Tiger's Claw: A Novel

“My pleasure,” Wu said, and he expertly maneuvered even closer to the B-1 bomber, rattling the bomber’s right wing with exhaust from his engines. “How do you like that, my friend?”

Just then the B-1 bomber started a gentle right turn until it was heading southwest—away from Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, but in the direction of the Chinese mainland, less than two hundred and fifty miles west.

“Careful, Seven-One,” Hua radioed.

“It is not a problem, One-One,” Wu said. “I can stay with him easily. But he is heading toward the mainland.”

“Not for long,” Hua said. On the GUARD channel he radioed: “Masters Zero-Three, this is Eagle One-One, you are not permitted to come within three hundred kilometers of our coastline. Alter course immediately.”

“I don’t think so, hundan,” Hoffman replied, adding another expletive. “You guys don’t own this airspace or the ocean. We’re unarmed. Get off my wing.”

“Masters Zero-Three, this is your last warning,” Hua radioed. “If you come within two hundred kilometers of our mainland base, you will be fired on.” He checked his navigation displays—less than two minutes before they broke the two-hundred-kilometer line. On the command channel Hua radioed: “Operations, Eagle One-One, verify, am I cleared to engage the bomber inside the . . . ?”

And at that instant Hua caught a glimpse of a large fast-moving object that zoomed past him, no more than a hundred meters above him. Then a loud crashing BANG! and a violent rush of turbulence surrounded him, and he was forced to peel away from the B-1 bomber so he wouldn’t collide with it. “What was that?” he radioed on his command channel.

“A large aircraft, going supersonic!” one of the JN-15 pilots replied.

Then Hua saw it as it performed a steep climbing left turn: it was another B-1 bomber, its wings swept all the way back, going almost too fast to keep in sight! It was gone in the blink of an eye over his left shoulder. “It is another American B-1 bomber!” he shouted. “A second bomber! Operations, do you copy? Another American B-1 bomber!”

“Eagle One-One, maintain contact with the second bomber!” the controller responded after an agonizingly long silence. “We do not have radar contact! Maintain contact! Hawk Seven-One flight, maintain contact with the first bomber, and do not lose contact! Acknowledge!” All the pilots affirmed their orders.

Hua activated his radar as he started a hard left turn to pursue the second B-1 bomber. “Operations, One- One, lost visual, attempting radar lock,” he radioed. “Request launching the alert-five fighters.”

“Hawk Eight-One flight of two will be airborne in five minutes, One-One.”

Hua swore to himself as he checked his radar display—and realized it was being jammed! “Operations, One-One, I am receiving intense electromagnetic jamming!” he radioed. Usually the JN-20’s superior active electronically scanned array radar was very difficult to jam because it shifted frequencies very quickly, but whatever jammers or radars were on the B-1 were much more powerful and faster than his. “Seven-One flight, say status.”

“The first B-1 bomber is turning away from the mainland and heading north,” Wu responded. “We are turning with him, but we will be at required recovery fuel state in five minutes. We are being . . .” And then the radios completely cut out—not jammed or meaconed, but completely silent.

“Seven-One flight, how do you hear?” Hua radioed. But his radio was silent as well, and his radar was still being jammed. Without radios or radar he had no way of knowing where the JN-15s were, so they were required to execute lost communications procedures and return to the carrier. Damn the decision of the air wing commander not to use external fuel tanks, Hua thought—any flight farther than two hundred kilometers, when the carrier was farther than two hundred kilometers from a suitable abort base on land, had to have drop tanks. The air wing commander thought the external tanks spoiled the performance of his jets too much . . .

. . . and at that moment he received a “MISSILE LOCK” warning on his radar threat receiver from his seven o’clock position and less than ten kilometers—he was being tracked by an enemy fighter! Hua immediately put in full afterburner, ejected decoy chaff and flares, and executed a hard climbing left turn. Where did the fighter come from? The enemy fighter zoomed past him, just below and to his left, heading north . . . and Hua caught a glimpse of the B-1 bomber! The American bomber had an air-to-air missile?

Hua tightened his left turn and pulled around behind the B-1 bomber. He had no clearance to attack, but his radios were inoperative, and he had just been highlighted by an enemy aircraft, and that was all the provocation he needed to attack. He armed his missiles and cannon. The B-1 had slowed considerably, and it was fairly easy to see him off in the distance. Even if his radar wouldn’t work, his PL-12 missiles could home in on the bomber’s exhaust and . . .

At that moment the jamming abruptly ceased. “Eagle One-One, Eagle One-One, this is Operations, how do you hear?”

“This is One-One, loud and clear now, Operations,” Hu responded. “Jamming has ceased. I have been locked on by enemy radar from the B-1 bomber, and I may have evaded a missile launch. I have radar lock on the second bomber. It is heading north, altitude seven thousand meters, airspeed . . .”

And at that moment the radar locked onto something else—six more targets, approaching from the north at high speed!

“Attention, attention, People’s Liberation Army Navy fighter aircraft, this is Jian Four-Seven-Four flight of six, Chung-kuo Kung Chuan, Republic of China Air Force,” a voice over the emergency GUARD channel said in Mandarin. “You have violated the Air Defense Identification Zone of the Republic of China. You are ordered to turn off all emitters, reduce speed, and lower your landing gear. You will be visually identified and escorted to T’ainan Air Base. The use of deadly force has been authorized. Comply immediately!”

Hua felt the almost overwhelming urge to reply with threats of his own, or even lock them all up with his fire control radar—the JN-20’s AESA radar could track twenty targets and attack six simultaneously—but he choked the anger down and mashed the microphone button of his command channel: “Operations, One-One, I have radar contact on six Taiwanese fighters, repeat, six fighters, type unknown, same altitude, airspeed one thousand two hundred,” he radioed. At that speed they had to be fighters, probably American-made F-15s or F-22s. “Request instructions.”

The wait was agonizingly long. When the Taiwanese fighters were about seventy kilometers away, almost within range of radar-guided missiles, Hua heard, “Eagle One-One, Hawk Seven-One flight, yeying, repeat, yey?ng. Hawk Eight-One flight will be airborne and will provide cover. Acknowledge.”

“One-One acknowledges,” Hua responded. “Seven-One flight, disengage, fly southwest, descend to eight thousand, join on me.” Yeying, or “nightingale,” was the code word to direct airborne aircraft to return to the carrier as quickly as possible. He had to admit it was a good decision, and he turned hard left and headed southwest away from the Taiwanese. He knew the Taiwanese fighters would not pursue him or order him to surrender again, and a glance at his threat warning receiver verified this—the fighters set up two combat patrol orbits, one at five thousand meters’ altitude and the other at ten thousand. Although the JN-15 was equivalent in performance and firepower to the American-made F-15, and the JN-20 was a generation ahead of anything else in the sky, three versus six were not good odds. Hua really wanted to take on the Taiwanese, but it had to be on his terms, not theirs.

HEADQUARTERS, PEOPLE’S LIBERATION ARMY, BEIJING, CHINA

A SHORT TIME LATER

“The report has been verified, sir,” Vice Admiral Zhen Peng, commander of the South Sea Fleet, said by secure telephone. “Both the JH-37 and JN-20 crews reported that their radars and radios had been completely shut down after making contact with the American bombers, and that the American bomber locked onto the JN-20 fighter with an air-to-air missile tracking radar. It is a serious and potentially devastating escalation.”

“We knew about the B-1 bombers on Guam, of course,” Colonel General Zu Kai said in his office at People’s