“Sir,” Engineer Linden’s voice said over the connection, “I think it was just shock to the scram breakers, or a rod jump that caused a flux spike that tripped the protection systems. We’re setting up for recovery—”
“Don’t,” Pacino ordered. “Shut down the engine room. Shut the main steam bulkhead valves and shut down all your pumps. Shift the reactor to natural circulation and keep that compartment quiet. Have your guys take off their shoes if you have to.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Chief of the Watch, have you got a report from the torpedo room?”
“Nothing, sir.”
“XO, go to the torpedo room and take over. Get that flooding stopped and do it quietly.”
Keebes took off his headset and dumped it on the Pos Two console, then quickly headed for the aft stairway.
“Attention in the firecontrol team,” Pacino called. “We’re out of weapons, we’re surrounded by aircraft, we’ve shut down the engineering spaces and we’re sitting on the bottom. Within minutes I expect that the aircraft will be turning around and coming for us with more depth charges, and the surface forces will soon be here with their own weapons. Meanwhile, we’re not going anywhere until the flooding in the lower level is stopped, particularly since the flooding is too close to our only power source, the battery. In any case I’m hoping that with the reactor shut down we won’t be detected by passive sonar. And that since we’re on the bottom, active sonar won’t be much good either. The only thing we have to worry about is magnetic detectors, and there’s nothing we can do about that. Carry on.”
“That’s it?” Morris said. “You’re just going to play dead and hope they don’t shoot?”
Pacino nodded.
“Conn, Sonar,” his headset intoned, “sonar is back.”
Pacino stared at the screen, the digital images of the broadband sonar suite now forming on the chart, the screen taking a few moments to generate history as the sounds fell down the waterfall display.
“What have you got out there. Chief?”
“Bad news. Helicopters every point of the compass. One real close, must have a magnetic anomaly detector. Closer now, sir. Definite helicopter hovering directly overhead, and he isn’t moving.”
“Talk about worst case scenario,” Pacino muttered.
“Conn, Sonar, the other aircraft are closing.”
Pacino shook his head. Morris watched him, seemed to be studying him.
“Conn, Sonar, we have approximately thirty helicopters and one jet aircraft on our screens, not counting anyone in the baffles, and they’re all hovering within a thousand yards … Sir, I’ve just gotten two splashes directly overhead. We’re getting depth charged.
The depth charge detonated, and Pacino’s only impression was that Jack Morris’s face vanished, to be replaced by the deck, and when the darkness came he couldn’t tell whether it was because the lights went out or that he was no longer alive.
BOHAI HAIXIA STRAIT
The explosion from the depth charge lifted ten thousand liters of water skyward in an angry fan of phosphorescent foam. Chu pulled his stick to his thigh, circling the Yak in a tight circle to port, trying to find evidence of the submarine’s presence. To the east and west several dozen helicopters were inbound. The other Yaks of his squadron had already gone back to Lushun, their fuel low. Chu’s tanks were going dry but he didn’t care. He would orbit the position of the submarine until his turbines sucked fumes if he could just see the American ship sink. It would be worth ditching the jet in the bay as long as he could have a piece of the damned Americans.
Chu climbed for a better view as the helicopters of the task forces, the squadrons from the Shaoguan and the land-based Hinds jockeyed for position along the channel as they searched for the sub, preparing to drop their ordnance. Chu half-expected the air commander to order indiscriminate depth-charging if for no other reason than to relieve their frustration over the submarine so far evading them. Finally he did order that, the helicopters with depth charges forming up into a line of aircraft, each to drop a depth charge in the channel midpoint with horizontal longitudinal separation of a hundred meters. The air commander then ordered that once the depth charges were gone, all torpedoes would be shot, going from west to east.
No submerged vessel should last long with that kind of weapon saturation.
For the first time in his flight Chu smiled in satisfaction as the helicopters moved into their depth-charging positions. Even if his Yak only had another ten minutes of fuel, he would still be airborne when the submarine sank, and he would have a grandstand seat.
* * *
“Razor Blade, this is Shaving Cream, over.”
Commander Jim Collins heard his squadron’s call sign on the UHF tactical control frequency and lined up his radio to transmit. This was probably the order to abort the mission, he thought. The F-14s of VF-69 were only a minute from their hold points, and he had expected only one radio exchange, either go or no-go.
“Shaving Cream, this is Razor Blade, read you five by over.”
“Roger, Razor Blade, break, you are authorized to proceed to the store and purchase all groceries on the list, I say again, you are authorized to proceed to the store and purchase all groceries on the list, break, over.”
“Roger, Shaving Cream, Razor Blade out.” Collins cut out the transmitting circuit-breaker on the radio console, annoyed that he had been asked to transmit.
But what the hell, he thought, the Chinese would soon know they were there.
“You hear that, Bugsy?”
“Yeah, Mugsy. We’re going in.”
“Arm everything and track everything.”
Collins put the stick down and dived for the deck, pulling up at an altitude of only twenty-five feet, the waves of the Korea Bay coming at the plane at Mach 2, the shock wave astern sending up twin rooster tails in the sea. A few minutes later the firecontrol radar was locked on to multiple airborne targets, all of them orbiting a single point in the sea.
“Mugsy, we’re in range, I’m tracking thirty-seven helicopters and a fixed wing aircraft all within a couple miles of each other. No surface contacts, all airborne. The Mockingbird missiles are all armed, all locked on, I’m calling Juliet.”
“Roger, releasing now.”
Collins hit his stick button a dozen times, launching the supersonic air-to-air Mockingbird missiles, the sky lighting up with each launch, the plane’s inventory quickly gone.
“Missiles away.”
To the north and south other flashes of light shone briefly as the other planes of the squadron of F-14s also fired their missiles, the squadron still on approach at supersonic speed.
* * *
Aircraft Commander Chu HuaFeng had looked away from the scene of the helicopters dropping their depth charges just long enough to check his fuel gages and note with dismay that both read empty. He wondered whether he would be airborne long enough to confirm the kill of the submarine. As he looked up from the panel he felt a small jolt, looked out the canopy to starboard and saw his right wing disintegrate and explode into flames — for no apparent reason. It seemed to take a long time for the plane to start falling to the sea below, but after a moment frozen in mid-air, it began to spin toward earth.
Chu’s hands were already grabbing his crotch, where the ejection seat’s D-ring was located, the position of the D-ring designed to keep his arms tight to his body in case of ejection, high-speed ejections tending to cause amputations from the high-speed airstream. He pulled the D-ring nearly up to his waist, felt the ring pulling the pin that would blow off the canopy and ignite the ejection seat’s rocket motors.
He waited … nothing happened. He was about to let go of the ring and pull the canopy off manually when he noticed the view out the window had frozen — a helicopter was engulfed in a ball of fire but the ball was static, unmoving, and the chopper was not falling.
Moreover, Chu’s own jet was no longer tumbling out of control but lazily floating toward the water. As
he watched, another piece of the wing detached and flew off into the slipstream, but it looked more like a feather floating in a breeze than shrapnel whipping into a six-hundred-click airflow.
Chu vaguely realized he had gotten such a huge dose of adrenaline that his time-sense had crazily accelerated, nearly stopping time. Now, as he watched, the canopy overhead blew off, leisurely flying upward and away, tumbling gracefully off out of view. Beneath him the ejection seat rockets cut in, and the cockpit of the airplane began to move, the instrument panel slowly moving downward and away as the rockets flew him out of the plane — except to Chu it seemed he was only going at walking speed as his seat left the aircraft.
As soon as his legs cleared the cockpit the airstream hit him and the aircraft faded away in front of him, shrinking slowly as it moved off. Chu stared at his crippled tumbling plane, still spinning gracefully and slowly when it exploded in a violent blooming fireball.
The explosion seemed to kick Chu into normal time, the seat jostling, the sound of the air a roar in his ears, his parachute deploying overhead, the seat falling away, the sea coming up from below while his chute canopy blossomed overhead. He floated toward the water, dimly aware of the fireballs surrounding him as the helicopters of the northern fleet exploded in flames just as his Yak had. It occurred to him that he and Lo might be the only survivors of the attack, since only they had ejection seats. He looked briefly for Lo but saw no other parachute or ejection seat. He was calling his friend’s name as the water came up and smashed into his back. He sank in the lukewarm water, but managed to detach his parachute and swim away from it.
He finally got his head above the water and saw a huge Hind helicopter flying overhead, flying low and fast toward the north as if trying to escape. He pulled a cord, inflating his life vest, took off his flight helmet, and let it sink into the bay. He kept watching as the Hind flew over, and a supersonic missile flew by in hot pursuit.
* * *
Leader Tien Tse-Min looked out the windows of the Hind helicopter at the formation of choppers about to drop their loads of depth charges. He looked south southwest to see if the ships of the surface task forces were nearby; none was visible in the dim moonlight.
He looked back to the sea below and watched as the first helicopter dropped its two depth charges, then flew off. He waited for the explosion from the water, but before it came the helicopter that had dropped the charges vanished in a violent white-and-red ball of flame, the rotor spinning off into the sky, the misshapen airframe spinning down to the water. Its remains hit the water at the same time the depth charges exploded, throwing spray and foam and water into the air, the fan of water from the explosion swallowing the burning helicopter. When the water calmed, there was no trace of the chopper. As Tien watched, stupefied, the other helicopters exploded and crashed to the sea. The lone VTOL jet remaining, the Yak-36A, blew apart, its canopy opening and belching an ejection seat that popped a parachute, the airplane blowing apart and raining shrapnel on the water below. Tien felt the jolt as the pilot of the Hind turned and headed north away from the battle zone.
Only when the Hind settled on its northern course did Tien begin to realize what had happened … The Americans had launched some kind of air-to-air missile attack on the helicopters. He blamed Fleet Commander Chu for losing the carrier that would have made impossible Americans flying over Chinese territory and launching their missiles.
Tien’s thought was disrupted as the Mockingbird heatseeking missile flew into the Hind’s port engine exhaust duct and exploded. Tien’s body was blown apart, the blood from his dismembered body boiling into vapor as the fireball grew. And within seconds there was no trace left of the Hind except pieces of fuselage floating in the bay water below.
* * *
“We’re out of air targets,” Bugsy Forbes called on the intercom as the last of the fireballs flamed out into the bay.
“What about surface ships?” Mugsy Collins responded.
“Whole lot of folks to the south, another task force to the southwest.”
“I’ll call up the F-18s to take on the southwest force. Our guys will go see the south fleet,” Collins said, clicking his radio to call the other F-14s. Moments later Collins put the stick over and turned the jet to the south while Forbes armed the Mohawk air-to surface missiles … Twenty minutes later the two dozen F-14s of VF-69 streaked in formation over the burning, sinking ships of the southeast task force of the Chinese Northern Fleet, the sonic booms of the jets a farewell as they climbed and turned back to the northeast and vanished over the horizon.
KOREA BAY
SURFACE ACTION GROUP 57
USS RONALD REAGAN
Admiral Richard Donchez lit his cigar as the F-14s of VF-69 landed on the deck of the Reagan. As the carrier recovered the F-14s, she launched the squadron of S-3 Vikings, the twin-jet ASW aircraft detailed to search the bay for the Seawolf.
“Any sign of Seawolf?” Donchez asked, unable to wait any longer.
Captain Fred Rummel shook his head.
“The jets took out all the helicopters but the Seawolf never surfaced. The Vikings will be able to see if she’s still there, but so far, nothing.”
“What about the LAMPS helos?”
“They’re already on the way, sir. We’ll have active and passive sonar and MAD detectors scouring the strait in another few minutes.”
“I want to know the instant we know anything.”
“Yes sir,” Rummel said, wondering how long it would be before it became obvious that Seawolf was lost.
2315 BEIJING TIME
“Any word?” Donchez asked.
“Maybe you’d better come up to flight ops,” Rummel told him.
They climbed the steps and walked into the stuffy air of the flight-operations center, where the air operations boss, the ship’s captain and the SAG hovered over the radar screens listening to the distorted voices of the pilots on the UHF tactical frequency.
Donchez stood in the back, listening as the pilots reported that there was no submarine contact at the location that the helicopters had been hovering. It took time for the news to sink in, but finally Donchez began to feel the heavy weight of the inevitable.
Seawolf was gone, and with her Captain Michael Pacino.
“I’m going to the bridge,” Donchez told Rummel.
“I’ll hang around here, sir. I’ll let you know if …”
Donchez was already gone and entering the blacked out bridge, with its expanse of windows overlooking the flight deck and the sea. Off to port the Officer of the Deck was scanning the horizon with his binoculars.
Donchez immediately demanded: “What’s the word on the Tampa?”
“She’ll be intercepting the group in another five minutes, sir. We’re standing by with a helicopter and a diver when she comes up. Her ballast tanks vents are jammed open so she can only stay on the surface when she’s steaming ahead. Our chopper will be dropping a diver to her deck. He’s going to be bolting some gasketed covers over the vents. Once that’s done she can blow the ballast tanks and stay on the surface. She’ll be pulling up alongside the Port Royal, one of our Aegis cruisers. We’re going to off load her crew and replace them with a transit crew. Once the transit team is aboard they’ll be sailing to Yokosuka for refit, and the original crew will be airlifted to the hospital ship Mercy.”
“Off’sa’deck, combat reports a surfacing submarine bearing two nine one, range five thousand yards,” the junior officer of the deck reported.
“Very well. Status of the chopper?”
“Lifting off now.”
“We’ll have her alongside the Port Royal within the hour. Admiral.”
Donchez nodded, then returned to Flag Plot. Rummel was waiting for him. Donchez could tell by his face that the news was bad.
“Nothing on the Seawolf, sir. The search continues, we’ve got till dawn before the President’s authorization expires, but the ASW guys aren’t hopeful …”
“I’m going down to get some rac
k,” Donchez said, knowing he wouldn’t sleep but wanting to be alone.
“Yes sir. And, Admiral, there’s this …”
“What’s that, Fred?”
“At least we got the Tampa back.”
Donchez nodded, but his thoughts were that the price was too damned high.
USS TAMPA
ALLONGSIDE CRUISER USS PORT ROYAL
2345 BEIJING TIME
Lieutenant Commander Jackson Lube Oil Vaughn stood on the deck of the Tampa watching the corpsman lifting out Captain Sean Murphy. As soon as he was out of the hatch he said something to the two men carrying him and they brought him to where Vaughn stood. Beside Vaughn was Lieutenant Black Bart Bartholomay, the SEAL XO.
“Captain,” Vaughn said, “don’t fight these guys, let them take care of you, okay? I’ll be up to visit you soon as I get the crew turnover done.”
“Lube Oil,” Murphy said, his voice weak, “I just wanted to thank you and Lennox for all the fancy ship handling you did to get us out of there. I was … damned proud of you guys. I’m sorry I couldn’t help…”
“You did fine, Skipper.”
“And, Black Bart, when I get healed I want to pin a medal on every one of your SEAL team. Without you guys we’d all be dead meat by now.”
Bartholomay thanked him, and added, “I wish Jack Morris could hear you say that.”
Vaughn looked at Murphy. Either Morris had drowned at sea when he went overboard, or he was picked up by Seawolf. And God alone knew where Seawolf was. If she was anywhere…
The corpsmen took Murphy up the gangway to the weather deck of the Port Royal, the massive cruiser towering over the submarine, then put Murphy in the waiting helicopter on the cruiser’s fantail. The chopper’s blades spun into a blur and it lifted off into the darkness, disappearing except for its blinking beacons.
“Well, I’d better get my guys and their gear offloaded,” Bart said.
Vaughn stretched out his hand. Black Bart shook it, turned and walked toward the hatch.
Vaughn turned away, looking out toward the west to an empty stretch of seawater.
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