“Well, for Christ sake. Isn’t that grand? Doesn’t recognize. XO, thoughts? I don’t want us to breach for no reason, show our asses. Go up top and take a peek with the periscope or what?” commented Commander Mack.
“Yes, sir.”
There was a fine line between toxic leadership and tough leadership, and this sub captain rode the line regularly. His mouth hadn’t gotten him into trouble yet, but one day it might. He was one of the navy’s best submarine commanders, and he couldn’t let something like this go without taking a full look.
“Sir, surface?” asked the XO.
“Huff. Now the Chinese are doing Mach-whatever flybys over their little airport? Fuck them.” Commander Mack grabbed the handheld microphone. Asshole pilots, he said under his breath. “Officer of the deck, Captain, clear baffles and bring the ship to periscope depth.”
As usual, the airspace was cleared, and no aircraft were taking off or landing this time of night. Black Scorpion landed on Runway 26, an eleven-thousand-foot concrete runway. Sanya Phoenix International Airport was much like many of the airports Chen and his team found to hide Black Scorpion each night.
Sanya Phoenix Airport was on the island of Hainan in the southernmost province of China and was located about nine miles northwest of the city. Chen liked it because located on the northwest side of the airport was, yet again, a large, secluded hangar to hide Black Scorpion in during the day.
Dai taxied the jet to the ramp out front, lights out, and the area they were in was secluded and dark.
“Engine shutdown checklist,” Dai announced.
“Throttles, idle…” Chung read, as the engines sat for cool down.
Dai and Chung could see a figure already on the ramp but could not make out for sure who it was. From the side and based on the walking gait, it looked like Chen.
“Power, off, APU, connect. Helmets off,” Chung announced, the final step in their checklist.
Thumps were heard below the floor hatch in the cockpit, which meant someone was coming up from the ground and climbing the ladder near the nose landing gear. It was Chen himself.
“Dai, Chung, I have already received word of your flyby at Woody. Aggressive, broke some windows. You did not appear on any radar, and if this attack had been real, you would have been successful. You did nice work.”
It was the first time the pilots had ever seen General Chen not be angry at them. Even though the crew damaged some government infrastructure down on the ground, Chen was happy, smiling, and making a compliment. Both pilots sat in their seats while Chen stood in the cockpit.
“Thank you, General. We did two passes to simulate an attack: one from the north and a second one from the east. We visually saw people down below, but no radar energy detection. We also thought about using the laser on the range, but with no targets, it would have been a waste to just hit the sea surface,” Dai explained.
“You did a good job. Tomorrow, we do low-level in the mountains, high-altitude speed work, then range testing. Up again tomorrow night. You understand?” Chen asked, but was telling them.
Dai was more surprised with the compliment than anything. So was Chung.
“Thank you, General.”
The ground maintainer connecting the tug gear to pull Black Scorpion into the hangar was also listening. He heard Chen from the nose tire area down below because Chen’s voice was so booming. Immediately, the maintenance crew started texting about flying tomorrow night.
“And how do you know this, Jeanie?” asked Mark, huddling around his speaker on his smartphone. Also in his hotel room was Robert, Emily, and Pinky, with Ford connected in Diego Garcia. Calvin Burns was dialed in as well.
“Texts. I can see all of them from what still looks like the maintenance folks. Plan is for tomorrow night, your time, to do a low-level route, speed work, and hit the range for weapons testing,” Jeanie explained.
“We’re on!” announced Ford, excited. “Easy mission!”
Jeanie also gave the details of her connection into the Black Scorpion flight management system and did a virtual test with Ford’s laptop. Everything was working as planned.
“Not done yet, Ford. So far, so good. Be ready for anything,” Calvin told him, using a fatherly tone, with a touch of apprehension.
Mark’s critical thinking skills came around. “This is too easy. I feel like we are forgetting something. What are we missing?”
“The laptop password! I’ll pass it to you at the end of the call. Don’t let me forget,” Jeanie told him. “Mark tells me you’ll recognize it from you and Wu.”
When they pulled off Devil Dragon, they ran into all sorts of issues along the way. Wu’s health complicated things a bit, as did the covert infiltration using someone else’s Gulfstream jet. In comparison, cyber, to Mark, was simple.
It was Pinky’s first meeting with the whole team, including the gang on speaker, and she was pleased to be part of such an operation. Her beaming smile was contagious. “Hello, Ford. I’m ready! Seems like things are coming together.”
“B-2 all fired up from here. We’re a go out here.”
Pinky gave a thumbs-up. “We got this.”
“Climb checklist,” said Dai as he scanned the instruments, then looked out into the dark, overcast sky.
Black Scorpion had just taken off moments before, and they were off for another late night of testing. Their test card was full for a low-level, nap-of-the-earth navigation route with timing and a high-altitude speed run, followed by some weapons range testing.
“Roger. Throttle setting…” Chung replied as he read off each step to be completed.
“Mark, Mark, listen to me,” Jeanie said, talking very quickly. “They are airborne right now, way earlier than I expected. I can see their route of flight. If you want me to eject them over water, it has to be soon. Minutes,” Jeanie told excitedly Mark on the phone. Mark was standing on the military ramp at the airport with Ravi in Bangalore. Crap, we’re not ready, and Ford’s still on B-2 on strip alert.
“Wait. Where does their flight plan take them?” Mark asked. “Calm down.”
Jeanie rattled off their overflight of checkpoints, naming cities Mark had heard of, but had no clue as to where they were on a map.
“OK, OK. Hang on,” Mark told her, covering the phone. “Ravi, we need a map of China. Right away. Do you have one inside?”
“Yes, Mr. Mark. Come. Right this way,” Ravi told him.
Mark and Ravi ran inside the hangar to the student pilot lounge. There were couches and televisions all over the place, in addition to white marker boards and wall charts.
“Let’s look here,” Ravi said, but there was nothing. There were only aviation charts of India and their coastal regions.
“Hang on, Jeanie,” Mark told her.
“You had better hurry. Two minutes and three seconds left until they hit mainland. Speed is increasing,” she replied.
Ravi was running around the room now, checking out other rooms connected to the pilot lounge. He found something and came back running to Mark. “Will this work?”
Ravi was holding up an old issue of National Geographic, and inside the issue was a folded paper map of China.
“Open it up. Hurry, open it,” Mark told him.
The two of them opened up the map and spread it on a table in the room. It was big enough because it was designed for pilots to plan their flights on.