“I’m speaking with the DNI and the president this afternoon. I’m going to include some of that intel in the brief. What help do you need?”
Susan liked the CIA director. He was the type of leader who looked to empower his people and break down walls.
She didn’t hesitate. “ISR on Liaoning, sir.” Intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. She was asking for imagery on the Chinese military camp that GIANT had mentioned.
“Have you already requested it?”
“Yes, sir. I’ve been asking for ISR on various Chinese locations for weeks, but I’m hitting walls. The Liaoning camp is one of my new priorities. Technically I haven’t asked for surveillance on that location yet, but I already know what response I’ll receive. Satellites are depleted. Drones are vulnerable to Chinese countermeasures and cyberoperations. I even mentioned the SR-72 to General Schwartz. He floated it by the Pentagon, but they said that it wouldn’t be a good asset to use. It’s not ready for prime time yet.”
The director buttoned his jacket, frowning. “I agree that we need intelligence collection on those camps. And I agree that we’re low on ISR options. I’ll mention it, but if the National Reconnaissance Office and the Pentagon are pushing back, then we’ll need to come up with an alternative. Please work with General Schwartz on developing a few options. Be creative.”
“Yes, sir,” she replied as she followed the director into the hallway outside his office. Two escorts joined him, and Susan fell back.
Great. How the hell was she supposed to collect intelligence on a secret Chinese camp one hundred miles inland, with no ISR support?
4
While repairs normally would have taken place in port, the US Navy had decided that these were exceptional circumstances. The Farragut had pulled in to Panama City for only seventy-two hours, then left to continue an East Pac patrol. Repairmen and contract maintenance crews had stayed aboard to fix the sections of the ship that had been damaged when the shrapnel from a Chinese submarine-launched missile had torn through parts of the bridge and forward compartments.
Lieutenant Commander Victoria Manning stood on the flight deck, watching the Panama City skyline sink below the horizon. Their single helicopter was in the port hangar, a daily maintenance inspection underway.
Lieutenant Bruce “Plug” McGuire wandered up to her. “You know why they made us leave, right?”
“Why?”
“The Chinese ships — the three remaining ones — are supposed to pull in tomorrow.”
Victoria shot him a skeptical look. “Where’d you hear that?”
“Rumor mill.”
“Rumor mill isn’t always that reliable. Is that the same rumor mill that said we were going to go home through the canal today instead of back out to sea?”
“Maybe.”
“Hmph,” she said triumphantly.
“It’ll be on the news,” Plug said, using his best “you’ll see” voice. “They won’t be able to hide it. I heard that they couldn’t make it back to China, so the US government agreed to it. And they didn’t want us in port causing trouble.”
“You really think that our sailors would go over and do something to them?”
Plug shrugged. “Fourteen of our shipmates were lost, Boss, including the captain and XO. Forgiving is pretty hard after something like that.”
Victoria said, “Amazing, if it is true. This whole situation is like a dream. Nothing makes sense. I can’t believe that China is so dysfunctional that one rogue billionaire and an admiral could do all that damage.”
Lieutenant J.G. Juan “Spike” Volonte walked out of the open starboard hangar wearing workout clothes, sweat dripping down his shirt. He saw Victoria and Plug and walked over. “Hey, guys.”
“Spike.” Plug mock-saluted.
“What’s the good word?”
Victoria said, “I spoke with the captain.”
“The new guy?” Plug asked.
“The captain of the ship, Lieutenant,” Victoria said.
Plug pointed his thumb at her and said to Juan, “She’s been pointing out my rank a lot lately. Ever since I crashed one of her helicopters. Sometimes I think she doesn’t appreciate me.”
Victoria glared at him. “We’re clear to fly tomorrow evening. I want to do deck landing qualifications. It’s been a while.”
“How many hours?” Plug asked.
“Why?”
“We could use a five point oh to get into the next maintenance window.”
“I’m not sure the captain will want to do DLQs for that long, but I can ask.”
“If not, can we throw another flight on the back end to get it in the window?”
“I don’t see why not.” Victoria smiled.
The next evening, Juan felt like maybe he was finally starting to get the hang of this Navy helicopter thing. The twenty-thousand-pound Seahawk helicopter hovered over the rolling flight deck of the USS Farragut. He moved the stick in much smaller increments than he used to. The result was that the helicopter needed smaller corrections when he inevitably overshot his intended hover location.
“Good. Good. Nice, easy inputs. You’re getting much better, Spike.” Victoria sounded like a proud mother.
“Thanks, Boss.” Juan had trouble sounding normal under the stress. He was still flexing all his muscles and sweating profusely.
The aircrewman said, “Easy right two… one… over the trap.”
Juan lowered the collective down with his left hand and made rapid tiny adjustments with the cyclic in his right hand, doing his best to keep the helicopter over the same spot on the back of the destroyer as it rolled in the ocean. The aircraft came down from its five-foot hover at a steady rate and landed on the steel deck with a bouncing jolt. The heavy-duty wheel suspensions were built for the rough landings, Juan knew. He was learning that he needed to come straight down faster than he was comfortable with, lest he give the rolling ship enough time to slide him out of position.
“In the trap. Nice one, sir.”
A wave of relief washed over Juan.
Over the radio came the words, “In the trap, beams coming closed. Trapped.”
Caveman, the other junior pilot who was manning the LSO shack, was controlling the hydraulically operated metal contraption just beneath the aircraft. A foot-long metal probe protruded out of the bottom of his helicopter. Juan had just landed so that the probe would end up in the three-foot-by-three-foot metal rectangle on the flight deck. Then Caveman had flipped a switch that closed the beams, locking the probe in with its jagged metal teeth.
“Chocks and chains,” Victoria called, making the proper hand signals as the enlisted men ran out on deck, securing the helicopter further. With the ship constantly rolling in the sea, a big enough swell could cause a rolling movement that would tip a helicopter right over, with catastrophic results — thus the need to heavily secure it whenever they were not actually in the process of taking off or landing.
And right now, they were conducting a crew swap.
“Good flight, Juan. Much improved from last month. You’ll make HAC no problem.”
“Don’t jinx me, Boss.”
She smiled as she began unstrapping. “I’m out.” She unplugged the black communications cord that ran from the ceiling to her helmet.
Plug was coming in next. Juan would fly with him. It was a welcome change. While Juan enjoyed flying with his boss — he admired her as a pilot and an officer — she was a tough trainer. His flights with her were nonstop question-and-answer sessions. She was constantly trying to make him a better pilot and decision maker, throwing scenario after scenario at him to see how he would react.