Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 06 (77 page)

 
          
“I
wish I could believe this to be true, General,” Jiang said. “I want to believe
that we can accomplish peace by using force.”

 
          
“We
have already started on this path, Comrade President,” Chin said in a flat,
matter-of-fact tone. “Admiral Sun made a compelling argument, and the decision
was made to support his unorthodox plan. He was successful in convincing
America
’s allies to cease their support. But now
his plan has stalled, and the attacks are coming from a colonial base near
China
that is wholly occupied by the
Americans—Sun’s plan did not affect American military operations out of
Guam
. We must show the Americans that we will
not tolerate their slaughter from the skies. We must attack and neutralize
Andersen immediately. ”

 
          
“How
do you propose to do it, Comrade General?” Minister Chi asked.

           
“The best way possible—a missile
attack using our Dong Feng-4 intermediate-range ballistic missiles,” Chin said.
“We have ten such missiles on alert, headquartered at
Yinchuan
and deployed throughout
Ningxia Huizu
and
Nei Monggol
provinces. I would propose launching all
ten missiles at
Guam
—because of the poor accuracy of our
missiles and the strong anti-missile defenses erected on
Guam
, we may need all of them to neutralize the
American military installations on the island. The missiles carry different
warheads, depending on the serviceability of the missile itself: most missiles
carry a single sixty-kiloton warhead, although some carry a single two-megaton
warhead, and the most advanced missiles carry three sixty-kiloton warheads.”

 
          
Jiang
Zemin was astounded by the power at his command—he had never, ever considered
using these weapons in all his years of service to
China
. “You must find out exactly what we have
ready to attack,” President Jiang said, his voice heavy and shaking with
emotion. “I want to limit the number of launches so it will not appear to
Americas
long-range sensors that we are starting a
large-scale intercontinental war. The missiles with three warheads is my first
choice, followed by the low-yield single-warhead weapon, and finally the
large-yield missile. What other strategic forces will we have in reserve that
hold the
United States
at risk?”

 
          
“This
will leave us all twenty of our DF-5 missiles in reserve,” Chin replied. “Ten
of these reserve missiles have small, multiple warheads; five of the remaining
ten have single one-megaton warheads, and the other five have single
five-megaton warheads. The Dong Feng-5 missiles are our largest, most accurate,
and deadliest weapons—we can target American intercontinental ballistic missile
sites and ninety percent of the population of
North America
with them. Of course, we still have
approximately one hundred H-6 bombers that could possibly reach
Alaska
or the West Coast of the
United States
; they can carry nuclear bombs or
nuclear-tipped cruise missiles. We also have a number of road-mobile Dong
Feng-3 missiles and Q-5 attack planes deployed, but these are only capable
against targets in
Asia
, such as
South Korea
,
Singapore
, or
Japan
.”

 
          
Jiang
nodded, understanding but not quite believing the awesome power that lay at his
fingertips, waiting for his word to send them on their deadly way. “This is
incredible,” Jiang said breathlessly, shaking his head. “The Party has promised
we would never be the first to use nuclear weapons. We have already broken our
pledge by using these horrid weapons against
Taipei
, but we reasoned that we were using these
weapons against a rebel government within our own territory, not against a
foreign power. But I ordered a nuclear attack against a Nationalist warship,
then an American warship, and then a nuclear attack against an ally, simply to
try to distract the Americans from attacking us. Now I must consider a
full-scale nuclear attack against an American military base. I do not know if I
can make this decision, Comrade General. It is too much.”

 
          
“You
have almost the entire Politburo and Central Military Committee assembled here
this morning, Comrade President,” Chin reminded him. “Call an emergency meeting
with them right now. I will speak to them; together, without all the
philosophical ramblings from Sun, we shall get their full support before
issuing your orders.”

 
          
Jiang
relented and gave a faint nod. In three minutes General Chin Po Zihong had
called an emergency meeting to order on behalf of the president to present his
plan to stop the Americans—and twenty minutes later, he had his orders.

ABOARD THE EB-52 MEGAFORTRESS

THAT SAME TIME

           
“I’ve got an L-band Phazatron
pulse-Doppler radar beating us up,” David Luger called out. “It’s a Sukhoi-27,
all right. Clear me for maneuvers and all countermeasures.”

 
          
“Clear!”
Brad Elliott shouted, tightening his grip on the side- mounted control stick.
“You’re clear for all maneuvers as long as you nail that bastard! Just keep us
out of the rocks! ”

 
          
Patrick
McLanahan called up a God’s-eye view of the area surrounding their bomber.
“Very high terrain northeast,” McLanahan said. “River valley west and
northwest, almost sea level.”

 
          
“Then
let’s start with northeast and take this son of a bitch into the rocks,” Luger
said. He put his fingers on the manual decoy dispenser button. “Stand by for
maneuvers, crew. Pilot, break right! ”

 
          
Elliott
jammed the Megafortress hard to the right, feeling his butt press into the seat
as the EB-52 started a hard climb to start cresting the rapidly rising terrain
of the
Boping
Mountains
. When he reached sixty degrees of bank,
Elliott pulled on the control stick until he heard a stall warning tone, then
released the back pressure but maintained the turn right at the edge of the
stall. As Elliott started the hard turn, Luger punched out one small tactical
decoy. The glider decoy, similar to the ones used in the Wolverine SEAD cruise
missiles, had radar cross-sections dozens of times larger than the Megafortress
itself. “Roll out, pilot,” Luger ordered, when they reached ninety degrees
heading change, and Elliott quickly rolled the big bomber left.

 
          
The
jink worked—but for only a few seconds. The Chinese Sukhoi- 27’s Phazatron N001
pulse-Doppler radar was a “look-down, shoot- down’’-capable radar—it could stay
at high altitude and look down to find enemy aircraft because the pulse-Doppler
radar could reject radar clutter caused by terrain. One way to beat a
pulse-Doppler radar system was to reduce the closure rate between aircraft, so
in effect the aircraft looked like a piece of terrain on radar. By dropping a
cloud of chaff and then turning ninety degrees to the Su-27’s flight path, the
closure rate between the Megafortress and the Su-27 equaled the airspeed of the
Su-27, which caused the system to reject the Megafortress as a possible target.
And since the decoy glider proved to be a much more inviting target and still
carried a good closure rate on the Su-27, the fighter’s attack radar programmed
the decoy as the new target.

 
          
The
Chinese Su-27 fighter pilot selected a Pen Lung-2 radar- and infrared-guided
missile, received a lock-on tone, and got ready to press the launch
button—until he realized his target was rapidly slowing down. The unpowered
glider decoy made an inviting, easy-to-kill target, but it could not maintain
the same airspeed as the Megafortress. The Chinese pilot canceled the attack
when the target’s airspeed began to decrease below 300 knots—no military attack
plane was going to fly that slow unless it was getting ready to land. He
verified his decision by closing within five miles of the target, then
attempted to lock onto the target with his Infrared Search and Track System. It
would not appear on the IRSTS—the pilot knew it had to be a decoy, then. Any
military attack plane would show clearly in the large supercooled eye of the IRSTS.
He broke radar lock and commanded another wide-area search.

 
          
That
delay gave Luger an opportunity: “Stand by for Scorpion launch, crew! ” he
shouted. He hit the voice command button: “Launch one Scorpion missile at
target number one.”

 
          
WARNING,
LAUNCH command initiated, the computer responded in a soft, calm, female voice.

           
“Launch,” Luger ordered.

 
          
SCORPION
MISSILE pylon launch, the computer announced, and a single AIM-120 AMRAAM
collected target azimuth from the threat warning receiver, streaked out of the
right wing weapon pod, climbed a few hundred feet, then arced left toward the
Sukhoi-27. A few seconds after launch, the computer said, warning, attack radar
to transmit, and the omnidirectional attack radar activated for four seconds,
enough to lock onto the fighter and feed updated target range and bearing to
the Scorpion missile, attack radar stand by, the computer said as it shut the
radar down itself. With a fresh target update, the AIM-120 missile activated
its own on-board radar seeker, instantly locked onto one of the Su-27 fighters,
made a slight correction as its pilot detected the brief Megafortress radar
lock-on and tried to make a last-ditch evasive break, then exploded just as it
detected that it had closed to well within lethal range of its forty-four-pound
high-explosive warhead.

 
          
The
attack worked. The explosion occurred just a few feet behind the Su-27’s right
wing near the fuselage, sending shrapnel through the fighter’s right engine and
piercing right wing fuel tanks. The Chinese pilot was quick, and managed to
save his prized jet by immediately shutting down the right engine before it
seized or tore itself apart, but this jet was out of the fight—he had just
enough fuel and control of his plane to keep himself upright and limp home.
Even more important, his wingman, another Sukhoi-27, was ordered to lead his
stricken comrade back to base— a Su-27 was too valuable and too expensive a
weapon to be allowed to make an emergency single-engine landing at night in
rugged terrain without assistance.

 
          
“Threat
scope’s clear, gang,” Luger reported, with a sigh of relief. “Clear to center
up.”

 
          
“Left
turn heading three-three-two to the next turnpoint,” McLanahan said. “High
terrain twelve miles, commanding on it. Minimum safe altitude in this sector,
six thousand one hundred feet.”

 
          
“Good
going, Major Luger,” Nancy Cheshire offered. “Sounds like you’ve been doing
your homework.”

 
          
“I’ve
never left this thing,
Nancy
,” Dave Luger said, wearing a broad smile under his oxygen mask. “Even
after all these years, it’s as if I’ve never left. I’ve ...” He hesitated,
studying the new threat signals, then reported, “Looks like bandits at ten to
eleven o’clock, well below detection threshold, closing in on us but not locked
on. Now I got fighters at
five o’clock
, not locked on but heading this way. We got
fighters all around us.”

THE WHITE HOUSE OVAL OFFICE,
WASHINGTON
,
D.C.

TUESDAY, 24 JUNE 1997
,
1419 ET

 
          
“One
of our subs is caught in a
fishing net
in the
Strait of
Hormuz
?” Senate
Majority Leader Barbara Finegold asked incredulously, the surprise and
exasperation etched in her elegant features. “How in the world did that
happen?”