Southwest by a hundred miles is the Point Echo Hold Position, which is our destination. Farther south by fifty nautical miles is the Point Foxtrot Hold Position.
“I have the surface force making a serpentine course toward the Point Delta Hold Position at the north end of the island chain. They will orbit there until the East China Sea is clear. Once we’ve cleaned up the op area, the fleet goes in, straight shot to the Shanghai beach.
“Next, how we clean up the op area. Zero hour is midnight Friday evening Beijing time, four days from now. I’m proposing you come into the op area northwest from Point Echo. That’s just on the south part of the Naze-Yakushima Gap, just a little south of where the initial RDF task force went down. I’m not sure if you’ve briefed your crew on the Red force, but we have reason to believe it consists of six Japanese Rising Sun-class subs, all of them hijacked at sea by some kind of fast submersible. Which means I want you to rig for non-penetration, Bruce. Put chains and locks around your escape-trunk upper and lower hatches. I don’t want you guys being hijacked like the Rising Suns were.
“Anyway, you’ll penetrate at Point Echo and search for the Rising Suns. The 688s will be entering far to the south, from Point Foxtrot, heading north. This is the tough part of the plan, Bruce, because we have reason to believe the 688s are at a severe disadvantage. So I have something special in mind for them.”
Pacino continued for another fifteen minutes, then called for questions. When there were none, he closed, saying that he’d transmit the official hard copy of the orders, and that they would soon be back in touch as he and the SSNX got closer to the op area. Then, without fanfare, he clicked off.
Phillips hoisted a phone to his ear and ordered the ship to return to base depth, course, and speed. As he hung up the phone, he shot Whatney a look.
“Roger, what the hell is going on? East China Sea?
Rising Suns? Locking the escape hatches? The goddamned SSNX?”
Whatney had the grace not to smile. “You missed a lot. Skipper. I took the liberty of compiling some hard copies of messages and a video disk of the news reports for you to brief yourself on. You’ve been pretty sick, sir.
Maybe you’d better go back to bed.”
“The hell,” Phillips said, now intrigued, and glad to have something that would take his mind off Abby. “I’m going to curl up with this for an hour. Then meet me in here and let’s go over this.”
Whatney left, and Phillips began to read. On the bulkhead clicked the second hand of an old-fashioned brass chronometer. He’d been reading for twenty minutes when he noticed that his headache was gone.
“Sir, the ship is divorced from shore power. The diesel is carrying all ship’s loads.” At the door to the VIP stateroom, Walt Hornick was holding his hat in both hands looking like a supplicant.
“Ship’s company embarked?” Pacino asked.
“No, sir, we’re missing the captain and the Dynacorp Cyclops system representative.”
“O’Shaughnessy?”
“Yessir.”
“Well, what are you doing about it?”
“Sir, we were going to send a car for her, but—”
“Oh, stop worrying, you two,” a sultry female voice said from the passageway. The door opened and Colleen O’Shaughnessy appeared. She wore a set of perfectly fitting, creased and starched ship’s coveralls, complete with American flag and the ship’s emblem patches, her name embroidered over one of the pockets. The built-in belt narrowed at her slim waist, the material generous at her curving hips and at her ample chest. Her dark, shining hair was pulled back in a ponytail, her sleeves rolled up two turns, revealing thin forearms and a large man’s watch strapped to her left wrist. Pacino knew he was staring at her, but couldn’t help himself. The uniform was hardly something that should look good on a woman, yet Colleen looked stunning in it, and he completely forgot what he was going to say.
Fortunately, Paully broke the spell. “That just leaves Captain Patton. I guess we should be shoving off now, Admiral.” “Right, right,” Pacino said, finding his voice, blinking at Paully. “Colleen, did you get your stateroom?”
“Yes, Admiral, I’m hanging out in the exec’s stateroom.
Where are you putting him?”
“Everybody moves down a slot except the captain,” Pacino said, the strangest tight feeling invading his chest.
We’re undermanned, so it won’t cause any crowding.”
“I’ll be below in the computer spaces,” O’Shaughnessy said, looking around the room. “Nice digs. I don’t have much time to waste. But even though we’re on a stinking garbage scow, don’t forget to call me for dinner.”
She turned on her sneaker-clad heel and disappeared.
Pacino found Paully White, for perhaps the tenth time that day, watching him.
“What the hell was that all about?” White stammered.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you two staring at each other like that. I feel like I’m watching a couple sixteen-year-olds.”
“Excuse me? What the hell are you talking about?”
White sighed. “Nothing, sir. I’m going to the control room. I think your boy Hornick needs help getting this thing to sea. He comes off as somewhat by-the-book.” “Good idea,” Pacino said, returning to his charts.
“You know, Admiral, maybe it’s time you moved on.
You know, saw some women socially, dated.”
“Paully!”
“Sorry.” The door shut, leaving Pacino alone and confused.
east china sea 50 kilometers west OF THE naze-yakushima gap SS-403 arctic storm Admiral Chu Hua-Feng sat in the end seat of the officers’ messroom table and watched the widescreen television with his officers. Cigarette smoke wafted to the ceiling from several ashtrays.
“… the first fall day of the news blackout. Since her announcement at noon eastern time the president has been unavailable for comment. Our Pentagon correspondent, Diane Shaw, has this report from the War Department.
Diane?”
“Roland, the War Department seems to have issued some incredibly strict gag orders to virtually every officer, enlisted man, and civilian employee here, as the press has been unable to get statements from anyone.
We have seen quite a bit of coming and going as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the Chief of Naval Operations, along with the Secretary of War, have left for the White House and then returned, although within the last hour they have left again. But despite all this shuttling back and forth, there remains no word. Back to you, Roland. This is Diane Shaw, reporting for SNN World News.”
“Thank you, Diane. Back in our Denver news center we’ve got Annette Spalding, the senior SNN war correspondent who was embarked onboard the USS Douglas MacArthur just after it sailed from Hawaii. Annette, what can you tell us about the forcible ejection of the press corps from the backup RDF task force?”
“Well, Roland, it was quite arbitrary and almost chilling the way we were treated, marched up to the deck in blindfolds, our cameras confiscated. Then we were literally thrown into the inside of a Navy plane with blacked-out windows. The—”
Chu shut the widescreen off. “It’s been like this for hours, gentlemen,” he said. “Mr. First, what do you make of it?”
“Not much, sir. I think our main source of intelligence has just dried up.”
“We still have the spy-satellite photographs. We’ll be able to track the second-wave task force with those.”
Lo Sun shrugged. “Photos don’t show intentions. We couldn’t have had it any better in the past. But with this blackout, who knows what’s going on? And it’s not just the task force, sir. Our information about the conduct of the war on the mainland has died out too. It’s not like our people broadcast anything except propaganda.
I know, it’s incorrect of me to say that, but if you want truth, you watch SNN.”
“No need to apologize, Mr. First. I agree with you.
At least time is on our side. It will take the
task force some time to get here.”
Chu stared at the muted television screen, wondering when and from where the task force was coming. How should he deploy the fleet? What if they came in from the south? And how long could he hold this force off?
They were down on their torpedoes, and if one of the low-load subs was caught, how long could it fight?
For the first time in the operation he felt a wave of anxiety. He left the messroom and walked slowly up the steep stairs to his stateroom, remembering once again the dream about his father. He crashed into his bunk for a nap, to contemplate this new turn of events.
Hickam air force base oahu, hawaii The runway seemed to approach slowly. Almost imperceptibly the wheels of the landing gear made contact with the concrete surface of the runway. The jet coasted down the strip, the pilot gently applying reverse thrust, then braking until the blur of the runway became focused.
The pilot taxied off the strip, throttling up to take the heavy jet over to the hangars on the military side of the airport.
Patton checked his watch: a few minutes past eight in the morning. It felt like they’d been flying all night. Inside the hangar, the canopy lifted slowly, and the moist Hawaiian air filled the cockpit. Patton climbed out, his muscles aching. At the sound of another jet landing off to the east, he looked up and watched as another Navy F-22 left the runway and taxied toward them. As he stood there, his helmet under his arm, a ladder was wheeled to the opening canopy of the other jet’s cockpit.
The backseater stood and lowered himself down the ladder and removed his helmet. Patton blinked—it was Byron Demeers.
“What are you doing here?” Patton asked.
“What are we doing here?”
“Sirs, the staff car is waiting,” Patton’s pilot said. He thanked the young lieutenant, handed back the flight helmet, and climbed into the car. Soon they were speeding along an empty road. They passed several guarded checkpoints to a small pier head, where the car screeched to a halt.
A female civilian was waiting for them and she pointed to the boat tied up at the small pier.
“Where are we going?” Patton asked. The woman just looked at him, motioning to the boat. He shook his head and climbed in after Demeers.
The boat bounced over the water in the East Lock, past Ford Island, out to the main channel and into the Pacific. Patton raised an eyebrow at Demeers, who just shrugged.
The boat ride seemed to last forever, but was perhaps only an hour long. By the time the coxswain throttled down, Patton’s back was aching from the pounding of the waves. He stood, joining the coxswain on the helm platform, and looked out over the water.
“I don’t believe this,” he mumbled. As Demeers joined him on the helm platform, his jaw dropped, too.
A few hundred yards ahead was an oceangoing tug pulling a huge garbage barge, piled forty feet high with trash, drawing a mob of circling seagulls. The rotting garbage stank, the horrible smell of it rolling across the water and invading Patton’s nostrils.
“So this is our punishment,” Demeers said. “Driving a garbage tug.” “It’s worse,” Patton said. “They’re not pulling up to the tug. They’re bringing us to the barge itself.” “I knew I should have listened to Mother,” Demeers said. “She wanted me to stay on the farm.” “What the…” Patton said.
Where the coxswain had tossed over his line to the barge, a piece of scrap plywood moved aside and a man in coveralls stepped out. He grabbed Patton by the arm and pulled him inside. Rapidly he returned for Demeers.
But stranger than the barge, the man coming from nowhere, the tunnel under the garbage, was what the man in coveralls said when he reached the hatch. The man found a microphone, clicked the speak button, and said, “Devilfish, arriving!” That was the announcement made when a ship’s captain crossed the gangway to the ship. Mystified, Patton looked down the hatch. The ladder led to a deck some fifteen feet below, and the smell coming from within was unmistakable. That odd combination of diesel fuel, lubricating oil, ozone, cooking grease, sweat, amines, and non-contaminating floor wax was unique to one vessel—a nuclear submarine.
Patton looked over at Demeers, then back down the hatch, then at the man in coveralls.
“Go on, sir,” the man said. “And welcome aboard the Devilfish, Captain.” “Why did you call me that?” Patton asked.
“Well, sir, because I always call the commanding officer ‘captain.’ Is there a problem, sir?” The man seemed genuine, not understanding Patton’s confusion.
“Of course not,” Patton said, glancing at Demeers. “I always walk onto garbage barges and take command of the submarine underneath. Down ladder!” he said, lowering himself down, Demeers following him.
Once they were down, the sentry started laughing until his belly hurt. They’d had a lottery to see who’d get to admit the captain. It had been worth every second.
At the bottom of the ladder, Patton found a crowd, officers and chiefs lining an immaculate wood-paneled passageway, all at attention, a chief blowing a bosun’s whistle, something out of a square-rigger navy movie.
Patton looked at the men in their khaki uniforms, his head spinning. Then he heard a familiar voice, the voice of the man who had made his career: “Welcome aboard the USS Devilfish, Captain Patton.
Are you ready to take command of the first ship of the SSNX-class?”
Slowly Patton pivoted to look at the tanned, white-haired admiral. A smile came to his lips as his heels snapped together, his body becoming upright, the salute stiff at his forehead. Pacino waved a return salute, then reached out to shake his hand. The admiral’s grip was fierce and tight, and Patton returned it.
“Admiral. Sir. It’s good to see you.” “Blood and Guts John Patton,” Pacino said, his smile growing even wider. “It’s damned good to see you again.
We here, all of us, cheered when the news came in that you’d survived. Are you hurt, are you okay?”
“I’m fine, sir, physically anyway. But I lost—”
“Don’t worry about that, John,” Pacino said quickly.
“Not now. We’re here for the change-of-command ceremony.
Gentlemen, attention to orders.” Pacino pulled out a single sheet from his coverall pocket and handed it to Patton. “Captain, you may read your orders.”
Patton squinted at the page and began to read. “From, Chief of Naval Personnel, to. Captain Jonathan George S. Patton IV, U.S. Navy, subject, permanent change of duty, reference, U.S. Navy regulations, et cetera. Paragraph 1, Captain Patton hereby ordered to report to and take command of USS Devilfish, SSNX-1, en route a classified-operation area in the Pacific Theater. Paragraph 2, Captain Patton shall report to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Pacific Military Forces, Admiral M. Pacino, for duty until specifically detached by said commander. Paragraph 3, these orders effective immediately as of today, 4 November.” Patton looked up at the row of officers, and the group broke into applause.
He swallowed hard, the lump in his throat as big as a fist The captain’s stateroom was cavernous compared to the old 688-class cubbyhole. It had a bunk that could sleep two, with a full instrument readout and phone station accessible from the bunk. It could be folded up by day, and the space transformed into a high-tech office.
Nearby was a desk with a high-backed leather swivel chair. At a large conference table, the captain’s place faced a soffit above the stateroom door entrance where a row of widescreen televisions was placed. Above the central widescreen was a camera for videoconferencing.
Pacino noted, “We had the lockers stocked with uniforms in your size. We’ll go to control in a few minutes.
Before we do, why don’t you have a seat, John?”
Patton sank into the swivel chair at the head of the table. A sense of unreality flooded him as the deck rolled beneath his feet. Ocean waves were rocking the boat, a submarine that he’d just been given command of. A ship that he didn’t know the first thing about, and here was the admiral-in-command of the entire Pacific military force
s sitting him down at his conference table to ask him the question of the hour, which was, what the hell happened out there?
“So, John, are you sure you’re okay? No burns, bruises, cuts, concussions?”
“They checked me out at Yokosuka, sir. I had some burns to my shins and knees and hands, but it’s about as serious as sun poisoning. Byron and I—Senior Chief Byron Demeers, my sonar chief—were dehydrated and suffering from exposure, but nothing a bottle of spring water and a cheeseburger wouldn’t solve.”
Pacino grinned at Paully White, shaking his head. “So, what happened? Did you ever detect the Rising Sun?
Or the torpedo?”
“Neither one. Admiral. I’d slowed down to about five knots, I was in the zone where the surface group went down, and we were doing a max-scan sonar search. Senior Chief Demeers can tell you more about the search plan, but we were at battle stations and maximum sensitivity on the wide-aperature array, hitting broadband spherical hard, and streaming both towed arrays with the onion out, and we heard exactly nothing. Zero point zero. The next thing we knew, an explosion blew us to hell. I was tossed off my feet, and I ordered an EMBT blow. Someone lived long enough to hit the chicken switches, and up we went. Next thing I knew, there were flames and smoke everywhere. By the time I could get to the officers to see if they were alive, the flames had engulfed the room. I ran forward to see if Byron was alive, and when I found him, I pulled him up to the bridge tunnel. By then the entire upper level was on fire, and we went up the tunnel, and the ship began sinking.
Byron saved my life—he pulled me out of the ship and put me on the raft—and the rest is history. The first I knew that I’d been attacked by a sub and not by some reactor casualty was when we were floating on the raft and a periscope popped up, and it was no American or European Union technology. It just looked at us for a few seconds.” “What did you do?” Paully White asked.
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