Drone Command Read online

  Troy Pearce stood beside him, watching the same images. The former CIA SOG operative’s black hair was flecked with gray—one for every bullet ever shot at him over the years, he joked—and the laugh lines in the corners of his world-weary blue eyes were anything but. As the CEO of the world’s premier drone security company, he’d seen plenty of surveillance video before, but never while standing in a submerged submarine. “Looks like some kind of ceremony. A burial at sea?”

  Onizuka pulled off his ball cap and ran a hand through his thick hair. At thirty-six, the handsome naval officer was the youngest sub captain in the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) and commanded one of its newest vessels. The diesel-powered Soryu-class submarines were the largest and most advanced Japan had built since the war, but the stealthy Sword Dragon carried only short-range conventional torpedoes and antiship missiles as befitting the JMSDF’s mission limitations.

  “The way he was flapping his arms? I don’t think so. Definitely a ceremony of some kind, but not a burial.” Onizuka’s English was slightly accented, but perfect—one of the reasons Pearce was assigned to his boat. “Too bad we don’t have audio.”

  “The Volant is too high up.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “But we can get a closer look at the object they threw overboard.”

  This was a perfect real-world scenario for Pearce to demonstrate the extreme value of drones to the skeptical Japanese captain and, by extension, the JMSDF establishment. Pearce’s covert assignment was to privately reassure the Japanese that the United States was willing and able to help the beleaguered nation find another way to defend itself against recent Chinese aggression without a massive conventional naval rearmament program. The prospect of Japan rebuilding another blue-water navy was too problematic for its Asian neighbors, especially the Chinese.

  But tensions between China and Japan in the East China Sea had risen dramatically over the last few years, focused symbolically on what the Japanese called the Senkaku Islands, a collection of five small islands and three uninhabitable rocks situated in an area of vast new oil and gas reserves recently estimated at triple the original forecast. Both China and Japan claimed them as sovereign territory, partly to control the incredible resource wealth buried beneath the ocean floor. But Pearce was quickly learning that symbolism and history were just about as important as oil and gas on this side of the planet.

  Onizuka nodded to the ensign at the Volant’s control station. “Engage.”

  A thousand meters above the Chinese missile destroyer, the modified Sandia Volant slowed as it began a programmed descent. Within minutes, the delta-winged aircraft dove effortlessly into the water, the ailerons on its wings’ trailing edges now serving as dive planes. It traveled much more slowly beneath the surface than above it, but the Volant proved highly maneuverable underwater.

  Thanks to a partnership with MIT and the Pearce Systems research team led by Dr. Kirin Rao, the new, highly reliable spread–spectrum signaling technology deployed today made long-distance underwater wireless communications possible. Rao did her best to explain the physics behind it all, but underwater acoustics was beyond Pearce’s reach. That’s why he let her run his research division with a free hand. Rao’s breakthrough was significant. UUVs could now be deployed beyond the limited reach of tethered communication lines and manipulated more adroitly than automated underwater navigational software, which was still in its relative infancy.

  Automated sensors onboard the Sandia Multimodal prevented collisions with large underwater objects, but the Japanese ensign could manually direct it with a joystick, steering it via the first-person video perspective from one of the drone’s onboard cameras, illuminating the dark waters by a powerful LED cluster. For the moment, the Volant steered itself, homing in on the Kunming’s location that it had fixed with its laser range finder before it dived.

  It wasn’t long before the multimodal drone came within a hundred feet of the engraved marble stone, nestled on the slope of a five-hundred-foot-tall seamount looming like a dark pyramid in the dim waters.

  Pearce and Onizuka watched the ensign’s video feed. The air was cool in the cramped but gleaming high-tech control room. Pearce tried to ignore his creeping claustrophobia. He wiped away a bead of sweat on his face with the tip of his thumb.

  Onizuka barked an order in Japanese to his navigation officer on the other side of the control room. The navigator tapped on a computer screen, called back to his captain.

  “Our Chinese friends apparently have found an uncharted seamount,” Onizuka translated. “Now, let’s see if we can get a closer look at that stele they tossed overboard.”

  The ensign eased the drone into the current closer to the stone. Electric-powered thrusters held it in place. The video camera zoomed in. The image was a little wobbly, but clear.

  “My Chinese isn’t so good,” Pearce said.

  “Nor is mine. But we use the same kanji. I believe it says, ‘Mao Island. China. 1 May 2017.’ It includes longitude and latitude coordinates.”

  “‘Mao Island’?” Pearce frowned with confusion. “What does that mean?”

  Onizuka laid a hand on the young ensign’s shoulder. “Well done, Kenzo. Please forward that video to fleet HQ.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Pearce had done his homework on the Senkaku Islands controversy before arriving. “I don’t remember any Mao Island around here.”

  Onizuka’s affable face hardened. “Apparently there is now. At least that’s what the Chinese believe, according to that territorial stele.” He didn’t bother to add that the Chinese had scattered such steles over its vast empires as border markers for centuries.

  Onizuka ordered the ensign to return the multimodal drone to the Sword Dragon for recovery. A portable launch/recovery module was installed in one of the forward torpedo tubes.

  Pearce sensed the young captain’s unease. He had every reason to be concerned. If Japan and China were going to start a shooting war, it would most likely start right here, and thanks to defense and alliance treaties with Japan, the United States would be dragged into the fighting quickly—an outcome the Pentagon wanted to avoid at all costs.

  Pearce had signed on with President Lane before he was even elected on the strength of Margaret Myers’s personal recommendation, and Pearce was eager to serve again. It was easy enough to agree to a private consultation with the Japanese navy. His company was the best in the world at drone research and operations, both civilian and military. It was a smart play by Lane to send him. This way, the American government didn’t appear to be publicly bolstering Japan, but Lane could send a strong personal message through Pearce. He didn’t mind being an envoy. The idea of not being shot at for once was fine by him, even if he felt like the submarine hull was closing in on him.

  “So what good does it do for the Chinese to invent an underwater island? What can they do with it?”

  “In their minds, they can now make new territorial claims—up to twelve miles, according to international law, besides the two-hundred-mile exclusive economic zone. But it means much more than that.”

  “Like what?”

  “Your Global War on Terrorism didn’t begin on 9/11.”

  “No, it didn’t. It really began the day Osama bin Laden declared war on us in his 1996 fatwa. He claimed we invaded the Muslim holy land and that we needed to be pushed back out. We just weren’t paying attention to him at the time.”

  Onizuka pointed at the display monitor. “With that stele, it’s exactly the same thing. The Chinese are making their own declaration about their sacred territory.”

  Pearce noticed that the control room had become eerily silent. The young crew was hanging on Onizuka’s every word.

  “So you believe it’s a declaration of war?”

  “It means, at the very least, that China is prepared to fight a war.” Onizuka’s eyes narrowed. The Japane
se captain was six feet tall and broad shouldered, just a few inches shorter than the former CIA special ops warrior. “The question is, are you?”

  Pearce felt the heat rise up in his face. It was an accusation, not a question. Anywhere else, he’d be tempted to punch the guy’s lights out. He stuffed the anger back down into its hole. His mission was to smooth things over, not mix it up with the locals, insults or not. Besides, if he were Japanese, he’d have the same worry about America’s commitment to its allies.

  “I’m just a private citizen, Captain, not a government official. But I know President Lane well and, unofficially, I can assure you that my country will not abandon the Japanese people in a time of crisis.”

  Onizuka’s eyes searched Pearce’s. He nodded. “I want to believe you but this provocation tells me that China thinks otherwise.”

  A sonar ping smashed into the sub’s hull like a sledgehammer. Pearce flinched.

  “Splashes, Captain.” The bespectacled sonar operator couldn’t have been more than twenty years old. The crew scrambled back to stations.

  Onizuka was unfazed. He smiled at his American guest, enjoying his obvious discomfort. “Waiting for the depth charges to blow?”

  “Something like that.”

  Onizuka laughed. “You’ve watched too many submarine movies. That sonar ping was just the Chinese letting us know that they know we’re here. The splashes my sonar operator just heard are only more sonar buoys breaking the surface of the water.”

  The radar operator called out, cool and professional. It seemed to Pearce that all the faces of the fighting men he met lately were getting younger.

  “Aircraft. Speed, six-five-two kph. Distance, twenty kilometers. Heading, two-seven-zero.”

  “Chinese antisubmarine patrol. Nothing to worry about.” Onizuka flashed a mischievous grin. “Unless, of course, they decide to fire their weapons.” He gave his XO the order to dive a hundred meters down and deploy electronic countermeasures.

  “I thought the Chinese weren’t very good at ASW,” Pearce said.

  “They’re not, but they’re getting better, thanks to French sonar technology and the German diesel engines powering that guided-missile destroyer we just saw.”

  A light flashed on a nearby console. The captain frowned. “Excuse me, Mr. Pearce.”

  Onizuka picked up the phone. The Sword Dragon was still tethered to its communication buoy on the surface. He listened. His body stiffened and he bowed slightly. Obviously someone in authority on the other end. His eyes widened. Onizuka handed the phone to Pearce. “It’s for you. The president of the United States wants to speak with you.”

  Pearce took the phone, confused. A series of clicks, then a woman’s voice. “Mr. Pearce? The president is on the line. He’d like to speak with you, if it’s not too much trouble.”

  “Of course.”

  “Troy, David here. How’s everything on your end?”

  Troy felt the deck diving beneath his feet. “In the middle of something, sir.” Lane was technically calling him from last night. A thirteen-hour time difference. Must be urgent.

  “Then I’ll cut to the chase.”

  Lane filled him in. Pearce handed Onizuka the phone. “I’ve got to get back to shore. Now.”

  The captain hung up the phone then squared up in Pearce’s face. “Is that an order?”

  “It’s an urgent . . . request.”

  Onizuka nodded, smirking. “Yes, of course. Urgent.” He turned away and ordered his men to prepare to surface.

  Another ping slammed into the submarine’s hull.

  Pearce swore under his breath.

  So much for not abandoning friends.

  THREE

  BASE 51 (SECOND ARTILLERY CORPS)

  LAIWU, SHANDONG PROVINCE, CHINA

  2 MAY 2017

  Vice Chairman Feng was arguably the second most powerful man in China after President Sun, and he was thinking about Hawaiian shaved ice.

  Feng was thinking about Hawaiian shaved ice because he was staring at the Wu-14 hanging in its gimbals in the giant test facility at Base 51. The hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV) was shaped like a nearly flattened shaved-ice paper cone. He’d like to go back to Honolulu someday, he thought, and get another shaved ice.

  “It’s magnificent, isn’t it?” General Chen said. He was a missile man who rose through the ranks of the Second Artillery Corps, China’s strategic rocket command. Feng and Chen were the two vice chairmen of the Central Military Commission (CMC). The CMC was primarily a Party instrument, a political device to maintain control of the generals and admirals, long seen as the main competitors to the Party’s rule.

  “Yes, it is,” Feng agreed. The Wu-14 was the stuff of science fiction—push-button warfare in its purest form. And Feng had climbed the ladder of his ambition by shepherding the HGV through years of bureaucratic entanglements, engineering crises, and interservice turf wars. Unlike General Chen, Vice Chairman Feng had no prior military experience. He was the only civilian in the governing ranks of the CMC. (This wasn’t unprecedented. Former president Hu Jintao was also a civilian vice chairman and used his post to catapult to the top of the Party hierarchy, a career trajectory Feng himself hoped to emulate.)

  The two men stood alone in the cavernous test hangar. All of the technicians had been dismissed earlier to give them some privacy. Feng was the shorter of the two, though trim and athletic. Today the well-groomed vice chairman was impeccably dressed in a custom-fitted dark green Mao jacket and slacks, an anachronistic but potent symbol of proletarian power. The long tunic with its high buttoned collar and large cargo pockets looked like a soldier’s uniform, which was why it had been largely abandoned by China’s ruling elites in favor of Western-style business suits over the last decade. But Feng found the Mao suit useful when dealing with uniformed military officers like Chen, especially the older ones who had suffered under Mao’s regime.

  The Wu-14 was China’s most advanced missile warhead and a true “carrier killer.” Launched on top of the DF-21 medium-range mobile-missile platform, the maneuverable Wu-14 warhead could fly at ten times the speed of sound, nearly eight thousand miles per hour. No nation in the world, including the boastful Americans, possessed a missile defense system that could stop the highly maneuverable vehicle at those speeds. One Wu-14 launched from a DF-21 or, for that matter, a submarine launch tube or some other platform could take out an entire American aircraft carrier, the strategic center of America’s power-projection capabilities.

  Vice Chairman Feng understood that the Wu-14 wasn’t just another missile capable of taking out a large target. It was what the Americans called a “revolution in military affairs.” The United States dominated the globe and fought its far-flung wars primarily through its power-projection capabilities, which were entirely dependent upon its navy, and the heart of the United States Navy was its aircraft carrier battle groups. Before World War II, the battleship was seen as the predominant naval weapon, and few admirals anywhere in the world saw the potential of the aircraft carrier, in part because they couldn’t appreciate the strategic value of aircraft operations. From Pearl Harbor forward, it would be aircraft carriers that would dominate the ocean battle space.

  Until now.

  The Wu-14 would make the twelve-billion-dollar Gerald R. Ford–class aircraft carrier, and all those like her, obsolete. That meant the Americans could be stopped cold virtually anywhere in the Pacific, opening up the South and East China seas to Chinese dominance. It meant the end of Taiwanese independence, too. The end of all Western meddling in Chinese affairs.

  The end of the aircraft carrier also meant the beginning of China’s rebirth as a great-power nation. Perhaps the greatest, given America’s precarious economic and political condition. Ironically, China was now hell-bent on building four aircraft carrier groups of her own, beginning with the refurbishment of an abandoned Soviet aircraft carrier,
the Riga, which the PLAN named the Liaoning. It was now fully operational after nearly a decade of work and training. At least the PLAN was smart enough to know that such carrier groups would only be effective against weaker naval powers like the Philippines.

  “The Americans will withdraw from our waters the first time we threaten to take out one of their aircraft carriers. The East China Sea will be completely ours again, and rightfully so,” the old missile general said. His green digital camouflage battle-dress uniform didn’t accommodate the fistfuls of medals he’d earned over the years, though none in wars, of course. His last general’s star was earned the new way—with cold, hard cash transferred to one of Feng’s offshore accounts.

  “The new gas and oil reserves we’ve found there will be ours as well,” Feng said.

  “Yes, those too. Most necessary,” the general said. “For the future of our country, of course. There’s untold wealth in those waters, is there not?”

  Feng saw the hope washing over the old general’s rheumy eyes. He’d seen it many times before.

  “Yes. Untold wealth.”

  Vice Chairman Feng had risen through the ranks of the state oil ministry before joining the state-owned company, China National Petroleum Corporation, the largest energy company in China. Many of his relatives worked for CNPC as well and had amassed great fortunes from their endeavors. Feng had left CNPC several years ago to fulfill his political ambitions, but he kept his hand in the family business and an eye on all things gas and oil related.

  “Of course,” Feng added, “that wealth will be shared among the people in the most equitable means possible.”

  General Chen’s eyes gleamed. “Yes, of course.” Feng couldn’t have said it any plainer. The general was already calculating the potential amount of his share.