China Sea

by David Poyer

  Dan lifted his cap and smoothed back sweat-soaked hair. It wasn’t just the heat that was making him sweat. He didn’t want to board this ship. But there was no graceful way out. He followed the others, Suriadiredja at their head, up onto the quarterdeck.

  Fans roared steadily in the hangar. A red star with two golden ideographs on a chain-fouled anchor was mounted high on one bulkhead. The stream of warm air only seemed to accentuate the humidity, but he was grateful for the shade. The receiving line was made up of the commanding officer, whose name he didn’t catch, and several others—department heads, most likely. Each bowed, shook his hand, then dropped it instantly and turned to the next guest, who in this case was Suriadiredja’s flag aide. When Dan emerged from the gauntlet he collected a glass of lemonade. He glanced at the admiral, hoping this wouldn’t be a long visit. After a moment, he strolled out toward the helicopter.

  Before he escaped the hangar, he was intercepted by a crisp young fellow in a red-tabbed, slightly rumpled uniform. “United States Navy?”

  Dan straightened, then reluctantly returned his head bob.

  “How do you do. My name is Shan Jihong.”

  Dan took the limp hand for a moment. “Daniel Lenson.”

  “Welcome to Dajaing. I hope you will not mind if I practice my English with you. I last saw U.S. Navy officers in Shanghai. I was translator for the Military Mission in 1989. Do you know General Ferguson? U.S. Marine general David Ferguson?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “I see you are admiring our helicopter. That is a French helicopter. The Super Frelon. We will be building our own version soon, but with many improvements.”

  Shan was not as young as he’d seemed at first glance. Dan leaned out past the edge of the hangar, far enough to get a glance across the choppy green bay at Gaddis. She looked OK, tending around a bit to the west from where she had originally hung at anchor. A fuel barge lay alongside. He turned back and said to the Chinese, “You have quite a ship here. I was wondering, actually, what type of craft this is.”

  “Dajaing is a research ship.”

  Dan nodded, trying to disguise his surprise at this piece of news. He took another hit off the lemonade and said, as blandly as he could, “You do a good deal of hydrography, I imagine.”

  Shan did not answer that one, simply smiled. “I am not involved in that work.”

  Still thinking about the implications, a submarine support ship this far to the south, Dan pushed the next pawn forward. “What’s your position aboard, Mr. Shan?”

  “I am the political officer of Dajiang. And you are the commander of Gaddis? Part of the Indonesian task force?”

  The oppressive feeling Dan had fought at the foot of the ladder returned. “Political officer” meant Party member. But to him it meant the people who’d ruined his career at Joint Cruise Missiles, driven an espionage network into the Pentagon and Congress and the Air Force, and hired the gang bangers who’d killed Kerry Donavan on a towpath in D.C. He took a deep breath and eased it out. In a controlled voice he said, “That’s right. But it’s multinational, not Indonesian.”

  “You are sailing under Admiral Suriadiredja’s flag.”

  “With ships of many coastal nations, on a mission of commerce protection.”

  “China would have been pleased to participate. I wonder why we were not invited.”

  Because you’re the assholes behind the worst of it, Dan thought, but aloud he just said, “I wouldn’t have anything on that for you, sorry.”

  He was excusing himself, turning away, when a smooth-faced Chinese-Singaporean he recognized as the Sea Lion’s commander joined them, and with him another officer who introduced himself as on the staff of the Royal Brunei Armed Forces Flotilla. Dan thanked the latter for the complimentary fuel. The discussion then turned to the developing tropical depression east of the Philippines and the possibility it would move west into the Phase Two op area. Dan felt uneasy discussing their intended movements in front of the Chinese. He tried to relax, tried to look as if he were enjoying himself swapping shop talk on a hot afternoon. But presently Suriadiredja drifted over, too. The task force commander stood listening without comment to the patrol craft’s skipper. With the admiral was another Chinese Dan recalled from the receiving line. The Dajiang’s captain was slight as a boy, but with crow’s-feet around penetrating eyes that flicked from face to face with sour amusement.

  When the Singaporean was done, he turned to Dan. “So, America has returned.”

  “We never left.”

  “We thought so for a time. After Vietnam.” He smiled around the group. Dan straightened, a flash of anger pumping his blood pressure so high he felt a sudden pain in the small of his back. Was the son of a bitch taunting him? He started to snap back, then caught Suriadiredja’s glance.

  “There are political differences between China and the United States.” The Bruneian, with an unpleasant smirk.

  “Political developments are always of interest,” said Shan, and the little circle’s attention came back to the political officer. “But it is unfortunate you halted our technical and scientific partnership. I personally do not understand the reason.”

  “Tienanmen was the reason,” Dan said.

  “The few students wounded at Tienanmen were an internal matter. Like your Kent State massacre. China needs discipline. The people’s rights to material development must take priority over bourgeois concepts of political liberty.

  “But if America prefers to break her commitments, we have been through the same process with the Soviet Union. First assistance, professions of friendship, and then abandonment. We managed to continue modernizing. Our new Luhu-class destroyers will carry French missiles, German diesels, British radar, and Chinese nuclear-capable antiship missiles. They will be the equal of any ship in the United States fleet. Mr. Gorbachev, too, seems quite willing to discuss sales of advanced systems.”

  Admiral Suriadiredja coughed into a fist, and the others fell silent. The Indonesian said, “There are questions about your government’s intentions in the southern reaches of the South China Sea. We attempted to negotiate the subject of the Spratleys. The response was evasive. Something about Chinese imperial dynasties and national heritage.”

  Shan listened to a statement from Dajaing’s CO. He said something that sounded reassuring and returned to English. “The captain cautions me that these are matters of high diplomatic importance, not for us to venture opinions on without guidance. I will only repeat Chairman Deng’s words, said many times over, that China has no desire to threaten other countries or to play the hegemon.

  “You must bear in mind, however, that we have been deprived of large areas in the course of our history. Russian imperialists occupied our territory in the north. France, Britain, Germany, even Portugal seized cities and harbors. The Japanese annexed Manchuria and stole Taiwan. China’s leaders depend on peaceful evolution for the rectification of these historic injustices. For myself, though, I will point out that all these southern seas were unquestionably Chinese before the piratical incursions of the European powers. The People’s Republic will defend our historic rights.”

  Dan observed, before he could stop himself, “Your historic rights seem to extend farther and farther out to sea as time goes on.”

  “Along with every other nation in the world,” said Shan. “Last year the Japanese extended their naval boundaries one thousand miles, all the way to the Paracels. We are simply moving our defenses outward from the homeland as we take our place in the community of powers. Just as America has. One could say your ship has little business in what even you call the China Sea.”

  “We’re acting in concert with other nations to restrain piracy on the high seas.”

  Dajaing’s captain spoke again, in Chinese.

  Shan said, “My commanding officer asks me to caution you. He has seen notices to mariners your task force has filed for operations in the Tungsha Tao area. That is within China’s coastal sea. It would not be perceived as
friendly to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy if a task force operated north of fifteen degrees latitude. That is an area which it is our duty to defend.”

  The group was silent for a moment; then Suriadiredja said something about the UN Law of the Sea Convention boundaries. But Dan had had enough. He couldn’t take it any longer, couldn’t hold a lemonade glass and listen to courteous threats when what he wanted was to shoot every son of a bitch who wore a red star. He turned his back on all of them, if that was impolite to hell with it, and went out onto the open deck to check on Gaddis again. Damn it, he was getting CO-itis. Juskoviac was aboard, in temporary command while he was absent. Yeah, and that was the problem. If that anchor started dragging, Greg would be the last guy to notice.… Chick and Dave were there, though. He was getting paranoid. He sucked at the hot wind and tried to push away the anger and the regret, the sense of impending danger and past loss that ached in his bones like the residue of some toxic heavy metal.

  Past the sheltered bay a lilac sky glowed like distant fire beyond the black smudge of the low coast, beyond the dark immobile silhouettes of shipping anchored in the roadstead. The wind had fallen as evening came; and an immense and brooding stillness hovered above the waiting sea, which reflected, in its turbulent depths, the flame and color of the dying sun.

  16

  THE SULU SEA

  IT took two days to transit from Brunei to the Phase Two op area. En route, Hang Tuah’s commander notified the CTF that he had received a recall from the Malaysian naval headquarters, to operate in the Gulf of Thailand after an incident with the Thai fishing fleet off Kota Bharu. She detached minutes after Admiral Suriadiredja’s terse acknowledgment and dropped rapidly astern.

  That left Nala, Monginsidi, Sea Lion, and of course Gaddis.

  The TNTF staff promulgated Suriadiredja’s orders for the second phase of the operation by flashing light as the group transited the Balabac Strait. The message sliced the island-hemmed diamond of the Sulu Sea into rectangles of various sizes according to the surveillance capabilities of the ships assigned. It read: “Units will maintain constant and alert radar, radio, electronic, and visual watch, concentrating on the waters, islands, and passages bounding their assigned patrol areas. On detection of possible pirate or smuggling activity, inform CTFOP, other TF ships, and Philippine or Malaysian coast guard commands as indicated below.”

  Gaddis was assigned patrol area Zamboanga, a fifty-by-hundred-mile rectangle of shallow sea dropped athwart the main shipping channel through the Sulu Archipelago. Colosimo, who had taken over the vacant billet of operations officer, briefed Dan in his cabin about the most effective way to clamp a blockade on the most active area of pirate activity in the Philippines. “They operate out of Basilan Island,” he told Dan, unfolding a Defense Mapping Agency chart that had what looked to him like suspiciously widely scattered depth markings.

  Lenson sat forward over it, studying their carefully drawn area of responsibility, then perused the labyrinthine scatter of islands that bounded it. “How close in do you think we should patrol?”

  “I’d be wary about closing any of these islands. The China Sea Pilot says not to trust the charts. They’re based on old Spanish surveys. The coral heads aren’t marked, and you won’t get any warning from the fathometer, no preliminary shoaling, before you hit one. Strong tidal currents. Nothing’s marked, no buoys or lights. Worst of all, like you know already, loran’s spotty this far south. It’s satnav, radar, and putting our balls on the table.”

  “What else?”

  “It’s typhoon season. That’s probably the most serious threat. If one closes in, Admiral Suriadiredja will probably direct us to maneuver independently. I’d get the hell out of the Sulu, look for sea room west of Palawan.”

  Dan agreed that trying to ride out a major storm in the reef-fretted Sulu didn’t sound like prudent seamanship. But he wasn’t sure committing a ship with failing machinery and an already too small and increasingly disgruntled crew to fight it out on the high seas was a stellar idea, either. “What if I wanted to take shelter? Port Isabela?”

  “You don’t want to go into Isabela,” the reservist told him. “That’s Basilan, where these local bandits are out of. We’re talking hundreds of them, and what amounts to a civil war the Philippine government’s waging against Muslim separatists and communist insurgents. You’d have to set up machine guns on deck and man them around-the-clock.”

  A tap on the door; Juskoviac leaned in. “You wanted to see the prisoners, sir? Chief Mellows is here.”

  “Yeah, just a second.” Dan sat looking at the chart for a moment more, then stood. “Thanks, Dom, I’m real glad to have you aboard.… Yeah, XO, let’s get to it.”

  * * *

  GADDIS, like most modern combatants other than carriers, had no permanent brig arrangements. When you absolutely, positively had to keep someone overnight, the auxiliary machinery spaces were usually pressed into service. The fan rooms Chief Mellows had put the suspects in were aft on the main deck level, at Frame 128. One was to port, sandwiched between the ship’s store and the post office; the other was across the midships passageway. The ship’s store was closed, Dan noticed. No wonder; the Plexiglas shelves were empty except for shaving powder and cologne. Juskoviac excused himself, saying he’d be right back as Mellows unsnapped the padlock and held the expanded-metal door for Dan to step through.

  Pistolesi looked up from a folding chair on the bare gray-painted deck. Dan noticed he looked even more on edge than when they’d had their little counseling session on getting along with the Pakistanis, back in Philly. He was naked from the waist up, and the tattoo Dan had noticed before was revealed, but it had been so badly executed and was so obscured by a black snake of curly hair writhing up from his dungaree trou he could not tell what it was.

  “Stand the fuck up, Pistolesi,” said Mellows from the corridor. The fireman waited just long enough, then stood, arms dangling in studied contempt.

  “How’s it going, Fireman Pistolesi?”

  “You made a mistake, Captain. I’m not the guy you want for this one.”

  Dan tried to discount the Jersey accent and the overtones of The Godfather it brought to mind. He leaned against the sheet-steel housing that covered the fan itself. Its muffled roar underlay all their words. “I’d like to believe that, Pistolero. Unfortunately, when we ask ourselves who we got aboard with a bad liberty record and a history of violence, your name pops out of Chief Mellows’s computer.”

  “Yeah, it’s pretty airtight. I slammed some brews on the beach. I don’t let slanty-eyed asshole cops push me around. Obviously that means I whacked that cocksucker Vorenkamp and the hooker in Singapore.”

  “And most likely several other women, too.” Dan watched the scarred face and concrete eyes as he described the girl in Fayal, what the two detectives said had been done to her. He compared that to the injuries to the corpse that rode beneath them, wrapped in a body bag and chilled to below zero. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for; a sparkle of interest, a gleam of regret, a relish for the gory details … but he didn’t get any of those out of the man before him.

  Pistolesi listened, then shrugged. “Just the guy you want to carve your turkey on Thanksgiving. We got a serious head case aboard, all right. But it ain’t me, Skipper.”

  “Just saying that doesn’t cut it, Pistolesi. I only see two ways you get out of this fan room. First, confess now. We’ll move you to a compartment with air-conditioning, treat you good, till we can turn you over to the pros. Second, if it wasn’t you, prove it to me, and you walk out of here.”

  “Somehow it strikes me as funny there ain’t no mast or charges or anything involved in this.”

  “No, there aren’t,” Dan told him. “I’d guess we’re about two thousand miles from the nearest JAG officer. I know I’m going to get reamed at some point for taking you and Machias into preventive custody. Or maybe not; a commanding officer at sea still has some latitude. But if neither of those two things happ
ens—you confess or you can prove it wasn’t you—we’ll turn everything over to the Naval Investigative Service when we get to Subic. You can explain it to them.”

  “Oh, we going to Pubic? I didn’t hear that. Hey, I know a bitch in Olongapo, she’ll tell you I don’t need no knife to make an impression.”

  “I don’t have orders yet, but I’ve asked for a brief port visit en route to the Phase Three op area,” Dan told him. “I also asked for an agent to fly in to Brunei, but I never got an answer to that one. So I’m planning for Subic.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you what I hope,” Pistolesi told him, flashing small, widely spaced teeth outlined with yellow tartar. “I hope it’s Shi-hime. I really hope it is. ’Cause I know it ain’t me. And if it ain’t him, the sicko who did the faggot is still strolling around giggling under his breath, looking for another chicken tender to carve on. You know what? I like where I am. Keep that door locked on me, Skipper. Keep her locked tight. I may just be the safest son of a bitch aboard this fucking death ship.”

  * * *

  JOHNILE “Shi-hime” Machias was extremely tall. The electrician’s mate’s long, close-cropped head carried heavy lips, a pencil-thin mustache, and large opaque protruding eyes over which strangely corrugated lids half-masted. The first thing he said when Dan opened the cage was, “Is you the man with the cigarettes?”

  “Get him some cigarettes, Chief,” Dan told Mellows.

  “Ship’s store’s fresh out of ’em, Cap’n.”

  This was the first he’d heard of it. He didn’t smoke, which had made him something of an exception in the Navy when he’d joined, but he knew how much smokers needed the weed. Another negative morale factor. “Well, find a couple someplace.”

  “It don’t need to be cigarette tobacco, Chief!” the prisoner called, stepping to the relocked grating and shaking it violently. Dan saw the slim shoulders held astonishing power. “See-gars. Pipe tobacco. Copie. Whatever you got.” He turned back to Lenson. “What you doing down here, Cap’n?”