“I think it’s fucking stupid. They want us to fly east through known Chinese surface-to-air missile sites and over open ocean without being able to reach our destination?”

“Are there any other atolls between here and there that we can use as emergency diverts?”

Roger zoomed in on his tablet to look at satellite imagery of the ocean between their tiny speck of land and the Philippines. “Macclesfield Bank is about one hundred and ninety miles away, but the shoals are entirely submerged and won’t do us any good.”

“Dammit!” Charlie said. “Anything else?”

“Scarborough Shoal,” Roger said. “It’s just over four hundred miles away.”

“Dry?”

“Maybe. The highest point should be six feet above sea level at high tide.”

Charlie nodded and looked at Dave over his shoulder. “Everybody aboard?”

“Last man,” he said.

“Pass out life vests and prepare the rafts for a potential ditching. We’re going to another island.”

Dave gave him a curious look but didn’t argue and spun back into the cabin. Charlie increased torque, and he felt the Mi-17 get light as he lifted off the sandbar and hovered inches off the ground. After stabilizing in the hover for a second, he nosed over and quickly accelerated away from the atoll before keying the switch to transmit back to the TOC.

“Scar Nine Nine, Dusty One is airborne and proceeding to Scarborough Shoal. Request you launch Search and Rescue.”

39

Mace 201

Navy FA-18E Super Hornet

Colt arrived at the coordinates the Hawkeye controller had passed to him and oriented his CAP facing Hainan Island to the northwest. Even though Vietnam also claimed rights to the Paracel Islands, if anybody were to launch and challenge the two Super Hornets, it would be China.

“Tiger, two zero one established on CAP, angels thirty.”

The controller replied with a clipped, “Tiger.”

Colt looked over his right shoulder and saw the darkened outline of his wingman’s jet, a little less than a mile away. The anxiety he had felt after launching from the Reagan was gone now that he was no longer alone in the contested skies over the South China Sea. But the carrier in quarantine brought with it an entirely new worry.

“In place right,” Colt said.

He glanced over his shoulder again and saw the other jet come up on a wing to begin his one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn back to the southeast. They would flow cold — away from the threat sector — while relying on Tiger’s radar to alert them of potentially hostile aircraft launching from Hainan Island. He started his turn, then looked down at the datalink display to verify Rucas had turned in the right direction, but his eyes focused on the icon for the slow-moving helicopter beneath them.

“Tiger, two zero one, picture.”

“Tiger, picture clean,” the controller said, then added, “Friendly helicopter, your position, cherubs five, flowing east.”

“Two zero one.”

Colt rolled out heading southeast, then banked ninety degrees and looked straight down at the pitch black beneath him. Through his NVCD, he saw a cluster of infrared lights glowing from an island he assumed the helicopter had landed on, but the helicopter itself was invisible. He rolled upright and settled in for a long night ahead of him.

“Two zero one, Tiger, friendly helicopter is proceeding to Scarborough Shoal.”

Rucas spoke up first. “Where the hell’s that?”

After relaying the coordinates for the emergency divert, the controller filled them in on what was happening almost thirty thousand feet beneath them. “Dusty One has a fuel leak and can’t make it all the way to the Philippines. Two Ospreys from the America are en route to recover the passengers and take them the rest of the way.”

Colt glanced down at his fuel gauge and knew that if they remained airborne much longer, the air branch helicopter wasn’t going to be the only one experiencing a fuel emergency. “Tiger, any chance of getting a Texaco airborne?”

“Stand by.”

He doubted there was an Air Force big-wing tanker — a KC-135 or KC-10—they could join on to top off, and the situation aboard the Reagan probably meant they wouldn’t be able to launch a five-wet Super Hornet to pass gas either. He was counting on only having what fuel remained in his internal tanks after his externals ran dry. But it never hurt to ask.

“Hey, Colt, how are you doing on gas?” Rucas asked.

He didn’t want to give an honest answer, so he just said, “I’m good.”

The double mic-click reply let him know Rucas understood his situation would turn dire if they loitered much longer. But with Dusty One proceeding east for the shoal, he should have just enough gas to make it to the Philippines. If China didn’t send up any more fighters.

“Two zero one, Tiger, negative on the Texaco.”

“Copy,” he replied, biting off a string of curse words that would do little more than make him feel only marginally better.

“Two zero one, Tiger, chatter indicates fighters launching from Lingshui.”

Well, shit.

With one more glance at the icon representing Dusty, he keyed the microphone and said, “In place right.”

Clark Air Base, Philippines