U.S.S. Seawolf (46 page)

“Jesus Christ,” said the CO. “The little bastards have killed him.”

A few more minutes passed, and then the searching parties began to arrive back. “There’s no one left in the cell blocks, sir. No one alive.”

“Well, there’s no one in the interrogation rooms, either,” said Rick. “We’ve checked them. The guardroom’s rubble. The comm room’s rubble, the dormitory badly damaged, but most of the personnel have been gassed, and anyway he couldn’t be in there. I must therefore conclude that Lieutenant Commander Rothstein has been killed. And in any event, I’m afraid we cannot remain a moment longer or else we’ll all end up dead. We have to get off this island.”

“Right, Lieutenant Commander. I understand that.
Judging by their methods of interrogation, I hold out absolutely no hope whatsoever for his rescue.”

Just then a sporadic burst of gunfire burst from the hill overlooking the southern wall of the jail. The bullets flew into the big crowd in the jail yard and two seamen went down out on the left.

“IT’S THOSE TWO LITTLE BASTARDS WHO GOT AWAY FROM THE OUTSIDE PATROL!” yelled Bobby Allensworth.

“GET IN UNDER THE WALL, EVERYONE…TAKE COVER RIGHT NOW…BOBBY…GIMME ONE OF THOSE FLARES…” Rick Hunter was moving fast. He lit the flare and held it in his gloved hand, letting go at the last minute when it sparked and made liftoff. They all watched it head into the night sky, burst and illuminate the entire hillside.

Buster yelled first. “THERE THEY ARE, SIR, RIGHT UP THERE…LEFT OF THE TREES…”

“Paul, Rattlesnake, Buster, Steve…follow me. We have to get rid of them. Bring the big machine gun…otherwise they’ll try to pick us off all the way to the beach…take care of those two wounded men, Olaf…THE REST OF YOU STAY AGAINST THE WALL TILL WE GET BACK…”

Rick Hunter headed left, up the hill, in the cover of the trees, running softly through the dark, followed by four of his most trusted men. “Keep right on this treeline till we get above them…cut ’em off from cover…keep ’em pinned down on the hill…so their only way out is toward the beach…”

Rick issued his orders as he ran, and when he was high enough above the last known position of the two remaining Chinese guards, he told Paul to loose off another flare, this time through a proper launcher, rather than hand-held.

It arched like a big rocket high up over the hill, and burst in a dazzle of light. “There they are, sir…right
down there…nearer the jail than when we last saw them…”

“TAKE ’EM OUT, STEVE…MACHINE GUN…”

The big petty officer opened fire immediately. Paul sent up another flare and they all saw the last of the patrol guards get up and run for higher ground. But they never made it, and the five SEALs packed up their flares and ammunition belts and headed back down to the jail.

0300. Monday, July 17
.
Office of the
Southern Fleet Commander. Zhanjiang
.

In the mind of Admiral Zhang Yushu, all was lost in this ill-fated adventure. The American submarine was gone, indeed the entire Canton dockyard was almost gone.

And now it was obvious to him that the forces of the United States had landed on Xiachuan and taken the jail. There would be, he knew, many, many casualties, and much worse, no prisoners.

So far as he knew, only two of the Americans had actually died. And they were the only two Americans who were safe, so far as he could tell. The rest of them, if they escaped, which they now seemed certain to do, would sing out to the whole world what had befallen them after their ship had been essentially hijacked in international waters.

It was not, and had never been, the policy of the regime of Communist China to give a damn what the rest of the world thought. But increasingly, in the interest of international trade, they had tried to be at least agreeable to world opinion.

This looked to Zhang like trouble on a grand scale. In fact, this could turn out to be Tiananmen Square in the jungle. For the first time in his entire life, Zhang Yushu thought his career might be on the line here.

He was simply uncertain whether any C-in-C in any
part of the People’s Liberation Army/Navy could afford to be the only person responsible for a disaster of this magnitude: nuclear catastrophe, many Chinese deaths; failure to incarcerate prisoners, many more Chinese deaths; loss of two massively expensive helicopters to foreign enemy on Chinese soil; loss of a highly expensive guided missile patrol boat in Chinese waters, on a Chinese jetty, to the same foreign enemy; and worldwide public condemnation of Chinese methods of interrogation of a most important friendly trading partner.

And only one solitary person to blame: Admiral Zhang Yushu himself, architect of the entire, hideous comedy of errors.

Admiral Zu stood up and walked across the room, wearing a deep frown.

“Is there any point speculating that the Americans may not actually have attacked our island, and that we are just experiencing some kind of major power cut?”

“None. No power cut would affect the radio or the satellites. The reason we are unable to contact Xiachuan is because the Americans have attacked it. There is no other explanation. And I know them so well.”

“But how?”

“We’ve seen no large helicopter platform within two hundred miles of the coast. Therefore, they can’t be using helicopters. So they must be using ships. And only submarines could get close enough without our seeing them. And then small landing boats to bring them to shore.”

“But they cannot overpower our forces. We have more than one hundred fully armed guards and many other personnel.”

“Well, we may have beaten them, driven them off. But somehow there’s been a battle. That’s why we cannot make contact with the island. What worries me is the coincidence with the submarine’s demise. Just a few hours ago, we lose the ship, and now the island is completely inaccessible.”

“Well, what do we do? Send in reinforcements? Helicopters? Troops? Artillery?”

“No, Jicai. It’s much too late for that. It would take us two hours to prepare at this time of night, and another hour to get there. No, our only chance is by sea, because if the Americans are there, they came in submarines. And if they came to rescue the prisoners, they will have to leave in submarines. They could not have used surface ships or we would have seen them long ago.

“Jicai, this is a Navy problem. If we want to catch and punish the Americans, it will be on the sea. If we can catch them in Chinese waters, we are at liberty to attack in self-defense. We may even have the chance to put a couple of American nuclear boats on the bottom of the ocean.”

Admiral Zu looked across the room at the now-distraught Commander-in-Chief as he strode back and forth, reflecting on this local but Homeric struggle between two of the world’s great powers.

“But how, with what?”

“Jicai, if they are about to evacuate Xiachuan, they are almost certainly on the surface or in shallow water. Our destroyer, when it gets there, could attack very effectively.”

“Well, sir, let’s look at the charts. Right here is Xiachuan. If the Americans came in underwater, they would be around here, where it’s forty meters deep. Plainly we cannot get ships out of Canton at the moment, since the entire waterfront is radioactive…so whatever ships we send to intercept will have to come from here…four hours away.”

“What ships do we have available, Jicai? The big new destroyer for a start, eh?
Xiangtan
. It carries guns, torpedoes, surface-to-surface missiles and two ASW helicopters. Also, she makes over thirty knots through the water, and she has reasonable sonar.”

“Yessir. And the light Jianghu-class frigate
Shantou
is ready to sail immediately.”

“She carries A/S mortars and depth charges, correct?”

“Absolutely, sir.”

“Then I think we must proceed, Jicai. Send for both commanding officers. I think we should explain to them personally precisely what we expect of them. We could, with good reason, hit an American submarine.”

“Good reason?”

“Certainly, a big American nuclear boat in Chinese territorial waters, an island that had been attacked by an obviously American force from the submarine…oh yes, Jicai…we could make that sound very plausible. We could even claim hot pursuit, continuing to chase them in international waters and demanding their legal arrest.”

“I am just not sure where any of this is taking us, Yushu. Let’s face it, if the Americans have their prisoners back, why not just let them go? They’re going anyway, and
Seawolf
is lost.”

“That has to do with loss of face, Jicai. I agree that the prisoners are probably going home. Mostly. And I understand that they will talk about us and our methods of interrogation. But I would prefer that not all of them went home. I would just feel better if we were able to sink an American submarine, which would take a few dozen of the prisoners down with her…that would be more satisfactory to me. I would feel that I had not been completely humiliated. And in the halls of power in Beijing, that might look much better for me. I might even retain my job.”

“Yushu, in all the years I have known you, I have never heard you speak like that before, considering yourself above the principal military picture.”

“Jicai, I have never had to. Now it’s different.”

“And what of the warships now on their way? What will I order them to carry out?…”

“Jicai, you will tell them to sink any American submarine, no matter what the risk, no matter how difficult. As many as they find.”

Just then, Admiral Zu’s young lieutenant assistant came in, carrying a single sheet of paper. “Just in from Canton city, sir…a very short signal. Telephone communication from a village elder on the island of Shangchuan, just across the bay from the jail. He says his sons sighted a very bright glow in the sky about an hour ago, says it looked like a very large fire…he telephoned the police in Macao, and they networked it through their headquarters in Canton.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant. That will come as no surprise to our learned Commander-in-Chief.”

Admiral Zhang continued to pace the room. “We must get one of them, Jicai. We must hit one, and put a lot of Americans on the bottom of the ocean. It is essential that we do that.”

“Just for loss of face and your career, Yushu? Do you not think there may have been enough bloodshed already?”

Admiral Zhang hesitated. And then he unloaded on his oldest friend, control slipping away as he spoke. “SILENCE!” he roared. “SILENCE, Jicai. I must have revenge, do you understand me? REVENGE! For God’s sake, am I not entitled to that, after all I have done for this country? I understand I may be relieved of command, but don’t deny me my pride. If I go, I must go as a warrior, as a commander who fought the enemy to his last breath. Not as a poor, pathetic creature, beaten and humbled by the American imperialists, pounded into defeat and then sent away to rot in obscurity.

“Don’t begrudge me my pride, Jicai. I must save face. And the only way to do that is to make sure we hit the Americans. If I could, I’d do it myself. Nothing would make me happier than to smash a Chinese torpedo right into the heart of an American ship—I hate them, Jicai. My God, I hate them.”

For the first time, Admiral Zu was actually quite concerned about the state of mind of the Commander-in-Chief of the People’s Liberation Navy. His own instinct
was to let the damned American prisoners go, clear up the mess, apologize to Washington for the destruction of
Seawolf
in the accident in Canton, blame the damage on the collision with the destroyer, and get on with life, trade and prosperity.

Yushu’s pride, he thought, might prove expensive.

1415 (local). Sunday, July 16
.
Office of Admiral Morgan
.
The White House
.

The hotline from the Oval Office rang yet again.

“Hello, sir,” said Arnold Morgan. “Sorry, no word yet. But no news is good news…there was never going to be communication until the prisoners reached the first submarine, unless there was a crisis. So far there has been no communication, and they have been on the island for two and a half hours. That means the jail is in American hands, sir. Trust me. Otherwise we’d have heard.”

“But are the prisoners alive? That’s all I want to know…”

“If they’d found anything untoward, they’d have let us know by now. Sir, we have to continue to think the operation has been successfully carried out, and I’m not moving from this chair until we hear. I’ll call you the first second I get any news whatsoever.”

“Okay, Arnie. I know I’m being neurotic. But I don’t know what I’d do if I lost him…”

The admiral put the phone down and picked up his direct line to Admiral Mulligan’s office in the Pentagon. “Hi, Joe, anything yet?”

“Uh-uh. Just heard from George Morris, though. We got a picture from the overheads showing a large fire on the island of Xiachuan. Lotta black smoke, looks like fuel.”

“The fire’s probably a good sign. It should mean they’re in and attacking. Let’s face it, Joe, no one can deal with the SEALs when they’re in full cry.”

“That’s where my money is…I’ll call you back as soon as I get anything.”

0312
.
The Jail. Xiachuan Dao
.

Captain Crocker went over the crew list one final time. Only Cy Rothstein and Skip Laxton were still missing. Rick Hunter said, “I gotta brief your guys.”

“I got eight fast inflatables on the beach,” rapped the SEAL leader. “Each boat takes eight with one on a stretcher, nine without. I’m takin’ three boats with nine guys, that’s twenty-seven. With five stretcher cases, we got forty more places in the first wave…that’s a total of sixty-seven I want ready to leave right away. Do
eggzackly
what my guys say. They say
DROP
, you drop. They say
JUMP
, don’t stop to ask how high. You jump.

“They’ll carry the stretchers, guide you down to the beach. There’s a team there to get y’all aboard. Then you got a thirty-minute ride to a submarine. GO, TEAM.”

Judd Crocker added, “Shawn, do the head count. Andy, take care of Brad. He’s on a stretcher for the ride.”