“That’s not the plane you need to worry about,” Burke said. “The J-20 is, I suspect, used for misdirection, to make us think the Chinese are less advanced than they really are. The PLA has a stealth fighter that can most definitely fight.”
“And what’s your evidence that this thing is functional?” Pollard said.
“First, and most to the point, our asset told us point-blank that the J-20 is considered a disappointment by the PLA and was removed from the Assassin’s Mace project years ago,” Jonathan replied. “Then there’s the bombing of the Kinmen power station. Everyone assumed that a Chinese fifth-column unit or sapper team took it out on the ground because the radar track didn’t show anything inbound before the explosion. But the radar track wasn’t entirely clean. There was a radar hit on a lower frequency above the target for a few seconds before the explosion. Stealth planes are detectable on low-band frequencies, but most modern radar systems don’t use them because they pick up birds, clouds, and everything else.”
“Yeah. The clutter gets bad on the scope, and the software doesn’t always do a great job cleaning it up,” Nagin agreed. He looked at his superior officer. “Would’ve taken a lot of explosives to dig that hole, but I can believe that the PLA had that much stored up on Kinmen.”
“With plenty more on Penghu and Taiwan proper,” Pollard added, skeptical.
“In the absence of our other intelligence, I would agree. But imagery analysis suggests that the blast pattern was consistent with an air-dropped munition,” Jonathan said. “It certainly would have been far easier to deliver that quantity of explosives from the air, and it would have made a good first test of their current stealth technology. Then they took out the Ma Kong. She was a Kidd-class vessel, so she wasn’t top-of-the-line by our standards, but her radar systems were still better than most of what the Chinese have sailing around the Strait, and she was a key component of Taiwan’s air defense network. No sapper team did that, and I think it’s unlikely the PLA Navy really got a submarine that close to a secured naval base and then back out again without being detected.”
“Tough,” Pollard agreed. “But not impossible. So where did they build this thing?” He didn’t expect an answer.
Jonathan surprised him. He turned to Kyra and said nothing. It took her a second to realize he expected her to answer. It took another second to review the data in her head and extract the answer. “No idea,” she said. “But they’ve been test-flying it at Chengdu.”
“Very good,” Jonathan muttered.
“Chengdu?” Pollard asked.
“It’s the one air base not in the Nanjing Military Region where imagery showed significant activity once the fighting started,” Kyra said. “And it’s where the Chinese sent the F-117 wreckage that they bought from the Serbs.”
“Okay, you’re going to tell me that whole story later,” Nagin advised her. “You think the Chinese have their own Area Fifty-One.”
“Why not?” Kyra asked. “It worked for us.”
“And why do you think this is all a weapons test?” Pollard asked.
“It’s the dog that didn’t bark,” Jonathan replied.
“Excuse me?” Pollard asked, impatient.
Kyra grasped the reference immediately. “Admiral, did the PLA harass you during your approach to Taiwan?”
The admiral and his CAG exchanged short glances. “They certainly could have made life harder for us,” Nagin finally answered for the pair. “We’ve chased off a few PLA fighters. Four or five planes at the most each time.”
“No submarines tried to approach?” she asked. “No surface vessels?”
“No,” Pollard admitted. “At least none that our ASW screen has reported.”
“Any cyberattacks on TRANSCOM, NIPRNet, or any of the other critical military networks?” Kyra asked.
“Not that we’ve heard,” Nagin said.
“And that, gentlemen, flies in the face of everything we know about Chinese doctrine for mounting an invasion of Taiwan,” Jonathan concluded. “The plan is for the PLA to do everything it can to delay your entry into the Taiwan Strait while they’re making their move, and they aren’t following the plan. So there are two possibilities. Either they’re planning to invade Taiwan and what we know about the plan is wrong, or they aren’t planning on invading, in which case they don’t need to follow the plan. And I can’t believe the first one is right because no sensible OPLAN for invading Taiwan would ignore the presence of US carriers.”
“And that means you’re here because the Chinese want you here,” Kyra finished. “We were playing China’s game the minute the president ordered you into the Strait. It’s the logical end to the theory. Your Aegis air defense systems are more advanced than anything the Chinese have and we’ve had decades to figure out how to beat the Ufimtsev equations. They don’t have a test bed that can make sure their plane works against your systems, and they have to know that before they can attack Taiwan.”
Pollard took his time coming up with an answer. “That would be a risky way to test the platform,” Pollard said. “If it doesn’t work, they’ve blown their black program open.”
“If it does work, they change the entire balance of power along the Pacific Rim,” Jonathan countered. “Consider it. The PLA takes the first small steps toward invasion to draw in some carriers. They test the plane. If it takes out the carrier and the president pulls the rest of the fleet back, they go full bore against Taiwan. If it takes out the carrier and the president doesn’t pull back the fleet, they start taking out the fleet. And if it doesn’t take out the carrier, they pull back and still own Kinmen, knowing that no president in his right mind will start a full-on war to take it back for the Taiwanese. The possible rewards outweigh the risk no matter how it plays out.”
“Point taken,” Pollard admitted.
“It’s still just a theory,” Nagin observed. “You don’t have a smoking gun. You have a radar hit that could be a flock of birds and a pile of reports from a single source that possibly point at a stealth plane program, which could have produced that showpiece junker and not some mysterious second fighter.”
“When do we ever have a smoking gun in this business?” Kyra replied.
“Assuming I believe you, how do we defend against a stealth bomber?” Pollard asked, ignoring the question,
“I think you have to draw it out into the open. Give it a target worth chasing,” Jonathan said.
“You think I should take the battle group into the Strait,” Pollard said. It wasn’t a question.
“I think that if you don’t pick the time and place, Tian Kai will.”
Pollard lifted a coffee mug from the table sitting between himself and the CIA officers, took a long sip, and then set it down carefully in the exact spot from which he’d picked it up. “Mr. Burke, there are eighty-seven hundred sailors in this battle group,” the admiral said. “Fifty-six hundred on this ship alone. Another three thousand on seven ships and three subs, and so far, President Liang hasn’t showed me that he’s got the stones to defend his own people, much less help me defend mine. And if I order us into the Strait and the Chinese really do want to rumble for Penghu, the PLA won’t need a stealth fighter to kill a lot of my kids. So it shouldn’t surprise you that I’m not going to even think about giving that order unless you can give me something better than a theory and a bird on a radar track.”
“Give me a few hours—,” Jonathan started.
“Mr. Burke, you can have all week as far as I’m concerned,” Pollard replied. “I’ve got this battle group right where I want it and I’m not moving without a good reason.”