“Right five degrees rudder!” said Golubev. “Come to course two, six, two.”
Malik turned to Hendrick. “What the hell is going on?”
Hendrick shook his head as if in pain. He told Malik about the launch of the Chinese torpedo.
“How are we going to get away from it?” asked Malik in a wavering voice.
Hendrick grimaced. “We’re going here,” he replied and pointed to the two islands on the chart.
“What? Why?” asked Malik who was totally puzzled.
“Here!” snapped Hendrick. He jabbed a fingernail between the two islands.
“We’re going between the two islands?” asked Malik. “Is that bad?”
“Check the depth,” said Hendrick.
Malik looked at the sounding number indicating the depth of water between the two small islands.
“Ten point nine meters?” said Malik in disbelief as he read the numbers from the chart. “You’re kidding me!”
“I may be, but he’s not,” said Hendrick and stuck an index finger in the direction of the harried Russian sub captain.
“We’re going to be scraping the bottom and the surface at the same time,” stated Malik with disbelief in his voice.
“Yes, and if we can get to the other side after dropping another noise maker, then we’ll confuse the torpedo,” said Hendrick as his head swam with the danger of it. “Maybe it won’t come after us.”
Malik rubbed his hands over his face. “If. Maybe.” He looked at the worried face of Golubev. “Oh, man.” Malik gave Hendrick a piercing look. “What’s the chances?”
Hendrick shook his head again and said nothing. He stared at the chart. Torpedoes ran at about forty knots, but what could this old tub do? Hendrick guessed maybe twelve to fifteen submerged. That meant the torpedo would cover three times the distance that their sub would cover in the same amount of time. He picked up an idle ruler and measured the distance from the islands to the last hurried pencil mark indicating the estimated position of the Chinese sub. He then measured the distance from their position to the islands. The distances were almost exactly three to one.
Their submarine and the Chinese torpedo would arrive at the two islands at about the same time. It would be very close. There was no margin for error.
The submarine vibrated under their feet as the engineers strained to get every possible bit of power out of their engines. The small crew in the conn fell silent as they all listened to the sounds of the sea washing past the hull and the thrumming of the electric motors that drove the submarine ahead.
Hendrick licked his increasingly dry lips. He was facing death again, but this time he could do nothing about it. He had to place his trust in the old Russian that tensely stood watching and listening to the sounds around him. If he gets us out of this, I won’t mind giving him most of the gold, thought Hendrick. All through this mission, Golubev has been magnificent.
“Torpedo has gone active,” intoned the sonarman over the intercom.
Golubev swallowed hard and glanced at Hendrick. The American grimaced then nodded to Golubev to show his support. Now that the torpedo was using its active sonar, they both knew that it would be very difficult to maneuver away from the onrushing Chinese weapon.
“Diving officer, make your depth ten meters. Extreme up angle,” said Golubev in a loud voice. “Launch acoustic decoy,” he added into his phone.
“We’ll get sucked up to the surface at this speed,” replied the diving officer.
“Adjust the up angle so that we don’t,” answered Golubev. “We still have to worry about the surface ships.” He knew that the sub would send a plume of water into the air as the top of the submarine’s sail skimmed the surface, such that a blind man could locate them. The surface ships would no doubt respond quickly. Golubev had one other ruse, one that he would use at the last second.
The submarine ascended at such an acute angle that Hendrick thought he was going to fall out of his chair. Everyone else grabbed on to anything handy and leaned against the angle.
Golubev turned to Hendrick. “I need your GPS receiver. Do you still have it?”
“Yes,” said Hendrick and rose to go back to the ROV control station, but Malik shoved him back into his chair and volunteered to get the device. He ran quickly out of the conn.
“I need a position fix before I make my final turn to go between these islands,” said Golubev. “At this speed I can not raise the periscope. The water flow around it would bend the shaft.”
“It’ll bend the GPS antenna,” said Hendrick.
“I am hoping to get enough signal to get one reading. One is all I need,” said Golubev in a breathless voice.
The diving officer shouted some commands, and the up angle decreased considerably. He was watching the depth gauge and changing the up angle simultaneously to counteract the surface suction effect and avoid popping to the surface.
Moments later the diving officer spoke up. “Depth is ten meters!”
“Good,” said Golubev then turned to see Malik enter the conn with the receiver in hand.
Hendrick took the receiver and connected the antenna input to a coaxial cable that hung from the overhead along the starboard bulkhead. Seconds later the display showed stable position numbers.
“Twenty-five degrees, one minute North Latitude, and one hundred nineteen degrees, thirty one minutes East Longitude,” shouted Hendrick with anxiety.
Golubev jabbed the pencil point into the chart ripping a small hole in the paper. “Left full rudder,” he thundered. “Come to course two, four, two.” He glanced at the two Americans who were standing upright. “Hold on to something!”
The helmsman turned the wheel on the control yoke, and the submarine immediately heeled over to the starboard side. The vessel stayed that way for a long moment until the helmsman steadied up on their new course.
“Flood tube numbers seven, eight, and nine!” said Golubev into his sound-powered phone. Thirty seconds later he bellowed, “Open outer doors!”
What is he doing? thought Hendrick. What does he have in the aft torpedo tubes?
Golubev turned to Hendrick. “Keep reading our position!”
Hendrick nodded and began to rattle off the slowly changing coordinates. Sound pulses began to be heard above the humming of the sub’s engines and the rush of seawater past the hull. The noise was at first indistinct, then it became clear, sharp slashes of sound that pulsed the submarine with terrifying quickness. The Chinese torpedo was closing in on them with mind-numbing swiftness with its built-in sonar pinging away and receiving ever louder returns reflected from the submarine’s hull. Hendrick tried to keep his mind on the readout before him, but the realization of his imminent death obscured everything.
Golubev yelled some minor course corrections, then held his breath waiting for the right position to be read out by Hendrick. The American began reading the next update to the receiver’s display, but halfway through Golubev began shouting.
“Launch acoustic decoy!” commanded Golubev. “Fire number seven, eight, and nine!” He choked off a moan with the frozen thought that there was nothing more to be done.
CHAPTER 15
Out of the Strait
KURCHATOV
TAIWAN STRAIT
The confused rush of compressed air driving the contents of the stern torpedo tubes into the sea echoed throughout the vessel. Through it all, Hendrick heard the ever-increasing sound of the onrushing torpedo’s sonar. The frequency of the pings increased until there was no discernible gap from one ping to the next.
Hendrick gasped with fear, rolled his head back, and closed his eyes. There were only seconds now between the present reality and eternity. His mind wandered in confusion, searching for something to hold onto. Maggie Ramsey popped into his mind, and he groped for her, trying to imagine her face, seeking to resurrect the memory of her sliding into him when they had run in from the rain seemingly so long ago. He remembered the feeling of her lithe body next to his, and how she h
ad settled against him for a brief moment before placing a not-so-restraining hand on his chest. He had kissed her, then let her go, and had never regretted anything so much in all his life.
Now I’ll never know what it would be like to hold her longer than a few seconds, thought Hendrick. I’ll never make love to her.
The torpedo detonated, sending a massive shock wave along the hull of the submarine and throwing men and equipment around like leaves before a hurricane. The deck shook below Hendrick, knocking him off his feet, then the deck seemed to rise up and pound him as he fell. Seconds later the pounding miraculously stopped, the grinding sound of stressed metal slowed, and the submarine seemed to straighten out after being tossed about by the explosion.
Golubev rubbed the side of his head where he had hit the bulkhead, then looked around at his crew. They were shaken but all right. The Russian glanced at Hendrick and Malik who were cautiously picking themselves off the deck plates.
“Captain, the port shaft has been knocked out of line,” said a voice over the intercom. “We’re shutting that engine down now. The starboard and center engines are all right.”
Golubev acknowledged the information from his engineers, knowing that they were lucky that all three shafts weren’t misaligned by the torpedo blast. He put the intercom on broadcast mode so that anyone wearing a sound-powered headset would hear him.
“All departments, check for leaks,” he ordered.
The crew in the conn began to relax until a scraping noise suddenly was heard above the still straining engines. The submarine began to shudder as the sound slid along the hull past them and continued aft.
“We’re running aground!” shouted Hendrick. He shot a fierce look at Golubev.
The Russian captain slowed the engines, which partially alleviated the problem, but the scraping continued as the submarine’s keel made contact with the shallow channel’s bottom.
“Major leak aft torpedo room!” said an excited and unsteady voice over the intercom.
“All available hands aft!” shouted Golubev. He looked in the direction of Hendrick and Malik. “You too!” he yelled and pointed a stubby finger at them. Golubev shouted to another man to take the conn, then shoved the two Americans through the doorway. The three of them ran aft as fast as their legs could take them.
“Get some mattresses!” shouted Golubev.
Hendrick and Malik detoured into a cabin off the passageway and after a brief search located two sweat-stained mattresses.
“He’s not thinking of plugging a hole in the hull with mattresses, is he?” asked Malik in an out-of-breath voice. “I know we do it in surface ships, but in submarines?”
Hendrick just shrugged his shoulders and ran out of the crew’s quarters with the unwieldy mattress perched on his head. He and Malik joined a small group of sailors who had various pieces of wood and sheets of plywood in their hands. They all scrambled aft in a frenzy to stop the life threatening leak.
As they drew nearer the aft torpedo room, they could hear Golubev bellowing orders at the top of his lungs. He shouted for the mattresses and Hendrick and Malik stepped through the crowd to squeeze their way into the narrow torpedo room. Golubev dragged a few more sailors into the room then slammed the door and dogged it down.
The roaring of the sea through the hull made the two uninitiated Americans gape at the split metal and wonder how they would ever stem the river of seawater running into the ship. The mattresses were ripped out of their hands by Golubev and another Russian sailor who immediately charged toward the inrushing sea and attempted to press the mattress against the inside hull. Hendrick ran to help Golubev, and Malik went to help the other sailor. They leaned against the water-soaked and now extremely heavy mattresses with the water flowing over and around them while other sailors slid plywood behind the mattresses and under the hands of Hendrick, Golubev and the others.
Two sailors joined the foursome and desperately pressed the plywood against the mattresses, which pushed the bedding against the hull. To Hendrick’s surprise, the action reduced the flow of water into the room to a comparative trickle. The remaining sailors in the room placed one end of the wooden beams against metal angle brackets, which were welded to the deck and began nailing the other end of the beams to the backs of the plywood sheets.
After ten minutes of feverish nailing, Hendrick, Malik, Golubev and the rest stepped back from the bedding that now plugged the hole in the hull and surveyed the results. Small streams of water squirted from the edges of the mattresses, but the massive flow they had seen when they entered the space was halted. The water was up to their waists, but two large pumps were working hard to reduce the flooding ultimately to a level below the edge of the watertight door that led forward.
Hendrick understood why Golubev had slammed the door shut after they had entered. He immediately wondered what would have happened if they couldn’t stop the leak in the hull. Would Golubev have opened the door to let them out? Or was he one of those crazy submariners that would have sacrificed himself and those in the room to save the ship? Hendrick wasn’t sure he wanted the answer.
The water level dropped rapidly as the powerful pumps did their job of ridding the space of the flood. Hendrick’s eyes came to rest on a shelf on the starboard side. The long rounded shape of a torpedo was beginning to be seen as the water level dropped.
“Captain, we have torpedoes?” asked Hendrick with surprise.
Golubev nodded solemnly and held up three fingers.
“Three torpedoes,” said Hendrick with his eyebrows raised. “Did you launch one out the aft torpedo tubes?”
“Nyet,” Golubev replied. “It was something else.” A ghost of a smile crept across the old Russian’s lips.
HAN 405
Captain Tse looked with satisfaction at the chart where he had marked the explosion of his torpedo. The weapon had caught up to the enemy submarine just as it had reached the northeastern coast of the island of Wu-ch’iu Yu. The torpedo would not have detonated if it hadn’t found a target but would have gone back into passive mode as the first torpedo had done.
Now all I have to do is look for confirmation of the kill, Tse thought. He turned and glanced at the communications officer as the officer held out a message. Tse took it and read it quickly. He forced himself to slow down and read it again. A broad smile swept his face. He stepped to the intercom and set it to broadcast throughout the vessel.
“Crew of the 405, hear me!” said Tse in an excited voice. “Our comrades on the surface report an oil slick and debris at the exact location of the detonation of our torpedo! We have victory over one of our nation’s enemies!”
Captain Tse smiled to the crew of the conn as he heard cheers echo throughout his ship.
KURCHATOV
Golubev ran ahead to the conn to assess the tactical situation. He found that they had put some distance between them and the Chinese forces and were using the islands of Wu-ch’iu Yu and Hsiao-ch’iu Yu as a sound shield. Golubev was pleased and told everyone that he thought they might make good their escape. He spent some time getting the trim of the boat just right then let out a sigh of relief. Golubev had just explained to Hendrick and Malik about the contents of the aft torpedo tubes.
“I don’t believe it,” said Malik under his breath and shook his head. “It’s an old World War Two trick. How many times have we seen it in those old movies?”
“Yeah, but will it work?” asked Hendrick.
“They are not coming after us,” was Golubev’s simple reply.
“What happens when they find out that there is no sunken submarine under all the junk you shot out the aft tubes?” asked Hendrick.
“We will no longer be here,” answered Golubev.
“What made the torpedo go off?” asked Malik.
“There is a sunken ship very near that location which gives a similar sonar return as a submarine,” said Golubev. “We passed close by this wreck and ejected an acoustic decoy to mask our travel past it. The torpedo thought i
t had a submarine when it went off.”
“How long will that mattress patch hold in the aft torpedo room?” asked Malik, changing the subject.
Golubev shrugged. “When we get to your island, we will put a cofferdam around it and weld a plate on the inside to seal it. I will have a twenty-four hour a day watch on it to make sure it does not come apart.”
Hendrick’s thoughts turned to the torpedoes he had seen in the aft torpedo room.
“How on earth did you get torpedoes?” asked Hendrick.
“I cashed in a lot of favors to get them,” replied Golubev. “I thought we might need it on this mission.”
“Why didn’t you launch a torpedo at the Chinese?” asked Hendrick.
Golubev shrugged again. “They don’t work.”
An hour later, Hendrick lay exhausted in his bunk and thought over the events of their horrendous day. He had come close to getting killed several times. Just before he fell asleep, he thought of Maggie Ramsey.
Strange, he thought. I’ve seen her almost in her birthday suit, but the most vivid memory that I have of her is when we ran in from the rain together.
BALINGTANG CHANNEL
NORTH OF THE PHILIPPINES
Maggie Ramsey closed her eyes as Li Tai Su, her constant attendant, rubbed suntan lotion over Maggie’s bare bottom. Maggie could hear the shouts and calls of Chang’s men as they went about the day’s business on the large yacht. Chang had ordered a cloth partition be set up around the top of the wheel house so that none of the men could see Maggie sunbathe in the nude. He didn’t want the sight of Maggie to inflame their passions, as he put it, and start a riot on board. Indeed not many of the men knew she was up there at all.
Under any other circumstances Maggie’s life on board Chang’s yacht would have been fabulous. They fed her anything she wanted, and a lot she didn’t want. Apparently Chang felt that she was a bit too skinny to bring the best price in case he had to sell her, so he ordered her to eat heartily. She complied readily for the lack of any other alternative, and out of fear of what Chang would do to her if he thought she were no longer fit to sell. She had gained ten pounds, which she had resolved to lose immediately if and when she escaped from Chang and his men.
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