Tiger's Claw: A Novel

“Two-twenty.”

He raised the nose a bit more, which slowed them down and extended their gliding range, then removed his oxygen mask because they were below ten thousand feet, where the air was denser. Lister did likewise. “Let’s go over the ‘Before Air Restart’ checklist again, slowly and carefully,” Sanchez said. They rechecked everything, then attempted to bring the battery back online . . . still nothing. “Read off the numbers again, Troy.”

“Ground speed one-sixty, altitude six thousand three hundred, still heading north-northeast.” She began tapping on the portable unit’s tiny keyboard. “I’ll text a message to headquarters advising them of our situation. The portable will append our position to the message.”

Sykes came back into the cockpit, noticed the pilots were off oxygen, then did likewise. “ ‘Before Ditching’ checklists complete, and classified circuit board and memory chip demolition is under way,” he said. “Nothing yet up here?”

“Nope,” Sanchez said. “We’re at six thousand. We’ll have time for maybe two more restart attempts before we hit the drink.”

“Message received at headquarters,” Lister said. “We should be getting a reply as soon as . . .” She looked at her portable unit in confusion. “Oh shit, it looks like it’s dead!”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“It was working fine a second ago.” She tried to turn it back on, but it didn’t respond. She tried switching batteries, but that didn’t help either. “It’s dead.”

“I’ll see if anyone else has a GPS,” Sykes said. A few moments later he returned with a similar unit and powered it up, but a few minutes later it too shut off and wouldn’t power back on.

“I don’t know what the hell is going on,” Sanchez said, “but something is frying all the electronics on this plane.” He looked at his watch—it was a mechanical Rolex, and it was still running. “You got a digital watch, Troy?”

“Yes.” She glanced at it. “It’s dead.”

“We got hit by something that toasted our electronics,” Sanchez said. “Let’s do the checklist again.” But the batteries still would not come online.

“Three thousand seven hundred, speed one-sixty,” Lister read off.

Sykes came back up to the cockpit. “Nothing?”

“Nothing,” Sanchez said. “We’ll try a couple more times. Tell the crew to prepare to ditch.” Sykes hurried back to the sensor cabin. “Is there anything we haven’t tried, Troy?” Sanchez asked cross-cockpit.

“I can’t think of anything, Nacho.” They ran the emergency checklist twice, but still got no results.

“Okay, screw it,” Sanchez said. The standby altimeter said they were less than a thousand feet above the South China Sea, but that could be off by hundreds of feet. “We’re ditching. Tighten your straps as tight as you can, Troy.” He reached around, grabbed an air horn canister, pressed the button to warn the crew to prepare for ditching, then started to tighten his straps. “Remember, let’s get a good read of our attitude in the water before we start opening hatches, and remember not to . . .”

“Hey, look!” Lister shouted. There, off to the right of their nose, was a Chinese JN-20 fighter, flying in very close formation. “It’s back! His electronics seem to be working fine.”

“That means ours might work this time,” Sanchez said. “Whatever we were being hit with, they may have shut it off. Run the airstart checklist, fast!” This time, as soon as he cycled the battery switch, lights popped to life on the instrument panel. “Hot damn, the batteries are back! Port starter-generator to start!”

As soon as Lister activated the switch on the overhead panel, the standby engine instruments responded. “We’ve got RPMs and turbine power!” she shouted. “Five . . . ten . . . fifteen percent power!” Sanchez moved the left throttle over the detent, and engine power and temperatures steadily began to rise. “We’ve got a light! We’ve got power! Temps are stable . . . temps are good. Starter switch to generate . . . good voltages . . . batteries are in good shape, charging normally . . . avionics power switch on.” Moments later, the primary flight and multifunction displays came to life.

“C’mon, baby, fly,” Sanchez said, and he slowly and carefully moved the left throttle forward. The engine gauges responded, and for the first time in what seemed like an eternity, the vertical speed indicator moved to zero. They were close enough now to the ocean that they could see the contours of waves clearly, but they weren’t going down. “Thank you, Jesus,” he muttered. “Troy, get the avionics on, then let’s get the right engine . . .”

At that instant there was a brilliant flash of light from the left side of the plane, a massive explosion that drowned out all other sensations, and a wave of searing heat. The P-8 swung hard first to the right, then to the left so hard that it felt as if they were inverted. Sanchez mashed the mic button and yelled, “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, Nickel Five-One—”. . .

. . . just as the Poseidon hit the ocean. It flip-flopped end over end for nearly a half mile, shedding pieces of itself in all directions and cracking the fuselage in several places, before coming to rest upside down. In less than five minutes it had slid under the surface, leaving only a few pieces of the wing and tail behind.

THE WHITE HOUSE SITUATION ROOM, WASHINGTON, D.C.

A SHORT TIME LATER

President Kenneth Phoenix stepped quickly into the Situation Room, wearing a Marine Corps physical training outfit after the early-morning wake-up call. Tall, trim, and athletic, the former Marine Corps officer and judge advocate, federal prosecutor, U.S. attorney general, and vice president of the United States waved everyone back to their seats. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“We lost contact with a Navy P-8 Poseidon reconnaissance plane,” said the president’s national security adviser, William Glenbrook. “It was over the South China Sea on routine patrol, in the vicinity of the Chinese aircraft carrier Zhenyuan.”

“Oh, Christ,” the president muttered. He reached for a cup of coffee—he knew right then he wasn’t going back to bed for a long time. “Were they intercepted or engaged in any way by the Chinese?”

“They were intercepted by two PRC fighters, reported to be J-20s,” Glenbrook said. William Glenbrook was a thirty-year Army veteran who rose through the ranks from private to four-star general and was former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, serving in the same White House as then attorney general Phoenix under President Kevin Martindale. “The P-8 reported suffering a massive electrical malfunction.”

“How did they report that with an electrical malfunction, General Glenbrook?” asked Secretary of State Herbert Kevich, who had just arrived at the Situation Room moments before the president. Kevich had been deputy secretary of state under the previous administration, but he was so experienced and knowledgeable in Russian and Chinese affairs that he was kept on by the Phoenix administration. A short, round, impatient-looking man with round reading glasses affixed to the end of his nose even though he mostly looked right over them, Kevich was clearly exasperated by most military officers and high-ranking government officials, even to the point of not acknowledging he was one himself. Kevich arrived quickly when the notification went out to the president’s national security staff because he had no other life other than as secretary of state—he would have been perfectly happy to live in the Situation Room, or even in the basement of the White House, if it meant he had speedier access to all the world’s events.

“The crew was communicating with their command post via civilian satellite text messages for a short time after the malfunction took place, Secretary Kevich,” Glenbrook said.

“Texting while driving? Not a smart move, I think,” Kevich quipped.

“A very heads-up move, I think, Herbert,” Phoenix said. “I want a search-and-rescue mission initiated immediately, and I don’t want the Chinese involved in any way, especially that carrier. If it’s in the area of the crash, I want it out of there.”

“Yes, sir,” Glenbrook said.

“That might be problematic, Mr. President,” Kevich said. “The South China Sea may legally be considered international waters, but the Chinese consider it their exclusive domain, as we do with the Gulf of Mexico or the