by Don Keith
“Come on, Jase,” he called out. “Time to get scarce.”
Ward heard a painful grunt, then, “Son of a bitch! Skipper, I’m hit.”
He turned. Jason Hall was slumped down on the ground. Ward, in a crouch, raced across the narrow roadway and quickly scooped up the big SEAL, throwing him across his shoulders. Ward balanced the load but he was sure that his knees would buckle under the weight. But then he managed to stumble forward, headed for a better hole in the ground with the plant’s tech center building the interim destination, and Horton’s position just beyond.
He could hear his fellow SEAL’s labored breathing in his ear.
“Stay with me, Jase,” he implored. “Stay with me, big guy.” Sweat filled his eyes, obscuring his vision. He could feel his heart pounding. Surely the Chinese could hear his gasping breath. He felt like his legs were incapable of taking another step. Still, he plowed on.
The tech center did not seem to be getting any closer. It was nothing more than a hazy blur, off in the distance, tantalizing him.
Then Ward was sure that he could hear the footsteps and shouts of the Chinese chasing after him. He veered off the edge of the road and into the dunes. The going was much tougher and slower, the sand bogging him down. But being off the roadway at least made him and his load a harder target for the Sea Dragons.
“Stay with me, Jase. Almost there,” Ward grunted, as he staggered and slid down the backside of a dune. He rearranged Hall on his shoulders, took a deep breath, and pushed his way up the next dune.
Somehow, he finally reached the chain link fence that circled the tech center. Now, from here, it was only a hundred yards to Sean Horton. Bullets spattered around him, whistling past or ricocheting off the fence. Ward dove to the ground and whipped his MK4 around.
If he was going down, he would go down fighting. And be damned if he let them do any more damage to his buddy.
Ward forced himself to be deliberate. Do not fire randomly, he told himself. Make it count.
He caught one black ghost in his sights and squeezed off a couple of rounds. The shadow flailed awkwardly backward. Then Ward moved his aim to another. He, too, fell.
But it was only a matter of time now. He had been lucky on the first two. Numbers were on the side of the Chinese.
He caught sight of another Sea Dragon crossing a bit of open ground, moving to flank him on the right. He launched two rounds toward the specter. No way to know if he got him or not.
Ward tugged Jason Hall back into a low, bush-covered hollow next to the fence. Then he lay in front of him, facing the road, protecting the fallen SEAL.
“So, Dad, I guess this is where it’s going to happen,” he said out loud. “Up against a chain link fence under a bush in some forgotten corner of Vietnam. Plenty of other guys have likely been...”
Ward stopped, snorted, and slammed another magazine into his MK4.
But just then, he heard the unmistakable sawing rip of an MK48 machine gun, surprisingly close and off to his right. Then there was the whump of an MK79 grenade launcher, also somewhere to his right. Yet another MK48 joined the chorus just before the grenade exploded on the backside of the dune directly in front of where he and Hall lay against the fence.
“Jase, hang on,” Ward grunted. “Looks like the cavalry just showed up.”
Ward continued to watch the road and the trees along each side. Nothing. The return fire from the Chinese was becoming more sporadic, seemingly more distant. Another grenade exploded, but this time it was further down the road.
The Sea Dragons were falling back.
Then Ward heard the distinctive whup-whup-whup of an approaching “Huey” helicopter. The green bird feathered out and touched down in a small clearing only a hundred yards or so down the dirt road. It carried the insignia of the Vietnam People’s Navy. A dozen Vietnamese Marines leapt from the helicopter and charged off in the direction of the retreating Sea Dragons. At the same time, a Russian-made Mil Mi-24 Hind gunship roared overhead from the west. It sprayed the area where Ward knew the pier and assault boats were located, cutting loose with its chin-mounted 23 mm machine cannon. The chopper also peppered the retreating Sea Dragons with its 12.7 mm door gun.
Within minutes the battle was over. The assault boats had been reduced to burning hulks. The Vietnamese Marines were rounding up the few surviving Sea Dragons scattered around the sand dunes.
Meanwhile, Jim Ward was busy tending to Jason Hall’s wounds, ignoring the lingering action around him. From the corner of his eye, he could see his guys regrouping, still on alert. But then, a Vietnamese officer separated from the rest of his Marines, spoke briefly with the SEALs, then walked over to where Ward kneeled over his team member.
“I am Lieutenant Duc Tran Trou,” the officer said. He spoke English with very little accent. “Is one of you Lieutenant Ward?”
Jim Ward stood and said, “I’m Ward. I have a badly wounded man here. He needs medical aid fast.”
Trou extended his hand and started to speak. But suddenly, Jim Ward collapsed, face down in the sand.
Tad Riley rushed past the Vietnamese officer and was immediately at Ward’s side. He rolled the SEAL officer onto his back. His hand came away bloody.
“Skipper’s hit!” he cried out as he tore away Ward’s body armor. His shirt had wicked up a startling amount of blood. Riley reached into his armor kit and grabbed the medical bag, then slapped a wad of bandage over the wound, holding pressure to try to stop the bleeding.
“We need to get him out quick!” he yelled.
Duc Tran Trou frantically signaled two of his men. They placed Ward on a stretcher and followed two other Marines already carrying Hall toward the Huey.
Once the wounded men, the rest of the SEALs, and Lieutenant Trou had climbed aboard the bird, it revved up for lift-off. Then, it disappeared into the moonless sky, as if none of them had ever been there.
13
Yon Ba Deng, China’s Assistant Vice Deputy to the Minister of National Defense for Naval Matters, struggled to maintain his composure. He growled to himself, mostly under his breath, “The noble-minded are calm and steady. Little people are forever fussing and fretting.” Over and over, he muttered the mantra as he fought for inner peace.
Bing Dou, his trusted assistant, finally asked him, “Elder brother, what are you saying? What is disturbing you so greatly?”
Yon Ba Deng shook his head and forced a wry smile.
“It is an old Confucian quote I use to attempt to reach inner peace. Soo Be Xian is playing some clumsy game down on the Vietnam border. That incompetent old man is so jealous of my Party ties that he is trying to start a war. And all just to thwart me.”
Bing Dou nodded as he listened. He and his boss had long been planning their move out into the South Pacific as a means to enhance Yon Ba Deng’s status within the Party. Successfully extending his country’s territorial waters would ultimately elevate him to the highest echelon. The carefully choreographed plan was well under way and its intricacies required clockwork timing. At this point, even the slightest deviation could throw the whole scheme into disarray. And now, when he needed him the most, Yon Hun Glo, his younger brother and strong right arm in the PLAN, was out of communications, riding a squadron of his submarines, making way for Tonga.
“What should we do, then?” Bing Dou inquired. “If Soo Be Xian is successful with starting a border war, the Central Committee, the Politburo, and the Secretariat will all be putting every effort into that. They will have no time or attention for us and our gains.”
“Remember what Sun Tzu said,” Yon Ba Deng answered. “‘Victory comes from finding opportunities in problems.’ Our worthy Vice Deputy Minister for National Defense has presented us with a problem. Now, it is up to us to find the opportunity that it hides from us.”
Deng idly scratched his right ear as he stood. He slowly paced around his large office until stopping at the window that overlooked a quiet park and the Beijing Archives Building across the way. But he was
not admiring the view. His mind was racing through the possibilities. He turned on a heel and smiled at his assistant.
“Bing Dou, once again Master Sun Tzu has provided us with the answer. As he said, ‘The quality of decision is like the well-timed swoop of a falcon which enables it to strike and destroy its victim.’” Yon Ba Deng’s eyes glowed with an inner fire. Such an expression would once have sent chills through Bing Dou. Now, he had grown accustomed to his master’s intense emotions. “Call our compatriots over in the Air Force. It is now time to swoop. Have them shuttle our marines and transport planes to...what is the name of that airport in Tonga?”
Bing Dou quickly consulted the tablet on his desk. “Fua’amotu, elder brother.”
“No, no, that is the airport on the main island. What is the little one to the north?”
“You mean Vava’u,” Bing Dou answered, again after checking the data on the tablet.
“Yes, Vava’u. That is the one. The one that is very near to that other island. What was its name?”
“That would be Niue.” Bing Dou had no need to consult the data on the screen for this answer. “It purports to be an independent country, but really, they are a protectorate of New Zealand,” the assistant offered. “It is only about four hundred kilometers from Vava’u and about the same distance to the Tonga Trench. You remember that is where those scientists claim they found the gold.”
“Fine. Fine,” Yon Ba Deng responded. “That part I certainly recall. Let us just get the parts moving. The more quickly we grab the gold, the sooner we crush that loon, Soo Be Xian.”
Ψ
Commander Chet Allison stretched his aching back and groaned. Far too many hours pacing Boise’s hard steel decks were taking their toll on his spine. Over a week of trailing the two Chinese nuclear submarines had been physically taxing but ultimately very boring. The pair were noisy enough that they were not particularly challenging to trail as they meandered over what felt like the entire ocean. So noisy they hardly offered a decent training opportunity for his guys.
Then there was the aimless nature of their trek. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to their antics as they steamed about with no particular destination in mind. And now here they were, pretty much right back where they had started, a couple of hundred miles east-southeast of Hainan Island.
Allison scratched the several days’ growth of stubble on his chin. His poopie suit was causing him to itch in strategic places and he could not really remember the last time he had showered. Or slept. The submarine skipper was of the opinion that his team on Boise was still too new and inexperienced to be unsupervised for any length of time, so he was required to keep a close eye on them. Especially as they tailed the Chinese boats. As a result, he had remained in the control room almost continuously, trying to catch cat naps as he sat on the low stool on the port side of the periscope stand. That was exactly what he was attempting to do when one of the crew spoke up with something new.
“Possible contact zig, Master Two-One and Two-Two.” The fire control coordinator was hunched over a screen reading bearing rates on the two ambling contacts. “Shift in bearing rate from left-point-four to right-one-point-one.” Allison was now fully awake. After a few seconds, the fire control coordinator called out, “Confirmed zig Master Two-One, set anchor range one-eight-thousand yards. Confirmed contact zig Master Two-Two, set anchor range one-six-thousand yards.”
More idle rambling, or were they finally going someplace?
“Conn, Sonar,” the 21MC speaker blasted. Allison recognized the voice of his leading sonarman, Chief John Vincent. Vincent was the one man in the crew that Allison felt had the experience to allow his skipper to totally rely on him. “Master Two-One and Two-Two bearings are merging with new broadband noise source bearing three-four-six. Captain, I don’t know what the source is, but it’s blanking out most everything over a ten-degree sector. It’s nasty. We’ll lose these two for sure unless we maneuver.”
Allison quickly glanced at the plot and calculated his next move. He measured off the distances with his fingers. There was no way to move far enough to keep from losing these two before they merged with this new noise source and disappeared. The only maneuver was to dash out around it and hope he caught them when they came out the other side. If they came out the other side. He measured the distances, again using his fingers.
“Officer of the Deck, come to course north and ahead full.”
“Come to ahead full and course north, aye,” the OOD, Lieutenant Juan Esteban, echoed.
Just then, Boise’s executive officer, Lieutenant Commander Henrietta Foster, walked into the control room and quickly stepped back to the plot table where Allison stood. She glanced down at the plot and studied it for a few seconds, then glanced sideways at the skipper.
“Well, I think I know what your noise source is,” she said. “There was a Notice to Mariners message on the last broadcast. It said that some Chinese oil firm was working on their Panyu gas wells a couple of hundred miles southeast of Hong Kong. You’re listening to the sound of somebody setting up a deep-water drill rig.”
Allison shook his head. It was incomprehensible that they had received a NOTAMS hours ago and it still had not been plotted on the submarine’s ECDIS charts. And what was really bothersome was that this particular risk was only a few miles away from their position. They could easily have run right smack into whatever it was without ever knowing.
Allison, face flushed, looked around the control room. The navigator, Lieutenant Jeremy Chastain, was doing his best to melt back into the radar repeater.
“Nav, what the holy hell is going on?” Allison growled. “Did you not see the NOTAMS?”
“It…I…it was on list for today,” Chastain stammered.
“It takes thirty seconds to download and check,” Allison shot back. “That NOTAMS has been onboard for twelve hours. Nav, that is simply not acceptable. Get the damn NOTAM plotted and evaluated immediately. Then, if it’s not too much trouble, plot a twenty-mile safety circle around it. And get your Leading Nav ET up here. You two better sort out your navigation division’s priorities.”
“Conn, Sonar. Captain, we have lost Master Two-One and Two-Two. They are both masked by the noise source.”
Allison nodded to no one in particular as he tapped the tabletop with a finger. Then he turned to the OOD.
“Officer of the Deck, stay outside the safety circle and come around to here.” He pointed to a location to the north and east of the blaring drill rig. “We’ll catch those two as they come around the other side.”
The XO moved over to where she could talk with Allison without being overheard.
“Skipper. Suggest you take a deep breath and count to ten,” she whispered. “Nav screwed up, but you know you shouldn’t tear his head off out here in front of the crew.” She glanced around the compartment. Everybody was busy, out of earshot. “Look, why don’t you go lie down and get a couple of hours sleep? I’ll stay out here and keep an eye on things while we re-position. Then I’ll give you a call when we regain contact.”
Chet Allison closed his eyes and willed his breathing back to normal. His XO was right, of course. She usually was. Henrietta Foster was one of the first women to rise to such a high position in submarines. One of the first African Americans, too. She would have her own boat before long, and deservedly so. That would check a bunch of boxes in support of diversity in the Silent Service. And nobody deserved that signal honor more than she did.
“You’re right, XO,” Allison said wearily.
Foster all but shoved the exhausted captain out of the control room and in the direction of his stateroom.
“And while you’re at it, take a shower. You positively stink.”
That was another reason Henrietta Foster would make a fine sub skipper. She called it the way she saw it.
Ψ
Six hours later, Chet Allison emerged from his stateroom, hair still wet and glistening from the shower. He walked back to the chart table where
Foster stood. Gauging from her expression, she was still apparently studying the same problem.
“Thanks, XO,” he told her. “I needed that. You regain our Chinese friends yet?”
Foster shook her head. “Not a squeak. I don’t understand it. Those two made more racket than a fleet of garbage trucks. If they come out of that noise anywhere within thirty thousand yards, we should have them again.”
“Well, much as I hate to, let’s go report lost contact. Tell the boss they got away. One thing I’ve learned is that bad news is nothing like fine wine. It does not improve with age.”
The trip to periscope depth was uneventful. They confirmed that they had this piece of the South China Sea all to themselves. Or at least as far as surface contacts were concerned.
The lost contact report was sent. Almost immediately, the reply came back.
“Contacts of interest bear three-five-zero from you, range sixty miles. Apparent course one-one-zero, speed twelve.”
“Now how the hell do they know that?” Foster asked, reading the cryptic report again.
Allison, lips pursed and a frown on his face, was already playing with the ECDIS tactical display.
“Looks like they turned pretty much due north while they were invisible to us, almost as if they knew they were being tailed. Then they sprinted up toward those gas fields off the Pearl River. Now they’re heading straight toward Dongsha Island. Let’s get over there in front of them.”
Foster shook her head, still reading the message as if it held a clue.
“I still don’t understand. Where did that information come from? It sure ain’t SURTASS. The latest TACSIT still has them putzing toward us on the far side of Taiwan.”
SURTASS was the Surveillance Towed-Array Sensor System, a global network of ships using passive sonar to keep track of submarines.
Chet Allison smiled and nodded slightly.
“Obviously, somebody out here has a pretty good set of ears located somewhere in this particular pond.”