Sword of Shiva - Страница 42

The XO slapped his palm on the table. “Until we reach the passage through the Nicobar Islands. Then, the Midway continues through into the Andaman Sea, while we break off and haul ass down the coast — using the sea traffic and the radar clutter of the island chain to mask our run to the south.”

Silva smiled. “You catch on fast, Brian.”

The other officers began exchanging interested glances.

Bowie nodded appreciatively. “We could make our final approach after sunset tomorrow evening. Go in dark and quiet — full EMCON, and full stealth mode.”

“Exactly,” Silva said. “If we do it right, we can get all the way inside their defensive perimeter. Then, we open up and blow their doors off.”

Lieutenant Meyer grinned. “I like the way you think, ma’am. You’re one sneaky bitch.”

The executive officer shot her a look. “Lieutenant…”

The Operations Officer raised her hands in a gesture of surrender. “Sorry, XO, but I couldn’t think of what else to say. Sneaky bastard didn’t seem to fit, and son-of-a-bitch just isn’t right…”

The XO pounded the table. “That’s enough, Lieutenant!”

The Ops Officer grimaced. “Sorry, XO. It won’t happen again, sir.” She turned toward Commander Silva. “No disrespect intended, ma’am.”

The XO looked like he was going to say something further, but Captain Bowie spoke up again. ‘I think it’s an excellent plan, Commander Silva. Let’s work out the details, and then I’ll take it to the admiral.”

The tactical discussion began in earnest.

About ten minutes into it, the exchange with Lieutenant Meyer popped into Silva’s head again, and she had to suppress a grin. Sneaky bitch… She could live with that.

CHAPTER 46

HONG’QI-12 MISSILE DEFENSE BATTERY

ZIGONG, CHINA

TUESDAY; 02 DECEMBER

11:58 AM

TIME ZONE +8 ‘HOTEL’

The flashing amber light caught Chao Péng’s attention immediately. He tapped the button to acknowledge the alert, pre-empting the alarm buzzer that was programmed to sound if the warning went unanswered for more than five seconds.

Chao’s rank was Xia Shi, the Chinese equivalent to the rank of technical sergeant. He was good at his job, and proud of it. He had been a radar intercept operator for three years, and the alarm had never once sounded while he was on watch. The computer had never caught him napping, and he was determined that it never would.

With a brief flurry of keystrokes, Chao summoned up the system alert queue and scrolled through the flight characteristics of the new target. The data glowed bright red on the screen of his console.

Parked at the center of a circle of six mobile KS-1A missile launchers, the H-200 passively-scanned electronic array was a highly-effective radar sensor. The slab-shaped phased-array antenna was capable of detecting, identifying, and tracking three simultaneous air targets, and it could launch and control up to six interceptor missiles.

The H-200’s sensitivity was both a blessing and a curse. It made the radar very difficult to hide from, but it also resulted in a high number of false target alerts. The system latched on to commercial airliners and private aircraft with almost monotonous regularity.

Chao had little doubt that this latest inbound target alert would turn out to be yet another passenger jet. But he was too skilled and too dedicated to deviate from proper procedure. His keen eyes scanned rapidly down the columns of alpha-numeric target data, and then his pulse began to race.

This was not a single airliner straying out of the commercial air corridors; it was ten fast-moving targets, all traveling at altitudes of less than 200 meters. Chao reacted automatically, his right palm shooting up to slam the threat warning alarm.

As the klaxon began its harsh repetitive cry, Chao was swiveling the microphone of his communications headset to a position in front of his lips. He keyed the circuit. “Watch Officer, this is the Radar Intercept Operator. I am tracking ten confirmed inbound targets, converging on this position. Flight profiles are consistent with land-attack cruise missiles. Request permission to arm the missile batteries.”

The Watch Officer’s voice sounded startled and confused. “Wait! You are certain? This could not be a system malfunction? Or a simulation?”

Chao cursed under his breath and then keyed the circuit again. “Sir, this is not a malfunction. It is not a simulation. This site is under attack, and the inbound missiles are closing at high speed. There is no time to discuss this, Lieutenant. I request permission to arm the missile batteries.”

“If you are certain…” the Watch Officer said vaguely. “I mean, yes! You have permission to arm the missile batteries! Engage the inbound targets!”

Chao’s hands were already moving over his keyboard. “Yes, sir. Arming missile batteries now.”

The circular formation of twin-armed missile launchers came to life. All six batteries pivoted to different angles as the H-200 radar assigned a target to each launcher. A few seconds later, the first missile leapt off the rail, followed in rapid succession by five others.

The radar array was mounted to the front chassis section of a heavy duty ten-wheeled military vehicle. Chao sat in the H-200’s operations cabin, a box-like steel structure which occupied the rear section of the vehicle’s chassis, a few meters behind the huge rectangular radar sensor.

Despite the vehicle’s heavy shock absorbers, he felt the rumbling vibration of the launching missiles propagate through the soles of his boots and into his feet. On the tracking screen, each of the interceptor missiles arced toward one of the incoming cruise missiles.

Chao Péng’s mathematical and spatial orientation skills were much higher than average. He wasn’t a genius by any accepted definition of the word, but he had an intuitive gift for solving problems of geometry and mathematics that would challenge or defeat the majority of the common population.

Early in his military training, a PLA captain had recognized Chao’s ability to accurately estimate the terminus of a ballistic arc without calculating tools, or even scratch paper. Chao had an instinctive understanding of how objects moved through three-dimensional space, and how influences like gravity and wind resistance could affect their vectors.

His eyes were locked on the tracking screen. He didn’t need any of those advanced skills right now to know that he was seconds away from death.

Between them, the twin-armed missile launchers carried twelve missiles: two per launcher. But the H-200 could only control six of those missiles at a time. The other six would have to wait for the second salvo, after the radar’s fire control channels had been freed up by the failure or success of the first six missiles. But there wasn’t going to be time for a second salvo.

That made the math both simple, and inescapable. There were ten inbound cruise missiles, only six of which had interceptors assigned to them. The other four inbounds were going to get a free ride to the target. As Chao Péng happened to be sitting at the precise center of the target area, that meant he was about to be obliterated.

For a quarter of a second, he considered throwing open the door of the operator cabin and running (literally) for his life. But there was no time to run. There was only time for the briefest possible flare of panic.

The enemy missiles were here.

He didn’t hear the impact of the first cruise missile. He had a brief sensation of increasing weight as the heavy chassis of the radar vehicle left the ground on the rising crest of the shockwave. He caught a fleeting glimpse of the thick steel floor plate bending beneath his feet. Suddenly, the world seemed to come apart, with a sound and a fury that Chao Péng had never imagined.

And then there was nothing.

CHAPTER 47

WHITE HOUSE SITUATION ROOM

WASHINGTON, DC

TUESDAY; 02 DECEMBER

7:30 AM EST

The president took his chair at the head of the table. “Okay, tell me about this missile strike.”

The Situation Room Duty Officer pointed a remote at the master display screen, and three high-resolution satellite photos appeared, enlarged to show detail. In each photo, a roughly circular pattern of blast craters was visible. Pieces of mangled machinery lay in and around the craters, blackened and twisted scraps of metal that gave little clue as to their original forms.

The Duty Officer looked at the president. ‘Sir, we’re looking at the remains of three PLA defensive missile sites, located — respectively — in the Chinese cities of Zigong, Chengdu, and Chongqing.”

He thumbed the remote and a map of mainland China appeared, with the named cities circled in red. The three circles formed an almost perfect right triangle, rotated about ten degrees to the west, making the base roughly parallel to the nearby Yangtze river.

“According to NRO’s reconstruction, all three sites were hit simultaneously by multiple long range weapons, fired from mobile launch vehicles in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. Estimated flight speed of the weapons was Mach 0.7, and the transit range to each target was between 800 and 900 kilometers. Based on performance parameters and the relatively long standoff distance, we believe that the strike weapons may have been Nirbhay series land attack cruise missiles.”

President Wainwright nodded. “What do we know about the target sites? Do these three cities have some military or political significance that would lead the Indians to select them as targets?”