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“Radar contact, second and third B-52 bombers,” came the report from his fire-control officer. “I have a good track on both planes — they should be turning this way just like the first. Five minutes before the next one passes close enough.”

This was going to be incredible, the captain thought — he might easily kill a second, and perhaps even a third B-52 with his 57-millimeter gun tonight. He would certainly get his own frigate after tonight… “Move farther west,” he ordered his helmsman. “I want to be as close as possible to these last two bombers.” The helmsman went to flank speed in order to get a few meters closer to the bomber’s track — every hundred meters closer was another dozen rounds on target.

“Second bomber turning east, range decreasing… he’s coming this way, sir… I’m getting jamming on my fire- control radar… forward 57 switching to electro-optical sights with data link from Jinan… target reacquired, forward 57- and port 30-millimeter report ready.”

This was perfect, really perfect. The other patrol boat escorting the destroyer Jinan had no data link with the destroyer’s air-search radar, so all he could do was follow Yingkou's tracers. He would never be credited with a kill…

“Thirty seconds… twenty seconds… all gun mounts report ready… fifteen seconds… all guns stand…”

He never finished the sentence. The first CAPTOR torpedo mine had armed immediately upon hitting the water and, despite the incredible sounds of destruction from the B-52 crash, had locked onto the engine sounds of the Haijui- class patrol boat as soon as he gunned his engine, and ejected its deadly torpedo. The torpedo switched on its active sonar, acquired and locked onto the patrol boat, accelerated to nearly fifty miles per hour, and hit the patrol boat near the engine compartment one foot below the waterline. A shaped charge rammed a titanium nosecap through the patrol boat’s hull, and the torpedo actually swam three feet inside the port engine room before its eight-hundred-pound warhead exploded. With most of its stem blown apart, YingJcou slipped under the surface in less than two minutes — about as long as it took the last of the burning debris of Trick Zero-One to hit the water.

The other two B-52s in the first south attack group avenged their leader’s death with a flurry of Harpoon missile launches, and within minutes three more of Jinan's patrol boats had been destroyed. Jinan itself, overwhelmed by Harpoon missiles from the south as well as the flight of Tomahawk cruise missiles from the southeast, was hit by both a Tomahawk and a Harpoon and was put out of action.

It was a surprise for Major Kelvin Carter to see the COLA (Computer Generated Lowest Altitude) computer command a climb after so many hours at one relatively stable altitude, but as the Megafortress approached the tall, rocky peaks of the Nenusa Archipelago islands, the EB-52 wanted to climb six hundred feet to clear the tallest peak. Carter edged his Megafortress slightly south of the tiny radar dots, and, after the computer realized it would safely clear all the terrain, the Megafortress sank back to one hundred feet above the eastern Celebes Sea.

Alicia Kellerman was busily plotting the positions of the other planes in the strike team as she heard position reports come over the radio. “All right!” she said. “All six BUFFS in the number-two east group and Diamond One-Two made it through. They’re two minutes ahead of us.”

“What about the others?” Carter asked.

“The south group got hit real bad,” Kellerman summarized. “One of the B-2s and a B-52 from Castle got shot down…”

“Our B-2? Cobb and McLanahan?”

“Cobb and McLanahan made it through OK. It was a Whiteman bird. One other 509th Black Knight from the north group aborted when they lost an engine; all the other planes from the north group made it.

“The other five B-52s from the south group look like they took out that destroyer to their east and a few patrol boats, so they might make it through. There’s another destroyer battle group coming in from the west — that might be a problem when the strike package egresses to the south. No other reports: everyone else appears to be heading in on schedule. Kane on the EB-52 escorting the east number-two strike group got two Chinese fighters.”

“Search radar at eleven o’clock,” Atkins reported. “Golf- band search… Sea Eagle 3-D air-search radar, Luda-class destroyer. GCI signals, possibly more fighters coming in from the northwest.”

“That destroyer’s at forty miles, and he’s got five escorts with him,” Kellerman added, checking her updated ISAR radar display. “We’ll be going in about sixty seconds ahead of the south B-52s. We’re within TACIT RAINBOW range, EW. Line ’em up and let’s get those suckers.”