The half-submerged tunnel extended deep into the interior of the hill, opening up into a vast underground cavern designed to protect and service half of China’s ballistic submarine fleet. Yuri’s assignment was to spy on the underground base.
Like the surface combatants moored to the Yulin Pier, the sub base would be on a similar wartime footing. Penetrating the tunnel to discover the secrets hidden inside the grotto was a formidable undertaking.
To have any hope of completing his mission—and surviving—Yuri could not be detected.
Chapter 60
Day 34—Friday
Yuri was the first to emerge from the water. To his relief, the seas on the west side of the island were calm. About a third of a mile away, ocean swells surged against the sheer rock face of the island’s south shore. He removed his dive fins and clipped them to his chest harness. Still clad in his all-black ensemble of dive gear, he scrambled up the rock slope lugging an equipment bag in one hand and carrying his diver propulsion vehicle in the other.
From his perch ten feet above the water, he took stock of the surroundings. Night vision gear would have been helpful, but he could see well enough with reflected light from the quarter moon. The route to the harbor side of the island was just ahead. The dense thigh-high brush would be a nuisance, but the course was just a hundred yards long.
A dull thud rang out. Yuri turned back toward the water. One of his companions had just surfaced and in the process of extracting himself from the water slipped on slime-covered surface. His DPV crashed onto the exposed rock. Dobrynin managed to hang on to the duffle bag he carried. He recovered from the spill and clamored up the rock slope.
“You okay, Chief?” Yuri asked, lending a hand.
“Yeah, slipped on some shit. My DPV’s a little banged up.”
“Still functional?”
“Yes, I checked it.”
“Good.”
Yuri looked downslope. He was to about ask about Shtyrov when he spotted the Spetsnaz officer emerge from the sea. No longer buoyant, he struggled with the heavy gear container and his DPV. Dobrynin and Yuri met Shtyrov at the water’s edge and helped with the apparatus.
After depositing the equipment onto the ground near the brush line, Yuri addressed Shtyrov. “The launch site is north of here—through the brush.”
“That stuff looks nasty.”
“We’ll manage.” Yuri checked the watch strapped to the left wrist of his dry suit. It was set to the local time: 12:23 A.M. “Ready to proceed?”
“Yes, let’s go.”
It took half an hour for the trio to slog their way up the slope and then descend to the shoreline. The vegetation was challenging. Machetes would have been welcome in several locations. After failing to make progress with their dive knives, they were forced to divert from the planned path, lengthening the journey. Nevertheless, they made it.
The beach on the lee side of the island provided an ideal launch site into Yulin Harbor. The sandy shore descended gently to the water. All three men knelt next to the water’s edge. To the north, the warships moored at Yulin were ablaze with shipboard and pier-side lighting.
“Quite a lightshow tonight,” Yuri said, his voice a whisper.
Even though the piers were several miles away, he was cautious, knowing that sound travels effortlessly over the water surface.
“Impressive,” Shtyrov commented.
“I wonder if the drone patrol boats are out yet,” Dobrynin said.
“Count on it,” Yuri replied.
Shtyrov cursed. “I hate those things.”
Yuri moved on. “Let’s make our final equipment checks.”
Yuri completed his mental checklist, verifying he was good to go. Dobrynin was next, followed by Shtyrov.
Yuri glanced at the time: 12:58 A.M. “We meet here three hours from now at zero-four-hundred. Since you have farther to go I’ll probably be here first.” Yuri looked back toward the uplands. He pointed. “I’ll conceal myself behind that rock outcrop.”
Shtyrov noted the position. “Okay, got it.”
“Good luck.”
“You too.”
Chapter 61
The diver propulsion vehicle towed Yuri just above the bottom at three knots. After half an hour he estimated he was close to the target. Switching off the DPV and adding a squirt of compressed air to his buoyancy compensator, he slowly ascended. When Yuri broke the surface, he faced north. Through his facemask, he could see the nearest dock facility at the Yulin sub base. About a half a mile away, the massive concrete pier glowed in the early-morning darkness, illuminated by dozens of pole-mounted floodlights. Yuri spotted the black silhouette of a low-lying hull adjacent to the pier. There’s a boomer! The ballistic missile submarine was one of Yuri’s landmarks. He pivoted to the right and peered toward the near shore. He was about a hundred yards from the shoreline. The knoll rose from the bay at a steep slope. Like the water, the hillside was dark—barely visible in the frail reflected moonlight. But low to the water, almost in direct line of sight from Yuri’s position, he spotted the light.
There it is!
Yuri estimated that the opening in the hillside was at least seventy feet in diameter. About half of the arc was above water. A removable bridge spanning both sides of the tunnel entrance hid the opening from overhead view—a deliberate ploy to thwart spy satellites. Suspended from the overhead rock ceiling, the lights illuminating the tunnel’s interior extended deep into the interior of the hill. Fleet intelligence was certain that submarines were moored inside the bored-out cavern but had not yet observed a boat entering or departing the tunnel. It was Yuri’s mission to confirm Vladivostok’s suspicions.
Yuri was tempted to swim into the tunnel and start exploring. But he couldn’t risk it. The Chinese, like the Americans, were obsessed about protecting their submarines—especially those carrying nuclear-tipped ICBMs.
Both Yuri and the navy brass expected that the PLAN saturated the tunnel with safeguards to prevent unauthorized entry—submerged sonar sensors designed to detect a diver or autonomous underwater vehicle, motion and audio detectors in the tunnel’s airspace to pick up aerial drones, and armed guards patrolling the shoreline next to the tunnel entrance on the lookout for interlopers. Time to get to work.
Yuri released a bubble of air from his BC and sank to the bottom. At fifty feet below the surface, he switched on his light for the first time since starting the dive. Because the bay waters were exceptionally clear, he directed the light beam downward, using his body mass to help shield the resulting glow.
With the DPV parked on the sandy bottom next to his right side, Yuri opened the cargo container he had towed. He removed the probe and placed it on the bottom. The exterior of the unit was similar in appearance to the Remora that Yuri had deployed at the Qingdao—but smaller, about a foot in diameter. It was also reconfigured for a different mission. Nicknamed “Crawlerbot” by Yuri, the robotic apparatus was designed to explore underwater terrain rather than attach itself to the hull of a vessel.
While aboard the P-815, Yuri had reprogrammed the basic mission parameters into the Crawlerbot’s CPU. Its AI brain would do the rest.
Ready to activate the device, Yuri opened the control panel. A single red LED light adjacent to a mini keypad flashed on and off at one-second intervals. He used his gloved index finger to punch in the four-digit code. The mode light switched to a constant green hue.
All set!
Yuri closed the control panel cover and placed the device on the bottom. Fifteen seconds later, its ten articulated legs extended from the hull. The robot crawled eastward, heading straight for the tunnel entrance.
Good luck, little guy!
Chapter 62
Shtyrov and Dobrynin diverted from the op plan presented to Yuri and Petrovich back aboard the Novosibirsk. Included with the revised operation orders transmitted to the No
vosibirsk by Pacific Fleet headquarters was the codeword OCTOPUS. Both Petrovich and Yuri asked about the code. Shtyrov explained that OCTOPUS required the installation of two recorders instead of just one. His lie was believed.
Instead of swimming to the twin piers berthing the armada of surface warships at the north end of Yalong Bay, the two operators guided their DPVs to the island located just west of the moored fleet. The unnamed island served as the northern anchor of the Yulin Naval Base’s protective seawall system. A jetty and concrete pier extended about 2,000 feet south from the island to the base’s western navigation entrance.
Shtyrov and Dobrynin scaled the island’s rocky slope in the darkness. It was too risky to switch on their lights. Guards patrolling the naval base east of their position across the bay might detect the illumination. The uninhabited island was off-limits to the hordes of tourists residing in the beachfront resorts located west of the island across Yalong Bay. Curious boaters sometimes ignored the warning signs.
It was tough going for the special operators, despite their training. The grade was steeper than expected and the equipment they hauled was hefty. Their destination was about 600 feet away.
Before heading up the hillside, the men hid their dive gear and DPVs in a rocky nook near where they had emerged from the water. They removed the special equipment from cargo containers and strapped the pre-packed backpacks onto their shoulders. After nearly thirty minutes of struggling up the grade and fighting their way through the dense brush, they arrived at the deployment site. Shtyrov looked toward the northeast. Through an opening in the vegetation, he could see the moored warships bathed in the uniform glow of high wattage dock lights.
He gestured with a hand at the distant ships. “This should work fine right here. Direct line of sight to the target.”
“Looks good to me, sir,” Dobrynin said. “It’s well hidden in this area, too.”
Paramount to the success of the mission was for the equipment to remain unseen. That’s why they traversed through the brush, avoiding game trails and ignoring cleared areas.
“Okay, let’s set it up,” Shtyrov said.
“Right.”
Both men removed their packs and lowered them to the ground. Shtyrov unzipped the canvas cover to his backpack and with Dobrynin’s help extracted the black cylinder—referred to as the “package.” They set the package on the earth, laying it on its side. Slightly less than two feet diameter and about four feet long, the cylinder weighed ninety pounds. One end of the canister was rounded; the opposite end flat. The exterior casing consisted of a Kevlar epoxy composite. Except for eyebolts protruding from the tube, the package had the appearance of an artillery shell. Dobrynin extracted four one-hundred-twenty foot coils of climbing rope from his pack and handed them to his partner. Shtyrov looped an end of a coil through one of the four eyebolts on the bottom side of the package. He secured the line with a bowline knot. He repeated the same process for the other three bottom eyebolts. Shtyrov next removed four stainless-steel screw anchors, each about three feet long, from his pack. He walked several steps away and dropped to his knees. Employing a metal bar also extracted from his pack, he augured in the first anchor. He next tied the free end of one of the ropes to the anchor. He repeated the same process for the remaining three lines. When completed, the four soil anchors were equally spaced in the corners of an imaginary box about twenty feet square. He tested each anchor, yanking the line as hard as he could.
While Shtyrov worked, Chief Dobrynin took a stainless-steel bottle about a foot in diameter and three feet long from his pack. It contained helium under very high pressure. Attached to the top of the bottle was a rubber hose with high-pressure fittings. Dobrynin removed a deflated fabric bag from the backpack. He unfolded the bag on the ground, careful to avoid puncturing the lightweight black fabric. Surrounding the circular bag, roughly twenty feet in diameter, was a loosely fitted fishnet-like maze of Kevlar strands. The fibers terminated in a steel ring about three inches in diameter located several feet beyond the bottom side of the sack. Protruding from the same end of the bag was a narrow rubber tube with a plastic valve fitting. Dobrynin connected the valve to the helium flask.
Satisfied that the balloon was ready for deployment, Dobrynin turned to his boss. “All set here, sir. Ready for the harness lines?”
“Yes.”
Dobrynin handed over two twenty-foot-long lines connected to the balloon harness assembly. Shtyrov secured the ropes to eyebolts protruding from the package’s topside, one on each end. Shtyrov inspected the setup from anchors to package to balloon.
“Looks good, Chief. I’m going to arm it now.”
“Very good, sir.”
Lieutenant Shtyrov knelt next to the package and used a Phillips screwdriver to remove a cover plate from the flat end of the cylinder. Recessed inside were a timer clock and the arming switch. He checked his watch. They were behind schedule. He bent down and set the timer for 5:30 A.M.—half an hour before sunrise. He next flipped a single toggle switch from “SAFE” to “ARMED.” A ruby LED light next to the arming switch flashed on.
Inside the package, a timer on the compact lithium ion battery pack was set to charge the coaxial capacitor bank one minute before the scheduled release. Also energized were the firing circuits of the explosive charges in the sequential two-stage coaxial flux compression generators. Each generator consisted of a cylindrical copper armature tube packed with Composition-4 plastic explosive. Surrounding each blast tube was stator winding composed of helical coils of heavy copper wire. Encircling both FCG assemblies were Kevlar jackets. When detonated, the consecutive C-4 blasts would compress the magnetic field generated by the instantaneous discharge of the capacitor bank. Within microseconds, the resulting compressed energy wave would enter the vircator tube. Located at the rounded end of the package, the vircator would transform the compressed magnetic field into ultra-high-powered microwaves. The resulting discharge would produce an energy pulse hundreds of times larger than a typical lightning bolt.
Shtyrov refastened the cover plate of the package and stood up.
“Chief, let’s get this thing in the air.”
“Okay.”
Ten minutes later the package was about a hundred feet overhead, suspended by the helium-filled balloon expanded to just over twenty-two feet in diameter. The two men adjusted the mooring lines to aim the device at its target.
Chapter 63
Yuri tossed his fins and facemask onto the sandy beach next to the diver propulsion vehicle and sat down. Even though the DPV did most of the work towing him to and from the Yulin sub base, he was beat. Mission jitters contributed to his fatigue. He was ahead of schedule by nearly ten minutes, but experience taught him not to let his guard down. “Things” could go downhill in a heartbeat. From his post on the upper level of the beach, Yuri scanned the distant shoreline to the northeast. In the dim moonlight, the submarine moorages remained quiet with no apparent changes in shore lighting or sudden appearance of security vehicles racing along the shoreline; ditto for the tunnel entrance to the underground submarine facility.
Yuri wondered how Shtyrov and Dobrynin were progressing with their assignment. He did not observe any changes along the shoreline or on the twin piers at the north end of the naval base. As far as Yuri knew, the Spetsnaz team was busy installing two acoustic recorders, one under each pier and as close to the aircraft carriers as possible. Yuri removed his gloves and pulled back the hood of his dry suit. He ran his hands through his damp hair. He was heating up. The night air remained in the high eighties Fahrenheit.
Yuri thought about his mission. I wonder how the bot is doing.
* * * *
By the time Yuri was halfway back to the beach, the Crawlerbot had reached the entrance to the tunnel. As expected, a retractable barrier blocked the submerged portion of the entrance. The grid pattern of the stainless-steel mesh was about two inches square. It allowed
for the ebb and flood of tidal waters but prohibited access to anything larger than the opening area, which included the robot.
The Crawlerbot’s AI software computed two penetration scenarios: climb over the mesh or burrow under it. Due to the soft texture of the bottom, it selected the latter as the more expeditious.
Within minutes, the Crawlerbot embedded itself in the bottom. It burrowed under the mesh like a gopher and remerged inside of the tunnel.
The robot crawled down the center of the bore, covering about thirty feet per minute. Shortly after entering the passage, a hostile rock crab using the tunnel as its home challenged the intruder to a duel. The Crawlerbot, more than four times the size of the crab, shoved the challenger aside without deviating from its course. Later, a flounder asleep on the bottom and covered with a thin lens of silt was abruptly awakened when one of the bot’s legs clipped a tail fin. The flounder scurried away, leaving a blurred wake. Again, the bot proceeded ahead without interruption.
As the Crawlerbot proceeded further into the subterranean chamber, its acoustic sensors detected faint underwater sounds from myriad machinery sources. With confirmation of a key mission parameter, the bot moved ahead with determined persistence—like a bloodhound on the scent.
* * * *
After an hour, Yuri watched as Lieutenant Shtyrov and CPO Dobrynin emerged from the bay. He met them at the water’s edge. “How did it go?” he asked.
“Good, just took a lot longer than planned.” Shtyrov pulled back his dive hood. “And you?”
“No problems.” Yuri checked his watch—5:03 A.M. “We need to move now.”
The Faithful Spy Page 26