computer system.
3
Lena lay on the infirmary mattress. A window revealed the dark green jungle outside. She looked at her arm in disgust.
Natesh sat in a chair next to her. “You saw my report?”
She nodded. “I did. It was well done, as always.” He too was looking at the grotesque burns on her arm and shoulder. Then he must have realized that he was staring and turned away, looking instead at the bare stone wall.
She hated him for making her feel insecure. It was a very rare emotion for her. The permanent burn scars that traveled up her side were hideous, she knew. But she had never cared about her looks. Or at least that’s what she had thought until they were ruined. She had been beautiful. A fact that she had always taken for granted. But that beauty had been burned off by fire on a Dubai rooftop. Perhaps some of her confidence had been burned off as well. In its place was a growing anger.
Lena closed her eyes and lay back down on the bed. Her mind still a bit foggy from the pain meds. She would stop taking them today, she decided. A clear mind was needed for her role here on the island.
She said, “Your conclusion was not optimistic.”
“When we drew up the plans, we expected six months to a year of preparation.”
“You sound like you’re complaining.”
“When a project that is supposed to take six months to a year gets moved up by six months to a year — I think it’s justifiable to complain.”
“And the projects you worked on in corporate America were always on time? Every part always going to plan?”
Natesh tilted his head, annoyed at the remark. “Of course not. But it’s one thing to switch to alternate plans. It is quite another to have no alternatives.”
She opened her eyes and rolled out of bed. She walked over to the window. “Talk me through the problems.”
“The container ships are not ready. The troops are not trained. Not only that, but we don’t yet have the numbers of troops that I expected. Our initial landing spots in the Americas are just now getting their first infusion of Chinese Special Forces soldiers. And most of those units have no clue why they are really there.”
He paused until she opened her eyes. He leaned forward to emphasize his words. “And the psychological operations have not yet begun.”
“In China, you mean?”
“Yes, Lena. We can plan while we are on this tiny island. We can plan all we want to, but that only gets us so far. You know as well as I do that without the alignment of Chinese leadership, none of this is going to happen. All we have so far are plans.”
“Look at me.” She pulled her shirtsleeve up her arm so that he could get a better look at the burns. He looked, a pained expression on his face. “Do my scars look like we have been just drawing up plans?”
“No. I’m sorry. But Jinshan promised that we would have more by now. We need more of everything. More ships, more troops, more aircraft. The wheels need to start moving if he expects the timeline to move up as far as he does. I’ve been following the headlines in China. It’s business as usual. This isn’t what Jinshan said…”
“I know what Jinshan said.”
“Well, will he follow through? We’ve identified the fixes needed to finish the network outages. I know that the Chinese military readiness has increased in the south, but everywhere else it’s the same. But if we’re going to stick to the schedule… We need manufacturing to shift from commerce to a wartime footing. I just don’t see Jinshan’s promised results happening on time.”