Mirage (Oregon Files 9)

“‘Foothills of data’?” Max scoffed. “Wordsmith, you are not.”

Cabrillo was about to answer the radio hail when the woman’s voice filled the op center for a second time. “Unidentified vessel, this is the USS Ross. We are a guided missile destroyer and you are entering a restricted military area. Turn back at once or we will take steps to compel you to leave this region. Do you copy?”

Juan knew this was mostly bluff. They were still a good distance from the carrier, although the Ross might be protecting the crash site as well as the Stennis. Either way, they were still a long way from resorting to any kind of violent confrontation.

“Chairman,” Linda cried, “they just launched two more planes and they’re vectoring on our position.”

The Navy was reacting a lot more aggressively than he’d anticipated. No doubt those two planes would be armed with antiship missiles, probably Harpoons. He keyed his mic. “USS Ross, this is Captain Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo of the Oregon. Please repeat.”

Cabrillo didn’t know how to handle this. He doubted he could talk his way into letting them pass, but he didn’t think telling the truth would get him much either.

“You are about to enter a restricted military exclusion zone. You must turn at least ninety degrees from your current heading.”

“That F-18 is going to be here in about thirty seconds,” Linda informed him.

They still had miles to go before reaching where he thought the stealth ship would be hiding. It suddenly occurred to him that the ship had cloaked itself prematurely because its crew knew an American spy satellite was passing overhead. The new generation had no problem peering down from the heavens through cloud cover as dense as what they had hovering over them now. So the Chinese knew they would be spotted and had to cloak to avoid detection.

“Radar lock!” Mark Murphy called out.

“The Ross?”

“No. The first inbound fighter.”

Juan cursed. He’d been relying on the American reluctance to shoot first and ask questions later. Having the F-18 lock on weapons was no bluff, since a civilian ship wouldn’t be able to detect it. They either thought the Oregon was a Chinese warship or they didn’t care if they sank a civilian.

The mast camera zoomed in on a speck dropping out of the swollen sky that grew into the sleek fighter. She was just below the speed of sound, so her roar enveloped the ship a few seconds before the jet streaked over low enough that even down in the op center they could feel it.

“This is Viper Seven.” The Oregon’s onboard computer decrypted the transmissions so quickly, it was almost like listening to the pilot in real time. “It’s not a warship but some old rust bucket freighter.”

“Our radar shows it doing forty knots,” the flight controller countered.

“It’s not lying,” the pilot called back. “She’s showing a huge wake and has one hell of a bone in her teeth.”

“Oregon, this is the USS Ross. Come about immediately. This is your final warning.”

“Linda, how far out are those other jets?”

“Five minutes.”

“Viper Seven,” said the air controller. “You are weapons free. Put a burst over her bows. That’ll show these idiots we’re serious.”

“Wepps,” Juan called to Mark Murphy, “stand down.”

“Roger that.”

He knew Murph wouldn’t respond to the upcoming strafe, but he couldn’t help but give the order anyway.

The F-18 had already executed a tight turn and was on her way back when the order to fire came in. The pilot altered his course slightly so the plane would pass just ahead of the ship rather than over her bridge. At a half mile out, he toggled the six-barrel 20mm cannon in the Hornet’s nose and unleashed a string of slugs that came so close to the old freighter’s prow—the last two singed paint. He hit afterburners and screamed past in an angry display of military might.

They couldn’t afford to play chicken any longer. “USS Ross, this is the Oregon. Please do not fire again.” Juan went for broke. “Listen to me very carefully. There is a Chinese stealth warship in these waters. It used a modified EMP weapon to take down your plane.” He wasn’t going to try to explain it was invisible.

“Our aircraft are hardened against EMP weapons,” the woman aboard the destroyer responded. “We will consider it a provocation if you continue on this course. Come about now or we will disable your ship.”

Cabrillo grew desperate. “Ross, I beg you. Do not fire. You have a real enemy out here who is trying to sink the Stennis.”

The woman—Juan guessed she wasn’t the captain but probably the Ross’s XO—came back, wariness in her voice. “What do you know about the Stennis?”

“I know that she’s about to be targeted by the same weapon that downed your jet.”