9 Three D Chess
Making a circuit around the Island at 300 miles an hour, The Lady's escorts closed in on either flank, maybe in an attempt to intimidate the Airwolf team.
No such luck, Nash smiled to himself and slowed Airwolf to below the jet's stall speed and they had no choice but to pass them by.
That didn't mean that he and Saint John weren't keeping their eyes peeled for any and all possibilities that could be thrown at them, none of this could be construed as forthright. "Run a topography scan I want to know every nook and cranny of this place." He said raking his eyes over the rim of the atoll ahead of them,
"Already onto it." Saint John said having initiated the scan upon their approach as a part of the course. "I've got activity from that small land mass on the southern side of the crater rim Wings."
"Gotta hand it to the Chinese, they can build anything even if they probably shouldn't." Nash said of the impressive structure that had grown from a shallow rim of sand and rock into a complete military Airbase in the centre of the ocean.
"But will it last?" Saint John quipped.
Nash smirked again, but the men were interrupted by Le on the radio with news of the additional blip that had been planted on the USS Theadore Roosevelt .
The boys made note that their passenger may not be all she seemed to be.
That complicated things.
Saint John took a cursory glance at their passenger. To her credit she had certainly appeared to have done everything that she was meant to as allied agent.
She did all the right things and said all the right things, including being terrified of the possibility of a handover to her former captors.
Of course, if she were a double agent, that behaviour would make perfect sense.
On approach to the not so makeshift airport ramp, Nash was mindful to give the Lady some room to move and slowed to a hover well behind the passenger plane and the numerous military jets.
The two J -11's rocketed overhead and behind them, reminding the Airwolf crew that they were still there with their low-level pass along the expansive runway.
Selecting gear down, Nash touched down but didn't relax the Lady enough to have all her weight down on the tarmac. Instead, she lightly danced on her wheels while Nash assessed their situation.
With a panicked tone to her voice, Mei asked, "What are you doing?"
"Lady, you got some explaining to do." Nash said, having turned in his seat and glared at her with one eyebrow cocked in question.
"I – I don't know what you mean." she implored cringing back in her seat with genuine confusion and fear.
"Nash." Saint John warned, "Now Doc, we'd like to know how another tracking chip got onto that boat while we were on it."
"A-another chip?" she asked, continuing to stutter.
Saint John nodded and continued to talk to her, being mindful that they weren't a hundred percent certain that she was double crossing them at all.
At the same time Nash received a demand in an Asian accent to shut down the chopper and surrender the girl.
Nash sneered, "As if. " he said in answer.
"You want to do this the hard way?" The voice asked through Nash and Saint John's headset.
"I guess so," Nash said with a shrug, knowing there was no option, this was always going to be done the hard way.
"You American's," came the voice, full of arrogance and laced with provocative humour, "are so gullible."
"S'at right?" Nash said, "Seems to me that we Americans stopped a ten to one rat plague from wiping out every major city in our great country and you didn't see us coming."
There was a momentary silence, before the malevolent voice spoke again. "As you Americans say we can walk and chew gum at the same time and there is more than one way to undertake our objectives."
"You should follow the advice of your little mottos before believing everything you hear, Yanky boy" the man said ambiguously. "Where is your God now?" he asked.
Behind The Lady's Cockpit bulkhead, Mei was shaking, she pled with Saint John to believe that she knew nothing of any chip, not the one in her arm or the one left on the ship.
He'd met a lot of shifty operatives in his time. In Nam, in Guatemala and in America and his gut told him that this tiny woman was not one of them. She'd already been to hell and back. Her dilated pupils and the sheen of sweat on her flawless skin showed that she was highly anxious.
"Please don't leave me here," she begged.
Airwolf's monitors went haywire, Saint John held up a finger and their conversation was ended.
Meanwhile, at the pointy end, Nash rebuked the slimy guy on the radio, who turned out to be second in charge of the CCP, Vice President Yew Tan.
"You may think that you can play God, but you're sadly mistaken." He said with as much confidence as he could muster.
The man laughed again, "Oh but it is you who is mistaken, we hold all the cards, we have your plane and we have your Navy at the mercy of our force four easterly wind." He said cryptically.
"Nash we have activity coming from the launch site." Saint John interjected on the intercom.
Nash clenched his jaw and tried to keep his cool. "You have nothing!" He said almost wishing The Lady would jump off the airport ramp under her own will.
"Are you willing to gamble your carrier fleet on that?" The man admonished.
"What difference will it make? We know you have a firm fix on the fleet regardless and God is on our side!" Nash said carelessly, cementing the fact that he would gamble everything on his trust in his family, in Airwolf and on the little American motto passed by congress back in 1956.
"Then you can die knowing that you started a war," said the Vice President. The man had his orders and he would make good on his threat. He couldn't help but admire the scrapy pilot who was clearly brave and the PLA could use men like him.
It was too bad that the helicopter pilot thought he could combat the arsenal that was about to be unleashed on him, even if his machine was as impressive as it appeared to be.
From what he'd heard, that helicopter was fast and had some impressive weapons features. Yew would try to convince the aviator to give it up, but he was pretty sure that wasn't going to happen and therefore it was also a shame that he wouldn't be able to bring the chopper back for his Leader.
The young man was right though, regardless of the trade, the CCP was still going to fire a few of their obsolete Dong Feng's into the South China Sea for some fun, causing the perfect distraction before delivering their Naval trump card in person.
His Government couldn't lose face and had a point to prove, they needed to show the world that their latest Dong Feng Missiles could hit their intended target. Now they could thanks to that leak they'd paid handsomely for. Their double agent, made good on it, by planting a secondary tracking device.
Too bad the former American Vice Presidents daughter would be attending his funeral.
It was amazing how easy it was to manipulate those who sought power and money above everything else. Vice President Yew smiled to himself before his thoughts were interrupted by the mysterious helicopter pilot again.
"I don't think so, I recon I'll live knowing I won the battle." Nash retorted, before speaking to his crew. "Time to kick the tyres 'n light the fire," he said to Saint John and he lifted The Lady off the ground a few feet before retracting her gear.
Mei gripped her seat and swallowed heavily, she was both anxious with what was about to unfold yet so relieved that she hadn't been kicked out of the helicopter and back into the hands of the CCP.
If she were to die on this day, she'd rather do it as a free American in an epic air battle than as a communist prisoner.
"Uhoh, they're not wasting any time." Saint John said as a squadron of Z-19 helicopters surrounded, and had them up against the 737on one side and and the tower on the other, effectively blocking their escape route.
"Land your helicopter!" ordered VP Yew form his perch high in the tower.
"This could get messy." Nash said, more to himself before he activated the visor on his helmet and asked Saint John for the wing and rear guns.
"What are you...?" Saint John didn't finish his question before Nash spun Airwolf around under her blades, not moving an inch.
"Cover our ass." Nash said by way of explanation.
Saint John's visor also slid into position and did exactly that.
Nash then turned his attention back to the threat on the other side of his radio comm, "Or what?" he asked like he was a twelve-year old fixing for a fight in the schoolyard.
The Vice Dictator laughed, "We have you surrounded, those little guns won't save you, and won't make a dent on this building, it can withstand thirty millimetre rounds."
"Well, that's good to know, then we appear to be in a standoff. I on the other hand can fire more than paltry thirty millimetre rounds. Care to test the theory? " Nash asked, countering with his own brand of cockiness and extending the ADF Pod from the belly of the beast.
Both men and machine were now in full battle mode. The Chinese men had clearly only assumed that Airwolf was a fast helicopter with some defensive counter measures and perhaps some lighter firepower.
Facing the tower, those within the building inwardly were taken aback as they witnessed the helicopter transform from her handsome executive shape to "one mean son of a bitch" as Senetor Dietz said from a similar situation so many years ago.
But unlike the Americans, the CCP weren't permitted to be quite so emotive.
Their training had taught them to always school their features. From their enemies, from their commanding officers and especially from their political leaders.
That didn't stop Nash imagining the cocky grin fall from the Yew's face.
Yew was indeed suitably impressed with the transformation of the relatively innocuous looking helicopter into the finest gunship he'd ever seen. He had no doubt that it could blow the top off the control tower but knew it wouldn't because the Americans were soft.
The smirk returned to his face, he looked at his head tech and gave him the nod. "That won't be necessary Yanky boy, it is already too late."
"Is it?" Nash asked, matching the other man's conceit.
"Let us just say that if you leave now, you might just get back to your precious carrier fleet in time to see them sink. That is if you make it, we are not going to make it easy for you, but you can have a head start."
With that, Vice President Yew followed with the order to destroy the chopper.
Nash was quietly fuming. He'd come to the location with his eyes wide open and was up for the challenge.
"You heard the man." Saint John said to Nash, "let's go!"
Unfortunately for the Z – 19's, when China built them, they traded of armour for weight and manoeuvrability and by the time Airwolf even cleared the apron, Saint John had pumped three of the machines full of holes, causing them to fall to the ground in their fiery demise.
Momentum caused one of them to conveniently slide under the wing of the passenger jet, no doubt causing chaos on the tarmac and in the tower in anticipation of a giant explosion.
VP Yew was right in one respect. Nash would not waste a single weapon or round on the tower. Should the CCP fail to succeed, Nash would leave the man's demise to his Dictator President. A fate that he imagined would likely be far worse than anything Airwolf could hand out.
The Comms room on the RV Dolphin had been relatively quiet. Le had one ear on Airwolf's progress while his other ear was on the rest of the proceedings that were unfolding and finding their way to him from the Roosevelt, and also from Project Guardian.
From the airfield that The Lady had left behind, a number of military jets were already rolling down the runway to give chase.
The Lady's hasty exit was short lived when she almost ran right into an active missile launch procedure from the now open silo within the small isolated landmass they passed over earlier on the atoll.
Once airborne, the jets closed in and began actively buzzing them from a relatively safe distance. Lining up The Lady in their crosshairs, they could only fire their guns at her while she was hovering so close to the launch site.
Billowing exhaust escaped from the hole in the ground and Airwolf's sensors went nuts.
"Shoot." Saint John cursed, calling through to the RV Dolphin. "Le, son, we got an anti-ship missile ready to blast off any minute!"
From the boughs of the earth, surrounded by the azure waters of a tropical sea, the smoke clouds increased, exiting the specially designed launch site in two gigantic thrusting plumes that rose hundreds of feet into the air.
Nash steered well clear of any bad turbulence blustering from beneath them and took an observational position. The missile was at its most vulnerable position as it launched from its burrow in the earth. It was momentarily a slow and easy target.
Momentarily distracted by the rapid-fire pinging off Airwolf's armoured shell, Nash felt like he was between a rock and a hard place the they couldn't wait around, Nash and Saint John had to take some sort of action.
Oblivious to what was about to unfold, the USS Theadore Roosevelt and her strike fleet still had their eye's peeled on the multitude of aircraft that continued to twist and turn in the air above them in complicated patterns.
Not one air to air shot had been fired in flight so far and the Chinese mosquito attack mysteriously started to retreat leaving those in the flotilla even more perplexed than before.
Equally oblivious at the Pentagon, discussions between the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Chief of Naval Operations surmised that the potential threat was just another game that these communist countries continued to play. It wasn't a secret that US Navy Fleets weren't welcome in the South China Sea.
Instead, they insisted that the incident would briefly make the news and then blow over just like the Russian mock intercept had the year previously and it would all be forgotten the moment the POTUS opened his mouth at his next Whitehouse press conference.
The Admiral spoke to Goldstein, who was ordered to stand by.
When the Captain of the Aircraft Carrier voiced concern over China's discovery of their position, he was promptly ordered to get the fleet ready for their scheduled Naval exercise due in a few hours.
Goldstein did as he was told and ordered the swift return of his Airborne troops after changing course, making haste to get away from their current position ASAP.
But Goldstein's gut stirred. He wasn't so sure the event should be so easily dismissed. Something else was clearly amiss, too many weird things had happened in succession all at once, but he couldn't put his finger on it and would remain vigilant just in case and prepared everything in double time.
Le of course, had also wasted no time relaying the strange news to the rest of the crew in the Comm's room and Michael had Ayden in the loop within minutes.
"I'll get onto the President," was all Ayden said, dropping any pleasantries and signing off abruptly.
"It's a show, it's all a show." Darian Tobias said confidently and only a few moments later to the Project Guardian chief.
Ayden raised his eyebrows and stayed silently stunned at his President's carefree manor. He would be lying if he weren't more concerned than the President appeared to be.
"They want us to fire the first shot so they can blame us, you know how it's been Chapman. They're terrible, terrible people, always projecting what they themselves are doing. But I'm not going to let them get away with it this time." The President said with his easy confidence.
Tobias had a very effective poker face. Even so, it would take a lot more convincing on the big guy's part to ease Ayden's immediate concerns.
"Sir, with all due respect, that would be ok if Goldstein knew his tub was a sitting duck, but they don't even know they have a second tracking device on board. They're at a distinct disadvantage, when are we going to tell them?"
The President simply answered. "You know we can't. They already know too much. Our cover will be blown"
There was a moment of stunned silence on Ayden's part, not because he couldn't believe that they weren't going to tell the fleet they had a target on their back. No, it was because the man was keeping his word. Airwolf and Project Guardian was to remain highly classified and telling the DOD or even going directly to the CO off the USS Theadore Roosevelt could jeopardise them.
Furthermore, it could land the POTUS in really hot water, the man was operating on a knife edge as it was and could end up in Gitmo if he weren't careful. Being removed from official capacity meant the Project Guardian team at least had some chance not to follow him there.
The POTUS was interrupted. "Hm?" he asked the person trying to get his attention, before his voice muffled. A second later he said to Ayden, "just hold that thought, I'll get back to you."
Ayden watched the clock impatiently for fifteen minutes before the President returned the call with developing intel.
One of President Tobias's Space Force satellites had detected two launches of potential nukes. One from mainland China and the other from the Parcel Islands.
This was exactly what they were afraid of. But it seemed the President was prepared with a plasn that might on the face of it, might be just one of his kooky idea's.
"Don't worry, we got this," The POTUS said in his usual confident flare.
Ayden wasted no time to relay the news and the RV Dolphin Crew were all ears.
"You know they're going to hate the President for adding to their little problem." Marella said of the fleet while shaking her head in utter disbelief.
"Perhaps, but you have to admit, he is a bloody genius!" Branson said enthusiastically, his own quirky nature giving him the ability to see exactly where the president was coming from.
Having recently terminated the Secretary of Defence, it was a godsend that President Tobias's handpicked Acting SOD was instated so recently and hadn't been got at yet by any of the traitors with which the Government was currently saturated.
The President had fast tracked the Test Launch from the Marshall Islands were the two American unarmed ICBM's were to target the fleet under the guise of a drill for a hypothetical nuclear attack.
By the time the rockets entered the stratosphere, it didn't matter if their mission was aborted.
Timing was everything. The President drew on all his skills to release the news at the opportune moment regarding the latest Chinese threat to his targeted fleet in a dangerous game of Chess.
Back at the island military base, Airwolf directed her new Raytheon Griffin Missiles at the mouth of the silo, caving it in and thwarting the launch before hurrying out of the area and streaking towards the USS Theadore Roosevelt at Mach speed and receiving the news of the additional launches whilst in transit.
So too at Mach speeds, the US missiles exited the Earth's atmosphere. Goldstein had sworn under his breath that the scheduled drill had been unexpectedly brought forward. He still had to land a large number of aircraft but knew that potential attacks always came with the element of surprise.
This is what they trained for.
He communicated with his strike fleet. Flanking the massive Carrier where the destroyers armed with Aegis SM-3 Interceptor Missiles that had not long been tested successfully in the last few months.
Right on cue, the word came in. Right from the mouth of the Secretary of Defence.
They had some additional incoming company.
In the shape of two of China's Dongfeng missiles.
There was more swearing as the drill was swiftly forgotten, replaced with the very real threat that they now had to contend with.
Truth be known, Goldstein had been waiting to prove that their excuse for being in the body of water between the Philippines and China was legitimate but had to wonder about the timing of everything.
It had been a strange time with lots of movement within the hierarchy of the Defence and the other alphabet agencies of late and big changes had been made. There had been a huge shakeup and not everybody was pleased about that.
It wouldn't be long before President Tobias would start campaigning for his second term in the next election. Goldstein had to hand it to the guy, as a successful business man, he made a lousy politician and that caused him to have a target on his back. Not that the President seemed to mind, because water just seemed to run right off it.
And that wasn't necessarily a bad thing.
Things were done differently... Hell things were actually done!
That was the Presidents motto after all.
"Get the job done."
To finally be able to challenge some of China's talked up missiles would be something worth hanging around for. It would settle who had the military might and that could in the end be a real-world problem if the USA came off second best.
America could not afford to let those nukes hit their target. It wasn't an option.
Careening in from the South East, The Lady wasn't alone. Hot on her tail were the number of Chinese jets sticking to her like glue and loaded with all the fruit.
It was all very well to have the stealthy features, but that didn't mean they weren't invisible to the naked eye or their locked-on heat seeking scanners at the closer range they were traveling at.
Close to the waterline, it wasn't long before things got spicy and Airwolf was in their sights.
"We got a lock on our caboose!" Nash called out, pulling back on the cyclic and lifting Airwolf's nose into a climb.
"Jamming!" Saint John called out using The Lady's electronic radio countermeasures were activated.
Following her into the thousands, multiple weapons were released from the aircraft in pursuit.
"Give me angel wing flares," Nash called as they continued to climb.
Saint John released multiple flares from both sides of The Lady, leaving them in her wake. The effect was a burst of white-hot lights trailed by smoke that resembled angel wings as they fell through the air. The heavenly curtain behind them attracting the heat seekers and forcing them off Airwolf's exhaust trail.
Leaving the compounding detonation behind, the offending jets had to evade the explosive cloud. Nash took advantage of that and performed a hammerhead turn.
Speed was washed off The Lady, "Engage Rotors," He called, brazenly facing the oncoming fighters.
With all guns blazing, Airwolf's new integrated weapons system aided Nash's sharp marksman skills and in a simultaneous assault , The Lady's air to sir missiles hit three of the five inbound fighters.
The two remaining jets forced to overshoot The Lady's position where Saint John took pot shots at one of the passing planes with the rear mounted guns and filled it with enough holes to watch it limp away and eventually catch fire and explode.
Watching the last remaining aircraft scream past, Nash turned the tables and sped off after it. Ducking and weaving, the hunter became the hunted and the jet made a myriad of impressive moves before Nash lined it up and blew in out of the air.
Finally free to leave the Spratly Island Chain, Nash pointed Airwolf towards the American Fleet. The ever-present blip, continuing to give away their location.
Le had impeccable timing and notified the Airwolf crew of the new threats casting their shadow over the US Navy fleet.
Nash audibly groaned. "Feel like The Lady is the Queen in a giant Chess game." He said under his breath.
Saint John shook his head at himself and his mouth formed a lopsided grin. "She sure is. "He said fondly. "C'mon Wings. Live a little, it's our move."
Nash sighed. "Yeah. Give me turbos."