Ghost Fleet Read online

  A montage of U.S. Navy aircraft carriers in port appeared, the last shot a lingering image of CVN-80, the new USS Enterprise, still under construction.

  “And, of course, if that is the case, you can’t keep doing things the old way on the cheap. Take capital ships, the way navies back then, and even today, measured force. With the Ford-class carriers taking so long to build, although the U.S. Navy has nine CVNs, that actually means four in service to cover the entire globe. And with the cost of keeping our military in Afghanistan, Yemen, and, now, Kenya, well, we’ve had to get used to working without them.”

  “I’d rather be on this ship than a carrier anyway,” said Gupal. “Just a bigger bull’s-eye for an incoming Stonefish.”

  “Secure that mouth, Lieutenant, or you’re not even gonna last one cruise on this ship,” said Riley, jabbing a titanium e-cigar in the air.

  “Aye, aye, Captain,” said Gupal sheepishly.

  Simmons, as the XO, was supposed to be the bad cop to Captain Riley’s good cop, making the reversal of roles that much more amusing to the crew.

  “Lieutenant, all jokes aside, you are making my point. You’re right that the DF-21E, the Stonefish anti-ship ballistic missile, is not really about us,” said Simmons. “But I want you to think about the various trends, the why, and then the what-next. So, what does the Stonefish offer the Chinese?”

  “Well, sir, it’s like a boxer stretching his arms out farther. Gives them the ability to target our big deck carriers before we can get in range of China,” said Gupal.

  “Right, it gives them freedom of action. So if you’re Directorate, what do you do with that freedom? And why, or even when? These are the questions I want you asking. Just because you see the world one way today does not mean it will be that way tomorrow. It’s pirates today. What will it be next?” asked Simmons.

  Captain Riley stepped over to Simmons. He smiled, but his body language made it clear he was not completely pleased with the briefing. “Thank you, XO. The key, folks, is to assess these threats. There’s dangers, but let’s not build these guys up to be ten feet tall. And if it comes down to a boxing match, Big Navy’s spent literally billions on the air-sea battle concept, just for the Stonefish threat and more. In any case, given what’s playing out on the Siberian border, it might be better for the XO to brief the next Russian ship we see rather than us. If anyone is going to war with the Directorate, it’s Moscow.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Simmons. “Any questions?” He looked around the room and chewed his cheek to keep from saying anything more.

  Lieutenant Gupal raised his hand. “Sir, where does that leave us on the patrol? How should we think about the Directorate forces here? Friend or foe? Or frenemy?”

  “Like I said, the Chinese are more likely to go to war with Russia than us,” Riley replied. “And if the idea does cross their mind to tangle with us, well, they just don’t have the experience to do it right. The XO’s history lesson should’ve also mentioned that China hasn’t fought a major war since the 1940s.”

  “Neither has the U.S. Navy,” said Simmons quietly.

  Silence followed. A few of the crew started fiddling with their glasses in their laps, trying to look busy. Lieutenant Gupal, though, was too green to understand that the silence wasn’t another opportunity for him to gain notice. What worked at the Naval Academy was the wrong call in the wardroom.

  “XO, do you think the captain’s right about Russia and China, though?” asked Gupal.

  Simmons glanced at Riley before looking at Gupal.

  “The Directorate has been making claims about their guest-worker rights being abused by the Russians and how their government is not beholden to the old borders set in treaties signed by prior regimes on both sides,” said Simmons. “So if I was in Moscow, I’d potentially come to the same conclusion the captain has. And the Russians seem to be acting on that belief. The latest satellite photos showed the Russian Pacific fleet has sortied from its base in Vladivostok, most likely to put some range between it and the Chinese air bases to complicate any potential sneak attack. It’s the right move. The history supports it.”

  “And with that rare praise from the XO, dismissed,” said Captain Riley. “We know where to get our sunshine when we need it.”

  U.S. Embassy, Beijing

  The ambassador loved parties. So did Commander Jimmie Links, but for different reasons.

  The truth was the parties were just an excuse. This farewell soiree was in his honor — he was finishing up two years in the defense attaché’s office — but no matter the country the guest came from, no matter the rank, no matter the clout, everyone in the room was there to collect. Eyeglasses, jewelry, watches, whatever — all were constantly recording and analyzing. Suck it all up and let the filters sort it out. It was not much different from how the people back home did their shopping, wide-casting for discounts.

  Links watched a beautiful Chinese woman in her late twenties glide by in a floor-length translucent SpecTran-fiber dress and noticed the telltale strip of stiff-looking skin at the base of her neck. The new folks joining the three-letter agencies didn’t have a choice anymore. The human body, with the right technology, is an extraordinary antenna. Fortunately, as a U.S. Navy officer who’d joined before the policy shift, Links had gotten out of that one, at least for the moment. The Navy wasn’t giving him a break; it was just that no one had figured out yet if the chips would interfere with sensitive avionics or ship systems. At some point, though, tradition would lose out to technology.

  Someone tapped a glass, and the noise in the room hushed to a murmur. Links looked at his vodka martini and eyed the lemon twist. The question wasn’t whether it was a recording device, but whose.

  “Together, let us raise our glasses on this occasion to acknowledge our common interests and objectives,” said General Wu Liao, a Directorate air force commander who Links knew was about to announce another wave of corruption purges. Links even knew the names of the men who would be executed in three days, all because Wu’s driver had left a window cracked open to smoke. That’s how good the collection was.

  “It is in a navy officer’s honor I toast. That is not something you often hear from an air force officer of any country’s military.”

  Polite laughter from fifteen different nationalities followed the joke.

  “The joint China-U.S. exercises to help bring order to the waters around the former Republic of Indonesia are a sign our future together will be a strong one,” said General Wu. “As for our neighbors to the north, I cannot say the same.”

  Wu’s angry glance at a Russian officer standing in the corner shifted the guests’ gaze and cut off any remaining laughter. The Russian nodded indifferently and casually moved a highball glass from one hand to the other, as if he cared more about the temperature of his vodka than the speech.

  After the toast, Links walked over to the Russian. Major General Sergei Sechin was a regular on the party circuit. He walked with the confidence of someone who’d been in uniform for most of his life, and he always smiled like he had just been told a bawdy joke. Sechin had been in Beijing for over a decade, so he must have been very good at his job if he was able to keep his own bosses happy while also riding out the Directorate’s rise to power. Besides the violent purges of the old Communist Party leadership, there had been more than a few deadly traffic “accidents” involving the foreign intelligence community.

  “Sorry about that,” said Links. “Poorly done by Wu.”

  “The Directorate new guard, especially the core, like Wu, say they don’t care what anyone thinks. But it makes them think only of their own plan,” said Sechin. “The Communist Party had theirs too, and you can see how it ended for them . . .”

  “I am going to miss our uplifting conversations, Sergei,” said Links. “And the smog, and the winter.”

  A waiter passed with a tray of dr
inks, and Sechin deposited his and Links’s empty glasses and snatched two more frosty vodkas.

  “One day, we will all get past this unpleasantness,” said Sechin, handing a glass to Links, downing his own vodka, and nodding for Links to do the same.

  “Za vas,” said Links. The waiter reappeared and paused, timing his return perfectly, likely another espionage professional at work collecting.

  “Perhaps you will play a role in that . . .” Sechin focused on his glass. “Do you know what is America’s greatest export?”

  Links’s eyes narrowed. “Biggest, or greatest? Sometimes they’re not the same thing. Biggest by the numbers? Oil and gas. Greatest? Democracy,” said Links.

  “No, no, no,” said Sechin. “It is an idea, really. A dream: Star Trek.”

  He locked eyes with Links.

  “If you say so.” Links wondered what the computer analytics that parsed the transcripts would make of this conversation. Staring at his now empty glass, Sechin continued in a serious tone. “Star Trek was a television show watched by Americans during a time when my country and yours held each other, as you like to say in your nation’s defense strategy, ‘at risk.’ ”“Can’t say I ever watched it,” said Links. “At least not the old ones. My dad took me to a couple of the newer movies.”

  “The vision was so positive, a crew from all nations sent out by a world federation. An American, Captain Kirk, was their leader. With him was a crew from around the world, from Europe, from Africa — notable in that time of racial tension in your country. Also, and perhaps relevant here, there was Mr. Sulu. He represented all of Asia, which, because of America’s war in Vietnam, made this very capable man a symbol of the peace to come.”

  “Peaceful? Nobody like that here,” said Links, tipping his glass at Wu.

  “I give you that. But that is not what I want you to remember. Most important, just like you, an American officer, and I are friends,” said Sechin, “the navigator was Pavel Andreievich Chekov, a Russian! Now, this Chekov was not a real man, of course,” said Sechin. “But many believe that the character was named after a brilliant Russian scientist of the time, Pavel Alekseyevich Cherenkov. Do you know of him? He won a Nobel Prize in 1958, when my country was as sure of its destiny as Wu is of China’s.”

  Sechin waved his glass to indicate the coterie around Wu. “My point is that without Chekov, what really could Captain Kirk have done out there in space? Our Cherenkov was the key to the future!”

  Links caught the eye of the waiter, who brought another tray of vodka.

  “It’s coming back to me,” said Links. “But in the story, didn’t the Federation begin only after World War Three?”

  “Yes, yes, I allow you this,” said Sechin. “In any case, you should know that though we work for different sides, we are not all bad.”

  “There’s work,” said Links, placing their empty glasses on the waiter’s tray, taking two full ones, and holding one out to Sechin. “And there’s friends. You’re a friend.”

  “Yes, please remember that. In a few months’ time, when you are back in your warm office in the Pentagon, fourth corridor, D ring . . . Don’t look surprised, we know these things. When you return to your friends in Naval Intelligence, think of me and think of Chekov. Promise me that.”

  USS Coronado, Strait of Malacca

  Simmons sat at the small desk in his stateroom and watched the daily good-morning vid from his twins. While the Coronado sailed under a night sky, Claire and Martin, six years old, complained about school between bites of waffle. Their voices made his stomach tighten with sadness.

  “Good luck today with Riley,” said his wife. “It won’t be easy, I know it. We love you and can’t wait to get you back.”

  His wife signed off, as she did every morning, with a kiss sent from around the corner after the kids said goodbye. Then he was alone again inside the ship’s gray hull.

  He pulled himself up and walked down the hallway to the bridge wing. Riley was there, smoking a real cigar. The bridge wing was not the officially designated smoking area, but the ship’s captain could smoke where he damn well pleased.

  “Freighter, Directorate, freighter, freighter, Directorate,” said Riley, pointing to the mix of ships preparing to move through the Strait of Malacca tomorrow. “What do you see when you look at those ships?”

  “Going to be tight in the channel, sir,” said Simmons. “I think if the Directorate crews can actually handle their ships as well as we think they can, it’ll be fine.”

  “That’s not all I see,” said Riley. “I see us and them. Working together. What was with the brief? You know how bad they need our oil. In the end, we each know that we have the other by the throat.”

  “By the balls, more like. But is that a good thing?” said Simmons.

  “I see it like this convoy duty. They depend on us, and we depend on them. Maybe in different ways, but it’s the same outcome. We’re interlinked, even with the Directorate. Plus, China’s holding, what, nine trillion dollars’ worth of our debt?”

  “And growing,” said Simmons.

  “Right. They’re not our enemy, they’re our largest investor. Each one of those ships out there,” Riley said, waving his hand expansively, “is a reason not to go to war. People love making money. Especially the Directorate.”

  “Trade is just trade. You know I made the comparison between us today and the Brits a hundred years back,” said Simmons. “Well, who was Britain’s biggest trading partner before World War One? Germany. Or if you prefer World War Two as a comparison, Germany’s biggest trading partners just before the war were the very neighbors it soon invaded, while the U.S. was Japan’s.”

  “I don’t need another history lesson, Professor. The Directorate is the Russians’ worry for now. We’ve got a few more weeks and then we’ll be in Hawaii, which is an awful long way from whatever dustup starts in Siberia. Worry about sunburn instead,” said Riley.

  “Going to see John there?” said Simmons, changing the subject.

  “Yeah, he’s flying out,” said Riley.

  “That’s good,” said Simmons. “You guys going surfing?”

  Riley paused and then wordlessly offered Jamie one of his precious cigars and helped him light it. So now it will turn truly serious, thought Jamie.

  “Listen, make sure you hear this the right way: Do you understand what you are doing by turning down command and requesting the Pentagon job? I say this as a friend but also as your captain. If you don’t fleet up, the entire Surface Warfare community will consider you dead. Your career will be crucified,” said Riley.

  Simmons took a deep draw from his cigar and exhaled.

  “Lindsey’s got a bad case of what she calls seasickness, as in she’s sick of me going to sea. The kids are okay with it, but they don’t know any different. And maybe that’s the real problem.”

  Riley started to pull again from his cigar, then stopped and threw it overboard.

  “Don’t you think the whole crew miss their kids and spouses and dogs and all that shore shit? To do the job right, you have to give everything; that’s how it’s always been. You think my husband likes it? He hates it too,” he said. “No technology we’ve invented shrinks the distance.”

  “I know,” said Simmons. “I thought I could pull off the balancing act, maybe even had to, to prove I was better than my dad. But when I watch those vids of my kids growing up without me, all I think about is that I don’t want to do to them what my dad did to me.”

  Riley’s face reddened. “The Navy put you here as my XO for a reason. You have what it takes. And if you turn down command, you don’t just screw your career over, you screw me over too. I burn my powder. I don’t ever get to do that again for someone else.”

  The ship rolled to port, and Riley instinctively grabbed the rail.

  “Jamie, you need to thi
nk this over one last time. You know where I’m coming from. I have to think about the ship and the Navy. I’m going to hold the paperwork until we get back to San Diego. You use the time until then to get your head on straight. Don’t sink your career because you still have daddy issues.”

  Simmons nodded. “Aye, Captain.”

  He headed to his stateroom and brewed a fresh cup of coffee. The aroma and salt spray on his clothes reminded him of his father. That decided it; this cruise would be his last.

  Yulin Naval Base, Hainan Island

  Vice Admiral Wang Xiaoqian closed his eyes for a last moment of calm, running his thumb over the surface of the heavy coin in his palm. He could feel the eagle’s wings and make out the texture of a tall ship’s masts. By military custom, he would need to present the challenge coin from the U.S. Navy’s chief of naval operations to him when they next met.

  The thump of the plane’s wheels touching down brought him to a state of full alert. The four-engine Y-20 transport plane had been modified for VIP flights, but the long flight back from the United States had still been taxing. The question was why the trip had been cut short, and not knowing the answer worried him.

  “Admiral, welcome home,” said his aide, waiting at the bottom step.

  “And?” said Admiral Wang.

  “There will be a meeting, but nothing more for my eyes. Your pre-briefing is here,” said the aide, tapping a metallic-white envelope. “Printed out.”

  “So is this a bull’s-eye for me?” said Wang.

  “Not for you,” said the aide incredulously.

  “I appreciate your confidence, but unfortunately you do not have a Presidium vote. At the very least, this meeting promises to be more exciting than my trip was. All the American admirals want is yet another ‘strategic dialogue,’ which betrays their inability to decide what they really want as a nation, and of us. You are lucky to have stayed home.”

  “Do you have any gifts for me to send along to your homes?” said the aide. With the dollar so weak, Admiral Wang usually bought small tokens for both his wife and his mistress.