“What about flying reconnaissance planes outside of China’s borders?” Dawson asked.
Kent seemed ready for the question.
“The P.L.A air alert radars would detect the planes and they’d deduce the reason for them. The result would be only that they’d get careful about their communications security. We’d gain nothing.”
“What about the recon Stealth fighters?”
“We only have one outfitted for eavesdropping and it has been having mechanical problems. We can get it up but we can’t keep it up, and that risks losing it over Communist territory. That leaves us the Navy.”
Donchez sat up straight in his chair, suddenly realizing why he had been asked to attend a top secret National Security Council meeting. What Kent wants is a submarine, he thought. A nuclear sub could hide in the Go Hai Bay just outside Beijing and intercept UHF radio transmissions from anywhere on the northeastern mainland while sitting there invisible underwater.
“Admiral Donchez can explain this next slide, Mr. President.” Kent looked at Donchez, who rose and walked to the front of the room. Kent clicked the slide to a close-up view of the northern Yellow Sea and the Korea Bay, the sea between the peninsula of Korea and mainland China. At the northern end of the Yellow Sea a finger of land pointing south and one pointing north enclosed the Go Hai Bay. The Go Hai was a triangle of water three hundred miles tall and two hundred miles wide at its base to the south.
At the western point of the triangle’s base was the port of Tianjin, which was a mere seventy miles from Beijing. Donchez looked at the slide, the geography familiar to him from the hours of briefings he had given.
“Mr. President, I believe the director is proposing putting a nuclear-powered fast-attack submarine in the territorial waters of Communist China about right here, a few miles off Tianjin. A patrolling sub here is ideally positioned to perform multi frequency surveillance — eavesdropping, in a word — on Beijing, which from the sea side is less than a hundred miles to the northwest. From this point our submarine will be able to intercept UHF, VHF, HF and other frequencies of radio transmissions from the Red Chinese as well as the White Army. It will know as soon as there is an imminent attack. It will know if Beijing is going to fold. All in real time.”
Dawson looked at Donchez.
“Real time? Don’t you need to decode the transmissions?”
“We use spooks, sir. NSA intelligence specialists. They ride the sub and translate the Chinese transmissions. Decoding may or may not be required. Most of the time they transmit UHF battle comms in the clear without any encryption. The spooks just pick it up and write it all down.”
“But how does the sub do that without surfacing?”
“Sticks the periscope up, sir. All the antennae are in the periscope.”
“Couldn’t it be seen?”
“We stay away from traffic and watch the length of time the scope’s up, sir. Generally it’s not a problem. We do this a lot, sir.”
“What about radar? Wouldn’t a radar see a periscope?”
Donchez was impressed. Not many laymen could come up with that question.
“Sir, ninety-five percent of all radars are trying to find surface ships or aircraft or missiles. A periscope is usually too small. Any return from a periscope would look like a return from a wave. Besides, the new type-20 periscope is packed with RAM, radar absorptive material, the same stuff in the Stealth bombers and fighters. It’s practically invisible.” Unless the Chinese were operating orthogonal-polarization radars, Donchez thought, radars built to find periscopes. They usually found them quickly, too, but certainly that technology wasn’t in Chinese hands … “Well, then,” Dawson said, “it sounds like a no brainer. We need intelligence, and our allies and spies and satellites aren’t getting it. Time to send in the submarine. All right, let’s do it.”
“Sir,” Donchez said, realizing Dawson had never done this before, “you realize you have to sign the Penetration Order.”
“Penetration Order?”
“Yes sir, the authorization for a submarine commander to penetrate the twelve-nautical-mile territorial limit of another sovereign nation. It’s a violation of international law, sir. You’re the only one authorized to order it.”
“I thought you said you do this all the time.”
“We do, sir,” Donchez said.
“And the President always signs the order to penetrate.”
Donchez watched Eve Trachea. If she didn’t object, the mission would soon be underway.
“We can’t,” she said, “violate territorial limits or international law. Admiral. The CIA does this, but now you want to send a shipload of American soldiers into a bathtub outside Beijing and spy on a civil war. If your people get caught it would ruin our integrity internationally. Not to mention what might happen to them. Mr. President,” she said, turning to Dawson, “the State Department opposes this idea. And so I do. I know you’re concerned about a so-called tilting toward the Communists, but reestablishing diplomatic relations with Beijing would at least get this country back into reality.”
“Bobby?” Dawson said, his face a mask.
“We’ve tried everything,” Kent said. “All we’ve done is get our agents killed. I don’t recommend continuing that. I also urge you to allow us to do what we can to gather crucial intelligence. We can’t have surprises coming out of China. This situation is dangerous.”
He looked at Trachea.
“Let me spell out a scenario … Japan is financing the Kuomintang so the Communists decide to dry up the river of yen by launching an air strike on Tokyo. The financial center of Japan is gutted, the computers and banks are destroyed, and because of the connectivity of world markets, the world stock markets plunge overnight. Meanwhile the Communists plow through the White Army, plunging Asia into totalitarian darkness and beginning a new cold war that will make the last one look tame. It would be the worst of 1929 and 1939 all in a day.”
Evidently the President was impressed, holding up a palm to hold back Kent.
“Okay, Bobby, okay, I understand the need for intelligence, but let me ask the admiral — can’t the sub just stay outside the twelve-mile territorial limit?”
Donchez shook his head.
“No, Mr. President. Navigation in a tactical situation like that is difficult enough without having to worry about stepping over an arbitrary line twelve miles from the beach. You would take away maneuvering room should surface traffic come by. And twelve miles further out means fewer intercepted communications. Besides, the submarine is still inside their goddamned bay and besides, the Chinese claim the whole bay as their territorial waters anyway. If they detect us, it won’t matter if we’re one mile out or fifty — we’re still spying in a Chinese lake. Sir, it’s a risk, but the risk of no intelligence seems worse. It’s your decision, but not one of your predecessors had any trouble signing penetration orders.”
Clearly, Dawson was not happy with the decision.
For several moments he sat there, staring at the screen. Finally he spoke.
“Admiral Donchez, send a submarine into the Go Hai Bay. Have the order to penetrate on my desk within the hour. I’ll sign it.”
* * *
Steuber and Donchez stood at the base of the large east China chart in the Pentagon, the map towering almost twenty-five feet over their heads. The chart showed the East China Sea, north to the Yellow Sea and on to the Go Hai Bay. To the east the island of Japan had a blue dot flashing into the Pacific, three hundred miles south and east of Tokyo. The blue dot was labeled USS TAMPA SSN-774 SUBMERGED OPERATIONS.
Steuber pointed to the flashing blue dot.
“I’m planning on sending the Tampa. She’s a Los Angeles-class, one of the last built before the Seawolf-class started construction. She’ll do okay on this mission. I just need to get the NSA spooks out to her — maybe a helicopter rendezvous — and in she goes.”
“I don’t know, Marty,” Donchez said, using the name Steuber hated.
“
Tampa’s nearly brand new. I’d hate to risk losing a hightech sub if something went wrong. Why not send in one of the old Piranha-class boats? It could do the job.”
“Sir, the old broken-down Piranha-class boats are rust buckets. No way would I want to trust a stealth mission to an old Piranha-class.”
Donchez had once commanded the USS Piranha, lead ship of the class that Steuber was dismissing.
“Who’s in command of Tampa’?” Donchez asked.
“Commander Sean Murphy.”
“Murphy’s good. Okay, Marty, you just sold me. Draft the message, get the spooks and send in the Tampa. We’ve got some spying to do.”
A half-hour later a UHF satellite burst communication was relayed to the COMMSAT in the western Pacific, a message for the USS Tampa, while an extremely low frequency ELF signal was transmitted through the depths of the sea, calling Tampa up to periscope depth to receive the satellite’s message.
CHAPTER 3
WEDNESDAY. 8 MAY
2000 GREENWICH MEAN TIME
GO HAD BAY POINT HOTEL: TWO MILES SOUTHEAST OF XLNGANG PIERS
USS TAMPA
0400 BEIJING TIME
Tampa cruised slowly north at 1.5 knots at a keel depth of sixty-eight feet, the top of her sail ten feet below the surface of the dark water of the Bohai Wan.
The ship was rigged for ultra quiet All off-watch personnel were confined to their bunks. One of the turbine generators and one of the main engines aft was shut down to minimize radiated noise. Reactor main circulation pumps were in slow speed. Ventilation fans were turned to low speed. All lights were rigged for red to remind the watch standers of the need for silence. The PA. circuit speakers were disabled so that a transmission on them would not be heard outside the hull. Watchstanders in each compartment wore headsets and boom microphones to take the place of the PA. circuits. The control room was rigged for black, all lights extinguished except for the backlit gage-faces and the dim green light from the firecontrol console screens. A heavy dark curtain was drawn around the periscope stand to screen out the low level of light from the rest of the room. The precautions were designed to protect the night vision of the Captain and Officer of the Deck.
Commander Sean Murphy was pressed up against the hot surface of the deck-to-overhead length of the number-two periscope optic-module. His right eye was tight against the wet rubber of the eyepiece, now drenched with sweat and skin oil. He gripped the periscope with a grasp as familiar as a motocross racer’s on his motorcycle’s handlebars.
The view through the scope revealed the floodlit piers of New Harbor, Xingang, a mere four thousand yards away. The nearest pier was occupied by two rusty tankers and an old freighter. The pier further to the north was not so well lit but the backwash of the first pier’s lights showed a half-dozen warships of the P.L.A navy tied up, looking deserted and forlorn. Two were Luda-class guided-missile destroyers; the third was a Russian-designed Udaloy antisubmarine destroyer.
Further aft were several Huchuan and P-4 fast torpedo patrol craft. Properly manned and alerted, the surface vessels could pose a threat, but it looked like the P.L.A navy might have abandoned their ships to lend troops to fight off the land attack of the White Army. That suited Murphy just fine.
The piers of Xingang slowly passed by as the ship proceeded north, dead slow, keeping up just enough flow over the bow planes and stern planes to provide sufficient depth-control to keep the sail from broaching. Should the sail become exposed, standing orders called for the captain to assume he had been seen and quickly withdraw at maximum speed while attempting to remain undetected. The first commandment of the Silent Service — remain undetected.
The number-two periscope, the type-20, was more than a collection of lenses and mirrors. Viewed from the surface, the periscope would look like a telephone pole with an oval window in it. The top of the pole had two large spheres on it, one atop the other, called “elephant balls” for obvious reasons. The elephant balls were highly sophisticated radio receivers able to receive UHF, VHP and HF radio signals and to perform rough direction-finding to the source of a radio transmission. Below the elephant balls was a highly sensitive UHF antenna designed for receiving communications from the COMMSAT communications satellite in orbit above the western Pacific as well as from the NAV SAT geopositioning navigation satellite that enabled them to get a fix to within yards of their actual position. The oval window contained television optics, low-light infrared capability and the laser-range finder, a system designed to beam a narrow laser beam at a surface target to determine the range. For decades before the laser-range finder, submariners had prided themselves on being able to call a vessel’s range by using the division marks on the crosshairs and knowing the masthead heights of various ships. Not only was the laser device considered unneeded, it was unpopular because preliminary reports by U.S. Navy research ships showed that properly equipped warships could detect the laser beam. Being detected robbed a submarine of her one natural advantage — stealth. On the Tampa, and on most other fast-attack submarines, the laser range-finder was disabled, its fuses removed and its breakers locked open to prevent an inadvertent transmission. The whole package of the type-20 scope was shrouded in radar absorptive material, RAM, to lessen the chance of radar detecting them. That left two ways to detect a submarine’s periscope — by sighting the periscope’s vertical wing-shaped fairing that rose to the level of the water, or by an orthogonal-polarized radar that so far as the United States knew was beyond the reach of the Chinese.
Aft of control in the cramped radio and ESM rooms four Chinese-speaking NSA cryptologists listened through headsets to communications from the Chinese mainland surrounding the ship. Wide-band tape recorders captured every word from the dozens of frequencies being scanned and intercepted. Their computers alerted the spooks to the reception of any of the hundreds of key words programmed in, such as missile or nuclear or attack. In the hour since Tampa had arrived on station at Point Hotel, the harvest of communications intelligence had been rich.
A fifth spook collected quick summaries from the other four, writing his situation report that would be transmitted within two hours, assuming no urgent communications were intercepted.
On the surface, the telephone pole of the ship’s number-two periscope protruded four feet above the calm water of the Go Hai, moving north at almost a yard per second, a small foamy wake trailing behind it. It was barely visible in the overcast blackness of the night. No one on shore saw it. No one in a patrol boat or fishing vessel noticed it.
But at 0430 local time, the orthogonal-polarized radar waves began washing over the exposed length of periscope.
DASHENTANG, TIANJIN MUNICIPALITY, BEIJING MILITARY REGION
DASHENTANG PLA RADAR SURVEILLANCE POST
0435 LOCAL TIME
2035 GREENWICH MEAN TIME
Fighter Sai Fu-Ting sat at the console of the orthogonal-polarization radar set in the crude block building in the Dashentang compound housing the P.L.A radar-surveillance corps. Sai was a senior enlisted technician in the P.L.A’s radar corps, but in the theoretically rank less military structure of the P.L.A he was called “fighter,” like any other enlisted man. His uniform also did not indicate his seniority, his olive drab Mao suit jacket buttoned to the top, the red tabs on his collars the only insignia other than the red star on his liberty cap. Sai Fu-Ting was one of the best radar technicians in the platoon. He had taken over the watch on the radar console at 0400 after a night of tossing and turning. With the White Army closing in on Beijing, the radar outpost could be overrun in a matter of weeks. An electronics technician, Sai wondered how he would be in a real fight. Hand-to-hand combat was not something he looked forward to, nor was looking down the barrel of a Kuomintang rifle.
He tried to concentrate now on the screen of the DynaCorp International AN SPY-45 console, the top of-line equipment acquired through an intermediary in the Middle East. At the time of its purchase two years before, the leaders in Beijing had been worried about an inva
sion of Beijing from the sea, but now that the main worry was a land assault from the White Army, Sai wondered what use the SPY-45 would be.
His orders were to scan the Go Hai Bay for ships, patrol craft, divers or evidence of a shipborne amphibious assault by White Army forces. Unlikely, he thought, but those were the orders, and he watched the radar screen and sipped his tea, trying to shake the heaviness from his eyes … The blip on the screen two miles offshore from Dagu flashed as it was first registered by the SPY-45 system. A small contact, no bigger than a piece of driftwood. Sai logged it in and called for more tea.
The blip could be nothing more than a piece of garbage or a drifting fishing boat, perhaps even a loose dinghy.
Twenty minutes later Sai frowned at the small contact.
It had not disappeared like a chunk of garbage or driftwood. It seemed to be moving northward at a slow steady pace, only a few clicks, walking speed. But it had regularity. When the blip continued on north, Sai decided it was just some sort of detritus drifting in the current.
At 0500 exactly, at a position two kilometers east of Qingtuozi, the blip reversed itself and began moving to the south.
No piece of driftwood or castaway dinghy could do that if it were merely drifting in the current. And a fishing boat would not be trolling so close to shore. It might be some kind of White Army spy boat or a raft of White Army divers. Sai called the officer in charge of the platoon. Leader Peng Chung, who no doubt would have something to say about the mysterious contact. Perhaps they needed to get a patrol boat out on the bay to identify the contact.
At 0510 Leader Peng squinted at the blip on the SPY-45 screen. The contact was continuing south at its creeping slow speed. For the next ten minutes Peng monitored the contact and its motion, then reached over Sai to the console and adjusted a knob, changing the scale of the projection so that the contact’s detection was at the bottom and its furthest north penetration was at the top.
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