U.S.S. Seawolf

by Patrick Robinson

  “It’s a big ocean, and we don’t really know where to start, huh?”

  “No. We don’t. But I am wondering whether that slight valve problem that has caused our submarine to put into Xiamen tonight might, in the end, be good for us.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, if you were the American Commander and you were quietly following the Xia down the Yellow Sea and she suddenly broke off and headed down the shallow Taiwan Strait on the surface, what would you do?”

  “I don’t know, really, but with a big ship like Seawolf, I obviously could not follow her.”

  “Correct. So what would you do? Wait…I’ll tell you. First, you would guess there was a problem and that she was heading for one of our bases on the far shore, right? And you, my friend Jicai, driving that very fast American attack submarine, would race right around the outside of Taiwan and try to pick her up again when she exits the Strait at the south end.”

  “Well,” said the Southern Commander thoughtfully, “you could send the Xia back to the north end, leaving the Americans stranded 300 miles away in the south.”

  “No point. The American satellites would pick the Xia up in an instant, and simply-let Seawolf know where she was.”

  “You don’t think the Americans would actually hit the Xia, do you?”

  “Jicai, I really do not know. The trouble with submarines is they don’t get hit. At least not publicly. They just vanish, usually in thousands of feet of water. If Seawolf did hit our new submarine we would have no idea where it was. It could take years to find. We don’t have the technology—and even if we found it, we could certainly not bring it to the surface. It would just be another of those submarine mysteries. And there would be no point even asking the Pentagon. They’d just say they had no idea what we were talking about.”

  “That’s why you are so anxious to get them out of our waters, eh?”

  “Precisely. But I do know one thing. They are out there. I feel it. I am certain of it. I know them so well.”

  The following morning, Admiral Zhang went for a long walk very early, before the heat of the morning set in. Then he and Admiral Zu had a light breakfast of tea and pastries before taking the short walk down to the shore, where the naval launch picked them up and ferried them over to the base.

  Although Zhang was technically in charge of the entire Chinese Navy, it was Admiral Zu, working now in one of his own Southern Fleet bases, who called a staff meeting of six commanding officers currently in residence with their ships’ operational, destroyer and frigate captains.

  He carefully explained the suspicions of the Commander-in-Chief, who sat impassively beside him. And he mentioned to them the possible detection by the Kilo, three days previous, of an American nuclear submarine.

  He outlined an area off the southwest coast of Taiwan where he expected the American boat to be waiting tomorrow around midday. He pinpointed the position, 22.45N 119.50E, in the southern entrance to the Strait, 20 miles west of the Taiwan Banks, where the ocean shelves away from 300 feet to 1,000 feet. “That’s submarine country, gentlemen,” he said. “As you all well know.

  “Tomorrow morning the Xia will leave Xiamen and head back out to deeper water to continue her trials,” he told them. “The American satellite will undoubtedly observe this. We thus expect the Americans to be on station somewhere around the area I have just given you, and the wishes of our Commander-in-Chief are that you open up with a barrage of depth charges and mortars. We want you to make enough noise to suggest a war is starting.

  “Essentially we want to frighten them off—send them back to Pearl Harbor. But if one or more of you happens to blow the American hull apart and sink her, then you will receive the unspoken but nonetheless heartfelt thanks of our country.”

  All six of the commanding officers smiled, and for the first time Admiral Zhang himself stood up and spoke to them. “Gentlemen, I am sure you understand. Such a terrible shame if the Americans brought their best submarine blundering into our waters, without telling us, right into the middle of one of our frequent fleet exercises in antisubmarine warfare. Such a pity for them to lose a great ship like that…but what can we say? We had no idea they were there. Most unfortunate. Most unfortunate.”

  That speech received a serious laugh, with much nodding of heads, as the captains left to rejoin their warships.

  Their little fleet would comprise the two heavily gunned Luda-class guided missile destroyers, Zhanjiang and Nanchang, both equipped with two FQF antisubmarine mortars (range 1,200 meters) plus four BMB depth-charge projectors. The new updated Luda III-class destroyer Zuhai, the fastest of the three, would be the only one carrying the CY-1 antisubmarine weapon.

  The three light frigates were all of the Jianghu-class (Type 053), Shantou, Kangding, and Jishou, 1,500-tonners, all with A/S mortars and racks of depth charges, plus the Echo Type 5 sonar system, hull-mounted, active search and attack, medium frequency.

  “Thank you, gentlemen,” said the C-in-C. “I know you will not let me down.”

  300700JUN06.

  22.00N 120.10E.

  Depth 300 feet. Speed 12.

  Bearing zero-two-zero.

  USS Seawolf was creeping silently along southwestern Taiwan, heading nor’nor’east, staying in the deep water, 18 miles offshore. Lt. Shawn Pearson was hunched over his chart, plotting their course inch by inch up the coast. “We can continue along here for quite a way, sir,” he said. “Seventy miles from now, still holding this course, we’ll still be in almost five hundred feet of water…wanna leave two sandbanks to port twenty-five miles farther on from here, but aside from that we’re golden.”

  “Our biggest problem is knowing when the Xia leaves,” replied the CO. “It’s only about seventy miles from the Xiamen base to the choke point of the Strait. She’s gonna be across here, on the surface, hopefully just south of us, in about three hours. If the satellite passes don’t fit our program we just need to get inshore and watch for her to show up.”

  “She’s big enough, sir,” said Frank. “Half again as big as us. And she makes a noise. If she comes this way, we’ll find her.”

  In fact Seawolf picked her up at 1130, 18 miles away. It was a sharp piece of work by the technicians, because they had been busy in the previous hour with a lot of surface ships, all Chinese, all Navy, all growling their way out from Xiamen, probably on some kind of an exercise.

  Right now Judd Crocker had his ship positioned at 23.25N 119.55E, facing the open sea, with Taiwan 20 miles astern. They patrolled slowly, just south of the lonely Peng-hu Islands, with their miles of breathtakingly perfect sandy beaches.

  The ops room was still picking up a lot of activity 30 miles to the southwest, but that was not a priority. The priority, all 13,000 tons of her, was right now headed at 25 knots to a point 20 miles southwest, and Judd Crocker ordered, “Left standard rudder…make your course two-one-zero…make your speed fifteen knots.”

  That way he figured he’d run right in behind the Xia and finally track her out to the really deep water he craved. But one hour later, the picture changed rapidly. Sonar picked up a succession of thunderous explosions in the water, the unmistakable sound of antisubmarine depth charges.

  What the hell’s going on?

  That was one unspoken question. But there was another more important one running through the assembled minds: Have they spotted us?

  If they have, they’re a bit off target, thought the CO. They are moving toward us, but their depth charges are going off 10 miles south of us. Since one of ’em has to blast within 15 feet of the pressure hull to do any serious damage…well, right now it’s not life-threatening.

  Typically, Judd said, “Well, XO, what do you make of all this?”

  “Not a problem yet, sir,” said Clarke. “But if they are advancing in line, and hammering away with all that hardware, they have us in some kind of a trap, right? We can’t go north into the shallow water, and they are to the south of us. We have to go through them. Sir, they’ve
got us bottled up.”

  “Not quite, Linus,” replied the CO, not ordering a change in speed or direction. And now the explosions were growing louder, a situation Judd knew was going to get worse. At 3,000 yards a depth charge can sound like an atomic bomb, if you’re scared.

  “Conn-Sonar. Heavy ordnance out there right now, sir. Still depth charges and some lighter stuff as well.”

  “Scare charges, possibly hand grenades,” muttered the CO. “They haven’t the first idea whether we’re here or not. Gimme a reading on the Xia.”

  “Still making at twenty-five knots on the surface, sir. Still on course one-three-five. She’ll pass four thousand yards to our southwest. The way the Chinese Battle Group’s moving, she’ll be about three miles north of ’em when we pick her up.”

  “Thanks, Kyle.”

  Seawolf kept moving stealthily forward, slowing down to ensure her precise position astern of the Xia when the moment came. It was like maneuvering at the start of a yacht race, into the final countdown, burning off time, jockeying for position. Judd Crocker, personally at the conn, was good at that, not as good as his father, but certainly too good for the Chinese.

  “I’m going in closer,” he said, amid the thunder of the charges. “Right in tight behind the Xia, maybe less than a mile…watch it for me, Linus…check with Kyle and Shawn…this is pretty damned tricky…remember that right now we can’t go real deep if we get caught…keep our speed as low as possible…but get right on the stern of that damned big submarine of theirs.

  “Those frigates will sure as hell stop throwing depth charges and mortars when she closes them. I’m not sure how good a shot their lead mortar man is, but he doesn’t want to slam one into China’s newest submarine. They’d probably execute him…so they’ll let up for sure while the Xia goes through.

  “Then they’ll probably start up again, but by that time we’ll be through as well, so long as we get in real tight, right in her stern arcs. I’m coming to periscope depth for a quick look. How’s your trim, Andy?”

  Seawolf’s massive hull angled up and then leveled off right below the surface. The periscope slid smoothly up from the top of the sail, breaking the surface of the calm turquoise sea.

  “She’s right where she’s supposed to be…I’d say she’ll cross our bow in the next five minutes.…still heading southeast.”

  “DOWN PERISCOPE…FIVE DOWN…MAKE YOUR DEPTH THREE HUNDRED.

  “Don’t want to hang around near the surface too long,” muttered the captain. “Even though we’re far away from any shore radar, and those warships are causing such a commotion they probably wouldn’t detect us if we ran up a flag. But we take no chances…not in this game. We just assume that every man’s hand is turned against us.”

  Seawolf edged forward, running smoothly now at 10 knots, her sonar room softly tracking the oncoming Xia on passive. “Okay, sir…we should turn in right now…”

  “Left standard rudder…course one-three-five…make your depth three hundred feet…increase speed…twenty-five knots…we’re going in now…”

  Clarke now had the conn, and he steered the American prowler almost into the wake of the Xia. There was less than 1,000 yards between them, but at this depth Seawolf left no telltale surface disturbance, and her superb acoustic cladding made her almost undetectable.

  The thunder of the depth charges was growing louder now, inside the two-mile range. For the past few minutes it had seemed as if they were headed into a major war zone, as the mortars detonated with booming resonance deep in the sunlit summer waters of the Strait.

  “Enough to wake the dead,” observed Brad Stockton.

  “Worse than that,” added the CO. “It’s enough to wake the Taiwanese Navy. They’ll be wondering what the hell is going on. Dollars to doughnuts they’re on the horn to the Pentagon right now, reporting that mainland China appears to have declared war.”

  At 25 knots, the Xia and her shadow were covering a mile every two and a half minutes. And suddenly the underwater bombardment stopped as the giant Chinese missile boat came within range. Up on the surface the three Luda-class destroyers formed up line astern to watch the great symbol of Chinese naval power come steaming by on the surface. Captains are called Colonels in the People’s Liberation Army/Navy, and all three of them now stood with the ship’s company, beneath the ensign of the PLAN, the scarlet flag with its single yellow star set above the distinctive black and white bars. The three Jianghu frigates formed up identically to the east, and the entire six-ship Fleet offered a salute as the Xia went by, officers and men alike cheering and clapping as she rolled past.

  They were still cheering as she steamed away from them, for almost a mile—almost a mile too long for Judd Crocker and his men, who had also slid right by, literally under the Chinese noses. And now Seawolf was safely heading southeast, beyond the barrage. And when the depth charges began anew, blasting holes in the calm waters, in a northern direction, it was much too late to harm the American interloper. And soon the noises began to soften and then die away altogether, as Clarke gunned Seawolf onward out into the deep Pacific, away from Admiral Zhang’s trap.

  Now there was complete peace beyond the Americans’ pressure hull as they proceeded along the lovely south coast of Taiwan, where the plains of lush farmlands rise up to meet the great range of the Chungyang Mountains sweeping southward, down to the sea.

  “SHE DIVES, SIR!…THE XIA’S GOING DEEP…MAINTAINS HER SPEED AND BEARING…RANGE ONE MILE…”

  “Let’s drop a little farther behind now…we can follow her easily at two miles,” said the captain. “Just wanna be on the safe side, and we don’t need to be so close. Make your speed fifteen for six minutes…then return to twenty-five…so long as the Chinaman maintains…watch her, Kyle.”

  And now the two submarines moved in tandem. At the 22-degree line of latitude the Xia made a course change to the southwest, running fast down the coast of the mainland province of Guangdong, about 65 miles offshore in water 10,000 feet deep.

  In Judd Crocker’s view she was headed for an unknown ops area where she would conduct her sea trials. By 1830 they were 300 miles shy of the Canton Roads, forbidden waters for centuries to all but Chinese shipping. This rule, of course, excluded the British, who arrived regularly, assuming as ever their general ownership of the entire world, and ultimately not giving a bilge rat’s ass whether they were invited or not.

  Pearson estimated they would be right off Canton (Guangzhou in modern Chinese) by first light on July 1. Meanwhile, in company with Xia III, they charged through the night on a head of steam generated by Thompson’s sweet-running pressurized water reactor (PWR).

  The other major head of steam in Chinese waters that evening was generated by a fuming Admiral Zhang, who glowered across at the lazy, gaff-rigged junks while he made the short ferry journey home to Gulangyu. No wreckage had been found, no one had reported any kind of a hit or oil slick, and his captains had been driven to the conclusion that no American nuclear boat was tracking the new Xia at this time. Each of the surface warships had kept up the barrage around the new Chinese submarine for a total of two hours, and had blown upward of 200 depth charges and the same number of ASW mortars. Result: a big fat nothing.

  Zhang did not believe them. At least, he did not believe their conclusion. But he did believe they had tried and missed. Which was a personal blow to him, because in his heart he had truly hoped one of those depth charges would have blown a big hole in the hull of USS Seawolf. The fact that they had not done so merely meant they had not fired one close enough. It did not mean Seawolf was not there. It meant that she was devilishly hard to find, and that she was being driven by a master, with a brilliantly competent crew.

  0900. Friday, June 30.

  Office of the National Security Adviser

  to the President.

  At one minute past the hour Admiral Morgan let fly, ignoring as ever the state-of-the-art White House telephone system.

  “COFFEE!” he bellowed.

/>   At one minute and eight seconds past the hour, his door opened briskly and Kathy O’Brien walked in.

  “Good. Nice and quick. The way I like it. Bit more practice and you’ll be just fine.”

  The admiral did not look up.

  “I am afraid that even I, even at my most devoted, cannot produce coffee the way you like it in under ten seconds.”

  “Right,” he said, still not looking up. “Three buckshot and stir, s’il vous plaît…”

  The admiral had taken to the use of occasional French phrases ever since their perfect weekend in Paris in April. Kathy hoped that one more visit would persuade him that the t in plaît was in fact silent.

  “Oh, Great One,” she said, “whose mind operates only on matters so huge the rest of us mortals can’t quite get it…I bring messages from the military.”

  And she scuffed his papers all over the place and told him that she loved him, even though she had only just got to work, whereas he had been at his desk since 0600.