Read Online Fourth Crisis: The Battle for Taiwan by Peter von Bleichert - Free Book Online Page B

roofed by the flight deck,
and covered with equipment and catwalks.   A sailor balanced to replace a bulb in the instrument landing system,
the T-shaped set of lights Pelletier and the other aviators used during
landings to judge the motion of the ship.   Another working sailor saw Pelletier and threw his cigarette overboard,
then returned to the jet engine he had strapped to a test stand.   He saluted.   Pelletier waved it away.   He took
this to mean he could light another cigarette.   Pelletier went to one of the two close-in weapon systems that protected Ronald Reagan ’s rear end from sea-skimming
missiles.
    She perched herself under its barrel-shaped radar and rotary
cannon, and swung her boots from its base.   Several stories down flowed the black water.   Churned by the ship’s four gigantic propellers,
organisms phosphoresced and laid a neon carpet that was both wondrous and
worrying, a big, glowing arrow that pointed right at the American
supercarrier.   Pelletier glanced at the
sailor.   He had stopped pretending to
work on the engine.   Smoking again, he
looked thoughtfully to sea.   Pelletier got
a tight feeling in her stomach.   She
decided it was time to go back to bed.
    ◊◊◊◊
    Stationary above the western Pacific, an American Defense
Support Program satellite performed a graceful orbital pirouette.   Squinting through a telescope, its infrared
sensors detected the heat plume of ballistic missiles rising from Chinese
soil.   The satellite alerted the 460 th Space Wing in Aurora, Colorado, which informed Strategic Command at Offutt,
Nebraska.
    In the war room deep below Offutt Air Force Base, a bearish
four-star general—an old WWII Mustang pilot— studied the computer-generated
missile plots presented on the bunker’s screen.   My
hibernation den for the coming nuclear winter , he thought.   “Take us to DefCon 3,” the general growled.   On a colorful countdown board that went from DEFCON
5 to DEFCON 1—Armageddon—the big green number ‘4’ changed to a yellow ‘3,’ and the
armed forces of the United States increased their defense readiness condition.   Security zones around Midwestern Minuteman
III inter-continental ballistic missile silos doubled, strategic bombers were
loaded with nuclear cruise missiles and gravity bombs, and Trident missile subs—‘boomers’—were
alerted that they may be needed.
    “Get SBX on this.   And
cue Beale…”   The general ordered the beams
of Sea-Based X-band radar, and the big pyramidal radar in California, swung
toward China.   “Those missiles could be
headed our way.”   The general grumbled,
as he crossed thick arms.
    Off Midway Island’s shallow barrier reef, an old Japanese
Val bomber rested on the sandy bottom.   Upright,
it sat in the water, as though still being flown by a spectral pilot.   However, the old warplane dripped with rust
and colorful fish congregated in its nooks and crannies.   SBX floated above it on twin torpedo hulls.   As if teed up for King Neptune himself, the converted
oil rig had in place of its drilling tower a giant white ball.   From inside this weatherproof dome, an
antenna bounced powerful radio waves off the ionosphere, bent them around the
curvature of the Earth, and found the boosting Chinese ballistic missiles.
    Pulling in SBX’s data, US Strategic Command analyzed
trajectories with superfast computers, and confirmed that the Chinese launch was
intra-theater rather than intercontinental.   Impact zones were projected.   They
were located within the Philippine Sea, the current operating area of the George Washington carrier strike
group.   Word was forwarded to Hawaii, and
then on to the American supercarrier.
    ◊◊◊◊
    White Pacific dolphins frolicked in the supercarrier George Washington ’s bow wave.   They vaulted acrobatically and led the
gargantuan warship and its procession through the Philippine Sea.   Some of George
Washington ’s anti-submarine warfare