Red Phoenix

by Larry Bond

  The first sonarman didn’t pay any attention. He was too busy punching the intercom button. “Skipper! I’ve got something on number ten, a very weak signal. Could be a diesel boat creeping.”

  Sierra Five banked even more sharply as it came around to head back up its sonobuoy line. More coffee spilled onto the second sonar operator.

  Up in the cockpit the pilot leveled out of his climbing turn and dropped the Orion’s nose to lose altitude. They were closing on the plotted position of Buoy 10 at more than three hundred knots.

  “MAD on?”

  “MAD is on,” Sierra Five’s tactical coordinator confirmed. The cheap LOFAR sonobuoys they’d dropped had such a limited range in these noisy waters that any sub they detected with them had to be very close indeed. Close enough so that the Orion’s magnetic anomaly detector — its MAD — should have a good shot at picking up the slight distortion of the earth’s magnetic field caused by a submarine’s metal hull.

  “Passing number ten… Now!”

  The P-3 roared low over the gray-green sea. An onboard display suddenly spiked upward.

  “Madman! Madman! Positive contact! Smoke away!” A smoke float tumbled away from the Orion and ignited, settling onto the water to mark its prey.

  “Drop a DICASS.” The tactical coordinator wanted a firm fix and he wanted it fast. A DICASS buoy could go active and get both a bearing and range on a detected target.

  The Orion banked steeply again, trading airspeed and altitude for a tighter turn. The buoy popped out of its belly and swayed down into the water.

  “New buoy number fifteen is on. Target! Bearing one three five, range four hundred yards!” The sonarman fought to keep his voice from cracking with excitement.

  Sierra Five settled back into level flight, this time aimed right at the submarine picked up by its active sonobuoy.

  “Weapon away!”

  Nobody aboard the Orion saw the splash as its Mark 46 torpedo hit the water. They were too busy preparing for another attack run.

  DPRK LIBERATOR

  “Torpedo in the water! Bearing three three zero!”

  The sonarman’s shout froze Min for a crucial half-second. Then he turned and screamed at the helmsman, “Right full rudder! Flank speed!”

  The submarine tilted abruptly as it turned and accelerated toward its meager full speed of fourteen knots. Min pulled himself across the control room and into the plot office. He sighed. It was as he’d thought. The water was too shallow to allow any serious maneuvering in the vertical plane. He’d have to try to outturn the American torpedo and hope it lost him. Not that there was much chance of that.

  “Torpedo still closing, Comrade Captain!” Min could hear the fear in his first officer’s voice and knew the same hopelessness. Still, they had to try.

  “Left full rudder, then!”

  Liberator heeled in the opposite direction as the helmsman executed his order immediately. One man at least hadn’t panicked. That was something. He waited, bracing himself for the impact.

  “Torpedo screws fading, Comrade Captain! It has lost us!” Cheers greeted the sonarman’s report.

  Min smiled tightly. He would let the poor fools celebrate. They would learn the truth soon enough.

  SIERRA FIVE

  “That first torp missed, Skipper. Still running, but it’s moving away from the contact.”

  The P-3’s pilot, a burly Naval Reserve commander with the name LAMBROS stenciled across his flight suit, looked at his copilot and smiled. “Ya know, the biggest ASW mistake the Japanese made during Word War II was giving up too soon. I’m not making the same mistake.” His hands pulled the Orion into another turn.

  “Madman! Madman!”

  “Weapon away.”

  DPRK LIBERATOR

  The cheers faded into a collective groan.

  “Right full rudder!” Min turned to his first officer. “Raise the radio mast.”

  “But…” Sung looked confused. “Comrade Captain, the enemy will see it… especially at this speed!”

  “Idiot! Do you think that will matter? Listen!” The pings of several active sonars could be heard clearly, even above the noise made by Liberator’s laboring screws. “Signal all units that we are under attack. And do it while there is still time.”

  Min watched his lieutenant enter the Radio Room and then leaned back against a bulkhead to await his fate. They had been lucky once. They wouldn’t be lucky again.

  SIERRA FIVE

  “A hit!”

  Water fountained skyward in a column of white foam, dead fish, and pitch-black oil. The P-3’s pilot winced slightly watching it. He had an active imagination and could easily visualize how the Mark 46’s high-explosive warhead had killed the enemy submarine — it must have ripped the sub open like a gutted trout. He stared at the oil-coated waves rippling away from the impact zone. There wouldn’t be any survivors. Not in the middle of that.

  With an effort he pulled his eyes and mind away from the dead submarine. “Signal the O’Brien. Tell ’em we got the bad guy.”

  “Aye, aye, Skipper.” The tactical coordinator’s voice was jubilant. “That’s one down and surely more to go.”

  ABOARD DPRK REVOLUTION

  Commander Sohn Chae-Hwan studied the message flimsy. “You’re sure this is all that was sent?”

  The signals rating nodded. “Yes, Comrade Captain. Just the call sign for Liberator and those words, ‘under attack.’” He flinched as a dollop of spray sluiced across the Osa-class missile boat’s open bridge. He’d grown too used to his warm cubbyhole belowdecks and didn’t like standing outside, fully exposed to the cold sea.

  Sohn dismissed him with a curt gesture and turned to look at the chart for Liberator’s last known position. He had to assume that the submarine had been sunk by whatever enemy had attacked it. And that left just one Romeo-class antique in the probable path of the American convoy. He sneered. It was unlikely that one ancient diesel submarine would be able to do much on its own.

  He glanced up from the chart, studying the stubby silhouettes of the other two missile boats that made up his command. The original plan hadn’t called for the Osa squadron to attack until the mop-up phase, but the original plan had just gone by the boards. Liberator sunk without even exacting a price for its loss. Disgraceful.

  But perhaps a sudden attack by the twelve SS-N-2C Styx missiles his boats carried could sow enough confusion to give that last Romeo a fighting chance. It was worth trying.

  He snapped out an order. “Signal the squadron. New course is two three five degrees. Full speed ahead!”

  Sohn felt the Revolution leap under his feet as its three-shaft diesel engines roared into life. The three missile boats turned southwest, toward the northernmost tip of Tsushima Island, racing ahead at thirty-six knots.

  USS O’BRIEN

  Levi watched as a rating updated the CIC’s plot, showing the P-3 moving further north to lay another sonobuoy line across the northern tip of Tsushima Island. Another seaman entered the convoy’s current position.

  He turned to his ASW officer. “Well, what do you think, Bill?”

  “I think we’re right on the edge of game time, Skipper. I sure as hell don’t think that NK sub was out there all alone. He’ll have company around somewhere.”

  “Agreed. Okay, then. Let’s get Duncan’s helo down for refueling. But tell Vandermeier I want his replacement in the air first. I want continuous coverage to our east. Clear?”

  The ASW officer nodded.

  Levi glanced at the air status board. They hadn’t been updated yet. He frowned. “What’s the latest on our own birds?”

  “Hotel Three is at plus-five. Ready to launch at your order.” The ASW officer followed Lev’s frown and frowned himself. Somebody was being slow.

  “What about Two?”

  “Still down. They’re trying to get that cracked rotor casing off for repair, but it looks like an all-day job.”

  Levi’s frown grew deeper. His second SH-2F Sea Sprite had bee
n out of commission off and on ever since leaving Pearl two weeks before. What the hell use was a helicopter that wouldn’t ever fly? “Well, try to light a fire under them down there, Bill. You know the old saying, ‘For want of a helo…’”

  The ASW officer grinned. “Aye, aye, Skipper. Consider the pyre lit.” His grin faded. “But I don’t think it’s going to do much good.”

  “Yeah, well. At least it’ll make me feel better. So get it done.” Levi turned his attention back to the plot, trying to guess where the NKs would come from next.

  DPRK GREAT LEADER

  Senior Captain Chun pondered the fragmentary message relayed by East Sea Fleet Command at Wonsan. “And there has been no further contact with Liberator?”

  “No, Captain.”

  Chun dismissed the man with an absentminded wave. Min and his submarine had almost certainly been sunk. If they’d survived, Liberator would have made a more detailed contact report by now. Min was — no, had been — a veteran captain, one of the best. Meanwhile Great Leader’s patrol along Tsushima’s west coast had been completely undisturbed. Not a single sonar contact. Not a single significant periscope sighting.

  The possibility that had been growing in his mind crystallized into a certainty — the Americans were transiting Tsushima’s east coast. And he and his submarine were in exactly the wrong place. Chun stepped to the Control Room’s plot table.

  He laid out a course that would allow them to intercept the Americans to the north of Tsushima and then frowned, calculating times and distances. It would be at least a six-hour run at ten knots — a run that would leave the Great Leader dangerously short of battery power.

  Diesel-electric submarines were the quietest on earth when operating on batteries, but endurance runs at speed weren’t exactly their forte. Kilo-class subs such as his could carry two hundred hours’ worth of charge in their massive battery stacks, but increased speed meant an increased battery drain. At ten knots the Great Leader’s electric motors would consume ten hours’ worth of charge for every hour of operation. It went up from there. An hour at fifteen knots ate fifty hours’ worth of charge, and using the sub’s maximum speed, sixteen knots, would drain every battery aboard in just two hours. The Great Leader’s batteries could be recharged while snorkeling and running on diesels, but diesels were noisy. And noisy submarines didn’t live long.

  Still, he didn’t have much choice. The high command’s orders were explicit. This convoy must be stopped — at all costs. Chun faced his officers. “Left rudder. Bring us to new course zero zero three. And increase speed to ten knots.”

  For a second the assembled officers stood motionless, surprised by his sudden decision to abandon the Great Leader’s slated patrol area. Then they scrambled to obey. They would go north.

  ABOARD SIERRA FIVE, NEAR THE NORTH END OF TSUSHIMA

  “Buoy number twenty-two down and marked. Drop point for twenty-three is coming up … now!”

  “Buoy away!” A small parachute blossomed from beneath the P-3’s belly and drifted toward the ocean. In the aircraft above, the tactical coordinator watched the computer screen as a small symbol appeared, with “23” next to it. Sierra Five was just passing the small village of Toyo on the rocky northeastern tip of Tsushima Island, laying a new sonobuoy line from the southwest to the northeast. Four more buoys would complete the line, and then the P-3 could circle around to begin its patrol, always listening for the minute sounds — a noisy propeller, a hatch slammed shut too fast, a metal tool dropped on a metal deck — that could signal an enemy’s approach.

  “Uh… Skipper?” It was one of the crewmen acting as lookouts through the side windows.

  The pilot clicked his intercom switch. “Go ahead, Charlie. What’s up?”

  “I think maybe I just saw something up north. Pretty far out there. All I could see was some kind of blinking or flashing.” The lookout sounded vaguely apologetic for having disturbed him.

  Something to the north? On the surface? Maybe he’d made a mistake in leaving the P-3’s radar off. It had seemed unnecessary to have it on and all too likely to alert any enemy sub with ESM — electronic intercept — capability. Sierra Five’s commander clicked his intercom switch again. “Let’s get the radar going, Mike.”

  “Warming up now.” Aft in the Orion’s electronics compartment, the petty officer assigned to run its APS-115 surface search radar flicked a series of switches and listened to the low hum as his gear came on line, going from standby to active status in seconds. Blips appeared instantly on the screen. “Contact! I’ve got two, no, three radar contacts bearing zero one six, range approximately twenty-three miles. Definitely small surface contacts, not periscopes.”

  Up in the cockpit, the pilot glanced at his copilot. “Japanese or Korean fishing boats, maybe?”

  His second-in-command looked up from leafing through a thick collection of charts and photocopied briefing papers. “Not in that sector. Not legally, anyway. The Pusan sea lane’s been posted off-limits since Day One.”

  “Skipper!” It was the radar operator. “Contacts now bearing zero two zero. Their track is two three five, speed thirty-six knots!”

  Those weren’t fishing boats. They were moving too goddamned fast. The P-3 banked hard right to come around on an intercept course. “Sparks, tell the O’Brien the good news. Frank, get your Harpoons ready to go. Looks like we’ve got targets for ’em.”

  “Coming up, bossman.” The tactical coordinator had his face nuzzled up against a radar repeater scope, studying the contacts he was about to try to kill. Three distinct ships, each separated from the others by about a mile of open water. Three targets… and two Harpoons slung under Sierra Five’s wings. Well, two out of three wouldn’t be bad.

  “Range eighteen miles and closing.”

  The copilot had binoculars up to his eyes, sweeping the sea ahead of them. “Got ’em. Dead ahead. Small patrol boats. Probably Osas by the look of ’em. Definitely not friendlies.”

  “Okay, that’s good enough for me.” The P-3’s pilot spoke firmly. “Nail the creeps, Frank.”

  DPRK REVOLUTION

  “Aircraft! Due south!”

  The lookout’s shout brought Commander Sohn’s head around in time to see the two tiny flashes from under the P-3’s wings. “Missile warning! Hard right rudder! Come to new course two seven zero. Alert Retaliation and Avenger!”

  Sohn held onto the bridge railing with both hands, braced against the tilting deck as the Revolution came around on its new course. Its two sister ships followed suit, turning in line abreast and throwing spray high into the air in twin roostertails.

  Revolution’s gun turrets whined, spinning round to face south. The North Korean commander grimaced. Even though he’d ordered the radical turn to unmask both his boat’s twin-gun 30mm mounts, he knew they’d still have a difficult shot against the enemy missile. The briefings he’d received had said that the Harpoon could skim the waves at more than five hundred knots. Since his guns had a maximum effective range of just over a mile and a half, that meant they would have less than ten seconds to try to knock an incoming Harpoon into the sea before it hit home. Not very much time at all.

  He let go of the railing with one hand and leaned over an open hatch to yell down to the boat’s signals rating. “Break radio silence. Inform Fleet Command and all units that we are under air attack and that we believe the enemy convoy is on a course east of Tsushima Island.”

  Sohn didn’t wait for a reply but turned away, trying to spot the Harpoons streaking toward him. There. Twin shadows racing over the water almost faster than the eye could see. One was climbing, arcing into the sky as it popped up before plunging down onto Revolution.

  Both the fore and aft 30-millimeter guns cut loose with a chattering roar, throwing tracers toward the missile climbing higher above the sea. Sohn’s hands gripped the railing as he willed himself to remain motionless. Yes! A 30mm round shattered the American missile, turning it into a tumbling ball of flame that struck the water two hund
red meters short of the Revolution.

  Sohn caught a split-second glance of the other Harpoon’s long, white shape as it flashed overhead and was gone. He spun round and staggered as a tremendous shock wave rocked the boat. There, less than a mile off, debris spiraled away from the center of an explosion. When the smoke and spray cleared, Retaliation, his middle boat, had vanished — blown to pieces by the missile’s 227-kilogram warhead.

  He broke away from the boiling sea left by the explosion and sought out the enemy plane. It seemed to hang in midair, arrogantly loitering to see the results of its attack. “Hard left rudder! Bring us to one eight zero degrees. I want to close the range to that bastard!” He looked wildly around. “Comrade Lee!”

  The boat’s portly weapons officer hauled himself to his feet. “Yes, Comrade Captain!”

  “Prepare your SAM team! I want that plane down!”

  The Revolution and its surviving consort, the Avenger, surged south, speeding toward the P-3 and closer to the rocky beaches of Tsushima Island.

  USS O’BRIEN

  “I’m sorry, Captain. The island’s blocking our fire. We just can’t hit those Osas from here.”

  Levi nodded his understanding. His tactical action officer was right. The two remaining North Korean missile boats were sheltered from his Harpoons by the Japanese island’s hills. The geometry just wasn’t quite right. For a second he wondered if the NK commander had planned it that way. Then he dismissed the thought. It didn’t matter. What did matter was finding a way to get a shot at those fast attack boats before they could launch on him.

  Levi ran his eye over the plot, half-listening to the constant stream of reports flowing in from the P-3 twenty miles ahead. There really was only one practical maneuver. He stepped to the intercom. “Mr. Keegan, alter course to zero three zero degrees and increase speed to twenty knots. Signal the Duncan to take station astern and order the convoy to alter course to zero nine zero degrees.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain.”

  Levi stepped back to the plot to speak to the tactical action office. “That’ll help us get a clear field of fire faster. And it’ll keep the merchies behind us if missiles start flying.”