Drone Command

“He won’t escape,” the officer said, grinning. “Mach 10!”

Admiral Ji stood, erect. Every eye in the room was focused on the main overhead screen, intently watching the hapless American carrier attempt to execute its futile escape maneuver.

Ji flushed with pride. Any second now and he would deal the Americans their worst naval defeat since Pearl—

* * *

The Liaoning erupted in a cloud of fiery steel as the Wu-14’s explosive warhead plowed into the main deck at 7,680 miles per hour. The thirty-year-old carrier hull shattered beneath the thundering strike, breaking in two amidships when several thousand tons of munitions exploded, sending both halves of the broken carrier to the bottom. A thousand Chinese sailors perished in the first three seconds, another nine hundred in the next minute.

The fate of the pilots and crew of the dozens of Chinese jets and helicopters still in the air remained uncertain; they suddenly had nowhere to land.

* * *

In the Kantei’s situation room, the Japanese were on their feet cheering, clapping, laughing at the flaming wreckage of the breaking hulk until Tanaka threw two fists in the air and shouted, “Banzai!” Several others echoed him back. Tanaka threw his arms into the air and shouted again and again, “Banzai! Banzai! Banzai!”

Everyone else in the room joined him in chorus, throwing up their arms, joyously crazed.

Everyone except Myers.

She still sat in her chair staring at the video screen, incredulous.

SEVENTY

U.S. EMBASSY

TOKYO, JAPAN

20 MAY 2017

The following morning, Pearce and Myers sat alone in the embassy’s secured conference room. The ambassador was making preparations for Secretary Wheeler’s arrival in a few hours. President Lane appeared on the large VTC screen on the far wall.

“Glad you’re back safe and sound, Troy. Congratulations on a job well done. It couldn’t have been easy for you.”

Pearce nodded his thanks. “Nor you.” He hid a yawn behind a closed fist. He hadn’t slept or bathed in nearly three days.

Lane rubbed his face. Dark circles under his eyes, too. “It was the hardest damn decision of my life.”

“Regrets?”

“None.”

“Was this the plan all along?” There was an edge in Myers’s voice. “I feel like I’ve been played.”

“No,” Lane insisted. “Our plan never changed. The goal was always to steal the Wu-14’s software to determine whether or not it was operational.”

“But you don’t ‘accidentally’ gain control of a sophisticated system like that,” Myers said.

Pearce reached for the coffee carafe on the table in front of him. “I had Ian write up the software. I figured once we were in there, we might as well get everything out of it we could, including operational control.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Myers asked.

“Wasn’t sure you’d approve,” Pearce said. Poured two cups.

“Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think.”

Pearce handed her a cup. “Maybe not.”

“You took a helluva risk, David,” Myers said. “Why didn’t you just have Troy dump it in the ocean?” She took a sip of coffee.

Lane stiffened. Didn’t expect to be getting the third degree from the former president. “Admiral Ji and Vice Chairman Feng were hell-bent on grabbing the Senkakus. Even if we’d dropped the Wu-14 into the ocean, they still would’ve invaded Japanese territorial waters. Then I would have had to commit the George Washington into battle. Despite the Sixth Fleet’s superiority on paper, the truth is that in war you can never be certain of outcomes. I had to choose between risking American lives or taking Chinese ones. The choice was clear.”

“Doesn’t that put blood on your hands?” Myers asked.

“Already had that problem long before I got elected. Besides, keeping my hands clean isn’t part of the job description, best as I can recall.” He didn’t mention it was actually Pearce who had used the Japanese submarine as a remote mission-control station, personally steering the hypersonic warhead into the deck of the doomed carrier.

“It’s a bloody business, all the way around,” Pearce said into his cup. “Better them than our guys.”

“Agreed,” Myers finally admitted. She studied Pearce’s face. The lines around his eyes had deepened.

“By appearing to have knocked out their own aircraft carrier, the Chinese military is now discredited with the Politburo, and so is their adventurism. Feng’s, too, for that matter. And the North Koreans can’t be feeling very confident about their old ally. They’ve already withdrawn their MIRV from the launching pad and put it back in storage.”

“The Chinese don’t know we did it?” Myers frowned with disbelief.

“I reminded President Sun that the Liaoning was an old Ukrainian design and that the same government that built the Chernobyl nuclear power plant built his carrier. Maybe the turbines were defective. Maybe they caused a fire that led to a catastrophic munitions explosion. It’s happened before.”

“And he believed you?” Myers asked.