U.S.S. Seawolf (52 page)

Most of the SEALs had been privately scared when the shell had ripped into the submarine’s casing. And the journey had been, from their point of view, somewhat worrying—locked in a damaged underwater ship, running through the dark and endless depths of foreign waters where the seas of China finally wash into the immense Pacific.

None of them knew much about submarines, and there’s something forbidding about being deep underwater if you are not used to it. Plainly one major leak, far less a torpedo, could wipe out the entire ship, condemning them to the
endless black silence of the deep. And the SEALs’ iron discipline and amazing skills could not save them from that.

The fact that
Greenville
was obviously hit and hurt made matters considerably more tense, and tired as they were, it was difficult for anyone to sleep for long. Lt. Commander Rick Hunter had been in long conversations with Judd Crocker and was more or less approaching the point where he understood the massive safety systems in a nuclear submarine. He now understood that
Xiangtan
might open fire on them again, should they go to the surface, and that generally speaking it was a whole lot better to stay deep and comfortable.
Greenville
’s nuclear reactor would give them all the warmth, air and power they could need.

Buster Townsend had completed his first mission, two missions really, since he was active in the recon. He would never look at the world in quite the same way again, having gazed into the jaws of death on several occasions since he had first dropped into the water four days ago, right on Lieutenant Commander Bennett’s shoulder.

And now he sipped coffee in companionable quiet with his colleagues. The young SEAL from the bayous who had twice made the journey to Xiachuan Dao, who had marched across the island hauling the heavy gear, logged the guard movements in the jail and dodged the machine-gun fire to blow off the main cell door, was suddenly incapable of conversation.

Next to him sat his lifetime buddy, Rattlesnake Davies, who had cold-bloodedly knifed the Chinese guard who threatened the entire mission. Rattlesnake too sipped coffee, saying nothing.

Petty Officer Steve Whipple, the iron man who had carried 80 pounds of high explosive through the jungle, who had gunned down the Chinese guards on the hill and blown up the communication center, was talking, but only to his pal Catfish Jones.

Petty Officer Jones, another iron man who had carried the big machine gun, plus all of his other equipment, had
also blown up the headquarters of the camp commandant, Commander Li. But at this time he talked only of baseball, wondering aloud how Steve could possibly waste his time in support of a team such as the Chicago White Sox.

“Jesus, you Atlanta Braves guys are getting goddamned pleased with yourselves,” muttered Steve. “But we’ll be back, maybe not this season, but next…”

“In your dreams.”

It was an unconscious attempt to return to something near normality after the mayhem and the death, the bombs, the guns and the knives. They made it seem like routine. But it never was.

Up in the wardroom, Lt. Paul Merloni was making a valiant attempt to act normally, with his customary edge of black humor. But wit came unusually difficult today for the New Yorker, who had shot down three of the Chinese outside guard patrol and then cut down the guard in the interrogation room, probably saving the life of Linus Clarke.

Paul was talking to Lt. Dan Conway, who was never effusive but now, in the grim aftermath of the operation, deep below the surface of the Pacific, was absorbed only with thoughts of getting out of here alive. Dan too had faced death, in the thick of the fighting in the jail, and more so when he rushed the entrance of the dormitory block hurling his grenades at Commander Li’s armed guards.

In the other corner sat Lt. Commander Rusty Bennett, looking surprisingly presentable, wearing a spare pair of Navy trousers and shirt, on the basis that he could not walk around covered in the blood of the watchtower guards. He was glad to be out of those clothes, and was already being treated as something of a celebrity by the young officers in the submarine. He had asked for special permission to bring Chief McCarthy into the wardroom, and now the two men who had scaled the towers and made the entire mission possible sat eating chicken sandwiches
and trying not to think about what might have happened if their luck had run out high above the prison complex.

What each of them knew was that this mission was not yet over. They knew they were in a submarine that could not, for the moment, go to the surface. They also knew they had been hit by a Chinese destroyer that was still out there, still trying to get at them. And they listened with both ears for any shred of information which might illuminate the situation.

It was becoming clear that they were on a long, 600-mile ride out into the Pacific, and that the officers of the submarine were fervently hoping the
Xiangtan
would give up and leave. The SEALs were of the opinion that they had fought quite enough battles for one weekend, and they would deeply appreciate getting back to the aircraft carrier without being caught in the middle of another one.

“Right now I’m overexploded,” said Paul Merloni.

Meanwhile, out in the
Xiangtan
, Colonel Lee was under-exploded, and the conundrum that faced him was growing more pressing by the hour. At this stage, 400 miles east of the hunting ground off Xiachuan Dao, they were driving through pitch-black, rainy seas in the small hours of Tuesday morning, July 18.

They were in the northern waters of the 200-mile-wide Luzon Strait, which separates the south coast of Taiwan from the Philippines. In an area strewn with shoals and tiny islands, they were in steeply shelving waters that were sometimes 4,000 feet deep, sometimes 6,000. Right now the lead American frigate,
Kaufman
, was heading for the Bashi Channel, which leads steadily through the shoals and out into some really bottomless water, three miles deep.

Shantou
had already expressed concern about her fuel situation, and Colonel Lee realized that even the vast tanks of
Xiangtan
could not last forever, especially at these high speeds. Four hundred miles from now he
would have to consider turning back. Even Admiral Zhang in his current state of mind must know he could not run fast for more than three or four days.

Also, if
Shantou
turned back, he would be in a very exposed position, in massively deep water. If the Americans decided to sink him way out here in these desolate acres of the Pacific, no one would ever really know what had happened. He and his crew could end up on the bottom, a mile deeper than the
Titanic
, and it had taken over a half century to find her.

It seemed to Colonel Lee that the sooner he made his move the better, because the farther they went the more the advantage swung toward the Americans. The trouble was that he could not work out quite what to do. Neither could any of the officers who sailed with him. The task presented by the plainly deranged Admiral Zhang was an order formed by a madman.

Here he was, hundreds of miles from either help or a Chinese base, surrounded by three American guided missile frigates and a monstrous American cruiser, and he was supposed to (a) find the damaged American submarine they were all protecting and (b) attack it, in the face of the superpower’s armed escort. Was this crazy, or what?

And how to conduct his attack? He could scarcely use depth charges, because the submarine was plainly right underneath the frigate
Kaufman
. Mortar charges were a kind of lunatic possibility, but the mortars carried by
Xiangtan
were only the old FQF 2500s, which had a range of 1,200 meters. Therefore, from his current position, astern of the
Kaufman
, which was making 27 knots, he would somehow have to come in a mile closer and throw the mortars forward straight over the American frigate, which would then watch them plop into the water out ahead.

At that point Lee and his crew probably would have about one minute to live, maximum, before the shuddering power of
Vella Gulf
’s big Harpoon guided missiles
slammed them all into oblivion. Also, the chances of one of the mortar charges actually hitting
Greenville
, and exploding, were, by Colonel Lee’s reckoning, remote.

The gun was no good, because the submarine was still under the water. Helicopters were no good because the Americans would blow them out of the sky in about two minutes. Which left only torpedoes. If Colonel Lee was going to put
Greenville
on the bottom, he would have to launch two of their Yu-2 active/passive homing weapons, and he assessed the chances of success at only fifty-fifty. The torpedoes could not go in passive because of the noisemaker off the stern of
Kaufman
.

They would have to use active homing, and they still might not be fast enough. However, he could program them with a 50-foot ceiling, which meant they would not go for anything up to 50 feet below the surface. Right below that, they should find the USS
Greenville
.

And the chances of the Americans NOT knowing the torpedoes were on their way in? Zero, was Colonel Lee’s guess.

And so they all thundered on east,
Shantou
running out of fuel fast. By midafternoon her captain had made his decision, and he contacted
Xiangtan
to announce he would have to turn back. “I am, sir, reaching the point of no return. If I run for another hour at this speed I may not get back at all.”

Colonel Lee, now almost 700 miles away from the coast of his homeland, decided that he also must make his move. He informed
Shantou
he would run for another 100 miles and then he, too, would try to turn back, but he had a private mission to complete for Admiral Zhang before he did so. He could see no point in
Shantou
remaining on station to go down with him.

At 1630 the Americans saw the Chinese frigate turn away and began to head back toward the west. But they noted that
Xiangtan
kept right on coming, all on her own, matching them for speed. She was a big ship to be showing such singleminded hot pursuit, and the four American
surface commanders wished as one that she would get the hell away, and go follow the goddamned frigate home for a nice bowl of rice.

Kaufman
’s sonar room got on the underwater telephone and informed Tom Wheaton that one of the Chinese warships had turned back.

“The little one, I guess?”

“Aye, sir. The destroyer’s still there, coupla miles astern.”

The conversation was short, but Colonel Lee’s men picked it up and were grateful for it, since it confirmed that their quarry was still very much within striking range.

And now Colonel Lee ordered an increase in speed, winding
Xiangtan
up to 30 knots. And as he did so, Captain Freeburg began a wide swing way out to her port side, settling in a position eight miles off the Chinese beam, the precise range he would need for an accurate launch of his McDonnell Douglas Harpoon surface-to-surface missiles with their big, ship-killing 227-kilogram warheads. Those things fire high, right out of the big stern-mounted quad launchers, then tip over and lose height before leveling off and screaming in at wavetop height at almost 900 knots, active-radar homing, just about unstoppable. Someone fires those babies at you, you need sharp eyes, a life jacket and a prayer book. And while Chuck Freeburg had no intention of beginning anything, under his present orders, one false move and the Chinaman was history.

Kaufman
had her eyes glued on the destroyer and noticed the increase in speed. They had an open line from the ops room direct to
Vella Gulf
, where Chuck Freeburg was preparing his Harpoon missiles for launch, if necessary.

It was 1645 when the Chinese commanding officer decided that at roughly a mile he was close enough.

Not that he knew precisely where
Greenville
was. Only the general area, under
Kaufman
. And even that was
sheer guesswork. And to act on that guesswork amounted to his own death warrant.

All he could do was to fire his torpedoes into that area on the outside chance they would find
Greenville
.

“Left standard rudder…steer zero-eight-zero. STAND BY ONE AND TWO TUBES.”

“Steady on zero-eight-zero, sir.”

Colonel Lee hesitated for one split second, preparing to join his God. Then he snapped the death-or-glory command. “FIRE ONE.”

“Number one tube fired.”

“FIRE TWO.”

“Number two tube fired.”

Just two small clouds of smoke were all that betrayed Colonel Lee’s actions as the two torpedoes blasted out of the tubes, 50 yards over the water, and then dropped with a heavy splash below the surface, searching, searching, searching for the USS
Greenville
.

Kaufman
spotted the smoke. The control room snapped out the information to the cruiser: “The Chinese destroyer has fired two torpedoes from his starboard side.”

Simultaneously they hit the underwater telephone to
Greenville
right underneath the keel, and the submarine’s ops room was, if anything, a split second ahead.

“We just picked ‘em up. Active homers…ping interval fifteen hundred meters…I’m going on to thirty knots…full pattern active and passive decoys launched.”

Judd Crocker, in
Greenville
’s conn with Tom Wheaton, said, “What’s that, Tommy? Thirty-five knots. They got five on us…range fifteen hundred…that’s a five-hundred-yard gain every three minutes…gonna take ‘em nine minutes to catch us…right?”

“Correct, sir. But we got those Emerson Mark Two decoys out there…Christ they’re good, light-years in front of those old Chinese torpedoes…have faith…
we may not outrun ’em, but we’ll definitely outsmart ’em.”

Greenville
surged forward in the water, pursued now by Colonel Lee’s comparatively primitive weapons, which were already being completely confused by the decoys. Every time the torpedo’s homing sonar pinged, the Emerson decoy pinged it right back, announcing to the iron Chinese brain,
Here I am, a darned great American submarine…come right in and hit me…over here…way, way over here
.”