The Vigilant Spy

by Jeffrey Layton

  “It looks nasty, Bill,” Murphy said. Both men huddled near the satellite phone antenna. Murphy used a shielded flashlight to examine the wound.

  “Hurts like hell.”

  “Did you see it?”

  “No. I’d just taken a dump and was reaching for the shovel when the bitch got me. Never saw it.”

  “A double puncture…has to be a snake.”

  “No kidding.”

  Yuri joined the SEALs, dropping to his knees. “May I see the bite mark?”

  Murphy handed him the flashlight. Yuri examined Halgren’s right wrist. He returned the light. “I think it might have been a pit viper. Blood from the wound isn’t coagulating, which suggests a hemotoxin. We were warned about them on the Yulin mission.”

  “I concur,” Murphy said.

  “Besides clotting problems, hemotoxins will kill blood cells, causing the skin and tissue around the punctures to die.”

  Halgren swore yet again.

  Yuri looked at the wounded SEAL. “Master chief, you need immediate medical aid.”

  “That’s right,” Murphy added. “I’m calling Colorado with a sitrep.”

  Halgren knew where that action would lead. “No. Don’t do that Murph. I can tough it out.”

  “No way, man. With that shit in you, if it’s not treated right you could end up losing your arm or worse. We need to get back to the sub ASAP.”

  The talk finally woke Jeff Chang. He joined the group. “What’s going on?” he asked.

  Malibu Murph answered, aiming the flashlight at Halgren’s wrist. “Snake bite. Bad one. He needs to be evacuated now. The mission’s over.”

  * * * *

  It took half an hour to reestablish comms with the Colorado. Wearing a headset, Murphy briefed Andrews on the situation. “Sir, Bill’s stable but he’s in a hell of a lot of pain.”

  “Is he mobile?” asked the lieutenant commander.

  “He can walk but he’s miserable. His entire forearm has swollen up and the punctures are still bleeding.”

  “Can he get to the Mark 11?”

  “We’ll get him to the beach. When can you get it in position?”

  “I need to confer with the captain. I’ll get back to you.”

  “I’d step on it if you can. I think Bill has a shit load of venom inside him. He’s needs help ASAP. The anti-venom we have in our med kits hasn’t done anything.”

  “Understand, Chief. Put Chang on please.”

  “Hang on.”

  Murph and Jeff exchanged the headset.

  “Chang here.”

  “I ran your idea up the flagpole. Washington’s interested.” Earlier in the evening Jeff had briefed Andrews on the Dr. Meng Park issue. Andrews said, “Is there any real chance you can get to her—the secrets she must know.”

  “If she comes back here, maybe. But she could also be spending time in Sanya at that maritime center or worse, on her way back to her lab on the mainland.”

  “Jeff, I can’t go into details now but S5 went active yesterday. Took out a Russian sub in the South China Sea near Luzon Island. We heard it all from here. COMSUBPAC is conferring with his chain of command on our next steps.”

  “So, our mission is still on?” Chang asked.

  “Yes, it’s even more important than before.”

  “Will Murphy be coming back?”

  “Yes. And I’ll be joining him as Halgren’s replacement.”

  “Got it.”

  “Tell Murph I’ll be calling back soon with an update on the Mark 11’s ETA.”

  “Roger that.”

  After Andrews signed off, Jeff checked Halgren. Stretched out on a ground cloth, Wild Bill gritted his teeth.

  Jeff turned toward Murphy. Despite the darkness, he made eye contact. “Andrews is checking on the arrival time of the Mark 11. He’ll be calling back soon.”

  “Okay, great.”

  Jeff glanced Yuri’s way. “I guess you heard part of the conversation. The mission is still on and Andrews seemed really interested in our Sea Turtle. I expect we’ll be getting a mission update soon as well.”

  Before Yuri could respond, Murphy said, “So, we’re not bugging out?”

  “No. In fact, Andrews said he was coming back with you after transferring Bill to the Colorado.”

  Murphy nodded and returned to Halgren’s side.

  Yuri addressed the CIA officer. “Something else has happened, hasn’t it?” Like Murphy had earlier speculated, Yuri also expected the mission to be cancelled—too many unknowns to proceed.

  Jeff lowered his voice. “Andrews said S5 just went active. It took out a sub…a Russian boat.”

  “Govnó!”

  Chapter 55

  The Heilong was 365 meters—about 1,200 feet—below the surface cruising northwestward at five knots. Avacha Bay was fourteen nautical miles ahead. The Russian port city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy lay on the north shore of the bay just beyond its entrance from the North Pacific Ocean.

  Commander Yang Yu sat in his captain’s chair inside the submarine’s attack center. The tension in the compartment had heightened. The sixteen officers and sailors manning the consoles and work stations inside the control room were all aware that the Heilong was approaching the enemy’s lair. The ship had visited these waters earlier in the year on a recon patrol. Its current mission called for hostile action.

  “Maneuvering, all stop,” ordered Yang.

  The officer of the deck repeated Yang’s order and implemented the command.

  “Helm, hover in place,” Yang said next.

  “Hover in place, aye.”

  Yang turned to address the sonar technician who manned a nearby console. “Sonar, report.”

  The CPO swiveled in his chair. “Captain, we continue to track Warship One-Six. Range thirteen kilometers, course two seven three, speed twenty knots. Also tracking Commercial contact Eight-Nine. Range sixty-seven kilometers, course two seven zero, speed twelve knots. No other traffic on our screens.”

  “Very well. Report any new activity.”

  Heilong’s executive officer approached Yang. “Looks like One-Six is heading home.”

  “That’s to be expected. There aren’t any other port facilities this far north.”

  Heilong detected the Russian guided missile destroyer ten hours earlier. The warship cruised northward, following the Kamchatskiy Peninsula’s eastern coastline.

  Lieutenant Commander Zheng Qin checked his wristwatch. “Captain, we’ve got three hours before deployment. With your permission, I’d like to have Weapons run another complete systems check on the Shing Long. If anomalies come up, that will provide time to remedy the problem.”

  “All right, you may proceed. But if anything negative does show up, I want to know about it immediately.”

  “Understood, Captain.”

  After XO Zheng departed for the Weapons compartment, Yang relocated to the adjacent plot table. The horizontal flat-panel screen displayed an electronic chart of the waters offshore of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy. A red submarine icon exhibited the Heilong’s position, located just beyond Russia’s territorial waters as directed by Beijing. The Russian destroyer approaching Avacha Bay was marked with a fluorescent orange warship symbol. A canary yellow icon identified the commercial vessel approaching from the south. The South Korean break bulk cargo ship from Pusan would pass near the submarine’s position in approximately three hours. The Shing Long would be waiting.

  When the Korean ship cruised by overhead, the autonomous underwater vehicle would ascend from the deep and take up position just aft of the freighter’s propeller. Racket generated from the whirling prop and the ship’s noisy diesel engine would mask the Shing Long’s already minuscule acoustic signature.

  Commander Yang worked the plot table’s keyboard, replacing the chart with a high res
olution satellite photo of the Rybachiy submarine base. Superimposed on the photo was a bright red line that marked the pre-planned course of the autonomous underwater vehicle in Avacha Bay. The Central Military Commission specified the target location, identified with a red star.

  Once inside Avacha Bay, the Shing Long would break away from the freighter and transport the nuclear bomb to the exact coordinates specified by the CMC. After flooding its ballast tanks, the autonomous underwater vehicle would settle onto the mud bottom and wait for further orders.

  * * * *

  The fifteen-foot-long “spybot” swam out of a torpedo tube and proceeded northward. Tethered to its host with a fiber-optic cable, the remotely operated vehicle carried a high definition video camera along with acoustic and laser-based sensors. The data collected was transmitted by the cable to the Mississippi's control room.

  Chapter 56

  Yuri stood at the water’s edge with Jeff Chang. They had the remote beach to themselves—no drunken teenagers to worry about this night.

  The sea was calm, just tiny wavelets brushing the broad sandy beach. The three-quarter full moon hung over the distant horizon, abating the darkness. Both men perspired profusely. A breeze would have been welcome to mitigate the stagnant tepid heat.

  Murphy and Halgren were chest deep in the water about eighty feet from shore, both geared up for the dive including rucksacks and weapons. Murphy dropped below the surface where he slipped fins onto Halgren’s rubber booties. It was a task impossible for the master chief to undertake himself; his injured arm useless. Murphy surfaced. He peered landward and raised his right hand with the thumb pointed down.

  “There’s the signal,” Yuri whispered.

  The SEALs submerged.

  “I don’t know about this,” Chang offered. “Halgren’s going downhill fast.”

  “He’s tough. He’ll make it.”

  Yuri and Jeff turned around and headed upland.

  * * * *

  Murphy kept a close watch on his partner, using a portable dive light. Halgren appeared stable. They were inside the passenger compartment of the SEAL Delivery Vehicle. They had switched from their rebreathers to the SDV’s onboard compressed air system. Murphy wore a full face mask while Halgren used a standard scuba regulator. Wild Bill waved off Murphy when he tried to strap a full face mask on him.

  Nearly an hour earlier the two men swam aboard the wet minisub. Driller and Runner had guided the Mark 11 close to shore to minimize Halgren’s swim.

  “How’s he doing,” copilot Chief Dillon asked over the intercom.

  “Good,” Murphy said. “Right, Bill?”

  Halgren signaled he was okay with his working hand. The earphone in his dive hood piped in the cross talk. Lacking a full face mask, he could not speak.

  “We’re fifteen minutes from rendezvousing with Colorado.”

  “Roger that,” Murphy said.

  Eight minutes away from the sub, Halgren struggled with the mouthpiece to his regulator.

  Murphy shifted closer, unsure of what had happened. That’s when he noticed Halgren had spat out his mouthpiece. Murphy reached for one of the backup regulators plumbed to the Mark 11’s onboard air tank. He shoved the emergency breathing device toward his partner just as a torrent of white fluid erupted from Halgren’s mouth.

  Oh shit!

  After vomiting and involuntary inhaling seawater, Halgren convulsed. His body thrashed inside the confines of the passenger compartment.

  “Bill’s in trouble,” Murphy shouted into his dive mask microphone. “Surface—SURFACE NOW!”

  * * * *

  The SDV bobbed on the moonlit sea.

  “How’s Bill?” Runner asked over the intercom system. Senior Chief Aaron Baker piloted the Mark 11.

  “He’s unconscious,” CPO Ryan Murphy reported from the passenger compartment. He held Wild Bill’s head above the water.

  “Is he still breathing?” Runner asked.

  “I think so but we’ve got to get him aboard the sub now or we’re going to lose him.”

  “Don’s sending Colorado a sitrep right now.”

  “Tell ’em to hustle. He doesn’t have much time left.”

  * * * *

  The Colorado emerged from the deep a hundred yards east of the Mark 11. The submarine was in a partial surfaced configuration with only five feet of freeboard between the top of the sail and the sea surface.

  Within five minutes the SDV was twenty feet away from the sub. An inflatable rubber raft stored in an exterior sail locker was in the water next to the hull. After inflating Halgren’s horse collar buoyancy compensator, Murph extracted Wild Bill from the passenger compartment and towed him to the raft. Sailors manning the inflatable hauled the unconscious SEAL aboard.

  Once inside the raft, another team inside the sail’s bridge cockpit assisted with the transfer of Halgren onto the Colorado’s bridge. Finally, he was lowered down the sail’s tunnel to the pressure casing and rushed to sickbay.

  All total, it took eight minutes after surfacing for the Colorado to reclaim the injured SEAL. SSN 788 promptly submerged followed by the Mark 11 SDV with Murph aboard. It was eight minutes of exposure that Colorado’s captain dreaded.

  * * * *

  “Captain, the Mark 11 is secure in the shelter. All divers are locked-in.” Colorado’s executive officer reported from a compartment aft of the sail. Commander Jenae Mauk had remotely managed the retrieval operation of the SDV. Besides the SEALs, three sailors trained as divers from the Colorado assisted in returning the minisub to the dry deck shelter.

  “What’s the status of our injured SEAL?”

  “I’m on my way to sickbay now.”

  “When you finish, I need you back here ASAP.”

  “Understood, skipper.”

  Commander Bowman returned the microphone to its receptacle by the control room workstation. He addressed the officer of the deck. “Proceed with the exit plan, Mr. Marshall.”

  “Aye aye, Captain.” The lieutenant began issuing a series of commands to the pilot and copilot, following Bowman’s previously issued procedures to exit hostile waters.

  While on the surface, Colorado was “painted” with a search radar emanating from the Yulin Naval Base. Only five nautical miles away, the newly installed radar unit was in direct response to the e-bomb attack. Bowman prayed that the operator manning the radar would interpret the reflection from the sail’s minimal above water exposure as nothing more than a fishing vessel.

  But he couldn’t take that risk. Expecting a possible response, he cancelled the Mark 11’s return trip to shore and ordered its retrieval. It was time for Colorado to disappear.

  “Captain, I’ve got high speed propellers.”

  “From where?”

  Petty Officer Anderson studied the sonar waterfall display on his console while listening with a set of Bose headphones. “Not sure yet. Appears to be a vessel coming out of the Yulin Naval Base.”

  “Patrol craft?” Bowman said, now at Anderson’s side.

  “Maybe, it’s noisy. Sounds like twin diesels. It could be—no, wait, I’ve got another one. Similar signature. This one’s coming from Shendao.”

  Bowman barked new orders, “Officer of the deck, full ahead on current course. Make turns for thirty knots. Do not cavitate.”

  The OOD repeated the order and Colorado began speeding ahead.

  Chapter 57

  Three thousand miles northeast of the South China Sea, the Heilong prepared to execute the final element of its mission. The attack center’s apprehension index reached supercharged status.

  Commander Yang Yu and executive officer Zheng Qin gawked at the electronic chart. “What are they doing?” asked Lieutenant Commander Zheng.

  “Must be delaying for the pilot.”

  The yellow icon on the digital display marked the positio
n of the Korean cargo ship from Pusan. It was half a mile east of the Heilong. The ship had slowed to a crawl. The Heilong matched the freighter’s speed; earlier it had ascended to one hundred meters depth.

  “Why do they need a pilot for such a small port?”

  “Must be its size. I don’t think many hundred and sixty meter ships call at Petropavlovsk.”

  “Captain, new contact,” called out the sonar tech. “Range twenty-four kilometers, course one two two, speed twenty-five knots.”

  Yang stepped to the sonar section. “What is it?”

  “Twin engine, diesels, probably less than twenty meters. Projected course intercepts the Korean ship. Ah captain, this might be the pilot boat.”

  “Very well. Continue to monitor.”

  The executive officer cracked a grin. “So, we start deployment now?”

  “Yes, proceed.”

  * * * *

  Twenty meters above the Heilong’s aft deck, the probe from the USS Mississippi spied on the undersea warship. The spybot was connected to SSN 782 with a fiberoptic cable; the probe pumped a steady stream of data to the Virginia class submarine that lurked two miles away. Included in the digital flow were infrared images of the Chinese sub’s hull.

  The sensor operator aboard the Mississippi focused on the appendage jutting from the Type 095’s hull aft of the sail. The hemispherical door at the aft end of the external chamber opened. Half a minute later an AUV swam out.

  The Shing Long rose ten meters above its transport pod. It hovered for half a minute before proceeding eastward toward the Korean freighter.

  On command from the Mississippi, the spybot’s computer brain switched operational modes from ROV (remotely operated vehicle) to AUV (autonomous underwater vehicle). The probe severed the cable and began following the Shing Long.

  Chapter 58

  Yuri Kirov and Jeff Chang crouched by the SATCOM radio. They had returned to the hillside observation post two hours earlier at sunrise. Yuri listened as the CIA officer attempted to reestablish contact with the Colorado.

  After half a dozen attempts, Jeff turned toward Yuri. “Still no response. Something’s wrong.”