The Shark Mutiny (2001)

by Patrick Robinson

  Her crew could hear the ship’s tannoy blaring instructions, and the medical teams were already making their way aft to tend the wounded, but by the standards of torpedoed warships there was relatively little bloodshed.

  The communications room was still intact, and the ops room was unharmed. In fury, Colonel Yang Xi was thrashing around looking for a target at which to lash back. But he could see nothing short range for well over two miles. He had missiles, shells and torpedoes, but nothing close at which to aim any of them specifically. Nor could he see what had hit his ship, if indeed anything. For all he knew, it was just an explosion. But he knew that was stretching the realms of coincidence.

  Three minutes after the impact, he received yet another signal from the American carrier, again ordering him out of the area, but offering to request assistance from the Iranians if the destroyer’s comms were down.

  The Colonel did not answer. Neither did he consider it prudent to open fire with his missiles, because if he did the Americans would surely sink him. In his present situation he was the epitome of a sitting duck. Instead he relayed a signal to the Iranian Naval Command at Bandar Abbas requesting assistance.

  Meanwhile Lt. Commander Headley turned USS Shark around and returned to his position on station 20 miles off the port bow of the Harry S Truman.

  0100. Friday, May 4.

  The White House.

  Admiral Morgan sat alone in his office in the West Wing. He had promised Kathy he would be home by 11 P.M., but that was before the Shark had planted a torpedo in the stern of the Hangzhou. He had been on the line to the CNO almost every moment since.

  Right now the John F. Kennedy Battle Group was five days out of Pearl Harbor and making a swing to the south from her normal route up to the coast of Taiwan. Admiral Dixon had ordered her straight to Diego Garcia.

  The increased tension in the Hormuz area had also caused the CNO to tell the Atlantic Commander-in-Chief to move the sixth operational U.S. CVBG, that of the Theodore Roosevelt, out of the Mediterranean and on to the Indian Ocean.

  Like Admiral Morgan, he had no idea what the Chinese were up to, and he had a bad feeling about that new Chinese base on the Bassein River. Within a few days they would have four carrier groups conducting a roulement between Diego Garcia and the Hormuz Strait, with the Roosevelt free to roam the Indian Ocean, with her consorts, anywhere it looked as though the Chinese might cause more trouble.

  As far as Arnold Morgan was concerned, he had seen enough. Always completely mistrustful of the men from the Orient, he now believed their true colors were being shown. They had cold-bloodedly caused a massive world oil crisis, they had caused scenes of chaos in the Gulf of Iran and right now no one dared to bring a big tanker across Jimmy Ramshawe’s line, which defined the essential contour of the minefield.

  The oil market frenzy had abated slightly thanks to soothing words from the American President that free-and-clear passage through the Strait of Hormuz would soon be resumed. But Americans were paying three dollars and fifty cents a gallon at the pumps, and Texaco, along with three other U.S.-based corporations, was threatening to put the price up to four dollars next week.

  The President was at his wit’s end, demanding the strait be reopened immediately, apparently unable to grasp the consequences of another tanker being blown up, and the global uproar that would surely follow if the USA had declared the route safe to resume trade.

  The weekend passed more or less uneventfully. White Rajah was made the hot favorite, before losing by a half length at Churchill Downs after closing on the winner all the way down the stretch. But at 0530 (local time) on Monday morning, May 7, at the northern end of the Malacca Strait, an even more unexpected event happened. A 300,000-ton, virtually empty Japanese-registered crude carrier literally blew itself to pieces: went up in a colossal fireball right off the northern headland of Sumatra, within a few miles of the open ocean.

  Like Hormuz, this is a very busy oil route, the seagoing highway to the Far East, the route of almost every tanker coming out of the Gulf of Iran, or even from the oil fields of Africa—straight across the Indian Ocean toward the Nicobar Islands, then through the Great Channel into the Malacca Strait, which divides Sumatra and the Malayan Peninsula.

  The strait is close to 600 miles long, and the tankers use it for their outward and inward journeys. Almost 100 percent of all the fuel oil and gas requirements in the Far East are carried on the big tankers through that narrowing seaway, the shortcut to the South China Sea.

  It saves over a thousand wasteful miles, for without the strait, ships would have to travel right around the outside of the old East Indies.

  Arnold Morgan heard the news with an undisguised groan as he and Kathy sat down to dinner on Sunday night, 12 time zones back. “This,” he grated, “is getting goddamned serious.”

  No word of complaint had been heard from the Chinese since their destroyer was damaged. Nor, of course, had there been any word of admission for their part in mining Hormuz in the first place.

  Ms. O’Brien had actually heard the report on the news while Arnold was grilling some pork chops. They had been out all day, sailing along the Potomac on a friend’s yacht, and for some reason there had been only drinks and potato chips on board. The President’s National Security Adviser rarely, if ever, touched alcohol during the day, and both he and Kathy had concluded the voyage, cold after the sun went down, and hungry in extremis, as the Admiral put it.

  They declined going to a restaurant with the other guests and sped home in Arnold’s staff car. With heavy sweaters on, and glasses of wine from the Loire Valley, they had fired up the grill and were just moving into Arnold’s favorite part of the day, when Kathy reported the demise of the giant VLCC.

  “Now how the hell did that happen?” he asked Kathy’s Labrador, Freddie, who made no reply but continued to look, with eyes like lasers, at the pork chops.

  Kathy returned with the wine bottle but little information. “They just said the tanker was unladen,” she said. “No information was available about how the accident happened. They did draw a parallel with the ships that blew up in Hormuz last week, and the newscaster mentioned that there seemed to be a jinx on the shipping of heavy crude oil these days.

  “Yeah,” he muttered. “A jinx wearing a goddamned lampshade on its head and eating its dinner with a couple of painted sticks.”

  Kathy laughed. No one had ever made her laugh like Arnold Morgan, especially when he was being sardonic. She threw her arms around him, and kissed him softly and slowly. No one that agonizingly beautiful had ever kissed Arnold Morgan. Certainly not like that.

  “If it wasn’t for about a billion tons of shipping blazing away in the Far East threatening to cause an end to civilization as we know it,” he said, “I could get very involved with that kissing business.”

  “Well, you should think about it more often,” she said. “Get a kind of rotation system going…you know, save the world…make love to Kathy…save the world…kiss Kathy for a few hours…then save the world again. If necessary. Meantime, I’ll take you just as you are.”

  “Thank you,” he said, grinning. “How about…eat the chops…make love to Kathy…drink the Meursault…kiss Kathy?”

  “I’ll buy that,” she said. “But how about saving the world?”

  “Screw the world,” he said, putting his arm around her. “Can’t the goddamned world see when I’m too busy?”

  The Admiral removed the chops from the grill with a pair of long silver tongs. One of them broke, and the meaty part fell to the flagstone patio. Freddie dove at it as if he had not been fed during this century, and retreated sneakily into the bushes.

  “Has that greedy little character got any Chinese blood?” he asked.

  Kathy giggled, took the plate of chops from the Admiral and told him, “Sure he has. Freddie, honored grandson of the Dalai Lama.”

  “That’s Tibet, dingbat,” he said.

  “Same thing, if you ask the People’s Republic,” she said
.

  It took only a few more moments for them to turn off the new gas grill and move inside to where the Admiral had lit a log fire in the study. This was a rather grand house, and Kathy had been awarded it, amicably, by her husband in the divorce settlement. He had been a fairly rich man, and his pride and joy had been his book-lined study, which was situated through a beamed arch from the dining room. Kathy assumed he had another such setup in his new house in Normandy, France, where he now lived with his French wife.

  A studious diplomat, with a family grain business in the Midwest, he was always described by Kathy as kind, and lovely, totally preoccupied with the problems of the world and “about as much fun as a tree.” He had been much older than she, as Arnold was. But the laughter she shared with Arnold, his willingness always to talk to her and the sheer joy of their being together made up for any age differential. They were as devoted as it was possible to be. And one day she would marry him. When he retired.

  Meanwhile, she served the pork chops, salad and the french loaf, sat down and asked him, “How do big ships burn, when there’s nothing in them? What’s to burn? The newscaster said it was returning unladen to the gulf.”

  “Well, I didn’t really hear it, but that sounds right. You see, those big tankers never really get rid of that crude oil when they unload at the terminal. I’m not sure what’s left, but in a vast holding tank, there’s probably several inches still slopping around after the pumps are turned off.

  “Now then, it’s not the actual crude oil, which is like a black sludge, that burns. It’s the gases rising up from it. So you can very easily have a situation where a fully loaded tanker is a lot less inflammable than an empty one. Because the holding tanks in the empty one are full of gases, and those babies will go up real fast.

  “It’s the same with gasoline. If you could somehow plunge a lighted match into the gasoline without igniting the gases that are evaporating, the liquid would put the flame out, like water. You probably won’t remember, but twenty-five years ago when the Brits fought the Argentinians for the Falkland Islands, a bomb came right into a ship—actually I think it came in low, and traveled right through and out the other side.

  “Anyway, it started a minor fire, but hit a big diesel-gas tank on the way through and tons of ice-cold fuel cascaded out and extinguished the fire. That’s how it works. And that’s what caused the explosion in this latest tanker. The gases going up with a major bang.”

  “Thank you, sir. Nicely explained. What do you think caused it?”

  “I’m afraid to think about that right now. But I know one thing: It’s not another minefield. Both Singapore and Sumatra get rich on the pilotage fees through the Malacca. They’re high and getting higher. Last thing they want is a blockade. The Chinese would get no help from them. That means we’re looking for something else. But not tonight. We’re having a quiet dinner…then I’m not going to save the world, and we’ll go to bed quietly together.

  “Tomorrow will be different. I’ll be in the office early. So will you. And Admiral Borden wants to fasten his goddamned safety belt.”

  “I’m just beginning to feel a teeny bit sorry for the poor Admiral.”

  “Well, don’t be. He’s a negative guy. Which is bad in Intelligence. In Fort Meade, you gotta stay right on top of the game. Also Borden’s obviously been very awkward with the excellent Lieutenant Ramshawe. I don’t like that. Young men that sharp ought to be encouraged—not made to feel frustrated, so they have to phone the goddamned White House in order to get someone to pay attention.”

  “Well, you were pretty short with him when he did make the call.”

  “Kathy, there are formalities of command in the United States Navy, and they have to be observed at all times. And quite often they soothe troubled waters, even soften the truth. What they never do, howevever, is hide the truth. Jimmy Ramshawe knew that when he called. He probably knew I’d be kinda dismissive. But he also knew I’d hear him. That’s why he called. He never had to tell me his boss was being pigheaded stupid. He didn’t have to. He knew I’d get it. And he was right…more goddamned right than even he knew at that point.”

  “I guess it was pretty impressive how he got onto the Chinese involvement?”

  “Sure was. He was a couple of jumps ahead of me, and we were running on the same track. I’m not real used to that.”

  “Do you feel a little resentful…someone that young?”

  “Hell, no. I was pleased. Saved me a lot of thinking time. That boy just laid it right out…almost.”

  “What d’you mean, ‘almost’?”

  The Admiral leaned back in his chair, and took a deep sip of Meursault. “Kathy,” he said, “there’s something real strange about this whole damned thing. Lemme ask you a question. What’s the first thing any halfway decent detective wants to know about a murder?”

  “Whodunit?”

  The Admiral chuckled, leaned over, took her hand and told her he loved her. Then he stopped smiling and said, “Motive, Mrs. O’Brien. Motive. Why was this crime committed?”

  “Okay, Sherlock, go for it.”

  “Kathy, I cannot go for it. Because I cannot for the life of me see one motive the Chinese may have had for getting heavily involved in a blocklade of the Gulf of Iran. I have wracked my brains, and every time we make a big move to protect the mine clearance, I get a damned funny feeling about the entire scenario.”

  “You do?”

  “Well, we got a Navy that has to protect the Indians’ ships. But right now we got battle groups standing by to relieve battle groups. We’ve even got battle groups coming out of the Med in order to get into the Arabian Sea.

  “Kathy, do you know how many ships that is—in the five U.S. battle groups?”

  “What are they, a dozen each? So I guess around sixty?”

  “Kathy, that’s enough Naval hardware to conquer the world about three times over. That’s more U.S. warships grouped together than there’ve been since World War Two. So what the hell’s going on? There’s no hostile threat. The mines that blew three tankers are essentially passive, just sitting there in the water, and the Pondicherrys are quite steadily getting rid of them.

  “Neither China, nor Iran, has opened fire on anyone. Christ, we just banged a hole in China’s most important destroyer and they never even fired back, never even protested.

  “I just got an awkward feeling I might be missing the big picture right here. Seems to me we got too much Naval hardware in one place. And I know that’s because we’ve also got a President whose only real concern is the price of gasoline at the American pumps.

  “And I’m wondering if we’re overreacting to the oil threat to civilization. Could someone be very seriously yanking our chain?”

  1700. Monday, May 7.

  Headquarters, Eastern Fleet.

  Ningbo, Zhejiang Province.

  The streets were always crowded at this time in the ancient harbor town that lies 120 miles due south of Shanghai across the great Bay of Hangzhou. Ningbo traces its roots back to the Tang Dynasty, through more than a thousand years of trading, and every day in the early evening a commercial stampede seems to break out, as if the entire population was racing, to sail before the tide.

  Throngs surged across the old Xinjiang Bridge in the main port area. Traders bought and sold all along the old central throughway of Zhongshan Lu. And yet, it was a curious place to see a senior Naval Officer, in uniform, hurrying through one of the oldest parts of town, along Changchun Lu.

  Nonetheless, moving swiftly between the merchant houses along the crowded sidewalks was the tall, lean, still-upright figure of the Commander-in-Chief of the Peoples’ Liberation Navy, Admiral Zu Jicai. He was no stranger to this city. He had been born here more than 60 years ago, and his Naval career had begun in the dockyards of Zhejiang Province and ultimately, before he was thirty years old, in Shanghai.

  Following him closely among the shoppers were four uniformed Navy guards, with sidearms. Even for a mission as unorthodox as th
is, Admiral Zu was not permitted to travel so far from the dockyard without protection.

  He reached a building on the left-hand side of the street, and paused briefly to confer with his guards, instructing them to wait outside, and to have a staff car ready in 45 minutes.

  Then he walked up the steps, and entered through one of the wide, folded wooden screen doors of the Tianyige, the oldest private library in all of China, dating back to the sixteenth century, at the height of Ningbo’s prosperity during the Ming Dynasty. A member of the family bowed formally to him, and the Admiral returned the courtesy, before he was led through the book-filled, paneled main room into a smaller inner sanctum, dimly lit and plainly designed for thought and as a home for reference books.

  There was one single table in the room, and it stood beneath a deep, paneled, beamed ceiling, divided into wide squares, each one decorated with intricate inlays of light wood and ivory, each one of an entirely different pattern. Seated at the table, in the shadows beneath this great mosaic of ancient Chinese art, was the powerful figure of Admiral Zhang Yushu, senior Vice Chairman of the PLAN’s Council.