Western Command, Embarked USS Bougainville (LHA-8)
50 Miles Northwest, San Miguel Island, California
“Congratulations, you are my red team.”
Admiral Lensten looked each of the four people in the room directly in the eye for a full ten seconds each. Ping Pong, Park, Peters and Bustamante just stared back, not sure what to make of the statement. The small drab room with open piping and electrical conduits running along the ceilings was as close to a proper conference room that the Bougainville offered. While the LHA was not small by any means, it was much smaller than a full-on carrier like the USS Ford. Giving an entire room to a single team like this was the ultimate luxury that only an admiral could do. Space was always a premium on any Navy ship and the current circumstances just exacerbated that normal space constraint.
Ping Pong spoke first. She was still in the desert camo she had borrowed from Bustamante even though she’d been recalled to active duty. “I want to speak to my husband.”
Lensten frowned. “First, you’re out of uniform. Second, I don’t think this is the time for personal calls.”
Ping Pong shook her head angrily. “Sir, if you can find me a uniform that fits, I’ll gladly wear it. There aren’t more than ten women on this whole rust bucket.” She tapped her finger on the table. “Also, I want to talk to Neil because he was in the middle of it last time. He was on the sharp end, and he probably knows better than any of us how the Chinese think.” She pointed vaguely off to the west. “He should be on the Zumwalt by now.”
“Apologies. Yes, he came out on a helo last night.” Lensten consulted a file. “Task force 35 is about one hundred miles north of us right now.”
Park, as the only non-miliary person in the room wasn’t really sure what his role was. His early career had been focused on North Korea for obvious reasons; the CIA didn’t have that many native Korean speakers available to them. However, after his mission during the SCS war, he had shifted to Latin America and completely by accident, he had become an expert in Russian intelligence operations. He had personally interrogated the Russian Spetsnaz troops that had originally been captured by Peters and Bustamante. “Sir, the entire focus of this conflict revolves around the relationship between Russia and China. We need to see any and all intercepts between the two.”
Lensten nodded slowly. “Tell me more.”
“Obviously, there is some sort of partnership here. The lack of Chinese support in the Alaska theater may be them hanging their buddies out to dry or it could be the Russians overestimating their abilities. The point is that Russia has had their intelligence services setting up the conditions for this operation for at least ten years, probably more. Hell, we know that they were actively working to subvert NATO way back in the ‘70s.” He paused, obviously thinking. “The change is the Chinese. The Russians are doing exactly what they’ve been doing. But the Chinese changed their operational pattern. Why?”
Bustamante smiled. This was his “I think I figured something out” smile. “Because suddenly the Russians were successful.” He looked around at the others sitting at the table. “Nobody wants part of a failed operation. Success has many fathers; failure is an orphan.”
Lensten wasn’t seeing the connection. “And?”
“And the Chinese are very pragmatic. They don’t get involved unless they’re pretty sure it’s a good outcome for them.”
“So, what changed?”
Ping Pong nodded. “We know that they have at least three things that made this operation work. One, they were able to penetrate US secure networks. Two, they knew what war plans we would use. Three, they were able to subvert the Mexican government.”
Bustamante snapped his fingers. “Two and three are Russia. Only the first one is China.”
Ping Pong nodded. “That must have been the trigger. They knew they had full access to the US secure network and could prevent a nuclear strike.”
“Yes, any attack on the CONUS would normally trigger a nuclear strike.”
Lensten sighed. “This is code word material.” He looked everyone in the eye again. Each nodded. “It did trigger a nuclear strike. We had an empty quiver.”
“Holy shit.” Ping Pong and Peters both looked shocked. Park and Bustamante just looked confused.
Lensten continued. “Empty quiver is the code name for a failed nuclear weapon. We tried to launch a strike, but it failed to work.”
Ping Pong leapt to her feet, unable to contain herself. “Sir, that is the critical event. Without that, none of this makes any sense.”
Lensten nodded again. “So, they convinced themselves that they could stop us from hitting them with nukes. That lowers the risk profile quite a bit.”
“That’s putting it mildly. We go from millions of Chinese dead to a military campaign far away from Chinese shores.”
Peters grimaced. “This is supposed to be our playbook.”
Lensten smacked the table with his palm. “Your job is to tell me how we flip this script. We need to take the initiative back.”
Nine hours later, Admiral Lensten was long gone, but the others remained. None of them had left the small conference room for more than a quick trip to the head. None of them smelled great and they were all short tempered from lack of sleep. Although Ping Pong and Peters were both captains, Ping Pong was a US Navy captain which was an O-6 and Peters was a US Army captain which was only an O-3. While Bustamante was a Mexican Marine officer, he was equivalent to a commander in the US Navy which was an O-5. This made Ping Pong the senior officer in the room. Park was a civilian, but as a GS-14 he was basically the same pay grade as a commander also.
Ping Pong stretched. She was used to sitting in a cockpit for hours at a time, but one of the benefits of flying the P-8 is that you could get up and stretch occasionally. She examined the whiteboard that the admiral had found somewhere. “OK, are we agreed? It’s Doolittle, Rapier and Ardent Eagle?”
Peters shook his head. “We should do Ardent Eagle right now. Why wait?”
Bustamante frowned. He didn’t have as many frowns as he had smiles, but this one was his “legitimate concerns” frown that he normally saved for junior officers. “If we announce Ardent Eagle, it will tip them off for Rapier. I would do Rapier and announce Ardent Eagle at about the same time.”
Park wasn’t sure about the military complexity, but he was well aware of the political dimensions. “The president will never approve Ardent Eagle.”
Ping Pong shrugged. “Not our problem. We make recommendations, command does it or not.” She looked at the map tacked up to the wall. “Doolittle is pretty much ready to go right now.” She checked her notes. “Ardent Eagle is at least two days away, probably a full week. We’ll find out about Rapier in a few hours.” She sat down. “I need some rack time before Neil gets here.”
COMNAVSURFWEST, Embarked USS Bougainville (LHA-8)
50 Miles Northwest, San Miguel Island, California
“Naval Surface Force West, arriving.”
The V-22 Osprey made a perfect landing. The weather was good, but it was always challenging to land on a ship at night under combat conditions. The ship was blacked out except for a few lights on the flight deck to help the pilot land. With abbreviated ceremony, Admiral Harris was piped aboard Bougainville. Wearing the “Navy working uniform III” or NWU III, Harris quickly returned the salute of the Bougainville’s CO, a USN captain. Admiral Lensten had remained below in accordance with the heightened security posture on the ship due to ongoing combat operations. Harris was quickly escorted to flag country where a small stateroom had been reserved for him.
“Neil!”
Once the door closed, Harris gave his wife a long hug. It was amazing that she was here. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“It’s a long story, but I’ve been activated. I am under orders from SacPac himself.”
“You know he’s dead, right?”
“Yes, but until countermanded, those are my orders.”
Neil gave her a brief kiss. It made him uncomfortable to be with his wife on a combat ship in the middle of a war, but he was going to have to get used to it. “You’re out of uniform, Captain.”
Ping Pong smacked him on the shoulder. “You’re the second admiral to tell me that. Do you think they have any female NDUs on this bucket? No, they do not.”
Neil laughed, glad to discuss something as trivial as uniforms instead of the dire discussions about the war he had been having since his arrival in the AOR. “Here.” He handed Ping Pong a duffel. Inside there were two sets of uniforms, underwear and other assorted items. “The evac team pulled these out of the apartment in Mexico City. They were forwarded to me in DC.” They were her uniforms she had kept, thinking that she was likely to go back to reserve duty. They included a set of NDUs and a set of khakis, with her correct rank insignia and her “rack” of medals.
Ping Pong laughed. “Amazing that there are people focused on little details like that.”
“Get dressed, I need a full briefing.”
“Yes, sir.”
Two hours later, both Lensten and Harris were shaking their heads in the makeshift conference room. “We will never get approval for this.” Lensten pointed to the map. “The blocking forces here have no chance without massive reinforcement.”
“Sirs, we are losing this war.” Peters gestured to the map. “We know that the entire point of the operation was to force the USA to invoke Ardent Resolve. They knew our plans in advance; they predicted our moves. Ardent Resolve focused our forces out in the open in a predictable way. This doubled the effectiveness of the space-based attack. They have been ahead of us the entire time. They are reading our mail. We need to do something off-script or we are fucked. The number one thing I would like to do is reinforce these troops in contact. Do we have massive reinforcements for them? No, we do not. We can feed another thousand Marines into this meat grinder, but it won’t stop the inevitable. We can play China’s game and keep losing or we can give them a new game.”
“Son, they’re not playing poker.”
“Not yet. The entire goal is to force them to play poker with us.”
“Then what?”
“Then we cheat.”
Ping Pong laughed. “SacPac once told me that if you’re not cheating, you’re not trying hard enough.”
Admiral Harris turned to Lensten. “It’s your command, Bill. I’ll back you up with NORCOM, but it’s your ass if it goes south.” He walked over to the map. “With the changes we’ve made here, I think my team can pull off Rapier. We’re short on overhead imagery, but as discussed, the Santa Barbara is back home and can help us there.” He turned back to Lensten. “Are we getting carrier support?”
Lensten just shook his head. “Washington is down hard in Japan. Looks like sabotage. Roosevelt has been recalled to the Atlantic to protect the East Coast.”
“Protect against what?”
“NORCOM is working on it, but as we know the administration has been compromised. We are still getting bad intel reported up the chain. Until that gets resolved, we’re on our own.”
Everyone in the room sobered with this frank description of their predicament. This wasn’t supposed to happen. The USA had the most powerful military on earth. They were not supposed to operate on a shoestring. Finally, Ping Pong broke the spell. “If Halsey could win the Pacific War with only three carriers, we can sure as hell defend the West Coast with what we have.”
Lensten was silent for a moment. While the admiral was thinking, Bustamonte leaned over to Ping Pong and whispered, “You never told me you had the Navy cross, Captain Harris.” Ping Pong just glared at him. He smiled back. This was his “You act tough but I know you better” smile.
Lensten came to a decision. As SACWEST, it was within his authority to do what he felt was necessary to win the war. He had clear orders to defend the West Coast. “I am going to act on my authority from NORCOM. Implement Doolittle, Rapier and Ardent Eagle.” He turned to Ping Pong. “What’s left of VP-4 is operating out of Stockton. Head over and brief them personally. I will cut the orders.” He pointed at Peters. “You’re going to have to go explain all this to the Marines. Get your butt down to Twentynine Palms and find the CO of task force Anvil.” Bustamante raised his hand. “Yes, you go with him.” He turned to Park. “You stay here; I need you to coordinate with all the civilian agencies.” Lensten stood. “Dismissed to duties. Get moving.”