High Flight

by David Hagberg

  Chi-jin-yu, wisdom, benevolence, and courage. They would need all of that in the coming days, Kiyoda thought while sponging the sweat off his body. He was up to it, and he knew that his crew was. He could only hope for the rest of his countrymen, and especially for the Diet in Tokyo.

  Dressed in a crisply starched uniform he crossed the corridor to the wardroom where a steward handed him a cup of cha, then went into the combined control room and attack center.

  At two hundred fifty feet in length with a surfaced displacement of 2,200 tons, the Samisho was not a small boat. Built to the 0+2+ (1) Yuushio-class standards at Kawasaki’s shipyards in Kobe, she’d begun service in 1992, and last year she’d been brought back to the yards for a retrofit. Now she was state of the art, an engineering and electronics marvel even by U.S. naval standards. She was a diesel boat, but she was fast, capable of a top speed submerged of more than twenty-five knots and a published diving depth in excess of one thousand feet. Her electronic detection systems and countermeasures by Hitachi were better than anything currently in use by any navy in the world, and her new Fuji electric motors and tunnel drive were as quiet as any nuclear submarine’s propulsion system, and much simpler to operate. The Samisho could be safely operated, even on war footing, with fifty men and ten officers—less than half the crew needed to run the Los Angeles-class boats, and one-fourth the crew needed for a sub-hunting surface vessel.

  His executive officer, Lieutenant Ikuo Minori, was on duty in the attack center with the weapons control officer, Lieutenant Shuichiyo Takasaki, and four enlisted men.

  “Good morning, gentlemen,” Kiyoda said, ducking through the hatch.

  “Kan-cho on the conn,” Minori announced crisply. Captain on the conn. “Good morning, sir, You slept well?”

  “Very well, thank you, Ikuo.”

  Minori was one of the most intelligent men Kiyoda knew. He’d been number one at his prep school in Oshima, number one in engineering at Tokyo University, and number one in his class at the Maritime Academy. It was rumored that he would get first crack at the nuclear submarine, the keel of which was being laid in secret at Kobe, when it was finished in 1998. In the meantime he refused other commands, preferring to remain aboard the Samisho, as did the other officers and men, all of whom Kiyoda had hand picked, and all of whom shared his belief in Bushido and Mishima. They’d formed their own Shield Society.

  “Having a combination like that makes one almost wish for a war to test them,” Admiral Higashi, commander of submarine forces, had said to his wife, not daring to say such a thing to anyone else. But he knew he wasn’t alone in the opinion.

  Kiyoda took his command position starboard of the periscope well and keyed the intercom. “Sonar, conn, what are you showing on the surface?”

  A chartlet in color of their area of operation on his CRT showed the boat’s course, speed, depth, and position. Currently they were running almost due north at twelve knots. The operations clock showed they were eighteen minutes into this mode.

  “Our immediate area is clear, Kan-cho-dono. But we’re picking up a faint target about sixty thousand meters out.”

  “What does it look like?”

  “Hard to say for certain, sir, but I’m guessing it’s a Russian frigate. Probably a Krivak class.”

  “Course and speed?” Kiyoda asked. He recognized the sonarman’s voice. It was Tsutomu Nakayama, probably the best in the MSDF. At twenty-five he still had the ears, but he also had experience.

  “She’s inbound. I’d say twenty knots, maybe a little less.”

  “Keep a sharp watch, Tsutomu. We’re going up to take a look. If he changes course or speed let me know immediately.”

  “Yo-so-ro, Kan-cho.” Will do, Captain.

  “What’s the weather?”

  “I’m picking up surface noises. Four to five meter waves.”

  Kiyoda released the switch. “Bring the boat to periscope depth.”

  “Hai, Kan-cho, bringing the boat to periscope depth,” Minori replied.

  “Reduce speed to five knots, and come left to three-four-zero degrees.” The winds and seas at this time of year came mostly out of the north with a slight westerly component. By turning the boat into the general direction of the wind, a much safer attitude in which to surface than abeam the seas, they would be ready to come up fast if need be. It could save time and lives in an emergency.

  “Very well, reducing speed to five knots, coming tori-kaji to new course three-four-zero. Yo-so-ro.”

  The problem, as Kiyoda saw it, was that Japan would lose her initiative unless she had control of the sea in the region of the home islands, as well as the sea lanes to and from her vital Middle East oil supplies, and down to the Philippines, East Indies, and Australia, where most of the rest of her natural resources came from. Japan was a manufacturing nation. Her factories produced or died. Any disaster involving her raw materials, no matter how slight, any delay, no matter how brief, would be catastrophic.

  For the moment, however, Japan faced two major threats: the first from America, which to this point was being handled diplomatically, and the second from Russia, which was still so beset with internal problems that it was becoming increasingly like a wounded animal—dangerous and unpredictable. The U.S. could shut off Japan’s supply lines anytime it chose, but the Russian navy, its ponderous presence always looming just off shore, threatened the actual physical security of the home islands. It was, to Kiyoda’s way of thinking, intolerable.

  He keyed the intercom. “ECMs, conn, we’re on the way up. I want you to scan for any emissions from that bogie to our north.” ECMs were Electronic Counter Measures, a submarine’s electronic defense system.

  “Hai, Kan-cho,” Lieutenant Masaaki Kawara, their ELINT—Electronic Intelligence—officer said. “Shall I go active, let him know we’re here?”

  “Negative,” Kiyoda said. “Just keep your ears open.”

  “Hai.”

  Among the mast-mounted sensors that could be raised above the surface when the boat was brought to periscope depth was the ZPS-8 surveillance radar antenna. If they illuminated the Russian frigate, their own radar signal would give them away. Instead, they would use a series of directional antennae and a pair of omnidirectional arrays, which would pick up and pinpoint the source of any electronic emissions within fifty nautical miles or more, depending how high out of the water they could be raised.

  The new speed and course data showed up on Kiyoda’s command screen, and he watched as the depth figures counted backward, a pictorial representation of the boat showing a five-degrees-up bubble. Minori was taking it slow. He was not only intelligent, he was cautious when need be. Submarines were nearly blind on the way up because of the turbulence and noises caused by blowing her ballast tanks.

  “Leveling off at two-zero meters,” Minori reported when they reached periscope depth.

  The status panel above the periscope well showed all three ELINT masts coming up.

  “The boat is steady and level on course and depth,” Minori said. “My board is green.”

  “Very well,” Kiyoda said. His intercom buzzed.

  “Conn, ECMs. That bogie is talking to someone in our direction,” Lieutenant Kawara reported.

  Kiyoda sat forward. “Have we been detected?” He put his tea aside.

  “Iie,” negative, the ECMs officer replied. There was a slim chance that the Russian frigate’s search radar would pick out the ELINT masts from the surface clutter and recognize them for what they were.

  “Sonar, conn, what are you showing?”

  “Nothing else on my screen, Kan-cho,” Nakayama said. “Stand by.”

  Kiyoda figured he was about to-find what he had come looking for. “Prepare for emergency dive,” he ordered.

  Minori didn’t miss a beat. “Prepare for emergency dive, yo-so-ro,” he said.

  “Conn, sonar. That bogie is definitely a Krivak class. She’s turned directly toward us and is making turns for full speed.”

  Was it a trap?
It was as if the Russian bastards had been waiting for them. But it was what he’d come for.

  “Estimated time to intercept?” Kiyoda asked.

  “Fifty-four minutes, Kan-cho,” Lieutenant Takasaki replied instantly, anticipating the request.

  It meant that the Russian sub hunter would be in dangerous range soon. But if it wasn’t a trap, if the Russians hadn’t somehow known that the Samisho would be here, then it meant she’d been detected at some point earlier, possibly as she passed through the Soya Strait between Hokkaido and Sakhalin. It was suspected that the Russians had placed submarine detectors on the seabed there.

  Minori was watching him.

  Kiyoda keyed his intercom. “ECMs, conn. Give me one sweep overhead to thirty miles.”

  “Hai,” Lieutenant Kawara said. A moment later he was back, excited. “It’s a Helix, three miles out and inbound, very fast.”

  “Bring your masts in,” Kiyoda said calmly, and he looked up at Minori. “Emergency dive. Make your depth two-zero-zero meters.”

  “Very well,” Minori replied, his voice and manner as calm as his captain’s. “Blow all tanks, flank speed forward, down full deflection. Make your depth two-zero-zero meters.”

  “Yo-so-ro.” The computer-assisted helmsman/planesman repeated the order.

  “Sound battle stations,” Kiyoda ordered.

  Minori hit the battle stations alarm, and a Klaxon horn sounded throughout the boat.

  “Load torpedo tubes one and two. Make ready Harpoon one.”

  This time Minori’s left eyebrow went up slightly, but he repeated the orders, and one by one each of the boat’s battle stations reported readiness.

  “Torpedoes one and two ready,” the torpedoman forward said.

  “Harpoon one, ready in tube three.”

  “Give me a continuous firing solution on the … intruder,” Kiyoda told his weapons control officer.

  “Passing four-zero meters,” the dive officer said, but before Minori could reply, the intercom buzzed.

  “Conn, ECMs. The helicopter has just dropped a dipping buoy.”

  “Belay that depth,” Kiyoda told Minori. “Make it five-zero meters.” A dipping buoy was a sonar unit that enabled the Russian Ka-27 Helix helicopter launched from the frigate to get a fairly accurate fix on their depth and position.

  “Yo-so-ro, five-zero meters,” Minori replied.

  “ECMs, conn, put out a decoy,” Kiyoda ordered. “Sonar, conn, give me a course, speed, and range to the target.”

  “Zero-one-zero degrees relative, speed of closure five-one knots, range just under twenty-four nautical miles.”

  Kiyoda instantly did the sums and subtractions in his head. “Come right ten degrees to course three-five-zero.”

  “Hai, coming omo-kaji, ten degrees to three-five-zero,” Minori said. It put them bow on to the Russian frigate.

  “Weapons, give me a final firing solution on the Harpoon,” Kiyoda said. The GRX-2(B) torpedoes had an effective range of fifteen miles, but the Sub-Harpoon could be used to sixty nautical miles.

  “Kan-cho, is this a drill?” Lieutenant Takasaki asked. Like Minori, he was one of the bright ones out of the Maritime Self Defense Force Academy, and Kiyoda had handpicked him. The man’s loyalty was absolute.

  Rectitude and justice, Kiyoda had learned, were the principles that it was time to die when it was right to die, and to strike when it was right to strike. His men and officers all understood that. Mishima had understood it, just as the old man, Sokichi Kamiya, understood it perfectly. Before this patrol Kiyoda had gone to see the man in the mountains outside of Tokyo. They’d sat in the garden listening to the gurgling water and the gentle music of the windchime that hung in a gnarled old tree.

  “Remember that revenge is justified only on behalf of one’s superiors and benefactors,” Kamiya-san had told him. “Revenge may never be used to correct the wrongs done to yourself, your wife, or your children.”

  “This is not a drill,” Kiyoda said. “Give me a firing solution and open torpedo door three.”

  “Hai, the solution is coming up,” the weapons control officer replied.

  Kiyoda hesitated. The sounds made by the opening torpedo-tube door would be picked up by the chopper’s sonobuoy, and understood for what they were.

  “Kan-cho, sonar, we’ve got a high-speed screw incoming,” Nakayama said excitedly. “I think the Helix dropped a torpedo on us.”

  “ECMs, conn, get it off our tail,” Kiyoda ordered, keeping his voice calm. Everything was happening as he’d planned it. The Russians were easy to manipulate, especially now. “Come left thirty degrees to new course three-two-zero, and ring for emergency stop.”

  There was no way they could outrun the torpedo, so their only recourse was to make it think they had by turning and slowing down while releasing a stream of bubblemakers that would drift straight ahead at the old speed long enough for the torpedo to home in on the false target.

  “Give me the new solution,” Kiyoda said. Minori glanced over him and a slight smile creased the corners of his mouth. He understood.

  “The solution is on my board,” Lieutenant Takasaki reported crisply. He too was excited.

  “Conn, Kan-cho, the torp took the bait!”

  “Hai,” Kiyoda said. “Watch for the second one.” The Helix carried two torpedoes. “Match bearings and shoot tube three.”

  Takasaki hesitated a fraction of a second, then uncaged the firing switch and flipped it. “Missile away,” he called out.

  “Time to impact?”

  “I’m estimating forty-eight seconds after surface ignition,” Takasaki said.

  The Sub-Harpoon was blown out of the torpedo tube and was carried to the surface in a buoyant canister that was jettisoned when the missile came to launch position. At that point its rocket motors fired, and it accelerated toward its target at just under Mach one, its terminal radar active until lock-on. It was simple, and very effective. In this version, the warhead consisted of seven hundred fifty pounds of high explosives jacketed in a high-carbon-steel case designed to penetrate well within the bowels of a ship before it blew.

  Takasaki was watching the launch clock. “Ignition now,” he called out.

  “Sonar, conn, what’s our bogie doing?”

  “Same course and speed, Kan-cho.”

  “Watch for the torp …”

  “Here it comes, here it comes, but it’s farther away this time,” the sonarman radioed. “Right on our starboard bow.”

  “Come right ten degrees to three-three-zero,” Kiyoda said. “Target number one on that torpedo and launch when ready.”

  It was a tricky maneuver. Minori had the boat turning practically in its own length, and even before the turn was completed Takasaki launched their torpedo from tube one.

  “Eight seconds to impact,” he called out.

  “Come left one-five-zero degrees to new course one-eight-zero, emergency dive to two-five-zero meters.”

  “Hai, coming left one-five-zero degrees to one-eight-zero, emergency dive to two-five-zero meters,” Minori repeated, and the boat heeled over to port, nose down as it accelerated.

  A tremendous explosion hammered the hull.

  “We got it,” the sonarman reported unnecessarily, and Kiyoda laughed. It had begun.

  “Give me a damage report,” Minori was shouting into the intercom.

  Takasaki was looking at the captain. “Shouldn’t we wait to see what damage we’ve done to that frigate?”

  “Time to impact?” Kiyoda asked.

  Takasaki checked his board. “Nine seconds.”

  “I trust your shooting, Shuichiyo. Besides, I don’t want that Helix crew picking up our sail number.”

  “They’ll know,” Minori said.

  “But they fired the first shot,” Kiyoda said.

  The snow had tapered off in the late morning hours, and by early afternoon most of Washington, D.C., was back to normal. By 6:30, when Carrara was able to leave his office, the parking lot had been
plowed, although the forecast was for more of the white stuff overnight.

  He’d done a lot of thinking about what McGarvey had told him, but he wasn’t in the position to do his old friend much good, although it was his understanding that the meeting with Yemlin had gone off without a hitch. He’d gotten that call from a Yemlin aide at home last night.

  Deputy Director Lawrence Danielle wasn’t saying much, and nothing had come down from the seventh floor. But as he told Mac, it wasn’t likely that the DCI or the White House would be interested in helping out. It was a private-sector problem, and official policy was to leave it at that. After the President’s economic summit in Tokyo the situation might be different, but they’d have to wait and see.

  His car phone buzzed just as he was pulling out of his parking slot. He stopped and picked it up.

  “Yes?”

  “Mr. Danielle wanted to catch you before you got too far,” the DDCI’s secretary said. “He would like you in his office as soon as possible.”

  “I’m still in the parking lot,” Carrara said, pulling back into his slot. “Be right up.”

  Danielle was waiting for him in his conference room, a dozen large photographs spread out on the table. With him was the Agency’s senior photo analyst, Nathan Conley, a short, slightly built man who’d come to them from the Defense Intelligence Agency after the University of Minnesota. Carrara had worked with him before.

  “I don’t know if this is coincidence or not, Phil, coming on the heels of Kirk McGarvey’s visit, but it sure as hell is going to get the DCI’s attention,” Danielle said. He was an older man, stoop shouldered, with thinning white hair and a pale, almost translucent face.

  “What have we got?” Carrara asked.

  “These shots were taken by our KH-14 recon satellite less than an hour ago,” Conley said. “Over the Tatar Strait, between the Siberian mainland and Sakhalin Island. We got lucky with the weather.”