by Don Keith
It was enough to register on seismographs in Sydney and Wellington. Even the Taiwanese seismic sensor, over five thousand miles away, detected the shock.
Geologists in those spots made notes after observing the tremble on their instruments—far from any significant human population and no threat to produce a tidal wave—but they had no way to see the other effects of the fracture at such depths. Not the new contour of the ocean floor along the plate. Nor the white-hot magma that began to ooze up through the crack in the sea floor like blood from a very nasty wound.
24
Joe Glass stepped out of his office onto the catwalk. Being up on the 05 level of the Chesty Puller gave him a real front-row seat to watch any ship coming into or departing Pago Pago. Today, he was watching the one piece of firepower that Big Navy could spare for his needs, if you could reasonably call it firepower. But the rest of the fleet, with the real ships, was flexing its muscles and churning up the waters off of Taiwan. This was all that was available unless he wanted an ocean-going tug.
The Independence-class littoral combat ship Canberra steamed past Breakers Point and into Pago Pago Harbor. The ship’s twenty-five-hundred-mile trek from Pearl Harbor had taken nearly a week, but Glass at last had a ship that he could put to good use. The mottled-gray, all-aluminum trimaran attracted plenty of attention from pleasure boaters as it slowly made its way down the channel and moored alongside the Chesty Puller. The little ship’s masts barely came level with the ESB’s massive helo deck.
Glass gazed down at the warship and mentally began to inventory its capabilities. The little fifty-seven-millimeter cannon on the bow might be useful against King Two-for-One’s ancient patrol boats but nothing any bigger. The Naval Strike Missiles she carried would be of very little use. There simply wouldn’t be any targets for those bad boys.
Glass nodded. He decided that he might at least use the Canberra as a high-speed, sea-going pickup truck, just like a long-ago Chief of Naval Operations had described it.
Ψ
The P-3C Orion anti-submarine aircraft—tail number Three-Three-Zero—taxied out to take its place in line for takeoff. They were sixth in line, behind a flight of four F-16s, each of them fully armed and heading to the fight over Dongsha Island, and yet another P-3C. Six more aircraft were soon in line behind Three-Three-Zero, awaiting their turns to get airborne.
Pingtung Air Base was the closest airfield that Taiwan had to support the fight at Dongsha. That meant it was now serving as the temporary home to most of Taiwan’s attack and fighter aircraft. Every revetment and tie-down space was crowded with planes and the equipment required to service them. Landings and takeoffs were nearly constant.
Finally, Three-Three-Zero swung onto runway two-six, spooled up the four big Allison turbos to full power, then roared down the runway and into the hazy morning air. While the F-16s climbed high into the atmosphere and headed southwest, Three-Three-Zero stayed down on the deck instead and headed east, toward the newly risen sun. It climbed just high enough to clear the Chungyang Mountains, the range that formed the island’s rocky central spine. Once clear of those mountains, the lumbering bird dropped low again and thundered across the coastline, finally heading out to sea.
Three-Three-Zero’s designated patrol box was a one-hundred-by-one-hundred-mile square that reached from the southern tip of Taiwan across the Luzon Strait to the Batanes Islands. Out to the east, it stretched across a hundred miles of what appeared to be an empty Philippine Sea. It was a huge piece of real estate to patrol, but Taiwan’s air anti-submarine-warfare assets were very limited. There were only a dozen or so P-3s and about an equal number of MH-60 helicopters, all hand-me-downs from the US, and they were tasked with patrolling hundreds of thousands of square miles. It was a case of a few hunters looking for some very dangerous needles in a very large haystack. They simply did the best they could with what they had.
So far, that had been enough to keep them safe and free.
Three-Three-Zero had just entered its patrol box when a new target suddenly appeared on the data link. In their pre-flight mission brief, the crew had been told that they might receive targeting over this particular data link, based on intel reports. They were also instructed to immediately prosecute any target they received that way. This was very much out of the ordinary. Those particular intel reports were typically days old and useless.
The pilot followed orders. He flew the aircraft to the reported target coordinates and lined up to drop a row of sonobuoys across the area. ASW was a frustrating job. It was often called “Awfully Slow Warfare” for a reason. Especially in this part of the world. Submarines never surfaced and invited attention. And despite the emphasis on reacting to information from this data link, the pilot hardly expected to find anything down there. But he was bound to take a look, even if only to break the monotony.
“Madman! Madman! Madman!” the sensor operator hollered.
His magnetic anomaly detection meter swung wildly. Bingo! There was a big hunk of iron below the surface of the sea, just a couple of hundred feet below them. However, looking out the plane’s window, they could see nothing but blue water and white wavetops.
The sonobuoys had only just dropped their sensitive hydrophones when the operator called out again. He announced that the sonobuoy data confirmed that they had themselves a submarine. And it had intruded well within the territorial waters claimed by Taiwan. Whoever was there was fair game.
As the P-3 swung around to line up again, the bomb-bay doors rolled open. A six-inch-diameter compact rapid attack weapon dropped out of the aircraft and splashed into the water two-hundred feet below. The sonobuoy operator listened as the submarine obviously heard the CRAW and began to frantically try to avoid the onrushing torpedo.
It was too late. The small weapon homed in on the sub’s single screw, just as it was designed to do. The fish’s two-kilo shape charge was not nearly large enough to do any significant damage if it hit anywhere else on its target. But it was more than powerful enough to knock a blade off the screw. The vibrations from the unbalanced spinning mass immediately began to violently shake the submarine, destroying the boat’s electric drive train even before the crew could get the shaft stopped. The hydrophones heard and relayed every decibel of agonizing noise.
The black submarine suddenly shot to the surface. There it lay, dead in the water. The warship was not going to steam anywhere anytime soon.
Three-Three-Zero's mission commander was still in the process of reporting they had successfully given one PLAN submarine a severe case of hemorrhoids when the same data link chirped once more, directing the P3 to a second contact.
By the time Three-Three-Zero's crew had finished their mission and were headed back to Pingtung with bomb bays empty, the comms channel was clogged with reports of similar successful attacks, all against subs in the waters near Taiwan. Thirty aircraft reported that they had gained positive contact on Chinese submarines and every one of them had carried out successful attacks.
Much of China’s submarine force was adrift on the surface, in plain sight. And most of the world’s military watched them with great interest on images sent down from various satellites.
Ψ
Yon Ba Deng was mystified and angry. But more than anything, he was fearful. Fearful his new promotion would now be yanked from him. Or worse.
His brilliant scheme to isolate Taiwan with his submarines—the plan he had sold to Tan Yong, China’s president—had been underway for barely a day and it was already coming apart. Somehow, almost half of his navy’s submarines had been delayed in departing by some mechanical problem or the other. Several others were reportedly limping back to port, broken before they ever reached their patrol area. And now the reports were flooding in from those boats that did make it to their patrol areas. Almost all of them had been located, attacked, and damaged. Several reported that they were barely able to make minimal speed and were heading for the nearest naval base, but necessarily on the surface. Most were requestin
g a tow home. Even more troubling were the three boats that had not yet reported in at all.
Yon Ba Deng ran his fingers through his thinning hair. He needed his brother to help him with the complexities of this most distressing submarine problem. But he was off creating diversions near Tonga. And, hopefully, figuring out a way to begin harvesting the gold near the Tonga Trench. Maybe Yon Hun Glo had some insight into whatever magic anti-submarine detection system and weaponry the Taiwanese seemed to suddenly have at their disposal.
Systems that appeared to have somehow made the ocean transparent. How else could they have located and successfully attacked so many of his invisible vessels?
But Yon Ba Deng feared his most serious problem was how to explain this failure to Tan Yong. He was not a man who tolerated failures.
Then something occurred to him. Maybe Li Min Zhou, with all her high-level connections, would have an answer that would satisfy the general secretary. Or at least an idea of how he might shift the blame to someone else.
He quickly reached for his phone, found her number in his contact list, and hit the “Call” icon.
Ψ
Yon Hun Glo stood watching the research ship Zhang Jian back away from the pier. The time had finally come to go after the gold at the bottom of the Tonga Trench. That fool, King Tofuwanga II, had only riled up the Americans when he launched the assault on Niue. Then again when he captured their research ship and held the crew captive on Neiafu. And to top it off, his total incompetence had allowed the Americans to raid the island, freeing the prisoners and stealing their ship back, all before Yon could get the bulk of his marines there to prevent it.
Fortunately, the Americans were finally occupied elsewhere, just as the submariner and his brother had intended all along. All their ships—a truly stunning number of vessels—were steaming to Taiwan’s aid, token as it ultimately appeared to be. The Deep Ocean Explorer was probably back in Pago Pago by now. No other American ship had come out to bother him.
The sun was setting in the west and lights were blinking on in Nuku’alofa as the Zhang Jian steamed up the narrow channel and disappeared around Talafo’ou Point. Yon Hun Glo wearily walked down the pier and climbed up the brow to the main deck of the container ship Pearl Moon. This vessel would be his new home and office for the next few weeks.
At the end of that time, he fully expected him and his brother to be the wealthiest people on the planet.
Yon stepped over to one of the containers on the ship’s deck. It was painted a rusty, sun-bleached red. The Japanese lettering on its side proclaimed that the big cargo box contained several tons of construction equipment. He gave the side of the container three hard raps, paused, then two more. A marine guard swung open a door for the admiral. A door that had been carefully hidden in the big freight box’s side. He stepped into a brightly lit office space.
The containers on this level had been interconnected to form a hidden command center, complete with covert, secure data linkage back to Yon Hun Glo’s headquarters on Hainan Island, and from there directly and securely to his brother in Beijing.
Yon Hun Glo quickly reviewed the printed reports a staff member handed to him. They were from his four submarines, verifying that they were each ready to sortie out of this tropical harbor. Satisfied, he wound his way through the labyrinth of containers. Along the way, he observed at least a dozen people busily at work. He followed directional signs until he reached a doorway that opened out onto the deck, right next to the ladder that led up to the Pearl Moon’s bridge.
He took a moment to look at all the other containers lined up and stacked on the ship’s deck. Most were empty. And ready to fill with pure gold dust retrieved from the bottom of the sea.
Night had fallen and the harbor waters glistened blackly as Yon Hun Glo watched each of the submarines back away from the Pearl Moon and then head down the ship channel, around Talafo’ou Point. Finally, it was his turn. The Pearl Moon headed out toward the open sea after the boats.
The Chinese admiral smiled as he sipped from his cup of tea. Dawn’s light would reveal that piers in the little harbor were now empty. The Americans and their satellites would almost certainly be able to soon spot the Zhang Jian and the Pearl Moon, but only after some frantic searching. There was nothing he could do to hide them, but there was nothing the Americans could do either. By noon tomorrow he would have an escort of Tongan patrol boats. And the Americans would have no idea that four PLAN submarines were steaming along on their mission several hundred feet below.
Then, unbeknownst to Yon or anyone else in the convoy, as the ship transited the channel, Pearl Moon passed directly over the bottom sensors that ORCA One had planted weeks ago. Just like the five other times already this evening, the sensors uplinked the detection to an orbiting communications satellite.
By the time the Pearl Moon had come around to steady up in the Avi Piha channel, Steve Weiss, who was sitting in the Portland’s Combat Information Center, had already ordered ORCA One to catch up with and intercept the vessels.
Then he placed a very interesting call over to Commodore Joe Glass.
Ψ
Joe Glass was already busy reviewing his resources and matching them up against what the Chinese were throwing at him. The call from Steve Weiss gave new urgency to his evaluation. The PLAN had four modern AIP conventional subs and a couple of civilian ships, plus a considerable number of well-trained marines close by on Niue. And for all intents and purposes, that king over on Tonga, being an enthusiastic and willing ally of the Chinese, could provide a few assets of his own if the shooting started.
Against that, Glass had two subs, the Cheyenne, which was already out on patrol, and the George Mason, which was now heading toward them. With those PLAN subs on the loose, and with the Chinese suddenly so willing to expend ordnance for whatever reason, he simply could not risk sending either the Chesty Puller or the Portland out to sea unless all-out war flared up. Additionally, Stanton Readly had a battalion of his battle-tested Marines ready to go, but his only means to deploy them were a couple of Ospreys and MH-53Ks. The newest arrival, Canberra, rounded out his available shooters. And he had very little chance of getting any backup from “Big Navy” with them all wrapped up around Taiwan. That left Glass with the problem of how to put these limited assets to work to head off whatever the Chinese intended to do.
But what were their intentions? Most everyone really in the know was certain they did not want war. That the attack on the Taiwanese island, the sudden scrambling of their submarine fleet, and the smoke and noise they were making around Tonga and Niue were clearly an attempt to distract the world’s attention from something else.
It had to be the gold. Intel from some new and super-reliable source confirmed they knew about the find. It also made sense that whoever controlled that amount of glittery stuff had a stranglehold on the world’s economy. But knowing where it was and managing to pull it up from over six miles down were two different things. Mining at depths like that would take some very specialized heavy equipment. The Chinese were certainly resourceful and might just have such equipment, but they still needed to get it out there and put it to use without anybody taking notice. Even if their buddies on Tonga did claim that shaft of seawater as their rightful territory.
That would explain the need for distraction.
Rex Smith, the head guy from the research ship Deep Ocean Explorer, had given Glass the Geological Oceanography for Dummies tutorial. Between all the discussions of fumaroles, plate tectonics, and acidic precipitates, the one thing that Glass took from the lesson was that getting enough of that gold to make it worthwhile was going to be damned hard and could take a long time.
The other thing that Smith had shared with Glass was the exact location of the gold. If the Chinese were headed there—and from what Weiss had told him, it appeared they likely were—then that was where he would send the Canberra to patrol. And considering how desperately somebody high up in the Chinese military and government wanted that go
ld, it would probably be smart to vector the Cheyenne over there to snoop around, keeping an eye out for the PLAN diesel boats.
At his orders, the Canberra completed refueling from the Puller and quickly topped off their groceries before heading right back out to sea. Almost as an after-thought, Colonel Readly and a platoon of his Marines went along for the ride, equipped with one of his TOW missile units and a couple of heavy machine guns. That would give the little ship a bit more firepower.
Glass watched as the vessel pulled away and plowed out toward deep water. He thought again of his expectations when he first reported to his new position in Pearl. Sure, it was a tough gig. But he would learn and grow with the job. Get back in shape. Grab some beach time. Run a tight unit while relying on what he knew was a good staff. He figured the stress and hard decisions he would have to make could not be that much greater than what he experienced regularly as a submarine skipper.
Now, watching the phosphorescence playing in the wake of the Canberra as she, her crew, and the Marines headed off on a dangerous mission to which Glass had assigned them, he had to wonder just how naïve he could have been.
Ψ
Out there where Canberra was bound, in some of the deepest water on planet Earth, the Tonga Plate was once again shoved hard from below. Under the inexorable pressure of rock and magma, the mass of rock shifted several more meters.
This time, the grinding movement registered a relatively mild four-point-zero at the seismometer in Wellington, New Zealand. Given the dozens of tremors the world felt every day, this one did not cause any stirring of interest, only a minor entry in a database. But more importantly, this time the disturbance could be triangulated to an exact location on the globe: sixteen degrees, twenty-six minutes south latitude and one-hundred-seventy-four degrees, fifty-four minutes east longitude. But still, no instruments were capable of seeing the magma being squeezed up through the cracks. Molten rock that had begun to build a sizeable cone on the ocean floor.