The Vigilant Spy

by Jeffrey Layton

  “Don’t worry about it. Your cover’s intact.”

  The Lian’s official cruise plan called for collecting bottom samples from the submerged peak of the Stewart Seamount near Luzon Island in the Philippines. It was part of an ongoing China Academy of Sciences’ geophysical study of the South China Sea. The ship’s submersible would dive to the bottom, deploy a soil coring device and collect the samples.

  Along with the scientific work, the Lian would visit Serpent Station 6. Beijing ordered S5 to reload the ASW weapon system. Six new Viperina canisters were scheduled to arrive in Sanya late morning, transported from Hefei Xinqiao International Airport by military transport. Dr. Meng would monitor loading of the units aboard the Lian followed up with a series of diagnostic tests to verify each weapon was operational. The following morning, the ship was scheduled to depart Sanya at ten o’clock with Meng aboard. She was tasked with overseeing the installation.

  The couple chatted about the deployment for another minute when Zhou’s cell announced its presence. He checked the screen and glanced at Park. “Operations, shouldn’t take long.”

  He accepted the call. “Zhou here,” he said.

  Park poured herself a refill.

  “When did this happen?

  “He’s certain it was locked?

  “Yes, let the police know. Maybe they can find it.

  “I’ll be in soon.”

  Zhou ended the call. “One of the staff had his car stolen last night.”

  “From S5?”

  “Yes, from the logistics building parking lot.”

  “That’s odd. Who would do such a thing?”

  “Who knows. And taking it with all that activity across the road with the Shangdong—a foolish thing to do.”

  “You don’t think it’s one of the crew?”

  “Maybe. They’ve been restricted to the ship for weeks. Someone may have flipped out. Anyway, we’ll let the local police handle it.”

  Park drained the cup and said, “I’ll get my gear.”

  “Good.”

  * * * *

  Yuri entered the living room. It was 8:35 A.M. local time.

  Jeff Chang knelt on the bamboo flooring, rummaging through his backpack when he spotted Yuri. “Good morning,” he called out.

  “Morning.” Yuri stretched out his arms. “How long have you been up?”

  “Hour or so.”

  After taking a shower, Yuri had collapsed onto the bed. He slept five solid hours. “Ditching the car go okay?”

  “Yep, no problem.”

  Yuri caught a whiff of an intoxicating odor. “Is that coffee?”

  “It is. I made a pot. Help yourself.”

  Yuri found the Chinese knockoff of an American brand name coffee brewer in the kitchen. He poured a cup and returned to the living room. “This is great,” he said, savoring the taste.

  “Sumatra blend. I found an unopened bag stored in the freezer. Great stuff.”

  “I’ll say.”

  Yuri noticed that the CIA officer had extracted the compact military SATCOM radio from his pack—the top secret device Murph had operated at the OP. Jeff was currently spreading apart the radio’s retractable antenna blades. Fully extended, the antenna array was about the size of a basketball.

  “Calling home?” Yuri asked.

  “That’s the plan but I’ll have to do it on the roof to connect with satellites.”

  “How are you going to do that?”

  “Ladder access in the utility room.”

  “Hmmm,” Yuri said. He took another sip and wandered to the nearby window wall. The turquoise waters of Sanya Bay dominated the distant vista. But it was the foreground view that captured Yuri’s instant attention.

  “The vessels moored at the dock—they look military.” He’d spotted hull silhouettes when they first arrived at the safehouse but could not make out details due to darkness.

  Jeff glanced Yuri’s way. “This area of Sanya is a mix of residential and commercial uses. I suppose the Navy or Coast Guard may control some of the docks.”

  “Can I use your binoculars?” Yuri asked.

  “Sure, they’re in my backpack someplace.”

  Yuri homed in on one particular vessel that caught his eye. It was moored to a pier two football fields away. About three hundred feet long, the ship’s hull was painted cobalt blue. The superstructure above the main deck was snow-white. The bow and forward superstructure had a distinctive bulbous flare that set itself apart from conventional ships. He focused on the ship’s name displayed near the port bow, stenciled in white over the blue hull in Mandarin symbols and English letters.

  “I don’t believe it?” Yuri uttered.

  “What?”

  “See the ship with the blue and white colors?” He pointed seaward.

  Jeff peered out the window. “Yeah, what about it?”

  “It’s the Lian.”

  Jeff cast a questioning glare.

  “It was in the mission briefing documents. Registered as a Chinese Academy of Sciences vessel but it’s really controlled by the PLAN.”

  Jeff’s eyes blossomed. “The one that’s been deploying the S5 weapon system?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll be damned!”

  * * * *

  “Call me when you’re done and I’ll pick you up,” Captain Zhou said from the driver’s seat of his parked BMW.

  Meng Park sat in the adjacent passenger seat. “It’ll probably be late in the afternoon. And if I run into problems . . .”

  “Doesn’t matter. I want to see you before the ship departs. It’ll be a week or more before you return.” Zhou grinned. “That’s an eternity.”

  Park caught the gaze, knowing what he wanted—what she also desired. “We’ll have to do something about that, won’t we?”

  Zhou took a quick look around. He had parked on the pier that moored the Lian. It was currently deserted. He leaned across the seat and gently cupped Park’s head with his hands. “A down payment on tonight,” he offered. He kissed her, a long delicious kiss.

  * * * *

  Yuri was in the living room trying in vain to find an English-speaking channel on the HD television while Jeff Chang tested the SATCOM radio from the roof. Neither one noticed the BMW when it parked beside the Lian. Both men also missed Meng Park when she exited the vehicle, walked along the concrete pier towing a wheeled suitcase, and with an attaché case in hand, sauntered up the aluminum gangway to the ship’s main deck.

  Chapter 61

  “All stop,” ordered Commander Tom Bowman.

  The officer of the deck repeated the directive and power to the propulsor was switched off. The 7,800 ton vessel slipped through the abyss eight hundred feet below the surface.

  After several minutes, the Colorado’s forward momentum ceased. “Commence hovering,” Bowman said, again addressing the OOD.

  “Commence hovering, aye.”

  Bowman turned to address the Weapons Officer. “Mr. Conway, you may proceed.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain.”

  Bowman joined Colorado’s executive officer at the horizontal large screen display. Commander Jenae Mauk had returned to the ship’s nerve center a couple minutes earlier. She studied the electronic chart. A blue submarine icon marked Colorado’s position. Just inches away was a crimson skull and crossbones symbol, which marked the target.

  “This one is over twice as deep as the other one,” Mauk said, eyeing her boss.

  “It is but the probes should be able to handle the pressure.”

  “Any threats?”

  “All quiet.”

  “Let’s hope it stays that way.” She pointed to the death’s head. “Whatever those things are, we sure don’t want to wake ’em up.” The sinking of the Novosibirsk remained fresh to all aboard the Colorado.


  SSN 788 was two miles north of Viper Station 2. Located 265 nautical miles southeast of Sanya, the subsea installation was near the summit of Margetts Seamount in 4,400 feet of water. The PRC’s military fortress on Woody Island, part of the Parcel Islands, lay 135 miles north of VS2. China controlled the Parcels but Vietnam and Taiwan also claimed the archipelago.

  “Both probes are wet, Captain,” announced Weps.

  “Very well, proceed.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain.”

  Mauk said, “Let’s hope this one goes as smooth as the first one.”

  “I read you.”

  Twelve hours earlier, the Colorado made a similar stealth approach to Viper Station 1, about 170 nautical miles north of VS2. It also launched two self-propelled probes from torpedo tubes, a sea mine and a tethered tracker. Both units swam to the PLAN bottom installation where the sea mine burrowed into the bottom muck beside the canisters housing half a dozen Viperinas. The tracker employed its video camera and floodlight to record the mine’s successful deployment and concealment, relaying the images to Colorado via the tether. After completing a video survey of all components of Viper Station 1, the ROV returned to the submarine.

  Bowman was about to check in with sonar when he recalled another concern. “How’s our SEAL?” Commander Mauk had just visited sickbay.

  “About the same. Doc has him stabilized.” Mauk frowned. “I think he’s going to lose his arm if he doesn’t get help soon.”

  “No recovery?”

  “No, it’s just black as before. The antibiotics haven’t done anything.”

  “You know our orders.”

  “I know. It’s just not fair.”

  COMSUBPAC’s orders were explicit. Neutralize the threat before seeking aid for the SEAL.

  “Anything else that we can do to help?” Bowman asked.

  “Doc says he’s doing everything he can, but the flesh around the punctures is dying.”

  “Sounds like gangrene.”

  “It’s something like that. The tissue rots, which poisons the rest of the body. Doc says that may be worse than the venom.”

  “That’s awful.”

  After Mauk left the control room, Bowman stayed behind to catch up on electronic paperwork. His thoughts soon wandered. There’s got to be something else we can do.

  Finally, he remembered. Gangrene—yes, that just might work.

  * * * *

  Jeff Chang peered skyward. He raised his right arm and waved. “Can you see me now?” he asked, speaking into the handset of the military SATCOM radio, which he affectionately referred to as the SEAL phone.

  “I have you,” replied the recipient of Jeff’s call. CIA counterintelligence officer Steve Osberg was on the end of the satellite link in his office in Langley, Virginia. It was 1:35 A.M. his time, twelve hours behind Sanya time. Jeff’s boss was summoned an hour earlier at his residence after Chang contacted CIA headquarters. Osberg had returned home after his last meeting with Chang and Yuri in Honolulu.

  “Okay, good,” Jeff said. “Now pan northward to the waterway opposite my position and you’ll see the ship. The superstructure from the bow to the bridge is all white.”

  “I have it.”

  The cutting edge optical telescope aboard the three month old orbiting U.S. Air Force spy satellite transmitted razor-sharp real time images of the Chinese research vessel to Langley. This was the new spy bird’s first live operations application.

  Jeff said, “We think that ship is responsible for deploying the ASW system.”

  Osberg called up a digital file on his PC, another satellite image recorded a couple of weeks earlier in the South China Sea. “You’re right. That’s the same ship, the Lian. But what does it have to do with getting you and Kirov out of China?”

  “About an hour ago, a flatbed truck showed up and offloaded half a dozen metal canisters onto the fantail.”

  “I see them. What are they?”

  “Kirov thinks those canisters might be what we’ve been after from day one.”

  “The weapon is inside?”

  “It fits with what the Navy told us.”

  “What’s your intention, Jeff?”

  “We ended up with zilch at the other location. So, before bugging out, I’d like to get aboard and take a look around. Might be able to find something to help salvage the mission.”

  “What’s Kirov’s take on your plan?”

  “He thinks I’m nuts.”

  * * * *

  “Terrific idea, Captain. This is really going to help.”

  “Let’s hope so.”

  Commander Bowman was in sickbay with Independent Duty Corpsman Karl (“Doc”) Rawley. With skills similar to a Physician’s Assistant, the twenty-eight-year-old Petty Officer First Class was Colorado’s sole medical professional.

  “I wish I’d thought about this earlier,” Rawley said, his tone remorseful.

  “Don’t worry about it. The XO and the SEAL commander knew about it too. And so did I. But it just didn’t click for me until a little while ago.”

  “Thanks, skipper.”

  Both men squatted next to a two-foot diameter flexible tube constructed of high strength nylon fabric. The portable hyperbaric chamber stretched out eight feet along the deck. Master Chief Petty Officer Halgren lay on his back inside the cylinder, visible through transparent ports at either end of the tube. The chamber was pressurized with compressed air.

  The Hyperlite Portable Hyperbaric Chamber was stored in Colorado’s diving equipment locker adjacent to the SEAL lockout chamber. It served as an emergency recompression chamber. Should a diver operating from the submarine become impaired from decompression sickness aka the bends, the portable system offered rapid lifesaving critical care.

  But today the inflatable chamber was put to an alternative use. With the pressure in the tube increased 2.3 times above normal air pressure, Halgren’s lungs received more oxygen than when he had been inhaling pure oxygen through a mask at just room pressure. His blood now carried the extra oxygen throughout his body, supercharging his natural healing defenses by releasing stem cells and growth factors. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy was especially helpful in treating gangrene.

  Commander Bowman leaned toward the acrylic plastic viewport. Halgren’s head rested on a pillow just a couple of feet away. “How are you doing, Master Chief?” he called out.

  Wild Bill angled his head back, making eye contact. The oxygen mask covered his mouth and nose. He raised his unencumbered arm with the thumb extended upwards.

  * * * *

  “I know you’re not wild about this but I really need your help.”

  “What do you have in mind?” Yuri stared at Jeff Chang. They were in the safehouse living room, sitting on opposing sofas. It was late afternoon.

  “I need to get aboard the ship and open up one of those canisters.”

  Yuri rubbed the stubble on his chin. Despite the first-class accommodations, there were no razor blades or even an electric shaver in any of the three bathrooms. “So, you open up one, what then?”

  “Langley wants us to steal whatever we can… ideally the CPU, if it’s accessible.”

  Yuri bit his upper lip while taking in Jeff’s plan. “That’s a real longshot. The thing is designed to operate several thousand feet underwater. Trying to crack the pressure casing to get access to its computer will be a bitch.”

  “I know but that’s where you come in. You know what to look for. Me, I’d just be guessing.”

  Yuri pondered Jeff’s request. All he wanted was to leave China ASAP. He had spent the day coming up with a plausible out. From the safehouse roof he spotted several runabouts with powerful outboards mixed in with the larger and slower vessels moored to the nearby piers. Deliverance was just 150 nautical miles away. Stealing the right boat could deliver Yuri and Jeff to Da Nang, Vietnam in five
hours. Despite past bad blood between Washington and Hanoi, relations had improved, sparked in part by Beijing’s bullying tactics in the South China Sea.

  We should just go! Yuri thought.

  Still, Yuri recognized that the CIA officer had a point. The mission was a bust at this point. Whatever intel they could gather before escaping might help the cause.

  “All right,” Yuri said. “I’ll help but it has to be a quick in, quick out. I want to have enough time to find our ride while it’s dark.”

  “Great, we’ll get aboard, crack open a canister and take a look-see. Then we’ll get the hell out of here.”

  “Bring your camera. A couple of IR snapshots may be all we get after opening it up.”

  “I’ll have it ready—plus my other toys.” Jeff gestured to his backpack on the floor. Earlier, he’d revealed the contents of his spy kit to Yuri.

  “Okay.” Yuri stood. He motioned toward the windows and the moored ship beyond. “Let’s first figure out how we get aboard that thing without being seen.”

  “Sounds good!”

  Chapter 62

  Twelve time zones behind Sanya and half a world away, it was early morning in Washington, D.C. The President of the United States was in the Oval Office joined by his national security advisor. The meeting was not scheduled.

  President Tyler Magnuson drank coffee from his desk. NSA Peter Brindle had taken a chair fronting the president. Already charged with caffeine from his all-nighter at the Pentagon, he declined a cup.

  “So, Pete, what’s going on?” POTUS asked.

  “Your favorite subjects, Russia and China.”

  Magnuson groaned but did not comment.

  Brindle said, “Moscow has formally acknowledged that one of its submarines has been lost in the South China Sea. The story is hitting the news outlets this morning.”

  “Did they blame China?” POTUS was briefed the previous day on the Colorado’s report of the Novosibirsk’s demise.

  “No. The press release only states that the sub is missing and presumed lost.”

  “What do you expect the Chinese will do?”