“Chongqing, Jicai,” he said. “That’s the answer, the remotest jail, in the remotest city, almost unapproachable by air, a nightmare by road, and no ocean. Not even the Americans could storm that place. And anyway, they would never, never find their prisoners. No one ever has, not in the old jails of Chongqing. Ten weeks from now the place goes under a blanket of fog. The American satellites would find that nearly impossible, even if they knew where to look.”
“But, Yushu, those jails have not been used for a half-century—they will be in disrepair…what about water and electricity?”
“Jicai, let me ask you a general knowledge question: What lies three hundred and fifty miles downstream along the Yangtze from Chongqing?”
“At Yichang? Well, the Three Gorges Dam, of course. I don’t quite see what that has to do with it.”
“Because, Jicai, on that massive project there are a half-million of our workers, many of them skilled. There are billions of tons of cement and steel and machinery. Technicians working on one of the biggest hydroelectric projects on earth…one good shipload of men and material, and I’ll have one of those jails up and running inside one week. Off limits to all tourists for a hundred years.”
“I’ll say one thing, my great leader,” replied Admiral Zu. “It has never been a problem for you to think big. Really big. And I agree. If you could make those arrangements, I don’t think the Americans would ever find their submarine crew.”
1200. Tuesday, July 11.
SPECWARCOM HQ.
Coronado, San Diego.
Admiral John Bergstrom was putting together his SEAL strike force as if the mission were taking place tomorrow. Which it most definitely was not, because no one knew where the crew of Seawolf was located.
Nonetheless, he was operating on two assumptions: One, that the location would be somewhere near the sea, in accordance with the intelligence theories being advanced by Admiral Morgan and Colonel Hart. Two, there would have to be a detailed reconnaissance, probably sending in a dozen SEALs to wherever the hell the crew were discovered.
All day he and Admiral Morgan had conferred, and the President’s security adviser-was growing more and more irritated at the intelligence community in Fort Meade, which had been working flat-out six-hour shifts all through the night. Right now the situation was approaching dire. Admiral Bergstrom had his team in order, under the driving force of Lt. Commander Rick Hunter. But they were operating in a vacuum. Detailed plans for the assault were being drawn up, involving the best men among the 2,300 SEALs, but no one knew what they were supposed to assault. It was hugely frustrating.
Four hours from now, at 1600 (local), the now 64-strong SEAL attack force would fly from the U.S. Naval Air Station at North Island, San Diego, to the air facility the U.S. has maintained at Okinawa, one of the remote Japanese islands that stretch for 540 miles southwesterly from the final mainland of Kyushu down to within 100 miles of the northeast coast of Taiwan. Okinawa is situated about halfway down the island chain, 950 miles east-nor’ east of the Pearl River Delta.
From Okinawa, the SEALs were scheduled to be ferried by one of the Navy’s giant Sikorsky CH-53D Sea Stallion assault helicopters to the flight deck of the 100,000-ton Nimitz-class aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan. The Sea Stallion helicopter carries 38 troops and would make three journeys between the airfield and the carrier, bringing in the 64 SEALs and all of their gear, plus Colonel Frank Hart, who was expected momentarily in Admiral Bergstrom’s office.
In fact, he arrived at 1300, and John Bergstrom was glad to see him. The colonel’s reputation had not been sullied among the military, only among certain left-wing politicians and their followers, usually referred to, affectionately, by Arnold Morgan as “the goddamned know-nothings.”
“Glad to see you, Frank. How you been?”
“You ever done a couple of days solid with Admiral Morgan in his lair?”
John Bergstrom chuckled. “Coupla times. He’s something, isn’t he?”
“Well, aside from the fact that he misses nothing, out-thinks everyone, doesn’t need sleep, forgets to eat, forgets to go home, yells at people, and is probably the rudest man ever to work in the White House, except for Lyndon Johnson forty years ago…well, it was a breeze.”
“Did you learn anything?”
“Everything.”
“Frank, I am glad to have you aboard. If the admiral hadn’t recruited you, I’d have gone myself. It’s gotta be one hell of a dangerous mission, especially if the guys have to fight their way out and we have to get ’em off the beaches. That’s likely to be one helluva job.”
“I know it. What time are we leaving?”
“Takeoff at sixteen hundred from North Island. Using a big Galaxy on its way to DG. There’s a few things you and I should go over right now: the list of gear, lines of communication, procedures if we have to abort, details of your principal commanders, makeup of the reconnaissance team, all of which I’ll spell out for you. We’ve done our preparations on that. I have a file on it.”
“Okay, John. All we need now is to find out what we’re attacking, and where the recon goes in.…I just hope the water’s not too shallow. The new ASDVs have a good long range, but I doubt SUBPAC wants its ships on the surface if it can be avoided.”
“They sure don’t, Frank. But as you know, this mission carries with it some spectacular baggage. And if it’s humanly possible, we have to get it done. Meantime, I’ve asked your recon team leader to come in and meet you in the next few minutes.”
“Great, John. Who is he?”
Too late. The door opened and through it walked a legendary SEAL, Lt. Commander Russell Bennett, senior BUD/S instructor at Coronado, veteran team leader of a diabolical attack on the Iranian submarines in Bandar Abbas four years previous, veteran of the Gulf War, veteran member of the SEAL team that memorably blew the engine of General Noriega’s presidential yacht 100 feet into the air above Balboa Harbor. “Mark one-thirty-eight demo charges, right on the shaft,” reported SEAL Bennett.
He was 38 now, but still harder and fitter than the iron men he trained. A graduate of the Naval Academy, leading classman in the BUD/S course when he first came to Coronado, Rusty Bennett was the son of a Maine lobsterman, and as such brought certain skills to his chosen profession. He was a superb navigator, he could swim through ice-cold seas, and he could operate as efficiently underwater as he could on land. He was a man of medium height with dark red hair, dark blue eyes, a big well-trimmed mustache, and forearms and wrists made of cast steel. He was an expert on explosives, and one of the best climbers ever to wear the golden Trident. Mountains, trees, the smooth steel plates of any ship, Rusty could find a way to ascend. Any enemy who happened to spot him making an attack was probably looking at the last few seconds of his life.
He was precisely the kind of man the high command of the SEALs selects for the job of platoon leader. And this was the man John Bergstrom had chosen to take the SEALs in to recon the place where the American crew were held captive. Like Rick Hunter, Rusty had been off active operational duty since his last mission, but Admiral Morgan had stressed that he wanted the best, and no one would dispute the best was Lt. Commander Rusty Bennett.
And now Rusty stuck out his right hand in greeting to Colonel Frank Hart. “Good to meet you, sir. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Most people have,” replied the colonel, smiling wryly. “But not all of it good.”
“I got better sources than most people, sir,” replied the SEAL. “What I heard was good.”
Each man had a handshake like a mechanical digger, and John Bergstrom swore that the floor shuddered as Bennett and Hart grinned and made a silent, white-knuckled military bond, which announced, one to the other, that they were partners in an exercise each of them knew was fraught with danger. There are no civilian handshakes quite like that.
“As you know, Lieutenant Commander,” said Admiral Bergstrom, “Colonel Hart has been appointed at the highest level to take command of this operation.
He has recently arrived here from the White House, where he has been working with Admiral Arnold Morgan, trying to get this thing on a fast track. However, we are working under the minor handicap of not yet knowing what our target is.”
“Sir, I have not yet been briefed at all. I was told you were going to speak to me personally, which I think is why I’m here.”
“Yes, of course. However, you do have a long plane ride with Colonel Hart in front of you, which will give everyone time to fill in the gaps. Meanwhile, I must stress the high degree of classification this operation has. And if you would both be seated, I will inform you where we stand.”
“Yessir,” replied the SEAL.
“You may have read in the newspapers last weekend a story about our attack submarine Seawolf?”
“Yessir, I did. The one that broke down or something. They’re fixing it up somewhere in China, right?”
“Absolutely. Except it didn’t break down. It got tangled up in a Chinese destroyer’s towed array, and the bastards grabbed it and towed it back to Canton.”
“Jesus.”
“They incarcerated the crew, put ’em in jail in Canton, and have now moved them to an unknown jail. Admiral Morgan and I both believe they will torture the crew, in search of high-tech information.”
“Are you kidding me?” Rusty Bennett was incredulous.
“Rusty, we know how anxious they are to steal every secret they can from us, involving both ICBM and attack submarines. They’ve spent millions of dollars and dozens of years doing it. And now they actually have America’s top attack submarine captive in Canton, and more than a hundred American experts to help them finalize their blueprints. Admiral Morgan and I think they will stop at nothing to force that information out of them…and it gets worse.”
“Not much, I hope.”
“A lot…the Executive Officer of Seawolf is Linus Clarke, the President’s only son.”
Rusty Bennett hissed his inward breath through his front teeth. “Holy shit!” he said. “You mean Linus is in a Chinese slammer?”
“I do.”
“What are the colonel and I supposed to do about it?”
“In short, get him, and all the others, out.”
“Who, me?” said Lt. Commander Bennett hopelessly, in an exact parody of the phrase Colonel Hart himself had used three days previous.
“Well, not all on your own. You will undertake this operation in partnership with Colonel Hart and the overall team leader, Lieutenant Commander Rick Hunter, backed up by the most massive resources the U.S. Armed Forces have ever brought to bear on any peacetime mission in the entire history of Special Forces. There will be a total of sixty-four SEALs involved. You have been designated team leader of the recon force, the first men in from one of our nuclear submarines. Try to be quiet and not to kill too many Chinese guards, because if you get caught, it’s all over.”
The lieutenant commander smiled, raised his eyes heavenwards, and shook his head. “Are we up to this, Colonel?” he asked.
Frank laughed and replied, “I doubt it. But we better give it our best shot, otherwise the President of the United States is gonna be very, very disappointed in us. And that’s not good.”
All three men laughed. “’Specially as we apparently don’t know where the goddamned slammer is,” said Rusty. “Anyway, I forgot to mention, I’m no good at jail-breaks…can’t you get ahold of Al Capone or Machine Gun Kelly or someone?”
For the next hour, the three men continued to talk, Admiral Bergstrom half-waiting, as ever, for the line to ring from the White House and to hear the rasping voice of Arnold Morgan telling him, We’ve found ’em.
But that call did not come, and at 1500 the colonel and the SEAL left to collect their gear and join Rick Hunter in the car headed for the North Island airfield. They were the only three men who had been briefed on the full horror of the mission. John Bergstrom had long decided not to risk the dangers of the entire San Diego base finding out the shocking truth about Seawolf.
And now he stood outside his office and shook hands with the departing officers. “Okay, Rusty, Frank…go round up Rick Hunter and let’s move on this one…and guys…I’ll be thinking of you, every step of the way…anything you need…anything…you got it. Remember that.…God go with you.”
The plan was for other officers and petty officers on the team to be briefed during the flight. The remainder of the SEALs would be given full details of the mission by Colonel Hart and Lt. Commander Hunter at a briefing to be called as soon as they boarded the carrier.
“Jesus Christ,” muttered Admiral Bergstrom as he walked back into his office. “This could turn out to be a fucking nightmare.”
2200 (local). Tuesday, July 11.
The Jail on Xiachuan Dao.
They had freed Linus Clarke from the chair to which he had been tied in the small hours of Monday morning. Since then he had been left entirely alone, save for one guard who brought him water and a bowl of rice at midday, and then again at 2200.
Tuesday had been silent, save for the guard bringing him the same meager offering sometime in the middle of the day. There was a bucket in the corner, which Linus was supposed to use as a head.
He was losing weight now, and his clothes were becoming disgusting. He had a dirty beard and was unrecognizable from the crisp XO who had reported for duty at Pearl Harbor only three weeks previous.
It was a little after 10:00 at night when the bright lights went on in his cell and a guard walked over and kicked him awake. Two of them walked him back to the torture chamber and sat him down, once more binding his legs and arms to the chair.
The guard lieutenant himself came in and looked at Linus, smiling. He walked around the chair, but asked no questions. Then he said very softly, “Just a little more persuasion, I think. And then you will tell us whatever we want to know, Lieutenant Commander Lucas?”
Linus summoned all of his remaining resolve and said nothing.
“You understand that everyone else has told us everything…only you are being foolishly stubborn.”
Linus did not believe him. Judd Crocker and Brad Stockton would never crack. But had Einstein caved in? And what about the younger officers? Had they wilted before the interrogation? Linus no longer knew what to think.
The guard lieutenant said nothing directly. But he continued to walk and ponder the problem aloud, as if speaking of someone, rather than to them: “If you could just be sensible…so much easier for you…we only want to know routine matters…operational depths…the trim of the ship dived…various angles…ballasting procedures…the areas in which you are expert, Bruce Lucas…the operation of the periscope and the masts…all we ask is that you ensure we are able to operate such a submarine as well as you and your colleagues.”
Linus said nothing. Stared slight ahead. At which point the guard lieutenant walked over to the doorway and returned carrying a bath towel, which he spread, and lifted and dropped gently over the head of Linus Clarke.
If the American XO had been afraid before, he now began to fall apart, trembling uncontrollably, trying not to scream out as the first water was poured onto the towel. Two nights ago he had thought he was dying. Tonight he had no further doubts. He could not withstand the terror of suffocation again. Perhaps he could lie. Tell them a load of rubbish. But what if they found out? His thoughts were rambling as the cold water splashed on the towel, always on top of his head.
And now breathing was becoming difficult again. The soaking wet cloth was sticking to his face. He was battling to suck air into his mouth and nose. And it was now a battle he was losing. The only air he could grab was through the towel, and the wetter it became, the more impossible the task. Linus was choking, and there was a special private terror in that.
He tried to make a noise, a noise of surrender, but he was only able to grunt, and he thought he was going to black out again. But suddenly the towel was lifted off his face, and he found himself staring into the dark, almond-shaped eyes of the diminutive gu
ard lieutenant.
“Now, Lieutenant Commander, do you feel more like having a little talk now?”
The air rushed into the throbbing lungs of Linus Clarke and he sat there gasping, with the lieutenant holding the towel at forehead level, prepared in an instant to drop it back over the XO’s face.
“YES! YES! WHATEVER THE HELL YOU WANT—BUT GET THAT FUCKING TOWEL AWAY FROM ME…”
“Of course,” replied the tiny lieutenant. “I would regard that as a small courtesy among brother naval officers.
“Now, I propose we get you cleaned up and into some fresh clothes, and then you and Commander Li will take a little helicopter ride to Canton first thing in the morning…you can have a nice day talking to our technicians. Of course, if you do not tell the truth, we will bring you back here and you will spend the final moments of your life under this wet towel…but you understand that, Mr. Lucas, I am sure.”
U.S.S. Seawolf Page 25