Korea Strait

by David Poyer

  “Uh… guess it could be tactically interesting…”

  “Bet your ass. And it’d test pretty much exactly what this exercise is actually supposed to—”He bit his tongue; Owens hadn’t cleared him to share their actual mission with the rest of the team.

  Fortunately they didn’t seem to notice his sudden self-censorship. “We could get some interesting recordings,” O’Quinn put in. “I know we don’t have much on these new diesels. Even less on the new torpedoes the Russkis are putting out. This new Shkval, now there’s a—”

  “See, Joe agrees with me.” Sorry already for his tone, he slapped the little analyst on the shoulder. “Now help me get up to the bridge, Monty, okay?”

  As Dan slid past, O’Quinn seized his shoulder. Said close to his ear, “You sure about this?”

  “You can take off if you want, Joe.” Dan raised his voice. “You too, Monty. Hear me? You guys want off? Helo’s on its way.”

  “The team should stay together,” Henrickson said.

  “We don’t all have to stay,” Dan told him. “Joe? You want to go, go.”

  “Go where?” O’Quinn laughed, hoarsely, as if it didn’t matter, as if nothing mattered. “There’s nobody home waitin’ dinner for me.”

  “If you stay, we all stay,” Henrickson said, sounding more determined.

  “You sure, Monty?”

  “I’m sure. The team stays together.”

  He thought about ordering them to go, but that didn’t seem right. If they wanted to stay, why not? It’d simplify their travel arrangements. And they could keep better track of the gear if they all went home together.

  Topside it was night. The frigate heaved as she rushed through an immense darkness. Dan found Jung’s chair empty, but Yu silent and motionless in his. He cleared his throat. “Skipper?”

  “Commander Lenson. You have gear together? Are ready to be take off? We will come to course for helo approach when they notify us inbound.”

  “I’ve decided to stay aboard, Captain.”

  “You say, stay aboard?”

  “That’s right. We can’t take off just when things might be getting interesting.”

  He expected questions, but Yu just sat silently. Finally Dan added, “With your permission, of course.”

  Yu still didn’t answer. He just unsocketed the Pritac handset down off the overhead and handed it to him.

  Dan checked the call-sign board behind him, dimly lit from behind and glowing ghostly in the black. CTG 75.1, Leakham, was Quebec Quebec tonight. “Quebec Quebec, this is TAG coordinator. Over.”

  The response was already distant, fading. VHF voice didn’t have a very long range. “Quebec Quebec. Go ahead. Over.”

  He didn’t recognize the voice. Not Leakham; one of his staff. “This is TAG coordinator, aboard Lima Alpha. My team is not debarking at this time. Thanks for your offer. You can scrub the helo. Over.”

  A short pause. Then, “This is Quebec Quebec. That was not an offer. That was an order. U.S. contingent has signaled finex and is proceeding outbound at this time. Stand by for helo at time four zero. Over.”

  “This is TAG coordinator. Quebec Quebec is not in our chain of command. Over.”

  “This is Quebec Quebec. Be advised, Quebec Quebec actual was acting on recommendation from Seventh Fleet that all national forces evacuate Korean waters at this time. Implementing that directive, he instructs you to crossdeck your personnel now aboard ROKN units at this time. Over.”

  Standing in the dark, knees shaking with weakness, he frowned, sensing a darkness that wasn’t night. “This is TAG coordinator. Interrogative, why the evacuation order? Over.”

  “This is Quebec Quebec. Be advised: This is not a secure net. Stand by for helo at time four zero. Confirm wilco. Over.”

  “What the fuck?” somebody muttered behind him. Dan thought it was O’Quinn. “You hear this shit? Evacuating Korean waters? What the fuck is going on?”

  Yu’s profile was motionless, listening. Dan dragged a hand over his forehead. It came away dripping. Maybe he should have taken whatever the doc had tried to give him. He tried to discipline his thoughts. Get them in some kind of logical order.

  U.S. forces were departing the theater. Obviously they knew something he didn’t. Something the staffer couldn’t even allude to over an uncovered circuit. So Leakham wanted them off. Wanted them back on a U.S. deck.

  But something obdurate in his heart had no intention of leaving. Whatever Leakham said. The fat commodore had tried to dick with him ever since he got here. He had no idea why, but TAG had sent Team Bravo here to evaluate shallow-water antisubmarine tactics. The Joint Chiefs wanted a readout on what league the South Koreans could play in. And it looked like some real-world ASW might be on its way. The Koreans were tough, smart, aggressive operators. Whatever was coming toward them, he wanted to find out what it was.

  Unless he was very wrong, the Navy would appreciate having a professional observer on the scene.

  But again, that didn’t mean they all had to stay. And what he was hearing made him less certain they should. Leaving the transmit button up, he muttered, “Monty, Joe, I’m not sure what’s going on. Some kind of recall message. Leakham thinks it applies to us.”

  Henrickson said, “Seventh Fleet’s the theater commander—”

  “So what?” O’Quinn broke in. “Not here. We’re under CFC’s Op-con.”

  Which was General Harlen. Dan gnawed his lip. The point could be argued, but he thought O’Quinn was closer to the truth. Especially as the threat became more dire. A TAG team was too small an element to be officially transferred to a combatant commander. But it seemed counterintuitive to pull his people back just when it looked like there could be action.

  Or was he just being pigheaded? Mavericking it yet again? Letting himself be attracted to danger like some twentysomething jaygee? Looking at it as objectively as he could, he didn’t think so. Tactics development was TAG’s mission. And you never got the mission done by turning tail.

  Probably the most accurate assessment would be that whatever he did, he’d have to justify it somewhere down the line. So finally he said, “Well—I don’t think it applies to us. The recall, I mean. I’m going to stay.

  “But, again: you’re free to go. In fact, it’d be better—you’re neither of you in an active-duty status. Pack up the nineteens. Get all the data back to TAG. I’ll stay and see how this plays out.”

  They both muttered that they were staying too. Dan gave them a second or two to change their minds, wishing he could contact the guys on the other decks as well, Carpenter and Oberg. But he couldn’t. There wasn’t time. When they didn’t, he keyed the handset again.

  “Quebec Quebec, this is TAG coordinator. Belay the helo transfer. If you send it, we will not board. I say again, if you send it we will not board. Stand by to log this, and inform TAG and PACFLEET: Team Bravo is remaining with the ROKN aboard units of ASWRON 51 as observers, at the direction of the TAG coordinator. Over.”

  There. That’d cover his guys if things went wrong. Then there’d be only his ass to fry, if it all death-spiraled butt-ugly

  That was fair. More than fair.

  The radio said, “This is Quebec Quebec. Be advised, I will advise Quebec Quebec actual and higher authority of this conversation. Over.”

  “This is TAG coordinator. Suggest you do exactly that. Over.”

  He listened for a moment more to the hiss of empty air, hoping he wasn’t charging off over a cliff.

  Utterly unforeseen, coming out of nowhere, in that fraction of a moment the sudden recognition hit that he’d done this all before. He’d stood on this bridge, in this darkness, committing these men and himself to an irreversible decision. It was utterly convincing. He knew. Beyond question or doubt.

  But when he searched he couldn’t recall how. Whether it’d been in a dream, a previous life… or if he’d just glimpsed this inevitable moment out of its ordained sequence, by some mysterious foreknowledge inexplicable by his culture’s
conventions of time and reality. He groped, bewildered, but found no explanation. Only a label—deja vu—which explained nothing. Fancy? Delusion? No. It felt too meaningful, this unremitting moment. These waiting, expectant faces. He’d seen all this before. He’d been here.

  But what good was a glimpse ahead if it couldn’t tell him how the decision turned out? And if foreknowledge, what was that It, unbound by time and causality, that foreknew?

  At a loss, appalled, he squeezed his eyes closed and asked whatever was behind the mystery, behind all the mysteries, that his decision be right.

  Then added, “This is TAG coordinator. Out.”

  IV

  CHONMYONJON (THE TYPHOON)

  13

  MY officers tell me you’re not feeling well,” Jiang said, sipping tea as he reclined. Dan was doubled over the table, unable to even think about eating. The commodore’s stateroom reoriented itself slowly in space. The temple calendar shifted on the bulkhead. A golden slice of sun blazed through a porthole and sauntered across the tatami.

  “It’ll pass. Upset stomach, that’s all.”

  “Korean food can seem strange to a Westerner.”

  “Oh, that’s not it,” he lied again. Or maybe it was the truth. “Just a bug. Some kind of intestinal flu or something.”

  “I asked my steward to prepare something special for you this morning. Something more like what you get at home.”

  Jung nodded, and with a flourish the white-coated server set the plate before him. Dan blinked at a folded yellow object, square, possibly incorporating egg.

  “I gave him personal directions. Straight from Waffle King.”

  Dan cleared his throat. Hunger locked horns with nausea. It smelled okay. He picked up the fork. The steward hovered, wringing his hands like a newlywed serving her first meal.

  The first bite of the omelet froze his mouth. He tried not to gag. Square-cut bits of carrot, green peas, spilled from the interior, hoary with frost. He chewed it grimly down to a cold paste, trying not to break a tooth on the frozen veggies. Swallowed, and set the fork carefully aside instead of driving it into Jung’s expectant smile. “It’s… absolutely wonderful. How thoughtful of you.”

  “Is good?” The steward beamed.

  “Just like Mom’s! But I’m just not really up to it yet.” He raised his cup to the commodore. “I’ll stick with tea for now. Salut.”

  ”Keon Bae,” said Jung, returning the toast with the beatific grin of a successful Samaritan.

  The morning after the night before. He’d actually slept eventually, for a couple of hours. A pour-over and scrubdown, standing in one of the red plastic washtubs; a shaky shave. Then he’d stopped in CIC for an update from one of the Kims before responding to Jung’s breakfast invite. The chart showed 1800 meters here, but to the south it started to shallow. First to 400, then another deep basin before the bottom rose again as you approached the Strait proper. He’d asked about sonar conditions. With the layer mixing from Brendan, they weren’t good. Maybe 1200 meters direct path, though they might get convergence zone effects as the approaching contacts crossed the band.

  Insofar as tactical disposition went, they were deploying out in a thirty-mile barrier oriented across the incomers’ expected track, with the two ASW-capable ships’ towed arrays streamed to try for long-range detection. Jung had them placed, from left to right, Kim Chon, Chung Nam, Mok Po. Chang Bo Go was thirty miles astern; even surfaced, the 209 was slower than the cans. She’d not yet deployed her own array, since that further reduced her speed of advance.

  “We know anything else about these unidentifieds?” Dan had asked.

  “We think there are four now,” Kim had said.

  Dan had checked the sea from the bridge wing. It stretched away, undulating like an antique mirror, prosaic, glossy, oily-looking. Bands of pewtery shadow crossed its gently bulging surface, narrowing as they neared the horizon. That watery margin where the sea shimmered into the sky, as if out there, at the edge of the world, it was boiling away with the heat.

  Jung interrupted his musing. “You decided to stay.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “May I ask why? Captain Yu tells me there was an exchange with Commodore Leakham.”

  “Not with him personally. I was speaking with his staffer.” Dan explained the recall order. He wasn’t sure if he should reveal that the whole U.S. Navy was pulling out, so he just said, “CTG 75.1’s leaving the exercise. I guess, heading back to Yokosuka. He wanted us to crossdeck. I declined.”

  “Declined, or refused?”

  It seemed like a good Korean-type answer, just to smile faintly. “I hope it is not out of place.”

  “So far you and I have been able to work together. Perhaps now exercise play has been suspended, I may call on you for tactical opinions now and then?”

  “I’d be honored to help, if I can.” He held out his cup and the steward refilled it.

  “Then riddle me a riddle. Why has your navy suddenly pulled out of the Eastern Sea?”

  So much for not telling him. “That I don’t know, Commodore.”

  Jung’s gaze was slicing-sharp as a wood chisel. “They didn’t inform you? During this conversation in which you refused orders, and told them you would remain with us?”

  “No sir. I asked more or less that same question, but they didn’t have an answer.”

  Jung lowered his eyes and swirled his tea. “What do you know about this attack group—these unidentifieds—that would be useful to us?”

  “Sir, I’m as much in the dark as you. It seems to me the Japanese, or whoever sent us that data, could have forwarded a lot more than just lat-long coordinates. Since they were tracking them for two days.”

  “The only conclusion I can draw is that they are Chinese. If they were Korean, or even Russian, the Japanese would have announced it and demanded an explanation.”

  Which was exactly what O’Quinn had said. Dan tipped in sugar and swirled his own tea while he contemplated the next step in the strange dance of a conversation every talk with this man seemed to become. “You think they’re afraid of the Chinese.”

  Jung looked sleepy. “I’d say they are wary of them. The Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force is very good. They are a first-class people, the Japanese. I will be the first to admit it, though Korea has suffered from their ambition. But their navy is small. And the Chinese buy many Japanese goods. I think the wariness may be as much economic as military.” He sipped and added, “But it seems to me your country could be more helpful too. They must know more than we about these intruders. What precisely is your satellite detection capability in shallow seas? Synthetic aperture radar, temperature anomalies, internal wave effects?”

  “Even if I knew that, Commodore, I couldn’t tell you without specific clearance.”

  “Of course not,” Jung said, but still he sounded disappointed, as if expecting Dan to pull some high-tech rabbit out of his cap. He waved at the tea things, signaling the steward to clear, and shook out one of his personal silver-tips. The Zippo clicked and flared. “Of course not. So. We are deploying to stop them. You know we think there are four now? At least that’s what the Japanese have decided to give us. From their fixed array monitoring.”

  Dan decided to wet a hook of his own. “Does the Republic of Korea have fixed arrays in the Eastern Sea?”

  “I could not tell you that without specific clearance. To use your words.”

  “If you did, you wouldn’t have to depend on the Japanese. Or on us.”

  The commodore ignored that. “I’ll tell you one other thing. Our Second Fleet has picked up another unidentified submarine contact in the Western Sea. Off Kunsan.”

  ”Another unidentified?”

  “It is so.”

  Dan rubbed his chin. “But only one?”

  “So far.”

  “A diversion?”

  “That was my thought too. You know the sonar conditions?”

  “I saw the 0300 bathythermograph drop.”


  “They suck. If we get a thousand yards direct path we’ll be lucky.”

  “I see you’re planning a sonobuoy barrier to west and east. In case they try a runaround.”

  Jung said he didn’t expect them to. “Not to the west, anyway. They’re tracking down just off the boundary of the exclusion zone. My feeling is they won’t cross it until they reach the Strait. And any easting they make, they’ll attract the attention of the Japanese again. So I think they’ll head right down our throats.”

  “Then what? They wouldn’t identify for the Japanese.”

  “They’ll identify for us,” Jung said, and set his jaw like a lineman taking a grip on his mouthpiece. He turned his wrist to see his watch, and Dan realized their moment was over. “Now I’ll go to the bridge. I enjoyed your company very much, and hope you feel better later in the day.”

  DAN wrote a message explaining his reasoning in keeping Team B with the Koreans. He addressed it to TAG, info CINCROKFLT, CINC-PACFLT, and anyone else he thought might have an interest. As an afterthought he added COMDESRON 15. Not that he cared what Leakham thought; he just didn’t want to be accused of going behind his back. He turned that in for Yu’s countersign. Just like on a U.S. ship, nothing could go out without the skipper’s chop. He chugged an orange pop to stay hydrated and went back to his stateroom to lie down.

  At 1000 he was in CIC again, in the chair near the Harpoon console that had become the Americans’ unofficial watch station. All battle stations were fully manned, compacting the limited space with un-showered bodies and tobacco smoke, but nobody spoke much. He watched green pips inchworm across radarscopes, aligning into the barrier, then begin their sweep northeast. At some point, the South Koreans and the oncoming group, whatever it was, would meet. Like a warm front and a cold. The result could well be thunderstorms.