China Sea

by David Poyer

  It wasn’t the way the Navy he knew did business. But he had to admit, if he wanted to reason in this dark vein, it did make a shadowy and frightening sense.

  But if that was so, if it was even conceivable that was what was happening … then where did his duty lie?

  Could the Navy abandon him and still expect him to do his duty?

  Or did they expect him to see it was all a front, a cover story or beard or stratagem or whatever you wanted to call it, expect him to penetrate it, recognize it for what it was, and yet persevere?

  He rubbed his hand over his jaw again, an unconscious caress to reassure himself, feeling the damp that rose off the restless sea, and his hand came away wet with mingled sweat and salt water. He was replaying in his mind every conversation he could recall back in the States, trying to snag some snippet of meaning he could point to as signifying, We’re sending you in under false colors, but we expect you to do your job anyway. Or something like, We’ll disown you if you’re caught, but that is the code and you will have to stay true to it.

  But then he saw that anything like that was impossible. If he went into this knowing what he and his ragtag crew would be expected to do and was captured, it would blow the lid off the whole effort. Moreover, it would expose the United States as too weak or too divided to take an open stand against the power that loomed over the western Pacific.

  For if such a conspiracy existed, it could be aimed at none other than China. The only power on earth that could seemingly not be confronted directly, either by the United States itself or via a client state or ally. The only power that had expansionist interests in the China Sea … and the only one that was underwriting piracy as a tool of hegemony.

  He clung to the lifeline as the sense of doomed inevitability chilled his bones. Because they’d picked the right man. He had good reason to hate the Chinese. He’d lost Kerry to them, on a deserted towpath years before in Washington, and had to watch as the guilty danced away from punishment. Yeah, he had unsettled business with the People’s Republic of China.

  And also because, God help him, he’d always tried his best to do his duty, as far as he understood it. It wasn’t so much loyalty to his superiors, nor even to his orders. It was an obligation to honor and to the United States, and even beyond that. Hard to discern as it sometimes was, he had always tried to do what he thought was right.

  Could duty exist without orders? Of course it could.

  Could a mission exist without orders? He had to admit it seemed unlikely.

  But he couldn’t think of any other explanation that would lead to a ship without a flag, a captain who was no captain, a stateless and abandoned crew.

  He stared into the passing sea till he felt squeezed and wrung and his brain would no longer track down the mazes and switchbacks that opened before it. Then shook himself free and went inside the black-bulkheaded quarterdeck compartment and spun the crank on the phone.

  Colosimo answered. No further transmissions from the Marker Eagle. They were not yet on radar. Lieutenant Doolan was mustering and arming the boarding party. Dan hung up and went back out onto the weather deck.

  The gray sky hurtled past above, driven on an endless conveyor belt of high-altitude winds. Covering the heaven that presumably lay above it with an impenetrable mask.

  * * *

  HE stopped in Combat and listened to the ops specialist call the Marker Eagle. Radio confirmed that the transmission was going out, but only the hiss of empty ether replied. He crossed to the electronic warfare station and watched the petty officer as he stared at the screen.

  The SLQ-32 electronic surveillance display console looked like an oversize desktop computer. A green bull’s-eye pattern glowed on the monitor. Since there was no realistic way to measure how far away the emitters the electronic warfare gear eavesdropped on were, at least for a single ship, the display didn’t show range, the way a radar screen did. Instead it placed own-ship and friendly emitters in the center, hostile missile radars on the appropriate bearing in the middle ring, and hostile nonmissile sources such as aircraft or ships along the outer perimeter. “What have you got?” Dan asked the operator, who flinched at the interruption.

  He said he had two Skin Head I-band radars, a Soviet-style surface search radar used on light patrol craft, occasional VHF voice transmissions, and a commercial radar he assumed was the ro-ro’s, all coming in from 000 to 007 degrees relative. “There’s something else I get an occasional mutter of. Haven’t been able to pin it down yet, though. Weak and intermittent.”

  Dan asked him, “Those Skin Heads could be Chinese, right?”

  The petty officer said it was consistent with light Chinese units; his guess was Shanghai-class gunboats. Dan nodded, thinking it through. It wasn’t too late to change his mind, turn back. That could be justified. He let himself be tempted, just to make sure he was making the right decision. Then he turned and ran lightly up the ladder.

  When he got to the bridge Chick Doolan was taking over as OOD. He and Colosimo saluted, and Dan acknowledged the turnover. Doolan said, “We have a radar contact now where our guy’s supposed to be. I altered course to intercept.”

  “Just one contact?”

  “One fat one, yeah. How big’s this ship you were on?”

  “Maybe fifteen thousand tons. High freeboard. That’d give you a big return, beam aspect.”

  “Not this big. I’m thinking multiple returns, too close to paint separate.”

  Dan said grimly it could very well be that whoever Wedlake had reported as boarding him could still be alongside and that from the ESM picture he anticipated light patrol or fast attack craft.

  “That brings up another point,” Chick said. “That we’re going into this with just about empty magazines. We never caught up to Malvar for forty-mil, so the heaviest we got is twenty. You have thought of that, right, sir?”

  Dan wasn’t sure he liked the weapons officer’s lighthearted tone. “I thought about it, Chick. But what’s our alternative? Stand aside?”

  “Oh, I fully concur, Skipper. Just wanted to bring it to your attention.” Doolan grinned.

  Dan told him he wanted the machine guns and twenties manned and loaded and the boarding party protected with helmets and flak jackets. Chick said they were mustering on the boat deck. Colosimo would be in charge. Lenson nodded. The guy might be a reservist, but he had good judgment, he spun up incredibly fast, and he seemed to know all there was to know about the piracy situation out here. He went out to the wing and had a short shouted conversation with the fire team leaders on the boarding party.

  When he came in, he snapped, “Let’s go to GQ.” Doolan nodded to the boatswain, who stepped to the alarm panel. The electronic tones pealed out over the ship, with Topmark’s harsh announcement afterward. When he made to rebracket the mike, Dan reached out. He cradled it for a moment, mustering his words, then pressed the button.

  “This is the captain speaking.

  “For almost two weeks now we’ve been out searching for pirates. First with the TNTF, then on our own. We had two close shaves, but they got away.

  “It looks like we might have another chance today.”

  He told the crew briefly about Marker Eagle’s distress transmission and explained he’d been aboard the ship in question, that it had been attacked before, and that the master had since taken precautions. “We’re seeing a larger-than-usual radar paint here on the bridge. Mr. Doolan thinks it’s possible the boarders are still alongside. I suspect they are rogue Chinese Navy gunboats, operating on their own hook to halt and loot merchant shipping.

  “If they are, my intention is to give them a chance to depart the scene peacefully. If they do not, we will warn them off with the fifty-cals. We should outgun any light patrol craft and we’re a much more stable platform to shoot from. I will hold the boarding party inside the skin of the ship until I’m sure it’s safe to lower the RHIBs. I don’t want them bobbing around when there’s lead in the air.” He let up on the button and gave it
a moment, making sure there was nothing else he wanted to tell them, then realized there was.

  “I know some of you feel abandoned by the Navy. To some extent, we seem to be out here on our own. But I want to reassure you that it is only a temporary comm problem. They’ll be in touch soon. Till then, we will stay at sea and carry out our previously assigned tasking.

  “We are now proceeding to render aid to a ship and crew who have called for our help. That is an essential part of any warship’s mission.

  “I am very proud of how well you are doing, considering equipment failures and shortages of parts. I am proud of you and of USS Oliver C. Gaddis.

  “That is all. Perform all last-minute ordnance checks. Ensure ready service ammunition is available at each weapons station.”

  He had no more than hung the mike up when a loud crack sounded on the starboard side. Heads whipped around, and the starboard lookout ducked. The phone talker yelled, “Accidental discharge, starboard twenty-mil!”

  “Casualties?”

  “No casualties, round unloaded outboard.”

  Dan told the talker to have the mount captain report to the bridge, applied his face to the radar hood, and racked the bearing knob around and laid the range pip against the contact ahead. Twenty thousand yards. Ten nautical miles. She ought to be in visual range. It did look as if there were more than one contact there, but the separation, if any, was beyond the ability of the radar to resolve or the scope to display.

  The 21MC. “Bridge, Signal bridge. Surface ship bearing 350 relative.”

  “I hold it,” Chief Tosito yelled in from the port wing. “A big white merchant.”

  “Anybody else?”

  “Don’t see anybody else, sir.”

  Dan whipped his binocs up, searching, then had it. It was the ro-ro, all right. She looked smaller out here at sea than she had alongside the pier with her ramp down.

  The 21MC, Armey’s voice: “Bridge, Main Control: Lube oil pressure alarm. Remote bearing header pressure, down to eleven psi and dropping. Cutting on both service pumps, we need to close the throttle and stop the shaft—”

  “Negative, goddamnit, Jim, we’re on our way into a situation—”

  “Captain, you wanted to see me about that stray round—”

  He snapped responses from the center of the bridge, acknowledging Main Control and Combat, sending the twenty-mil gunner back to his post on the double, sparing a quick look around to make sure everyone was in helmet and flash gear. To his surprise, he found he was wearing a helmet and that his made-up Mae West was snapped around his waist. He didn’t recall putting them on.

  Topmark: “Condition Zebra set throughout the ship, sir.”

  “Very well,” he and Doolan said, both together at the same moment. All hatches and scuttles were closed and dogged. Gaddis was now divided into a series of watertight compartments.

  Doolan, beside him. The weapons officer had one earphone clamped to one ear, the other dangling free. He said, “General Quarters set throughout the ship.”

  “Very well. That was fast.”

  “Minute and a half. New record. I’m going to let Dave take the deck. I might hold Chief Tosito here, too, unless you think we need him in Sonar.”

  Dave Zabounian, saluting: “Sir, I have the watch as General Quarters JOOD.”

  “Very well.… That sounds good, Mr. Doolan. This is when you notice a serious shortage of junior officers.” Dan lifted his glasses again, checking the already noticeably nearer shape ahead. Gaddis was covering nearly a thousand yards with every passing minute. So far, he saw no evidence anyone had detected them. Sheer good luck that the ro-ro had ended up on their side, masking their approach from whatever was alongside. Her high superstructure even cast a radar shadow behind it, screening the hell-for-leather approach of the cavalry.

  Zabounian, from the radar: “Contact ahead separating.”

  “Say again.”

  “Two smaller contacts separating from the centroid pip.”

  The gunboats whose search radars ESM had detected, no doubt. They had to be on the other side; that was why Dan hadn’t seen them. But they’d reacted too slowly. They would be in Gaddis’s line of fire as soon as she cleared the bow of the ro-ro. At the speed he was traveling, there was no way they were going to escape being in range.

  Beside him Doolan was saying into the sound-powered mike, “Your target, two small surface craft, bearing zero-zero-five relative, masked by white merchant vessel, range thirteen thousand yards.”

  “Remind them batteries tight, Chick. I don’t want any more loose rounds out there.”

  “I’d sure as hell like to have the forties and the five-inch operational, sir.”

  “I would, too, but twenty-millimeters should be sufficient,” Dan said. “These contacts are small; they’re probably trawler-size. A couple of twin thirty-sevens, without director control. A burst across the bow, point the forward mount at them, and they’ll realize resistance is futile.”

  “I hope so,” said Doolan, but he didn’t sound intimidated. He looked happy, eager for a fight, and Dan studied him for a second, unsure whether to leave him in that state or bring him down to earth. Any eagerness he himself might have had once for combat had disappeared the first time he’d seen the butchery an exploding shell made of human bodies.

  But it was obvious that the prospect of action kicked the mustached lieutenant into turbo mode. And suddenly a suspicion glowed to life. Was it combat that excited Doolan or danger itself? And if danger turned him on, what was more dangerous, unpredictable, fatal, and thrilling than murder?

  “Captain. Captain! Signal Bridge wants to know what flag to hoist. You want the battle ensign or—”

  Dan jerked his mind back and almost said, “The battle ensign, of course,” then stopped. Did he want to hoist the oversize Stars and Stripes it was traditional to fly into battle?

  Wasn’t that the whole point?

  “Hoist no flag,” he said at last.

  “Sir? You want the battle flag?”

  “No. No! I said no flag at all. I want bare halliards, understand? Get the U.S. ensign down.”

  They gaped as if he’d gone crazy, and maybe he had. But he screwed the binoculars back into his eye sockets and after a moment Doolan yelled, “You heard him! Bare poles. ASAP, you son of a bitch!”

  “Don’t curse at the men, Lieutenant.”

  “Sorry, sir. Got excited.”

  “I need you to stay cool, Chick. Let’s buckle down and stay focused.”

  But then everything went to hell and his battle plan with it. The 21MC said, “Bridge, Combat: ESM reports X-band fire control radar activated bearing three-zero-five.”

  Dan hesitated, mouth open to speak and brain racing to supply content. But none came.

  Patrol craft didn’t carry X-band radar.

  A white flare rose slowly from the deck of the ro-ro. Wedlake was signaling, apparently. Dan frowned at it, gripping his binoculars half-raised. It didn’t peak, then gradually fall, though, like a signal flare ought to. It kept climbing, straight up, leaving a thick white cone of smoke below it. A second and then a third flare appeared, rising lazily toward the gray clouds.

  “Chaff!” he screamed, understanding all at once. Simultaneously Doolan jumped across the bridge, grabbed the pivoting key that fired the RBOC, and yanked it over. A warning bell cut on.

  Above the freighter, the cones of white-hot flame and swiftly shredding smoke began to tip downward.

  They weren’t flares, and they hadn’t been climbing vertically.

  They were missiles of some kind, and they were headed straight for the onrushing Gaddis. They arched down over the drifting freighter and swung left, then right, hunting to and fro before steadying the weapons themselves visible now as dark hearts to the cones of flame, coming fast and straight down their throat.

  Six sharp thuds came from aft, and Dan heard screams along with them. He clenched the barrels of the glasses, staring up at the incoming weapons, knowing tha
t the chaff canisters took at least ten seconds to travel far enough from the ship to detonate into a milling midge-cloud of radar-reflective foil. The version Gaddis carried had an infrared decoy, too, but it took even longer for the heat source to ignite. It was designed to divert and confuse an incoming Styx or Silkworm. But for whatever was coming at them, smaller and faster and at a deadly short range, it did not look to him as if it would be effective soon enough.

  The paralysis snapped and he loped across the pilothouse, shoved the boatswain aside as Topmark stared petrified out the window, and yelled into the 1MC, “Missile incoming, starboard bow!” He dropped the mike, wheeled, and searched a suddenly empty mind for another action to take. The first incoming round hovered, moving almost imperceptibly against the hurtling clouds, then plunged with the terrible grace of a diving hawk.

  “… the deck!” somebody yelled, as in the last ending seconds a clatter of .50-cal fire burst out on the upper deck, a despairing skyward burst, a last futile gesture of defiance as the smoke trail plunged down at near-supersonic velocity.

  The blast snapped the deck away under their faces, and an instant later a rain of fragments clattered across the overhead. A second whip-cracked behind it, fast and deafening as stringed firecrackers going off a yard from one’s ear. Bulletlike shards whipped through the open port wing door and whined about the interior of the pilothouse. As if by some magic, Chief Tosito’s shirt suddenly turned bloody. Dan crouched, taking partial cover behind the heavy aluminum casing of the repeater, though his back and side were still exposed. He waited for the third explosion, but it didn’t come. Gaddis plunged on, shaking off smoke and the remains of fire scattered about her boat deck.

  Up again, and amid the strange soundless ringing aftersilence Dan stepped to one of the cracked windows, peering ahead. To his enormous relief, there didn’t seem to be any more missiles on the way. After a moment he raised his binoculars, which he discovered were still around his neck.