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ONE 04
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SIX MILES DUE WEST OF THE SENK AKU/ DIAOYU ISLANDS 08
EAST CHINA SEA 09
1 MAY, 2017 10
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T he bloodred flag with the five golden stars snapped in the crisp morn-
ing breeze. The national flag of the People’s Republic of China was
one of three held high by the naval honor guard, along with the flags of
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the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) and the East Sea Fleet com- 16
mander, Admiral Ji Dongsheng. 17
Two hundred Chinese PLAN officers and sailors stood at rigid 18
attention on the fantail of the seventy-five-hundred-ton guided-missile 19
destroyer Kunming, its ASW helicopter stowed away in the hangar for 20
the occasion. The ship’s skilled helmsman fought to stay in place as the 21
vessel rose and fell in the long swells. 22
Admiral Ji’s commanding voice cut through the buffeting wind. The 23
handpicked crew stood proudly before him at rigid attention in their 24
starched white uniforms and broad Soviet-style caps. The admiral’s thick 25
neck, powerful jaw, and broad nose had earned him the nickname Bull- 26
dog behind his muscular back. A shrouded object stood just behind him. 27
“A thousand years ago our ancestors crossed the oceans of the world. 28
We are not becoming a new navy, as the Westerners believe; we are the 29
world’s oldest and greatest navy, reclaiming our lost heritage, reclaiming 30
our lost territories, reclaiming the vast resources of our waters from the 31
thieving hands that stole it. We are the guardians of the blue soil of our 32
homeland and will defend it with our blood and our honor. S33
“Today is a great day. Today we lay claim to that which was always N34

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 2 MIKE MADEN

01 rightfully ours. Someday you will tell your grandchildren and your great-
02 grandchildren that you were here this day, on this ship beneath our glori-
03 ous flag, taking another step in the long march toward our rightful
04 destiny, our rightful place under the sun.”
05 The admiral paused for effect, surveying the proud young faces
06 before him. He twisted around and whipped off the linen shroud behind
07 him. An engraved white-marble stele gleamed in the bright sun, thick
08 and rectangular like a giant headstone. Admiral Ji nodded to four mus-
09 cled sailors. They marched forward in lockstep and lifted the heavy stone
10 off of the fantail and heaved it into the rolling blue water in a geysering
11 splash.
12 The admiral shouted out the words from the national anthem, “Arise!
13 All who refuse to be slaves! Let our flesh and blood become our new
14 Great Wall!”
15 The officers and crew shouted and cheered as they pushed forward
16 to the end of the fantail, but the marble stele had already sunk beneath
17 the waves.
18 Ji’s weathered eyes caught a speck of gray in the faultless blue sky far
19 above. A drone.
20 He smiled.
21 And so it begins.
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34N

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 01
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TWO 04
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ON BOARD THE JAPANESE SUBMARINE 08
KENRYU (“SWORD DRAGON”) 09
EAST CHINA SEA 10
1 MAY, 2017 11
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Ican even see the admiral’s gleaming brass buttons.”

Commander Hiroshi Onizuka had his eyes glued to the crystal-clear
HD flat-panel display. A Sandia Multimodal Volant drone fed its images
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16
directly into his control console. Pearce Systems had just developed the 17
integrated drone and sensor system, and installed it on the Sword Dragon 18
for testing. Onizuka preferred his beloved periscope, but he was impressed 19
with the expanded capabilities of the new electro-optical sensors in the 20
photonics mast married to the far-ranging surveillance drone. “But that’s 21
not what worries me.” 22
Troy Pearce stood beside him watching the same images. The former 23
CIA SOG operative’s black hair was flecked with gray— one for every 24
bullet ever shot at him over the years, he joked— and the laugh lines in 25
the corners of his world-weary blue eyes were anything but. As the CEO 26
of the world’s premier drone security company, he’d seen plenty of sur- 27
veillance video before, but never while standing in a submerged subma- 28
rine. “Looks like some kind of ceremony. A burial at sea?” 29
Onizuka pulled off his ball cap and ran a hand through his thick hair. 30
At thirty-six, the handsome naval officer was the youngest sub captain in 31
the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) and commanded one 32
of its newest vessels. The diesel-powered Soryu-class submarines were the S33
largest and most advanced Japan had built since the war, but the stealthy N34

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 4 MIKE MADEN

01 Sword Dragon carried only short-range conventional torpedoes and anti-

02 ship missiles as befitting the JMSDF’s mission limitations.
03 “The way he was flapping his arms? I don’t think so. Definitely a
04 ceremony of some kind, but not a burial.” Onizuka’s English was slightly
05 accented, but perfect— one of the reasons Pearce was assigned to his
06 boat. “Too bad we don’t have audio.”
07 “The Volant is too high up.”
08 “Yes, of course.”
09 “But we can get a closer look at the object they threw overboard.”
10 This was a perfect real-world scenario for Pearce to demonstrate the
11 extreme value of drones to the skeptical Japanese captain and, by exten-
12 sion, the JMSDF establishment. Pearce’s covert assignment was to pri-
13 vately reassure the Japanese that the United States was willing and able to
14 help the beleaguered nation to find another way to defend itself against
15 recent Chinese aggression without a massive conventional naval rearma-
16 ment program. The prospect of Japan rebuilding another blue-water navy
17 was too problematic for its Asian neighbors, especially the Chinese.
18 But tensions between China and Japan in the East China Sea had
19 risen dramatically over the last few years, focused symbolically on what
20 the Japanese called the Senkaku Islands, a collection of five small islands
21 and three uninhabitable rocks situated in an area of vast new oil and gas
22 reserves recently estimated at triple the original forecast. Both China and
23 Japan claimed them as sovereign territory, partly to control the incredible
24 resource wealth buried beneath the ocean floor. But Pearce was quickly
25 learning that symbolism and history were just about as important as oil
26 and gas on this side of the planet.
27 Onizuka nodded to the ensign at the Volant’s control station. “Engage.”
28 A thousand meters above the Chinese missile destroyer, the modified
29 Sandia Volant slowed as it began a programmed descent. Within min-
30 utes, the delta-winged aircraft dove effortlessly into the water, the aile-
31 rons on its wings’ trailing edges now serving as dive planes. It traveled
32 much more slowly beneath the surface than above it, but the Volant
33S proved highly maneuverable underwater.
34N

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 DRONE COMMAND 5

Thanks to a partnership with MIT and the Pearce Systems research 01

team led by Dr. Kirin Rao, the new, highly reliable spread–spectrum 02
signaling technology deployed today made long-distance underwater 03
wireless communications possible. Rao did her best to explain the phys- 04
ics behind it all, but underwater acoustics was beyond Pearce’s reach. 05
That’s why he let her run his research division with a free hand. Rao’s 06
breakthrough was significant. UUVs could now be deployed beyond the 07
limited reach of tethered communication lines and manipulated more 08
adroitly than automated underwater navigational software, which was 09
still in its relative infancy. 10
Automated sensors onboard the Sandia Multimodal prevented colli- 11
sions with large underwater objects, but the Japanese ensign could 12
manually direct it with a joystick, steering it via the first-person video 13
perspective from one of the drone’s onboard cameras, illuminating the 14
dark waters by a powerful LED cluster. For the moment, the Volant 15
steered itself, homing in on the Kunming’s location that it had fixed with 16
its laser range finder before it dived. 17
It wasn’t long before the multimodal drone came within a hundred 18
feet of the engraved marble stone, nestled on the slope of a five-hundred- 19
foot-tall seamount looming like a dark pyramid in the dim waters. 20
Pearce and Onizuka watched the ensign’s video feed. The air was cool 21
in the cramped but gleaming high-tech control room. Pearce tried to 22
ignore his creeping claustrophobia. He wiped away a bead of sweat on his 23
face with the tip of his thumb. 24
Onizuka barked an order in Japanese to his navigation officer on 25
the other side of the control room. The navigator tapped on a computer 26
screen, called back to his captain. 27
“Our Chinese friends apparently have found an uncharted seamount,” 28
Onizuka translated. “Now, let’s see if we can get a closer look at that stone 29
they tossed overboard.” 30
The ensign eased the drone into the current closer to the stone. 31
Electric-powered thrusters held it in place. The video camera zoomed in. 32
The image was a little wobbly, but clear. S33
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 6 MIKE MADEN

01 “My Chinese isn’t so good,” Pearce said.

02 “Nor is mine. But we use the same kanji. I believe it says, ‘Mao Island.
03 China. 1 May, 2017.’ It includes longitude and latitude coordinates.”
04 “ ‘Mao Island?’ ” Pearce frowned with confusion. “What does that
05 mean?”
06 Onizuka laid a hand on the young ensign’s shoulder. “Well done,
07 Kenzo. Please forward that video to fleet HQ.”
08 “Yes, sir.”
09 Pearce had done his homework on the Senkaku Islands controversy
10 before arriving. “I don’t remember any Mao Island around here.”
11 Onizuka’s affable face hardened. “Apparently there is now. At least
12 that’s what the Chinese believe, according to that territorial stele.” He
13 didn’t bother to add that the Chinese had scattered such steles over its
14 vast empires for centuries.
15 Onizuka ordered the ensign to return the multimodal drone to the
16 Sword Dragon for recovery. A portable launch/recovery module was
17 installed in one of the forward torpedo tubes.
18 Pearce sensed the young captain’s unease. He had every reason to be
19 concerned. If Japan and China were going to start a shooting war, it
20 would most likely start right here, and thanks to defense and alliance
21 treaties with Japan, the United States would be dragged into the fighting
22 quickly—an outcome the Pentagon wanted to avoid at all costs.
23 Pearce had signed on with President Lane before he was even elected
24 on the strength of Margaret Myers’s personal recommendation, and
25 Pearce was eager to serve again. It was easy enough to agree to a private
26 consultation with the Japanese navy. His company was the best in the
27 world at drone research and operations, both civilian and military. It was
28 a smart play by Lane to send him. This way, the American government
29 didn’t appear to be publicly bolstering Japan, but Lane could send a
30 strong personal message through Pearce. He didn’t mind being an envoy.
31 The idea of not being shot at for once was fine by him, even if he felt like
32 the submarine hull was closing in on him.
33S “So what good does it do for the Chinese to invent an underwater
34N island? What can they do with it?”

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 DRONE COMMAND 7

“In their minds, they can now make new territorial claims—up to 01
twelve miles, according to international law, besides the two-hundred- 02
mile exclusive economic zone. But it means much more than that.” 03
“Like what?” 04
“Your Global War on Terrorism didn’t begin on 9/11.” 05
“No, it didn’t. It really began the day Osama bin Laden declared war 06
on us in his 1996 fatwa. He claimed we invaded the Muslim holy land 07
and that we needed to be pushed back out. We just weren’t paying atten- 08
tion to him at the time.” 09
Onizuka pointed at the display monitor. “With that stele, it’s exactly 10
the same thing. The Chinese are making their own declaration about 11
their sacred territory.” 12
Pearce noticed that the control room had become eerily silent. The 13
young crew was hanging on Onizuka’s every word. 14
“So you believe it’s a declaration of war?” 15
“It means, at the very least, that China is prepared to fight a war.” 16
Onizuka’s eyes narrowed. The Japanese captain was six feet tall and 17
broad shouldered, just a few inches shorter than the former CIA special 18
ops warrior. “The question is, are you?” 19
Pearce felt the heat rise up in his face. It was an accusation, not a 20
question. Anywhere else, he’d be tempted to punch the guy’s lights out. 21
He stuffed the anger back down into its hole. His mission was to smooth 22
things over, not mix it up with the locals, insults or not. Besides, if he 23
were Japanese, he’d have the same worry about America’s commitment 24
to its allies. 25
“I’m just a private citizen, Captain, not a government official. But I 26
know President Lane well and, unofficially, I can assure you that my 27
country will not abandon the Japanese people in a time of crisis.” 28
Onizuka’s eyes searched Pearce’s. He nodded. “I want to believe you 29
but this provocation tells me that China thinks otherwise.” 30
A sonar ping smashed into the sub’s hull like a sledgehammer. Pearce 31
flinched. 32
“Splashes, Captain.” The bespectacled sonar operator couldn’t have S33
been more than twenty years old. The crew scrambled back to stations. N34

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 8 MIKE MADEN

01 Onizuka was unfazed. He smiled at his American guest, enjoying his

02 obvious discomfort. “Waiting for the depth charges to blow?”
03 “Something like that.”
04 Onizuka laughed. “You’ve watched too many submarine movies.
05 That sonar ping was just the Chinese letting us know that they know
06 we’re here. The splashes my sonar operator just heard are only more sonar
07 buoys breaking the surface of the water.”
08 The radar operator called out, cool and professional. It seemed to
09 Pearce that all the faces of the fighting men he met lately were getting
10 younger.
11 “Aircraft. Speed, six-five-two kph. Distance, twenty kilometers. Head-
12 ing, two-seven-zero.”
13 “Chinese antisubmarine patrol. Nothing to worry about.” Onizuka
14 flashed a mischievous grin. “Unless, of course, they decide to fire their
15 weapons.” He gave his XO the order to dive a hundred meters down and
16 deploy electronic countermeasures.
17 “I thought the Chinese weren’t very good at ASW,” Pearce said.
18 “They’re not, but they’re getting better, thanks to French sonar tech-
19 nology and the German diesel engines powering that guided-missile
20 destroyer we just saw.”
21 A light flashed on a nearby console. The captain frowned. “Excuse
22 me, Mr. Pearce.”
23 Onizuka picked up the phone. The Sword Dragon was still tethered
24 to its communication buoy on the surface. He listened. His body stiff-
25 ened and he bowed slightly. Obviously someone in authority on the other
26 end. His eyes widened. Onizuka handed the phone to Pearce. “It’s for
27 you. The president of the United States wants to speak with you.”
28 Pearce took the phone, confused. A series of clicks, then a woman’s
29 voice. “Mr. Pearce? The president is on the line. He’d like to speak with
30 you, if it’s not too much trouble.”
31 “Of course.”
32 “Troy, David here. How’s everything on your end?”
33S Troy felt the deck diving beneath his feet. “In the middle of some-
34N

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 DRONE COMMAND 9

thing, sir.” Lane was technically calling him from last night. A thirteen- 01
hour time difference. Must be urgent. 02
“Then I’ll cut to the chase.” 03
Lane filled him in. Pearce handed Onizuka the phone. “I’ve got to get 04
back to shore. Now.” 05
The captain hung up the phone then squared up in Pearce’s face. “Is 06
that an order?” 07
“It’s an urgent . . . request.” 08
Onizuka nodded, smirking. “Yes, of course. Urgent.” He turned away 09
and ordered his men to prepare to surface. 10
Another ping slammed into the submarine’s hull. 11
Pearce swore under his breath. 12
So much for not abandoning friends. 13
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