He looked up from the debriefing form and stared at the pilot and RIO across the table. To them, just coming off the hot flight deck, the temperature must seem refreshing. In a few minutes, when the sweat dried and their damp flight suits chilled, they’d change their minds. Lab Rat hoped he could keep them from dashing back to their staterooms for flight jackets or warmer clothes. Once they were out of CVIC, the details of their flight, along with their willingness to cooperate in the debrief, would evaporate just as quickly as the sweat.
He tried again. “It just blew up? That’s all? No I&W indications and warnings? What about those four contacts you were tracking?” he asked.
“Sir, you saw the same picture we did. We were up in the LINK the entire time, except when we got too low and lost the signal. According to the Aegis, those contacts were ghosts. Something strange about the atmospheric conditions, maybe. You know how it is out there. I wish I could give you a better answer, but I just don’t know whether there was one Flanker or four,” Tomboy replied wearily.
“What about when you were down on the deck and dropped out of the LINK? Anything then?” Lab Rat pressed.
“She said she didn’t see anything, Commander,” Batman said sharply.
Lab Rat leaned back in his chair and stared thoughtfully at the aviator captain. It was a good thing, he decided, that he’d taken on debriefing the flight crew himself. While mission debriefs were normally done by lieutenants or more junior officers, the rank and importance of this particular crew seemed to warrant his personal attention, even apart from the strange events that had occurred.
Captain Wayne, he reflected, was just as impressively intimidating as he’d been led to believe. At the same time, he was certain that Batman understood the reason for the repeated questions, the cross-examination that he and his RIO were undergoing. It wasn’t that anyone doubted their account, but lives were at stake. The simplest detail overlooked in the initial debrief that surfaced in more intensive sessions might save another aviator’s life. And the captain’s protective attitude toward his RIO was hindering that investigation.
“I understand what she said, Captain,” Lab Rat said politely, but firmly. “Sometimes new details surface when we go over something several times.”
“There are no details to surface! Look, we’ve spent the last six hours in these flight suits, and I for one could use food and coffee. I don’t know what the hell made that island explode, and neither does she,” Batman said, pointing at his RIO. “We can’t come up with explanations for everything. Now, if you need anything else, we’ll be forward in the dirty shirt mess, grabbing a couple of sliders.” Batman motioned to Tomboy, who followed him out of the CVIC.
And that’s the difference between your job and mine, Lab Rat thought. You didn’t see it, you don’t have to explain it. Intell officers, on the other hand, are expected to have an answer for everything that happens, and an accurate prediction of everything that will happen. Doesn’t matter whether or not there’s good data, bad data, or even no data at all. This admiral’s going to want some explanations, and he’s damned sure not going to be demanding that the pilots come up with them.
And I wonder just how much of your protectiveness toward your RIO is based on the fact that she’s a very attractive woman, he thought. I know pilot-RIO teams are tight, but this goes a little bit beyond that, I believe.
This cruise had been filled with too many firsts. First cruise requiring him to unravel the strange and his first cruise with a coed crew. After five months on board the Jefferson, he was finally getting accustomed to seeing women — lots of women! — in the passageways of the ship while it was underway.
From an intelligence standpoint, his previous cruises to the Mediterranean and North Atlantic had been a piece of cake. Europe and the Soviet Union were at least known quantities — strange, querulous, and liable to break into myriad warring factions on the slightest pretense, but at least semipredictable. Here in the Far East, Lab Rat was not only short on answers, he wasn’t entirely sure he understood the questions.
He glanced at the books packed into the narrow shelf over his desk and reached for one slim volume. He had to lift it straight up to clear the metal strut that ran the length of the shelf, parallel to the edge of the shelf and midspine to the books. Without the strut, or a set of bungee cords, the first heavy roll at sea would have dumped every book onto the deck.
He sat back down, leaned back, and put his feet up on a corner of his desk. He’d bought the book as soon as he’d heard he was going to a West Coast carrier, hoping for some insights into the areas he’d be deploying to.
So far, it hadn’t paid off. The small book was a translation of one of China’s most famous military strategists, Sun Tzu. His book, The Art of War, had been studied by centuries of military leaders, both in China and in the Western world.
Lab Rat leafed through the book, looking for inspiration and wondering idly if whoever was responsible for the attacks had a copy of the book over his desk, too. It gave him an eerie feeling, thinking about his adversary reading the same book at the same time.
A sentence caught his attention. Like so much of the book, it seemed to be either a trite adage or a profound statement. He read the sentence again slowly, wondering how it applied to his situation.
All warfare is deception, Sun Tzu had written. Well, that certainly applied to the current tactical scenario. To the nations rimming the South China Sea, it appeared that the United States was committing acts of war against their powerful northern neighbor. Unable to offer evidence to dispute China’s claims, the United States faced an increasingly hostile United Nations.
As Lab Rat saw it, there were two distinct problems. First, whatever munitions were responsible for the destruction — maybe the mythical stealth sea-skimming cruise missiles — were proving damned difficult to detect. Second, even if the United States could detect and track the missiles, how could they convince the other nations that the United States hadn’t fired the missiles themselves? After all, what other nation had both the stealth technology and the platforms to be able to conduct such attacks? Malaysia and Brunei? Not likely.
Vietnam? A definite possibility. But was it likely that Vietnam would openly challenge the massive giant to their north just when both countries were engaged in reopening diplomatic ties with the United States? Again, not likely. But not impossible.
Finally, China herself. Technologically, she had the means and ability to fire long-range stealth cruise missiles, either from land or from a submarine. Certainly the Kilo armed with SAMs had proved that China had made major advances in weapons technology, and had little hesitation about using it. And what about the F-10 program? Was it further along than anyone suspected, and so stealthy that it could trick a combat-tested RIO into believing it was a ghost contact?
And the most intriguing question of all still remained unanswered. If China were behind the incidents, why was she destroying her own bases? Maintaining a presence on the tiny rocks was the keystone to China’s continued claims of ownership.
While ownership of the Spratly Islands was a sore point among the South China Sea nations, would China go so far as to kill her own troops to try to frame another nation? And why the United States? The U.S. had no designs on ownership of the Spratly Islands, just a desire to make sure that there were still some constraints on China’s influence in the area.
Lab Rat slammed the book shut and tossed it up on the shelf. Geopolitical machinations were way out of his league. He hungered for some intell, just one or two hard data points to hang some sort of theory on for the admiral.