Combat

by Stephen Coonts

  “But he made an amazing comeback. Six weeks ago he was released from prison and sent to Xiamen on the coast. His family was brought back to Beijing, where their old lives were reinstated.

  “The Nanchong left port three days ago on her one and only mission with a skeleton crew of officers and men who had all been convicted of a variety of crimes from treason to theft of state property.”

  “Goddammit, we were set up,” Admiral Halvorson said angrily. “But why? What did the bastards expect to accomplish?”

  “Get our attention.”

  “Are you telling us that the Chinese sank their own ship?” the President asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “They got our attention. What do they want?”

  “They want exactly what they told Gene they wanted. Peter Shizong. Dead or alive.”

  “They’re using the Nanchong as an excuse to punish Taiwan. I can understand that. But they want us to back off this time, and they’re willing to fight.”

  “That’s the conclusion we’re drawing, Mr. President,” McGarvey said. “They’re not merely rattling their sabers this time, they’ve pulled them. The ball is in our court.”

  “We have the Carl Vinson and her battle group still in Yokosuka. We could park them just offshore from Taipei. Any invasion force would have to get through us first,” Admiral Halvorson said. He was mad. “Might make them stop and think before they pulled the trigger.”

  “They would only be fighting a delaying action,” Turnquist objected.

  “That’s if we stuck to conventional weapons,” Halvorson countered. “We have six submarines patrolling the strait, three of them strategic missile boats. Their combined nuclear throw weight is five times that of the entire Chinese missile force.”

  “Most of the Chinese missiles are ICBMs, are they not?” the President’s National Security Advisor, Berndt, asked. He was clearly alarmed. “Capable of reaching the United States a half hour from launch?”

  “Our first targets would be their launch sites,” Admiral Halvorson shot back.

  The President gestured for them to stop talking. “How reliable is your information, Mac?”

  “We have a high confidence.”

  “What do we do about it?”

  “Whatever we do, Mr. President, will involve a risk—either of losing Taiwan or of getting into a nuclear exchange with China.”

  “If it’s about getting into a nuclear war, Taiwan’s independence isn’t worth the price,” Berndt said. It was obvious that most of the others around the table agreed with him.

  “It’s about our word,” McGarvey interjected softly.

  “That’s what was said about Vietnam,” Berndt pressed. He was an academic. He’d never been out in the real world.

  “Taiwan is an ally.”

  “So was South Vietnam.”

  “Maybe we could have won that war,” McGarvey said patiently. After twenty-five years working for the CIA, he didn’t think he’d heard a new argument in the past twenty years.

  “I’ll repeat my question, Mac, what does the CIA suggest we do?”

  “Play the PRC at their own game, Mr. President,” McGarvey said.

  “Okay, how do we do that?”

  “You’re going to lend me a Seawolf attack submarine and I’m going to sink it with all hands lost.”

  Three Days Later CVN George Washington

  Even at a distance from the air the George Washington was an impressive sight. At over a thousand feet in length, she displaced more than ninety thousand tons, carried a crew of three thousand men, women, and officers, plus another three thousand in the air wing. The carrier had ninety planes and an arsenal of Phalanx cannons, Sams and Sea Sparrow missiles, and yet her two pressurized water-cooled nuclear reactors, which needed refueling only every thirteen years, could push the largest warship afloat to speeds well in excess of thirty knots. McGarvey peered out the window of the Marine Sea King CH-46G troop-carrying helicopter that brought him and his escort, Navy SEAL Lieutenant Hank Hanrahan, down from Okinawa.

  It was early morning, the sun just coming up over the eastern horizon, and the day promised to be glorious. The north coast of Taiwan was a very faint smudge on the horizon to the southeast, and arrayed for as far as the eye could see in all directions were war ships: the George Washington’s battle group of Aegis cruisers, guided-missile destroyers, and ASW frigates directly below; Taiwanese gunboats, destroyers, and guided-missile frigates to the east; and the PRC fleet along a three-hundred-mile line to the west. The George Washington’s air wing maintained a screen one hundred miles out, which of necessity brought them into very close proximity with the Chinese. And below the surface were six U.S. submarines, four Taiwanese boats and eleven Chinese submarines, three of which were nuclear-powered Han-class boats, old but deadly.

  “There’re almost enough assets out there to leapfrog from Taiwan to the Chinese mainland without getting your feet wet,” Admiral Halvorson had told McGarvey after the President’s briefing. What he meant was that once the shooting started it would be impossible to control the battle or stop it until there was a clear victory. In the meantime a lot of good people would be dead for no reason.

  “Ever been on a carrier before, Mr. M?” Lieutenant Hanrahan asked, breaking into McGarvey’s thoughts. He was twenty-six, with a freshly scrubbed wide-eyed innocent look of a kid from some small town in the Midwest. But he was a service brat, his dad was a retired navy captain, and he was as calm and as hard as nails as any man in the SEALs. You only had to look into his eyes to see it. He’d been there done that, and when called upon he was ready, willing, and very able to go there again and do it again.

  “A couple of times, but you forget how big they are.”

  “About the size of a small city. Only problem is you can’t find a decent saloon anywhere aboard.”

  McGarvey had to smile. He was being tested. “A decent legal saloon, you mean.” Hanrahan gave him a sharp look. “I wasn’t always a DDO. And grunts tend to hear a hell of a lot more than their superiors. Don’t shit an old shitter.”

  Hanrahan grinned happily. “I read you, Mr. M.”

  A red shirt guided them to touch down just forward of the island. The Grumman E-2C Hawkeye AWACS aircraft normally parked there was airborne, and for the moment the elevator to the hangar deck was in the up position and clear. Fully one-third of the Seventh and Third Fleet’s assets were in the air at any one time, making this one of the busiest pieces of air real estate in the world, even busier than Chicago’s O’Hare.

  The seas were fairly calm and as soon as the helicopter came to a complete stop, McGarvey and Hanrahan unbuckled and grabbed their bags. There was no sense whatsoever that they were aboard a ship at sea. The deck was as rock solid as a parking lot in a big city, but noisier.

  “Thanks for the ride,” McGarvey shouted up to the crew forward.

  “Yes, sir. Hope you enjoyed the meal service and in-flight movie,” the pilot quipped.

  “Just great,” McGarvey said. A cheese sandwich and a ginger ale while looking out a small window were not usually his first choices for breakfast and entertainment, but he’d had worse.

  The red shirt motioned them to the island structure as the chopper was already being prepped to be moved below and refueled for the 350-nautical mile return trip. Just inside the hatch a Marine sergeant in battle fatigues, a Colt Commando slung over his shoulder, saluted.

  “Gentlemen, please follow me to flag quarters.”

  He led them down a maze of passageways, the machinery noises not as bad as McGarvey remembered from the Independence, but the corridors just as narrow and covered in stenciled alphanumeric legends. Pipes and cable runs were everywhere, and seemingly around every corner there were firefighting stations built into the Navy gray bulkheads. The ship was very busy, evident by all the activity they saw through the hatches in the bulkheads, decks, and overheads, and the constant PA announcements.

  Men all good and true, busy at the work of war, the line ca
me back to McGarvey from somewhere. Only these days it was men and women all busy at the work of war.

  Another armed Marine sergeant in battle fatigues was stationed at the admiral’s door. He stiffened to attention. Their escort knocked once, then opened the door and stepped aside.

  “Gentlemen, the admiral is expecting you.”

  Flag quarters was actually a well-furnished suite, sitting room, bedroom, and bathroom, that equaled anything that a luxury ocean liner could offer—thick carpeting, rich paneling, nice artwork, expensive furniture, except there were no sliding glass doors or balconies.

  “Good morning,” Vice Admiral Albert Ryland said. He put down his coffee cup and he and the other two men with him got to their feet.

  “Good morning, Admiral,” McGarvey said, shaking hands.

  Ryland, who was from Birmingham, Alabama, looked and sounded like a tall, lean Southern gentleman from the old school. He was one of the most respected officers in the Navy; it was Halvorson’s opinion that he would probably end up Chairman of the Joint Chiefs within five years. “Don’t try to hold anything back on him, or he’ll cut you off at the knees,” Halvorson warned.

  “This is the George’s captain, Pete Townsend, and my Operations Officer, Tom Byrne.”

  They shook hands. The captain looked like a banker or the chairman of some board of directors. He wore wire-rimmed glasses, his hair was thin and gray, and his face was round and undistinguished. Byrne, however, was a very large black man who looked like he could play with the Green Bay Packers. His grip was as strong as bar steel.

  “Sir, I’m Lieutenant Hank Hanrahan. I have orders to assist Mr. McGarvey.”

  “You Mike Hanrahan’s son?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How’s your old man doing these days?”

  “He misses the Navy, sir.”

  Ryland chuckled. “This would be just the kind of brouhaha he’d like to be in.” He turned back to McGarvey. “Well, the Chinese know that you’re here. They’re watching every move we make. Satellites and OTH radar.”

  “Hopefully they don’t know who I am,” McGarvey said. “And we’re going to keep it that way because Hank and I are not going to be aboard very long. Just until nightfall.”

  “I thought your helicopter was heading back right away,” Townsend said.

  “We’re not leaving that way.”

  “Unless they’re sending another bird for you, I don’t have anything to spare.”

  “We’re not flying.”

  “Are you going to swim?” Townsend demanded angrily.

  “As a matter of fact that’s exactly what we’re going to do, Captain,” McGarvey said. “Tonight.”

  He couldn’t blame Ryland or his officers for being in a bad temper. They were in the middle of a likely very hot situation with their hands practically tied behind their backs. This was a fight between China and Taiwan. The U.S. was Taiwan’s ally and was supposed to back them up if they were attacked, but the Navy was here only to show the flag. The President’s orders remained very specific: Ryland was not to shoot unless the Chinese shot at his people first. In effect if the PRC navy simply wanted to sail right through the middle of the Seventh and Third Fleets, engage every Taiwanese warship they encountered, and then send troops ashore, there was nothing Ryland could do about it.

  Ryland shook his head. “Dick Halvorson said that you were inventive.”

  McGarvey smiled faintly. “I don’t think that was exactly the word he used.”

  “No.”

  Byrne poured them coffee. “Admiral Halvorson said that we were to give you whatever you wanted.” He looked at Hanrahan, who did not avert his gaze. “That’s a pretty tall order.”

  McGarvey took a plain white envelope out of his pocket and handed it to Ryland. He figured that if the flag officers were unhappy before, they would be even less happy after reading the letter.

  When Ryland was done he handed it to Townsend, and looked at McGarvey. “Okay, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs calls to tell me than the CIA’s Deputy Director of Operations is flying out, and I’m supposed to give him all the help I can. I’m thinking that perhaps you’re bringing a magic bullet to get us out of the mess we’re in. And now this.”

  Townsend had finished the letter, and he handed it to Byrne. He was clearly upset.

  “No magic bullets this time, Admiral. But I think we might have a chance of coming out of this situation with our asses more or less intact,” McGarvey replied. He had decided long ago never to try to argue with a man who has just been blindsided. If you wanted to get through to him, you waited until he calmed down a little.

  “That’s a comfort,” Ryland said acerbically. “I’m told to defend Taiwan, but I can’t fire a shot to do it.” He glanced at Byrne, who had also finished the letter. “Now the President tells me that I can’t even ask any questions. Christ on the cross, if we lose here, we lose everywhere!”

  “If we start a shooting war, it could escalate. Go nuclear.”

  “McGarvey, there’s a real chance that every time we untie one of our carriers from the dock and send her to sea we’ll get ourselves into a nuclear war. Are you telling me that Taiwan isn’t worth the risk?”

  “That’s the current feeling in Washington.”

  Ryland glanced again at his officers. “A dose of refreshing honesty for a change. It’s a wonder that you’ve kept your job for so long. What are we doing here then?” he asked angrily. “Sooner or later there’ll be another accident. Then another, and another until all hell breaks loose! That’s the way it works, you know.”

  “The Nanchong was no accident, Admiral. The Chinese sank her. That’s why the President sent me out here, to work out a solution that’ll keep everybody happy—Taipei and Beijing.”

  “If that’s true, it explains a couple of things that we were wondering about,” Byrne said. He and Ryland exchanged a look.

  “How many men were aboard her?” Ryland asked.

  “We’re not sure, but probably no more than a dozen. Just enough to take her to sea, but not enough to fight her.”

  “Gives the PRC a supposedly legitimate reason to be here,” Byrne observed.

  “And us, too,” Ryland agreed. “What do we do about it?”

  “We’re going to sink one of our own.”

  Ryland sat forward so fast that he practically levitated from his chair. But he hesitated for just a moment before he spoke. McGarvey could almost hear him counting to ten. “I don’t think that you’re saying what I just heard. The Chinese may be willing to kill their people, not us.”

  “Thirty-six hours from now there’ll be an underwater explosion a hundred miles from here. Five minutes later one of our submarines, the Seawolf, will send up a slot buoy to report that they have engaged an unknown enemy, were damaged, and are in immediate danger of sinking. Before the message is completed the communications buoy will break loose from the submarine, there’ll be another intense underwater explosion, and then nothing.”

  Byrne got a chart of the area, and McGarvey pinpointed the approximate location for them. The George Washington’s captain saw the plan immediately.

  “That’s sandwiched between us and the Kennedy. No Chinese assets that we’re aware of within a hundred fifty miles.” Townsend looked up. “That gives the Seawolf a clear path into the open Pacific. Is that what you have in mind?”

  McGarvey nodded. “There’ll be an extensive search, of course, and some wreckage will be found. Twenty-four hours later we’ll announce that the Swordfish was lost with all hands, and was probably torpedoed.”

  “The Swordfish? She was pulled from duty six months ago,” Byrne said. “She’s back at Groton.”

  “That’s right. And when this is over with, she’ll be taken in secret and sunk just off our continental shelf.”

  “If we blame the Chinese, they’ll have to figure that we’ve pulled the same stunt on them that they pulled on the Taiwanese,” Byrne said.

  “It won’t matter,” McGarvey told th
em. “Everybody will back off to let the situation cool down and allow the politicians to hash it out.”

  “That’ll only buy us a few days, maybe a week, and then we’ll be right back in the same situation we’re in right now,” Ryland opined. “What will we have gained?”

  “After seven days the PRC Navy will return to their home bases and so will we.”

  Ryland glanced at the President’s letter on the coffee table. “That’s the part I’m not supposed to ask any questions about.”

  “You wouldn’t want to know, Admiral. As soon as it gets dark we’ll be out of your hair.”

  Ryland turned to Hanrahan. “You’re in on this, Lieutenant?”

  Hanrahan stiffened. “Yes, sir.”

  Ryland waved him off. “Relax, I’m not going to order you to tell me. Except how in the hell do you think you’re going to get off this ship without the Chinese knowing something is going on? If you’re not flying, you’ll have to be transferred to one of our frigates or destroyers, and they’ll see that, too.”

  “Sir, we’re exiting the ship from the port hangar deck just forward of the Sea Sparrow launcher.”

  “What the hell—” Townsend exploded.

  “Relax, Pete, I think I know at least part of what they’re up to,” Ryland said. “The Seawolf is coming to pick you up.” He shook his head. “That’s a dicey maneuver no matter how you slice it.” He turned to the captain again. “We’ll have to warn sonar.”

  “That won’t be necessary, Admiral. Your people haven’t detected her yet, have they?” McGarvey asked.

  “No,” Townsend said, tight-lipped. “Where is she?”

  McGarvey glanced at his watch. It was a few minutes after seven in the morning. “Actually we’re passing over her about right now. She’s been lying beneath a thermocline nine hundred feet down since yesterday morning.”

  “We’re on a twelve-hour pattern,” Townsend said. “We’ll be right back here around seven this evening.”

  “That’s about when we go overboard,” McGarvey said. “When you’re clear, she’ll come up to about fifty feet, we’ll dive down to her and lock aboard.”

  “Does Tom Harding know what’s going on?” Ryland asked. Harding was the Seawolf’s skipper, and a very good if somewhat conservative sub driver.