Attack Of The Seawolf

by Michael Dimercurio

  So much for his professional life. By contrast, things at home were SNAFU. He had never married-women only made life complicated—and had drifted from bed to bed. In the last ten years he could recall only a handful of women who had turned down his many advances, including the married ones. He had wondered why he lost interest in women after he bedded them and had even talked to a unit psychologist, who suggested it was a “self-esteem problem,” and had asked him how he felt about his

  mother. Morris had nearly knocked out the man’s front teeth. Still, for all his macho self-image, a woman he had picked up in a bar and gone to bed with over two months before and forgotten was calling him and telling him she was pregnant.

  “Sounds like you have a problem,” he said, but the problem was now getting to be his, because he had, in spite of himself, started to think what it would be like to have a little boy. Of course, it would be a boy. He had almost called the woman and told her to have the child and he’d live with her.

  He had stopped himself from calling, but now here in this goddamned Chinese bay with an OP in front of him, he kept thinking about her. And the kid that maybe was his … As he watched, the first and second platoons locked out and unloaded their equipment from the escape trunk. Finally the third platoon was locked out and the hatch was shut for the last time. Morris swam down the line and tapped the men on the shoulders-saddle-up time. It took a few moments for the men to tie the equipment onto their lanyards and adjust their buoyancy. The two hundred yards to the P.L.A piers might look like a short walk from the periscope, but hauling underwater enough ammo to blow a flotilla would be no piece of cake, never mind what he had told Pacino. He checked the men again, shining his hooded penlight into each face, getting an “okay” sign from each of them. He tied onto his own load, an RPG with six reloads, and tied his own lanyard to the tie line When he tapped the man next to him, the signal was passed down the line to the men at the end, who untied the tie line from the submarine and looped the line onto their belts. Now all twenty-four men—the three platoons of seven plus Bart, Morris, and Lennox—were tied onto the line and could swim to the targets together without getting lost or separated. Also, should one of the lungs fail, the closeness to a swim buddy would allow buddy-breathing off a spare regulator.

  And instead of having two dozen lighted compasses tempting detection, there was only Morris’.

  He flipped the cover off his watch and held the face horizontal. When he clicked the light, the dial lit up, showing the depth and the compass bearing. Morris had memorized the chart, but the unknown was the Seawolf’s position when it locked them out. Still, he believed he could find the P.L.A pier.

  He pushed off the hull of the submarine and swam over the cylindrical edge of the ship, diving down to the bottom of the deep channel, all the way to the one-hundred-and-twenty-foot level, his ears popping on the way down. Finally he felt the silt of the bottom and paused to let the others catch up. When they did he checked the compass again and swam northwest toward the piers. Almost immediately the silty bottom began to rise out of the supertanker channel to the shallower region of the piers, the sloping bottom there an average of thirty feet deep. Morris followed the up-slope, one hand in the silt, the other horizontal to see the compass, keeping them on course three four five. Now that they were shallow again, Morris looked up to try to find moonlight. There was a faint shimmer from overhead but no real light. The SEALs continued to follow the contour of the bottom until Morris hit concrete with his outstretched hand. Pier 1A. He waited for the team to catch up with him, then shined his light upward to see the surface. Instead of waves there was the black shape of a hull overhead—one of the ships tied up directly to the pier. Morris tapped the man on his right to confirm their position.

  “Dogface” Richardson, a second-class petty officer, and “Buckethead” Williams, a chief, untied themselves from the tie line and swam up to the hull. When they returned after a few moments Buckethead shook his head—the hull above them was at the seaward end of the pier, making it the Jianghu frigate. The ships guarding the Tampa were further west. The team swam west along the pier until they reached the next hull, which would be the Udaloy guided-missile destroyer.

  Then the platoons split up.

  First platoon took their gear and set it up near the pier between the Chinese ships. Second platoon set up beneath the Udaloy, beginning work laying the keel breaking satchel charges under the destroyer. Third platoon hauled their explosives beneath the hull of the Tampa further south to the outboard destroyer, the Luda, and began deployment of their charges.

  Morris checked his watch. It was taking too goddamned long, he thought, wondering if he should have taken Pacino up on the offer to use the cruise missiles.

  But using Javelins here would be like a surgeon forsaking a scalpel for a chainsaw. He and Black Bart swam back and forth between the platoons, making sure the men were making progress, that the plan was proceeding.

  Finally Morris signaled to Bart to come up to look at the pier, and the two divers ascended at the bow of the Udaloy. Morris disconnected from his lanyard and climbed a pier piling, the tar from it sticking to his hands. Near the top of the piling he climbed off onto a horizontal timber that was there to cushion the concrete pier from ship impacts. He cautiously lifted his head above the level of the pier, then ducked back down and silently reentered the water. The pier was crawling with guards, but the buses were not yet occupied and there was no evidence of a crew off load He and Bart returned to the underside of the Udaloy.

  Under the hull of the USS Tampa, on the bottom of the silty bay, huddled with the assault weapons, sat Commander Kurt Lennox, his mask fogged from his heavy breathing. Every few moments he turned his head to look at the submarine above him, seeing nothing but a black blur, thinking that in a very few moments he would be back aboard her, and in a few moments after that he could be dead. Morris swam by and gave him a thumbs up.

  Lennox appreciated it as he looked up again at the hull of the Tampa and told himself that just maybe Sean Murphy was going to get out of this in one piece.

  CHAPTER 17

  SUNDAY, 12 MAY

  1730 GREENWICH MEAN TIME

  go had bay, XlNGANG harbor P.L.A navy pier 1A, USS tampa 0130 Beijing time

  Sean Murphy had no idea how long he’d been unconscious.

  When he came to the butt of the AK-47 again in his ribs, his whole body was in pain. As he tried to focus on the interrogator’s face, he realized that he now wanted to die. He tried to bring back Katrina, Sean junior and Emily, but the Chinese had taken the most prized thing he possessed—his memories of their faces. He could no longer remember the face of his wife of thirteen years, or the face of his firstborn.

  Death would be welcome.

  “You are in pain,” Tien said, his voice quiet.

  “Let’s take you to the hospital where we can attend that wound and help you get rest. The base hospital has some of the softest beds in the world. Think of the cool crisp white sheets, the deep feather pillow in a cotton pillowcase. This is no way to live, my friend.

  All your resistance will do is make you sick—and delay the ship’s departure. We have said we need your statement only for public opinion. If the words are not your own, your people will understand. After all, you are being detained, they will not hold any of this against you. I would guess the only matter your commanders will be annoyed with is allowing your ship’s departure to be delayed by your insistence on not making the statement. Commander, if it were up to

  me, I would let it go without the confounded statement, but I have senior officers overseeing my missions.

  Please see my side. We are not so different, you and I.”

  The words washed over Sean Murphy, he barely heard them.

  “I have a present for you,” Tien said, picking up a phone and speaking into it for a moment. After he put the phone down, he looked at the overhead as the Circuit One announcing speaker crackled with Lube Oil Vaughn’s voice:

 
; “THE REACTOR … IS CRITICAL!”

  Tien was as delighted as if he had just thrown Murphy a surprise party.

  “You see, I told you we would get your ship ready to go. We replaced whole sections of your steam-piping loop and reinsulated the lines. I am told that several of the steam valves needed to be replaced. Otherwise, your propulsion plant is, as you say, shipshape. Our nuclear-power experts have been over the plant inspecting it for the purpose of getting the ship ready to leave so you can return home. They say the ship is amazing.”

  The lights in the overhead flickered, and suddenly the ventilation ducts boomed into operation, blowing cool fresh air into the room. At least Tien had not been kidding about Vaughn starting the reactor and steam plants, even though they were probably only starting the plant to provide power. Without shore power the battery would soon have run out of juice and they would have had to abandon the submarine.

  Probably they figured the statement could be gotten from him more easily aboard the ship than in a barracks ashore.

  Again they brought in the camera and TelePrompTer, but before they turned it on, Tien popped a video in the VCR and turned on the television. He pressed the play button, and Sean Murphy’s front yard flashed onto the screen, with Katrina and Sean and Emily looking into the picture.

  “Sean, honey, we love you and we miss you. I don’t know when you’ll get this,” Katrina said into the camera, her auburn hair blowing in the breeze, “but maybe you can play it at sea and remember how much we love you.”

  His son said: “Hurry home, Daddy. Mommy says you’re poking holes in the ocean but I know you can’t make a hole in water. I told my class what you do at show-and-tell today. Everyone said it sounded neat.

  Come home soon, Daddy—” Tien stopped the tape.

  Murphy fought not to show his feelings as he became aware that the camera was focused on his face.

  The TelePrompTer stared at him: “MY NAME IS COMMANDER SEAN MURPHY” … Murphy blinked hard and stared at the camera lens and began to speak, his voice a raspy croak.

  “I am an American fighting man,” he said, trying to recite the Code of Conduct.

  “I serve in the forces which guard my country and our way of life. I am prepared to give my life in their defense—” “No,” Tien broke in.

  “That is not what the script says.” He waved to the guard.

  “Bring in Tarkowski,” he said, resignation in his voice.

  A shot of bile hit Murphy’s stomach as he realized they were going to torture Tarkowski for his benefit.

  USS seawolf

  The control room began to seem confining, Pacino thought, impatient with the need to act, to fire weapons, to do something, anything, to get Murphy out.

  Somehow the idea of trusting this rescue to swimmers who could only take out the hatch that they came in with seemed a bad idea. With the torpedo room full of weapons, with his number one and two tubes loaded with Javelin cruise missiles, both ready to fire, both tube outer doors open … For the second time in a half hour he asked Tim Turner the status of the Javelins.

  He reported the units had the destroyers targeted.

  “We can have both missiles in the sky within thirty seconds of your orders, sir.”

  Pacino decided to risk a quick look at the surface.

  There were no close contacts, no patrol boats or fishing vessels, or, God help them, a supertanker en route to the tanker pier. He did an air search, looking for the type of aircraft that Admiral Donchez hinted had detected Murphy. All he saw was the moon to the south, still going in and out of the clouds, and some dim stars to the north over the P.L.A piers.

  Pacino turned the crosshairs onto Target Four, the Jianghu fast frigate, and rotated the grip of the scope to raise the magnification to high power. There was no activity. Further to the left was Target Three, the Udaloy destroyer, one of Tampa’s escorts. Not a soul in sight. A bit to the left was the rudder of the Tampa, the rest obscured by the stern of the Luda destroyer, the other escort for the Tampa. There was no evidence of the divers below the ships.

  Pacino turned the view on the pier between the Jianghu and the Udaloy. The buses were still there but the pier looked dark. There were no guards in sight, no sign of them being used for a crew off load

  Pacino’s earpiece crackled with the voice of Chief Dylan Jeb, the sonar supervisor. Chief Jeb was a tall, thin sonar expert from the hills of Tennessee. His drawl on the combat circuits was so thick as to be nearly another language. Pacino had taken an immediate liking to the lanky sonar chief, despite his impenetrable accent. Jeb ran the BQQ-5 as naturally and adeptly as his ancestors had run the family still.

  “Conn, Sonar, we’re getting new machinery noises off the hull and spherical arrays bearing north to the P.L.A piers. The bearing is ambiguous due to near-field effect. We’re working up a narrowband tonal profile but my guess is that Tampa’s engine room is steaming wait … we’re getting a series of transients from the same bearing … sounds like electrical breakers …”

  “Chief, what do you think they’re doing?” Pacino said, snapping up the periscope grips and lowering the scope.

  “We’re guessing, but it sounds like they’re starting up the steam plant, maybe shifting the electric plant to a half-power or full-power lineup.”

  “Let me know when you’ve got the sound signature identified.”

  A startup of the Tampa’s engine room … now what the hell could that be about? Would she be removed to another pier? And if so wouldn’t she just do that under the power of the ships tied up to her?

  “Conn, Sonar, sound signature identified. The noise is coming from a late-flight 688-class U.S. submarine.”

  “Any engine room sounds or transients from Targets One through Four?”

  “No.”

  All right, come on, Morris, Pacino thought, get this thing going.

  USS tampa

  Tarkowski’s face was white, whether with fear or from starvation or beatings. Probably all three. Murphy thought. He had been brought in by the guard and deposited on the settee at the far end of Murphy’s stateroom. He looked only once at Murphy. There seemed no recognition in his eyes, more the look of someone suffering so much pain he could not register the world around him. Whatever the Tampa’s navigator and acting exec had been through, there was no sign of it in his face, just the blank glaze on his eyes.

  “Commander,” Tien said.

  “I want the statement. I accept your indifference to your own welfare. But I know your men are important to you. You can save your executive officer now by making the statement.

  If you refuse, he will pay. Remember, Commander, I report to men less patient than I am. If it were not for my efforts, at considerable personal risk, I might add, they would have killed your crew long

  before now. I have also offended Beijing by insisting your ship be allowed to leave once we obtain your statement, but they have agreed. Look, here is the order.”

  Tien waved a piece of paper before Murphy, the Chinese symbols written on it meaningless. He waited, got no response from Murphy.

  “Commander, you force me to demonstrate my intent. Sai, give me Mr.

  Tarkowski’s right thumb.”

  The guard pulled Tarkowski’s hand from his lap, laid it flat on the table, produced a bayonet, and proceeded to saw Tarkowski’s thumb from his right hand.

  Tarkowski howled in pain, the sound wailing high in pitch as if coming from an animal; his eyes were shut, his mouth open wide to let out the shriek of agony.

  The most frightening thing was that Tarkowski did not attempt to pull his hand away from the guard. What other unspeakable acts had he undergone? The guard wiped the bayonet on his thigh and held out the thumb to Murphy. When Murphy only stared at the guard, the guard dropped the flesh into his lap.

  Tarkowski’s hand was still on the table, blood spurting out with the rhythm of his pulse. Tien Tse-Min tossed a bath towel to Tarkowski, who finally moved his left hand from his lap to cover his mangled right
hand.

  “Commander,” Tien began again, his voice calm, “you know a man may function without the use of his thumb, even without the use of his hand. Both hands.

  Both feet. But there is one thing that makes a man a man. Fighter Sai, put Mr. Tarkowski’s penis on the table.”

  Like he was asking for a cup of tea. Sai pulled Tarkowski to his feet, unzipped his poopy suit, allowing the coverall to fall to the deck. He dropped Tarkowski’s underwear to the deck, the coverall and underwear binding Tarkowski’s feet together.

  Murphy tried to find his voice, but his throat was dry. It was like one of those nightmares in which the dreamer tries to scream and can’t.

  “Ah … ah … I’ll… I’ll make the statement

  he tried to say, but the words came out a choked whisper.

  Sai had already raised his bayonet. Tarkowski continued to stand like a robot at the table. Sai brought the knife edge down to Tarkowski’s penis. Tarkowski’s mouth opened, again a shriek.

  “Stop!” Murphy’s voice finally came.

  “I’ll make the damned statement, I’ll make the statement … I’ll do it … Just stop, for God’s sake stop!”

  Tien waved at Sai, who stopped the blade but did not release Tarkowski’s penis.

  Tien wheeled over the TelePrompTer and the camera.

  He rolled the camera. Just behind it Murphy could see the guard, the bayonet, the table, and Tarkowski’s penis. Above the camera, Tarkowski’s face had turned gray. Murphy tried to concentrate on the TelePrompTer. He began:

  “My name is Commander Sean Murphy, United States Navy. I am the captain of the U.S. Navy nuclear-powered attack submarine Tampa …”