U.S.S. Seawolf (15 page)

0200
.
Canton Naval Base
.

They cast off all lines at 0235, and two tugs hauled the 500-foot-long Luhai-class warship out into the wide south-flowing stream of the Pearl River. Her new name,
Xiangtan
, could be seen, freshly painted in black, high on her light gray hull. A sweeping, blood-red stripe at the waterline was reflected in the dock lights that glistened in the dark shadows of Canton’s ancient river. Colonel Lee ordered, “All-ahead half speed.”

The Navy tugs escorted her downstream for 15 miles to the great Delta, even though she ran on her own enor
mous power, two Ukrainian-built turbines. The tugs positioned themselves on either side of her bow, acting more as pilots than extra engines and brakes. And they steered her through the tricky shallow waters of the southern fork of the river.

Xiangtan
was a warship in the old-fashioned sense, armed to the teeth with antiaircraft guns, torpedoes, and missiles, surface-to-air, and surface-to-surface, the latter a phalanx of sea skimmers with a range of 70 miles. She was the most modern frontline fighting ship in the Chinese Navy, and she could make 30 knots through the water, a crew of 250 manning her, two heavily armed Harbin helicopters on her stern, to increase the speed and reach of her ASW capability.

Her radars and sonars were the finest that PLAN could purchase, but tonight they were overshadowed by the giant towed array, an ultrasensitive underwater acoustic cable that would soon be strung out behind her, trailing deep astern of China’s finest warship, listening to the strange acoustic caverns of the ocean, distilling the noises, filtering the fleeting contacts, but listening hardest of all for the least suggestion of
Seawolf
’s machinery.

Xiangtan
’s crew had answered the call of their commander, many of them racing in from their homes around the dockyard, to take up what amounted to “action stations” in the middle of the night. No one knew what was happening, except they were going downriver to the open ocean, two days ahead of schedule. Whatever it was, it must be big. “
They’re saying Admiral Zhang Yushu ordered it personally
.”

Through the darkness they swept southward, the tugs with big probing spotlights above their bridges, in addition to regular running lights. As the Delta grew ever wider, the escorts peeled away, leaving the destroyer to run down the strictly marked channel to the west of Lan Tau Island. She then steamed past Guishan Dao and Dhazizhou Dao, leaving Macao seven miles to starboard,
heading straight into the defined navigational routes that lead all ships from Canton out to the China Sea.

By 0500, in the pearly predawn light of Wednesday, July 5, Colonel Lee had his ship running fast through the still-calm waters, in light rain, almost 100 miles south of the Pearl River Delta. He could not of course know it, but Lt. Commander Linus Clarke was conning USS
Seawolf
slowly back toward the east, some 15 miles off his starboard bow.

Colonel Lee was pleased at his progress so far. They’d made good time into the search area, and his crew had deployed the towed array perfectly, and now it hung off the stern, riding back in the water for 1,000 yards, a grotesque electronic tail, five inches in diameter, black in color, its core the most advanced acoustic electronics in all the oceans.

If there was an element of doubt, it was only in the Chinese scientists’ ability to hook it up to the onboard computers, to process the array’s astonishing acoustic capability. The technique they had yet to master was that processing, because the Americans had improved it by a factor of 100. Nothing in all the history of modern naval warfare had ever been so good at identifying specific target frequencies from the monstrous background noise of the ocean. Admiral Zu Jicai knew its capability, knew it could hear a clockwork mouse scampering under the Tower of Babel—from 20 miles away.

050500JUL06
.
20.30N 113.45E. Speed 10. Depth 150
.
Course zero-eight-five
.

Seawolf
was at peace. Nothing was coming up on sonar, Captain Crocker had finally gone to bed, and Linus Clarke had the conn. It was not until 0525 that Frank’s operator began to pick up faint engine lines, faint but get
ting stronger as the hard-charging
Xiangtan
ran toward the Americans’ chosen course.

Normally, the approach of any warship—never mind a big Chinese destroyer—would have necessitated an immediate call to the captain to return to the control room. But Linus Clarke did not think he was personally having a good patrol. There had been three times when he had betrayed nerves of a kind no XO who hopes one day to have a command should ever display.

In his mind, he had only betrayed natural human reactions to extreme danger: the flooding of the torpedo room, deep beneath the surface; straying right into the path of incoming underwater missiles; being spotted by the big Chinese ICBM submarine. Linus knew that Captain Crocker was a top-class commanding officer, but he also knew their orders forbade them from getting detected. And so far they had been detected three times, once off Taiwan, obviously, once by the
Xia
, and again last night by shore radar. Judd might be tough, experienced and gifted, but he wasn’t Superman, and Linus thought it was about time he showed some of his own mettle, demonstrating that he too was capable of commanding an American nuclear boat on a highly classified mission.

He had a lot of CIA background now, and a lot of important contacts. He really wanted to take a look at this oncoming Chinese warship, and he ordered
Seawolf
’s team to reduce speed and slide up to periscope depth as the contact came within two miles. They might as well take a good look. If push came to shove, they could always go deep and outrun her, just as Judd had done to the much smaller Luda.

In the ops room of the Luhai destroyer there was a ripple of activity. One of the sonar operators, new to the screen that reflected the findings of the giant 1,000-yard-long American-designed towed array, thought he was getting something, but he could not tell what.

It was, however, a sufficient change in the levels for
him to call out engine lines. And Colonel Lee, the very senior captain of the ship, instantly ordered a reduction in speed, as if silencing the water beyond the hull would make their contact more easy to identify.
Xiangtan
slowed almost to a halt while the Chinese technicians worked the computer keys, trying to tap into the new electronic system.

Meanwhile, now at periscope depth,
Seawolf
was 2,400 yards off the Luhai’s starboard beam. Clarke had his night-sight camera up and snapping, and he was visually able to see a large modification to the destroyer’s stern, an unusual housing, bigger than normal for foreign ships, though not entirely unusual in the U.S.

Linus’s mind raced. He knew what he was seeing. Everyone in the Silent Service knew that China had gotten its hands on that high-tech modern towed array, along with its processing computers. And right here was the evidence, a major Chinese warship with a big winch housing for a long towed array, the design and technology of which had been flagrantly stolen from the U.S.

“I’m going in closer,” he said. “Officer of the Deck, keep her straight and level, PD…I want to pass in across her stem and get some closeups of that housing. Might even catch a glimpse of the actual array in the water.”

“Steady, sir…” Andy Warren was issuing a veiled warning. “We don’t know how long that array is.”

“Don’t worry, Andy. I’m not going in closer than a mile. It won’t be that long, will it? And this is a destroyer…the array will be angled down in the water, not straight out behind like a submarine deploys.”

“Sir.” Master Chief Brad Stockton had arrived in the control room. “You want me to let the CO know we’re groping around the ass of a six-thousand-ton Chinese destroyer? It’s the kind of thing he takes a big interest in.”

“I don’t think there’s a need, Brad. Just taking a look. She’s not even transmitting on anything. I thought we’d
cross her wake about a mile astern, get our pictures, then retreat a couple of miles and keep the ESM mast up, see if we can vacuum up a few details of her new radar and communications systems. Ex-USA, I believe.”

“Well, okay, sir. If you say so. But I do think the CO should know roughly what we’re up to. We’re awful close to a critical part of our mission. And remember, sir, we don’t know how long that towed array is, and we don’t know what angle they have it down in the water.”

“My judgment says we’re fine,” replied Linus. “And since they seem to have stolen everything from us short of the Washington Monument, we’ve got a lot of rights, and I’m about to exercise those rights. Turning in now…right standard rudder…steer course zero-nine-zero…make your speed eight…”

And USS
Seawolf
turned across the wake, sliding through the water astern of the destroyer, her periscope jutting out as she made the crossing.

Except she never got there. Almost, but not quite. Her giant propeller snagged on the tough towed array, 75 feet below the surface, wrapping the thick black rubberized tail hard around, twisting it into an impenetrable ball 15 feet across, and then winding it on and on, with the array trapped between the blades, until finally the shaft could fight it no more, and
Seawolf
’s entire propulsion mechanism came to a halt, the propeller jammed rigid.

No one knew it, but the very first tug on the array by the vast inertia of the submarine had yanked it clean off the stern of the Chinese destroyer. And now its weight was slowly dragging the submarine’s stern down.

There was no semblance of uproar, just a heavy slow-motion quiet at a strange angle. And it was, even to a
sleeping
submarine commander, tantamount to a shriek for help that would have pierced the deafness of Beethoven. In two and a half seconds flat, Captain Judd Crocker was wide awake, fighting his way out of his cabin door. Five seconds later he reached the conn.

“What’s going on, XO?” he snapped, seizing the
periscope, which was still up and trained on the stern of the
Xiangtan
. There were only three seconds left before the periscope dipped below the surface, but for Judd Crocker that was plenty.
Xiangtan
’s stern was only 500 yards away,
not
the mile young Linus had believed.

“Depth ninety feet, sir…increasing. Speed zero. Bow up angle seven degrees. INCREASING,” reported the planesman, an edge entering his voice as the great submarine wallowed backward in the water.

“It may not be that bad, sir,” offered Linus. “Just temporary. I think we may have snagged something, sir.”

“SNAGGED!” exclaimed Judd. “We’re in the middle of the South China Sea. Or at least we were when I was last in the conn forty minutes ago. There’s nothing out here to snag. Barring a Chinese destroyer close aboard.”

“I went across her stern to get pictures,” said Linus Clarke. “I stood at least a mile off. But I still seem to have been too close.”

“Jesus, Linus! What d’you mean a mile, for Christ’s sake. It’s only five hundred yards. I’ve just looked. Oh, Jesus Christ! Linus, you had the fucking periscope in low power. It looked like a mile to you, but it was five hundred yards for real. And you just drove straight into his towed array.”

“LOW POWER, SIR. OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD! I can’t believe this. I’m extremely sorry…”

“So am I, Linus. So am I,” said the CO resignedly, hardly believing it himself. Judd had seen this once before when a student of his had made the same mistake. And now one twist the wrong way on the periscope handle had pushed the Chinese destroyer almost four times farther away to Linus’s eye than it actually was.

“Conn maneuvering…unable to answer bells. Main propulsion shaft jammed. Investigating…emergency propulsion is available.”

“Captain, roger. We may have something wrapped around the screw…so propel maximum on emer
gency…and try main propulsion in astern…we might just be able to unwind it.”

“One hundred feet, sir…ten degrees bow up.”

Judd shouldered the XO to one side and ordered a short blast of high-pressure air into the after-main ballast group, in a desperate attempt to stop the stern-down trend.

Somehow he remained outwardly calm. But inwardly, he was seething.
FUCKING FUCKING FUCKING XO…what a total prick…we’ll be real lucky to get out of this one
.

Judd’s mind raced, scanning the options.
What do I do? Dive? Surface? Declare war? Scuttle the ship? Surrender? Call the cavalry? FUCK ME
!

And then,
Steady, Judd. For Christ’s sake, steady. Think it through, from best to worst
.

Best was easy.
If we’re very lucky the destroyer’s CO will think his array snagged the bottom—maybe won’t even notice it’s off for a few minutes—if he’s real stupid
.

But from there, the entire scenario went south.
Because he’s still not going away, is he? He’ll want to mark the position to get the fucking thing back
.

Judd’s mind raced on.
Since he’s going no place fast, it’s me who must make the move. But I’m stuck with three knots max on emergency propulsion…and I’ve got 50 fucking tons of deadweight on my stern. And not much chance at all of restoring the main shaft. Holy shit
!

This was the real loneliness of command. There was no one he could turn to, least of all. his XO. And all around him his team was coping, rock steady, with a crisis beyond the realm of their worst nightmares.

“Conn maneuvering…shaft will not move in astern, sir…EPM running ahead full.”

“Planes are answering.…One hundred and ten feet steady…trim’s good, sir…that is with five degrees bow up.”

“Conn-Sonar…all contacts drowned out by EPM, sir.”

Judd knew he was running out of options. If he stopped the emergency propulsion motor,
Seawolf
would also stop. And the weight aft, too heavy to be compensated for, would drag her down, stern first.