Any disdain for the plan once evident in his admiral’s face had vanished. The Minister appeared to have piqued his curiosity.
“For what purpose?” the admiral asked.
“The Tai Chiang will serve as a delivery vessel for nuclear weapons,” the Minister said.
All eyes at the table opened wide.
“You will all dedicate your assets,” the Minister said, “to ensure that the stealth vessel Tai Chiang passes through the Chinese blockade unnoticed so that it can retrieve and return with the warheads. The operation could last up to two months, and until the Tai Chiang succeeds, we never speak of this outside this room.”
The admiral struggled to voice a whisper.
“How can this be, sir?” he asked.
“Read the Frenchman’s operational plan, and you will understand everything you need to know.”
Through his facemask, Taiwanese Sergeant Yangi Zhao watched sunlight fade into the depths of the Western Pacific Ocean. Zhao both lamented and savored that he would soon give life to the abyss.
By feeling opposing emotions, the Taiwanese commando achieved the neutrality he would need to carry out Renard’s plan, Operation Northern Star.
The shaking of the cargo ship Northern Star rumbled through Zhao’s head as its propellers churned backwards. The ship halted. Zhao unhooked the steel cable that connected him to the ship’s ladder rungs below the water’s surface. He bit his rebreather mouthpiece, drew recycled air, and waited.
Ten minutes earlier, the Northern Star’s radar had picked up a vessel approaching at thirty-four knots. Reacting to the anticipated warship, Sergeant Zhao and his partner, Corporal Wu, had slipped into the water as the Northern Star slowed.
Renard’s trap was set.
Per Renard’s plan, a bogus Taiwanese message had been broadcast stating that the Northern Star carried American Harpoon Block IIB anti-ship/land attack missiles to Taiwan. The message was broadcast with encryption codes compromised by the traitor who had foiled Renard’s theft.
Rung by rung, Zhao pushed himself to join Corporal Wu in the concealing depths. He tugged at an eyehook between Wu’s shoulders to ensure that it held a mesh knapsack carrying military plastic C-4 explosive.
He heard the smooth swish of machined propeller screws as a moving wall eclipsed waterborne sunbeams. He calculated that the warship’s length spanned one hundred and thirty meters.
A Luda class destroyer, he thought. Its crew will board us and search for Harpoon Missiles but will depart empty-handed — except for my explosives.
He reviewed his mental schematic of the Luda class and plotted where he would strap charges to the warship’s propeller bearings.
Zhao’s charges would not sink the compartmentalized warship. But placed on its propeller bearings, they would cripple the destroyer for someone else to finish the job.
Over the Northern Star’s horizon, electromagnetic waves from an ocean full of radar systems tickled the Taiwanese patrol ship, Tai Chiang.
The Tai Chiang’s skin, a thin layer of radar-absorbent synthetic rubber stretched over Kevlar-plated armor, diffused the radar energy. With a low profile and few sharp edges, the Tai Chiang became invisible to radar.
The Tai Chiang resembled an F-117 stealth jet cockpit rising from a tapered spearhead. Zigzag tiger stripes of varying grays camouflaged the ship, and shaded bridge windows made it a menacing image.
Lieutenant Commander Lin Jin-Zhu, the son of a Taipei banker, commanded the Tai Chiang. He walked with a swagger. Ten years of proving his tactical skills had earned him command of Taiwan’s most capable vessel.
Four men joined Lin in comprising the Tai Chiang’s bridge battle complement. On either bridge wing, a lookout scanned the ocean through binoculars. Two junior officers sat at battle control stations behind him.
For our first time in combat, I will control all systems, he thought. I do not need the errors of inexperienced men undermining my actions.
Lin strapped himself into his chair. Donning a headset, he studied the monitors of the ship’s primary battle control station. He touched a pad and brought up the ship’s sensor, propulsion, and weapons displays.
He studied the propulsion sound-level display. Two gas turbines, shock-mounted and quieted by active sound nullifiers, emanated imperceptible noise. Any listening vessel would fail to hear the Tai-Chiang.
Other displays revealed the Tai-Chiang’s thermal stealth. Hot gases from the turbines mixed with water escaped from the ship’s rear. The remaining exhaust heat preheated the incoming air that fed the turbines. Thus, the Tai Chiang was dark to infrared, inaudible, and invisible.
A window on Lin’s sensor screen annotated that the signal strength of the Eye Shield radar from the Chinese Luda class destroyer, Hefei, posed no threat.
He watched the bearing — the geographic direction as measured from the Tai Chiang—to the Hefei’s Eye Shield radar separate from the Northern Star’s commercial Okean radar. The Hefei was running away.
Lin examined the weapons he would wield against the Hefei. All systems were ready except the Hsiung Feng III anti-ship missiles.
He had been disappointed to learn that the missile’s prototypes had flown into the ground during testing, but Renard’s plan didn’t need them. It required only the Tai Chiang’s stealth, Sergeant Zhao’s explosives, and specialized torpedoes.
Lin had agreed to let engineers alter the ship’s torpedoes to run at twenty-eight knots, slowing them but maximizing their ranges to eleven miles so that the Tai Chiang could strike from a distance.
He depressed a button on his battle control station keypad and spoke through the headset to his executive officer, Lieutenant Yang Kai-huang, in the ship’s auxiliary bridge below. Lin had no respect for Yang, the son of a machinist who had used the Navy to climb above his class.
“Yang, this is real combat. If you second-guess me, I will cast you over the side myself.”
Lin tapped a button that shifted his voice to the entire crew.
“I estimate that the target has made forty knots since leaving the Northern Star. We will head north to parallel its course. I will control propulsion, weapons, and sensors from my battle control station. It is time to hunt our prey.”
Lin accelerated the Tai Chiang to fifty-one knots. A display at his battle control station revealed that dual magnetic drive units ionized incoming seawater, polarized it, and spewed it outward to thrust the Tai Chiang on a parallel course with the Hefei.
Lin listened as the Tai Chiang intercepted radio traffic from the Hefei. A tense sailor gave a damage report to Chinese East Fleet headquarters.
“…series of explosions… under attack… possible sabotage… propulsion shafts vibrating out of control… loss of propulsion… dead in the water…”
Dead in the water, Lin thought. Sergeant Zhao placed his charges well.