Fatal Thunder

by Larry Bond

  Simonis frowned, but nodded. “Tell Captain Zhang that depending on the frequency of their system, yes, they should be able to detect the pinger. And his plan is fine as long as the minesweeper stays at least a hundred meters away from the UUV’s position. When it’s rising to make a report, if there’s a surface craft nearby, it will move that far away before transmitting. So staying too close will just slow it down.”

  Li began to relay Simonis’s explanation, but then the commodore added, “Above all, we don’t want the minesweeper accidentally colliding with the UUV, or even just bumping into it. And if it becomes disabled in some way, don’t attempt to recover or repair it. The UUVs are equipped with anti-tamper circuits that will fry the electronics and wipe the software if the correct handling procedures aren’t followed.”

  That got Li’s attention. Hopefully it would reduce the chance of the vehicle meeting with some sort of “accident” after the torpedo had been found. Both Tian and Zhang asked more questions as Li explained, but evidently Zhang was satisfied. “The captain says he will keep the craft much farther away than one hundred meters. What are we to do with the UUVs after the torpedo is found?”

  “We are sending a surface ship to the area. It will wait outside the harbor until the weapon is found and the harbors are cleared, then come in and recover the two vehicles. What are your plans for the torpedo?” Finding the weapon was just one part of the problem, the part they’d spent the most time on. Simonis was equally concerned about what to do after the weapon had been located.

  “There has been a great deal of discussion about this. There is great anxiety that the torpedoes also have an anti-tampering feature—how do you say it … a booby trap. We decided that we will make no attempt to disarm it; we can’t risk it detonating when a technician tries to open an access plate. We plan to load it on a helicopter, manned with a volunteer crew. They will fly at maximum speed to a point about two hundred miles off the coast and discard it there. It is past the continental shelf, and the water depth is over one thousand fathoms. Captain Zhang’s staff is preparing a notice to airmen and mariners right now that will warn all craft to remain clear of the area.”

  “Very well, please tell Captain Zhang to have his staff contact Captain Jacobs in my watch center, he’s coordinating the search planning. We’ll put whoever he assigns to good use.”

  Li interpreted Simonis’s comment; Zhang nodded and smiled. He then spoke briefly and Li relayed the message. “Captain Zhang thanks you and wishes you good luck.”

  “Good luck to us all,” Simonis answered. The screen suddenly went blank as the VTC link was terminated. Sitting back in his chair, Simonis let out a deep sigh of relief. The videoconference with the Chinese had gone better than he had expected. He was about to give Jacobs an order when the commodore noted another text from Patterson on the screen. “POTUS left—very impressed with your performance. Oh, BTW, Touché.”

  Simonis grunted smugly after reading her message. He’d finally won an argument.

  16 April 2017

  1000 Local Time

  INS Chakra

  South China Sea

  * * *

  “Captain.”

  “Captain Jain.”

  “CAPTAIN JAIN!”

  Jain came awake with a start, sitting upright in his bunk and looking around with alarm. A petty officer was standing over him, looking very guilty.

  As he took in his surroundings, he could feel the smooth vibration of the sub’s engines, the sound of the ventilation system. Everything seemed normal. He asked, “The boat—is it all right? It felt like a collision.”

  “That was me, sir, I’m sorry, but I had to shake you hard to wake you. The first officer has been trying to reach you, but you weren’t answering.”

  His head still clearing, Jain said, “I’m awake now. Thank you.” He turned to the phone on the bulkhead next to his bed. It was buzzing loudly, not a foot from where his head had been. The display next to the phone showed Chakra’s speed, depth, and current location, southwest of Taiwan. The clock said he’ been asleep for five hours, give or take.

  He picked up the handset. “Jain here.”

  “Captain, we have a problem with our route.” It was Rakash’s voice. He didn’t sound happy. “You need to see what sonar has detected.”

  Jain turned and nodded to the petty officer, who quickly departed. “Understood. I’ll be there in a moment.”

  * * *

  Lieutenant Commander Rakash looked apologetic when Jain came into the central post a few minutes later. “I tried to let you sleep a little longer, sir, but we must decide now.” He gestured toward one of the displays. “Please, sir, look at the plot.” His voice still held the same worried tone.

  The map display showed Chakra headed almost straight for Taiwan. They’d been on the same course for the last twelve hours, according to the clock, as planned.

  The first officer had finally convinced his captain to rest thirteen hours after their battle with the Chinese diesel boat. They’d headed directly away from the Chinese coast for six hours, which had put them in deeper water, and then they’d turned east by north, toward Taiwan’s west cost. Seven hours after that, with no sign of Chinese pursuit, the first officer was finally able to persuade his captain to lie down.

  The revelation that the Chinese were waiting for Chakra had thrown most of their voyage planning into the rubbish bin. Vajra was supposed to be a surprise attack. Jain and Rakash had laid out their route using the simplest, most direct route between each of the target ports, but that wouldn’t work if the Chinese navy had been alerted.

  As they had hurried away from Hong Kong and the scene of their battle, Jain, Rakash, and the other officers had debated whether or not the encounter with the Chinese Kilo was an accident, a coincidence, or a deliberate confrontation. It had been a short discussion. There were no PLA Navy submarine bases near Hong Kong, and there were few operations that a submarine could be performing in such a spot. It was very shallow water, not the kind of place a submariner liked to be. And if it was some sort of exercise, a practice run sneaking into an enemy port, where was the other side, the defenders?

  Besides, the Kilo had fired on them, based only on their active sonar signal. Peacetime rules of engagement would require more positive identification before launching a weapon. For the Chinese sub to have fired with only the information it had, the target would have to be “presumed hostile.”

  And by sinking the Kilo, they’d confirmed their presence. They had to assume that every subsequent port would now be heavily guarded, complicating an already difficult task.

  But why were the Chinese looking for anything in the first place? Dhankhar had said he was worried about foreign intelligence learning of the plan. It looked like his concerns were justified. If that was the case, how much did they know?

  Chakra’s next destination was Ningbo, on the easternmost tip of the Chinese coast. It was the fourth-busiest port in China, and by far the most difficult target on their list. The approach to Ningbo-Zhoushan was treacherous, and even shallower than Hong Kong. It would have taken them less than two days at their earlier twenty-knot transit speed, but Jain had to assume that they were being actively hunted, and they’d had to slow to twelve knots so that their towed array would give them some warning of an enemy’s approach. That turned a forty-hour transit into sixty-five hours, and Jain worried about losing so much of their time margin.

  And the Taiwan Strait was an excellent place to set up a barrier of escort vessels. The approach to the strait was largely blocked by the Taiwan Banks, an incredibly shallow patch of water, and patrol ships could be placed to block the deep areas that Chakra would have to use. The Chinese had Type 054 frigates and Type 056 corvettes fitted with passive towed sonar arrays. Patrolling at five knots, the PLA Navy could layer two lines of escorts across the entire strait—more if they were smart about it. Jain couldn’t hope to get through a robust barrier like that.

  Blasting a hole in the line wasn’t
even an option. Submarines used concealment and guile to stay alive. The last thing he wanted to do was signal his position again with another wreck. His orders explicitly forbade him from looking for naval targets until after the nuclear-armed torpedoes had been laid. Business before pleasure.

  That’s why he had planned to get so close to Taiwan, through the Penghu Channel. The Chinese might be searching for him, but they wouldn’t enter newly independent Taiwan’s territorial waters. By hugging the coast, he planned to go around one end of the PLAN sonar fence. And the waters of the Penghu Channel were relatively deep, on the order of one hundred meters. He might even be able to increase speed while he was there, and he was sure Chakra was safe from PLAN searchers.

  The display showed surface contacts that had been detected by Chakra’s passive sonar. Ahead and to the left was the Taiwan Strait, one of the most heavily traveled water passages in the world. He could see a dozen ships headed north and south between the Chinese coast to the west and Taiwan to the east. That had been his original plan—just sail due north into the strait, then turn northeast. Adjusting the course to the east to hug the west coast of Taiwan cost him a little distance, but it was definitely safer.

  Or had been. Rakash was pointing to several bright lines that marked powerful active sonars. They were all coming from warships ahead of them, along Taiwan’s coast.

  “Sonar’s evaluated them all as American low-frequency sets. SQS-26 and SQS-53 sonars,” Rakash reported.

  Jain shrugged. “That fits. The Taiwanese navy uses surplus American destroyers and frigates.”

  “I tracked them for a while before waking you, sir. I thought after twenty-plus hours in the central post, you should get some rest. A captain at sea may be all-powerful, but he’s not invulnerable.”

  “No harm done, Rakash. Plotting their movements is the first thing I would have ordered, and I probably did need the sleep,” Jain admitted.

  Rakash sighed. “It’s very unusual. They’ve got four ships patrolling the west coast of the island. They’re staying within their territorial waters and they’re blasting away with active sonar. We can hear them sixty or even ninety miles out, thanks to the convergence zones.”

  Jain concluded, “Effectively blocking our passage through Taiwan’s coastal waters.”

  Rakash pointed out how the four patrol zones neatly covered most of Taiwan’s west coast. “They’re looking for us. But why?”

  Jain pleaded ignorance. “I’m sure they’ve heard about the sub being sunk in Hong Kong. That will be big news everywhere in Asia. But why would they feel threatened? That doesn’t make sense. And I can’t imagine them cooperating with the mainland Chinese.”

  Jain calculated the odds of somehow getting through, in spite of the active searchers. Without understanding why they were looking, it would be hard to guess how they’d act if they found him, but he was pretty sure it wouldn’t be to his benefit. It was too much to risk.

  The first officer could see his captain considering, calculating. Rakash suggested, “The Chinese towed arrays aren’t that good. If we stick close under a merchant ship it will mask our noise.”

  “No. Too obvious. They’ll be delousing with active sonar. It doesn’t take very long. They have enough corvettes to check each merchant as it passes. It doesn’t matter how quiet we are. Besides, we are very limited by the Taiwan Banks. It won’t bother a merchant ship, but we’d have to go around and the Chinese aren’t stupid. They know where the choke points are.” Jain tapped the chart. “We have to go around.”

  “Around Taiwan?” Rakash couldn’t hide his surprise. “That will take too long.”

  “Not at twenty knots. We’ll be in open ocean and much harder to find. And I’m going to look at the target list again. The admiral gave me some discretion about the targets, if necessary. Now I wish I’d put a second torpedo into Shenzhen Harbor. It was right next to Victoria Harbor, it was on the list, and then we’d only have three weapons to deploy.”

  Jain turned toward the helmsman. “Starboard fifteen, new course one one five degrees. Once we’re away from the strait, Rakash, we’ll increase speed to twenty knots and go deep.”

  16 April 2017

  1030 Local Time

  Republic of China Submarine Hai Lung

  South China Sea

  * * *

  “Contact has turned to starboard. New course is shifting to east-southeast. Speed is still fifteen knots.”

  Captain Zhu Heng leaned over the display. “That course will take him south of the island entirely. Sheng, what’s his closest point of approach?”

  “Sixty-five hundred meters,” the executive officer reported, “at bearing one eight zero. If we want to maintain contact after he passes us, we should reverse course and head west ourselves, and increase speed above three knots.”

  Zhu shook his head sharply. “Absolutely not. We will do nothing that increases the chance of him detecting us. Our orders were to stay completely hidden and report, and I intend to do just that. Keep the boat at ultra quiet and watch this fellow like a hawk. If he continues to head toward the east, then we will break contact and transmit.”

  16 April 2017

  1600 Local Time

  Republic of China P-3C Orion

  35NM South of Taiwan, Luzon Strait

  * * *

  Petty Officer Wang rubbed his eyes and tried hard to focus on his screen; they’d been out looking for the Indian Akula for the last four hours and they hadn’t seen anything other than fishing boats and whales. They had just finished laying their second passive sonobuoy field, and the acoustic data was starting to show up on the processor display. At first, there was nothing. Then a weak line appeared on the waterfall display. After staring at it for a minute, he made the call.

  “TACCO, Sensor One. I have a weak fifty-hertz line on buoy fifty-one.”

  “Sensor One, TACCO. Contact on buoy fifty-one, aye. Let me take a look.”

  The tactical coordinator pulled up the acoustic display and looked at the picture as it formed. The TACCO was impressed. It was a very weak narrowband line, but it was there. Wang had caught it just right. Frankly, the coordinator hadn’t had great expectations for this mission. His sensor operators were used to looking for Chinese nukes that sounded like freight trains. Looking for a much quieter Akula was in a whole other league.

  “All Stations, TACCO. Possub contact on buoy fifty-one. Sensor Two, stand by to drop a localization pattern south of our buoy field. Sensor Three, keep your eyes open for a MAD contact.”

  The Orion banked hard left and flew to the far southern corner of the sonobuoy field. Five more sonobuoys dropped from the aircraft’s underside and parachuted down to the water.

  “TACCO, Sensor Three. No MAD contact.”

  Figures, thought the tactical coordinator. Russian boats were all fitted with degaussing gear and had really low magnetic signatures. They’d have to fly within a thousand meters before they’d even have a chance of picking the Akula up.

  “TACCO, Sensor Two. Localization field up, no contacts.”

  “TACCO, Sensor One. Narrowband line is fading. Contact is showing down Doppler, target is moving away from the buoy.”

  Shit, swore the officer, we’re losing him! He needed to do something fast if they were going to keep this sub.

  “Sensor Two, TACCO: Stand by to drop a DICASS buoy. Set depth selection to deep.”

  Once again the aircraft turned and proceeded back toward the southern corner. As it was just about to fly over sonobuoy fifty-one another silver canister was dropped from her belly. The DICASS buoy splashed into the water, and immediately released the transducer subsection from its float. Unwinding rapidly, the transducer dropped to a depth of 136 meters, well below the seasonal thermocline, or layer. Seconds later, a sharp high-frequency ping began scanning the water.

  INS Chakra

  * * *

  The acoustic intercept receiver chirped madly. The estimated sound level indicated the active sonar was close.


  “Helmsman, slow ahead. Make your depth three hundred meters,” barked Jain. “First Officer, report!”

  “Active sonobuoy bears red one seven eight. It’s almost directly behind us.”

  “Set ultra quiet condition throughout the ship,” Jain ordered. “Now we have to act just like a water molecule.”

  “Captain, frequency and pulse pattern indicates it’s an American SSQ-62 active, directional sonobuoy. I can’t believe that the Americans are looking for us!”

  “I don’t think they are, Number One. It’s probably a Taiwanese P-3.”

  “Sir, something is very wrong here. Why are our allies looking for us, and so aggressively I might add?”

  “I don’t have a clue, Number One. But we’re on a good course to get out of range of the buoy, and between the anechoic coating and our narrow aspect, I think we’ll get out of this with our hides intact.”

  “Captain, our speed is five knots and ultra quiet is set,” reported Rakash.

  “Very well. Given the circumstances, we may want to rethink that twenty-knot speed idea.” Jain wasn’t thrilled with slowing down, but he had little choice. He pulled out the target list again and started looking real hard at his options. He’d have to get the time back somehow.

  16 April 2017

  1800 Local Time

  USS North Dakota

  40 NM West of Taiwan

  South China Sea

  * * *

  Samant and Petrov hovered over the digital chart of the waters around Taiwan. It had been twenty-two hours since they’d left Hong Kong, after sending the two UUVs on their way to begin searching the harbors. Mitchell had wasted little time, and turned his boat toward the northeast and ran off at high speed. After six hours, he slowed to get a good look around, and then alternated between a sprint and what Thigpen had called “a fast walk.” They hadn’t seen any signs of the Indian Akula yet, but by Samant and Petrov’s estimate they were still sixty-some-odd miles behind. Nevertheless, the lack of even the slightest contact was disheartening.