Executive Intent (14 page)

“The Navy is never going to cancel two vital programs to invest in these orbital weapon garages,” Turner said.

“Nor should they,” the president said. “It's not going to happen. I supported maritime Global Hawk and ForceNet from day one—I'm not about to kill them, especially for an unproven system.”

“It's not unproven anymore, sir,” Kai said. Barbeau's eyes fairly twinkled when he spoke.

“I'm not convinced the land-attack missile portion is ready, General,” the president said. “The missile defense part is impressive, but I'm not ready to cancel important programs for other services for a global missile defense shield. We spend a lot of money on missile defense for the United States already—defending India is not in our budget.”

He got to his feet, and everyone else followed suit. “Good to see you, Sal,” he said, shaking hands with the Air Force secretary. “We'll discuss this and let you know how it'll be.”

“I've got the entire proposal ready for your review, Mr. President,” Banderas said. “I know you'll be surprised and pleased with the program.”

The president ignored the last-second sales pitch. “Dr. Page,
good to see you again,” he said, shaking her hand next. “Deploying a new weapon system is a process, as I'm sure you are very aware. If you spring it on the world all at once like this, folks put up an immediate negative reaction to it—and that goes double for something this different.”

“I know very well, Mr. President, after all my work on Skybolt and in the Senate Armed Services Committee,” Ann said. “But Kingfisher is what's needed now for global reconnaissance and a truly rapid-reaction ballistic-missile defense and global strike.”

The White House chief of staff, Walter Kordus, could see the president's exasperation at the chatter and began herding the visitors out the door. Kai Raydon stuck out a hand before Kordus could reach him, and the president shook it. “Nice to meet you, Mr. President,” he said.

“Same, General,” Gardner responded curtly before Kordus finally corralled the visitors and led them outside, trailing them with a chorus of thank-yous.

“I'd be happy to talk to those people for you next time, Mr. President,” Secretary of Defense Turner said after all but he, Conrad Carlyle, and Stacy Anne Barbeau stayed behind. “They're starting to sound like used-car salesmen. And I had no inkling they were going to propose killing BAMS and ForceNet for their space stuff. They must be breathing too much rare gas or something.”

“I'm not about to kill any Navy programs for this Thor's Hammer thing,” the president said. “It is indeed impressive—just impressive enough to offer it up to the Russians, Chinese, North Koreans, or anyone else we need to make a deal with. Otherwise we threaten to start launching more weapon garages into space, and they'll have to spend trillions to counter it.”

A phone rang, and Kordus answered it immediately—calls that came in to the Situation Room during meetings were always emergencies. He handed it over to Barbeau. “Barbeau…what's up,
Ben?…What?…Great Lord, what in God's name?…Okay, Ben, call the senior staff together right away. I'll be there shortly.” She hung up the phone. “Islamabad has recalled its ambassador to Washington,” she said to the president, “and the ISI has arrested twenty-seven Pakistanis who work at our embassy, accusing them of spying for the United States. Further, the warship visiting Karachi is being barred from leaving port until the ISI inspects it.”

“Here it starts,” the president said wearily. “Walter, get Mazar on the phone for me. Stacy Anne, you talk to the Pakistani foreign minister. Ask them to reconsider those orders, or at least change the order to ‘return for consultations' or something less flammable than ‘recall,' and ask them to release the embassy staff. They don't want to start a diplomatic squabble over an incident that everyone wants to keep hidden in the basement. We have pictures of those missiles and a full transcript of the launch and engagement—they wouldn't want us to release those videos.” Barbeau hurried away to her office at the State Department. “Conrad…”

“I'll see what I can do about getting that ship released,” the president's national security adviser said. “We probably gave every Pakistani naval officer and local government official a tour of that ship already—they shouldn't be demanding inspections.”

The president nodded. “And I want to get briefed on contingency plans in case we're barred from Pakistani ports and airfields—how do we sustain Afghanistan operations if we can't bring in supplies through Pakistan.” He ran a hand through his hair in exasperation. “I almost wish we let the Paks fire off another missile. Let's get busy.”

M
INISTRY OF
D
EFENSE
, B
EIJING
, P
EOPLE'S
R
EPUBLIC OF
C
HINA

D
AYS LATER

The conference table in the office of the minister of defense of the People's Republic of China was strewn with black-and-white and color photographs attached to larger pieces of cardboard with descriptive notes around the edges. Nothing too terribly important-looking could be discerned in the pictures by themselves, but the minister of defense, Zung Chunxian, a sixty-one-year-old career bureaucrat with thin dark hair, thick glasses, and a thick waistline, stared at them as if he were looking at works of ancient Chinese art.

“Identification?” he asked the military officer before him as he lit a cigarette.

“We believe it was an unmanned reconnaissance vehicle, sir,” General Hua Zhilun, commander of 11th Strategic Rocket Forces of the People's Liberation Army, replied. Young for a general officer at age fifty-three, Hua was lean, fit, and polished. He, too, wore spectacles, but he put them away as he addressed the minister. Hua was in charge of the newest division of the Strategic Rocket Forces based on Hainan Island: offensive long-range ballistic-missile forces with targets in space and at sea instead of land. “The sensor package has not yet been recovered, but I am confident that is what it is. Most certainly American.”

“Where could it have come from?”

“Most unmanned aerial vehicles today have very long-range and loiter capability, and could have come from thousands of miles away,” Hua replied, “but the shape of this one suggests it was submarine-launched. The Americans and British both employ UAVs that can be launched from submerged missile or torpedo tubes.”

“Ingenious,” Zung said. “But why use such a device over Hainan Island, when they certainly have satellites that can do a better job without fear of being shot down?”

“A satellite's orbit and position at any given time can be predicted with high accuracy, sir, which can give one time to hide something that one does not want to be photographed,” Hua said. “Unmanned air vehicles such as this can pop up anywhere and anytime.”

“So the attack missiles on Hainan Island have been discovered?”

“We must assume they have, sir,” Hua said. “It is of little consequence.”

“Why do you say that, General?”

“The deterrent effect of the Dong Feng-21 missiles is much greater than their actual demonstrated capabilities, sir.”

“What do you mean?”

“To be quite honest, sir, the DF-21 antisatellite and antiship weapons are mostly for show as of yet,” Hua explained.

The defense minister's eyes bulged with indignation. “
Zhe shi shen-me yi-si?
What did you say?”

“They are reliable and effective in their primary role as intermediate-range ballistic land-attack missiles, sir,” Hua explained, “but they have hardly been tested in their new roles. We were able to successfully intercept one satellite in a carefully rehearsed exercise with an absolutely fine-tuned weapon, but it is quite another matter to deploy a cold-soaked missile that has been in a transporter tube in a corrosive marine environment for a long period of time and have it successfully launch, track, and hit its target, even if the target is not maneuvering or dispersing countermeasures.”

“So why have we spent billions of yuan on them?” Zung asked incredulously. “Why would my predecessor agree to such a thing?”

“Because the Americans began deploying their Kingfisher antisatellite and antiballistic-missile weapons,” Hua replied, “and honored Defense Minister Chi wanted to respond in kind and as quickly as possible. We could argue that the Americans have the same problem with their Kingfisher weapon containers—space is far more hostile than salt air or terrestrial weather—but they chose to deploy them as they continue to test and upgrade them, and China had to respond in like manner.”

“So it is an empty force, a hollow threat, and a waste of money?” Zung asked.

“We really do not know for sure, sir, unless we test the systems more often,” Hua said. “But for the kind of tests we require to fully validate the DF-21 system, we need to launch at real satellites from real installations, not merely at simulated targets or on the Lop Nor instrumented test ranges. That means launching targets into orbit. My budget requested twenty million yuan per month for the next fifteen months just to test the antisatellite and antiship ver
sions of the DF-21. It was turned down because the increased test tempo would certainly alert and possibly alarm the Americans.”

“I think that is not a consideration any longer, General, especially now that we know that Washington is stepping up deployment of those weapon satellites and being much more aggressive in surveillance,” Minister Zung said. “It will take some time to resubmit your requested testing funds, but I think this time they will be approved.” He paused for a moment, then said, “But are there other targets on which to test?”

“Other targets, sir?” Hua asked. He paused as well, then shook his head. “I know of no other suitable defunct or out-of-service satellites, sir,” he replied, “except the weather satellite we plan to use for the upcoming sea-launched weapon test. We could possibly inquire of our allies or commercial operators to see if—”

“What about satellites that are not defunct or out of service,” Zung asked, “and do not belong to our allies or ourselves?”

“Sir?” Hua was confused…but only for a moment. His eyes widened in surprise, and Zung thought he noticed the beginnings of a devilish smile on the corners of the young general's lips. “Sir, are you suggesting…?”

“I am suggesting, General Hua,” Zung said, stubbing out his cigarette, “that if an opportunity would present itself to conduct a
very
realistic test of our antiship and antisatellite weapons, and if you notified me in a timely manner, I am quite certain both the Central Military Commission and the Military Committee of the Party Central Committee will approve it. Do you understand me, General?”

200 M
ILES OFF THE
C
OAST OF
M
OGADISHU
, S
OMALIA

S
EVERAL DAYS LATER

“Pan-pan, pan-pan, pan-pan,”
the frantic marine radiotelephone message began on Channel 16 and 2182 kilohertz frequencies, “all stations, all stations, all stations, this is the freighter
Yutian,
People's Republic of China, two hundred three nautical miles east of Mogadishu, proceeding southwest toward Mumbasa, Kenya, at twelve knots. A small motor vessel is about three miles west of us and we can see men armed with automatic weapons and RPGs on board. We believe they are Somali pirates and they mean to board this vessel. Requesting immediate assistance from any nearby Combined Task Force warships. Over.” The radio operator repeated the message, adding the freighter's geographical coordiates.

Seventy-six miles to the north, the People's Liberation Army Navy
Luyang
-class destroyer
Wuhan,
part of the multinational Combined Task Force-151 group of over thirty warships and dozens of aircraft from twenty-five nations, responded to the call by launching a Russian-made Kamov Ka-27 antisubmarine warfare helicopter. As part of the CTF-151 tasking, the Ka-27 had a chin-mounted sea radar and was armed with a smoke-rocket launcher on one hardpoint and a 7.62-millimeter machine gun on the other.

Nearly an hour later, the Ka-27 approached the freighter. The helicopter was manned by a pilot and copilot plus two Chinese marines acting as observers. “
Wuhan,
this is Patrol Unit Three,” the pilot radioed, “we are approaching the
Yutian,
and we have the suspect vessel in sight. It is a ten-meter open-hull motor vessel with two armed persons aboard. There is a rope ladder on the
Yutian
's port side midships at the low-ramp gunwale and the suspect vessel appears to be tied to the
Yutian
. Four suspects are holding about a
dozen crewmembers at gunpoint near the bow. We are fifteen minutes until bingo fuel. Request instructions.”

“Patrol Three, this is
Wuhan,
you are authorized to fire warning smoke at the suspect vessel,” came the reply. “Remain well clear of hostile fire. We are dispatching another patrol helicopter and are under way toward your position.”

“Acknowledged,” the pilot responded. On intercom he said, “Prepare for smoke-rocket launches from the port launcher, crew.” Flying about a half mile from the freighter, the pilot armed his weapon panel, pedal-turned slightly right, and pressed the red button atop his control stick three times, firing three forty-millimeter unguided rockets ahead of the freighter's track.

“
Wuhan,
this Patrol Three, I have fired three smoke rockets ahead of the freighter,” the pilot radioed. “It was clearly observed by the suspects. The suspects on the boat are not moving. The suspects holding the hostages are waving their AK-47s at me. They—” He stopped his narration in shock when he saw one of the pirates, who appeared to be no more than a teenager, turn back to the hostages, lower his AK-47 to his hip, and fire, cutting down the first row of hostages.
“The pirates are killing hostages!”
he screamed on the radio. “They are murdering them!”

“Patrol Three, Patrol Three, remain clear of hostile fire!” the commander of the
Wuhan
radioed.

But the Ka-27 pilot couldn't hear him, or ignored him if he did. Instead, he pedal-turned to the right, moved in closer to the freighter, and squeezed the trigger on his control stick. The 7.62-millimeter machine gun on his starboard-side pylon chugged to life. The pilot carefully walked the bullet hits up the side of the freighter and across the deck, killing two of the pirates and scattering the others. “
Take that,
you murderous bastards!” the pilot shouted. “Take—”

“RPG! RPG!”
the copilot shouted.
“Break left!”

But it was far too late. A pirate aboard the smaller boat tied to
the freighter had immediately raised a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, aimed, and fired, and from about a hundred yards away, he could not miss. The grenade round hit and exploded, and the Ka-27 burst into flames and dove straight down into the Indian Ocean.

O
LD
P
ORT
D
ISTRICT
, M
OGADISHU
, S
OMALIA

L
ATE THAT NIGHT

The pirate mother ship, a thirty-meter oceangoing tugboat captured by pirates several months earlier, had returned at flank speed to its berth at the Old Port of Mogadishu, northeast of the new port facility and east of the slums of downtown Mogadishu, after the news came that the crew of one of their pirate ships had shot down the Chinese patrol helicopter. The port's old piers had not been rebuilt after years of disuse, but had been repaired enough to service the mother ship and its small fleet of pirate assault vessels, including enough roadways and security positions to allow refueling and rearming the vessels and their crews. It was the busiest the Old Port had been in many years. The crew didn't much care about how well they secured the ship—they tied it off, threw some pieces of corrugated tin and canvas on it to disguise it the best they could, then got away as fast as they could.

Old Port had been the location of several foreign embassies headquartered in the Somali capital, all now closed, when Mogadishu was one of the largest and busiest ports in all of East Africa. Now various warlords and pirate captains occupied the old embassy buildings as their headquarters. The buildings in the Old Port district had been rebuilt and fortified with the millions of dollars of ransom money paid by shipping and insurance companies around the world to have their vessels, crews, and cargo released by the pirates over the years. The nearby Abdiasis district, with its beautiful white-sand beaches, sports facilities, and tree-lined neighborhoods, had been taken over by the pirate captains and the warlords who controlled them, creating a security buffer between themselves, the teeming squalor of the city, and the continuing civil war that kept the government nonexistent, the entire country
lawless and fractured, and the economy in shambles for almost a decade. But if a visitor was transported to the area and saw only Old Port and Abdiasis, he might conclude that Mogadishu was an up-and-coming city striving for greatness.

A meeting of the mother ship's captain, six of their boarding crew-boat captains, and the local warlord was called to discuss the downing of the Chinese patrol helicopter. In the former French embassy building, across the street from the Abdul Rahman Mosque and a large madrassa, they watched news coverage of the incident on satellite TV, but there was not much yet. Discussions centered around where to move the base of operations—it was a given that the Chinese, or someone who belonged to the Combined Task Force antipiracy group, would respond.

Unknown to the Somali pirates, the Chinese response was already under way. An unmanned patrol aircraft that had been launched to assist the Kamov patrol helicopters had been diverted when the mother ship was observed fleeing the area, and the UAV followed it back to the Old Port. It was easy to spot exactly where the mother-ship crew went after disembarking, and the crew of the
Wuhan
watched as the meeting of the band of pirates commenced. The
Wuhan
had been moving toward shore, and in ten hours was now within range.

As soon as the meeting started, the captain of the
Wuhan
ordered the attack to begin, and the ship fired four C-802L cruise missiles toward the Old Port. The C-802s were reverse-engineered French Exocet antiship missiles, modified and improved for land-attack missions with greater range and speed, a larger five-hundred-pound high-explosive warhead, and a GPS satellite navigation system with an infrared terminal guidance seeker. In five minutes, the missiles crossed the remaining distance between the
Wuhan
and shore and destroyed the old French embassy and the Abdul Rahman Mosque, a suspected pirate haven.