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  “Zhen, everyone already knew that oil, natural gas, and probably many other minerals could be found in the South Sea,” Zu said angrily. “What is your point?”

  “My assertion, sir, is that now is the time to move to occupy and fortify the Nansha and Xisha Dao,” Admiral Zhen said. Xisha Dao was the Chinese name for the Paracel Islands in the northern South China Sea, also long contested by many nations and also thought to have significant mineral deposits. “We have administered the islands for years, and we have fought several small skirmishes over them, but we have never militarily occupied the islands except for occasional patrols.”

  “Do you remember our battle with the Americans and Filipinos, Zhen?” Zu asked angrily. “How many ships did we lose? A dozen? More?”

  “I fought in the Battle of the South Philippines, sir,” Zhen said. “I was a junior antisubmarine warfare officer aboard the frigate Jiujiang, and I was on duty when the body of Admiral Yin Po L’un was brought aboard.” China and the Philippines, assisted by American bombers, had fought a brief but intense war twenty years earlier. Although China was preparing to land several hundred thousand troops in southern Philippines, their naval forces had taken a beating, and a withdrawal was ordered; the overall commander of the operation, Admiral Yin Po L’un, committed suicide on the deck of his flagship. “We did not lose that battle, sir—we were just not permitted to win.”

  “Zhen, no one cares about the Nansha Dao,” Zu said. “Most of the so-called islands are underwater most of the time. The highest point in the entire archipelago is only four meters.”

  “The importance of the Nansha Dao has been made paramount by what the survey crew found—the oil and gas deposits are substantial,” Zhen said. “But what is more important is the strategic location of the islands. With a substantial military force stationed on and around the islands, and a similar force on the Xisha Dao, all reinforced with land-based bombers and missiles, we can completely control access to the South Sea.”

  “Do you not think the Americans might have something to say about that, Zhen?” General Zu asked derisively.

  “The current status of the American military force is precisely why we need to act now, sir,” Zhen said. “The American military, especially their navy, is the weakest it has been since before the Great War of Liberation. Now is the time to act.”

  It was true, Zu thought—the Americans had virtually stopped all major shipbuilding and aircraft projects, while China was building more and more ships and buying ships from around the world that they simply did not have the capacity to build themselves. “I applaud your aggressiveness on this subject, Zhen,” General Zu said. “I do not know if the president or central committee is as anxious as you to directly challenge the United States, but circumstances may present an opportunity. I should like to see a plan.”

  “My staff and I have been working on a detailed plan for many months, sir,” Zhen said. “I will finalize the draft and transmit it right away. Thank you.”

  “And I will leave your punishment up to the minister of defense and the president,” Zu said, “but unless it is discovered during the upcoming investigation that you directly ordered the gunner to open fire on the survey ship, I think you are sufficiently distant from the incident to take any blame. You admitted full responsibility to me, which I accept. Direct your commanders to avoid such actions in the future without a clear and unambiguous order from higher headquarters. You are dismissed. Return to your headquarters.”

  “Yes, sir.” Zhen saluted, turned on a heel, and departed.

  Zu lit a cigarette and sat back in his chair. “Do you think I was too easy on Zhen, Ji?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir, I do,” General Sun replied. Sun was a young general officer with very little operational or leadership experience, but he possessed a finely tuned analytical mind and a real talent for playing and manipulating the political aspects of the ministry of defense, something Zu knew he himself didn’t have the skill or desire to do—he knew that he had to have a man like Sun on his side to avoid having him as an adversary. “I like Admiral Zhen. He is aggressive and not afraid to go on the offensive. But I do believe he had something to do with that helicopter crew opening fire on that survey ship, and if he escapes any punishment at all, he may be emboldened to do something like that again, without asking for permission. That could be dangerous. A man like Zhen with a weapon like Silent Thunder, who thinks he has unspoken permission to open fire on an American flagged vessel, could be trouble.”

  “I too like Zhen, and I think his aggressiveness is a great advantage and something that is sorely needed in our military, especially our navy,” Zu said. “I am looking forward to reading his plan for Nansha and Xisha Dao.”

  “The Americans, together with their Asian and Pacific allies, will not stand for China occupying those islands,” Sun said.

  “I want to see Zhen’s plan for taking them on,” Zu said. “He was right: America is at its weakest level in decades, and so are all their allies. We could have more aircraft carriers in the Pacific than they in a year or so, if we continue to get the funding we have requested. Look at Zhen’s plan when you get it, have the Plans Department look it over, then brief me as soon as possible.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Zu stubbed out his cigarette. “Let us see what President Zhou says about taking Nansha and Xisha Dao,” he said. “The president is always saying that the South Sea belongs to China, but he does very little about enforcing it. If he is presented with a plan to do exactly that, will he go forward?”

  TWO

  NORTHERN NEVADA INDUSTRIAL AIRPORT, BATTLE MOUNTAIN, NEVADA

  SEVERAL DAYS LATER

  “Looks like you’re starting an air museum out here, sir,” U.S. Air Force Colonel Warner “Cutlass” Cuthbert remarked. The former B-1B Lancer and B-2A Spirit pilot and bomber wing commander was a short, balding, barrel-chested man, with bright green eyes and a quick smile that Patrick McLanahan knew could turn into a scowl or a bark in the blink of an eye. Cuthbert was commander of the First Expeditionary Bomber Wing at Andersen Air Force Base on the island of Guam, so the hot summertime air in the high desert of north-central Nevada didn’t bother him in the least. “They’re beauties.”

  “Thank you, Cutlass,” Patrick said. He nodded toward an F-111G Aardvark supersonic bomber, surrounded by scaffolding. “The ’Vark is pretty torn up or I’d take you for a look inside.”

  “No worries—I’ve seen plenty of ’Varks in my day, sir,” Cuthbert said. “Are you sticking that mission-adaptive wing on that one?”

  “Actually, we’re not,” Patrick said, “although we certainly can.” The mission-adaptive wing technology, pioneered by Sky Masters Inc., used tiny computer-controlled actuators on the fuselage and wings, in essence making every surface on the aircraft either a lift or drag device and greatly improving both high- and low-speed performance. They had successfully put mission-adaptive technology in a variety of aircraft, vessels, and even race cars. “But that one is still a swing-wing. We’re putting in a few electronic displays, the active electronically scanned array radar, upgraded engines, and the pilot-optional stuff, but it’s pretty much stock.”

  “Nice looking Tomcat, too,” Cuthbert commented as they walked down the flight line toward one of the main hangars, referring to an F-14A Tomcat carrier-based fighter parked beside the F-111. “What did you do to it?”

  “Again, not much,” Patrick said. “We put the General Electric–Rolls-Royce F136 engines in this particular bird because we got such a good deal for a quantity of them.”

  “I’ll bet you did,” Cuthbert said. “Canceling the alternate engine for the F-35 fighter back in 2011 could have been a disaster for the company.” The F136 engine was a dual-source alternative for the F135 primary engine on the F-35-series fighter-bomber, proposed in order to make engines available in case of a major conflict. When the F136 engine was canceled, thousands of workers on two continents lost their jobs virtually overnight. There was talk of the w
hole branch of the company going down because of it . . .

  . . . until one Patrick McLanahan in an obscure little airport in northern Nevada put in a purchase order for several of them.

  “They gave us a sweet deal for top-of-the-line power plants—it was a win-win scenario all around,” Patrick said. “Turns out they are real superstars—we get some excellent performance numbers. We have a couple other refurbished planes where we kept the General Electric F110 engines, and they work well, but not as good as the F-35 Lightnings or F/A-18 Super Hornets. We beefed up the structure, put in AESA, a few more electronic displays, the pilot-optional stuff, of course—that’s about it. We can go take her for a spin if you’d like.”

  “I like, sir,” Cuthbert said, “but I’m short on time. If you didn’t live way the hell out in the boonies, I’d have more time to play. So, the proposal submitted to the Air Force said this project is in support of the AirSea Battle concept. You should know, sir, that AirSea Battle hasn’t been implemented because we don’t have a large enough air component—there aren’t enough long-range platforms to support a carrier battle group.”

  As commander of the First Expeditionary Bomb Wing at Andersen Air Force Base, Cuthbert was responsible for organizing, training, and supporting the Continuous Bomber Presence for Pacific Air Force, a program that rotated the Air Force’s few remaining long-range bombers to Guam for six-month stints. The few B-52H Stratofortresses, B-1B Lancers, and B-2A Spirit bombers at Guam formed a quick-reaction long-range conventional strike force that could reach very quickly throughout the Pacific, as well as provide aircrews a chance to train with the Navy and with foreign air forces. But since the American long-range bomber force had been so badly decimated during the American Holocaust, the bombers and their crews were becoming exhausted, and replacements were needed. Cuthbert had been assigned the task of coming up with solutions to the widening bomber gap from industry.

  “I’m well aware of that, Cutlass,” Patrick said.

  “And you said you can build a fleet of long-range strike aircraft in less than two years for hardly any money at all? How are you going to do that, sir—pixie dust?”

  “They’re already built and battle proven,” Patrick replied. “They aren’t flying, but it’s not because they’re incapable or obsolescent. There are trade-offs. They are not stealthy, at least not twenty-first-century-version stealthy. They don’t have antiradar coatings or radar-absorbent materials built into their structures—Sky Masters can add those things, but the cost will skyrocket, and that’s not what we want. We want a capable long-range bomber for low cost that can be fielded very quickly.”

  “So where is this magical aircraft?”

  “It’s on its way,” Patrick said. He glanced at his watch, smiled, then said, “Cutlass, allow me to reintroduce you to the weapons system that we at Sky Masters believe will be the affordable interim ingredient to fulfilling the promise of the AirSea Battle concept: the XB-1F Excalibur.”

  He could not have timed it better. Just as Patrick announced the name, Cuthbert’s attention was grabbed by a sinister-sounding rushing noise, like an oncoming race car, that steadily got louder and louder . . . and then it flew overhead from behind, and the roar of the XB-1’s four turbofan engines in full afterburner rolled over them. The sleek gray-green swept-wing bomber flew two thousand feet aboveground, but the immense size of the aircraft made it seem as if it was brushing their heads.

  “Holy shit!” Cuthbert exclaimed. “A B-1 Lancer! She’s a beauty!”

  As the bomber made a steep bank about a half mile away, Patrick began his carefully rehearsed sales pitch: “Not a Lancer, Cutlass. The XB-1 Excalibur looks like the standard B-1B Lancer bomber because on the outside it is basically the same—most of the changes are on the inside. We replaced the original F101 engines with the F136 engines, which are more powerful and more fuel-efficient; we retained the two-person crew of the EB-1C Vampire bomber and opted for remotely operated offensive and defensive operator stations and highly automated attack systems; we gave it the same steerable Active Electronically Scanned Array multifunction radar that’s been on the F/A-18 Super Hornet for years; and we replaced the older avionics with modern off-the-shelf electronic systems. The only other system we added was the ALQ-293 Self-Protection Electronically Agile Reaction system instead of the ALQ-161 electronic warfare suite.”

  “What’s the ALQ-293?”

  “The ALQ-293 SPEAR was developed by Sky Masters years ago in a competitive bid for the F-35 Lightning’s radar,” Patrick explained. “Our system was designed to not only send out a signal and then listen for the same returned signal for processing, but to listen for signals and then transmit other signals in response at that same frequency. SPEAR can alter the timing of the returned signal to make the enemy’s radar think we are farther away or even invisible. We also found that we can transmit just about any other kind of signal to enemy radar, even computer code.”

  “Computer code?” Cutlass exclaimed. “You mean, like inserting a virus into a computer?”

  “Exactly,” Patrick said. “We called it ‘netrusion,’ and it worked like a charm when we sent the Vampires over Iran during the civil war—we were able to spoof radars and even issue shutdown commands to computers and electronics. We installed SPEAR into all the special EB-1D Vampire bombers, but they were all taken out and replaced with APG-77. Sky Masters put them back into production right before Jon was killed, and I decided to put them on the refurbished B-1s.”

  “Excellent, as long as it doesn’t break the bank,” Cuthbert said. “But putting that kind of system on a forty-year-old airframe must really crank up the refurbishment time, right?”

  “The total time to do a conversion is just a few months—most of that time is airframe inspections,” Patrick replied. “But it’s also notable for what we did not do to the B-1B Lancer. As you know, Sky Masters did the initial research and development on the original B-1B conversion, the EB-1C Vampire flying battleship, and the work was done at Air Force Plant 42. The Vampire used mission-adaptive surfaces for flight control, which greatly improved its performance, and it also had other systems such as active laser defense, pilot-optional control, and StealthHawk attack cruise missile retrieval and rearming. But these advanced systems also added to the cost, which is why only a handful of those excellent planes were created.

  “Sky Masters recently purchased all the B-1B conversion tooling, plans, and equipment from the Air Force, and we hired many of the workers and engineers who were laid off at Palmdale when the conversion program was canceled due to budget cuts, so now we’re doing the conversion work ourselves,” Patrick said. “We can create the Vampire again if the Pentagon wants them. We also have plans to convert a number of F-111 bombers for an even lower cost, and we are planning other conversions such as the F-14 Tomcat fighter. But we think the XB-1 Excalibur has the best combination of range, payload, and speed, and it’s the best value as well.”

  “It’s an interesting idea, General,” Cuthbert said. “But you don’t expect the Air Force to train B-1 crewdogs, do you? Who’s going to fly the thing?”

  “Our plan is not just to refurbish planes, but to provide everything needed to deploy the force,” Patrick said. “We anticipated that the Air Force was not going to want to train active-duty or Reserve crewmembers for a weapons system that might only be around for five or ten years, so we plan on providing all the personnel on a contract basis. We recruit and train the aircrews, maintainers, ground support personnel, and administration; and we deploy the aircraft based on a contract negotiated with the Pentagon. As part of the AirSea Battle strategy, our XB-1 Excalibur crews would perform long-range maritime reconnaissance, and if a strike mission is needed, the Air Force picks the targets and weapons remotely, just like a remotely piloted combat aircraft—our aircrews just drive the bus.”

  “Just like your deal with reconnaissance operations in Iraq a few years ago, eh?” Cuthbert pointed out. “What was the name . . . Scion Aviation Internat
ional? How did that work out for you, sir?” The skepticism was thick in his voice.

  “I and the other company leaders made some unfortunate errors in judgment and planning,” Patrick admitted. “We didn’t anticipate Turkey’s aggressive military response. But the basic concept of using contractors to do interim jobs for the Pentagon is still sound, especially in this economic climate.”

  “Yes, sir.” Cuthbert’s tone and expression told Patrick that he wasn’t totally convinced. “You brought in those manned robots and a couple of your rebuilt B-1s to clean that situation up,” Cuthbert observed, “except now we’re on Turkey’s shit list, along with Russia and China.”

  “I’m not really interested in who has us on their hate list, Cutlass—all I care about is building a military force with some teeth without breaking the bank,” Patrick said.

  “I’m with you all the way and then some, sir,” Cuthbert said. The Excalibur made another low pass, thankfully not in ear-shattering afterburner this time, then maneuvered in the runway traffic pattern to set up for landing—he couldn’t take his eyes off the sleek, menacing-looking bird. “So, how many of those things can you build?”

  “There were twenty-six B-1s at AMARG in flyable storage, plus another nineteen airframes not flyable and designated for spare parts,” Patrick said. “There are just six B-1Bs in the inventory now—all the rest were lost in the American Holocaust or the counterattack. We’ve refurbished two B-1s that were in storage already, on our own dime. Out of the twenty-four flyable airframes left at AMARG, we’ve identified twenty suitable for refurbishment, for a total of twenty-two planes—two set aside for training and two squadrons of ten birds.”

  “And how long did it take you to refurbish the two you’ve done?”

  “About eight months.”

  “Eight months? No friggin’ way, sir! One plane refurbished in just eight months?”

  “We did both planes in eight months, Cutlass,” Patrick said, smiling as he saw Cuthbert’s stunned expression. “Assuming we don’t find any major problems with the airframes, it will be quicker than that for the next batch. As I said, we don’t really do that much to them—the engines, avionics, and AESA radar are practically plug-and-play, and we have a large staff of some of the best and most experienced engineers and technicians in the country. We’ve already got the engines, and the Air Force gives us equipment already in their inventory—literally off-the-shelf—so there’s no waiting for suppliers.”