GO HAD BAY
USS TAMPA 0630
BEIJING TIME
Doc Sheffield, the SEAL corpsman, walked into the control room. It looked strange to see the musclebound SEAL wearing submarine coveralls. Vaughn stood alone on the conn, the ship control console and ballast control panel manned by SEALs, the firecontrol screens dead and unmanned. Vaughn had to tell the SEALs every switch to throw, every control to move. He had taken the watch as OOD until Lennox woke up to relieve him at 0800. Vaughn was beat.
“How are the crew?” Vaughn asked Doc Sheffield.
“The eighteen shot in the crew’s mess are dead.
Even the ones that took hits in their limbs, wounds that originally weren’t that bad, are gone. It’s more than just torture and starvation — after a while their will to live died. It happens, I guess. The Chinese executed five officers and six chiefs. The rest of the men are still spaced out from the torture. We need to get them off this ship. I’m not a shrink, but I think the confines of the sub are making them worse — it’s not their ship any longer, it’s their former prison. Once we’re out I’m recommending a medevac.”
“Doc, what the hell happened to them? What made them so zoned out?”
“I’m not sure you want to hear, Eng,” Sheffield said.
“It’s taken me half the night to work this information out of the two or three half-sane men left aboard. They were held in close quarters, not allowed to get up or move for any reason, including to defecate or urinate. They were made to sit in their own stink for five days. They were not even allowed to stretch.
They were starved, no food, no water. Several were shot and laid out on tables in front of the survivors.
Not sure yet, but it looks like most of the ones shot were the NSA cryptologists, although at least five weren’t. This gets worse. The Chinese made it clear that the crew had a choice — die of starvation and dehydration, or eat the flesh of the dead men. From what I’ve gathered, for two days no one touched the bodies, they just sat there, staring at the decaying men who used to be their shipmates. Then a few began eating — they were reduced to desperate animals. The ones who held out had to watch the ones who didn’t, and the ones who ate had to live with what they were doing.
“It only took a few hours to drive both groups to near madness. They were left like that for three more days. No wonder they just sit there and stare into space. Most of them now won’t eat or drink. If we give them food they start screaming. They’ll all die in a couple of days if we don’t get them out of here.”
“Jesus,” Vaughn said.
“Why would the Chinese do that? What did they have to gain?”
“It was a sort of blackmail to make the captain agree to record a statement condemning the President and the Pentagon. Maybe they thought a tape like that would turn the West away from supporting the White Army, I don’t know. But I know they didn’t have to use the crew — the captain broke and recorded the tape before they showed him what they’d done to the crew.”
“How is the captain?”
“He’s unconscious. Bad bullet wound in his shoulder that traveled deep into his upper chest, it’s badly infected. Another bullet wound in his neck. Without surgery, I’d give him only hours. His blood pressure is down, pulse weak. He’s barely alive.”
“You mentioned surgery.”
“To take the bullet out of his shoulder and clean the wound. It’s deep in there, and pulling it out could cut a pulmonary artery. You’ll need a damn good surgeon.”
“Well, looks like you’re it. I’ll get Lennox out here to take the conn and I’ll help you set up in the wardroom.
We have surgical supplies — anesthesia, scalpels, suction. I’ll try to assist you. Go get whatever you’ll need.” Vaughn picked up a phone and buzzed Lennox’s stateroom.
“Wait a minute, sir. I’m a med-school dropout, not a doctor, much less a surgeon, and I just told you you’d need a great surgeon.”
Vaughn spoke quietly into the phone and replaced it in its cradle.
“I heard you,” Vaughn said quietly.
“I heard you say the captain has only hours to live if he isn’t operated on. We’re twelve hours from international waters, and there’s a fleet of Chinese warships between us and freedom. Number one — we could use the captain to help us out of this. Number two — he’s not only the captain, he’s my friend. I’m not going to let him die without trying every option, even if the option kills him. What are you worried about, a malpractice suit? Now get going.”
A voice came from the back of the room, the young SEAL lieutenant, Bartholomay, Morris’ XO.
“You heard him. Doc. Let’s go. Scrub up and get your stuff to the wardroom.”
Doc Sheffield looked at the two officers for a moment, shook his head and left the control room.
“Any word?” Kurt Lennox asked Black Bart Bartholomay, who had brought a pot of coffee to the control room.
“They’re still in there. It’s tough to say if Doc is making any progress.”
“Well, at least Murphy’s still alive or they would have quit.”
“I guess …”
“How about the crew?”
“They’ll probably be sleeping until we get to the Korea Bay. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re still sleeping when the medevac choppers land on the hospital ship. I’ve seen hostages have a post-traumatic shock before, but never like this.”
“What did you guys find in the torpedo room?”
“A goddamned mess. Blood everywhere from gathering the Chinese bodies and loading them into the torpedo tube. I don’t think we’re going to be shooting anything.”
“Is there an intact torpedo?”
“Five or six, but they’re all locked in by broken units. From what I’ve been able to see of the hydraulic loading system, the only way to get a torpedo into a tube would be to push it in by hand.”
“What about the air rams?” Lennox asked, referring to the pistons that pressurized the torpedo-tube water-tanks.
“They look okay but I’m not familiar with the system.”
“And the tubes?”
“One and three are leaking bad. But the port tubes seem okay. The firing panel switches were rewired for them. The one on the port side is where we stuffed all the Chinese bodies. But as far as the tubes being able to fire, who am I to say?”
“Until I get a crew back, you’re it. So here’s the deal — we do this the oldfashioned way, with muscle power. Get your guys below and break some grease out of the auxiliary machinery room. We’ll fire a water slug out tube two to get rid of the bodies, then grease the racks and the weapons and shove two of the good ones into tubes two and four.”
“What about that?” Bart asked, pointing to the dead firecontrol panel.
“How are you going to shoot the fish if the computer’s broken?”
“We’ll set them manually from the torpedo room console.”
“How will you know where to shoot?”
“Manual plots. I’ll show you how.”
Lieutenant Commander Vaughn walked into the room from the forward door. His coveralls were soaked with sweat, his hair plastered to his bearded face. Dark circles rimmed his eyes. He slouched against the doorway. Bart and Lennox froze, waiting for the word.
“Well,” Vaughn said, “we’re finished. The captain’s stable, but Doc’s not sure if he’ll last more than another twenty-four hours. We need to get him to a hospital.”
“We’ll have to break radio silence to tell the fleet about what medical help we’ll need,” Lennox thought aloud.
“I want choppers standing by to get the boys off.”
“Risky,” Vaughn said.
“The bad guys could vector in on our position with direction finders.”
“We’ll send it in a buoy with a three-hour time delay They could still get a lock on our track, but it’s no secret we’re headed for the bay entrance at Lushun/Penglai Gap at maximum speed. My guess is the Chinese will be waiting in fo
rce at the Gap no matter what we do with the radio.”
“I’ll draft the message,” Vaughn said, walking aft to the radio room.
Vaughn loaded the UHF satellite message buoy, roughly the size of a baseball bat, into the aft signal ejector, a small mechanism much like a torpedo tube set into the upper level of the aft compartment. When the buoy clicked home in the ejector he armed the switch that would activate the unit, then shut the ejector door. On the way back to the control room he ducked his head into the maneuvering room.
“You guys okay?” he asked the reactor operator.
“Real beat, Eng,” the TO answered. The watch standers aft were the same who had been on watch aft for the five days of captivity. Other than Lennox, Vaughn and the SEALs, the single engineering crew seemed the only men aboard who were sane.
“Hang in. A few more hours and we’ll be out of the bay and off this boat—”
“Off the boat?”
“There’s no way we can get this ship into Yokosuka with this crew — the guys on watch now are all we have, and by the time we reach Japan we’ll be asleep on our feet. I’m calling for a replacement crew as soon as we reach international waters.”
The electrical operator asked about the crew.
Vaughn told him the truth, his stomach turning as he finished the story.
“Do us all a favor, men,” Vaughn said.
“Stay awake and keep this plant up, no matter what. If we get a shock that opens the scram breakers, do a fast recovery startup. Don’t wait for orders.”
“Aye, sir. Good luck, Eng.”
Vaughn walked into the tunnel leading through the hatch to the forward compartment, up the ladder and down the passageway into control.
“Ready to launch, XO,” he said.
“Launch the signal ejector,” Lennox ordered.
Vaughn keyed a button on a small panel by the conn.
A hundred feet aft, the outer door of the signal ejector opened, and twenty seconds later a solenoid valve in a branch pipe from the auxiliary seawater system popped open, sending highpressure seawater into the bottom of the signal ejector tube that pushed out the radio buoy. The buoy climbed the fifty-five feet to the surface and began to float, barely visible in the brown water of the bay. A timer inside the unit began a three-hour countdown … At the end of the countdown a whip antenna extended from the buoy and the UHF radio activated, transmitting the message from the Tampa to the western Pacific COMMSAT high overhead in a geosynchronous orbit. Within thirty seconds the message transmission was complete, the buoy flooded and sank to the silty bottom of the bay.
By the time the Harbin Z-9A sub-chasing helicopter flew over the square mile of water from which the buoy had transmitted, the submarine Tampa was over fifty miles further east, approaching the entrance to the Lushun/Penglai Gap.
KOREA BAY, 130 MILES EAST OF LUSH UN SURFACE ACTION GROUP 57
AIRCRAFT CARRIER USS RONALD REAGAN
0947 BEIJING TIME
Admiral Richard Donchez stood in Flag Plot in the carrier’s island with a wall of windows overlooking the flight deck below. The central chart table was taken up with a chart of the Lushun/Penglai area, the Bohai Haixia Strait in the center. Donchez, in working khakis, leaned over the table. After a moment his aide, Fred Rummel, brought in a satellite photo of the P.L.A Navy fleet piers at Lushun. Donchez studied it for a moment, then straightened up and looked at Rummel’s fleshy face.
“The Northern Fleet’s getting underway.”
“Yes, sir. Every ship they have.”
“Including the Shaoguan,” Donchez said, pointing to the largest ship in the outbound fleet, the aircraft carrier that looked like a battleship with half the deck lopped off for the installation of a flight deck.
“Which means they’ll be flying ASW aircraft and helos. We’ll need the air wing. Call the SAG and the Air Boss to flag plot and get me a NESTOR circuit to the White House and the SecDef.”
Rummel grabbed a phone and gave a series of orders, then replaced the handset and looked out the windows at the sea, at the formation of the surface ships surrounding the carrier.
“What do you have in mind. Admiral?”
“We’ll launch a squadron of F-14s and a squadron of F/A-18s to blow out their helos and their jet torpedo-carriers. I’m counting on Seawolf to take care of the surface ships, but she’ll be damned low on Mark 80 SLAAM missiles by the time she and Tampa get to the strait.”
“Washington will never go for it. Admiral. That’s a direct attack on PRC naval assets. It would look like we’re starting a war with China.”
“I don’t care what it looks like, I care about getting our subs out.”
“I’LL try, sir, but I wouldn’t count on it.”
“Admiral,” an ensign said, knocking on the door.
“Immediate message for you, sir.”
Donchez took the steel clipboard.
“Is the SAG on the way?” He meant the admiral in command of the surface action group comprised of the Reagan, two nuclear cruisers, two Aegis cruisers, five destroyers, four fast frigates, two fleet oilers, a supply ship and a hospital ship. Rear Admiral Patterson Wilkes-Charles III, the SAG, was a capable surface officer, but, in the opinion of both Donchez and Rummel, unaggressive and more concerned with his career than with the mission at hand.
“He’ll be here in another five minutes, sir,” the ensign said.
“So, Fred, you think the SAG will launch aircraft on my authorization without getting permission from Washington?”
“Patty? Patty the shrinking violet? Never, sir.”
Donchez looked down at the message, read it, shut the metal clipboard cover and shoved it at Rummel.
“Look at paragraph four.”
Rummel glanced at the message, a status report from the Tampa. The first three paragraphs consisted of a report of ship’s material condition, ship’s position and the miserable weapon situation. Rummel skimmed down to the fourth section of the message:
4. CREW SITUATION POOR. TWENTY-NINE (29) MEN AND OFFICERS KILLED BY CHINESE GUARDS DURING REPOSSESSION OF SHIP. COMMANDING OFFICER CDR. S. MURPHY IN GRAVE CONDITION AFTER EMERGENCY SURGERY. SURVIVING MEMBERS OF CREW IN SEVERE SHOCK AND UNABLE TO PERFORM DUTIES. SHIP OPERATIONS BEING CONDUCTED BY SHIP’S EXECUTIVE OFFICER, ENGINEER, SINGLE SECTION WATCH AFT WHO WERE GIVEN SPECIAL TREATMENT DURING CAPTIVITY, AND SEALS. CREW SHOCK CAUSED BY TORTURE — CREW GIVEN CHOICE OF STARVATION OR EATING CORPSES OF MEN EXECUTED DURING CAPTIVITY. ALL ATTEMPTS TO FEED CREW CAUSE VIOLENT HYSTERICAL REACTIONS. DUE TO STARVATION AND DEHYDRATION AND PSYCHOSIS, CREW WILL NEED MEDEVAC TO HOSPITAL FACILITIES IMMEDIATELY UPON REACHING INTERNATIONAL WATERS.
“Jesus,” Rummel said.
A whooping noise rang out. Rummel answered a sound-powered phone making the noise. He listened for a moment, hung up.
“NESTOR circuit open. Admiral. SecDef is standing by.”
Donchez reached for the red handset of the UHF satellite secure-voice NESTOR radio and began to speak. And as he did, a thundercloud passed over his face.
TWENTY KILOMETERS SOUTH OF LUSH UN PRC
The fuselage of the two-seat YAK-36-A Forger trembled as the pilot throttled down the main cruise engine and started the lift engines. Up ahead, barely visible in the rain-swept fogged plastic of the aft canopy, the dark gray shape of the carrier Shaoguan materialized out of the clouds, the deck of the ship seeming impossibly small in the vast waters below. The lift engines were apparently working because the vibrations of the main jet were quieting. The VTOL jet coasted to a halt about thirty meters over the deck of the carrier, the lift engines now roaring in the tiny cockpit. After a moment suspended motionless, the jet came straight down in what seemed a barely controlled crash, slamming into the steel deckplates and bouncing twice, its weight finally settling down on the wet non-skid paint of the flight deck. The whine of the lift jets died to a low howl, then cut off, leaving the cockpit eerily quiet.
The comparative stillness was interrupted only by the rain on the w
indshield, the sound of the wind and the ringing of sore ears.
A crowd of men came running toward the jet, each wearing oversized helmets, each performing a different function, one attaching a kind of tractor to the nose wheel, a second connecting a cable to a connection in the nose, two more tying the wings to the deck while another rolled a ladder to the cockpit. The canopy of the jet slowly opened, admitting a salty wet sea breeze. The man on the ladder pulled, and after a moment the man in the rear seat of the plane stood, his muscles aching from the ride. He allowed the technician on the ladder to help him down the rungs, and in a moment his boots rested on the solid deck of the Northern Fleet vessel Shaoguan.
An officer in a rain suit ran up and saluted, pointing to the superstructure on the starboard side. The door in the island opened and the officer and the man from the newly arrived jet ducked inside. The noise of the wind and the rain died down when the officer shut the door.
“Welcome to the Shaoguan, Leader Tien Tse-Min.
I have been authorized to escort you to your quarters—”
“No time. I need to speak to the Fleet Commander.”
The officer walked quickly to a ladder on the starboard side. Five flights up and down a passageway guarded by an armed P.L.A soldier, Tien was led up a heavy steel door. Inside the fleet commander’s suite, Tien pulled off his sweat-and rain-soaked helmet and tossed it on a couch, then went to the chart table on the port side of the room. Behind the massive table stood Fleet Commander Chu Hsueh-Fan. Chu stared out at Tien from under bushy gray eyebrows, his black eyes rimmed by a network of wrinkles, his mouth set into a tight line, the muscles of his jaw clenched. Tien did not need any further signs to understand that the fleet commander did not want him there. Too bad. He was to be in charge of the search-and-destroy operation, and the sooner Chu realized that the better.
“Beijing came up on the tactical net.” Chu bit off the words.
“I have orders to assist you to find the American submarines.”
“Fleet Commander, excuse me, your orders are not to assist me. Your orders are to deploy the fleet as I request and find those submarines.”
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