Felipe and his fellow fishermen had discussed this eventuality amongst themselves many times. Some had said it was better to be alive and hungry than to join the fish, while others felt that if no one stood up to the Chinese, their demands would only escalate. Some of the younger fishermen had spoken with bravado that it was better to resist than retreat with your tail between your legs. When he had asked them how they planned to resist, their silence betrayed the fact that knives and nets are a pathetic defense against naval guns and missiles.
Glancing down at his elderly radar scope, Felipe thought he detected another large blip, this one to the east and closing. As he peered intently into the scope, the possibility that it might be a Philippine naval vessel crept into his thoughts. But he suppressed the tiny kernel of hope that he felt germinating in his chest. The Philippine navy is a navy in name only. Its official name in Filipino is Hukbong Dagat ng Pilipinas, literally, "Sea Force of the Philippines." What force? he thought.
With only two truly capable ships in its "navy," it is little more than an insect on the hide of the elephant that is the People"s Republic of China.
Aboard BRP Rajah Humabon, the communications officer handed the message from headquarters to Captain Santos.
"You are to shadow the Chinese frigate, but do not engage repeat, do not engage." Santos smiled ruefully. Engage with what? he thought to himself. His elderly craft had nothing more powerful than older model 3" guns and would simply provide target practice for the modern Chinese ships which had anti-ship missiles in addition to their radar-guided guns.
"Lieutenant Cruz, maintain heading to the nearest fishing vessel." The captain then toggled the switch that would allow the bridge to hear all communications on the current frequency. He was greeted by a loud burst of static, followed by a voice that was clearly coming from the Chinese warship.
"Philippine warship; you are entering waters of the People"s Republic of China. You are instructed to come about 180 degrees and withdraw. Do you copy?" The fact that the Chinese warship was so arrogant as to not even bother to identify itself in the accepted manner was not lost on captain Santos.
With a resolve tinged with trepidation, the captain replied: "Chinese warship, this is BRP Rajah Humabon of the Philippine Navy. We are currently in international waters." Toggling off his microphone, he turned to his communications officer and said: "Contact headquarters. Advise them that we are being hailed and have been ordered to withdraw." The look on the face of the communications officer clearly betrayed the fear that he struggled to conceal.
"Philippine warship, I repeat, you have entered waters of the People"s Republic of China. You are ordered to come about 180 degrees and withdraw. Do you copy?"
His anger rising, the Philippine captain swallowed bile as he stifled the urge to tell the Chinese voice to go to h.e.l.l. "Unidentified Chinese warship, this is BRP Rajah Humabon (PF-11) of the Philippine Navy. I repeat, we are currently in international waters."
Two minutes later, the scream of a 100mm sh.e.l.l followed by a geyser of seawater two hundred yards in front of the Philippine vessel announced the reply of the Chinese warship.
"Communications!" said the captain, careful not to betray fear in front of his officers. "Notify headquarters that they have fired across our bow!"
Admiral Francisco Victoriano had hurriedly dressed when the first call had reached Jose Andrada Naval Station in Manila. He was pulling into the parking lot when news that the Chinese frigate had opened fire reached the base. The officer of the watch turned when he heard the admiral"s heavy footsteps behind him.
"Admiral," he said. "The Chinese have fired a second shot across Captain Santos" bow, Sir!"
"Get him on the radio, Lieutenant," ordered the admiral.
"I can"t, Sir," replied the lieutenant.
"Why the h.e.l.l not?" bellowed the admiral.
"Because he doesn"t answer, Sir."
6.
March 102013 0800 Seahorse Shoal Spratly Islands So. China Sea The search had begun before dawn when the Philippine Navy"s most recent acquisition, the former US Coast Guard Cutter Hamilton, now named Gregorio del Pilar (PF-15) left Cavite Naval Base. Ironically, though her young sailors had never seen combat in the South China Sea, their cutter had, having served off the coast of Viet Nam.
There was little conversation on the bridge as the cutter neared the last known position of the Rajah Humabon. Not only was her fate foremost in the minds of all aboard, but China"s role in what had happened and their next moves ensured tension throughout the ship. A naval patrol plane had reported that a Chinese frigate was approximately 150 kilometers north of Seahorse Shoal, which would put its guns far out of range but possibly not its missiles, though no one knew for sure since the Chinese had been updating their weapons systems at an alarming rate.
Captain Antonio Vega was scanning the waters with binoculars when he noticed the sunlight glinting off something floating about 500 yards off the starboard bow.
"Helmsman, come right five degrees," he ordered.
The object turned out to be a floating cooler, likely not from the Rajah Humabon, but what he saw next most a.s.suredly was. A uniform-clad corpse bobbed forlornly on a nearby swell.
7.
March 11 2013 0730 White House Washington DC The president was half way through his morning briefing when an aide entered the room and handed him a written message, which he scanned, then read aloud.
Early on the morning of March 10th, Philippine time, a Philippine naval vessel, the Rajah Humabon, was challenged, it is thought, by a Chinese frigate. The Philippine ship radioed that two shots had been fired across its bow. Subsequently, Cavite Naval Base lost contact with the vessel. A search has turned up bodies and wreckage presumably from the Rajah Humabon.
"d.a.m.n!" the president muttered. He looked downward in thought for a moment, then turned to his aide. "Are we certain the Chinese actually sank the Philippine vessel?" he asked.
"Not at this time, Mr. President."
The president glanced over at Thomas Benedict, CIA Director, who simply shook his head, signifying that this was the first he"d heard. He then turned to the Secretary of Defense, Melvin Larimer: "Any thoughts?"
"Mr. President, last year alone the Chinese captured 17 Vietnamese fishing boats with some 210 fishermen while they were fishing off the coast of Viet Nam. In December j.a.pan"s coastguard arrested the captain of a Chinese fishing boat fishing there illegally. The captain claims he was rammed by a j.a.panese coast guard vessel. I could quote a number of other incidents, but the bottom line is that China"s foreign minister has stated plainly that the entire South China Sea belongs to China and they appear to be systematically provoking confrontations to show that there"s nothing anyone can do about it."
"Frankly, Mr. President," interjected James Langley, his national security advisor, "there isn"t a d.a.m.n thing we can do about it. This is as much about poking us in the eye as it is about a.s.serting territorial claims. While they"ve been busy building a blue water navy, we"ve been busy paying for it by buying their products and then borrowing our money back from them."
The president shot him a glance that made it clear he was irked. He was fully engaged in increasing the scope and power of the federal government to an unprecedented level and didn"t like being reminded of global realities, especially when they concerned the source of much of the money he was using for his expansion. Rather than adapt to reality, he seemed determined to instead bend reality to his views. He was a typical ideologue, arrogant and self-important, a person whose paternal and condescending view of the world led him to make dangerous miscalculations.
Not since Woodrow Wilson had a US president seen as his mission the establishment of "world governance," a top down system in which the "elite" decide what is best for the rest. As with Communism, the elite are chosen by each other, conveniently eliminating the archaic and risky custom of holding elections. The Speaker of the House, from his own party, had gone so far as to say in front of the cameras: "Elections really aren"t very important." The election that had propelled him into his current position had served its purpose, and now he was devising a way to wean his flock away from the idea that they needed to concern themselves with the workings of "their" government. Just one more successful election and he would have ample opportunity to consolidate his power and complete his transformation.
But such a vast undertaking took more than planning and compliant, naive supporters. It took money, lots of it, and he really didn"t much care where he got it or what he had to trade off his military, his nation"s triple-A credit rating, the respect of the rest of the world. Nothing mattered more than his grand world vision, nothing, that is, save his own personal power. It had not gone unnoticed by some that a pose he often struck, lips tightly pursed, chin thrust upward, bore an uncanny resemblance to Mussolini.
The few of his advisors who weren"t mere sycophants had become more alarmed by the day as he grew further and further removed from the ramifications of his rigid ideology. He once said that while at Boston College, he preferred hanging out with Marxists. Given the abysmal and disastrous results of Marxism in the real world, that alone should have sent up a red sky rocket. But few of his adoring fans probably even knew who Marx was or how many tens of millions of human beings lost their lives due to Marxism"s tenets. Those who did, like their leader, either blithely ignored or rationalized away the obvious, meanwhile viciously attacking any dissenting voice.
The fact that China was calling most of the shots these days was an annoying detail that could have gotten in the way of the president"s grand dream had he not found it so easy to overlook. He was only too happy to usher the Dalai Lama out the back door lest it offend Beijing to see him coming out the front. Meanwhile, periodic trips to Beijing by his peripatetic treasury secretary were p.a.w.ned off on the public as lectures to the Chinese on how they must stop manipulating their currency. In reality, he was trading off a.s.surances for more borrowing from the bank of China, a.s.surances that the United States would not interfere in the South China Sea in any meaningful way.
But the president was making one of the gravest miscalculations of his presidency: underestimating the Chinese.
Thomas Benedict, Director of Central Intelligence, sat quietly in his seat with only a hint of a smile reflecting his thoughts. He had come to the conclusion that he was one of only three people in the room, the others being the National Security Advisor and the Secretary of Defense, who were neither deluded by the president"s charisma and oratory nor corrupted by the promise of future personal gain.
The CIA chief had been a four star general with an impeccable record who had been tapped to lead the Agency. Many thought it more logical for him to lead the nation"s military, but the president"s advisors had pointed out the he needed Benedict"s unblemished stature for the nomination to succeed. They also knew that as DCI, it would be far easier to hang some future failure around his neck should it become expedient to jettison him. Equally important, from the president"s perspective, he would be unavailable to be drafted as a presidential candidate. Benedict sat quietly, watching the wheels turn in the president"s head as he framed a response.
"Tom, find out what you can about what happened out there and get back to me," the president said.
So that"s it, thought the director. You"ve decided that unless someone can prove the Chinese sank the Philippine vessel, nothing sticks to your suit. Just sweep it under the rug with everything else. Somehow, Mr. President, I don"t think that"s the way this one is going to play out.
"Yes, Sir," he answered.
8.
An hour after leaving the White House briefing, Benedict was in his seventh floor conference room at Langley. Huddled there with a.n.a.lysts from his East Asia/China teams, he was listening to what his experts theorized may have occurred in the Far East.
Sarah Ferguson, one of newest in the department, had begun to earn the respect of her peers for her intellect, though she had also stirred resentment for her outspokenness and the director"s perceived inclination to hear what she had to say over some of her more senior colleagues. Her striking good looks, while not a problem for some, had a predictable effect on others.
"Sir," she began, "up to this point, the Chinese seem to have focused their activities closer to home, mainly the coast of Viet Nam and to a lesser extent j.a.pan. Aside from a.s.serting sovereignty, their goal appears to be primarily focused on discouraging others from attempting to harvest the abundant natural resources in the area. But there does appear to be an escalation."
"An Indian company signed a three-year deal with PetroVietnam and accepted Vietnam"s offer of exploration in certain specified areas in the South China Sea. One of India"s amphibious a.s.sault vessels, the INS Airavat, while visiting Vietnam, was reportedly hailed at a distance of forty-five nautical miles from the Vietnamese coast by someone identifying himself as the Chinese Navy and warning that his ship was in Chinese waters. The Indian ship took no action and proceeded unhindered."
"Later though, a Chinese fishing vessel rammed a PetroVietnam ship"s survey cables while the latter was conducting a seismological survey of South China Sea oil reserves. Of course, as you are all aware, there was also that incident south of Chingua Reef where more than seventy Vietnamese sailors were killed."
"In regard to the Philippines, previously the Chinese have fired warning shots near their fishing boats. Last night that may have changed. China seems to have been, for the most part, reluctant to engage in outright hostilities. The Indian Navy ship that was challenged was a capable warship from a nation with a powerful navy, and it is possible that may have tempered the Chinese actions."
"On the other hand, the Philippine Navy is a navy in name only and the vessel that was apparently sunk was a relic of WWII and could have posed little threat to a modern Chinese frigate. As an interesting aside, nearly every country in SE Asia with a coastline is fortifying its submarine fleet. j.a.pan alone is adding eight to its sixteen boat fleet. The Philippines, however, has not a single submarine and are only now making preliminary inquiries into acquiring one. To China, the Philippines may have appeared to be low-hanging fruit, so to speak, a way to make a point with little danger to itself."
"But do we have any concrete evidence that the Chinese naval vessel sank the Philippine craft?" asked the director.
Perry Sparks, the a.n.a.lyst with the most experience in Asian navies responded: "Sir, while evidence that it was a Philippine frigate that went down seems compelling, there is no way at this time to connect it with a Chinese warship, aside from radio traffic. Frankly, I"d be surprised if there were anything concrete at all. The Chinese typically prefer to maintain deniability or at least uncertainty unless they decide that it is in their interest to be overt. And right now, demonstrating that they are capable of sinking a far inferior naval vessel would not seem to give them any benefit that a simple threat wouldn"t accomplish."
"I disagree with that, Perry," interjected another a.n.a.lyst. "By actually sinking a warship, albeit clandestinely, China has upped the fear factor by several notches. If I were serving on a warship in the South China Sea, I"d want to make d.a.m.n sure my life insurance was paid up."
"So the Chinese," said the DCI, "may have been able to make a powerful statement at little cost to themselves." Scratching his temple, he added: "Thinking out loud here . . . what about the possibility of a Chinese sub in the area at the time? If the sub did the dirty work while their surface craft maintained deniability . . ."
"I"m not sure how that would work, Sir," the a.n.a.lyst said.
"If I wanted to sink a ship without taking a chance that it could be pinned on me," the DCI replied, "I might have my sub torpedo it and then claim, perhaps rightfully, that the frigate only fired shots across its bow. This could provide cover just in case the whole thing blew into more than the Chinese planned for. Perry, what is the approximate depth of the sea in that area?"
"If it wasn"t over the shoal itself, Sir, we"re talking better than three thousand meters."
"Little chance of recovery or proof of a torpedo hit at that depth," the director said, almost to himself. "Perry, contact DOD and see what we have in the area . . . and if they"ve heard any Chinese boats."
9.
March 10 2013 0130 hrs 50 Miles West of Mindoro So. China Sea The USS Hawaii (SSN-776), on routine patrol off the Philippine coast, was moving silently at a depth of 400 feet. Third of a currently authorized 18 Virginia Cla.s.s nuclear submarines, she and others of her cla.s.s are intended to replace the ageing Los Angeles cla.s.s attack submarines currently being decommissioned. Designed as an alternative to the costlier Sea Wolf, she nonetheless incorporates technology not seen before on any submarine.
It was day 71 of a 90 day patrol. For a nuclear submarine, the length of time at sea is limited only by the amount of food that can be carried. During a normal cruise, a nuclear submarine typically remains submerged all the time since she is hardest to detect when at depth. But time on patrol is far more than simply cruising the ocean depths.
In waters where there is abundant maritime shipping, those who operate her sonar may hear a dozen or more (sometimes many more) contacts in a single 24 hour period, ranging from small fishing boats to giant oil tankers and container ships. These contacts are noted, but without alarm. The detection of a warship, though, even when no trouble is expected, always elevates the attention level in the control room to a degree.
"Sonar. Conn. Contact bearing 1-7- 0, range 16,000 yards. Twin screws, running at 15 knots. Sounds like a Type 53 Chinese Frigate, Sir, probably on patrol," the sonar man announced to the executive officer manning the conn.
"Conn. Sonar. Designate contact 1, identify and commence tracking," replied the XO.
"Sonar. Conn. Tracking contact 1. Computer thinks it"s the Yulin," added the sonar man, simultaneously feeding the data for that ship to the command console.
The XO carefully scanned the information now on his monitor. Type 053H3 (Jiangwei II Cla.s.s) Missile Frigate. 100mm deck gun, dual 37mm anti-aircraft artillery, 2 type 87 six-tube anti-submarine rocket launchers. Not one of their newest, he thought, but potent enough. At his submarine"s current depth and speed, it was unlikely that the Chinese vessel would detect him.
"Sonar. Conn. Contact 1 has increased revolutions, bearing still 1-7- 0."
Wonder what our friend"s up to that he"s in such a hurry? thought the XO.
Typically, a warship moves at the speed which provides the greatest cruising range and fuel economy. Suddenly increasing speed usually means that it is either investigating or about to attack something.
"Sonar. Conn. New contact bearing 1- 6 - 0, range 14,000 yards. Single screw, speed 18 knots. Likely submarine."
"Conn. Sonar. Designate contact 2, identify and commence tracking," replied the XO.
The game had just become more complex. Both vessels being tracked are theoretically capable of sinking the USS Hawaii, so respect is due. But although the control room crew was now more alert than they were a few moments ago, there was still no sense of alarm. No hostile intent had been evidenced, and the USS Hawaii is one of the most capable and dangerous subs on the planet. But the surface contact had increased speed. This necessitated evaluation.
"Sonar. Conn. Tracking contact 2. It"s a Song, Sir. Attempting to ascertain hull number."
The XO reflexively looked over at the sonar man, not expecting any additional information, but as if to confirm the significance of what he had just heard. The Song Cla.s.s or Type 039 is the latest and most advanced submarine to have been designed and built by the Chinese. While certainly not at the level of sophistication of the USS Hawaii, it is nonetheless a potent and lethal platform. The XO"s index finger depressed a square orange b.u.t.ton, alerting the captain that he is requested in the control room.
Less than two minutes later, Captain Sidney Ralston"s head appeared from the companionway that opens into the control room. Without glancing sideways at the others on duty there, he went immediately to the XO"s station.
"What have you got?"
"Two contacts, Sir. One possibly the Yulin, Type 53 Chinese Frigate bearing 1-7- 0, range 16,000 yards, the other likely a Song, bearing 1- 6 - 0, range 14,000 yards, speed 18 knots, hull number unknown. The Frigate appeared to be on patrol, then suddenly speeded up. The sub is maintaining her speed."
"Captain has the conn," said the captain.
"Captain has the conn," repeated the XO.
"Make revolutions for 12 knots," ordered Ralston. "Secure the galley. Let"s be a fly on the wall for awhile."
10.
"Baines is killing us, Herb," the president said to Senate Majority Leader, Herbert Rausch.
"I know, I know," replied Rausch, "it"s like he"s pa.s.sing out candy to kids. And he knows it, d.a.m.n it! But he"s been singing that song for a long time and n.o.body that matters is listening."