That would cause outrage in the United States. There would be demands that the President act. It would be the 1980 Tehran hostage crisis all over again. And if the Clarke administration failed to frighten China into releasing the ship and its company, they too would be finished.
As potential crises go, this one was well on its way, but SUBPAC and its masters in the Pentagon were not announcing anything until Seawolf arrived in Canton and the Joint Chiefs could see precisely how the cards fell.
Meanwhile, Captain Crocker summoned Lt. Commander Mike Schulz, and the two of them went alone into the reactor compartment.
“Mike,” said the CO, “I don’t know what’s going to happen when we get to Canton. But there must be a chance the Chinese are going to try and get complete details of this submarine. I have some unwritten orders from the CNO in the event we fall into enemy hands. And it involves that isolating valve on the emergency cooling system. The one we both looked at in New London. I want you to activate it right now, so there will be no indications of failure when it fails.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” replied Lt. Commander Schulz.
And so the Americans lurched on up the channel, the big steel hawser taking the strain as it had done for almost 150 miles now. They cleared the more agricultural reaches of the Delta, still moving north as fast as the destroyer and the tugs could drag and push them.
But it was three o’clock in the sweltering afternoon when they eased into the narrowing river and made their way into the submarine jetty. Judd Crocker decided there was no point in sealing themselves inside, and he and Master Chief Stockton opened the hatch and went up onto the bridge.
They blinked in the fitful sunbeams that now penetrated the rain clouds, and they blinked at the chilling sight that awaited them. A 200-strong armed naval guard was in formation on the jetty as they pulled alongside. The tugs edged Seawolf in, her 350-foot-long portside against the dock.
The Chinese used their own gangway to board the American ship. Immediately 20 of the guards crossed onto the casing and took up positions, still with their arms at the ready, in groups of five, covering the four main hatches. There was no way off the submarine, and in a matter of moments, the brutal reality of the situation was rammed home to both men staring down from the bridge.
A Chinese naval officer walked across the gangway carrying a bullhorn and he aimed it high, straight at them. Then in immaculate English he read out a written statement to Captain Crocker and his men:
“My name is Commander Li Zemin. I am in charge of all security at the Canton Naval Base of the People’s Republic of China. We believe your submarine to be carrying formal weapons of war, including a nuclear capability. These foreign weapons are strictly banned in the waters of the South China Sea. They are banned by the Paramount Ruler of the Republic, and here in China we insist that our laws and customs are obeyed.
“The crew of this ship is thus under arrest under the laws of the People’s Republic and you will begin disembarking, enlisted men first, then your petty officers and junior officers, with the high command of the ship disembarking last.
“We are in touch with your government, which denies you ever had orders to come so close to our shores. We thus hold you responsible, each man personally, for this most unfortunate breach of the peaceful trade routes of China. In due course you will face trial, and this may mean a long term of imprisonment.
“Meanwhile, you will begin vacating the ship. But you will leave the nuclear plant running, and you will permit your chief nuclear engineering officer to remain in the reactor room in order to confer with our Chinese naval scientists.
“Needless to say, should anyone offer any armed or physical resistance whatsoever, he will be shot instantly, plus a minimum of two of his colleagues. Now open the doors and begin filing out with your hands above your heads. You will be unarmed. Any man found carrying any weapon will be instantly executed.”
It had taken Admiral Zhang Yushu all morning to write that speech, and he was immensely proud of it. “Show those arrogant bastards who’s boss now, right, Jicai?”
Up on the bridge, Judd Crocker felt the wintry realization of their plight. There was no way around this. Unbelievably, but irrevocably, he and his crew were prisoners of the Chinese, and the way Commander Li was talking, that was liable to be so for a long time. Thoughts surged through his mind. What would the Pentagon do? What about the government? What about the President? How long would this nightmare last?
Whichever way he sliced up the problem, the Chinese were in the saddle right now. And at 17 minutes after 3:00 on that Friday afternoon, the commanding officer of USS Seawolf ordered the ship’s company to vacate the submarine and to surrender to Commander Li’s men in the precise manner he had ordered.
Beyond the jetty, he could see a line of 10 open Navy trucks, each one surrounded by more armed guards and drivers. Admiral Zhang had been flying them in all day, in small military aircraft from both Zhanjiang and Xiamen.
And now the door was opened and the CO saw the young Californian seaman recruit, Kirk Sarloos, lead the men out, his hands high behind the back of his head. There was something almost surreal about this, almost as if it could not be happening. But it was happening, and it was happening badly. A guard stepped forward and slammed the butt of his rifle into the small of Kirk’s back, knocking him hard toward the gangway. It was a long time since any of the Americans had witnessed gratuitous violence, some of them never. But there was no doubt that they were about to discover the realities of captivity in a country with a human rights record bordering on the plain barbaric.
The Chinese marched the Americans off the ship in groups of 10, herding them toward the trucks, throwing the occasional kick, the occasional punch, the occasional slam of a rifle butt. Not many of the crew made the trucks without some painful reminders, and the towering engineer from Ohio, Tony Fontana, received a massive blow to the head with a pistol for calling the Commander a “slit-eyed, fourth-rate Chinese motherfucker who ought to be working in a goddamned laundry.”
Then one of the deck crew laughed and was knocked unconscious for his trouble. Things were looking very bad from where Captain Crocker stood.
The evacuation took an hour before Commander Li, in the company of eight guards, entered the ship and ordered the two Americans off the bridge. He instructed them to stand unarmed in the control room while his men took down details of their names and ranks.
He formally told the CO that Seawolf was now confiscated by the Navy of the People’s Republic. The American crew had been taken to a civilian jail within the boundaries of the City of Canton, but the “High Command” of the ship, which would include the senior engineering officers, would be detained in the naval compound, while the “extraordinary engineers of China become familiar with the submarine.”
It was five o’clock in the afternoon before Judd Crocker, Bruce Lucas, Cy Rothstein, Shawn Pearson, Andy Warren, and Brad Stockton were individually marched out at gunpoint and driven to a cell block designed for Navy discipline but currently unoccupied. It was a low gray single-story building with small, high windows that had probably not been, cleaned since the Revolution. A smiling portrait of Mao Zedong was painted on the end wall.
Each cell was tiny, filthy, eight feet wide by nine feet long, with a full-length steel-barred door, like something from an old Western movie. There was a stark wooden bench, a bucket, and no water. And one by one the guards pushed the men inside and slammed the doors shut and locked. The six cells were adjoining and faced a dirt-floored outside corridor that went right around. There were four empty cells at the end of the corridor now occupied by Judd and his men, which probably meant that there were 10 more cells in the back. Judging by the silence, they were empty.
As the last door slammed on Brad Stockton, Commander Li came briskly through the outside door and walked slowly past all six of the Americans.
“These are temporary quarters,” he said. “You will be moved tomorrow with the rest of your men. But f
irst you will meet the most distinguished Commander-in-Chief of the People’s Navy, who will discuss with you the terms of your stay here…and the degree of technical cooperation we expect from you.”
At this point Captain Crocker spoke for the first time. “Commander, we are obliged to provide you with our names, ranks, and serial numbers, under the terms of the Geneva Convention of 1949. We are not obliged to provide you with anything further. Those are the rules of war, and are generally adhered to by all countries. Civilized countries, that is.”
“Two things, Captain Crocker,” snapped Commander Li. “First, my country had been a very substantial civilization for four thousand years when your people were still eating tree roots. Second, we are not at war, which I suggest makes the Geneva Convention irrelevant.”
“You are treating my men as if we were at war.”
“Perhaps a different kind of war, Captain Crocker. Be ready to meet our exalted Commander-in-Chief, Admiral Zhang Yushu, in one hour. I think you will find him…persuasive. In terms of pure science, of course.”
1800.
Office of the Southern Fleet Commander.
Canton Navy Base.
Admiral Zhang Yushu occupied the big chair and desk normally reserved for the Southern Commander, Admiral Zu Jicai. Gathered around him in this great carpeted military office, seated on huge, carved wooden antique “thrones,” was the very backbone of the Navy of China. To his right sat his friend Jicai, under whose command Seawolf now fell.
Admiral Yibo Yunsheng, the Eastern Fleet Commander, had just flown in from Shanghai. A former commanding officer of the old strategic missile submarine Xia, Yibo was a wise and tested warhorse of the Chinese Navy, and Zhang put great trust in his words.
The Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Sang Ye, had arrived from Beijing. He and Zhang had known each other for many years, and neither would tolerate a wrong word about the other. Sang Ye held great influence over the purse strings of the Chinese Navy, and this was an operation that might require the spending of big money.
The Chief of the General Staff himself, Qiao Jiyun, had flown to Canton on the same private jet that had brought Sang Ye, because it was plainly not merely a matter for the Navy. This was a national military matter that might, if improperly handled, suck China into a headlong confrontation with the USA.
To stress the strong political ramifications of the situation, the Paramount Ruler had insisted that the newly promoted Political Commissar of the People’s Liberation Army/Navy, Admiral Xue Qing, attend this strategy meeting in company with a full staff of deputies, who now waited in an outside room.
The main office, in which now sat the most senior figures in the Chinese Navy, was not really an office at all, but much more of a room of state, as if transplanted from the Great Hall of the People. It seemed to be a thousand years old with its massive 100-foot-long antique Persian rug, which had once been transported with Marco Polo all the way along the old Silk Road.
But the room was only four years old, constructed especially for great meetings such as these in one of the buildings of China’s new Senior Service. Only since the turn of the twentieth century had the colossal importance of the Navy been recognized. It had plainly superseded the Army as the front line of China’s military ambitions, and indeed defense.
For several years, visiting politicians and commanders had sat in plain functional Navy-base rooms until, one morning back in 1999, the Paramount Ruler himself expressed disgust that the most exalted and trusted people in the entire country were somehow sitting in a military slum attempting to solve the destiny of one and a quarter billion people.
“I like coming to Ghuangzhou,” he had said, using as ever the modern Chinese name. “And I am always honored to talk to my commanders here, and to see our great ships. But please, will someone provide us with a comfortable room in which we may speak—something commensurate perhaps with the expectations of those who occupy high offices of state, and from whom much is expected.”
Thus the great room was constructed, with four towering round columns decorated with deeply patterned red silk. Exquisite ornamental lacquer ware, inlaid with gold, from the Ming dynasty of the mid-fifteenth century, was placed upon the most spectacular carved tables from the same period. Upon the wall, behind Admiral Zhang, was a giant painting of the procession of the Ming Emperor Wuzong, his ornate carriage of state pulled forward by a team of elephants.
Two paintings of similar size, each 10 feet in height, were set above the door, one of the former Paramount Ruler Mao Zedong, the other of the Great Reformer Deng Xiaoping, who had once occupied the chairmanship of the Military Affairs Commission. It was he who had promoted Zhang Yushu to C-in-C of the Navy.
And now Deng’s protégé sat at the enormous 12-foot-square carved desk, flanked on either side by two traditional high blue-and-white Ming vases, placed strategically, port and starboard, upon the scarlet leather. They were there as a testimony not only to the grandeur of Chinese culture, but also as a reminder to visiting foreign commanders and dignitaries that China invented fine porcelain in the seventh century, or, as the Paramount Ruler preferred to state it, “One thousand years before Europe, porcelain that has never been equaled.”
Staring happily out from between the vases, Zhang looked like an emperor himself. He called the meeting to order and quickly outlined the story of the captured American submarine.
“Frankly,” he said, “the submarine is an embarrassment. Its presence here will infuriate the Americans, who will, first, want it back, second, invent ways to punish us economically and third, may even carry out military action against us, which would be unfortunate in the extreme.
“The USA is very powerful and very vicious when it has a mind to be. And they would have a case against us. Whatever we may say diplomatically, their submarine was in international waters, where they had a perfect right to be…and we have effectively stolen it.
“However, that will not of course be our argument. We will concentrate on how shocked we are that the USA should have brought such a weapon of mass destruction that close to our coastline—as close as the Cuban missiles were to theirs in 1962 when President Kennedy was happy to risk starting a world war.
“Gentlemen, I should like to clarify our purpose. In our great quest to create a modern, blue-water Navy, we lack one thing—the knowledge to build world-class submarines, which is the one boat that will always keep us safe from attack, allow us to blockade and retake Taiwan, and provide us with control over the world’s shipping routes to the east. But despite all of our careful acquisition of the secret computer formulas and discoveries of Western nations, we have not been able to copy them adequately. There are subtleties in the systems that we do not understand.…”
Admiral Zhang quite suddenly stood up. And he paced behind his chair in front of Emperor Wuzong’s parade, and then he stated very simply, “Gentlemen, the answer to all of our prayers is currently parked on submarine jetty zero-five.”
He paused to allow the full effect of his words to settle on his colleagues. And he added, “Working from plans and documents is one thing, but it is not nearly so effective as working from the real thing, which you can touch, and dismantle and restart, and strip down and examine with the finest available minds in China, and even beyond. I have already sent for a team of twelve senior submarine engineers and scientists from the Russian Central Design Bureau of Marine Engineering in Saint Petersburg.
“They were of course reluctant to come at such short notice, but we are, as you know, their biggest customers these days, by a very long way. And they felt they had to oblige us. I sent a military aircraft to bring them in, in the hope that my friend and colleague Vice Admiral Sang Ye will not object to the expenditure.”
“I am honored to write the check in this instance,” said the Navy Chief of Staff, smiling.
“I am also flying in two other Russian sonar engineers in another plane from Gorky leaving tomorrow…and I hope that will be agreeable as well?”
“Oh, no. Most certainly not. It’s just a military aircraft of ours, based out on our far western border. It will refuel there, on the way back to us.”
“And the fee to Central Design for the technicians?”
“Er…two million American dollars.”
“Expensive people.”
“Yes, Admiral. But for this we must have the best. Can you believe our good fortune? We stand today on the brink of building underwater ships that can compete with the Americans. In my view, Seawolf has saved us twenty-five years of research, by which time we would still be behind.”
“How long, Admiral Zhang, do we need the submarine?” asked the Political Commissar, Admiral Xue Qing.
“We could make limited progress in two months. We’d need years to make a complete examination and copy.”
“And what do you propose to tell the Americans during that time?”
U.S.S. Seawolf Page 14