The Premier maintained the appearance of calm confidence. He knew the full details, knew what the Marshal withheld, so be it. He would be the sacrificial lamb should it come to that.
“And the American aircraft carriers, what of them?”
“As you know, the Americans and the British destroyed the Russian satellite and the ground station. The carriers in port had left before then anyway.” He referred to his notes.
“Xianfeng-7 and Jianbing-3, two of our surveillance satellites, are currently tasked solely with tracking the American carriers but at present they are being repositioned… ”
“Why?” interrupted the Premier.
“We were not aware that the Americans still possessed anti-satellite missiles, their project was cancelled years ago as unnecessary in the face of their star wars projects, when they too were cancelled the ASAT project was never reactivated. Our satellites were at risk in their present orbits and so they were changed,” explained the Marshal.
The Premier nodded and a wave of his fingers signalled Lo Chang to continue.
“We already know the position of the USS John F Kennedy to within two hundred miles and an operation is already underway to sink her using air launched C.802 cruise missiles, the Tu-160 will carry two each, with a 2 kiloton warhead in place of their conventional warheads. You may recall that we bought two Exocet missiles from the French and copied them; we now export our version at considerably less that the French ask for their missile. The C.802 is proven technology.”
“Where is this American ship, how will it be attacked, details please Marshal because you begin to sound like a door to door salesman.” The questions came from the GRI minister; the General Research Institute is the name of the PRCs intelligence service. Unlike Britain, Russia and the CIA, China believes that a secret service should be precisely that. It is a very shadowy yet active organisation. The minister was looking at the Marshal in a way that telegraphed the fact, that he too knew of the glossed over facts in the briefing so far.
Marshal Lo Chang smiled as if the statement at the end of the request was a light-hearted joke, the glitter in his eyes said otherwise though.
“The John F Kennedy is heading north to join up with the puny carrier Britain’s Royal Navy seeks to threaten our carrier combat group with. The Mao pilots will receive their blooding in sending the British to the bottom whilst two regiments of the Tu-22ME bombers we purchased from the Ukrainian’s and six of our Tu-160 bombers will sink the Americans in a combined operation with the submarine forces.”
“How is this operation guaranteed to succeed, Marshal?”
“The Tu-160 is a supersonic bomber, as are our Tu-22ME bombers; however the Tu-160 is a stealthed aircraft, similar to the American B1-B. The Russians have two submarines, one of which is trailing the John F Kennedy. The Tu-22ME bombers will attack in force from the northwest and the Russian Oscar submarine will launch from the north. When the Americans are engaged the Tu-160 bombers will approach undetected from the southeast, from the open ocean.” replied the soldier.
“The Tu-160 is not similar to the B1-B Lancer, it is a direct copy, as are most Russian weapon systems, they are a knee-jerk reaction to innovation that they must counter… and rarely work as well.” GRI was dismissive.
The Marshal thought that GRI must have been talking with his tongue deep in his own cheek, as China’s technological level would be fifteen years behind the rest of the world, but for stolen ideas and inventions. GRI was responsible for most of the military application thefts.
The Premier had been listening and watching the exchange with interest, wondering why GRI was baiting the military, could it be jealousy at the military’s large role in comparison to the intelligence service? The Premier used rivalries amongst politburo members and organisations to keep his position strong, playing off one against the other.
Foreign Affairs took the floor after the military brief. They had approached the Pacific Rim nations and offered a return of the Tiger Economies once the USA was removed from the world picture. It was not expected to gain allegiances, especially not from Vietnam or the Philippines, they would already suspect that China would claim the Pacific oil resources for herself, backed up with military muscle. It was meant to muddy the water and keep them wrong footed, suspicious of their neighbours as they wondered who would form secret allegiance with the PRC.
The deck alert, ready five F-14D Tomcat in which Lt Nikki ‘Mermaid’ Pelham and Lt ‘Chubby’ Checkernovski and her RIO, radar intercept officer, were playing chess as the John F Kennedy forged ahead. The carrier had done a hard right turn just after last light, as the combat groups ASW warfare assets prosecuted a possible diesel submarine that had dogged them for the previous twelve hours’. Both officers rested small travelling chess sets on their legs as they combated the boredom.
Nikki needed the distraction more than her RIO; the situation in Washington DC was too confused for any solid news. Her parents, younger brother and sister had been in the city, taking in the sights and visiting ‘The Wall’ in Constitution Gardens, where more than a few of her Fathers friends and comrades names were carved. The crisis in the lead up to the war had not deterred her parents, they did not run scared like lesser mortals had after 09/11 and weren’t going to allow anything effect their day to day lives. The seven-day trip had been planned last Christmas and they had arrived in the capitol three days before. The hotel they were staying at was on Pennsylvania Avenue.
High above the fleet an E-2C Hawkeye kept an eye beyond the horizon whilst an E-3 Sentry out of Japan was providing early warning of air attack for the country and also had the John F Kennedy group in sight. Neither early warning system could see the air groups of the Kuznetsov and Mao awaiting word to launch or the Il-76 tankers arriving on station from the Russian mainland and PRC.
What they could see though were the A-50s with heavy escorts probing for the USN and RN combat groups, lost by the satellites and submarines.
Aboard HMS Hood the captain was trying to set up an attack on the enemy carriers, but he had a problem. His sonar department had on three occasions detected a fleeting submerged contact. It could be the submarine that sank the USS Cheyenne but then again it was as likely to be any of the anomalous contacts that are caused by sea life and echoes from afar. He didn’t like the impulse he felt to look over his shoulder constantly and had decided to go looking for it.
HMS Prince of Wales had turned southeast, the plan now being to join with the John F Kennedy group. The Russian submarines had missed her but stumbled upon the John F Kennedy instead. The St Petersburg class diesel boat Irkutsk was watching and reporting when discovered by the American ASW assets. In the distance the Oscar class missile boat Admiral Dumlev was listening to the hunt but unable to intervene in throwing off the hunters.
Oblivious to all the military activity in the area was an elderly English couple, they had not abandoned plans to reach Alaska but they would not be stopping off at Russian ports along the way.
With the removal of the vast majority of ICBM sites in accord with SALT, the missile silos had been imploded with explosives and the pumping station deprived of power, allowing water to flood the underground facilities. However, large hardened subterranean facilities still remained, although with different functions to their original design.