Tiger's Claw: A Novel

there, sir, and I think we’re going to be in the middle of it . . . very, very soon. Got time to stay for the alert mission brief?”

“Absolutely,” Patrick said.

After Patrick and Cutlass finished their maintenance debrief, they went over to the command center briefing room. Lieutenant Colonel Nash Hartzell was onstage conducting the briefing, with a very large electronic monitor behind him. There were about fifty crewmembers in the room. Hartzell gave a time hack, then pressed a button that connected the briefing room’s monitor to the weather center, and they received a three-day weather briefing. The weather was virtually the same for all three days: warm and humid, with an almost 100 percent chance of thunderstorms in midafternoon. Typhoon season had ended a couple months earlier.

Captain Alicia Spencer, the First Expeditionary Bomb Wing’s intelligence officer, took the stage after the weather briefing. “The regional situation is still tense, as I’m sure you’ve all seen on the news,” she began. “Martial law continues in China. Civil unrest is widespread now as is the brutal military crackdown. As a result of the unrest, imports and exports have decreased about twenty percent, and there are widespread shortages of many commodities. The Communist government could collapse at any time—in fact, it may already have collapsed.”

Spencer changed the display to show China’s coastline, with several icons scattered along the entire length. “Because of the shortages and political instability, all of China’s ballistic missile submarines appear to be in port,” Spencer went on. “None have been detected in their normal patrol areas in the South or East China Sea or Yellow Sea. Same goes for China’s aircraft carriers: the Zhenyuan is in home port at Zhanjiang, the Zheng He is under way but near its home port of Zhongshan, and the helicopter carrier Tongyi is in its home port of Quanzhou and appears to be operational.

“The most alarming movement we’ve seen in strategic weapons has been the movement of two Dong Feng- 21D antiship ballistic missiles from their storage facilities near Guangzhou to new field garrison locations near Huizhou, about a hundred miles east,” Spencer went on. “The area from Guangzhou to the coast is heavily fortified with surface-to-air missiles, so it’s likely this will be a new deployment area for DF-21s. We believe the movement of these missiles is in response to the announced transit through the South China Sea of the Nimitz carrier strike group later this month.”

“Not a very good time to be sailing through the South China Sea,” Tom Hoffman commented.

“The United States wants the world to know that we’re not afraid of whatever is happening in China, and that we expect to freely navigate the world’s oceans despite the building tension,” Alicia said. “You can bet those crews will be on a hair’s trigger alert, but they’re going to do it. Obviously this ratchets up the tension even more.”

“It’s coming up on reelection campaign season,” someone else commented. “President Phoenix wants to act tough for the voters, and to hell with the danger to our carriers.”

“Okay, okay, enough of the politics,” Hartzell said. “Anything else, Alicia?”

“Yes, sir. The last item is that the Russian aircraft carrier Putin along with eleven other escort and support ships has put in for what is being described as joint aircraft carrier flight training and underway replenishment training at Zhongshan with the Zheng He carrier battle group. They are expected to train closely together and explore interoperability with each other, including flight operations off each other’s decks, damage control exercises, joint underway replenishment, and so forth.” Alicia took a few questions, then turned the podium over to Hartzell.

“Okay, guys and gals, here’s the big picture,” Hartzell said. “Task force call sign will be Leopard. Everyone keeps their squadron call signs. Communications plan has changed, so be sure to check the date-time group when you upload flight plans and data.

“Obviously the area around Guangzhou, what used to be called Canton, is looking pretty busy these days,” Hartzell went on, “so that’s the focus of our alert missions. The XB-1’s primary responsibility is to take out the Chinese S-300 surface-to-air missile sites along the coast with AGM-158 cruise missiles, suppress any fighter coverage, and attack land and shipboard antiair radars with AGM-88 antiradar missiles. The B-2 and B-1B bombers will follow, head inland, and attack the DF-21D launch sites at Huizhou with AGM-158s and the DF-21D storage complex at Guangzhou. The B-52s’ primary target is the H-6 bomber base at Fushan with AGM-86Ds and -158s, the radar site and naval air base at Guangzhou, and the carrier Zheng He.”

“How about the Putin carrier?” Lieutenant Colonel Bridget “Xena” Dutchman, the B-52H Stratofortress expeditionary bomb squadron commander, asked. “Mind if we take a shot at it?”

“I haven’t heard anyone say no, but let’s stick with the Chinese targets first, Xena,” Hartzell said. “Now, we can’t expect any land-attack Tomahawk cruise missile support for these missions for the time being. Japan has deployed the Tomahawk on its ships, but they’re too far away for our sortie. The Taiwanese and Filipino air forces are on high alert, so our route of flight avoids overflying those countries while ingressing—on the way out you can contact them and request overflight or even help with pursuers. Any questions?” There were none. “Okay, alert preflights, update the Mode Two codes and the new communications rundown, report any squawks to Maintenance, and I’ll see you at the DFAC for chow. Dismissed.”

Patrick met up with the squadron commanders, Hartzell, and Cuthbert at the front of the briefing room. “That takes me back to my old days sitting alert in B-52Gs,” Patrick said. “I’m surprised the briefing isn’t classified top secret, Cutlass. You’re reporting the position of the Nimitz, position of submarines, communications plans, and readiness of allied air forces, and the room isn’t secure?”

“No, because it’s not a real mission briefing, Patrick,” Cutlass said matter-of-factly.

“Say what?”

“It’s not a real mission, Patrick,” Cutlass explained. “You think PACOM is going to allow us to fly a bombing mission over China with a handful of bombers? No way. We give these briefings so the crews stay sharp in real- world procedures, especially handling live weapons. We’ve practiced alert responses before, but we’ve never launched with full weapon and fuel loads.”

“What?”

“The last thing PACAF wants is for us to crash a bomber with a full load of fuel and bombs, Patrick, especially one of the few remaining two-billion-dollar stealth bombers,” Cutlass said, surprised at Patrick’s disbelief. “The Continuous Bomber Presence is a show of force, sir, nothing more. We brief real-world stuff, but it’s all open-source unclassified material.”

“So the DF-21 movement, the H-6 bombers, the Putin aircraft carrier . . . ?”

“Read all that it in Aviation Week and Space Technology a couple issues ago,” Hartzell admitted. “The crews get a kick out of the realistic-sounding intelligence briefing, and Alicia does a good job putting it together. We’ll probably see something on TV about the Russian carrier soon.”

“So the strike missions are . . . ?”

“We don’t have any authority to launch and go anywhere, especially with loaded planes,” Cutlass said. The squadron commanders were starting to smile at Patrick’s stunned expression. “We have the crews build real missions, get intel, write up flight plans, and program all the stuff into the computers on the planes, but they’re not meant to be flown.”

“So they’re not real targets?”

“They look like real targets, and they probably are real, but they’re not assigned targets from Pacific Command or PACAF—the crews find them themselves,” Cutlass said. “They have to update them every week, but that’s all practice for mission planning and programming the strike computers.”

“Pretty unbelievable,” Patrick murmured.

“You didn’t think your Excaliburs were the only planes that weren’t allowed to launch with live weapons on board, did you?” Cutlass asked. “Sir, except for the air defense fighters, we’ve never launched with live weapons aboard! We’ve done exercises in various countries, but only with shapes or practice bombs, not the real thing. We’re not even allowed to drag our own weapons from stateside—they fly them out on airlifters.”

The squadron commanders said their good-byes so they could proceed with preflighting their planes—Patrick could hear a few “Do you believe he thought all this was for real?” comments as they departed.

“Jeez, General, you look disappointed,” Cutlass said in a low voice. “I’m very impressed by the Excaliburs and your crews, sir—they’re working very hard and are remarkably proficient, given how long they’ve been out of the cockpit. But they’re not going to see any real action. Heck, if things get any worse in China, they’ll probably yank us all out of here and send us home, not plan real-world missions. Sorry, sir.”