That device logged the receipt and sent an alert message via a short-range omnidirectional beacon to the CIA officer who had recently entered the country, posing as a Japanese national.
Tetsuo downloaded the message and fired it off through his own communications device a few hours later. This transmission was received by a very small and stealthy Air Force drone, one of several on a rotating schedule. These drones had been preprogrammed to fly over Beijing at exactly the same time each day. In order to protect itself from electronic attack, the drone wasn’t able to receive or transmit information in flight except for precisely timed windows, designed for operators to send their data.
So it wasn’t until it landed at Elmendorf Air Force Base ten hours later that Susan Collinsworth and David Manning learned that Lena Chou was headed to meet with a highly placed mole inside the US command center at Raven Rock.
26
Admiral Manning sat on a metal folding chair among hundreds of the ship’s crew in the anchor windlass space. The room was oddly shaped. The forward-most bulkhead was sharply angled because it was so close to the bow. Bright white daylight shone in from portholes spaced throughout the room. Giant white metal beams ran along the ceiling. The flooring was a blue-and-gray perforated mat. It reminded the admiral of a gym floor, except for the bare sections where thick white bollards sprouted up from the deck. On either side of the space were two colossal black anchor chains that ran down the length of the room and disappeared into separate holes in the floor. Each link of the fourteen-hundred-foot-long chain weighed over 130 pounds. It connected to a thirty-thousand-pound anchor.
On a ship at sea, most rooms had multiple uses, and this one was no exception. Sunday morning Catholic service was being held. The faces of the churchgoers were solemn. Most of the crew had just learned that Guam had fallen to the Chinese. The American forces there, including the surface action group, had been defeated, and the remaining forces on Guam were ordered to surrender. Tens of thousands of servicemembers would become prisoners of war. Chinese military aircraft were now flying in reinforcements to the island.
The misplaced exuberance that many of the Ford’s youthful warriors had displayed in previous days had given way to what Admiral Manning had learned from history books: victory was never guaranteed.
American military superiority, however much it had been ingrained in our minds as an unwavering fact and a great source of national pride, was no more assured than the dominance of the empires of old — all of which, at one time or another, had fallen.
The chaplain had just finished reading the gospel and was now giving his sermon. Admiral Manning tried to pay attention but found himself thinking of all the things he needed to do. His eyes wandered as he thought. He could see the sunlit blue ocean through one of the nearby portholes. The carrier was making way, and welcome breeze flowed over his face. Before he knew it, the gospel was over, and they were standing and praying and sitting and praying and shaking hands and then communion and then a few parting words from the priest.
“We pray for our brothers and sisters on Guam. That they continue to show bravery and grace in the face of…” The chaplain paused, and the admiral looked up. “Adversity. Amen.”
He had almost said defeat, Admiral Manning realized. Don’t use that language, Chaps. The chaplains were getting used to this new world of war. Church service attendance had quadrupled since combat operations had begun.
“Amen,” repeated a chorus of voices.
Soon the men and women in attendance were rising from their chairs. Their eclectic mix of uniforms denoted their job and community. The aviators wore flight suits. Those in blue coveralls were ship’s company. The Shooters wore yellow turtleneck shirts, the EOD detachment utilities. Everyone was rushing off after the service, heading off to breakfast or work.
On Sunday mornings, the ship tried to adhere to quiet hours. The galley cooks spruced up the cafeteria-style meals. The routine of cleaning and work was a little bit more relaxed, if only for a short while. Drumbeat meetings like the admiral’s daily brief were on a modified schedule.
Admiral Manning would take advantage of that. He headed to one of the few places on the ship where he could find solace. Nine stories up, on the admiral’s bridge, he’d had an elliptical machine installed. He felt old as dirt when he’d given up running. But time, tide, and formation wait for no man. Bad knees forced him to use this silly machine that made him feel like a cross-country skier. Still, he worked up quite a sweat. Whatever did the trick, he supposed.
He had the admiral’s bridge to himself, except for two Marines that had been assigned as his personal bodyguards. He adjusted the settings on the elliptical machine and started his workout. From his perch in the far-right corner of the bridge, he could see the flight deck below, and a wide view of at least a dozen ships in his strike group. Flight ops had not yet begun. It was a bright, sunny, peaceful morning.
“Good morning, sir.”
Goddammit.
“Good morning, Commodore.”
The commodore was the sea combat commander for the Ford Strike Group. The admiral bobbed up and down with the elliptical machine, a bead of sweat running down his face. The commodore had one of his staffers standing next to him, a tired-looking lieutenant wearing a green flight suit.
“Something I can help you with, Commodore?”
“Sir, frankly, we need more SSC flights.”
“We have two pages of SSC flights on the air plan. What’s the problem, Commodore?”
The commodore turned to his lieutenant. The kid needed a shave and looked like he didn’t want to be there. “Sir, I’m the commodore’s air operations officer. I manage the surface surveillance flight schedule. You’re right, we do have a lot of helicopters flying. Right now, we have twenty-five ships in company. At any given time, there are five helicopters flying.”
“That’s a hell of a lot of helicopters in the air. What’s your point?”
“The helicopters in the strike group are needed close in to the ships to prevent against possible submarine attack, sir. We also need to use them for the constant logistics flights our ships need to move people and parts around the strike group. Both of these requirements affect the armament and fuel capacity of the helos, and the steal-away capacity to conduct surveillance missions.”
“Alright… so let’s fly more helicopters.”
“It’s not that simple, sir. We’re near our limit as is, due to the number of helicopters and pilots available. But the real issue is range. We’re worried about finding two Chinese fleets. The Southern Fleet with the Jiaolong-class and Liaoning aircraft carrier, and the Northern Fleet with the two other Chinese carriers. If we use helicopters to locate them, it’ll be too late. As you know, our drones are susceptible to electronic attack, and I worry that we don’t have good enough control over those resources anyway. We need organic, long-range surveillance aircraft, sir. That will alleviate the stress on the helicopters in the strike group. It will allow them to handle the closer-in missions.”
“What are you asking for?”
“Sir, we need to ask for more maritime patrol aircraft and…” He hesitated. “Sir, we need our fighters to start flying medium- and long-range surveillance flights around the carrier. We need to extend our surveillance area greatly. This will give us enough lead time to detect the enemy fleets and react appropriately.”