Tombstone sighed heavily. Had it come to this? Contemplating the detonation of nuclear weapons on American soil? He shook his head, trying to pretend he didn’t believe it was possible, but he’d dealt with the Chinese too many times in too many scenarios to believe otherwise. In the Spratly Islands, they’d killed their own people just to make it look like they were under attack. In too many theaters of war around the world, he’d seen the difference in the mentality between the Chinese and the American forces. The use of the manned torpedoes, for instance. Even the Russians were more understandable than the inscrutable Chinese.
“Perhaps,” a small voice said from the back of the room. Tombstone turned to see who had spoken. It was his Air Force tanker toad. “Perhaps, sir — Admiral, I mean — well… I can coordinate the tanking problem for you,” the Air Force guy continued. “I speak the language, sir. I’ll put gas in your sky all day long if you want. But on the other thing — well, the Chinese are new to this whole carrier aviation thing, aren’t they? And they’re flying VSTOL aircraft, not conventional launch, right?”
“Stating the obvious, young man?” Batman asked.
“Maybe so, sir,” the Air Force officer said, his voice gaining confidence. “But a lot of this is foreign to me. Right now, I’m the best example of ignorance you’ve got on this boat. Ship,” he corrected hastily when another Navy officer jabbed him in the ribs with a sharp elbow. “Anyway, I was thinking about the last time Pearl Harbor was attacked, and some of the strategies used then. I think, knowing what I’ve heard about your ships and your aircraft, that there might be a way to lure them out into the open.”
Tombstone and Batman exchanged incredulous looks, then Tombstone said in a suspiciously mild voice, “Why don’t you tell us what you’ve got in mind?”
The Air Force officer did, sketching in a broader plan, then filling in details as he went along. Soon other staff members were chiming in, and a murmur of excitement grew in the room.
Finally, Tombstone cut off the discussion and turned to Batman. “You know, we pulled something like this before. It worked out then, didn’t it?”
Batman nodded. “Damned if it didn’t. But what makes you think it will work twice in a row?”
“Because it has to.” Tombstone turned back to the assembled group. “It’s a go.”
Heaven Can Wait Lifeboat
1240 local (GMT –10)
As the minutes turned into hours, their passenger steadily regained consciousness. By the time she could tell that they were finally making some progress toward the aircraft carrier, Adele could tell that his eyes were focused, he was paying attention, and he understood what they were trying to do. He took small sips of water, carefully rationing it, and offering it every so often to one of the others. He’d made motions as though he would take her place in rowing, but he was clearly too weak to be able to do so. Adele thought she detected a note of relief in his face when she refused his gestures.
The aircraft carrier seemed to grow larger all at once, and she could see the fine details on the side of it, the rivets holding the plates to the strakes, men moving around inside the hangar bay, and the discharge of water from scuppers located along the edge of the flight deck. How had they managed to gain on it so fast? And then suddenly the explanation struck her. Jack must have known it all along. Of course, the aircraft carrier was not stationary in the ocean, waiting for their poor little life boat to make its approach on her. She’d been maneuvering the entire time, at first steaming away from them, and now coming at an angle toward them. How stupid of her not to have figured that out — no wonder it had seemed that they were making no progress toward the carrier. Now, however, it was a different story.
“Got the flares out?” Jack asked.
She held up one for his inspection. “Right here.”
He took it from her, and started to light it. “No guarantee that they’ll break off what they’re doing and come pull us out of the drink,” he said, watching her face carefully for any trace of fear.
“I know that.” Involuntarily, her eyes strayed to their passenger. Not everyone was as diligent about following the rules at sea. But dammit, they were American citizens, and they had lost their boat while trying to protect the aircraft carrier. Surely that ought to rate some consideration for pulling them out of the drink.
But the aircraft carrier didn’t know that the two — make that three — occupants of the international orange lifeboat on their beam were the same ones that their intelligence department had been speaking with earlier. The cell phone had been one of the casualties of the sinking.
The helicopter that had been trailing behind the aircraft carrier now took a slight tack toward them. It maintained its distance, hovering in the air approximately six thousand yards away. Adele could see the glint of sunlight off the canopy, off binoculars peering out at her.
Jack put the flare aside and picked up the flashlight. He blinked out SOS, the international signal for distress, and then the Morse code word for medical. There was no response from the helicopter.
For a moment, Adele despaired. Then, as she watched, another helicopter launched from the deck of the aircraft carrier.
Of course the plane guard helo wouldn’t conduct SAR, not when flight operations were under way. Safe recovery of the air crew was the helo’s first priority. The helo had vectored over to take a quick look at them, and then had clearly reported its findings back to the carrier for dispatch of a second helicopter.
Fifteen minutes later, a second helicopter was hovering over them. The air crew lowered a horse collar, and a swimmer dropped into the water beside them to assist them into it. One by one, they were winched up into the belly of the helo.
“Anyone hurt?” an air crewman shouted at her, striving to be heard over the noise of the helicopter.
“Exposure,” she shouted back, pointing at their passenger.
The air crewman did a double take as he noted the identity of the sunburned, exhausted passenger. She saw his lips form into an O, as if he were whistling. “Friend of yours?” he asked.
In brief, shouted phrases, she relayed how they had managed to pick him up out of the ocean, and filled him in on their earlier communications with the carrier. She saw comprehension dawn on his face, and one hand stole up involuntarily to cross himself. After she’d finished, the air crewman left them with the corpsman and made his way forward to talk to the pilot. She could see the pilot glance back at them, then pick up the microphone.
The air crewman came back to them. “Be a translator waiting for us when we land, ma’am.”
She nodded, vaguely irritated that the status of their passenger was of more interest to the aircraft carrier than the rescue of its two spies. Still, she could understand their concern.
As they settled onto the deck of the aircraft carrier and a crew of people came rushing out to meet them, Adele noticed a small boat tied to the stern of the carrier. It was smaller than Heaven Can Wait, but she had a foreboding feeling as she looked at it.
FIFTEEN
USS Centurion
1250 local (GMT –10)
Renny shut his eyes and leaned back in his chair. He clamped his hands over the headset, pressing the foam surrounding the earpieces into the sides of his skull. There, almost at the edge of his hearing — no wait, it was gone again. He sighed, and looked over at Otter. “You got anything?” he asked, taking a look at the passive display as he asked the question.
Otter shook his head. “You’re hearing ghosts, man,” he said.
Renny started to argue, then froze as a familiar sound came peppering his ears through the earphones. “Helicopter,” he breathed, his voice almost a whisper.
“I got it, too.” Otter toggled the sound-powered phone on. “Conn, sonar. Hold incoming helicopter.”
“Classification?” the OOD asked.
“Not ours, that’s all I can tell you.” A seriously worried expression spread itself across Otter’s face. “I don’t like the feel of this at al
l, buddy,” he said softly to Renny. “Not one little bit.”
As they listened, the sound of the helicopter both in Renny’s ears and as translated on the passive acoustic display became louder and louder. The increase in frequency indicated that the aircraft was approaching them directly. Finally, the up Doppler stabilized, then began wavering up and down in frequency.
“It’s directly overhead,” Renny said, now whispering for certain. Around him, the rest of the crew were setting quiet ship stations, and he noted the red light flashing to indicate general quarters. “Right above us,” he whispered.
A small splot then, a second motion in the ocean, the noise that a drop of water falling into the bathtub makes. Renny came bolt upright in his chair. “Sonobuoys, I think,” he said, his voice barely audible. “Whatever it is, they’re tossing something in — ” A massive explosion rocked the water around the ship. Renny screamed, ripped the headphones off and bent over, moaning. The automatic gain control had managed to block out most of the noise, but still enough acoustic energy had made it into the headsets to feel like an arrow lancing straight through his skull.
The ship rolled hard to port and then back to starboard as the OOD fought to stabilize her. A down angle on the deck developed almost immediately. Renny felt the nauseating motion of the ship going into a hard lefthand turn while still unstable from the explosion, and diving at the same time.
“Depth charges,” he said, barely able to hear his own voice. Behind him, his chief tapped him on the shoulder and nudged him out of the chair. Renny’s earphones were already on the chief petty officer’s head. “Depth charges, goddammit, who the hell uses depth charges anymore?”
A second explosion answered that question quite handily.
The ship dove more rapidly now, but it was controlled movement from the ship seeking out a deeper layer of water rather than a submarine damaged by the blast. The further down they got, the further away from the helicopter overhead they’d be. Still, submerging held its own dangers. As the pressures increased, so did the potential consequences of even a small pinhole leak in any gear. Outside the submarine, the water pressure was increasing rapidly, bearing down on every square inch of the hull. Since water was thicker under pressure, it also served as a better medium for conducting acoustic energy. A blast at this depth would be amplified, not only in the amount of energy that hit the submarine but in the damage that any breach in hull integrity would pose.
“How the hell did they find us?” Otter demanded. His hands were dancing over the passive acoustic display, checking out different frequencies, searching frantically for any hint of a threat around them. They both knew the answer to his question.
“Nobody was active, and there were no sonobuoys in the water,” Renny said. “It was the other submarine — he must have heard us on his passive gear, then surfaced to radio in a position report.”
“But when? When!” Otter demanded. He scrolled back to the time on the display. “When was it that you heard something?”
Renny leaned over and pointed to a spot on the graph. “There. Right about then.”
“That was almost thirty minutes ago,” Otter said. “You certain about that?”
Renny shook his head. “Not entirely, but the time fits. He would have had to be fairly close to us to have heard anything at all, and you know he wouldn’t want to be anywhere around if they were going to drop depth charges. So he crept up, took a listen, then sneaked back out of area before he came shallow and radioed in a position report… By now he’s at least ten miles away, maybe more.”
“All hands, this is the captain,” Tran’s voice said over the loudspeaker. Every section of the submarine had been turned down to minimum volume, but the boat was so quiet that his voice was easily distinguishable. “It appears we have evaded the helicopter, and I’m going to be bringing the ship back to a shallower depth. Maintain silence about the decks, even after I secure you from general quarters. It looks like we had the bad luck to be directly under that helicopter while he was dumping garbage or something.”
Renny grinned, admiring Tran’s ability to stay so calm during a crisis. It had been exactly the right thing to say to the ship and crew.
“And I figure we got us a little score to settle with the submarine we left alive back behind us,” Tran’s voice continued, the slightest hint of a Southern drawl in it now. “So suck it up, stay quiet, and I promise you — we’ll get that bastard snitch before he pulls back into port again.”
There were no cheers, no applause, but everyone in the submarine could feel the invisible surge of enthusiasm that rallied through the crew. “We’ll move back into position on the Chinese aircraft carrier.”
As the ship maneuvered, a loud, clanging noise reverberated throughout the entire hull. It seemed to saw at Renny’s bones, sink through his flesh, and then fade away into nothingness. Without having to ask, he knew what it was. The ELF antenna wire that they had been trailing had been severed. Their submerged communications with the outside world had been cut off. Sure, they could still come to communications depth and receive and transmit messages, but that would mean giving up the cloak of invisibility that was the submarine’s primary defensive weapon.
TFCC
1255 local (GMT –10)
The call came from the SEAL team just as Batman was mobilizing his forces to deal with the troop carriers headed for shore. Tombstone’s pickup team jumped as the speaker crackled to life.
“Bad news, sir,” the remarkably clear voice of the SEAL team leader said. “We found the weapon — but it’s inaccessible. The Chinese dumped it in the shallow water. I’ve got some plans for getting to it and disarming it, but it’s going to take a little while to set up. In the meanwhile, if your sub could keep the area clear around it, it might lessen the chances of detonation. Over.”
“Roger, copy all. We’ll do what we can, Murdoch.” Batman’s voice was grim. He turned to Bam-Bam. “Get off a message to Centurion.”
USS Centurion
1300 local (GMT –10)
Captain Tran fought his impulse to pace, schooling himself to stillness that rigged for silent running required. He would not allow himself the luxury of expending some energy through pacing the small compartment. Not only would it not have achieved anything, but it would set a bad example for the rest of the crew. Silent ship meant just that — no unnecessary movement, no talking, and above all, no pacing the deck.
This was the hardest part of submarine warfare, probably the reason that the men who served on these ships bore the name “silent service.” It was a game of cat and mouse, of waiting, of staying submerged and hidden while you waited for the other fellow to make a mistake. Captain Tran held this as an article of faith, that there was no crew as superbly trained as the one on board an American fast attack submarine. Granted, the equipment gave them every edge as well, but it was the crew rather than the steel that encased them that he placed his trust in.
A movement aft caught his eye, and he turned to see the sonar chief holding one finger up in the air. Slightly ashamed at the relief he felt to be moving, Tran padded silently over to the console. He studied data displayed there before asking in a whisper, “Is that her?”
Jacobs nodded. “Bilge pumps, I think,” he said. “It’s faint, and intermittent.”
Tran reached for a spare set of headphones jacked into the input line and slipped them over his ears. He was always surprised at how much more quiet it was with the headphones on, even on a submarine at quiet ship. He could hear his own heartbeat, hear the steady rhythm of his own breathing as blood coursed through his veins. And, just at the edge of perception, he heard the sound that had alerted his sonar team. There it was again — a faint hiss, whine followed by a thump. Bilge pumps or some other slow rhythm machinery on board. It didn’t matter exactly what — the important point was that it wasn’t one of theirs.
“Not as watertight as we are, perhaps,” he said, making an old joke. Bilge pumps weren’t normally run for leaks
inside a submarine — any leak would be almost instantly fatal, as high pressure water rocketing into a hull would probably precipitate cascading casualties faster than any crew could keep track of them. No, bilge pumps were used to pump over the small discharges that steam, an occasional leaky pump, and just sheer spillage accumulated in the lower parts of the ship. Still, his joke was met with a slight smile from the crew.
“Targeting solution?” the sonar chief asked.
Tran nodded. “Completely passive. No one is supposed to know we’re here until the carrier is ready to move.” He could see by the expression on the chief’s face that this didn’t sit well. They had contact, albeit a tenuous one. They would have a firing solution within seconds. Every second that they let pass with this submarine still alive in their home waters ate at them. He now regretted the one ranging ping that he’d ordered earlier. That extra bit of uncertainty might have now worked in his favor.
“We can’t do anything right now with the situation as it is on the land,” he said, and briefly debated with himself just how much to explain to the crew. He knew about the nuclear weapon located on the island, but was it necessarily something he needed to tell the rest of the crew? Most of them had families, girlfriends, even parents on the island. Would the additional worry about the families distract them from the job at hand? And more importantly, would knowing that their friends and loved ones were in such mortal danger improve their performance at all?
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