Korea Strait

by David Poyer

  “I’d guess some kind of new countermeasure. If I had to wing it.” The analyst bared his teeth at his computer. “But I don’t know what it is, so I can’t tell you how to increase P sub K. Just keep throwing weapons in the water till one acquires. That’s all Jung can do. And I’ll tell you another thing.”

  “What?”

  “This first contact might be bait. That’s a tactic the DPRK uses a lot. Hang a fat, juicy target out there, wait till you go for it, then clobber you from ambush.”

  “We’d better tell the commodore about this. The whole wake-homer thing, this Dingo business. You mind briefing him?”

  Henrickson said he’d be happy to, as long as he could borrow the battery module to Dan’s computer.

  THE heading indicator was spinning like a roulette wheel. Dan assumed they’d reached the nine-thousand-yard point and were coming to the parallel course. Nine thousand yards was inside torpedo range, of course, but it was far enough from the farthest on circle, the possible location of the sub given the elapsed time since detection, that they should have enough warning to turn away and outrun anything fired at them. Though at the cost, again, of burning more precious fuel.

  Jung received Henrickson’s briefing with a weary scowl. Before the analyst was done he snapped, “What you’re saying is, there’s no way to counter a wake homer without putting our own ships in just as much danger from the acoustic homers. So all the sub has to do is fire one of each, and you’re nailed.”

  “Well, that’s not quite true, sir—”

  “You just said it was.”

  Dan stepped in. “Sir, what you haven’t let us get to yet is the possibility of combining both tactics. It’ll take close attention by the son-armen, but it might work. We call it Dingo Plus.”

  “I’m waiting.”

  He explained. On a “torpedo in the water” warning—the sound of high-speed screws on a constant, incoming bearing—the target ship would execute Dingo. Or rather, start to. But instead of coming to the reciprocal of its original course, it would keep its rudder hard over, continue its turn, and steady up heading away from the original incoming bearing. By then its speed would have dropped below the turbulence-generation point, losing a wake homer.

  At that point, the sonarmen would take another bearing on the sound of the incoming weapon. If they showed a drift in the direction of the ship’s original direction of travel, then their pursuer was a wake homer; they had only to stand by till its fuel was exhausted. If there was no bearing drift, it was either a straight runner or an acoustic torpedo running passive, and odds were against a hit, since they’d altered their original course and with the engines stopped there was little machinery noise.

  But if they heard active pulses, it was acoustic running active. They’d instantly flip the Nixie on, slam the throttles forward, and take off again, full turbine power, full speed.

  Jung turned to Hwang. “Did you follow that, Commander?”

  “I think so, Jeon daejang mm.”

  “Good, because I’m not sure I did. What if they do like I said? Fire both types at once?”

  Dan cleared his throat. That was where Henrickson’s model got wobbly. “Commodore, that solution seems to be sensitive to which one comes out of the tube first. If they fire the wake homer first, then the chances of evading are about fifty-fifty. The wake homer follows the wake away from the stopped ship, and the Nixie decoys the acoustic homer.”

  Hwang said, “Fifty-fifty each, or fifty-fifty for evading both?”

  “Fifty percent probability of evading both shots.”

  “Well, that’s better than nothing. What if they fire the acoustic torpedo first?”

  “Then the chances of evasion drop to about ten percent,” Henrick-son said. “Of course, you multiply that by the reliability rate and the usual probability of kill for both types.”

  “The result then?”

  “Maybe thirty percent.”

  “Kill, or survive?” Jiang asked.

  “Seventy percent kill,” Henrickson said. “Thirty percent survive.”

  “These numbers suck,” said Hwang.

  “Maybe, but they’re better than the tactics you have,” Dan pointed out. “At least against the 53-65s.”

  “Not by much.”

  “It still gives your attacking ship a chance,” Dan told him, suddenly exasperated. “If the target turns on him. You want tactical advice? That’s our tactical advice. You can take it or leave it, but there it is.”

  Jung discussed it in Korean with Hwang. Lieutenant Kim, the ASW officer, listened respectfully. Once or twice he got asked a question, which he answered with an eager bob of the head. Finally Jung nodded to the Americans coldly. “Thank you for your suggestions, gentlemen. We’ll take them under advisement.”

  Monty went back into Sonar. Leaning against the plot table, Dan watched Jung cough and wipe his mouth and and chain-light another cigarette. Fuel: that was what worried him now. He said in low voice to Lieutenant Kim, “How we doing on gas, anyway?”

  The ASW officer looked grave. “Below thirty percent.”

  Dan sucked air. He’d known the high-speed regimes, running on the turbines, gulped enormous amounts of fuel. But he hadn’t expect the tanks to be that low. U.S. Navy practice was to bunker up whenever you got below seventy. He thought of approaching the commodore about it, but one look at Jung brooding decided him against it. He’d bothered the man enough. Instead he drew a deep breath, coughing at the smoke, and went topside.

  THE wind had risen even more and the sky was black as a seam of Pennsylvania bituminous. A band of charcoal clouds dangled tendrils that occasionally twisted into spirals, like the business end of a corkscrew. They ran from one horizon to the other. He tensed with the primeval anxiety that wind and darkness, the oncoming storm, triggered in terrestrial animals. The seas, kicked steep by the shoaling shelf, were short and already breaking. Chung Nam surged through them, bulling up bursts of snowy spume that lofted on the windward side, hung in midair like loops of Christmas tinsel, then blew down and apart across the forecastle. Cables still snaked about from the system checks, but the crew had taken cover, except for two swarthy boatswains, older than the rest of the crew, who were frapping down the pelican hooks with bright yellow line. They wore blue coveralls and battle helmets and the bulky orange life jackets. A young officer watched them, arms akimbo. The forward gun was elevated as high as it would go. A black plastic trash bag flapped where it had been duct-taped over the tompion. Dan stood shivering. The wind was turning cool. He remembered when all he had to worry about was getting his division’s tackle secured for sea. It felt like ages ago.

  He shaded his eyes, then borrowed binoculars from the machine-gun crew. The gray upperworks and white sensor bubble of an Ulsan-class were just visible far out to port. Either Mesan or Cheju, one of the two new joins. The white sphere really stood out in the dimming light. He judged they were ten thousand yards distant.

  He watched them for a few minutes, but they didn’t turn or vary their speed, just steered a steady course. This wasn’t good. Ten seconds’ periscope exposure, and that great aiming point… He searched to right and left, but didn’t see the other prosecutor, nor any of the patrol air, though they might be above the clouds, monitoring sonobuoys from there.

  But at some point, as the wind rose, they’d have to leave. Then Jung would be nearly blind, like a man in a smoke-filled cave whose flashlight beam stops two feet from the lens.

  He searched the rest of the way around the horizon, and was surprised when he saw another Ulsan-class pitching doggedly a thousand yards astern. He’d forgotten Kim Chon was still with them. A tiny figure on the port wing was waving. He lifted a hand in return, figuring it was Carpenter. At least out here Rit couldn’t get in more girl trouble.

  When he went back inside, Captain Yu gave him a dirty look from his perch in the skipper’s chair. Dan saluted but Yu turned his nose away. Lenson rattled down the ladder to CIC again. Everyone was standing, leaning, s
itting just as they had when he’d left, still as a Dutch painting, their attention on the plot table.

  Henrickson told him in an off-line murmur that Chang Bo Go had reported in. The 209 was off the port of Ulsan; she’d transited back on a straight line from the original operating area. She too was getting low on fuel, but had been opconned to 213.3. Jung had ordered her to take up an antisubmarine barrier position along the one-hundred-meter line off Pusan Harbor.

  “She won’t use much fuel there,” the analyst said. “Just lie on the bottom and listen, probably. Play goalie, in case we drop the ball.”

  “What sport exactly have you got in mind, Monty?”

  “Ah, forget it. Forget it.”

  They talked one of the petty officers out of a large-scale chart of Pusan Harbor and unrolled it on the Harpoon console. One of the other Koreans saw them with it, and brought over a port guidebook that was printed in both Korean and English.

  Dan saw the good news at once. The harbor entrance was narrow, just two kilometers wide, and only the main channel would be deep enough for a submerged sub. That choke point was six kilometers from the downtown area. The worst-case scenario, a nuclear detonation in the center of the city basin, seemed unlikely. One scuttled containership could block the channel. The city’s population would lose all their window glass, and of course be subject to huge amounts of fallout from a subsurface burst. But most of them would probably survive the initial blast and flash of any weapon the North could build.

  The bad news was that the container piers—according to the guidebook, Pusan handled 95 percent of Korea’s containerized cargo—were much closer to the harbor entrance. If the container cranes went, Pusan would be useless for Allied logistical purposes. Since there was no other port with its capacity, all the North had to do was put it out of action, break through the DMZ, and strategically the war would be over. He found the one-hundred-meter line; it ran eight miles offshore.

  He rubbed his face. So they just had to stop that sub, whichever one carried the warhead, from reaching Pusan.

  At that moment a recently heard voice came over one of the overhead speakers. Dan thought for a moment he was hearing things. Jung and Hwang looked up, both frowning. Lieutenant Kim reached up for the handset. He said tentatively, “This is Chung Nam. Go ahead. Over.”

  “Request to speak to Commander Lenson. The U.S. adviser.”

  Jung beckoned impatiently for the handset.

  “Station calling Chung Nam: This is Commodore Jiang Min Jun, Republic of Korea Navy. Lenson is a rider, not an adviser. Who is calling on this net? Over.”

  “Uh, I know who that is,” Dan said, holding out his hand. Jung stared at him for a second, then handed over the phone.

  “That is uncovered HF,” Lieutenant Kim warned.

  “Yes, I understand.”

  ”Chung Nam, Chung Nam, over.”

  “This is ROKS Chung Nam, Dan Lenson here,” he said into the handset. “Hello, Andy.”

  “Hello, Dan. How’s those boots working out, classmate?”

  It was Andy Mangum, San Francisco’s CO. Dan couldn’t help smiling. “Breaking them in even as we speak. How you doing? Didn’t expect to hear from you again so soon. Over.”

  “Well, somebody said you could use a hand. So we swapped ends and headed back. But we have to keep our name out of the papers. If you know what I mean. Over.”

  Dan struggled between delight and rage. Jennifer Roald had come through. Not with an antisubmarine squadron, but with something almost as good, maybe in some ways better; a primed and loaded U.S. attack boat. On the other hand, Mangum’s hint at orders to stay covert didn’t warm his cockles. It meant the administration was still scared of ticking off the Chinese. Which was not a good sign, if actual war came down.

  But someone had pushed a chip onto the table—they weren’t going to just fold. “Where the hell are you? Over.”

  Mangum gave him a lat-long position. Lieutenant Kim went to plot it, but it was off the paper, to the east. “We’ll be with you pretty soon, though. We’d be breaking the speed limit on anything that wasn’t an interstate. How’s your situation? Over.”

  “Did they tell you what these guys are toting? Over.”

  “Yeah.” The distant voice fell a note. “They told me. Haven’t put the word out to my guys here yet… but I probably will. Anyway. How many bogeys on your tote board?”

  “We’ve never had a hard count. Our best guess is three. Over.”

  “Whiskeys? Romeos?”

  Dan looked at Jung. The commodore had lifted his chin, blinking tiredly as he listened to the exchange. “Romeos, we’re pretty sure. Tagged by Seoul as North Korean assets. Over. Oh, wait one… what’s your Opcon? Is it 213.3? Over.”

  “Negative. We’re still chopped direct to Pearl.”

  He didn’t meet the commodore’s eye. San Fran would be with the task group, but not of it. Taking her orders from SUBLANT, not Jung. Awkward. But they’d just have to manage. “Ah, copy that. In case we need to call you, what’s your handle? And what freq will you be monitoring and when?”

  “This is… call us Shockwave. Like that? I just thought of it. Over.”

  “I like that a lot, Shockwave. Over.”

  “And as far as comm availability, I can make better speed with the comm head down, okay? We’ll check in when we’re in UHF range. Over.”

  ”Chung Nam, out.”

  “Keep it in battery, classmate. Shockwave, out.”

  Dan smiled at Jung. The commodore looked pensive. Relieved, perhaps, but still thoughtful. “That was San Francisco. She’s on her way back to us.”

  “Excellent,” said Hwang, almost dancing. “I knew America would not abandon us.”

  Jung squinted, but said nothing. He seemed still to be considering how to react. Finally he too gave a faint smile.

  Dan was putting the handset back when the deck under his feet heeled suddenly. Men grabbed consoles, tables, handholds. Loose gear slid and clattered. Phone talkers shouted. A moment later a thud bumped through the hull. It sounded as if something heavy, a sack of rice or maybe concrete mix, had been dropped somewhere aft.

  Dan closed his eyes. In the flush of having one thing go their way, he’d forgotten how many other cards were stacked against them.

  He was pretty sure what it was. Not a sack of mix, a butterfingered sailor.

  It was the detonation of a distant torpedo, transmitted through ocean, through steel, through air, to their ears.

  17

  THE sea, the sky, were even darker now. The whirling tendrils reaching down were longer and more solid-looking. One dangled from a cloud’s belly directly above the mast. It groped blindly, swaying, its wispy maw visibly spiraling. Dan barely glanced at it. His gaze followed a pointing finger from the 40mm crew.

  Fine on the port bow, so far in the dimness it was all but lost, black smoke mushroomed against inky cloud. A red stream glimmered, then faded. Smoke rolled upward above a distant white bubble.

  He cursed fate, cursed himself. If San Francisco had called in a few minutes earlier, he might have persuaded the commodore to pull his force off to let her make a pass. A Los Angeles-class had powerful active sonars, and they’d be below the mixing layer that was frustrating the surface units. She could’ve stood off, fired a spread of heavy Mark 48s into the wolf pack, and let them maraud. There was a good case for letting Mangum deal with the remaining North Koreans. Fewer lives would be at risk if the engagement went nuclear. They’d be American lives, not South Korean, but Dan didn’t think he should be assigning them different values.

  Instead, another ship had been hit. And now Jung was charging like a bull into the ring. He wasn’t weaving, or zigzagging, or taking any other precautions. Yes, like a bull. But not into a ring. Into an abattoir.

  With a droning roar a four-engined aircraft with an elongated tail like a dragonfly’s emerged from the boiling clouds and banked toward the stricken frigate. It seemed to move more slowly than an aircraft should. It must be
fighting a fierce headwind. One after the other, three specks fell seaward. Parachutes bloomed. The specks hit the sea and the chutes collapsed. Sonobuoys, going down in a line. With the rising seas Dan doubted they’d pick up much. The P-3 banked in the opposite direction and merged with the overcast once more.

  Down on the forecastle the mount suddenly broke from its immobility. A clanking came from it as it trained left, trained right, elevated, depressed. The sea hollowed beneath the bow, then bulged like a tensed biceps and broke over the forecastle. The crew on the forward 40 ducked, gripping their helmets, as it rained down on them. Immediately two ran out and began frantically cleaning an optical sight.

  He took a deep breath of the cool dark air, sucked it all the way down, trying to douse the tension in his gut. He didn’t want more men to die. More ships to burn. There were those who loved war. He wasn’t one of them. But it seemed the only thing that had ever extinguished its flames, once they started, was overwhelming force. He didn’t see to the bottom of it. Sometimes he wondered if he was in the right profession. But maybe it was better to be reluctant than eager. Though sometimes there was no choice, when evil attacked those who just wanted to live in peace.

  Just as there seemed to be no way out of mutual annihilation now.

  He turned from the lightless sky, and went below.

  CIC was a roaring babble, and desperately hot. The temperature in the packed space, with all the consoles operating, had to be over a hundred degrees. Transmissions were streaming in over the overhead speakers, reports from the other ships and probably, or so he guessed from the background noise, from the P-3s too—two or three nets were going at once. It was all in Korean so he got hardly any of it, just occasional prowords like “banjo” and “madman.” He stood out of the way of the plotters’ flying elbows, watching the attack develop on the flat white paper.

  Henrickson, at his side. “Where you want me, boss?”

  “Help the sonarmen if you can,” Dan told him. “How about O’Quinn? Where the fuck’s Joe?”

  “UB plot, I think.”