U.S.S. Seawolf am-4

by Patrick Robinson

  And it was wise to do so. In the CIC of Kaufman, the CO could see the Chinese destroyer on radar, but 10 miles astern was another contact on precisely the same course, but catching them up. It was most probably Chinese, plainly a second warship backing up whatever the destroyer’s ultimate task was.

  And inside the communications room of Xiangtan there were extraordinary exchanges taking place. Colonel Lee was far too old a commander to be certain he had sunk the Greenville. He had watched the shells go in, and so far as he could tell only one had hit, deep in the sail. He could not tell whether one had penetrated the pressure hull, but he thought not. If it had, he had not observed it. And he knew that Greenville had been in the process of diving at the very moment he had ordered his gun into action.

  In his opinion, the American submarine was very much alive. They had twice picked up UWT transmissions — always a solid indicator of the presence of a submarine. But the “noisemaker” Kaufman was towing, designed to confuse the life out of all acoustics, was making such a buzz that passive sonar detection of Greenville was impossible. And active contact was at best tenuous through the swirling wake of the frigate.

  Colonel Lee thought the submarine must be heading out into the open ocean, and feared that she might stay underwater for days. All he could hope was that the damage might force her to the surface. He could not get close enough to depth-charge her because of the Kaufman. And they were already clear of Chinese waters, where the law was no longer on his side.

  As such, he opened up the line to Southern Fleet Command, and once more reported his actions to Admiral Zu Jicai. He stressed that he could not recommend further pursuit, since he was powerless under the present circumstances to take any measures against Greenville—“Not until she returns to the surface.”

  Admiral Zu asked him to remain on the line while he spoke again to the Commander-in-Chief. But when Colonel Lee next heard a voice on the line, it was not the calm, measured tones of his immediate superior. It was the raging voice of the C-in-C himself. And, as voices go, this one was (a) loud, (b) furious, and (c) owned by a man who had apparently lost it.

  “HAVE YOU GONE MAD, LEE? ANSWER ME THAT!” screamed Admiral Zhang. “YOU MUST HAVE GONE MAD. THERE CAN BE NO OTHER EXCUSE FOR YOUR CONDUCT. MY ORDERS WERE CLEAR — SINK THE AMERICAN SUBMARINE. NOT GO AND PUT A DENT IN ITS HULL. SINK IT. SINK IT. THAT’S WHAT I SAID. AND YOU HAD THE MOST POWERFUL DESTROYER IN THE NAVY TO DO IT. I REPEAT, LEE — HAVE YOU GONE MAD?”

  Colonel Lee kept his cool. “Sir, I do not believe I have lost my senses. But the submarine was in the process of diving when we first saw her. The only target we had was her sail, which we hit with a one-hundred-fifty-seven-millimeter shell. Also, she is guarded by two guided missile frigates.”

  “I DON’t CARE IF SHE’s GUARDED BY THE ENTIRE UNITED STATES NAVY,” raged the C-in-C. “I ORDERED HER TO BE SUNK AND MY ORDERS WERE NOT CARRIED OUT. DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT?”

  “Yessir.”

  “WELL, WHY WERE THEY NOT CARRIED OUT?”

  “Because it was impossible, sir. We were only able to see her for less than a minute, and we were eight miles away.”

  “AND WHERE IS THE SUBMARINE NOW?” he yelled.

  “Under the water, sir. Following one of the frigates. I presume back to the American carrier.”

  “PRESUME NOTHING!” roared Zhang. “NOTHING! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?”

  “Yessir.”

  And now the C-in-C spoke in more measured tones for the first time. “Colonel Lee. You are the most senior surface ship commanding officer in the Navy. Your record until today was exemplary. And because of that I am going to ignore your flagrant defiance of my orders. However, those orders still stand.

  “Colonel Lee, you will continue to track the American submarine, and when she surfaces, as she surely must sometime, you will open fire and put her on the floor of the ocean for trespassing illegally in Chinese waters. IS THAT CLEAR?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Colonel Lee. YOU WILL FOLLOW THE AMERICAN SUBMARINE TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH IF YOU HAVE TO. BUT YOU WILL SINK HER.”

  “Yessir.”

  “And Colonel Lee, should the American frigates open fire on you in defense of their submarine, you will open fire on them, too. You outgun them, and you have excellent missiles and torpedoes. In case you had not noticed, that’s what your big destroyer is for.”

  “Yessir.”

  “TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH, COLONEL LEE.…NOW GO.”

  And so Xiangtan fell in two miles astern of Kaufman, running at 12 knots. And there she would stay until she saw her chance to carry out the orders of the Chinese C-in-C. They were orders that might amount to committing suicide. They were orders that might have been issued by Captain Queeg. But there was no longer any doubt in Colonel Lee’s mind about their validity.

  Meanwhile, back in Zhanjiang, Admiral Zhang Yushu was almost beside himself. The first reports were coming in from Xiachuan Dao, and they were confirming every single one of his worst fears.

  The jail had plainly come under heavy attack. Both helicopters had been destroyed. The patrol boat had been reduced to a hulk, and was sitting in shallow water on the jetty. The communications room had been obliterated. The guardroom had been leveled. The gates to the jail were blown off. The dormitory had been gutted, but with many civilian survivors, all of whom had been gassed. The entire Chinese guard force had been wiped out, at least six of them with their throats cut. And, needless to confirm, there was no sign of the American prisoners.

  The team of Navy investigators who had now been on Xiachuan Dao for around an hour were quite shaken by the sheer brutality of the attack. And Admiral Zhang could hardly believe his ears as Admiral Zu Jicai read out the initial report from the island.

  “But how many, Jicai?” the C-in-C kept repeating over and over. “How many were there? What kind of a force must it have taken to literally take out an entire armed garrison and free more than one hundred prisoners? How many were in that force? And where did they come from? How did they get there? How come we saw nothing?”

  In his long career in the Navy of China, Zhang had never faced such a terrifying list of unanswered questions. He felt as though his Navy had been attacked by a phantom force, one that he could not see.

  “There must have been two hundred of them, Jicai.”

  “I don’t think so, sir. Because that would have meant more than three hundred of them escaping. And no one could have done that without a very sizeable boat. And that’s what they did not have, otherwise we would have seen it.”

  “Well, how did they get away?”

  “In the absence of a ship that could get into the jetty, and in the absence of American helicopters, I would have to say in small boats, landing craft they ran right into the shallows.”

  “But why did we not see them? On radar, on the overheads?”

  “Because they came a long way inshore in those submarines, Yushu. And then broke cover and ran fast for the island, just the last two or three miles, I’d say. We easily could have missed them.”

  “But I ask again, Jicai. How many were they? And what kind of men were they? Devils?”

  “No, sir. Not devils. They were American Special Forces, which is considerably worse.”

  “How do you know this, Jicai?”

  “Because even from this initial report, it bears all of their hallmarks. Total destruction of everything that posed a threat, in particular the helicopters, the patrol boat and the communications room, from where there could be signals sent back to HQ. And of course the guards, particularly those in the towers and those patrolling the inside and outside perimeters of the jail. Classic Special Forces.”

  “Jicai, I do of course respect your views, and I believe you may be right. Indeed, it is hard to arrive at any other conclusion. But how did the Americans find out they were on the island?”

  “That I cannot answer. Because in our vast land they could have been transported anywhere. But we know to our cost how clever the Am
ericans are. They wear very wide smiles, but they have a tiger’s teeth. And they are completely ruthless if they are sufficiently riled.”

  “You think the capture of that submarine crew was sufficient to rile them so badly that they would undertake an operation like this?”

  “Yushu, I’m not at all sure they did not blow up Seawolf in Canton. So my answer is, yes. They plainly were sufficiently riled to go to extreme lengths to get that crew back. And perhaps to even more extreme lengths to make certain we did not spend much time on their precious submarine.”

  “But, Jicai, the sequence of events of the last twelve hours means that I shall almost certainly be asked to resign and court-martialed for gross incompetence.”

  “That, Yushu, is the downside of high command. And it may happen. However, you have many friends in very high places, and most of them would be unwilling to force you to fall on your sword, particularly since the events were entirely unpredictable. And everyone knows you have taken all reasonable care to ensure that the operation to copy the submarine was conducted in strictest secrecy. I do not think they will allow you to be disgraced.

  “Because in the end it was the Americans who stepped beyond the bounds of reasonable behavior. No one could have predicted they would have reacted with measures as desperate as this. Bombing, mayhem, murder, destruction…it’s not in their character, and I will forever wonder what prompted them to such extremities.

  “I do not think you will be blamed. But I am afraid we have to alert our government about the current events. And that, I’m afraid, is a task you will have to mastermind, sending the ill tidings up through the chain of command.”

  “Who do you imagine knows already?”

  “Sir, I am certain news of the two disasters, the submarine and the jail, is no longer strictly private. However, I do think we have to ensure that the Chief of the Naval Staff, Admiral Sang Ye in Beijing, is informed. And probably at the same time the Chief of the PLA, Qiao Jiyung.

  “In both those instances I am happy to make the contacts, since both catastrophes occurred in areas of my command. However, I think it would be politically prudent for you to personally talk to the political commissar, and then for you to speak formally to the general secretary of the Communist Party.”

  “Since he also chairs the Military Affairs Commission, perhaps I should speak to him first?”

  “I think not. The political commissar will not thank you for keeping him out, and he would appreciate some well-thought political views from us. At this moment, Yushu, you need friends.”

  “Perhaps my weakness is always that I lack your prudence, Jicai?”

  “Yushu, you took a major step when you elected to pick a very serious fight with the USA. I know you did it for the very best of reasons. So does everyone else. We all understand the significance of a great submarine fleet. But adventures like stealing an American SSN and its crew must always be carried out at great risk.

  “You embarked on the adventure driven purely by your concern for your country and your concern to arm it against its enemies in the best possible way. However, that is only one part of your task. The other is always to ensure that we do not take on an opponent when the odds are stacked against us. And in this case, every one of your advisers and your very few superiors would have agreed with your actions. Indeed, most of them did agree.

  “I repeat, no one could have predicted an American reaction of this unusual severity. And I say again, I do not understand it.”

  “Also, remember the diplomatic exchanges, Jicai. There was no suggestion that the United States was even concerned. And all the while they must have been planning this ruthless reprisal. I could not have known.”

  “No, Yushu. You could not have known.”

  “And now my only wish is to save my career. And I may not be very good at that, since I have never had to think such thoughts before…”

  “Then I must ask you again: Do you really want Colonel Lee to pursue the American submarine to the ends of the earth and then sink it?”

  “Jicai, I believe that changes the world for me. If at the end of it all we sink an American nuclear boat in revenge for what they have done, I can make out a good case for the courage and decisiveness of my Navy. I cannot end the mission with a whimper. We must save face and issue a warning, an international warning, that we will not be trifled with.”

  “Ah, Yushu. ‘Real power comes from the barrel of a gun.’ The words of the great Mao, eh?”

  “Exactly so.”

  “Let us hope the Americans have not read them. For it would surely be even more shocking if they sank the Xiangtan.”

  Back out on the ocean, the bizarre convoy began to swing to the east as Kaufman increased speed to stay above Greenville. The SSN was stepping up her speed two knots at a time, checking her sail constantly, for fear it might rip right off.

  On the plus side, she was not leaking, although she sounded like a floating steel strip mill. On the minus side, the Chinese destroyer showed no signs whatsoever of giving up the chase. A little over a mile and a half behind, she now steamed along steadily, making an easy 16 knots through the water, just as Greenville was doing. She made no attempt to establish contact with either of the American frigates. She just stayed right where she was, watching, waiting, tracking.

  In Greenville, Commander Wheaton, clattering along now at 17 knots, decided to go for another speed increase, since there appeared to be nothing wrong with either the reactor or the turbines.

  “Make your speed nineteen,” he said. The battered submarine surged forward, and the only discernible result in the control room was an even greater racket coming from inside the shattered sail. But she kept going.

  Up on the surface the American operators in the frigates were unable to pick up any radio contact from the Chinese, but every time they looked back over the stern, there was Xiangtan running through the fading wake of the frigate Kaufman. The unnerving presence of the big Chinese destroyer seemed to increase as the day wore on, because they ran eastward for hour after hour, and nothing changed. Where Kaufman went, Xiangtan went, and by early afternoon the Americans were beginning to wonder if they should do something to discourage this strange game of follow the leader, particularly since the Shantou had now caught up and was steaming along 200 yards off Xiangtan’s starboard quarter.

  Commander Carl Sharpe opened up his encrypted line to the Flag at midday, informing Admiral Barry that the destroyer from Zhanjiang, which had summarily opened fire on Greenville sometime before 0700 that morning, had now been tracking the submerged and damaged submarine for the best part of five hours. It was also in the company of a Chinese antisubmarine frigate.

  He added that he had no idea what the plans of either Chinese captain were, but they had made no attempt to fire on either of the American frigates. “They seem, sir,” said Commander Sharpe, “to have an exclusive interest in the submarine, and a total disregard for our surface ships.”

  Admiral Barry asked if the Kaufman’s CO had any recommendations. But the frigate captain said he could not come up with anything more constructive than perhaps firing a shot or two across the Xiangtan’s bows. But this seemed extravagant, and Admiral Barry told him just to proceed back toward the battle group, but to keep him posted, on the hour, as to the precise movements of the Chinese warship. “Remember, you are not authorized to shoot, Commander, except in self-defense. That’s straight from Washington. She’s a big ship, and we’d have to sink her to disable her, and I’m not sure Washington would be crazy about that.”

  Commander Sharpe returned to the bridge and ordered the helmsman to hold course and make their best speed back toward the carrier, which was of course only the best speed Greenville could make, rattling along underneath with virtually no sonar. However, Commander Wheaton had now wound her speed up to 27 knots and they were clattering along extremely smoothly, though you would never have known it, judging by the shrieks of tortured steel from the sail.

  Two miles astern, stil
l following with bland, impassive determination, were Xiangtan and Shantou, pitching through the rising ocean swell, as apparently innocent as a couple of tourist ferries, but with menace in their gun turrets.

  The Ronald Reagan was now positioned eight hours away to the east, and for every one of those hours the Chinese warships kept a constant vigil on the American frigates and her unseen underwater colleague Greenville. Every hour Commander Wheaton checked in on the UWT to check if they still had company, and the answer was always the same: “They’re still there, two miles astern, same speed.”

  It was five o’clock in the evening when Commander Sharpe again contacted the giant aircraft carrier, which still steamed 200 miles east in company with her battle group.

  He knew both Cheyenne and Hartford had transferred their big cargoes of SEALs and former prisoners to the Ronald Reagan, but he did not yet know how Greenville was ever going to conduct a similar operation, since the destroyer seemed determined to follow them until she was able to open fire again on the American submarine she had already hit and almost crippled with a sizeable shell.

  Commander Sharpe was now convinced they should put the goddamned destroyer on the bottom and have done with it. And he relayed these thoughts to the distant Admiral Barry in forceful terms.

  But the battle group commander had been told this had not been authorized. His instinct was to avoid a confrontation with China if possible. But right now, with Greenville damaged, he opened up the line to CINCPAC in San Diego to report.