Kilo Class (1998)

by Patrick Robinson

  By midday it was growing dark, and Boomer Dunning elicited a groan from Lieutenant Commander Dickson, who was manning the periscope, by observing that he was probably the first man in history to be looking for a tunnel at the end of the light.

  With the weather building ominously to the northwest, they ran on past Cap d’Estaing for another five miles, swung wide around the shoals, and ducked down the fifteen-mile-long fjord of Baie de Recques, where the water was a couple of hundred feet deep and relatively calm, sheltered from the weather.

  The storm raged for the rest of the day and all night, with great blizzards of snow and sleet slashing across the water. Tucked right in the lee of the north shore, Columbia hardly noticed it. The following morning, November 10, they emerged to a brighter day, and Boomer elected to make a seventy-mile journey east-southeast right out beyond the kelp beds, which extend to Cape Sandwich on the distant easterly limit of the island. From there he would drive slowly back, working around the islands of the Golfe des Baleiniers and Baie de Rhodes, before arriving close to Cox’s Rock.

  This was the landmark in his mind, the black sea-swept hunk of granite he and Bill Baldridge had been able to see at the seaward end of Gramont when Bill had spotted the periscope. That was the only real signpost he had, and the latest communication from SUBLANT suggested that the Taiwanese Hai Lung 793 might show up in these waters in a week’s time.

  This would give him ample time to make a thorough search of the archipelago in the heart of Kerguelen, and to get back into position to observe the incoming Taiwanese by November 18. This time, of course, he would not need to see the Dutch-built submarine’s periscope to know it was present. The sonar system in Columbia would pick up the noise of hull 793 in a heartbeat. Or less.

  And so, for almost a week, Boomer and his team groped around the windswept waterways to the northeast. They stayed at PD and spent much time avoiding kelp beds and making sure they stayed clear of rocks. David Wingate seemed to be glued to his charts. They crept back and forth down the Baie de Rhodes, traversed the short channel up to the mouth of Baie de Londres. They circumnavigated Howe Island, and Gramont, both ways. But they heard not a sound. The only good news was a satellite signal from SUBLANT, which informed the Commanding Officer that Columbia would not be reporting to the Arabian Gulf and would be returning to New London at the conclusion of the Kerguelen patrol, on November 19. Christmas at home, thank God, Boomer thought. And a unique circumnavigation of the world, too. Though they could never claim it.

  At dusk on a bright November 16, Boomer ordered them to a position two miles north of where he and Bill Baldridge had seen the periscope from the deck of Yonder, in the Gulf of Choiseul. If the Hai Lung should show up, they had a fair-to-middling chance of locating it, but it was not an ideal position for a watchful submarine. The inner waters of this relatively narrow bay, surrounded by land from the north-northwest all the way south and back to the northeast, were a real headache for a sonar operator. So was the relatively shallow water—six hundred feet max—not to mention the constant threat of a rough sea.

  Lieutenant Commander Krause did not like it, and Boomer felt very uneasy. That evening he and Jerry Curran spent much time discussing the problem until finally the CO said bluntly, “You know, Jerry, if that Dutch sonofabitch came sneaking through here at night, in a sea, we might never see her, and we might not even hear her. She could just go right by and we’d never know…there has to be a better way.”

  “I know it’s a pain in the ass, sir, but I think we should get right out of here, a hundred and fifty or so miles back out to the northeast, beyond the big shoal area, where there’s deeper, quieter water and we can probably pick up an incoming snorkeling submarine as far out as the second convergence, thirty miles plus. It’s hopeless right here, too noisy, too shallow, and too confining. If we can get a decent distance offshore, in the open sea, the Hai Lung has much less chance of getting past us, if he’s on a direct course from Bali, which of course he must be. And if he is snorkeling, which he is quite likely to be.”

  “You’re right, Jerry…we’ll move our operational area right now. We’ll be in good shape before midnight and we’ll follow the Taiwan boat right in, soon as she goes by.”

  “Make your speed eight knots…steer 000. Abe, I want you to go on up here for twelve miles, then come right to 060, out to the two-hundred-meter line.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Columbia cleared Choiseul Bay at 2106 and headed back up the track northeast, back along the route they knew the Hai Lung must follow if it were bound for the same spot where Boomer and Bill had observed the periscope the previous February.

  The Americans reached their patrol area, just south of the forty-seventh parallel at seventy-two degrees east and waited, for a patient twenty-four hours. The trouble was, the Hai Lung did not show up, and they patrolled slowly all through November 17, the sonar men silently watching the screens and listening.

  That evening was scheduled to be their next to last in the Kerguelen area, and Boomer knew he would soon have to access the satellite, report their plan, and request permission to leave on November 20.

  But at 2224 on November 17, a charge of excitement shot through the ship. Boomer was in the navigation area when a sudden voice from the sonar room stopped him dead. It was the sonar officer, Lieutenant Bobby Ramsden. “We’re getting something, sir,…slight rise in the background level…it’s difficult to explain…but I don’t believe it’s weather.”

  A few minutes went by. With Boomer now in the sonar room with Lieutenant Commander Curran, the young sonar Lieutenant spoke again. “Faint engine lines coming up. Relative ninety-two. Alter to one hundred thirty-five to resolve ambiguity.”

  Columbia slewed around. Ten minutes later, the bearing was resolved at 053. The “waterfall” screen was now showing definite engine lines. The computer was flashing the information through its brain, comparing the lines to the bank of examples they carried. Jerry Curran was monitoring three screens simultaneously, and when he spoke, a bolt of electrified emotion shot clean up Boomer Dunning’s spine.

  “Hell, sir, this is a Russian…the computer says right here we got the engines of a goddamned Kilo.”

  “The computer doesn’t know its ass from its elbow,” commented the Commanding Officer, softly. “It’s K-10.”

  “Might I ask with due respect how we know that, sir,” asked Lieutenant Commander Krause, who had just materialized, as he was prone to do at critical moments.

  “You sure can,” said Boomer. “Because that’s the only one it could be…no other nation which owns a Kilo, except China, has the remotest interest in being anywhere near Kerguelen. If it did, Fort Meade would know.

  “Besides ourselves, China is the only nation truly exercised by Taiwanese activity. They own four Kilos now. And Fort Meade knows where three of them are…two in Zhanjiang, and one in Shanghai. The fourth, K-10, is missing according to our latest satellite. It left Canton on October 15, three days after the Hai Lung. But it was a bit nearer, and it’s a bit faster…trust me, Mike, the engine lines on that screen are the lines of K-10.” And then he grinned and added, “The one that got away.”

  “What now, sir?”

  “We stay clear, watch him from a safe distance. He might know something we don’t. But the Hai Lung is still our first objective.”

  This was the first sign of life Columbia had encountered since passing a tramp steamer in the Tasman Sea three weeks previously. Every eye in the control center was focused on the computer screens.

  Commander Dunning, who had watched and waited patiently for so many days, was standing next to the periscope, and he snapped out his first urgent command since the Kurils. “Come left 350. I wanna stay ten thousand yards off track.”

  “Three-five-zero, aye.”

  Lieutenant Commander Curran spoke next. “This, sir, looks like a little task for our new sonar tracking system.”

  “Oh yeah…the one where we blunder around disguised as a porpoise.”<
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  Lieutenant Commander Curran laughed. “Yessir, that’s the one. And I do understand your skepticism, but it’ll work. I’ve seen the trials. We can ping the intruder on active sonar for as long as we wish, and he’s never gonna know we’re here.”

  “Of course, if it doesn’t work,” replied Boomer, “we might be a bit too dead to know whether it worked or not.”

  “Sir, it won’t malfunction. It’s just regular active sonar, but when it pings the Kilo they’ll think it’s a porpoise singing, or a shrimp farting, or a whale copulating…we can vary the sound all the time. Honestly this thing is one big miracle. It’s designed for active tracking…it’s perfect for us right now. Just so long as we don’t use it regular or too often.”

  Commander Dunning, who was accustomed to believing that active sonar alerts your enemy, shook his head. “I guess so, Jerry. But don’t be wrong, for Christ’s sake. Something tells me the Chinese in K-10 are likely to be trigger-happy, and I’d prefer them not to open fire right back down the beam of the fucking singing porpoise.”

  “Yessir, I agree with that. But I’m very confident. We’ve been testing it for about three years. We can just ping ’em on active, enough to keep track, and they’ll never know they’re being watched.”

  “Who bats first?” asked the Captain, drolly. “The porpoise or the farting shrimp.”

  “Sir, I thought we’d come to the plate with a blue whale waving his dick,” replied the Lieutenant Commander with mock seriousness.

  “Excellent,” replied Boomer, with equal mock seriousness. “Please proceed.”

  Lieutenant Commander Krause now spoke seriously to Boomer Dunning. “Sir, has anyone given much thought to what precisely K-10 is doing down here?”

  “Same as us, I guess,” said Boomer. “Trying to find out what the Taiwanese are up to and where…if they don’t already know.”

  “You actually think the Chinese know where they are, sir?”

  “No. Not really, Mike. But let me put it this way. Just think how we found out the little that we know—a billion-to-one sighting of a periscope last February and the outlandish disappearance of the Cuttyhunk. Both are kinda fluky, not real intelligence.

  “Then we get some half-assed report of a hotshot nuclear professor being seen in some remote submarine dockyard near Taipei, and Arnold Morgan puts two and two together and makes about a zillion. Except that he may very well be right. My point is that we have not tackled this project with any serious determination, and yet we have damned nearly walked right in the front door.

  KERGUELEN APPROACHES. Columbia slewed around. The bearing was resolved at 053…definite engine lines. “Hell, sir,…the computer says right here we got the engines of a goddamned Kilo.”

  “Can you imagine how much more the Chinese must know? They have about a million spies in Taiwan for a start, and they watch every move that nation makes. If they don’t know professionally more than we know accidentally, I’d be amazed. And here comes their newest Kilo…you think it’s a tour ship? Nossir…that baby is here on business…and I would not be in any way surprised if it had come to do our dirty work for us. What’s more, we’re gonna let him.”

  “We’re about ten thousand yards northwest of the Kilo’s projected track. He’s about eight miles out right now.”

  “Okay. Come right…050. I intend to remain on a northeast-southwest patrol line, ten thousand yards clear.”

  The Kilo came on at a steady seven and a half knots, driving forward under the command of Captain Kan Yu-fang, holding her on course 237.

  An hour later, the Chinese submarine passed, at periscope depth, still snorkeling, her intake valve jutting starkly but unseen into the bright moonlight, which had, unusually, cast a cold path on the long, black ocean swells. Kan Yu-fang suspected nothing.

  The Americans followed for six miles, keeping way out until the Kilo stopped snorkeling…and settled into a lazy patrolling pattern at around three knots, as if on a racetrack.

  “She seems to be just waiting, sir,” said Lieutenant Ramsden.

  “If she is, she’s waiting for the same thing we are,” said Boomer. “Let’s face it, the departure of the Hai Lung from Taiwan is just about public. We all knew that. The eleven-week cycle, before she returns home, is also pretty public. If we know, without even trying much, she’s due in Kerguelen sometime around November 18, tomorrow—then I guess the Chinese know the same thing. And their view of the situation is more urgent than ours—if Taiwan is going to throw a nuclear weapon at someone, it’s gonna be them, not us.”

  “You mean, sir,” said Lieutenant Ramsden thoughtfully, “that the Kilo is waiting to follow the Hai Lung inshore, just like we are.”

  “That’s my reading,” replied the CO. “How about you, Jerry? Mike?”

  “You got my vote,” replied the sonar boss.

  “And mine,” added the XO.

  “Just make sure that whale dick keeps working,” said Boomer. “Don’t wanna lose ’em. Don’t wanna get caught either.”

  The Kilo continued on her pattern, back and forth all day. Lieutenant Commander Curran occasionally pinged them, with various deep-ocean sounds, which were recognized as fish by the Chinese sonar operator. All the while, Boomer Dunning’s team kept an iron grip on the precise whereabouts of the Russian-built boat. The nature of the slow-motion chase meant Columbia must avoid passive detection by the Kilo yet give herself the best chance of catching the approaching Taiwanese submarine. Jerry Curran’s crafty kit was yet another of his trump cards.

  Just as the daylight began to fade, Bobby Ramsden called urgently from the main screen. It was 2148.

  “Conn…sonar…I have something on the towed array, sir…just a faint mark on the trace.”

  For the second time in less than twenty-four hours Columbia swung around allowing the towed array to reveal if the rise in level was to port or starboard. There were no surprises when Lieutenant Ramsden called again.

  “Designated track twenty-seven. Bearing 045. Probably engine lines…checking machinery profiles.”

  There was total silence in the attack area except from the sonar operator, whose fingers now flew over the computer keys.

  “Conn…sonar…Looks like the Dutch example we were given…no other profiles come anywhere near it.”

  The atmosphere in Columbia moved from tense anticipation to careful, watchful, determined. Not a phrase was uttered. In the time-honored mode of submarine warfare no one said anything unless it was critical, like “SHOOT.”

  But Columbia was not authorized to shoot anything, and for more than an hour they watched silently as the Hai Lung moved closer, running through the water at seven knots, snorkeling in the southern dark. She passed them eight thousand yards distant. Lieutenant Commander Curran confirmed that they were in position to track and follow both the Kilo and the Hai Lung.

  At 2305, Captain Kan began to speed up. He accelerated in behind the Taiwanese some two miles astern, unaware that five miles off his own stern there was a US nuclear boat watching his every move. Only Boomer Dunning and his team were aware of the existence of all three submarines. The Taiwanese knew of only one, themselves. The Chinese of two.

  The three submarines made for an odd sort of convoy, and the leader, the Hai Lung, held course 225 southwest, making seven knots snorkeling. She was heading direct for Choiseul Bay. Along with her pursuers. They would run through these dark, turbulent seas throughout the night while Lieutenant Commander Curran occasionally pinged them with his fish-disguised active sonar. Just to keep their distance.

  In the early evening Columbia crossed the wide, rough seaway at the head of the Golfe des Baleiniers and headed due west in three hundred feet of water toward Choiseul. The Taiwanese captain was more acquainted with the territory than either Captain Kan or Boomer Dunning, and the Hai Lung took a more southern route toward Cox’s Rock. It was the precise direction of the periscope Boomer and Bill Baldridge had spotted from the deck of Yonder back in February.

  Now runni
ng at periscope depth in the calmer water, the Taiwanese submarine crossed Choiseul Bay and reached the estuary of Baie Blanche, followed by the Chinese Kilo two miles astern.

  Boomer had closed in to three miles inside the curved Kerguelen coastline. And the CO found himself thinking about the first time he had come here. And he thought, too, about his crewmate on Yonder, and the fun they had all had in May when the droll Kansan rancher had married his Laura at last, in the presence of the President of the United States.

  For no apparent reason he wished that Bill was here now; he felt chilled suddenly and alone, and he needed a friend, not a dozen colleagues. But he had only fleeting seconds for reflections. The Hai Lung was making five knots through the wide bay and disappeared down the Baie Blanche chased by a boatload of malicious Chinese. At least Boomer assumed they were malicious.

  Boomer ordered Columbia to press on, to keep following the Kilo, at a range of about two miles. None of the passive sonar worked very well inshore, but pursuit was simple, thanks to their brilliant active sonar. Columbia slotted in behind, and the Hai Lung continued its carefree journey at the head of the convoy, still making seven knots, carrying the uranium and presumably Professor Liao Lee all the way down Baie Blanche. They ran on for ten miles, oblivious of both the Kilo and the American nuclear submarine that tracked them both. Boomer took one look through the periscope on the gentle left-hand bend at Saint Lanne and was not detected by the Taiwanese lookout post up on the heights of Pointe Bras guarding the entrance to Bay du Repos.