“None noted. These guys are sneaky and smart,” said Danny. “I wouldn’t take anything for granted.”
“I don’t plan on it.”
Cowboy completed his pass over the island and banked west. The place looked as deserted as a government office at 4:05.
“I’m going to clear them in,” said Colonel Greenstreet.
“Acknowledged.”
Leveling his jet out of the turn, Cowboy double-checked the position of the approaching Ospreys, making sure he wasn’t going to interfere with their flight path. Then he nudged the stick to climb behind Basher One and gave his readouts a thorough going over. The F-35 was performing like a champion racehorse on a midday warm-up, barely breaking a sweat.
Cowboy’s stint out here and his association with the Whiplash people had sparked a conflict in his soul. He loved being a Marine. There was something truly awe-inspiring about the Corps’ history. For Cowboy, the link to the very first leathernecks — a name that had come from the collars worn by the recruits during the Revolution — was a tangible thing, something that didn’t simply inspire him, but linked him with a select fraternity of warriors. To be a Marine and a pilot made him a member of an even more elite fraternity.
Not that he had necessarily thought naval aviators or Air Force pilots were wimps, but… they weren’t Marines.
But Whiplash was something else again. It might be primarily Air Force, but it was clearly cutting edge. And at least to judge by Turk and Colonel Freah, the people associated with it were extreme warriors themselves.
Not Marines. But definitely warriors.
Did he have the stuff to join them?
Cowboy certainly felt he did. He knew he did. But he’d have to prove it.
The Ospreys came into the beach fast, settling down to let the men off. No matter how calm the situation might look, that was always a tense moment. So many things could go wrong, even without an enemy around.
“Basher flight, this is Shark,” said Turk, radioing them from the north. “I’m about to make my run over Whiplash objective. How are you looking?”
“We’re good,” said Greenstreet. “Everything is clean and quiet. Thanks for your help.”
“Roger that. Have fun out there.”
“Acknowledged.”
Greenstreet sounded ever so slightly annoyed, but as Cowboy had told Turk earlier, that was just his way. Greenstreet was an excellent pilot and a decent leader; he was certainly a good Marine.
Cowboy wouldn’t have minded working with someone else, though. Colonel Freah’s style — very confident and self-assured, yet easygoing at the same time — was a sharp contrast. It was clear that Freah had been in a lot of shit, far more than even the crustiest gunnery sergeants in the MEU. Maybe that was why he was so laid back; whatever happened, it probably didn’t compare to the worst of what he’d already seen.
Not that you’d want to cross him: there was a flash in his eyes every so often that let you know he was capable of real anger, and could back it up not only with connections all the way to the White House but physically as well. Then again, why would you want to cross him? He had the air about him that all great commanders had: Everything he said just seemed to make so much sense that you would be a complete idiot to go against his advice.
Cowboy listened as Colonel Greenstreet talked with the Osprey pilots, then checked in with the air combat controllers as the units established themselves on the beach. It was good, it was quiet, they were advancing to the objectives.
Everything was going great. The night was a picnic in the making.
“Basher flight,” said Turk from the Tigershark, now nearly four hundred miles to the north. “Are you seeing these contacts?”
“Say again, Whiplash?” asked Greenstreet.
“Two bogies, high speed, coming at you from the west,” said Turk. “The combat UAVs are back, and they’re running straight for you.”
5
They were aggressive bastards, weren’t they?
Rubeo looked at the large screen at the front of the room, which was mapping the location of every unit in the area. The UAVs were coming for blood.
They’d just appeared on the screen, as if from nowhere. That certainly wasn’t possible, and it certainly wasn’t acceptable. His team had clearly missed something. He picked up the phone that connected to his company’s analytic center in New Mexico.
“Check the launch profiles and see where they’re likely to have come from,” he demanded, without even bothering to give an explanation, let alone greet the techie on the other end of the line. “Coordinate that with everything we know about them — the bases they’ve used, things Braxton owned, the submarines — we are not doing a good job here. I want more information.”
“Right now?”
“I would have preferred yesterday,” snapped Rubeo before hanging up.
6
Even though the UAVs were approaching, Turk was already committed to supporting the Whiplash operation on the merchant ship and couldn’t leave. The best he could do to help the two F-35s was send a pair of Sabres to back them up. Even if they juiced their engines, it would take them close to twenty minutes to get there. The enemy UAVs were less than ten minutes from the Marines.
It was better than nothing. Turk detailed Sabres Three and Four, the ones to his south, to help the Marines, but before dispatching them prioritized protection of the landing force above the F-35s. This way, they’d position themselves to cut off the enemy if they got by Greenstreet and Cowboy.
Once tasked, the Sabres were autonomous, and would not only decide how to carry out their orders but adapt to new situations without needing to be reprogrammed. And they wouldn’t quit until there were no threats in the air. Turk told Greenstreet they were en route, then turned his attention to the beached merchant ship and area around it.
Originally beached in the shallows a few yards from the top of the reef, the ship had been driven up the hard rock by the current, waves, and storms. The bow and a good portion of the starboard side of the ship had been lifted high enough to leave the keel exposed. The stern, which seemed to have twisted slightly, sat with the waves lapping just above the screw.
An infrared scan showed that there were two men on the port deck near an ancient .50-caliber machine gun. There were four other men belowdecks in a compartment believed to be used for eating and sleeping. Turk assumed these six men were the Filipino marines assigned to occupy the ship against the Chinese, though until the ship was boarded, no one would actually know.
The question was whether there were other people aboard. A modest heat signal indicated the engine room might have more people in it, but it was situated in a way that the analysts couldn’t be sure. The Whiplash team would go on the assumption that they were there until proven otherwise.
Six Chinese fishing vessels were arrayed outside the reef south of the vessel. None were armed, but a Chinese Type 010-class minesweeper was about ten miles farther north, on the side of the beached Filipino ship. The minesweeper was the mama bear to the other boats. Here as elsewhere in the South China Sea, the Chinese tended to assert their most aggressive claims with a soft face, posting the seemingly less obnoxious “civilian” vessels close to the enemy, while leaving the muscle just over the horizon.
The Type 010 was similar to the Russian T-43 minesweeper, an older oceangoing craft that was as much a patrol vessel as a minesweeper. Roughly 180 feet long, it had a crew of seventy and carried an array of light weapons, ranging from machine guns to an 85mm cannon. The ship wasn’t a threat to the Tigershark, nor would it be an immediate concern to the Whiplash team unless it sailed south. At the moment it was becalmed, facing parallel to the merchant vessel but presumed to be in constant contact with the fishing boats.