High Flight

by David Hagberg

  They couldn’t have been more than forty or fifty feet from the monster. For several agonizing moments Liskey was sure they would be sucked in by the bow wave. But Fair Winds clawed herself away, the gray wall slipping farther and farther aft.

  “What was it?” Carol screamed over the shriek of the wind.

  Liskey had caught a glimpse of the bow numbers, 988. He didn’t know the name of the ship, but he knew it was Seventh Fleet out of Yokosuka.

  “I think it’s a destroyer. One of ours.”

  “What’s it doing here?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s in trouble.”

  The Fair Winds caught the wind and charged east in the direction of the islands. Liskey let the boat have her own way for a full minute to give his heart a chance to slow down. He glanced up at the port shrouds where the radar reflector was still in place. The destroyer had seen them. There was no doubt about it. So they were in trouble and could not maneuver for some reason. The near collision was just bad luck. What kind of trouble?

  “We’ve got to get the sails down,” he shouted. “I want to lie ahull until dawn so we can see what’s going on. Soon as we’re set I’m going to try to raise them on the radio, see what’s happening.”

  “Are you crazy?” Carol screamed. “It’s a warship. Their lifeboats are bigger than us. I say we have our own problems. Let’s go.”

  “Are you going to help me, or not?”

  She opened her mouth to say something, but changed her mind. She nodded. “I’ll take the tiller. As soon as we’re settled down we can bring the handheld up here and try to raise them on sixteen.”

  “Whatever it was ate our starboard prop and partially jammed the rudder,” the chief engineer reported. “No way of bringing that turbine back on line. It’d pull the shaft right out of the ship. I can answer the helm from down here, but it’ll be slow. And I do mean slow.”

  Hanrahan and the others were braced against anything they could grab. The Thorn was nearly broadside to the wind and seas, rolling past twenty-five degrees each time a crest hit.

  “Lee, we need to come eighty degrees left as soon as you can manage it. Otherwise we stand a good chance of capsizing.”

  “I’m on it,” Lieutenant Commander Leland Rapp replied, and he hung up.

  “It was the sub,” Ryder said.

  “Goddamned right it was, Red,” Hanrahan agreed. He keyed the phone. “CIC, bridge.”

  “CIC, aye.”

  “What’s our friend doing, Don?”

  “He’s making a hell of a racket, blowing lots of bubbles. I’d say we clipped his antennas and masts, periscopes too. Might even have taken a bit out of his sail. He’s probably blind, or nearly so.”

  “Got him with our starboard prop and rudder.”

  “Then he’s in big trouble.”

  “Set up a firing solution.”

  “He got our towed arrays, Mike. Both of them.”

  “Use the fifty-three on the bow, goddammit.”

  “Seventh says hold on.”

  “That’s an order, Lieutenant. Find that submarine and give me a firing solution.”

  “Aye, Skipper.”

  “Message the Barbey and Cook,” Hanrahan told his XO. “Tell them we’re going sub hunting.”

  “What about the sailboat? Could be Japanese out here to set us up.”

  “A trap?”

  “Wasn’t for them we might not have hit the sub.”

  “I see what you mean, X,” Hanrahan said, grim lipped. “First things first. We’ll deal with the sailboat later.”

  “We can send up the comms buoy and ask for help, Kancho,” Minori suggested. They were taking on water, but the pumps were keeping ahead of it. Lights and power had been restored to the boat, and although their ability to maneuver had not been affected by the collision, they were blind except for sonar. Their observation and attack periscopes had been jammed in their wells, and the ELINT and communications arrays on top of the sail had been damaged or sheared off.

  “In any event we’ll have to surface within ten or twelve hours to recharge our batteries,” Chief Engineer Lieutenant Kiichi Owada warned.

  Even the Samisho’s advanced battery and electric motor designs had their limits. When their available electrical power dropped to a certain level, limiting relays automatically tripped, cutting nonessential systems one by one. Eventually only the life-support systems would have power, at which time they would cease being a warship.

  Kiyoda keyed the phone. “Sonar, conn. What is Sierra-Zero-Nine doing?”

  “It’s hard to say, Kan-cho. But I think she has lost one of her props and maybe damaged her rudder. She is turning very slowly to port.”

  “What about Sierra-Zero-Four and Zero-Five?”

  “Definitely incoming, but judging by the surface noises I’d say it’s getting worse up there.”

  “Do you still have the fourth target?”

  “It fades in and out. Could be some kind of a decoy buoy. A trap.”

  Kiyoda turned back to his chief engineer. “Owadasan, at full maneuvering power, using all of our sonar and weapons launch capabilities, how long before we must surface?”

  “A few hours, Kan-cho, maybe four.”

  “Give me four.”

  “Hai, Kan-cho.”

  “What do you mean to do?” Minori asked.

  Kiyoda looked at him. “Kill all four of those targets. What did you think, Ikuo?”

  Twenty-five miles southeast of Minneapolis International Airport, Northwest Flight 1020, with two hundred seventeen passengers and crew, came within range of the repeater. The port Rolls-Royce engine erupted in a burst of flames and metal parts, shearing off much of the wing and tearing a hole four feet tall and twenty-three feet long out of the side of the fuselage. First officer Rick Pearson’s mayday was the fourteenth broadcast in less than ten minutes. The FAA system had not reacted fast enough to save them.

  THIRTY-NINE

  Federal Aviation Administration Chief Administrator Jay Hansen arrived downtown fifteen minutes after the first crash. Although it was Sunday, and the system was in crisis, he was dressed in a three-piece blue pinstriped suit, his tie correctly knotted. He was a man driven to precision, and he ran his agency the same way he conducted his life: by the book.

  “Number fourteen went down a couple of minutes ago,” Byron Swanson reported, meeting him at the elevator. “Northwest 1020 inbound to Minneapolis.”

  “Any word on the Vice President?” Hansen asked, crossing the corridor to his office.

  “Hurt but alive. We’ve narrowed the problem to nine airports, including Andrews. We’re running checks on the entire system. So far there’ve been no accidents at any other airport. But we’re talking all Guerin equipment. Port engine failures. Just like at Dulles two weeks ago, and the O‘Hare incident in ’90.”

  “Sabotage?”

  “Anything is possible. Guerin is asking the Bureau and the CIA for help, whatever that means. But we’ve got to shut down the system right now.”

  “I agree,” Hansen said. “Close those eight civilian airports and advise Andrews. Divert any incomings to the nearest availables. Is Russ Neil here yet?”

  “On his way. In the meantime Archie Darden is holding on line one for you.”

  “He’s aboard America, isn’t he?”

  “Right,” Swanson said. He used the phone in the outer office to relay the closure order to the air traffic control system, as Hansen went inside and picked up his phone.

  “Archie, this is Jay Hansen. Where are you?”

  “About eighty miles inbound to Portland. We think we’ve got the problem pinpointed.”

  “I’m closing Portland and seven others. Looks like something’s wrong with the 522 fleet. I’m going to ground them all.”

  “Good. We’ll divert to Gales Creek. The problem is in a heat-sensing subsystem supplied by a subcontractor in San Francisco.”

  “Does it affect you?”

  “George Socrates thinks so. Call the Pr
esident. Tell him what we’re facing.”

  “That’s exactly what I’ll do, as soon as I find out. But we’re not going off half-cocked.”

  The Ministry of International Trade and Industry is by far the most powerful governmental agency in Japan. Its operations are directed by an elite group of men drawn from industry and finance. The nation’s industrial policies are created and conducted by the ministry, as are business practices through the Keidanren—a sort of super chamber of commerce. Japan’s foreign investments, and therefore her foreign policies, are managed by MITI. And more importantly, all defense requests must be approved by the ministry, which in effect means that MITI controls Japan’s military budget. MITI got its start before the war as the Ministry of Munitions, so its control of the Self Defense Forces is fitting.

  In 1953 a law was passed giving MITI the power to control the development and manufacture of all aircraft and weapons, including any civilian technology that might be of use. In the past few years, for example, the ministry funded a number of ongoing projects: superconductors, artificial computer intelligence, advanced optical fiber systems, fuel cell power generators, laser and ion beam processing systems, satellites and launching facilities, high-tech aerospace materials, and since 1990, the development of hypersonic aircraft engines.

  In order to do all of that effectively MITI has the full cooperation of every segment of Japan’s government and industry. Information flows into the ministry twenty-four hours per day from all over the world. From captains of international conglomerates to lowly cipher clerks, MITI gathers data, some of it electronic (such as that collected by the National Security Agency’s Fort Meade headquarters) but most of it HUMINT—human intelligence.

  Hideyoshi Nobunaga, MITI director, rode in a Kawasaki AH-7C turbojet helicopter into the city from his palatial home near Chiba on Tokyo Bay’s eastern shore. Before he’d taken over the ministry he’d been CEO of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and he knew how to handle a crisis. He’d been having premonitions for the past two weeks, so he’d not been surprised when he’d been awakened. He would have to advise Prime Minister Enchi when he had all the facts. But talking with Sokichi Kamiya over encrypted telephone, he wasn’t so sure how long that might take.

  “I have no reason to lie to you, Nobunaga-san,” Kamiya said from a secret location near Kobe. “This is not Morning Star.”

  “Is it some hothead?”

  “Arimoto Yamagata assures me not. Somehow the preparations we so carefully made were discovered and put to use. It’s possible we will be able to lift something from the ashes. But for now we should not overreact. The American forces here and on Okinawa have been moved to Defense Condition Three. Our own forces are at the second level.”

  “There are other developing situations that you might not be aware of,” Nobunaga cautioned. “We may be facing a threat from the north.”

  “The Russians?”

  “Yes. It’s possible they’ll be moving soon. It would confuse an already dangerous situation.”

  “What are you saying to me?”

  “Proceed with extreme caution,” Nobunaga warned. “The man seen rooting about in the ashes might not be understood.”

  Kamiya laughed. “You don’t wear the Western stereotype of the traditional Japanese very well. We can make the situation ours if you will help.”

  Nobunaga smiled to himself in the darkness as he looked out at the vast spread of Tokyo. “I will not stand in your way now, Kamiya-san. But neither will I stand behind you.”

  Kiyoda wanted to pull young Nakayama out of his seat in front of the primary sonar console and do the work himself. But his chief sonar operator was the best in the entire MSDF, and he certainly knew the equipment better than his captain did. But it was hard to wait. A billion pinpricks of light flashed in Kiyoda’s head. Stars. There was a god, and it was the universe.

  “Sierra-Zero-Nine has definitely turned, Kan-cho. But it was slow. I’m seeing turns on only one screw. I definitely have rudder damage.”

  “What about the other two warships?”

  “Incoming. They’re making a lot of noise. The conditions are very bad up there.” Nakayama used a grease pencil to mark the positions of the three ships on the sonar screen.

  “What about the decoy?”

  “It may be a small boat after all. Non-metallic hull—wood or maybe fiberglass. No machinery noises.”

  “A threat?”

  “Unknown, Kan-cho.”

  Kiyoda took the grease pencil and plotted the courses and speeds of the three warships, as well as the position of the fourth target. He drew a small circle where they converged. “We will wait here,” he said.

  “I spoke with Nobunaga a few minutes ago,” Kamiya told the director general of defense via encrypted telephone.

  “Enchi has called an emergency meeting of his cabinet,” Hironaka said. “The moment Nobunaga arrives we will begin, so I have very little time. Did he accuse you of instituting Morning Star?”

  “Yes. But I assured him that what is happening is not of our doing.”

  “But it is of your devising.”

  “Someone else stumbled onto the devices. We’re still trying to find out how they were triggered. But Nobunaga said the Russians may be getting ready to retaliate. Perhaps now is the time to go ahead after all.”

  “We will take care of the Russians, Kamiya-san. In the meantime, are you absolutely certain that there have been no leaks or defections from your organization?”

  “There’ve been none.”

  “Could this be an accident?”

  Kamiya hesitated. “My engineers tell me that it’s theoretically possible, but unlikely. MITI will not help us, but Nobunaga assures me that he will no longer oppose us.”

  “Don’t be a fool. He never blocked you. Young Arimoto Yamagata should be proof enough. In 1990 he looked aside, and he will now if he is given half a chance. What do I tell the Cabinet?”

  “That will depend entirely on how you read their mood, Hironaka-san. If they are for us in sufficient numbers, then Morning Star should be ordered. If not, we will simply wait until the opportunity arises again.”

  Hironaka started to speak, but Kamiya held him off. “If we need to deny knowledge of what is happening we will do so … convincingly. But everything we have worked toward is coming together. The air disasters, the Russians, our young friend, Lieutenant Commander Kiyoda. Even the Prime Minister’s proposed trade agreement—which no one can possibly believe is valid—has helped set the stage.”

  “The Americans may believe we are behind the crashes no matter how strongly we deny it.”

  “But they will not go to war over it, Hironaka-san. We are their major trading partners. We are their allies. Their friends. Shots will be fired, perhaps. And the blame for the air disasters will fall on young hotheads. But the United States government will step back from the brink. When they do, the western rim will be ours.”

  The Minegumo-class destroyer DD118 Murakumo’s six Mitsubishi diesels had been fired up, her crew called to general quarters, and one by one the other ships of Flotillas One and Four reported they were up and ready for action.

  Communications patched a secure call to the bridge for the captain. It was Vice Admiral Ikuru Shimikaze, CINC Maritime Self Defense Forces. “Good morning, Commander Shirokita. Is your command ready for sea?”

  “Hai, Vice Admiral. Am I to be told what has happened? Is it the Russians?”

  “In part, yes. We are expecting a strike somewhere in the north very soon. But there is more, Shirokita-san. We know that you will comport yourself well.”

  “Against whom?”

  “Any and all enemies of Japan, whoever they may be, and wherever they may strike.”

  Shirokita had known the Admiral for twenty years, ever since the Maritime Self Defense Force Academy. Not once had he ever heard the Admiral cover himself like he was doing now. It was deeply disturbing and ominous.

  “Your orders are to lead Escort Flotilla One, inclu
ding the 41st, 43rd and 61st Destroyer Divisions, to the mouth of Tokyo Bay, where you will protect the city.”

  “Again I must ask you, Admiral, defend the city against whom?”

  “Any forces who might attack.”

  “Will I have those orders in writing, Admiral?”

  “Do you wish that?” Admiral Shimikaze asked coldly.

  “Under the circumstances, I do.”

  Crash trucks and ambulances were still arriving on site when the call from Washington on the FAA hot line came through. Oakland’s on-duty chief tower operator Vance Weiser studied the activity across the field through binoculars, and it was clear to him that there would be no survivors. The jetliner’s port wing had come off in midair three miles north of the airport. He’d watched it disintegrate, pieces flying everywhere as the big plane went straight down. The only thing they could be grateful for was that it happened when it did. Another thirty seconds and the aircraft would have been over the heavily populated town of Alameda, and a lot more people would have lost their lives. First Bill White had been murdered in Chicago, and now this. Weiser was beginning to wonder if there was some sort of conspiracy against them.

  “This is Byron Swanson. Who am I speaking to?”

  “Vance Weiser, senior tower operator on duty. Sir, we’re on top of rescue operations, but it doesn’t look good. We’ve temporarily closed Three-Left until we make sure there’s no debris on the runway.”

  “We’re shutting Oakland down until further notice. Nothing in or out.”

  “I understand your concern, but ATC is holding eight inbounds at Santa Rosa intersection. And we expect the NTSB to be here within a couple of hours.”

  “I’ve already spoken with the chief controller. Your inbounds are being rerouted. If you have any aircraft on taxiways or at gates with engines running, they are to be shut down immediately. Right where they are, do you understand?”