Korea Strait

by David Poyer

  He shaded his eyes, searching for the rest of the exercise force. Miles off a containership was transiting southward, bound for Singapore or Hong Kong. Heavily laden, top-heavy, it had all the grace of a shoebox floating down a rain gutter. Beyond that he glimpsed the gray upperworks of a Spruance-class: Gushing.

  Turning, shielding his gaze again to check out the flat sea astern, he picked up Mok Po far off. The afternoon’s event was another barrier exercise, this one more narrowly focused. The two submarines, acting in tandem, would try to crash through a double screen.

  They’d not really know till the analysis back at TAG, but as far as he could see, the subs were holding their own. The new-generation diesel-electric, Chang Bo Go, was very quiet, possibly even more covert submerged than San Francisco. The days of long-range detection by passive sonar were ending. In a few years the only way to pick up a sub would be massive pulses of active sonar. Flood the ocean with huge power levels of sound, and let the computers sort through the echoes. Where they drew a tiny bubble of steel-enclosed air, that would be the target.

  The whales wouldn’t like it, that was for sure. He stood by the rail, gnawing his lip, hunting the ramifications of that thought. Maybe the answer wasn’t more powerful sonars on surface ships, but hundreds of small intelligent devices scattered by aircraft. When something reflected their low-powered pulses, they’d pop to the surface and signal a monitoring station. He tried to conceive of how to power such a disposable device, how to suspend it in the water. Or else… he reversed the question; Could they make the submarine easier to detect? A noisemaker, a cricket, dropped by the thousands to stick magnetically to the sub’s hull? A robotic vehicle, set to pick it up as it left harbor, and track it no matter how quickly it maneuvered?

  Certainly something had to be done. He’d seen in the past few days how hard a modern boat was to detect amid the traffic and noise of the coastal sea. They’d have to throw out a lot of what the Navy had depended on for decades. They’d need new technology, new tactics… or run the risk, in any future crisis, of heavy losses.

  That made him think again of the Chinese provocation, and that nation’s increasingly brazen disregard of its weaker neighbors’ rights. The Chinese had even published their plans: dominate the inner island chain by 2010, the second chain by 2020, and be a worldwide naval power, deploying carrier battle groups, by 2050. A few years before, he’d tried to push back against their expansion into the oil- and gas-rich South China Sea. Maybe even slowed their timetable by a few years…

  But to date, their expansionistic tendencies had been directed south. What could they accomplish by threatening the Japanese? Tokyo’s constitution capped defense spending, and Japan’s Self-Defense Forces were just that—they didn’t even own offensive armament. Why conjure up the ghost of Japanese militarism? It just didn’t make sense.

  Someone coughed at his elbow. He turned to see the tall, reedish-elegant Hwang tapping a cigarette out of a pack. For a moment Dan wondered if he was gay. Was that what Leakham was so hot about? “Unprofessional relationship” had been the way his message had phrased it. Was Jung gay? Did Leakham think he was?

  “It is so beautiful out here today,” the staffie opened. “A change from the lousy weather.”

  “You can say that again.”

  Hwang smiled in that slightly superior way. “Did you hear about what’s going on up north?”

  “The missile overflight? Over Japan? I was with the commodore when the news came in.”

  “They have refused to apologize. The Chinese.”

  “That makes it much more serious, then.”

  “Oh, yes. No official regrets—that is very serious. Of course, the Japanese have never apologized either. And for much worse things.”

  Dan hesitated. “What’s the Korean take on that? About China?”

  “Our take?”

  “Your opinion.”

  “Oh. Our opinion—our ‘take.’ Well. China we can live with. We have for many thousands of years, after all. Our king acknowledged fealty to the Manchu emperor until 1895, did you know that? Until the Treaty of Shimonoseki. There is a mutual respect there. An understanding—or at least there once was.” Hwang frowned. “With Japan our relationship has been much more unpleasant.”

  “I guess I can understand that.” From Washington Asia looked monolithic, but out here the strains and differences between peoples became plain. Still, Hwang didn’t sound as if he stayed awake nights worrying about Beijing. Dan wondered if the whole model of rising-state threat the West had imposed on China was really accurate.

  “Are you ready for another Korean lesson?”

  Dan tried to switch his mind back. “Sure.”

  “Okay, some very useful phrases here. Gae sae kee.”

  He repeated it dutifully. ”Gae sae kee.” A passing deckhand did a double take, then went eyes front again when he saw their khakis. “What does that mean?”

  “A bad name. Means you are not a human being. Almost a son of a bitch.”

  “Uh, okay. Got it. I guess.”

  “Now you say aie when something happens. It is not such a bad word.”

  “Like saying ‘hell’ in English.”

  “Like saying ‘hell.’ Now, you want to say something bad, to a man: you say see-pol. Or see-pol, nome.”

  “I’m afraid to ask.”

  “Oh, do not be afraid. Means, ‘Go have sex with yourself, gutter trash.’ Or to a woman, you say na pen ya.”

  Dan nodded, not really trying to commit it all to memory, amusing as it might be. He was still trying to keep the terms for port and starboard straight. But it occurred to him that it might serve his purposes to probe. Jung was a locked vault, but maybe his aide wasn’t. “So. Anything interesting in your message traffic these days?”

  The commander, flipped a hand languidly. “We are all warned to be on the alert.”

  “What for?”

  “That, they do not tell us. It is a difficult time just now. The Northerners are making their threats. ‘Rattling their swords,’ that is in English? It is the election, I think. Each time we have one they make themselves unpleasant. They are like hagglers in the market. No, like ruffians. Is that the word? They threaten, then they ask for gifts. Ruffians?”

  “That’s one word for it. Or extortionists,” Dan said. He tried a closer pass to his subject. “Commodore Jung. How long have you been with him?”

  “I have been his chief of staff two years now. Before that I was his operations officer aboard Chonju.”

  ”Chonju. Destroyer type?”

  “One of your Gearings. They called her ‘the Jolly Rogers,’ someone told me once. We fought a surface action off the DMZ one night. Against the Northern torpedo craft. That is why the commodore wears the Order of Military Merit.” Hwang hesitated, then laughed as if at himself. “Yes, I will say this: It is why he respects you, Dan. You too have the combat decorations. You too have hunted the tiger. Not like the other officers they send us. That is what he told me.”

  “Well, I respect him too. My impression of the commodore is good. He seems very knowledgeable.”

  “Yes, he is that.” Hwang seemed prouder than the usual chief of staff, most of whom saw their bosses too close up for hero worship. “I believe he will become our CNO.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, I do. He is well placed. His family is wealthy. His father knows the president. Yes, I would say he is very well placed.”

  “You’re not so badly ‘placed’ yourself,” Dan told him. “I can see how much he depends on you.”

  “Oh, I am just the staff officer,” Hwang said modestly. “Do not embarrass me! What is your opinion of the exercise? How are our Korean ships doing?”

  “I think your personnel and equipment are first rate.” “The Ulsans and the new 209s will make for a very powerful coastal defense capability.”

  “And our training? Our tactics?”

  Dan said carefully, “You’ll get your answer to that when TAG goes through t
he tapes. That’s what the exercise is for, after all.”

  “I have heard a rumor,” Hwang said, still casual, not even meeting Dan’s gaze, “that the U.S. Navy plans to withdraw from the Republic of Korea. That cannot be true. Can it?”

  Dan cursed himself. He’d found out absolutely nothing, and now it was Hwang’s turn at the pumps. “You hear a ton of scuttlebutt at sea,” he said. ”Aie! Who knows where it all comes from. Anyway, that’d be between your government and ours. We’d be the last to hear about it.” He hoped that was convincing.

  Hwang said, watching him narrowly, “You have heard of this, then? That if this exercise goes well, if we show ourselves worthy allies, you will abandon us?”

  “We’d never abandon you. If you were ever attacked, we’d be there. Out of Japan. Out of Okinawa. Out of Guam, if it came to that.”

  “You abandoned Vietnam.”

  “That was a long time ago. We stood by Kuwait, and we didn’t even have a treaty there. Or defense plans, like we do with you.”

  “Kuwait has oil. We don’t.”

  “Uh—yeah. Look, I’m not saying you’re wrong, okay? You’re probably right. At least about Kuwait. But we’d never just walk away from the Republic of Korea,” Dan said again.

  “I believe you. Yes. We have been allies for a long time. Your soldiers fought and died for our freedom. That is what makes us friends. Blood. Not a treaty.” The chief of staff flicked his cigarette butt down into the water, where it floated for a moment. Then the bow wave roared over it, and it was gone. “But we learned a lesson in 1950. It is this: An ally is most useful when he stands beside you. If he comes too late, what was most worth saving may already be gone.”

  Dan didn’t have an answer to that. Especially considering what Hwang had told him, on the drive to Pusan, about what had happened to his family when the Reds took over. He took a deep breath, looking out over the passing sea, trying to ignore Hwang’s, waiting silence. Till the chief of staff added, “But if that were so—that if we were judged good enough, strong enough, you would feel justified to withdraw—you would think then during this SATYRE we would take care not to look so very efficient. Would you not? But Jeon daejang Jung would not do that. It would not strike him as honorable. To do less than his very best.”

  Hwang paused again, giving him a second chance to respond. Dan felt both angry at being cornered and, for some obscure reason, guilty. He stuck his hands in his pockets and stepped back from the lifelines.

  The chief of staff nodded. “But as you say: it is all ‘scuttlebutt.’ So. We will see you at dinner?”

  Dan nodded. “Sure. At dinner.”

  Hwang touched his shoulder, and a moment later Dan was alone again with the wind.

  HE was in CIC that night, long after dark, when the message came in via tactical voice. The coded groups arrived one by one in precise, Japanese-accented English. Even before he reached for the book, Dan knew what they said. He’d noticed one of the pips on the scope change course to the northeast. Beside him Kim #1 was breaking the message too. The lieutenant laid the penciled lines carefully by his hand.

  JMSDFS Umigiri recalled by national authorities. Detached from SATYRE17 immediately. Departing exercise op area effective upon receipt.

  “Their maritime patrol air is late too,” Kim said.

  “I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting,” Dan said. “We’d better count on doing the rest of this exercise without the Japanese.”

  “We didn’t need them,” Kim said confidently. “So let them go. We will do fine without them. We Koreans, and our good friends, our very good friends, the Americans. And the Australians too.”

  Dan wondered what was happening behind the scenes. Which, since his White House duty, he knew was where things that mattered happened, not in public view. The Japanese might be confronting the Chinese in a few days. In that case, the Pacific Fleet would be in the middle of the action. And he’d be stuck in a sideshow, if that.

  But he didn’t share any of this. Just nodded, looking back at what he’d been examining before the detachment message came in.

  The printout was black on white, chattered digital lines on crisp flimsy paper, but in his mind it translated into falling pressures, circular motions, ominous progress across lines of longitude and landmasses, across hot seas feeding energy into an unstable atmosphere. East of the Philippines another tropical low had decided to promote itself into something more menacing. “Bad weather on the way,” he said to Kim.

  “It is not worth the worry. By then we will be back in port.”

  He nodded. In another day they’d be moored in Pusan for the midexercise break. He stretched and pounded his fists into the small of his back. The Ulsans were Korean-designed, and it showed. Everything on the ship was set either too low or too high for a guy his height. He’d slammed his head so often that he moved in a permanent crouch. “Yeah, I’m definitely looking forward to stretching my legs again,” he muttered.

  Kim looked first astonished, then delighted. “Stretching your legs,” he said, and chuckled madly. He jerked out a notebook. “Stretching your legs,” he said again, scribbling.

  “It’s not that funny,” Dan told him. But he couldn’t help grinning too.

  9

  Pusan, South Korea

  WHEN the hot washup for the first half of the exercise broke, Dan went into the bathroom down the hall. A white-jacketed attendant bowed. He was checking his uniform in the mirror when Leakham pushed through the door. Their gazes met, but the commodore’s slipped aside as if greased. Leakham cleared his throat and went into a stall.

  Dan was waiting by the sink, arms crossed, when he came out again. “Commander,” Leakham muttered, still not meeting his eyes as he washed his hands.

  “What exactly is your problem with the Koreans, Commodore? Or is it a problem with me?”

  The big man’s cheeks flushed. He twisted the faucet savagely. “If you read your message traffic, you know the problem. Commander.”

  “Yes sir, I believe I do. The problem is your accusations are inaccurate. The ROKN needed a course correction on their safe distances. Commodore Jung and I applied it. Then smoothed things over with San Francisco’s CO. There was no reason to kick it upstairs. If you’d had the courtesy to ask me, I’d have been happy to set you straight. Without me you wouldn’t have an exercise.”

  The fair face flamed. Dan guessed he hadn’t heard that kind of language from an O-5 in a while. “Set me straight? Without you, Lenson, I’d have a better exercise. These people need a tight rein. They don’t want to learn. Want to charge off on their own. No regard for safety.”

  “That’s because sonar conditions out there suck. Mixing, no layer, heavy biologicals, a lot of reverberation. They had to get in close to get contact—”

  “Don’t tell me what sonar conditions are! If you want to disagree with my conclusions, take it up with your home command. With Todd Mullaly—a personal friend of mine, by the way. But I don’t owe you any explanations. Or any apologies, Commander.” Leakham flicked water off his fingers and looked past Dan, holding them up. The Korean attendant, carefully poker-faced, handed him a towel.

  Dan stepped up close. Right in his face. “The thing is, Commodore, you do. There was no good reason for you to send that message. And there was no reason at all to throw mud about my relations with Jung. That’s what really burns my ass! So: what was the real reason, Commodore? Or would you rather I just punched you in the fucking nose here and now?”

  Leakham blinked at him, and for a moment Dan saw fear. But just then the door opened, and the other attendees streamed in. Hwang looked from Leakham to Dan with a curious expression. Leakham took advantage of the interruption to push past, throwing the used towel at the attendant.

  Back in the conference room the last of the pastries were disappearing. Dan got himself a reheat on the coffee and stood scowling, waiting for it to cool enough to drink. He still hadn’t heard back from TAG about Leakham’s accusations. He still didn’t know wha
t kind of bug was up the guy’s ass.

  The exercise was half over, though, and so far he’d held it together. The data was going in the logs. As long as they had that, the tapes in the 19 boxes could re-create every rudder order, every search tactic, every constructive “torpedo firing.” And now the safety rules were being observed. He tried to convince himself that none of the rest—U.S. politics, Korean politics, whatever the Chinese were up to, whatever Leakham was up to—was his concern.

  The TAG guys had congregated by the sandwich buffet. Dan exchanged a few words with an Australian skipper, then drifted in their direction. He hadn’t seen Carpenter or Wenck or Oberg since the exercise started, as they’d been aboard the other ships. “Hi Rit, Don. Everything okay on your end?”

  “Data’s going down. Yes, sir.”

  “Backups?”

  “Yes sir, taped backups, Xeroxes on all the logs. We’ll get them on their way back today.”

  “Good. Everything okay where you live, Teddy?”

  Oberg stood like a bear on skates. He looked out of place with the blond ponytail, the startlingly blue eyes, more like a surfer or some kind of Hollywood producer than a military guy. His biceps didn’t belong on a producer, though. He smiled dreamily, looking past Dan like some dangerous predator that avoided confrontation. “Yes sir, Commander. Everything’s going real fine. Monty’s already got my data package.”