Cabrillo pulled up a map of the China Sea on the big screen at the far end of the boardroom table and tried to place himself inside the mind of the man in command of the stealth ship. He needed to pre-position himself in front of the carrier battle group and let them come to him since his wake would be visible when the ship was in motion and would surely catch the eye of a pilot flying combat air patrol. It would all depend on the ability to track the unbound carrier group and project its course, a straightforward task because of the constellation of Chinese spy satellites.

Juan could get the battle group’s course from Overholt, so he had the same information as his opponent. The real question was, then, how far out from the disputed islands would I want to take down my quarry? The farther away, the better. However, that decreases the odds of the ships remaining on the projected course. They zigged and zagged at random intervals even as they steamed in a steadily western direction.

He gamed a dozen scenarios and came up with a dozen places he’d lie in wait. It was fruitless yet telling at the same time. Fruitless because, after more than two hours of staring at the map, he was no closer to finding a solution, and telling because it showed how desperately important this was for the Chinese. If the carrier reached the region, any hope of taking the islands by force vanished.

The Chinese had been using the tactic of wearing down the Japanese fleet in hopes that they would abandon the area and thus their claim to the islands. As the world has witnessed with carriers rotating through the Persian Gulf for the best part of two decades, you just can’t wear down the U.S. Navy.

—

CAPTAIN KENJI WATANABE lined up the H-6 in his sights and ever so gently pressed the trigger on his joystick. Nothing happened. As he knew nothing would. He hadn’t armed his F-16’s weapons systems. He banked below the lumbering, twin-engine aerial-refueling plane as it fed avgas to a J-10 fighter jet.

While the J-10 was a modern aircraft that looked like a cross between his own Fighting Falcon and the Swedish Gripen, the flying tanker was an old Soviet design from the 1950s. Like much of China’s air fleet, it was a knockoff built under license and wouldn’t last five minutes in a real fight. Even the J-10 was really no match for the F-16. It had limited range, hence the need for constant refueling as the aircraft crisscrossed the skies around the Senkaku Islands, and the F-16 was far more maneuverable.

Watanabe’s real advantage was the fact he had probably ten times the cockpit time as the Chinese pilot.