Dispatches: A Modern Thriller

Book 5: Alex Fletcher

by Steven Konkoly

Genres: Post-Apocalyptic sci-fi; Dystopian; Military Thrillers; Terrorism & Assassination Thrillers

Synopsis

"Insanely addictive...the final book in the Perseid Collapse series delivers on every level."

A ROGUE MILITARY CABAL LAUNCHES AN OPPORTUNISTIC ATTACK AGAINST THE UNITED STATES—TRIGGERING A CATACLYSMIC CHAIN OF EVENTS.

With the United States crippled, belligerent powers rise to fill the void overseas, catapulting already volatile regions into chaos and war--hastening a worldwide collapse.

On the home front, most citizens continue to struggle with the loss of power and critical infrastructure, exhausting their thin supplies and turning to the mercy of an overwhelmed government to survive the winter.

As spring arrives, Alex Fletcher faces a difficult choice. With their food supplies running low, Alex questions the feasibility of staying with the Thorntons and Walkers at their isolated lake community. While searching northern Maine for a solution to his dilemma--he stumbles on a secret with the potential to destabilize the entire region.

Dispatches concludes The Alex Fletcher Books, answering reader questions about the world scene, while cleanly delivering the Fletcher's fate.

The Alex Fletcher Books (In Order):

The Jakarta Pandemic, Book One
The Perseid Collapse, Book Two
Event Horizon, Book Three
Point of Crisis, Book Four
Dispatches, Book Five

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Steven's novels are recommended for fans of Brad Thor's Scot Harvath, Vince Flynn's Mitch Rapp, Brad Taylor's Pike Logan, Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan, Lee Child's Jack Reacher, Robert Ludlum's Jason Bourne, L.T. Ryan's Jack Noble, C.G. Cooper's Daniel Briggs, Daniel Silva's Gabriel Allon, Mark Greaney's Gray Man and Michael Crichton

Release date: February 14, 2015

Publisher: Stribling Media

Print pages: 192

Sample

PART I
 
“BIG PICTURE”
 
Winter 2019-2020

“Meet the New Soviets. Same as the Old Soviets”


Chapter 1

Narva, Estonia

Late November 2019

Colonel Egon Saar drifted to sleep in his seat, his head snapping up to greet the same digital screen he’d stared at for the past several hours. He checked his watch, already knowing the time. Zero-two hundred. Two in the damn morning and the Russians were still playing games across the river.

“Let’s get this over with already,” he mumbled.

His artillery battalion had been moved to Narva two weeks earlier, based on NATO satellite intelligence suggesting a buildup of Russian armor units east of the Luga River. Three days ago, Estonian agents in Kingisepp reported T-14 “Armata” tanks crossing the Luga. He hadn’t slept since receiving that message. The presence of T-14s, Moscow’s latest generation main battle tank, meant one thing. Invasion was imminent, spearheaded by the Moscow-based, elite 4th Independent Tank Brigade. The Estonian Defense Forces assembled in the vicinity of Narva would be little more than a speed bump on the road to Tallinn for a Russian tank brigade.

He prayed his wife had listened and taken the kids to Stockholm. If they hadn’t left by now, they might never get out. The Russian invasion would undoubtedly be combined with an air and naval blockade of Tallinn, cutting off any possible means of escape. Unfortunately, he had no way of knowing if they had left the country. Saar had surrendered his cell phone before deploying. It was better not knowing, because there was nothing he could do to help them.

He’d said goodbye in their apartment, a few blocks from the main gate to the sprawling Estonian Defense Force base in Tapa—fighting off tears his children couldn’t fully understand. His wife knew there was little chance that he would return. She had heard enough about Russian artillery from him to know that he’d be among the first casualties. Kissing them goodbye for the last time was the hardest thing he’d ever done.

The Russians would pay a dear price for this.

He removed his headset, stood up in the cramped command vehicle, and weaved through the equipment operators, pulling his headset cable with him. A small coffee station stood on the map table, rigged directly to the armored personnel carrier’s electrical system. Besides the heating system, the coffee maker represented their only luxury in the field. A gust of wind buffeted the thirteen-ton vehicle, barely audible through the armored hull. Conditions outside were miserable. Positioned in a thick forest on the bluffs northeast of Narva, his artillery battalion was exposed to the bitter northerly winds sweeping off the Gulf of Finland.

The weather didn’t matter to the men and women of his artillery battalion. They were all tucked inside heated vehicles. The battalion consisted of twelve self-propelled ARCHER systems and three times that many support vehicles. Not a single soldier in his unit needed to be outside in the subfreezing temperature. The same couldn’t be said about the infantry battalion guarding his position. Their perimeter extended several hundred meters in every direction, consisting of observation posts, machine-gun nests and squad-sized rapid response teams—huddled in shallow holes carved out of the frozen ground. They were miserable.

“Colonel, I’ve lost the ARTHUR feed,” said the operator next to him.

Colonel Saar turned his attention to one of the screens behind him. ARTHUR, or Artillery Hunting Radar, represented their only chance of detecting an incoming artillery attack. Since his battalion’s artillery batteries were the only viable threat to Russian tanks crossing the Narva River, he fully expected to be the focus of an intense artillery strike at the outset of hostilities.

“Get a report from them immediately,” said Saar.

A few seconds later, the operator lifted the headset above his ears. “I think we’re being jammed.”

Saar pressed one of the buttons connected to his headset. “Vortex, this is Thunder actual. Lost contact with Watchtower.”

When he released the button, a shrill, oscillating sound filled his ears, causing him to throw the headset onto the map table. They were most definitely being jammed. Somewhere high above the cloud layer on the Russian side of the border, several aircraft were flooding his battalion’s radio frequency spectrum with “noise,” rendering digital communication impossible. He started the stopwatch function on his sports watch.

“Contact battalion spotters via landline. I want to know what’s happening in Narva.”

“Colonel, spotters report heavy small-arms fire at the Narva Bridge.

“Which side?” demanded Saar.

“Ours!”

“Copy,” said Saar, contemplating the situation.

The Russians had probably sent a sizable Spetsnaz force to secure the western bridgehead. There was only one course of action left, and Saar needed to act immediately to give it any chance of success.

“Transmit over landline to battery commanders. Execute Fire Plan Alfa X-ray. Expend all rounds.”

The sergeant stared at him for a moment before quickly lowering his headset to pass Saar’s command. “Alfa X-ray” was a northern-front battle plan devised several days earlier under the direction of his commanding officer, Brigadier General Lepp. It wouldn’t prevent the Russian invasion, but it would buy Tallinn some time to petition NATO. Not that NATO was in much of a position to help. They had been completely unprepared for the sudden withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Europe.

“Battery commanders have acknowledged the order, sir.”

Saar nodded before grabbing his combat helmet hanging on his seat. “I suggest everyone gears up.”

He didn’t need to elaborate. The combined firepower of an entire Russian artillery brigade would be leveled against them. There wouldn’t be much left of his battalion after the Russians’ first salvos. Before he’d finished snapping his chinstrap, the vehicle shook from a hollow crunching sound—the first of his battalion’s two hundred and fifty-two high-explosive artillery rounds had been fired.

The command vehicle continued to rattle and drum as the ARCHER Artillery Systems fired shell after shell into the night sky.

ARCHER was a fully automated, self-contained system utilizing a preloaded magazine drum filled with twenty-one artillery shells. The 155 mm field gun could fire the entire magazine in less than a minute in salvo mode, nearly quadrupling the sustained firing rate of conventional artillery pieces. Fire plan Alpha X-ray’s success depended on this unique capability. By his best guess, the first enemy rockets would strike Saar’s battalion in less than—he glanced at his watch—forty seconds. He needed to empty the battalion’s guns before the rockets struck.

Fire Plan Alpha X-ray had two components, split between the battalion’s twelve ARCHER units. When initiated by the gun commander seated in each ARCHER vehicle, the system’s fire control computer took over and delivered the ordnance according to the plan. The first eight rounds fired from each gun would target the two vehicle bridges spanning the Narva River, focusing most of the barrage on the solidly constructed Tallinn-St. Petersburg Highway (E20) Bridge.

Twenty of the ninety-six precision-guided shells would hit the smaller bridge south of Ivangorod. Shutting down these crossings would either force the 4th Independent Tank Brigade one hundred and eighty kilometers south to press their attack into Estonia, or stall them outside of Narva—until Russian combat engineers figured out how to get the brigade’s tanks across the river. Not all of the Russian tanks would make the trip across.

The remaining one hundred and fifty-six shells would arc over Narva, targeting a six-mile stretch of the Tallinn-St. Petersburg highway. Each specialty projectile carried two self-guided sub munitions, which independently detected and attacked enemy tanks or armored personnel carriers below. In practice, the smart munitions yielded a seven out of eight hit ratio, putting two hundred and seventy-three Russian tanks at risk of destruction.

The math was encouraging, but Colonel Saar wouldn’t survive long enough to measure the effects of his plan against the Russian tank brigade. It didn’t matter. He’d done his duty for Estonia. The rest was up to God—and the British Aerospace engineers that designed the ammunition.

Fifty-seven seconds after the Russians started jamming their communications, the sergeant seated next to him yelled triumphantly, “Spotters report multiple direct hits to the E20 Bridge! Too many to count!”

“Excellent work! We did it!” yelled Saar, the pride of their accomplishment momentarily overshadowing the inevitable.

He stole a glance at his watch. Sixty-two seconds. Saar never saw sixty-three. The first salvo of Russian 300 mm rockets exploded above the forest, showering his battalion with thousands of baseball-sized munitions. He heard the muted crackling of the first bomblets exploding in the trees, but nothing after that. His battalion essentially ceased to exist, along with most of the forest that sheltered it.


Chapter 2

Ferry Terminal D, Port of Tallin

Tallin, Estonia

Mari Saar pulled on her children’s overstuffed backpacks, reining them tight against her body. The three of them fought against the packed crowd as one shape, constantly expanding and contracting to press a few centimeters closer to the passenger gate. She should have known better than to try for one of the main passenger terminals, but her husband insisted that Terminal D had been reserved for military families. By the time she learned that plans to evacuate Estonian Defence Force dependents had been abandoned, it was too late to change course. The buzzing swarm of panicked humanity surged in one direction—forward to the perceived safety of the ferries.

Her son cried out, turning to look up at her with tear-soaked eyes. Erik had been accidentally kicked, knocked down and hit in the face dozens of times over the past three hours, as Mari struggled to shield him with her arms. She could barely reach over them because of the size of their backpacks. They’d stuffed the school packs with cold-weather clothing, energy bars and bottles of water until she could barely work the zippers. Her husband, Egan, had stressed the importance of carrying everything they needed in backpacks. Traditional luggage would be the first thing to be abandoned or lost in the struggle at the terminal, he had warned them. He’d been right about everything, except for Terminal D. Now she was fighting for enough space so her children could breathe.

At seven, Erik barely came up to her navel. Fortunately, Helina was taller and could somewhat hold her own, letting Mari focus on keeping her son off the ground. She wasn’t sure how much further Erik could continue like this. The look on his face told her not very long.

“We’re almost there, sweetie,” she said, forcing a big smile.

He pursed his lips and nodded, tears streaming down his dirty cheeks. Mari was glad that Erik couldn’t see over the crowd. An endless sea of wool hats, matted hair, backpacks and piggybacking children extended to the staircase leading to the third-floor departure gates. She dreaded the stairs. They almost didn’t make it up the last staircase. Helina kissed her fair-haired brother on the temple.

“It’s fine, Erik. We’ll be out of here soon,” she said, pushing against a dirty black backpack that hovered inches from his face.

“I miss Daddy,” he whimpered.

“Daddy’s fine. He’ll join us in Stockholm,” said Helina, her eyes meeting Mari’s for a moment.

They both knew the truth. Colonel Saar would undoubtedly be among the first Estonian soldiers to fight the Russians.

“Helina, how are you doing?” she said.

“Fine, Mom, but I need to go to the bathroom,” said Helina.

Mari didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t put any thought into how long they might be trapped, unable to move in any direction except forward. She scanned the yellow walls of the terminal, not spotting a bathroom nearby—not that it would have mattered. A few seconds later, her son looked back at her.

“I have to go too,” he said. “Really bad.”

“Soon, sweetie,” she said, rubbing his head through his gray hat. “Maybe it’s time to have something to eat. I’ll break open some candy.”

His eyes lit up briefly as she dug into her coat pocket for the chocolate bar she had been parceling out to the kids for the past hour. She snapped off a large piece and handed it to Erik, breaking off another for Helina. Even at eleven years old, the allure of chocolate hadn’t worn off her daughter. The kids seemed placated for the moment, while she checked her smartphone for messages. Her parents had made it to Riga by car, though she wasn’t sure if that made things better or worse for them. They lived on the southern coast of Estonia, on the Bay of Riga, and Mari begged them to drive south immediately. At least Riga put them farther away from the Russian hordes. Nothing from Egan, which didn’t surprise her.

The lights flickered in the terminal, followed by a sudden rumbling as military jets flew over the port. She hoped they were friendly jets, but somehow knew this was wishful thinking. The crowd pressed tighter around them, causing Erik to moan. His chocolate-stained mouth quivered as the smell of urine hit the air.

“I couldn’t help it, Mommy,” he said, turning his head to escape the backpack pushing into his face.

Mari wanted to scream at the young man in front of them. She’d asked him to reverse the backpack twice already, but he’d just shook his head and mumbled something about it being her fault for having kids.

“It’s all right, Erik. Next time make sure you pee on the man in front of you,” she said, shoving the black backpack as hard as she could.

She instantly regretted her action, seeing that it caused a ripple effect in the crowd. The man spun around and raised a fist, his hand hesitating. Mari squeezed in front of her children.

“I’m very sorry,” she said forcefully. “But your backpack has hit my son’s face nonstop since we started. I wish you would wear it on the front of your body. Just until we get on the ferry.”

“You should have thought of that before having a bunch of illegitimate kids.” He snickered.

“My husband is the commanding officer of an artillery battalion stationed at the border,” she stated. “Why haven’t you reported to your Defence League unit? The reserves were called up weeks ago. I don’t see anything wrong with you.”

“What’s the point of dying in a frozen foxhole on the border? Fucking stupid if you ask me,” he replied, keeping his hand up as if he might hit her.

A thick hand grabbed his wrist. “Her husband is on the border, buying the rest of us time to escape. It’s a time-honored tradition called sacrifice. Something your generation doesn’t know the first thing about.”

A stocky man with graying hair, dressed in a thick, gray and orange weatherproof jacket, held the man’s wrist in place.

“Now you will reverse the backpack, or I will beat you senseless and let them walk over you. Your choice,” he said.

“Fine,” said the young man. “I guess this is how your generation solves things.”

“That’s right,” he said, nodding at Mari as the guy carefully removed his backpack.

“Thank you,” she said.

“No. Thank you,” the older man said, squeezing between the young man and Mari. “Get behind your kids again, and I’ll make sure you have smooth sailing for the rest of the trip.”

She noticed that he carried no backpack or luggage.

“You’re not carrying anything?” she said.

“I didn’t have time. My daughter is at Stockholm University. I have to be on this ferry,” he said.

“Let me know if you need water or food. We have plenty to last the trip—if we ever get on the ferry,” she said.

“We’ll get on. It’s moving slowly because there’s only one ferry at the terminal, and they’re loading it carefully. All of the ferries will be here shortly. Right now they’re waiting,” said the man.

“Waiting for what?” she said.

He leaned back and whispered, “Waiting for NATO to sink the Russian blockade.”

“What? How could you know that?” she whispered back.

“Because my son is a lieutenant at the Miinisadam Naval Base a few kilometers from here. I dropped him off before coming here. All hell is breaking loose on the water. I’m pretty sure we just heard our own jets fly over.”

“God help us,” she said, hugging her children.

“God—and people like your husband and my son,” he said.

“Say a prayer for them, children,” said Mari, buoyed by a complete stranger’s kindness.


Chapter 3

Baltic Sea

Fifty-two miles north of Gotland, Sweden

Through the night-vision-enhanced visor on her flight helmet, Lieutenant Commander Robyn Faulks watched the coastline slip past her F/A-18F Super Hornet. At three hundred and ten knots, the light green strip was long gone when she glanced right. She caught a glimpse of another attack aircraft in her flight of six Hornets. In less than a minute, they’d deliver their payload and turn for the Swedish coast, disappearing just as quickly.

They’d launched from the USS George H. Bush nearly eight hours ago, stopping at Royal Air Force Base Mildenhall to refuel and wait for the final mission “green light.” They didn’t wait for long; the pilots and flight officers rushed to their aircraft less than two hours after arriving. They left with a pair of KC-135 refueling aircraft, the last strategic aircraft still stationed in Europe. The flying “gas stations” topped them off north of Denmark and returned to the protective cover of the United Kingdom’s air defense zone. With the secret approval of the Swedish government, the Hornets flew a low-level profile over the sleeping country, heading toward the Baltic.

Her helmet-integrated HUD flashed a thirty-second warning, which she knew would be seen by the flight officer seated behind her. The mission profile required the strictest emissions control (EMCON) standards, prohibiting the use of radar, radio gear or internal communications circuits. Silencing the internal link was overkill, but mission planners didn’t want any of the pilots “fat fingering” the wrong button and giving the Russians an excuse to escalate tensions. American forces could not be implicated in the upcoming strike. The two stealth missiles attached to her wing pylons were a testament to their quiet, yet continued commitment to NATO.

Twenty seconds. In her HUD, the green tinted missiles’ status field change to “Armed.” A string of secondary symbols confirmed that latest targeting data uploads had been received less than a minute ago, ensuring that the missiles would reach their targets without using radar.

Capable of autonomous targeting, the LRASM (Long Range Anti-Ship Missile) would use a combination of radar, infrared signature and electronic intercept data provided by Finnish sensors to independently detect and track their targets—ensuring the simultaneous delivery of each one-thousand-pound warhead. Only one missile was needed per ship, since the Russian’s Baltic Fleet consisted of nothing heavier than a Sovremenny class destroyer. A reserve missile would loiter twenty miles away from the first Russian vessel, just in case one of the ships got lucky. Within the span of seconds, the naval blockade of the Baltic States would be lifted. Ten seconds to launch.

She watched the countdown timer, giving a thumbs-up to her flight officer when it hit zero. The aircraft shuddered, adjusting to the sudden reduction in weight. A brilliant yellow-green flash filled her visor, as the LRASM’s booster propelled the cruise missile ahead of the Hornet. The light faded as it pulled away, the missile travelling two hundred knots faster than her aircraft. A second shaking, followed by another night-vision bloom confirmed the successful launch of their final missile. She counted a dozen successful booster ignitions from her strike force before the last LRASM’s were swallowed by the night.

Her HUD displayed a Time-To-Target (TTT) of twenty-eight minutes. They’d be long gone before the Russian ships hit the bottom of the Baltic. Faulks eased her aircraft into a shallow turn, proud that the United States was not out of the fight.


“Red Dragon Redux”


Chapter 4

USS GRAVELY (DDG-107) off the coast of Delaware

Early December, 2019

Lieutenant Commander Gayle Thompson stared into the darkness beyond the starboard bridge wing. The frigid air stung her face, forcing her to squint against the wind created by the ship’s transit. Not even the horizon was discernible.

There’s nothing out there, she thought.

She still couldn’t fathom the sheer absence of shipping traffic outside of the Delaware Channel. Four months into the crisis, and the humanitarian aid from Europe had trickled to nothing—not that it had ever really started. Russian aggression across the Eastern European front started within a month of the EMP attack against the United States, effectively drawing NATO into a quagmire of idle military threats and useless political posturing across Europe. One former Soviet satellite nation after another fell to bloodless coups, or in some cases, Blitzkrieg-like attacks. The brief battle in Estonia had been particularly bloody, for both sides. In less than a week, Russian Federation borders extended to Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania. NATO didn’t expect the Russians to stop, not with the United States out of the picture.

Tensions at sea had returned to Cold War levels, an era Thompson had never experienced during her eleven-year career. Few of the sailors onboard Gravely remembered the days when a constant, low-grade fear of the Soviets ruled the sea. NATO and Soviet seaborne units played endless games of cat and mouse, the contest occasionally turning deadly. The Russian surface navy posed little threat in 2019, the supremacy myth surrounding their missile-bristling warships was busted more than two decades earlier. The same couldn’t be said about their submarine force, which was why Gravely had spent the past one hundred and four of the past one hundred and eight days at sea. A four-day stop to reload weapons at the Yorktown Naval Weapons Station represented the crew’s only break since the “event.”

Thompson had expected to take on additional crewmembers during the stop, but the Atlantic Fleet barely had enough sailors to put the minimum number of required ships to sea. The asteroid strike south of Richmond, Virginia, had killed, injured or “disappeared” more than a quarter of Naval Station Norfolk’s sailors and officers. Even more surprising, she had retained command of Gravely. It seemed logical that Atlantic Fleet commanders would put someone more experienced in charge of one of their most important assets. Thompson had half the sea-time experience of a typical captain. Either she had proven herself worthy during the three weeks following the event, or they had run out of command-eligible officers. She guessed it was a combination of both.

The door next to her clanged open, spilling red light onto the bridge wing’s crisscrossed metal decking. The officer of the deck held the door open several inches against the wind.

“Captain, CIC reports a POSSUB bearing zero-six-five/two-nine-five relative. Sonar is working on a classification. TAO requests permission to bring the ship to a new heading of one-one-zero to resolve the bearing,” said the officer.

She instinctively turned her head toward the relative bearing of the possible submarine, staring once again at a black canvas of howling winds and crashing waves.

“Come right to course one-one-zero,” she said, grabbing the door handle and pulling it open far enough to slip inside. “Tell the TAO I’m on my way down to CIC.”

The bridge felt like a sauna compared to the bridge wing, the temperature outside barely hovering above freezing. The familiar smell of burnt coffee permeated the dark space, competing with the salty, open ocean air. She closed the watertight door and locked the handle, hearing the door hiss. The ship’s positive pressure system, designed to prevent biological or chemical weapons intrusion, had recharged the pressure behind the door. The system ran continuously while they were underway.

“OOD, let’s get a lookout on that relative bearing with night vision. You never know,” she said, heading toward the ladder that would take her off the bridge.

“Aye, aye, Captain,” said the young officer.

“Captain’s off the bridge,” announced a hidden petty officer to her right, startling her.

She felt the ship turn as she slid down the ladder, landing in front of the door to the captain’s stateroom. Her stateroom. Located between the bridge and the Combat Information Center, it gave the commanding officer quick access to either critical station, a necessity she had never fully appreciated before assuming responsibility for the lives of Gravely’s crew. A few twists and turns later, she descended to the Combat Information Center entrance.

“Captain’s in CIC!” yelled a sailor at a nearby console.

A petty officer at the chart table announced, “Ship is steady on course one-one-zero.”

Lieutenant Mosely rushed to meet her.

“Ma’am, I have every sonar tech on the ship crammed into sonar control, trying to figure this out. There’s no traffic out here, so they were able to isolate the signal,” he said.

“The contact just appeared out of nowhere?” she asked.

“We’ve had the passive towed array below the thermocline layer for several hours, looking for any long-range stalkers,” he said, walking away. “ST1 Herbert is convinced this contact came into detection range above the layer, either snooping for electronic signatures or receiving updated orders. The submarine just descended below the layer.”

“Does sonar have any idea what we’re looking at?”

“They’re still trying to classify the contact.”

“So this could be surface noise caught in a convergence zone?”

“They don’t think so. The signature is too distinct to have crossed the layer and bounced around for hundreds of miles. Plus, it appeared too suddenly.”

She nodded and followed him through the dimly lit CIC to the sonar control room. Beyond the curtain separating the two spaces, several men and women huddled around the AN/SQQ-89 Integrated Anti-Submarine Warfare Display. They quickly made room for her.

“What do we have, Herbert?”

“Ma’am, if I had to guess before the analysis was finished, I’d say we’re hearing reactor equipment.”

“A boomer?”

“I can’t say, ma’am. Could be a fast-attack boat,” replied the petty officer.

“Not a surface contact?” she pressed.

“Negative, Captain. Guardian just lit up our sector. No surface tracks.”

Shit. The presence of a nuclear-powered submarine was bad news, regardless of the type. It meant Russian or Chinese nuclear assets had been sent closer to the U.S. mainland; a move deemed unacceptable by the National Security Council and Pentagon planners. Gravely’s orders were specific: Hunt and kill any subsurface contacts in their operating area.

The problem they faced was localization. The towed array gave them a direction, but no distance. Their first tactic would be to send an aircraft down the line of bearing from Gravely, hoping to detect the magnetic disturbance caused by the submarine’s metal hull. Unfortunately, this tactic wasn’t an exact science and could last for hours. Despite the sheer volume of math and science behind antisubmarine warfare operations, luck played an almost equally important role.

To expedite the process, they’d utilize Guardian’s extensive supply of passive sonobuoys along the detection bearing to fix the location of the sub. Easier said than done against a moving target that could be anywhere along a thirty- to fifty-mile line.

“Very well,” said Thompson, backing up a few feet. “TAO, report this as a POSSUB, high confidence, and request that Guardian remain on station to assist. We’re going to need their sonobuoys. Set flight quarters for Spotlight One-One. I want the flight crew briefed and the helo in the air within thirty minutes.”

“I’m on it,” said Mosely, disappearing through the curtain.

“And TAO?” she said. Mosely reappeared. “Energize the Aegis system. Once the sub figures out we’re prosecuting them, they might do something desperate. I don’t want anything slipping through our net.”

“Yes, ma’am!” he said enthusiastically.

Thompson turned to Petty Officer Herbert. “How long until we’ve resolved the bearing?”

“It’ll take the towed array at least fifteen minutes to steady on our new course. We’ll have a solid bearing to pass on to the helo at that point.”

“I want to know what we’re up against before the helo is airborne,” she said.

“If this submarine type is in the catalogue, we’ll get it classified within ten minutes,” said Herbert.

“Excellent,” she said. “Nice work. All of you.”

Lieutenant Commander Thompson left the cramped space and caught up with Lieutenant Mosely.

“I’ll be on the bridge. Let me know as soon as sonar classifies the contact.”

She barely heard them announce her presence on the bridge. Thompson settled into the captain’s chair and closed her eyes. Her head swam with scenarios and contingencies. Once Lieutenant Mosely passed the report, there would be no going back. Atlantic Fleet commanders would commit Gravely to the fight. Kill or be killed. A seasoned submarine captain versus—don’t go there. She knew Gravely’s combat systems inside out, and so did her crew. They were ready for anything.


Chapter 5

“Guardian” P-8 Poseidon Aircraft

37 miles southeast of USS GRAVELY

Lieutenant Commander Kyle West scrutinized the tactical action display in front of him. Seated in a row on the port side of the aircraft’s cabin, four additional operators monitored the aircraft’s sensors and surveillance feeds, making sure his display had the latest data from all transmitting units. The seat pitched downward, pulling his stomach with it. A few more of those, and he might lose his midnight snack. The P-8 was a militarized version of a Boeing 737, not exactly the ideal passenger aircraft for low-altitude submarine-hunting maneuvers. He took a few deep breaths and tried to ignore his worsening stomach situation.

“Sonobuoys Kilo-Three and Kilo-Four picking up the track,” announced one of the enlisted operators in West’s headset.

He pressed a button and replied, “Got it. Track hooked.”

Unable to get a MAD reading from Gravely’s helicopters, Guardian and Sentry, another P-8 aircraft launched from Naval Air Station Oceana and started deploying passive sonobuoy patterns ahead of the reported bearing line in a “hail Mary” attempt to find the submarine. After exhausting more than three-quarters of their sonobuoy load out, they got lucky. A subsurface contact passed through one of the patterns, ten miles away from the helicopter. While Guardian swooped down to deploy more sonobuoys, Spotlight One-One closed the distance to the submarine, hovering nearby with two armed torpedoes.

So far, the Type 093 Chinese submarine had maintained course and speed, heading toward the Delaware Channel at ten knots, a relatively quiet, but urgent running speed. All of that was about to change. They needed to fine-tune the submarine’s position for a deliberate torpedo attack by the helicopter. He expected all hell to break loose underwater once the submarine was pinged by the active directional sonobuoys.

“Go active on Oscar-Four and Oscar-Five,” said West, switching channels. “Spotlight One-One, this is Guardian. Oscar-Four and Oscar-Five just went live. Confirm link to these sonobuoys.”

A garbled, but readable voice responded, “Copy. Links are active. Bingo! I’m showing active bearings to target.”

The submarine was as good as dead at this point.

“Spotlight, do you require further guidance to target?” asked West.

“Negative. I have a strong link to your sonobuoys. Moving into position to attack.”

“Give ’em hell, Spotlight,” said West.

He turned to the officer seated next to him, making sure his headset wasn’t transmitting. “That should teach those Commie fucks a lesson.”

“A cold, wet lesson,” said the lieutenant.

“They probably won’t feel a thing,” added the radar operator two seats over.

“Too bad,” said West, leaning back in his seat to watch the digital battle.

“New radar contact, bearing two-five-five! Correction. Two new contacts—shit, these things are moving fast!” said the radar operator.

West stared at his screen, watching the new contacts speed away from the submarine’s location, hoping that Spotlight One-One’s link-track didn’t disappear. The new contacts and the helicopter merged on his tactical screen.


Chapter 6

USS GRAVELY (DDG-107)

Off the coast of Delaware

Chief Fire Controlman Jeffries was hovering behind the ship’s Anti-Air Warfare (AAW) console when Petty Officer Clark screamed in his face.

“TAO! New air tracks 1025 and 1026. Bearing zero-three-three. Distance forty-five miles. Heading two-niner-three. Speed three hundred knots and increasing. Altitude four hundred feet and rising!”

The sailor seated at the AN/SLQ-32 Electronic Warfare console on the other side of CIC called out what Jeffries suspected.

“I have no fire control radars or missile seekers along that bearing.”

The new targets did not emit an electronic signal, which meant they were either land-attack cruise missiles dependent on GPS and terrain comparison to reach their targets, or anti-ship missiles in booster phase. Gravely’s response to each scenario would be the same.

“Stand by to take those tracks, Clark,” he whispered in the petty officer’s ear before turning to gauge Lieutenant Mosely’s reaction.

Lieutenant Mosely stood behind his station, staring at the bank of raised flat-screen displays at the front of CIC. One of the screens showed the direction of the air tracks superimposed on a digital map overlay of Gravely’s assigned area of operations. The missiles fired by the Type 093 Chinese submarine were headed toward the Washington, D.C., area. Captain Thompson stood next to Mosely, reaching the same conclusion. She nodded at the TAO, who issued the orders.

“Fire Control, kill air tracks 1025 and 1026. I don’t care what it takes. Spotlight One-One is weapons free to conduct a deliberate torpedo attack. I want that submarine dead,” he uttered.

The Anti-Submarine Tactical Air Controller (ASTAC) two seats over from Clark responded. “Passing the order to Spotlight One-One. Weapons free.”

Jeffries watched as the Combat Information Center flawlessly executed the multi-contact engagement. The Aegis combat system had been designed for a nearly automated engagement of enemy targets. By the time he turned to face the Anti-Air Warfare console, Clark had assigned three SM-2 surface-to-air missiles to each track. He patted the sailor on the shoulder.

“You know what to do,” said Jeffries.

Clark pressed a series of buttons authorizing the salvo firing of six missiles. The ship rumbled against the pitch and roll of the sea, their only physical indication that the Vertical Launch System (VLS) had released the missiles. One of the screens in front of the captain and TAO flashed to a green image of the forward VLS battery. The dark green scene flashed white six times in rapid succession. A hollow voice echoed through one of the speakers.

“TAO, this is the OOD. I confirm six birds away.”

“Confirmed by Fire Control,” yelled Petty Officer Clark. “Six birds clearing booster phase. Looking good!”

“Time to impact?” said the captain.

Clark took a moment to examine his data fields. Jeffries refrained from helping the young sailor find the information. Coddling his sailors had never been part of the chief’s training philosophy.

“Time to first impact in thirty-nine seconds, Captain.”

Jeffries nudged him.

“Three niner seconds, ma’am.”

“Very well,” said Captain Thompson, nodding her approval at Jeffries.

“Torpedo away!” announced the ASTAC. “Spotlight One-One is maneuvering for re-attack, Captain.”

“Don’t make your reports to me. Lieutenant Mosely is fighting the ship,” said Thompson.

“Aye, aye, ma’am,” said the petty officer. “TAO, Spotlight One-One—”

“Got it, make sure Spotlight drops a sonobuoy for battle-damage assessment,” said the TAO.

“Already in the water, sir. Sonar reports active torpedo pinging. It’s just a matter of time,” said the ASTAC.

Several seconds later, Clark gave them an update.

“Missiles entered terminal-guidance phase. Revised time to target estimate is one five seconds. Aegis shows a solid lock on the targets.”

Jeffries mentally counted down the seconds. He reached twelve when Clark announced their arrival.

“Splash tracks number 1025 and 1026. Aegis is picking up nothing but falling debris from the tracks.”

“Copy. Splash tracks,” said the TAO, among a chorus of cheers.

Moments later, it was the ASTAC’s turn to pass on some good news.

“TAO, all acoustic sources confirm an underwater detonation. The torpedo has stopped pinging. Sonar assesses a hit. They’re processing more data from the sonobuoy and towed array feeds to assess the extent of the damage.”

Everyone cheered except for the captain, who whispered something to Lieutenant Mosely. He nodded before abruptly interrupting the celebration.

“Keep it down! This isn’t over! ASTAC, order Spotlight One-One to re-attack the target with its second torpedo,” said the TAO.

The order quieted the crew. The captain wasn’t taking any chances with the submarine, which had very likely fired two nuclear-tipped cruise missiles at the capital—and could fire a whole host of antiship missiles on Gravely if it survived the first torpedo. Jeffries suspected that Guardian and Sentry would continue to drop torpedoes until they heard the Chinese submarine break apart underwater.


Chapter 7

15 miles northeast of Guangzhou, China

Early December 2019

Staff Sergeant Chen Tang-shan sat on the cold ground next to his assigned tent, peering through the fence at the orange aura visible over the darkened hilltops. Based on the distant glow, he knew the camp was due east of a major industrial area, but he couldn’t be sure where. They could be outside one of several dozen Chinese cities, coastal or inland. The truck ride from the pier in Xiamen had lasted several hours by his guess. He wasn’t sure, because his watch, along with the rest of his personal items, had been confiscated a few hours after his capture on Penghu Island.

As a Republic of China (ROC) Marine, he had devoted his career to preparing for this invasion, an unsurprising continuation of a youth spent under the constant threat of a breakdown in “cross-strait” relations. They had always understood the odds stacked against them, even with the prospect of American intervention. When the United States started to withdraw its military forces from the western Pacific theatre of operations, the Taiwanese government took immediate steps to safeguard the people. Chen’s battalion was ferried from the Taiwanese mainland to Penghu, a small archipelago in the Taiwan Strait.

To what end? He’d spend the rest of his life in labor camps, with an occasional stint in a re-education facility. If he showed promise, and no signs of aggression, he might be returned to his family on Taiwan—if his family hadn’t been moved to a labor camp in China. He wished he had been killed on Penghu.

Instead, his tank had been hit by an antitank missile fired from a Chinese attack helicopter within the first few minutes of the battle, killing the rest of his crew and disabling the tank. He spent the next seventy-two hours sprinting from one blasted structure to the next with a Marine infantry squad, occasionally stopping long enough to fire on an unsuspecting Chinese patrol. Chen and the two remaining Marines were captured at night on the third day of the invasion while swimming across Magong Bay to an outlying island.

They had hoped to find a serviceable boat on one of the islands so they could retreat to the mainland. They felt useless on the island. At night, they saw flashes across the channel between Taiwan and Penghu. The battle for Taiwan raged on while their fight dissolved into a pointless game of hide and seek with the Chinese. Their families needed them.

His wife and children lived in the West District of Chiayi City. They would no doubt see heavy fighting as the Chinese fought their way east through the city to the provincial government complex. Chen had seen the Army Reserve battle plans for defending the mainland. It would be a fight to the bitter end for the regular and reserve units assigned to defend the city, and the civilians caught in the middle.

They hadn’t been the only ROC Marines with the same concern. The Chinese patrol boat that pulled them out of the water held several Marines from the 66th Marine Brigade, all plucked out of the jet-black water. Less than twenty-four hours later, he was deposited at Camp 78 with the clothes on his back and a pair of cheap plastic sandals. Made in China, no doubt.

Chen shivered, knowing it was time to return to his overcrowded tent and the worn bamboo mat so graciously “loaned” to him by the “people.” The propaganda had started immediately. People’s this and people’s that. Intolerable on every level.

Headlights appeared in the hills, approaching the camp. One pair turned into several, as the road turned gradually toward the entrance on the northern side of the camp. More prisoners. Just what they needed.

A high-pitched noise drew his attention away from the trucks. The sound grew louder over the next few seconds, resembling a jet engine. He caught movement in his peripheral vision and jerked his head left—just in time to see a long, dark object fly over the eastern half of the camp. The sound rapidly faded as Taiwanese prisoners streamed out of the tents, cheering at the sky. Like Chen, many of them knew exactly what had passed overhead: a cruise missile.

Moments later, the watchtowers lining the camp bathed the prisoners in blinding light. Whistles blared, and amplified voices ordered them back to their tents. A few bursts of automatic fire emphasized the guards’ urgency to restore order to the “people’s camp.” Chen wondered where the missile was headed, and if it signified anything beyond a random, desperate, retaliatory shot fired by one of their submarines or destroyers. He hoped so.

Chen had barely settled onto his mat when the tent went dark—the intense light from the watchtowers no longer penetrating the thin brown canvas. The sudden change quieted the tent, only a few whispers penetrating the silence. Absolute silence. Something was wrong.

He scrambled to the tent flap on his knees, pushing through a sea of huddled prisoners. He crawled out of the tent and lay still in the rocky dirt. Aside from a few flashlight beams sweeping across the fence line in front of the closest guard barracks, the camp was completely dark. Only the lights on the inbound trucks penetrated the night—but the trucks had stopped moving. He stood up, fixated on the lights.

Why the hell would they stop in the open?

The guards in the tower to his right started shouting at him. Chen heard the words “last warning,” so he raised his hands above his head and nodded.

He turned toward the tent, noticing something he had missed a few moments ago. Chen stopped and stared beyond the trucks.

Impossible.

He hoped his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him. The prominent orange glow above the hills had vanished. The trucks. The camp’s lights. The city. It all made sense. Someone had just thrown the switch over part of the People’s Republic of China. Why had the Americans waited so long to strike back? It didn’t matter. He was deeply satisfied knowing that the people’s lives had been permanently cast into darkness.

Fuck the people.