Boomer decided to sprint anyway, calculating that if the Kilos were snorkeling now, overheard by SOSUS but not by Columbia, they must be at least twelve miles away. He’d be safe if he restricted his sprint to fifteen minutes. He might risk twenty. Boomer issued his orders.
“Left standard rudder. Down all masts. Twenty down. Eight hundred feet. Make your speed thirty knots. Steer course 030.”
“Now listen up,” he addressed his team. “I’m nearly certain these guys are about fifty miles back up the track and still coming toward us. They will be snorkeling until at least 0600. We should pick them up next time we slow down. But we may have to sprint again. A close pass, and a short-range detection while we’re sprinting is a possibility. Get four Mk 48’s, and the decoys, on top line all of the time. I hope it won’t turn out that way, but they may open fire on us first. The advantage only swings back to us when we slow down.
“If we have to, we’ll do it the hard way, in a short-range shoot-out, using active sonar. No holds barred. Thank you, gentlemen.”
At 0431 Boomer issued another order. “Twenty up. Make your speed five knots. Right standard rudder. Steer 100. Make your depth sixty-two feet. Radio, stand by for satcoms. Sonar, slowing down and continuing to PD. Be ready with active for snap shot.”
“Sonar, aye.”
“Radio, aye.”
0437: “Captain, sonar. New contact, bow arrays only. TA not established yet. Bearing red 83. Analyzing. Very faint aural. Not close. Track 2307. Tracking.”
“Captain, aye. Stand down snap attack. Left standard rudder. Steer 017. Set guess range on computer twenty thousand yards. Sonar, Captain, I am assuming this is a direct path contact, course 210, speed 6.5 knots.”
“Captain, sonar. Analysis in. Kilo Class engines. No cavitation, weak signals, but steady. Bearing moving slowly left, 015.”
Boomer turned to his navigator and ordered a contact report to SUBLANT: “Kilo Class, snorkeling, bearing 017, ten miles north of us. Course 210, speed 6.5. Closing to investigate/attack.”
Columbia now slid forward, making eight knots for the quietest, quickest approach. The Captain’s attention was caught by another message from sonar, reporting a garbled underwater telephone on the bearing. “Not Russian, interpreter thinks it could be Chinese.”
“Well,” thought Boomer, “if they’re on the UWT there’s gotta be two of ’em, and they can’t be very worried about being detected. I doubt they heard me either, but I suppose they could just be warning each other.”
Now was not a time for speculation. Boomer changed course to help the fire-control solution. The news from sonar was good—firm contact, direct path, good bearings, no change in characteristics. “Feels a bit closer than twenty thousand yards.”
“Captain, aye. Stand by one and two tubes. I’m holding course for another three minutes for the tracking solution.”
0456: “Captain. Computer has a good solution. Track 2307, course 212, speed 6.4, range 12,500 yards. You’re 2,200 yards off track.”
For Boomer this was the moment of which he had reminded his superiors back in the Pentagon. The two submarines are close together. And right now sonar can’t separate them. “I don’t want to warn one by shooting the other,” he murmured, “because if the sonofabitch gets loose he’ll announce something to the whole world.”
He spoke his thoughts to himself. They were clear in his racing mind. “I want them both at once, or within thirty seconds of each other. So I’ll let ’em come by a bit until I get sonar separation. But I’m a bit too close off track, and I can’t tell how long I’ve got before they stop snorkeling and go silent. I give them till 0600 though.”
Boomer ordered again, right standard rudder. “Steer 080. Lemme know the instant you can separate the contacts for simultaneous attack with two Mk 48’s.”
“Sonar, aye.”
0508: “Captain, sonar. I have two contacts. Tracks 2307 and 2310 now bearing 011 and 014.”
“Captain, aye. Take 2307 with number one weapon, and 2310 with number two. I want passive approach, slow speed until reaching one thousand yards, then go shallow and active on both. I’m gonna turn and point before firing.”
“Weapons, aye.”
“Computer, Captain, set same course and speed for 2310. I think they’re roughly in line ahead. Put them two thousand yards apart.”
“Computer, aye. SET.”
Boomer Dunning reminded himself to stay cool. “I’ve got a ton of time,” he muttered. “Get comfortable off track before you turn back in. Wait till we get in toward their stern arcs—less chance they’ll hear the launch transients. Maybe I should speed it all up a bit by turning back along their track nine minutes from now. That’ll give me another fifteen hundred yards clear to the east, and into their stern arcs quicker.”
0517: “Captain, sonar, 2307 bearing 341, 2310 bearing 352. Both in high frequency. Good aural. Good bearings. No change.”
“Left standard rudder. Steer 030. I shall turn toward eleven minutes from now, to fire.”
0527: “Captain, sonar, 2307 bearing 265, 2310 bearing 281. No change.”
“Captain, computer tracking right on, sir.”
0528: “Left standard rudder, steer 270. STAND BY ONE AND TWO TUBES.”
0530: “Steady on 270, sir.”
“FIRE!”
For the second time in her life Columbia shuddered as her big Mk 48 ADCAPs arrowed out into the ocean in search of a Russian-built submarine.
“Number one tube fired.”
“Number two tube fired.”
“Both weapons under guidance, Captain.”
0536: “First weapon one thousand yards from 2307…SWITCHING TO ACTIVE HOMING…SHALLOW DEPTH…HIGH SPEED.”
Boomer heard the same report called for weapon two, then the warning he expected. “Weapons masking target…still holding…no change.”
“Captain, aye.”
“First weapon contact active, sir.”
“Release first weapon on 2307.”
“Second weapon contact active, sir.”
“RELEASE!”
Columbia’s two torpedoes smashed home within seconds of each other at 0537, shortly before first light on the morning of January 9. A gaping hole was blown into each of the Chinese Kilos and a rush of icy water flooded the new hulls and dragged them two miles to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Lonely, terrible echoes from the explosions rang back to the American submarine’s sonars for almost a minute. The Chinese weapons operators had not been sufficiently swift of thought to fire back.
Death came suddenly to the hundred crew members. Neither ship would ever be seen again. The Kilos were invisible when they were hit, and would remain so for all of time. It would take another day and a half before their masters in China realized there might have been an accident.
For Commander Dunning there was nothing personal about it. He was ice cool in the face of so much death, a man who had done it before and would do it again if necessary. He was a man who recognized the needs of his country and would execute them to the letter. If required he was perfectly prepared to die in the attempt. The United States Navy breeds such men for such tasks.
Boomer took Columbia to the surface to search for any trace of the Kilos or their crew. He went up to the bridge for the short journey, and he waited for the sun to rise from out of the eastern Atlantic. He could see for himself that there was nothing but a small oil slick that gave any hint of what had transpired moments earlier.
He could, perhaps, have thought about it more deeply. But he was not paid to have philosophical thoughts. He was a loyal servant to the government of the United States. He was trained to carry out the bidding of his superiors. And that was what he had done.
Boomer accessed the satellite, sent his “mission completed” signal to SUBLANT, and ordered Columbia back into the deep and home to New London.
Two down. Five to go.
4
A BITING NORTHWESTER WAS SWEEPING through the Gate of Supreme Harmony i
n the small hours of January 12, bringing the first snow of winter to the great rooftops of the Forbidden City, guardian for centuries of the Dragon Throne. The broad moat of the Golden Water Stream beyond the huge gate was frozen solid. Tiananmen Square was silent under a four-inch carpet of snow. It was almost two o’clock in the morning. The City of Beijing slept. Nearly.
To the west of the square, a medium-size, second-floor conference room deep inside the colossal Great Hall of the People was filled with cigarette smoke from the endless chain-smoking of the tall, stooped figure of the Paramount Ruler of China, on whose behalf eight armed guards patrolled the outside corridors.
Before him, at the long table, which took up most of the room, sat the most powerful men in the country, including the General Secretary of the Communist Party, whose great office also entitled him to chair the Military Affairs Commission, paymasters to the People’s Liberation Army—and Navy. The Chief of General Staff, Qiao Jiyun, was seated next to him. At the far end of the table sat the High Command of the Chinese Navy, including Political Commissar Vice-Admiral Yang Zhenying, and three Deputy Commanders in Chief: Vice Admirals Xue Qing, Pheng Lu Dong, and Zhi-Heng Tan, who spoke quietly together. The Chief of the Naval Staff, Vice-Admiral Sang Ye, had arrived in the last hour from Shanghai. The East Sea Fleet Commander, Vice Admiral Yibo Yunsheng, had been there all day, as had the Commander of the South Sea Fleet, Vice Admiral Zu Jicai, from Fleet Headquarters, Zhanjiang. The mood was somber and reflective, save for one man.
Admiral Zhang Yushu, the uniformed Commander in Chief of the People’s Liberation Army-Navy (PLAN), was seething. He could not bring himself to sit down, and he paced up and down the thin stretch of blue carpet alongside the mighty polished table.
He seemed to be fighting for control, enunciating his words carefully and politely. Too politely, as if trying to teach algebra to a bloodthirsty emperor’s demonically stupid son. “It is beyond credibility,” he was saying. “Quite beyond any form of credibility. They have been out of communication for three days. That is impossible. One day is suspicious. Two is unheard of. Three is trouble. That would, gentlemen, be the case for just one, but we are dealing with two. Is anyone suggesting that a simultaneous disaster could have been an accident?”
“Ah, Admiral Zhang,” ventured Zu Jicai. “Perhaps they collided under the water.”
“BUT THEY WERE BOTH GOING IN THE SAME DIRECTION,” roared Zhang contemptuously, all further attempts at control slipping from him. “ONE OF THEM MUST HAVE SURVIVED AT LEAST LONG ENOUGH TO GET A MESSAGE AWAY. CAN’T ANYONE SEE THAT?” And then, to the head of the table, a discreet bow. “Forgive me, sir. I do myself no honor, nor to the exalted leaders in this room.” And, almost in tears of rage and frustration, he finally sat down and held his head in his hands.
No one spoke for several moments. And then Admiral Zhang looked up and said quietly, “If we assume that there were not chronic, identical, mechanical failures at exactly the same time, we must, I suppose, examine the case of collision. But with two submarines going in precisely the same direction, and at precisely the same speed, it would be a scientific impossibility to arrange for impact of such force that both submarines were so badly damaged they sunk to the bottom of the ocean leaving no trace whatsoever.
“I suppose the leader could have reversed course one-eighty degrees, possibly to regain telephone contact, and then crashed into his consort. But I calculate those chances at several million to one.
“My professional judgment is, therefore, that whatever has befallen our two ships was most certainly not an accident. I am obliged to remind everyone of an old saying: when you have eliminated the impossible, only the truth remains. This was no accident.”
He waited, as if for the inevitable argument from men who have no wish to confront a highly unpleasant truth. But there was no argument. The Admiral rose once more to his feet and stared around the room. “My friends and colleagues,” he said. “The question I believe we must ask is, first, who could have done this terrible thing? The answers are very few. To hit and destroy two submarines without being seen, you need a faster, bigger submarine with very sophisticated weaponry and tracking ability. Almost certainly a nuclear boat, with unlimited range, to hunt and find its targets in that huge area of water.
“That means our enemy is either Russia, France, Great Britain, or the United States. Because no other nation has that capacity. I dismiss Great Britain and France as having insufficient motive. I consider most seriously the case of Russia, who we know is under pressure from the United States not to provide us with the Kilo Class submarines. But I am drawn to the conclusion that we are such close business partners in Naval matters that Russia simply would not have wanted to perpetrate such an outrage. Especially with several of her own very best submarine officers on board.
“No, gentlemen, of the possibilities before us, I find, with much regret, that action by the Americans is by far the most likely. AND I AM SAYING WE HAVE GOT TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.”
The Paramount Ruler looked up, drew deeply on his cigarette, smiled, and said, “Thank you, Zhang. You are as my own son, and I admire your unflinching loyalty and your great care in this matter. But I wonder if perhaps my great friend Yibo Yunsheng from the Eastern Fleet would honor an old man, whose fighting days are over, and explain to me the mystery of vanishing submarines, and why such events apparently have no bearing on vanishing anything else?”
Admiral Yibo, a former commanding officer of China’s eight-thousand-ton strategic missile nuclear submarine Xia, the old Type-092, rose to his feet and bowed formally. “You do me honor, sir,” he said. “And I may not be able to add to your great wisdom, but the problem with submarines always arises from the simple fact that you cannot communicate easily with them when they are underwater. You cannot see them and you cannot talk to them.
“Therefore everyone is entirely dependent upon their communicating, and in this case they were in touch with us through the Russian Northern Fleet Comms Center, which set up a satellite link back to our Southern Fleet Command Center. The arrangement was that they would access the satellite every forty-eight hours, when they came up to periscope depth to recharge their batteries.
“Let us assume the most likely scenario. They came to periscope depth at 0405 and passed us their message, time, position, speed, and course. The Americans were waiting and sunk both Kilos by simultaneously using two controlled torpedoes a half hour later, when the submarines were both still running their diesel engines and could be tracked.
“The following night, we naturally receive no communication. And if the Kilos had been running at, say, eight knots, we must assume they are now perhaps a hundred and eighty miles southwest of their last known position and are having a radio mast problem, or experiencing some other trouble. The following day we are plotting them three hundred and sixty miles beyond the point where they were hit, but we do not know their precise course. This means there is now an area of some sixty-five thousand square miles in which they could be.
“But the ocean is two miles deep. And now another day has passed and our search area is even bigger, and even if someone were to tell us exactly where the boats were, what could we do? Send down a diver. Of course not. And for what? Everyone is dead. The submarine is not only wrecked, it’s beyond the grasp of our Navy. Not even the mighty USA could do that much about it.
“Sir, it is my most depressing duty to tell you there is nothing we can do about a lost submarine that far from home. Which is why we may not wish to admit losing one. We are dealing here, sir, with the most brutal, underhanded form of warfare. No one admits what they did. No one admits what has happened to them. In submarines that has always been the way. You will know, sir, in your great learning, that we cannot ever announce that our two new Kilo Class boats were hit and destroyed by the imperial forces of the United States.”
“Thank you, Admiral Yibo. I am indebted to you for your wise counsel. Comrades, the hour grows late, and I am tired and must retire for th
e night. I think we should have a talk with the Russians tomorrow. Perhaps they may know more. Let me leave that to you, and perhaps we should reconvene here later in the morning, say at 1100, and decide what, if anything, we ought to do.”
He rose wearily to his feet and was escorted out into the corridor by two secretaries. The Political Commissar followed them out, as did the Party General Secretary and the Chief of Staff. The Naval officers made no move to leave. Admiral Zhang picked up the telephone and called the Southern Fleet Headquarters, hoping that something had been heard from the missing submarines. The answer was as it had been for three days now. Nothing.
At the age of fifty-six, Admiral Zhang Yushu was probably the best Navy Commander in Chief China had ever had. He was a big man, six feet tall, with a swarthy, rounded face that looked somewhat Western. He wore his thick dark hair longer than is customary in the Chinese political and military establishment, and glared at the world from behind heavy, horn-rimmed glasses. He was the son of a freighter captain from the great southeastern seaport of Xiamen, and had been born on the ship, during times of terrible poverty just after World War II. At the age of twelve, he could have stripped the ship’s engine and put it back together. He knew how to navigate the South China Sea, and at fifteen had been capable of commanding any one of the medium-size freighters that plied the busy coastline to the west of the Formosa Strait.
He won a place at Xiamen University and gained the best possible marine engineering degree. He took two additional courses in the study of nuclear physics, and at twenty-two joined the Navy, where his rise to prominence was swift and sure. At the age of thirty-nine he was commanding officer of the new Shanghai-built Luda Class guided-missile destroyer Nanjing. At forty-four, he was appointed Commander of the East Sea Fleet, and four years later became Chief of the Naval Staff. The Great Reformer, the late Deng Xiaoping, who at that time was still holding on to his last active chairmanship, that of the Military Affairs Commission, promoted him to Commander in Chief of the People’s Liberation Army-Navy, because he believed that Admiral Zhang was the man to mastermind the modernization of the Chinese Navy.
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