by Larry Bond
The diver with the headset said something, and Li relayed, “Fourth circle.”
That one would take longer still. How long did it take to swim twelve and a half meters in a circle? In really rotten visibility? By rights, the torpedo would be hard to miss. Even with the front third stuck in the mud, it would still stick out fifteen feet or so.
Li reported, “Fifth circle.” What if the torpedo was covered by mud? A thin layer would not even show up on the UUV’s sonar, but would make the weapon invisible to a visual search, and might block the handheld sonar. And even if they found it, then they’d have to dig the thingie out of the bottom so they could attach the collar.
“Sixth circle.” Simonis knew he was a worrywart, but it came with the job. If this went on too much longer, he could offer to use the UUV somehow to mark the torpedo’s position. Bismarck knew its location within inches, but had lousy verbal skills.
He could ask the divers to go shallow, then send the UUV back in. When it was directly over the torpedo, they could turn the sonar off and set the speed to zero. But then they’d have to find the vehicle first.
They all saw it in the control room before Li translated the excited shouts. The diver with the headset yelled something, and suddenly everyone on the stern was moving purposefully. Li reported, “They found it, and the midsection is clear of the bottom! They are attaching the collar.”
Li called to someone offscreen, and then told the Americans, “The helicopter will be airborne in moments.” He repeated the same thing to Captain Min in Mandarin.
Sailors on the stern were taking the line that was attached to the torpedo collar and passing it through the block on a boom. As soon as they were finished, the boom swung out to starboard and up, ready to take a strain.
Simonis half expected to see the line jerk or straighten like a fish on a hook, but they were leaving in a lot of slack, so the divers were free to work. How long would it take to attach the collar to the torpedo? He didn’t know exactly how the Chinese model worked, but if it was anything like the U.S. version, it was pretty simple. After all, it was designed to be used on a weapon that was floating in the water. Clamping it on one that was stationary should be even easier.
The diver with the headset called out and they watched the boom swing out a little farther. The line became taut.
Simonis started praying. This was the moment of greatest danger. There had been extensive discussions about the chance that the warhead had been fitted with anti-tamper devices, such as a sensor to detect movement. Such a device would activate once the torpedo had reached its destination. After that, any attempt to remove it would trigger the warhead.
It was impossible to defuse or disable the torpedo in place. Trying to do it on the deck of the minesweeper would take a long time, and then there was still the concern that the access panels had all been wired somehow. Both the Chinese and American planners had studied the photos from the torpedo shop that showed the weapon’s mechanism, looking for clues as to whether anti-movement devices had been fitted, but finding nothing.
In the end, they’d had to fall back on logic and hope. The installation had been improvised, and while anything involving nuclear weapons could not be described as “crude,” it was simple. And while booby-trapping the access panels was within the technician’s ability, a motion sensor seemed a bit much. In the end, all they could do was hope for the best.
If the warhead was fitted with any kind of anti-movement device, pulling it out of the mud would be more than enough to set it off. Of course, Simonis and Oke City’s crew were safe in Guam, but the crew of the minesweeper, and Li, and the population of Hong Kong were about to find out if their logic had been correct.
The boom operator was working the controls, but everyone else on the stern had paused. There was little to do now, which probably gave them more time than they wanted to think about what was happening on the bottom of the harbor. Li was staring at the screen intently.
The line to the torpedo collar was still taut, and vibrated a little with tension, but only for a moment, then moved a little back and forth. Li hardly had to translate the diver’s report that the weapon was free of the bottom. Sailors clapped and patted each other’s backs. Simonis could see money changing hands, and wondered what that bet had been about.
The boom operator was bringing it up steadily, and other crewmen on the stern were getting ready to receive it. It finally broke water, followed by the two divers. The other members of the dive team helped them back aboard, while a sailor played a fire hose on the weapon, rinsing off the mud and giving them a clear look at the nose.
The front was badly crumpled, one side almost caved in, but that section held the torpedo’s acoustic seeker, not the warhead. Most of the dark green cylinder was undamaged.
They swung the torpedo over the stern gently, while everyone stayed well clear. This was not because the warhead was sensitive to movement, but because the torpedo weighed well over a ton, even with its fuel expended. Getting caught by either end as it swung past would be good for a broken bone.
A photographer to one side was taking pictures of everything, and a petty officer passed what looked like a radiation sensor down one side of the torpedo and back up the other before signaling all clear.
Everyone was moving quickly, and it was clear they had drilled ahead of time. Within a minute, the torpedo was poised over a cradle that had been waiting on the stern. They slipped a lifting harness over each end and then lowered it into the cradle. Simonis noticed that unless a Chinese sailor was actually working on the torpedo in some way, they tended to congregate at the far end of the stern, as far away from the weapon as they could get.
Simonis couldn’t see the helicopter’s arrival, but he could tell it was overhead by the noise and the sudden swirling wind, as well as most of the crewmen looking up and waving. A hook appeared in the top of the frame and came down until one of the Chinese sailors grabbed it and put it through a loop on the lifting harness. He signaled it was ready, and the line became taut, and lifted the torpedo up and out of the frame.
Simonis could hear the helicopter’s engines become louder as the pilot opened the throttle. Nobody was sure whether the warhead was set to detonate in minutes, hours, or even days, but the pilot was doing his best to not be part of the fireball.
Smiling, Captain Min said something into the camera; then the image tumbled and steadied, and centered on the gray-painted helicopter, rapidly vanishing to the east and south.
Captain Dodson said, “It’s just over twenty miles to Dangan Island, and another ten miles to get everyone outside the blast. A Kamov Helix can do about a hundred forty knots flat-out—and you can bet they’re redlining those engines, so everyone except the helo crew will be in the clear in fifteen minutes for sure.”
“And a little over an hour after that, they’ll be over the drop point,” Simonis added. “But we’ve got work to do. Get Bismarck headed over to Shenzhen Harbor and have it help out Napoleon. The sooner we’re done looking that harbor over, the better.”
18 April 2017
2000 Local Time
INS Chakra
Approach to Hangzhou Bay
* * *
They’d lost more time than even the new schedule allowed. Jain cursed himself for watching the clock so closely. Tactics shouldn’t be tied to a schedule, but he kept remembering Dhankhar’s briefing. Chakra’s strike was going to signal the start of a surprise and hopefully final offensive against Pakistan. Chakra’s captain thought of thousands of troops and mountains of supplies being moved through horrible weather, staying hidden until they could launch an unexpected early spring offensive.
Was it any wonder that he looked at the clock, and cursed the physics of sound that made him choose either speed or stealth?
They had to slow, both to reduce their own noise and improve the performance of their sensors, but that came at a price in time. Swinging wide around Taiwan, then having to slow to tactical speeds, had added too much dista
nce. Skipping Ningbo in favor of a second attack at Shanghai put him almost back on schedule.
He’d come up the eastern side of Taiwan as fast as he’d dared. From there the Chinese coast was dead ahead almost due north. There had been no sign of naval forces since the encounter with the active sonobuoy, but that changed as he neared Santiao Chiao, on the northeast coast of Taiwan. There were more Taiwanese warships, arranged in an east-west line abreast, banging away with active sonar as they steamed back and forth almost randomly. Jain lost time tracking their movements until he’d determined they actually were random, and then more time going still farther east to avoid the search group.
Jain and his officers had debated and speculated on the possible reasons for Taiwan’s actions. Dhankhar’s concern about a spy could explain why a Chinese diesel boat had been lurking outside Hong Kong, but not why what seemed like Taiwan’s entire navy was on the lookout for submarines.
Everyone in Chakra’s wardroom agreed that Taiwan would not cooperate with Communist China without some compelling reason. Had China shared the spy’s information with their newly independent cousins? Would that have been enough? Did the sinking of the Chinese diesel boat have anything to do with the activity off Taiwan’s coast? Nothing made sense, and that worried Jain. What was he missing? A submarine on patrol has no friends, but it usually knows who its enemies are.
Crossing the East China Sea was a trial in patience. Lines of active sonobuoys thirty, even forty miles long lay across his path, forcing more detours, and more questions.
Typically, a patrol aircraft might carry a hundred sonobuoys, but most were passive. Usually a patrol plane would lay out a barrier of passive sonobuoys. The buoys were silent, listening only, and a passing submarine could not hear a plane unless it flew very low. It had the endurance to watch and listen for six or eight hours, and some sonobuoys could last even longer, for as much as a day, allowing a relief plane to pick up the barrier without losing a step.
If a sonobuoy heard a submarine, the aircraft would usually lay a tighter localization pattern to confirm the submarine’s presence and find out its course and speed. Armed with this information, the sub hunter would then drop an active buoy that marked their target’s actual position. The active pinging would alert the submarine, of course, but by then it would be too late. The submarine would likely be exposed and located and, on the next pass, the patrol plane would drop a homing torpedo. Jain was sure that only luck had allowed them to escape from the encounter earlier.
Patrol planes practiced their craft constantly. Practicing against their own navy’s subs while they practiced evading the planes, or tracking an unfriendly nation’s boat, they could perform the entire process, except for dropping the torpedo. Jain had practiced against Indian Navy aircraft in exercises, and he’d dodged Chinese patrol planes during the recent war.
But he’d never heard of laying a barrier of active buoys of that size. Had the Chinese given up on hearing Chakra with passive buoys? True, she was quiet, but the schoolbook answer was to place the buoys closer together. This new tactic made no sense, and went into the bucket he’d created with all the other puzzles.
An active buoy might detect Chakra at one mile, but she could hear them five or even ten miles away. He would of course turn away from the barrier, but then he had to figure out which end was closer, and then go miles off course to get past it.
Over the twenty-plus hours it took Chakra to cross the East China Sea, her captain had watched the clock closely, and watched their earliest arrival time slip farther and farther behind. He’d regained most of the lost time by deciding to skip Ningbo, but didn’t know if he could do that again. In his stateroom, where Rakash insisted he sleep, he studied the target folders, comparing different combinations of targets, not for their effect on the Chinese economy, but to see how quickly he could launch the rest of his torpedoes without getting his boat killed in the process.
The clock, positioned right next to his head, now loomed over him. He wasn’t worried about the timers, already set and running inside the torpedoes. He could order the Russians to reset them to any time he liked. But he’d rejected that choice earlier. Not only was one weapon already ticking away at the bottom of Victoria Harbor, but the troops waiting at the front lines couldn’t wait forever. He and Dhankhar had together confirmed the detonation time. Everything else flowed from that.
The panel next to his head buzzed. “CAPTAIN TO CENTRAL POST.” This time he was still awake, and was there in moments. “Time to the next turn?” he queried, walking up to the navigation plot.
Rakash didn’t even look at the clock. “Twenty-three minutes.”
“The Russians?” Jain asked.
“Still making checks forward. They haven’t reported any problems. Should I call them?” Jain thought about it, then shook his head no. There were two torpedoes to check this time. Orlav had even managed to get Kirichenko to help.
“We can wait a little longer. I don’t like jogging a man’s elbow when he’s working with nuclear warheads. What about the surface traffic?”
Rakash sighed, but reported, “The wall of fishing boats has hardly shifted, but you were right; they’re thinning out, so the planned turn point looks good.” Chakra had to actually go north, beyond the clustered fishing boats and their presumed fishing banks.
Jain stepped over to the door to the sonar space. “Sonar, do you hold anything that sounds like a warship?”
Patil, the senior sonarman, said, “Yes, sir. Several active sonars, SJD-7 medium-frequency sets off to the north, but nothing close by that could be a warship. Lots of small diesels and single-props moving at low speed.” He then shrugged apologetically. “There’s too much traffic in the main channel to tell anything.” He pointed to the display, which showed a broad, fuzzy band on those bearings.
“I’m not worried about the channel. It’s too shallow for subs, and warships in the channel can’t maneuver. And their sonar will be even more confused by the shipping than ours is. Watch the seaward exits closely.”
Patil nodded. “Watch the port exits. Aye, aye sir.”
“If there aren’t any warships here right now, we’re lucky, but they could come roaring out of the harbor at any moment—” Jain made a face. “—and probably will.”
Orlav and Kirichenko were waiting next to the nav plot when Jain stepped out of the sonar space.
Kirichenko leaned against a nearby bulkhead and remained silent, but Orlav reported, “Both torpedoes and all the firing circuits have been checked. No faults.”
“And since we have two torpedoes this time, what have you done to reduce the chance of pressing the wrong button?” joked Jain, but only slightly.
Orlav confirmed, “Are you still planning to attack the deep-water terminal first, then Shanghai International?”
Jain nodded solemnly. “Yes. That’s the plan.”
“Then tube one has the weapon programmed for a straight-in approach. It will bury itself in the shoals near the Yangshan container terminal. The other weapon, in tube two, is programmed for a five-mile run, a turn to starboard to three four zero, and then straight up the Yangtze to the harbor. The enable switches for tube two are tagged open, and won’t be closed until after the torpedo in tube one is fired.”
“Very well,” Jain said approvingly.
Orlav excused himself, saying something about getting something to eat, but Kirichenko asked permission to stay. Jain could have easily booted him out of central post, but had no reason to, and he was frankly curious to see what the ex-admiral wanted.
There was still ten minutes to the first turn, with no close threatening contacts to worry about, and all preparations completed, when the Russian approached Jain. “I’ve decided where I’d like to go ashore,” he said cautiously.
Getting the Russian off his boat was such a pleasant prospect that Jain almost smiled. “What is your choice?”
“Bali,” Kirichenko answered. Jain thought it was a good choice. The island sat on the western
side of the Lombok Strait, the passage that Chakra planned to use on their return trip. Dropping off this Russian would be simple. He might even let Kirichenko have a raft.
“It is acceptable,” Jain said. “Do you know if Orlav has decided?”
“I think he wants to enlist in the Indian Navy,” Kirichenko grumbled.
“That’s not going to happen,” Jain answered sternly. Orlav had redeemed himself somewhat by his labors aboard Chakra, but Jain would never forget that the man was a traitor, someone who sold his nation’s secrets for money without conscience. He might have just as easily been working for the Chinese, or anyone with coin to fill his pockets …
The quartermaster announced, “Time for the turn, sir.”
Rakash was checking the chart against the sonar display. “Two eight zero is still good, Captain.”
“Port fifteen, then. Steer course two eight zero.”
The helmsman repeated the order, and Rakash marked the chart. “Forty-two minutes until the firing point at this speed, Captain.”
Jain leaned over to study the chart. After the first weapon was fired, Chakra had a short six-hour run to the second firing point. Plenty of time to close the enable switches on tube two.
As he was double-checking the distance, he looked to his left and saw Kirichenko examining the route as well. The Russian was almost mimicking Jain’s posture. Must be the old reflexes, thought Jain.
“Mind your depth, Number One. Hopefully it matches the charts, but we won’t have much under us when we fire.”
“Mind my depth, aye, sir,” Rakash answered, and gestured to the quartermaster. They’d both keep their eye on the fathometer. They were firing in twenty-nine meters of water. It was enough, but barely.
Jain shifted his gaze back to the chart. Everything was going according to plan, and yet he still felt edgy. Something wasn’t right. What was he missing?