by Dale Brown
“I see.”
“Why do you ask, sir?”
“No particular reason, Sergeant Major,” Kai said. “We collect a lot of data up here, mountains of it every hour, so in order to help sift through it, we look for trends and anomalies. If we see a broken sailing plan, we look for obvious reasons like weather, accidents, or civil disturbances, and if we don’t see any obvious reasons, we start asking around.”
“Sorry we don’t have that info for you, sir,” Nauert said. “I’ll pass your concerns to Stuttgart and they’ll take a look and report back. You may have to contact them directly for the latest info until we’re fully set up here.”
“Thanks, Sergeant Major, I will. If we see anything else from up here, we’ll pass it along. How do you like Ethiopia so far?”
“Nice place, good facilities, decent weather, friendly locals-a lot different than Afghanistan or Camp Lemonier. And how are things in space, sir?”
“Pretty routine, like being in a submarine, I guess, looking for trouble and hoping like hell you don’t find any,” Kai said. “Anytime you’d like to take a trip up here to look around, we’d love to have you stop by for a visit.”
“That’s definitely on my ‘bucket list,’ sir,” Nauert said. “Anything else I can do for you, sir?”
“Not right now. Nice to talk to you, Sergeant Major.”
“Same here, sir. AFRICOM clear.”
“That was the space-station guy?” Greene asked after Nauert terminated the call.
“Yes, sir. BG Raydon himself, asking about that convoy of Chinese ships headed our way.”
“What about it?”
“They were delayed for about a week in Pakistan. Raydon wanted to know why.”
“Shit, he’s the reason why the Pakistanis don’t tell us stuff anymore,” Greene complained. “If he hadn’t blasted that Pak village all to hell with his space weapon, we’d still be on speaking terms. The Paks aren’t going to tell us nothin’ about anyone’s ship movements until we get back on friendlier terms.”
“I’ll drop an e-mail to TMO at Stuttgart and ask the question.”
“Do that, but I’ll guarantee we won’t get an answer back from the Paks,” Greene said. “If the powers that be really want to know, they’ll probably have to send in the CIA to find out.” He sniffed derisively and shook his head. “Raydon and the Air Force think their space station and fancy space radars are so cool, but we’ll still use plain old-fashioned grunt work-some local in sandals and a turban, getting paid a couple bucks for info and maybe a photo or two-to get the real dope.”
ARMSTRONG SPACE STATION
THAT SAME TIME
“I would sure love to have a look inside those ships,” Kai Raydon said as he closed the secure telephone connection. “I have a bad feeling about those things.”
“Can’t the Coast Guard just pull them over and inspect them?” Boomer Noble asked. “I know the Coast Guard does that all the time, everywhere in the world.”
“Pretty low odds of a Chinese ship in international waters voluntarily agreeing to an inspection, Boomer,” Senior Master Sergeant Valerie “Seeker” Lukas said. “Unless there’s a Memorandum of Understanding between a nation and the Coast Guard, it’s up to the ship’s owner or captain to allow an inspection, and the Chinese aren’t likely to allow it.”
Kai checked the chronometers at his computer console to get the local time in Washington -it was early, but he knew that most career bureaucrats liked to get to work early. “It’d be worth a phone call to the State Department,” he said. Seeker nodded and got to work on her communications console.
“What do you think is in those ships, General?” Boomer asked.
“Another DF-21 emplacement, bound for Tanzania or Zaire -anywhere that has strong mutual defense and cooperation treaties with China,” Kai replied.
“With nukes?”
“Nuclear warheads can be detected without boarding a vessel,” Kai said, “but medium-range missiles like the DF-21 are allowed. If they wanted to put nuclear warheads on the DF-21s, they’d probably fly them in separately.”
“State Department is on the line, sir: Assistant Secretary of State Carlson, China desk, not secure,” Seeker said.
Kai hit a button on his console and readjusted his microphone. “Secretary Carlson? This is General Raydon from Armstrong Space Station, unsecure.”
“You’re on the space station right now, General?” Carlson asked, her voice quickly changing from young but very official to almost childlike. “Are you kidding?”
“Not kidding, Miss Carlson.”
“Call me Debbie, General, please.” Kai thought she was on the verge of a giggle. “Sorry we couldn’t do a secure videoconference, but I don’t know how to work the phone and my assistant’s not in yet. How can I help you today? The senior master sergeant said something about inspecting Chinese ships for medium-range missiles?”
“That’s right, Debbie. And please call me Kai.”
“Okay, Kai.” Her voice quickly switched back to official but friendly. “Here’s the deal: China routinely allows us to inspect vessels bound for U.S. ports, and that’s pretty much it without authority from Beijing, which takes about as long as it takes to sail a ship around the world. China doesn’t even allow inspections of its ships in times of distress, which means the Coast Guard won’t board a Chinese ship in distress unless the captain authorizes it, which in most cases he won’t. And just for clarification? That’s true for U.S.-flagged ships on government business, too.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“No one wants to have foreign inspectors poking around on ships carrying sensitive or classified materials-that’s pretty standard,” Carlson said. “Most nations would rather have such a ship go down rather than have foreigners, even rescuers, board it and discover their secrets.
“Now, you mentioned missiles. That’s covered under a voluntary protocol called the Missile Technology Control Regime, which was set up to try to prevent the proliferation of ballistic missiles and unmanned vehicles around the world. Unfortunately, China is not a signatory to MTCR, although they have several times agreed to abide by its principles. Also, MTCR doesn’t automatically allow foreigners to inspect suspect vessels-that’s still up to the captain, the ship’s owner, or a legal authority representative of the ship’s flag.”
“In other words, Debbie: If China doesn’t want us to inspect those ships, they’re not going to get inspected,” Kai summarized.
“That’s pretty much it, General…I mean, Kai,” Carlson said. “Again, it’s pretty standard all over the world-it’s no different than what we do. Ships on the high seas have always had a special ‘hands-off’ designation-don’t mess with them until they come into your home waters or you observe them doing something illegal.
“Now, China is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which bars countries from distributing nuclear weapons and materials or to induce nonnuclear weapon states from acquiring them,” Carlson went on. “If you knew that those missiles were nuclear, and China was transporting those missiles to a nonnuclear weapon state, and you could convince the International Atomic Energy Agency of this, they could request an inspection of the ship. Not impossible, but extremely unlikely of China cooperating, unless you had a Polaroid of the nukes being unloaded in a nonnuclear weapon state.”
“The ships are bound for Tanzania.”
“ China does a lot of business in sub-Saharan Africa, especially the business of buying oil fields and farms to import energy and food,” Carlson explained. “They bring in a lot of manufactured goods in return. Nothing out of the ordinary yet. Tell me, Kai: What’s going on with these ships?”
“We’ve been monitoring several new Chinese antisatellite and antiship missile sites being constructed all over the world,” Kai explained, “and I think this convoy is carrying another one. Obviously such a site puts us in danger, and I’d like to find out if that’s what we’re looking at here.”
“Perfectly
understandable,” Carlson said. “Unfortunately, all we can really do is watch those ships and watch when they start off-loading cargo to see what they’re carrying.”
“What if they were going to transit the Suez Canal? Can you ask Egypt to search the ships?”
“The Constantinople Convention guarantees free access to the Suez Canal to all ships of all nations, even nations at war with Egypt,” Carlson said. “The Suez Canal Authority, which operates the canal, has the right to inspect all vessels using the Canal, but only for specific purposes and in specific locations-the inspections are usually limited to paperwork checks of logbooks, manifests, and crew documents, unless there’s a request by Interpol. Over twenty-one thousand vessels use the Canal every year, and the SCA just doesn’t have the manpower to inspect the holds and spaces of every one. It would take an army of inspectors an entire year to inspect a U.S. aircraft carrier going through the Canal, even if we ever allowed it.”
“I’m impressed by your breadth of knowledge about this stuff, Debbie.”
“Not as impressed as I am talking to a guy in a space station orbiting the Earth, Kai,” Carlson said. “I’m a bureaucrat in a little office in Washington -you’re hundreds of miles above Earth floating in space.”
“Anytime you’d like to come up and check it out, Debbie, you’re welcome.”
“Are you serious?” The schoolgirl voice was back big-time.
“You don’t need to be a NASA-trained astronaut to travel in space these days-just be healthy enough to withstand the trip up here, and be patient until a seat opens up on a spaceplane.”
“How healthy is that, exactly?”
“Do you like roller coasters?”
“Sure.”
“Think you can ride one for ten minutes?”
“Ten minutes?”
“It’s not that much pressure, but it’s on you for a long time,” Kai said. “There’s a lot of noise and shaking, but it’s not too bad. And it’s both positive and negative-you have to put up with the deceleration part, too, for ten minutes during reentry, like when a Metro train is pulling into a station.”
“Doesn’t sound like that much fun anymore.”
“It’s worth it once you get up here. You can’t beat the view, that’s for sure.”
“I’ll think about it, Kai,” Carlson said. “You’ve got me very intrigued.”
“Good. We’d love to have you. And about those Chinese ships…?”
There was a slight pause; then: “Wellll…I can ask around and see if any of my contacts have trusted persons in Dar es Salaam that can give us some firsthand information on what’s in those ships when they start to unload. No guarantees.”
“That sounds fine, Debbie. Thank you.”
“You can really get me a ride up to the space station, Kai?”
“Clear it with your boss, get me an e-mail from your doctor saying you’re in good health, promise your family won’t sue me or the U.S. government if you burn up on reentry, and we’ll set it up.”
“I can’t believe it!”
“Believe it. Space travel is not just for jocks anymore. We’d love to have you.”
“I can’t wait! Thank you! Thank you!” And with squeals of joy still audible, she hung up.
Seeker looked at her boss with extreme skepticism. “You’re giving joyrides and tours of the station now, sir?” she asked.
“To tell the truth, Seeker, I offer folks rides up here all the time,” Kai admitted. “But I always hit them with the ‘burn up on reentry’ line. I figure if they’re still excited after hearing that, they’re ready to fly in space, but I haven’t had any takers yet. Miss Carlson might be the first.”
“Are we going to charge admission?”
“No,” Kai responded with a laugh, “but if you make up T-shirts and coffee mugs, I give you permission to sell them. How’s that?” Kai’s console beeped an urgent message alert, and he called it up immediately, read it-and flushed in surprise. “Seeker, you are not going to believe this,” he muttered, with a curse added in for good measure. “Get the sensors set up right away-this should be one hell of a show.”
FOUR
Many of our fears are tissue-paper-thin, and a single courageous step would carry us clear through them.
– BRENDAN FRANCIS BEHAN
IN THE SOUTH CHINA SEA, SOUTH OF HAINAN ISLAND, PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA
THE NEXT DAY
The U.S. Navy had only one vessel within twenty miles of the hastily announced launch point, the USS Milius, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer-and it had to run at flank speed to get as close as possible to the launch vicinity-but it had a ringside seat for a spectacular show from the Chinese navy.
Four warships, including China ’s aircraft carrier Zhenyuan, and an intelligence-gathering vessel, a Dalang-class submarine tender that had also been modified for electronic eavesdropping duties, were on hand, surrounding a three-mile-diameter circle of open ocean. A tall buoy marked the center of the protected area. Three Z-8 Jingdezhen heavy patrol helicopters from Hainan Island circled a ten-mile radius of the area, using their French-made ORB-32 Heracles-II radars to search for unauthorized ships or submarine periscopes peeking over the surface.
At the announced time, two of the ships in the cordon blew horns and whistles, which continued for about thirty seconds…until a geyser of water erupted from a spot about a quarter mile from the buoy in the protected zone, and moments later a missile burst through the column of water and ignited its first-stage solid rocket booster. The missile was a Julang-1S sea-launched ballistic missile, the first-generation sea-launched missile modeled from the Dong Feng-21 land-based mobile ballistic missile. It had just been launched from a Xia-class ballistic-missile submarine submerged at a depth of 150 feet and traveling at three nautical miles per hour. A slug of compressed gas pushed the missile out of its launch tube and surrounded the missile in a protective cocoon as it shot toward the surface. The force of the gas pushed the missile about thirty feet out of the water, when the missile’s first stage fired.
But this was not a land-attack ballistic-missile experiment. The JL-1 did not adopt a ballistic flight path, but instead continued almost straight up, punching through the atmosphere at several thousand miles per hour. Five minutes after blasting through the surface of the South China Sea, the JL-1 flew into the path of a Chinese Fengyun FY-1D weather satellite, orbiting 320 miles above Earth, and destroyed it with a high-explosive cloud of shrapnel.
OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, THE PENTAGON, WASHINGTON, D.C.
A SHORT TIME LATER
“They scored a bull’s-eye, sir,” Kai Raydon said on the secure video teleconference link, “and put us square in their crosshairs at the same time.”
“Let’s not be so dramatic here, General Raydon,” Secretary of Defense Miller Turner said. With him in his office was the secretary of the Air Force, Sal Banderas; Ann Page, undersecretary of the Air Force for space; and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Taylor Bain. Also in on the teleconference was Admiral Sherman Huddy, commander of U.S. Strategic Command, from his temporary command center at Battle Mountain Air Force Base in Nevada; and General Robert Wiehl, commander of U.S. Space Command, from his headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado, along with several analysts and advisers from around the world. “Every Chinese missile test isn’t a direct threat to us.”
“Sir, it was an antisatellite missile launched from a submerged submarine,” Ann Page said. “The DF-21s were a big enough threat, but at least we could see where they were placed and target them, even the mobile units. The sub-launched ones can be anywhere. The land-based missiles have a range of about fifteen to nineteen hundred miles, but in antisatellite mode the sub can be positioned within a thousand miles of a satellite’s path and be able to hit it in almost any orbital inclination. It’s a radical new capability that poses a direct threat not only to Armstrong, but to all American space assets.”
“All right, Secretary Page, you made your poin
t,” Turner said, holding up a hand. “But let’s get some perspective here, shall we? First of all: Do we know it was a direct hit?”
“As far as we can measure, sir,” General Wiehl replied. “It’s possible they could have faked the hit. But the satellite they destroyed was a weather satellite that we’ve been tracking for many years.”
“We have some pretty clear electro-optical pictures of the engagement-it looks like a direct hit to us, sir,” Kai chimed in.
“Let’s say it was a direct hit,” Turner said. “In that case: good show. But let’s put this in some perspective, shall we? We were similarly surprised when the Chinese shot down their other weather satellite back in 2007, but this is the first ASAT test since then, am I correct?”
“Yes, sir,” Wiehl replied.
“So two successful ASAT tests in five years? Not exactly a grave threat to national security, I’d say. Next: The Chinese have how many subs capable of launching a JL-1 missile?”
“Eight, sir,” Admiral Huddy replied after checking his notes, “with two more nuclear-powered boomers in the works. But there are only four Xia-class subs active now-the other four Jin-class subs are designed to carry the larger JL-2 missiles for intercontinental ballistic-missile duties.”
“So you’re saying just four subs capable of launching ASATs?” Turner asked. “How many missiles per sub?”
“Twelve, sir.”
“And normally only two subs are at sea at a time? That’s true for us, right, so it must be true for the Chinese?”
