Tiger's Claw: A Novel

The P-8A Poseidon was a naval variant of the Boeing 737–800 airliner outfitted with extended-range fuel tanks, a small bomb bay for torpedoes or cruise missiles—they were currently unarmed—electronic intelligence-gathering and antisubmarine warfare equipment, and sonobuoys for detecting and tracking submarines.

“It’s kinda sleek,” Caraway went on, “with its upturned nose, like a supermodel. Graceful.” She had switched one of her digital radar displays so she could see the high-resolution inverse synthetic-aperture radar image from the Poseidon’s AN/APY-10 multimode radar. Even at a range of almost forty miles, the APY-10 produced an image as sharp as a black-and-white photograph—she could easily count and identify the aircraft sitting on her deck. “A little princess.”

“I was the one who said it was ugly, and it is,” her partner seated beside her, Lieutenant Commander Richard “Beastie” Sykes, said. Sykes, a veteran maritime patrol plane officer with almost fifteen years of service in P-3 Orion and S-3 Viking patrol planes, was the patrol plane tactical coordinator, or TACCO, directing the activities of the P-8’s naval warfare crew. “So they slapped some paint on it and gave it some interesting new bulges. It’s still an antiquated pig.”

Sykes and Caraway were talking about the main subject of the day’s surveillance mission over the South China Sea: the Zhenyuan, the People’s Republic of China Navy’s first aircraft carrier. Formerly the Kuznetsov-class Russian carrier Varyag, it had first been transferred to Ukraine after the fall of the Soviet Union. It was purchased by Iran purportedly to be used as a work platform for offshore oil rigs, but it had been secretly made operational and based in the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman as the carrier Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the first aircraft carrier operated by a Middle East nation. After a brief skirmish with American Air Force bombers, where the ship was severely damaged, the carrier was stripped of all its weapons and sensors and sold to China, again purportedly to be used as a floating hotel and casino near Hong Kong. It appeared briefly as the aircraft carrier Mao Zedong and was involved in the conflict between mainland China and Taiwan after the island nation declared independence, and then retired once again after being severely damaged. The Chinese announced it was an environmental hazard and transferred to the northern port of Dalian to be scrapped.

Instead, several years later, the ship emerged from dry dock with newer, more powerful engines and improved digital sensors. It successfully completed sea trials in 2011. According to the Chinese navy, the carrier, renamed the Zhenyuan, would only be used for “experimentation, training, and research,” and stay near the Chinese mainland. The world was surprised when it appeared in the Gulf of Aden a year later as part of an eight-ship carrier battle group that at first drilled with the Russian aircraft carrier Vladimir Putin battle group, then attacked the Yemeni port city of Aden and participated in attacks against pirates in Somalia, using advanced JH-37N fighter-bombers flying off its decks. Few analysts in the world would have guessed that the Chinese would have an aircraft carrier battle group operational before the year 2020, let alone actually use one in combat. When China agreed to withdraw its troops from Somalia in 2013, the Zhenyuan and its escorts returned to home waters and rarely left the South China Sea. The Chinese navy began intensive carrier flight operations training aboard the Zhenyuan in anticipation of outfitting its second aircraft carrier, the Zheng He, planned for 2015.

Although more than twenty miles away, the Poseidon’s synthetic-aperture radar provided very detailed images of the Zhenyuan. Like British Invincible-class carriers, instead of aircraft-launching steam catapults, the Chinese carrier used an up-sloped forward deck called a “ski jump” to throw fixed-wing aircraft far enough into the sky for them to accelerate to flying speed before they descended and hit the water. It had a very large island superstructure on the starboard side, with light-colored smoke billowing from stacks in the rear. The island bristled with antennas and electronics domes, as well as phased-array radar panels and self-defense missile launchers and gun emplacements; there were more missile launchers and gun turrets midships on both sides along the gunwales. There were six arresting gear wires aft to recover fixed-wing aircraft. Four very large twin-tailed aircraft were parked forward of the island and six more smaller jets aft on the starboard side, plus two large helicopters parked on the port-side elevator and an aircraft waiting to launch from the ski jump. The sensor measured the Zhenyuan’s forward speed as twenty-five knots.

“The planes forward of the island look like JH-37s,” Sykes remarked as he studied his right-side multifunction display, which was displaying radar images, “but the ones aft of the island and the one getting ready to launch look smaller than the others. Are they JN-15s?” The Shenyang JN-15 was an unlicensed copy of the Russian Sukhoi-33 carrier-based fighter, reported as the original aircraft to be deployed on Chinese carriers until the surprise appearance of the much larger JH-37 fighter-bomber.

“Can’t tell yet,” Caraway said as she made reconnaissance log entries and took a sip of water from a hip flask. “I’d expect to get a visit from one of those JH-37s any time now. I can’t wait to see one up close. I hope they . . .”

At that moment they heard on the international emergency GUARD frequency: “United States Poseidon naval reconnaissance aircraft with the unit number of VP-9, this is the combat controller aboard the People’s Liberation Army Navy carrier Zhenyuan on GUARD channel. How do you hear this transmission, please?”

“He read off our squadron number?” Sykes exclaimed. “Unless they got a very high-powered telescope or made a really good guess, they must’ve intercepted us. Pilot, TACCO, any visual?”

“Negative!” the P-8’s pilot, U.S. Navy Commander Renaldo “Nacho” Sanchez, another veteran patrol aircraft crewmember, responded. “Let me try some turns to see if . . .”

“Wait, wait, I see him,” the copilot, Lieutenant Helen “Troy” Lister, radioed, her voice high pitched from excitement. “Four o’clock, high. Boy, that is one tiny plane. It’s . . . hey, I think it’s a J-20!”

“What?” Sanchez exclaimed. He strained forward in his seat to get a better look out the copilot’s side window. “I think you’re right, Troy.” The Shenyang J-20 Tiaozhan zhe, or “Challenger,” was the People’s Republic of China’s answer to the American F-22 Raptor: sleek and stealthy, reportedly able to cruise at supersonic speeds without afterburners, with internally carried air-to-air missiles, a powerful active electronically scanned radar, and telescopic infrared sensors that allowed it to engage targets without using its radar. “I thought it was experimental only.”

“Grab some pictures and I’ll upload them to the satellite,” Sykes said.

Lister immediately pulled out a digital camera and began taking pictures. “I don’t see any external weapons,” she commented as she snapped away.

“They’re supposed to be internal, like the F-22,” Sanchez said. “Do you think it came from the carrier or from a land base?”

“A Chinese carrier-based stealth fighter—that would be huge,” Caraway said. “We don’t even have anything like that yet.”

“Pretty good job sneaking up on us like that,” Sykes remarked. “Not one squeak on the ‘raws.’ ” The “raws,” or Radar Warning Receiver, warned of any ground, ship, or airborne radar that might be tracking them.

“He could be using AESA or IRSTS,” Caraway said. AESA was Active Electronically Scanned Array, an advanced radar that shifted frequencies more quickly than most RWRs could identify; IRSTS was Infrared Search and Track System, a sensor that detected and tracked heat sources. Both systems could allow a fighter to track and target another aircraft and guide missiles with a very low probability of being detected.

“Carrier Zhenyuan, this is Nickel Five-One-Five, U.S. Navy reconnaissance aircraft,” Sanchez announced on the UHF GUARD channel. “We have visual contact on an aircraft at our seven o’clock position. Is that one of yours?”

“That is confirmed, Five-One-Five,” the controller responded. “There is another aircraft approaching on your left.”

Sure enough, when Sanchez swung around to look out his window, he saw another J-20 flying close formation. “It’s another J-20!” he exclaimed. “They have two of those suckers out here? How far are we from a Chinese air base?”

“At least four hundred miles,” Sykes said. “How about that? Looks like the Chinese built themselves a carrier-based stealth fighter.”

“Are you sending all this to headquarters, Cowgirl?” Sanchez asked.

“I’m typing like crazy,” Caraway said. “I’ll come up for your camera after I get the acknowledgments, Troy.”