by Don Brown
As an intelligence officer, Gunner knew the fate of the Indianapolis. Of the 1,200 men aboard, only 300 survived. Most died after four hellish days in shark-infested waters. Some died from salt-poisoning, some from starvation, some from dehydration. Most had their limbs ripped off by the razor-sharp teeth and powerful jaws of oceanic whitetip sharks.
The Discovery Channel had produced a documentary claiming that the Indianapolis sinking resulted in the most shark attacks on humans in history!
The triangular gray fin with the white tip resurfaced.
A whitetip shark! No doubt!
A second fin cut through the surface! They swirled in the warm water, perhaps twenty feet in front of him. Now, a third gray-and-white-tipped triangular fin had joined them!
One of the fins turned toward him, but remained stationary, as if treading water. And then the beast started toward him, slowly at first. It picked up speed. As it approached, it suddenly disappeared. A powerful bump hit his legs, spinning him around in the water.
“Dear Jesus!” Were his legs still there? He reached down to feel.
Thank God. He still had his legs. But now he realized his hands were a target! He jerked his hands out of the water.
This was a heck of a way to die.
When he was attached to the SEALs as an intelligence officer, he’d won the Navy Cross for heroism in Afghanistan and again for a commando mission behind enemy lines in North Korea. In those cases he’d faced deadly enemies with guns and knives and explosives and never flinched nor felt an ounce of fear.
But here? Here he was out of his habitat. He was like a sitting duck in the habitat of the enemy, helpless and without a weapon.
What to do?
Lieutenant Commander Gunner McCormick, a US Navy hero, had never been much on prayer. Prayer was his mother’s job at the family’s estate back in Suffolk, Virginia. And just about every day that Gunner had ever been around her, Virginia McCormick had spent some time on her knees.
Maybe her prayers had just run out.
Maybe he’d better try himself.
“Jesus, somehow, some way, I know I don’t deserve it, but if you can help me out of this one, get me out of here alive … I promise … I promise to turn things around … live right!”
Bridge
M/V Shemnong
South China Sea
between Da Nang, Vietnam, and the Paracel Islands course 270 degrees
The burst of bullets that sprayed into the bridge had stopped.
From the deck in the far corner of the bridge, First Officer Kenny Chan raised his head and opened his eyes. The ship’s helmsman, radioman, and navigator, the three sailors who moments ago had been standing just behind the windshield, all lay on the deck in a nest of shattered glass, bleeding.
Three sailors were sprawled around the perimeter of the bridge in pools of blood. Three others were up front, motionless under the shot-out windshield.
Strained groans came from the mound of human carnage—the faint sounds of life. Some movement. Some stirring.
Chan got up and winced at the gruesome sight of one man lying on his back in the center of the deck, his mouth and eyes frozen open in a bloody mask, a bullet hole in the center of his forehead, with blood still oozing from the back of his head. He was at first unrecognizable.
Then Chan realized that he was looking at the lifeless body of Captain Fu. Command of the ship had now passed to the first officer.
“I am in command,” he mumbled aloud, shocked at the very thought of it. “I must react before they fire again.”
He stepped to the ship’s wheel. Wind from helicopter rotors above blew in through the broken glass.
He turned the wheel to the left, putting Shemnong into a course change. Thank God … if there was a God … that the gunfire had not damaged the ship’s steering capacity.
He watched both the navigational compass and the electronic GPS directional compass showing the ship’s heading as it went from
270 degrees …
265 degrees …
260 degrees …
ROCS Kee Lung
South China Sea
Kee Lung! Dragon One!”
“Dragon One. Go ahead,” Captain Won Lee said.
“Sir, the freighter is executing a turn! She’s turning back toward the south, just as you ordered.”
Won Lee exhaled. “Excellent. Hold all fire unless it appears that you are about to be fired on by the freighter. Advise when the ship has completed her turn.”
CHAPTER 5
South China Sea
somewhere between USS Vicksburg and USS Emory S. Land
The fins kept circling him now, like Indians in an old western movie circling a covered-wagon train in the moments before an attack.
The bloody ambush, which would rip him apart limb by limb, was near.
Gunner had never feared death. But he had always hoped that whenever death came, that he would die with honor. Perhaps in battle, fighting for freedom.
But now, facing an imminent and gruesome end, his mind flew in all directions, remembering a string of regrets he would never be able to make right. He’d never settled down to marry, and thus no children. He’d once met an attractive young intelligence officer, Lieutenant Mary Jefferies. But he’d gotten redeployed, and she got away, and that was that.
Settling down was hard with the Navy as his mistress. Now he would never have a wife or children to carry on his legacy.
The fins stopped still in the water. Then, three fins pivoted, swirling and lining up one behind the other. Based on the direction of the fins, he could tell that the sharks were facing him, just sort of floating near the surface.
They had closed to within fifteen feet … straight in front of him. The shark in the middle raised its snout out of the water as if to get a better look at him, its black eyes peering down at him. The snout seemed to be at least three feet wide. The shark opened its mouth, displaying a full set of white teeth that looked sharper than razor blades!
The gray snout disappeared under the water, and all three fins started swimming straight at him. This was it!
Gunner closed his eyes. Splashing erupted in the water, spraying water in his face. He felt bumping against his legs.
More splashing. More water in his face. Almost as if a fight had erupted in the water around him!
He opened his eyes. Fins! Tailfins! Splashing all around him! There must have been six or seven of them now. Were they fighting over which one would take the first bite?
“Get it over with!”
More splashing by tailfins and flippers slapping the water between him and the gray-and-white-tipped dorsal fins.
Suddenly, the sharks turned and swam away, disappearing under the surface.
Gunner heard chirping behind him. He turned, looking for a stray seagull.
No birds in sight.
More chirping.
Gunner jerked his head to his left.
The bulb-nosed dolphin lay almost sideways in the water, chirping and smiling at him. It splashed him in the face with its flipper, then disappeared under the water.
Now only the sound of the wind and sloshing waves.
More chirping cracked the air behind him. Gunner whirled around. Two more dolphins broke the surface of the water, spouting air from the blowholes on the top of their heads, chirping and chattering as if playing a game of hide-and-seek.
When the third one surfaced, the three dolphins swam laps around him for several minutes, splashing him in the face with their flippers and chirping and laughing and spouting water at him. A moment later, the trio disappeared, leaving him alone again with the wind and the sea.
His life had been spared … for a bit longer. Then he remembered. How had he forgotten? “Here, strap this on. Then after you hit the water, activate it …”
The homing device strapped around his waist!
He reached down and felt for the activation button. There. That feels right.
With his thumb, he pushe
d down hard.
Beep … Beep … Beep … Beep …
“You’ll know it’s working if you hear it beeping.”
“Thank you, God!” he said.
He was still lost at sea, but he wasn’t alone.
And he was alive.
For now.
Bridge
M/V Shemnong
South China Sea
between Da Nang, Vietnam, and the Paracel Islands
course 180 degrees
The M/V Shemnong now maintained a course of one-eight-zero degrees, heading due south through the sparkling waters of the South China Sea, just as the Taiwanese had ordered.
Kenny Chan looked at the death and carnage around the bridge.
Why was he the only man left standing?
He needed answers, but more than that, he needed help.
He reached down and switched on the ship’s PA system.
“To all hands! Now hear this. This is the first officer. The captain has been incapacitated as a result of the helicopter attack on the ship.” He had decided not to reveal the news of the captain’s death. Not yet anyway. “I have assumed command of the ship.
“We have a medical emergency on the bridge. All medics, along with the ship’s engineering officer and all sentries, report to the bridge. Medics bring stretchers, surgical supplies, first aid materials.
“Lay down your weapons. Do not engage the helicopters. This is the first officer.”
ROC Sikorsky SH-60 Seahawk (codename Dragon One)
altitude 200 feet
above the Chinese freighter M/V Shemnong
The lead chopper, codename Dragon One, flying at two hundred feet, drifted in a slow-moving pattern just in front of the freighter’s bow. The backup chopper, codename Dragon Two, followed at two hundred feet off the stern. The freighter was cutting through the water at twenty knots, and the choppers were matching her speed, flying bookend guard positions in the front and back.
There had been no change in the freighter’s course in the last few minutes, so the pilot pressed the broadcast button, back to the Kee Lung. “Kee Lung! Dragon One.”
“Go ahead, Lieutenant.”
“Captain, the freighter is maintaining a course of one-eight-zero degrees, just as you ordered, sir. We see some medics scrambling on the outer decks. But there is no threat from the ship, and there has been no course change in the last five minutes, sir.”
“Very well, Lieutenant. Open up a patch for me through the PA system.”
Bridge
M/V Shemnong
South China Sea
between Da Nang, Vietnam, and the Paracel Islands
course 180 degrees
Two of the ship’s three medics arrived on the bridge. They slid the captain’s body out of the middle of the deck, off to one side.
“Mr. Chan, your arm,” a medic said as he approached Chan, who was standing watch at the ship’s wheel.
Chan looked down and noticed for the first time blood oozing from his upper arm.
“You have been hit, First Officer. You’re bleeding. We should treat that. It could become infected.”
“I cannot abandon the helm,” Chan said.
Just then, the engineering officer arrived on the bridge. “Oh, dear God!” he exclaimed, his eyes displaying stunned shock.
Chan found irony in men devoted to the Communist Party who, at the sight of such bloodshed, were calling for God when the official Communist position was that the state was the only god.
“Zhu Yan,” Chan said to the engineering officer, “relieve me at the helm so the medic can attend to my arm. Maintain course one-eight-zero until further notice.”
“Yes, First Officer.” Zhu took the helm, and the medic took a pair of scissors to the bloody sleeve on Chan’s left arm.
“Aaahhh!” The alcohol against the open wound burned like fire, bringing sensation back to the wound that moments ago had been numb.
The second medic was kneeling on the deck, attending to the radio officer, Mr. Wu, who was stretched out on his back. After tying a tourniquet around Wu’s bleeding arm, the medic cradled Wu’s head with his hand. “He’s going to make it.”
“Thank God,” Chan replied, again betraying the philosophical underpinnings of the atheistic Communist Party to which he had sworn allegiance. “I thought that I was the only survivor on the bridge.”
“Good news, Mr. Chan,” the first medic said.
“I could use some good news,” Chan said.
“The bullet grazed your arm. It did not lodge in you. But we will need to stitch this wound.”
“To the captain of the freighter Shemnong!” Chan looked up. The enemy helicopter’s PA system boomed again. “This is the captain of the ROCS Kee Lung.”
“Silence on the bridge!” Chan ordered.
“You were wise to resume the course I ordered.” The enemy captain’s voice echoed off the deck of the freighter. “You will continue to maintain this course. In a few minutes, we shall board the Shemnong with teams of Marines. They will inspect your ship to determine if you are transporting weapons to aid the illegal war effort.
“I warned you before, and I now warn you again. If you attempt to interfere with our boarding or if you fail to cooperate with our boarding party once they are on board, you will be sunk. This is your only warning. This is the captain of the Kee Lung.”
CHAPTER 6
Headquarters
United States Seventh Fleet
US Naval Base
Yokosuka, Japan
On a narrow Japanese street not one hundred yards from the pier to which the aircraft carrier USS George Washington was moored, on the second floor of a plain stucco building built by the Japanese Imperial Navy to plan the destruction of the United States Pacific Fleet during World War II, high-ranking officers of the United States Navy had just concluded a meeting to discuss the unfolding naval tensions in the South China Sea.
The time was half past noon, the mid-August weather outside was hot. After fierce thunderstorms all morning long, a resurgent sunlight blazed against the puddles, raising steam from the streets and sidewalks.
A US Navy captain wearing his summer white uniform stood looking out on the ships in Tokyo Bay, his arms crossed. Then he did an about-face, turning his back on the view, and walked back to his desk.
How had he gotten himself into such a predicament?
A few weeks ago, he had been working at his desk at the Joint Chiefs of Staff “tank” at the Pentagon, in the “Operations,” or “J-3” Directorate, which made him familiar with the work of all United States Navy operational fleets around the world. But because of flashpoints around the Pacific Rim, most of his work, it seemed, at least in the last six months, had involved joint staff coordination with Seventh Fleet.
Like all fleets within the United States Navy, the Seventh Fleet was under the command of a three-star vice admiral. That commander is not only responsible for sixty-some warships spread over half the world’s ocean space in the Western Pacific and Indian Oceans but is also responsible for the defense of US allies, including Japan, South Korea, Australia, India, and Taiwan.
Captain David Draxler still remembered the phone call from Japan from Vice Admiral Jim Wesson, commander of Seventh Fleet, that had changed his life. He still remembered every word and every inflection of the admiral’s voice as if the call had happened three minutes ago.
“Dave, my chief of staff, Captain Bobby Montgomery, just got picked for rear admiral. I want you to come out here to Yokosuka and replace him.”
Less than twenty-four hours later, he was aboard a US Air Force C-17 on final approach to Yokosuka, excited about his new assignment.
Today, his exuberance had faded. He was in crisis mode. His hopes of making flag officer had gone up in smoke. Draxler paced back and forth, in heated conversation with his assistant and Naval Academy classmate Commander Wesley Walls, who was sitting in a black leather chair in the corner of the office.
US Navy fleet operational
assignments, South China Sea, Taiwan, Japan
“I don’t know, Wes.” Draxler studied the chart of the fleet operational assignments, at the distance between Japan and the South China Sea. “We got a real problem. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.”
Walls leaned forward in the chair and looked up at the chart. He didn’t respond. The two were best buddies from their Naval Academy days, and Walls’ silence did nothing except tighten the knots in Draxler’s stomach.
“Spit it out, Wes. You’ve always been a straight shooter. That’s why I asked the admiral to approve you as my number two.”
“I think you’re right, Dave. We screwed up. I think not telling him in advance was a horrible idea.” He nodded toward the hallway, in the direction of the admiral’s office.
Draxler nodded. “I’ve been in the Navy a long time, and this is the first time I’ve ever felt like my head might roll.”
“Look, Dave, this whole thing was my idea. Let me go in there and take the heat. I’ve been passed over for captain. My career is almost over anyway. But you’re going to be on the list for admiral, and this idea wasn’t even your baby to begin with. No point in both of us losing our careers.”
Draxler paced back across the floor. He folded his arms behind his back, shaking his head again. “Can’t do that, buddy. You thought of it, but I authorized it. And I’m his chief of staff. I should’ve brought the idea to him for his approval. But I didn’t. I threw my weight around, and now we’re in a pickle.” More pacing back and forth. “I’m going to get it over with. Right now.”
Walls raised an eyebrow. “Captain.” A switch from “Dave” to “Captain.” A somber tone. “Let me take the fall. Don’t run the risk of losing a star because of this.”
“Wes, I appreciate your loyalty, but that wouldn’t be right. Leaders take responsibility. If I take the fall, I take the fall.”
Bridge
USS Emory S. Land
South China Sea
1:00 p.m. local time
XO! We’ve got a homing signal! Thirty-two miles dead ahead, sir!”
“Where?” Commander Bobby Roddick leaned over the radio officer’s shoulder.