Before the missile had fallen backward an inch the thrust from the rocket motor had climbed to ten g’s, taking the missile from being motionless to Mach 1.2 in seconds, its path straight up. The heatseeker in the missile’s nose cone activated as it sought a target, any target, as long as the target emitted heat and was at least ten feet above the ground level. Immediately the seeker identified two targets, each coming from the hot exhaust of the turbines of the jet-powered helicopters.
The missile switched the seeker from omni-mode to target-vector mode, the onboard microprocessor moving the control surfaces at the missile’s tail to turn the unit toward the stronger of the two signals. The flight time to the target was approximately a second, the target-vector seeker keeping the helicopter’s exhaust pipe in sight, and at the end of the missile’s supersonic journey everything happened at once.
The missile flew into the hot tailpipe of the target, making the seeker blind, as if it had looked into the sun. The seeker going blind was the signal the microprocessor had waited for. It sent a faint twenty milli amp signal to the high explosive in the missile’s forward section just aft of the seeker in the nose cone
By the time the signal reached the detonator the nose of the missile had actually flown some six inches into the helicopter’s tailpipe.
When the missile had traveled another two inches the explosive detonated, no longer a solid mass, but exploding in a furious fireball of a chemical reaction that blew the helicopter to pieces, its remains raining down on the water of the bay below.
* * *
Aircraft Commander Yen Chitzu adjusted the collective, keeping the Hind helicopter in a stable hover, waiting for Ni Chihfu to fire the Spiral missiles at the sail of the listing submarine. Out his plastic windshield he could see down into Ni’s cockpit and make out the green light on Ni’s status panel that indicated the missile was ready for launch.
Yen was not aware of the launch of the Mark 80 SLAAM missile behind him, and since it approached his aircraft at supersonic speed, there was no sound as the missile’s nose cone entered his port turbine’s exhaust pipe. There was, however, a loud noise as the missile exploded, blowing the Hind apart and igniting its fuel. Yen felt the cockpit of the helicopter disintegrate around him. He had been looking downward toward Ni’s cockpit, but now down at his legs, and by the light of the aircraft’s fireball he saw his body being torn apart, his torso leaving his legs behind in what had been the seat of the helicopter. He had the briefest impression of being thrown away from the exploding aircraft, of a rotor blade whipping by him, its rotating velocity throwing it away from the fireball, and then a view of the blood erupting from his severed midsection. Gradually the light of the fireball faded as Yen began to pass out from loss of blood pressure and from the nerve overload of trauma. By the time Yen’s upper half hit the water of the Go Hai Bay, he had been dead for almost five milliseconds.
* * *
At the top of Pacino’s periscope view four small heatseeking missiles flew toward the horizon, as if they were in formation. One hit the Hind helicopter on the right, blowing it into a hundred-yard-diameter fireball.
The other three impacted the Hind on the left at about the same time, likewise blowing that aircraft into several large pieces. As the fragments of the helicopter splashed into the water they exploded into flames, probably, Pacino thought, the result of a delayed secondary explosion of an onboard rocket.
Pacino rotated the periscope to look at the trajectories of the Javelins, trying to determine if they had flown true. Off to the left a bright trail of fire marked the first missile’s takeoff. Pacino turned the scope to the right, where another smoke trail showed the liftoff of the second unit. The missiles should be turning around about now, Pacino figured, to return and find the frigate, which had decided to leave the Tampa alone and come for him. That made sense, since Tampa wasn’t going anywhere, and an intruder submarine had just launched two more cruise missiles.
As the frigate turned toward him, Pacino could see that the ship’s two 37-mm gun mounts were turning, one to starboard, one to port. For a moment he wondered if a Javelin cruise missile could be shot down by anti-aircraft fire if the target was alerted. As if in answer, both 37-mm guns began firing at either side of the frigate, the bright orange flashes reaching out from the muzzles even though to Pacino’s eyes there was nothing to shoot at.
P.L.A NAVY VESSEL NAN TONG
Aboard the frigate Nantong Commander Chin Chiwei raised his binoculars to his eyes, searching the dark horizon for any traces of an incoming cruise missile, but could see nothing but the sea lit by the reflections of the moonlight from the waves. Ahead, two smoking missile-exhaust plumes pointed to a spot in the ocean where the launching submarine had been only minutes before. First, thought Chin, he would down the cruise missiles and after that the firing submarine would be history.
The intercom from the combat-control center blared as his weapons officer reported:
“COMMANDER CHIN, INCOMING MISSILES BEARING ZERO NINE FIVE AND TWO SEVEN THREE, BOTH SUBSONIC, BOTH AT LOW ALTITUDE. FIRECONTROL RADARS ARE LOCKED ON AND THE 37S ARE ENABLED IN AUTOMATIC.”
Chin acknowledged, calmly waiting for the missiles to fly into view. He trained his binoculars to the bearings called out by combat and found them as dark as before. Then in a sudden burst of sound the 37-mm gun immediately below the bridge began to fire, the reports from the gun barrel rattling the plate glass of the bridge’s windows, the 180-rounds-per-minute firing rate making the sound a sustained roar. Chin watched down the bearing line, telling himself that any second the cruise missiles would be arriving, and that even if he couldn’t yet see them the firecontrol radars did … Javelin Unit Six sped in toward the Jianghu class frigate at six hundred knots, altitude thirty-five feet.
The waves flashed in under the fuselage, the target still invisible up ahead. The missile’s radar-seeker felt out ahead of the unit, searching over the surface of the water for the shape of the frigate’s hull. After a few moments the seeker saw the shape forming up ahead, the boxy bridge, the pointed bow, the tall central mast and the funnel aft, with the box of the hangar for the Dauphin helicopter and the flat helo-deck aft.
The target was confirmed. The Javelin armed the warhead and aimed at the vessel’s hull just below the bridge.
The first 37-mm bullets hit the nose cone of the missile like a spray of a shotgun’s buckshot, stinging and ripping open the skin of the nose section, knocking out the seeker-radar, then paralyzing the arming mechanism. This particular buckshot consisted of rapidly fired bullets, each weighing over a half-pound, three of them coming in per second. The missile drove on toward the target, blinded by the rain of bullets, until it took a round in its air intake duct that shot through the compressor, which lost four blades and disintegrated, rupturing the airframe and spilling jet fuel out the hole. Another bullet lodged in the navigation unit, another in the targeting computer, several in the warhead. As the missile lost thrust, its engine seized, it fell down toward the water, its fuel beginning to ignite.
Two hundred yards from the target the missile hit the water and exploded, its fuel and high-explosive warhead detonating in an impotent flash, to be swallowed and forgotten by the sea.
USS SEAWOLF
It happened so fast Pacino could hardly believe his eyes. The Javelin missile flying in at the frigate from the east exploded, crashed into the water, the splash from the detonation rising high in the moonlit sky. A moment later the second cruise missile detonated, its fireball bigger and brighter and perhaps closer to the frigate, but no more harmful to the P.L.A vessel. As he watched, a wave began at the frigate’s bow while it accelerated and turned toward him. He also caught sight of a helicopter being rolled out onto the helo deck aft as he pulled his eye away from the eyepiece, snapped down his eyepatch and lowered the periscope.
He now calculated the angle between the frigate and the Tampa, wondering if he dared risk it. No matter how he positioned the ship in the next few seconds the ang
le was too slim. But he had to take the risk, now that his Javelins had failed.
“Snapshot tube seven,” he called to the firecontrol team, ordering a quick-reaction torpedo shot.
“Direct contact mode, active low-speed snake, shallow surface transit, run-to-enable zero, ASH and ACR disabled.
Get the outer door open, now!”
Feyley worked the panel.
“Sir, tube seven set at shallow direct-contact, active snake at low speed, enabled at zero yards, ASH and ACR disabled.”
“Bearing and bearing-rate matched,” Keebes said.
“Range eleven hundred yards and closing.”
“Door’s open, sir,” Feyley said.
“Shoot,” Pacino ordered.
“Fire.” Feyley pulled the trigger on the horizontal panel of the console.
The tube fired, barking as it ejected the torpedo, the air in the ship compressing in a shock wave from the highpressure air ram venting inboard.
“Tube seven fired electrically, sir, and we’re active.”
The pinging of the torpedo could be heard outside the skin of the ship, the sound fading as the torpedo drove away to the northwest down the bearing line of the frigate.
“Lookaround number-two scope,” Pacino called, raising the periscope and lifting his eyepatch. The scope was trained to the bearing of the frigate as it came out of the well.
He put the crosshairs of the scope on the frigate, now approaching at flank speed directly toward him, the hull of the Tampa a mile behind it but on almost the same bearing line. He realized that if he missed, not only would Tampa take the torpedo hit, but Seawolf would be rammed and sunk by the frigate.
As the frigate plowed toward him, its knife-sharp bow looming bigger each second, he wondered what Admiral Donchez would say if he heard that both submarines had been lost.
“COMMANDER, STILL NO SONAR CONTACT, BUT THE WOK WON RADAR IS GETTING A DETECT OFF THE SUBMARINE’S PERISCOPE, BEARING ONE TWO FOUR.”
“Steer one two four. Fighter Tse,” Commander Chin ordered the helmsman. Up ahead he thought he could see the reflection of the moon off something in the water, perhaps from a periscope lens.
“What’s the status of the helicopter?” he asked the Deck Officer.
“He’s on deck now, sir, and should be starting his engines any minute.”
“Tell him to hurry.” Chin clicked the intercom button.
“Are the Whitehead torpedoes armed?”
“ARMED AND READY, COMMANDER, STILL NO SONAR CONTACT.”
“Standby.”
Chin raised his binoculars to look at the bearing to the periscope, and when at first he didn’t see it he dropped the glasses and searched with his naked eyes until he saw the periscope silhouetted in the moon’s reflection on the bay’s waves.
“Got him now,” he mumbled to himself. An instant later the fo’c’sle of his frigate disintegrated in a blooming fireball while the deck jumped up two meters, the explosion throwing him against the aft bulkhead of the wheelhouse and cracking open his skull.
The ship’s forward momentum, without her bow section, drove her into the water of the bay, the water soon flooding the bridge after the bow of the ship exploded. As the Nantong sank. Commander Chin Chi-wei sputtered, coughing and inhaling water as the wheelhouse filled with water. For a few moments he swam in circles, his lungs filled with water, then lost consciousness in the blackness of the bay.
Moments later the hull of his ship hit the bottom of the bay and rolled over, burying the bridge in the silt.
The crosshairs of the periscope were centered on the bridge of the frigate, and when Pacino switched to high power he could see the face of a man staring at him with binoculars in the red lit windows of the bridge. He switched back to low power, the hull of the frigate almost filling the periscope view.
The bow of the ship vanished for a moment, obscured by a column of water and an orange cloud of fire, black chunks of shrapnel flying away from the bright flash. Almost as quickly as it came, the fireball and water-column receded as the ship plowed into the water, taking a down angle. The sea swallowed the gun mount forward of the bridge, then the bridge went under, the central mast following. The funnel vanished in the foamy water, then the helicopter hangar and finally the helo deck until there was nothing left but the Dauphin helicopter, which for a moment bobbed in the waves caused by the frigate’s sinking, then gave up and sank itself, either from being flooded or being sucked down by the vortex from the frigate.
The bay was empty except for the Tampa, which still leaned helplessly against the sandbar.
CHAPTER 24
SUNDAY, 12 MAY
1917 GREENWICH MEAN TIME
GO HAD BAY, XLNGANG HARBOR
USS TAMPA
0317 BEIJING TIME
As Jack Morris climbed the ladder in the dark bridge access trunk he felt the explosions from outside the submarine. He had no idea what was going on topside but figured it wasn’t good.
At the top of the tilted bridge trunk he stopped before the closed hatch, pushed up on it with all the strength he had, thinking that since it was almost two inch-thick steel it would be heavy. He hadn’t counted on its spring-loaded hatch, the spring designed to balance the weight of the steel pancake so that a child could open the hatch from below. With Morris’ mighty heave on the hatch, the spring coiled and pulled the hatch upward, launching Morris out of the trunk and smashing the hatch against Kurt Lennox’s thigh. Morris lost his balance and fell to the deck grating of the bridge cockpit, then stood abruptly and hit his head against the closed canopy of the steel clamshell.
“Son of a bitch.” He found the square of light coming from the one opening on the starboard side and crawled toward it. Lennox’s large frame was standing in the opening, his head exposed above.
Morris shouldered him aside and pushed his own head up above the lip of the sail, craned his neck to see around Lennox and observed the flames on the water from what looked like crashed aircraft or perhaps the remains of patrol boats. Ahead a Chinese frigate was sinking, vanishing into the water of the bay, a smoky column of fire rising from its dying hulk.
Within moments the frigate vanished into the foam of the bay water, leaving only a small airframe of a helicopter behind, and then it too sank. The bay was quiet, the moon lighting the bay water with a bright white glow.
“What the hell happened?” Morris barked.
“Where’s Baron?”
Lennox said nothing. Morris saw von Brandt’s corpse on the deck. He looked up at Lennox, his face dark with anger.
“You ran us aground, didn’t you?”
Lennox nodded.
“Well, get us out of here. Use the engines, do something.”
Lennox stared into the distance, still saying nothing.
Morris reached inside his vest to his radio and switched frequencies so that he was on the channel that Stinky was using back in the aft escape trunk.
“Stinky, it’s Boss. Get the Engineer up there and put him on the VHF.”
“HE’S RIGHT HERE.” There was a brief silence on the line.
“BRIDGE, ENGINEER HERE.”
“Eng, we’re hard aground on a sandbar or obstruction.
You got power?”
“REACTOR’S CRITICAL. IT’LL BE ANOTHER MINUTE TILL WE’RE IN THE POWER RANGE, A FEW MORE TO SPIN THE TURBINES UP.”
“Leave someone with brains in charge and get your ass up to the bridge — you’re driving this bucket of bolts out of here.”
“ON THE WAY, ENG OUT.”
Morris pulled Lennox around so the man was facing him, then slapped his face a few times, enough to focus his eyes.
“Get below, Lennie,” Morris said quietly.
“Find some men who can take over the control room below and get them ready to dive the ship. In the meantime the Engineer’ll drive us out, if he can get us off the sandbar.”
Lennox handed Morris a chart and a red flashlight and his headset, and as if sleepwalking, left the bridge
and lowered himself down the access trunk ladder. As the hatch shut after him, a tall man with a dirty face and disheveled hair appeared from the port side of the sail. He had just climbed the ladder rungs set on the outside.
“Permission to come up,” he said.
“Get the hell up here,” Morris told him.
The man climbed over the panels of the clamshells, reached under and retracted them, expanding the bridge to its former size.
“I’m Vaughn,” he said.
“Ship’s engineer. Who’ve you?”
“Morris, Jack Morris, SEAL Team Seven CO.
Here’s the radio headset. Here’s Lennox’s chart and here’s a flashlight. Now do us all a big goddamned favor and get us the hell out of here.”
Vaughn looked over the port and starboard lips of the sail, took the headset, chart and flashlight. As he studied the chart in the glow of the light he gave Morris orders as though the SEAL were a green ensign just reporting aboard.
“Get below and go to the ballast control panel. It’s on the forward port corner of the control room.
Above the console you’ll see two big stainless-steel levers. When I give you the word pull the plungers on the levers down and rotate the levers to the up position.
The levers will initiate an emergency ballast-tank blow. Got all that?”
“I just killed thirty, forty Chinese guards to save your butt. I think I can flip a couple of levers.”
“Good man. Get going.”
Attack of the Seawolf mp-2 Page 23
