Attack Of The Seawolf

by Michael Dimercurio

  “Aye, sir, standard at one zero two, depth eight zero, maneuvering answers ahead standard.”

  “Not bad, Buffalo,” Vaughn said, trying to sound positive, but not succeding.

  Jack Morris began to wake up from the rain pounding in his face. He blinked the water out of his eyes, realizing he was being pulled by a rope. He tried to think back to what had happened but all he remembered was being sucked underwater by his lanyard. His head hurt, his whole body ached, but he seemed whole.

  He saw a bright light in his eyes as the rope pulled him in, a long hook grabbing his coverall collar and hauling him up onto a deck. He remembered he was in Chinese waters and saw that he was being recaptured.

  He tried to struggle, but his strength drained.

  He felt himself collapse, and several men carried him, bumping him into the sides of the ship’s superstructure.

  As the light went out in front of him he went blind, the world swimming in front of him in odd colors.

  He felt himself swaying from side to side as he was taken down a ladder.

  It wasn’t until the men carrying him stood him up, still holding him by his arms, that he realized he wasn’t in a P.L.A ship but in the control room of the submarine Seawolf, staring into the face of Captain Michael Pacino.

  “Morris, what would you do if I weren’t here to save your sad ass? Take him to the doc and get him fixed up.”

  Morris, back from the dead, smiled and closed his eyes as the needle of a syringe punctured the skin of his arm.

  USS seawolf

  “Conn, Sonar, we have aircraft engines bearing three three zero. Probable antisubmarine warfare aircraft confirmed, we have sonobuoy splashes from the north.”

  “Depth seven five feet,” Pacino commanded.

  “Probably detected us when we surfaced to get Morris,” Tim Turner said, his voice tight.

  The periscope came out of the well. Pacino could see the aircraft on the horizon when he selected the infrared, which normally he would not do because it could be detected, but at least theIR would find an

  aircraft quickly, eliminating the need for a long air search. In the view of theIR, hot objects were colored light, cold objects dark. In the distance he could see the aircraft, or rather, in effect, an X-ray of it. At high power he could see through the wings to the engines, the turbines and compressors standing out in relief.

  He could even see consoles inside the plane’s fuselage, and men at the consoles. The plane approached, flying overhead and circling back around.

  “Mark on top,” Pacino called.

  “Aircraft is a Nimrod ASW aircraft. Looks like he’s in a final approach pattern for a torpedo launch. Arm the Mark 80s, OOD.”

  “SLAAM missiles armed, sir,” Turner replied.

  “SLAAM 80, SLAAM 80,” Pacino called, hitting the missile key on the periscope grip.

  “Two launches,” he said, watching the white splotches of the missile exhausts on theIR. He switched the scope to visual, de-energizing theIR view. A missile explosion would white-out theIR. As soon as he switched to normal visual, the first missile hit the Nimrod and blew off the right wing. The second hit the fuselage aft of the jet exhaust, cutting the aircraft in half. It came down into the water in flaming fragments.

  “Aircraft is neutralized. Lowering number-two scope,” Pacino said.

  “Right fifteen degrees rudder, steady course one one zero. Off’sa’deck, you have the conn. Secure battle stations and the rig for ultra quiet

  Have the galley crank out a hot meal for the crew.

  Keep us on course for point golf-sub-one and make sure you track range and bearing to Friendly One at all times. Call me if you have problems. Any at all.

  Got it?”

  “Yes sir,” Turner said, showing a weary smile, “Good night, sir.”

  Pacino yawned.

  “Later.” He walked up the ladder to the upper level and forward to the corpsman’s office to look in on Morris.

  “How is he?” Pacino asked the corpsman chief.

  “Mostly bruises, some water in his lungs, a bad headache and exhaustion. Tough man. Lucky man.”

  CHAPTER 26

  SUNDAY, 12 MAY

  2230 GREENWICH MEAN TIME

  Go had bay USS tampa 0630 beijing time

  Doc Sheffield, the SEAL corpsman, walked into the control room. It looked strange to see the musclebound SEAL wearing submarine coveralls. Vaughn stood alone on the conn, the ship control console and ballast control panel manned by SEALs, the firecontrol screens dead and unmanned. Vaughn had to tell the SEALs every switch to throw, every control to move. He had taken the watch as OOD until Lennox woke up to relieve him at 0800. Vaughn was beat.

  “How are the crew?” Vaughn asked Doc Sheffield.

  “The eighteen shot in the crew’s mess are dead.

  Even the ones that took hits in their limbs, wounds that originally weren’t that bad, are gone. It’s more than just torture and starvation—after a while their will to live died. It happens, I guess. The Chinese executed five officers and six chiefs. The rest of the men are still spaced out from the torture. We need to get them off this ship. I’m not a shrink, but I think the confines of the sub are making them worse—it’s not their ship any longer, it’s their former prison. Once we’re out I’m recommending a medevac.”

  “Doc, what the hell happened to them? What made them so zoned out?”

  “I’m not sure you want to hear, Eng,” Sheffield said.

  “It’s taken me half the night to work this information out of the two or three half-sane men left aboard. They were held in close quarters, not allowed to get up or move for any reason, including to defecate or urinate. They were made to sit in their own stink for five days. They were not even allowed to stretch.

  They were starved, no food, no water. Several were shot and laid out on tables in front of the survivors.

  Not sure yet, but it looks like most of the ones shot were the NSA cryptologists, although at least five weren’t. This gets worse. The Chinese made it clear that the crew had a choice—die of starvation and dehydration, or eat the flesh of the dead men. From what I’ve gathered, for two days no one touched the bodies, they just sat there, staring at the decaying men who used to be their shipmates. Then a few began eating—they were reduced to desperate animals. The ones who held out had to watch the ones who didn’t, and the ones who ate had to live with what they were doing.

  “It only took a few hours to drive both groups to near madness. They were left like that for three more days. No wonder they just sit there and stare into space. Most of them now won’t eat or drink. If we give them food they start screaming. They’ll all die in a couple of days if we don’t get them out of here.”

  “Jesus,” Vaughn said.

  “Why would the Chinese do that? What did they have to gain?”

  “It was a sort of blackmail to make the captain agree to record a statement condemning the President and the Pentagon. Maybe they thought a tape like that would turn the West away from supporting the White Army, I don’t know. But I know they didn’t have to use the crew—the captain broke and recorded the tape before they showed him what they’d done to the crew.”

  “How is the captain?”

  “He’s unconscious. Bad bullet wound in his shoulder that traveled deep into his upper chest, it’s badly infected. Another bullet wound in his

  neck. Without surgery, I’d give him only hours. His blood pressure is down, pulse weak. He’s barely alive.”

  “You mentioned surgery.”

  “To take the bullet out of his shoulder and clean the wound. It’s deep in there, and pulling it out could cut a pulmonary artery. You’ll need a damn good surgeon.”

  “Well, looks like you’re it. I’ll get Lennox out here to take the conn and I’ll help you set up in the wardroom.

  We have surgical supplies—anesthesia, scalpels, suction. I’ll try to assist you. Go get whatever you’ll need.” Vaughn picked up a phone and buzzed Lennox’s s
tateroom.

  “Wait a minute, sir. I’m a med-school dropout, not a doctor, much less a surgeon, and I just told you you’d need a great surgeon.”

  Vaughn spoke quietly into the phone and replaced it in its cradle.

  “I heard you,” Vaughn said quietly.

  “I heard you say the captain has only hours to live if he isn’t operated on. We’re twelve hours from international waters, and there’s a fleet of Chinese warships between us and freedom. Number one—we could use the captain to help us out of this. Number two—he’s not only the captain, he’s my friend. I’m not going to let him die without trying every option, even if the option kills him. What are you worried about, a malpractice suit? Now get going.”

  A voice came from the back of the room, the young SEAL lieutenant, Bartholomay, Morris’ XO.

  “You heard him. Doc. Let’s go. Scrub up and get your stuff to the wardroom.”

  Doc Sheffield looked at the two officers for a moment, shook his head and left the control room.

  “Any word?” Kurt Lennox asked Black Bart Bartholomay, who had brought a pot of coffee to the control room.

  “They’re still in there. It’s tough to say if Doc is making any progress.”

  “Well, at least Murphy’s still alive or they would have quit.”

  “I guess …”

  “How about the crew?”

  “They’ll probably be sleeping until we get to the Korea Bay. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re still sleeping when the medevac choppers land on the hospital ship. I’ve seen hostages have a post-traumatic shock before, but never like this.”

  “What did you guys find in the torpedo room?”

  “A goddamned mess. Blood everywhere from gathering the Chinese bodies and loading them into the torpedo tube. I don’t think we’re going to be shooting anything.”

  “Is there an intact torpedo?”

  “Five or six, but they’re all locked in by broken units. From what I’ve been able to see of the hydraulic loading system, the only way to get a torpedo into a tube would be to push it in by hand.”

  “What about the air rams?” Lennox asked, referring to the pistons that pressurized the torpedo-tube water-tanks.

  “They look okay but I’m not familiar with the system.”

  “And the tubes?”

  “One and three are leaking bad. But the port tubes seem okay. The firing panel switches were rewired for them. The one on the port side is where we stuffed all the Chinese bodies. But as far as the tubes being able to fire, who am I to say?”

  “Until I get a crew back, you’re it. So here’s the deal—we do this the oldfashioned way, with muscle power. Get your guys below and break some grease out of the auxiliary machinery room. We’ll fire a water slug out tube two to get rid of the bodies, then grease the racks and the weapons and shove two of the good ones into tubes two and four.”

  “What about that?” Bart asked, pointing to the dead firecontrol panel.

  “How are you going to shoot the fish if the computer’s broken?”

  “We’ll set them manually from the torpedo room console.”

  “How will you know where to shoot?”

  “Manual plots. I’ll show you how.”

  Lieutenant Commander Vaughn walked into the room from the forward door. His coveralls were soaked with sweat, his hair plastered to his bearded face. Dark circles rimmed his eyes. He slouched against the doorway. Bart and Lennox froze, waiting for the word.

  “Well,” Vaughn said, “we’re finished. The captain’s stable, but Doc’s not sure if he’ll last more than another twenty-four hours. We need to get him to a hospital.”

  “We’ll have to break radio silence to tell the fleet about what medical help we’ll need,” Lennox thought aloud.

  “I want choppers standing by to get the boys off.”

  “Risky,” Vaughn said.

  “The bad guys could vector in on our position with direction finders.”

  “We’ll send it in a buoy with a three-hour time delay They could still get a lock on our track, but it’s no secret we’re headed for the bay entrance at Lushun/Penglai Gap at maximum speed. My guess is the Chinese will be waiting in force at the Gap no matter what we do with the radio.”

  “I’ll draft the message,” Vaughn said, walking aft to the radio room.

  Vaughn loaded the UHF satellite message buoy, roughly the size of a baseball bat, into the aft signal ejector, a small mechanism much like a torpedo tube set into the upper level of the aft compartment. When the buoy clicked home in the ejector he armed the switch that would activate the unit, then shut the ejector door. On the way back to the control room he ducked his head into the maneuvering room.

  “You guys okay?” he asked the reactor operator.

  “Real beat, Eng,” the TO answered. The watch standers aft were the

  same who had been on watch aft for the five days of captivity. Other than Lennox, Vaughn and the SEALs, the single engineering crew seemed the only men aboard who were sane.

  “Hang in. A few more hours and we’ll be out of the bay and off this boat—” “Off the boat?”

  “There’s no way we can get this ship into Yokosuka with this crew—the guys on watch now are all we have, and by the time we reach Japan we’ll be asleep on our feet. I’m calling for a replacement crew as soon as we reach international waters.”

  The electrical operator asked about the crew.

  Vaughn told him the truth, his stomach turning as he finished the story.

  “Do us all a favor, men,” Vaughn said.

  “Stay awake and keep this plant up, no matter what. If we get a shock that opens the scram breakers, do a fast recovery startup. Don’t wait for orders.”

  “Aye, sir. Good luck, Eng.”

  Vaughn walked into the tunnel leading through the hatch to the forward compartment, up the ladder and down the passageway into control.

  “Ready to launch, XO,” he said.

  “Launch the signal ejector,” Lennox ordered.

  Vaughn keyed a button on a small panel by the conn.

  A hundred feet aft, the outer door of the signal ejector opened, and twenty seconds later a solenoid valve in a branch pipe from the auxiliary seawater system popped open, sending highpressure seawater into the bottom of the signal ejector tube that pushed out the radio buoy. The buoy climbed the fifty-five feet to the surface and began to float, barely visible in the brown water of the bay. A timer inside the unit began a three-hour countdown … At the end of the countdown a whip antenna extended from the buoy and the UHF radio activated, transmitting the message from the Tampa to the western Pacific COMMSAT high overhead in a geosynchronous orbit. Within thirty seconds the

  message transmission was complete, the buoy flooded and sank to the silty bottom of the bay.

  By the time the Harbin Z-9A sub-chasing helicopter flew over the square mile of water from which the buoy had transmitted, the submarine Tampa was over fifty miles further east, approaching the entrance to the Lushun/Penglai Gap.

  korea bay, 130 miles east of lush un surface action group 57 aircraft carrier USS ronald reagan 0947 beijing time

  Admiral Richard Donchez stood in Flag Plot in the carrier’s island with a wall of windows overlooking the flight deck below. The central chart table was taken up with a chart of the Lushun/Penglai area, the Bohai Haixia Strait in the center. Donchez, in working khakis, leaned over the table. After a moment his aide, Fred Rummel, brought in a satellite photo of the P.L.A Navy fleet piers at Lushun. Donchez studied it for a moment, then straightened up and looked at Rummel’s fleshy face.

  “The Northern Fleet’s getting underway.”

  “Yes, sir. Every ship they have.”

  “Including the Shaoguan,” Donchez said, pointing to the largest ship in the outbound fleet, the aircraft carrier that looked like a battleship with half the deck lopped off for the installation of a flight deck.

  “Which means they’ll be flying ASW aircraft and helos. We’ll need th
e air wing. Call the SAG and the Air Boss to flag plot and get me a NESTOR circuit to the White House and the SecDef.”

  Rummel grabbed a phone and gave a series of orders, then replaced the handset and looked out the windows at the sea, at the formation of the surface ships surrounding the carrier.

  “What do you have in mind. Admiral?”

  “We’ll launch a squadron of F-14s and a squadron of F/A-18s to blow out their helos and their jet torpedo-carriers. I’m counting on Seawolf to take care of the surface ships, but she’ll be damned low on Mark 80 SLAAM missiles by the time she and Tampa get to the strait.”

  “Washington will never go for it. Admiral. That’s a direct attack on PRC naval assets. It would look like we’re starting a war with China.”

  “I don’t care what it looks like, I care about getting our subs out.”

  “I’LL try, sir, but I wouldn’t count on it.”

  “Admiral,” an ensign said, knocking on the door.

  “Immediate message for you, sir.”

  Donchez took the steel clipboard.

  “Is the SAG on the way?” He meant the admiral in command of the surface action group comprised of the Reagan, two nuclear cruisers, two Aegis cruisers, five destroyers, four fast frigates, two fleet oilers, a supply ship and a hospital ship. Rear Admiral Patterson Wilkes-Charles III, the SAG, was a capable surface officer, but, in the opinion of both Donchez and Rummel, unaggressive and more concerned with his career than with the mission at hand.

  “He’ll be here in another five minutes, sir,” the ensign said.

  “So, Fred, you think the SAG will launch aircraft on my authorization without getting permission from Washington?”

  “Patty? Patty the shrinking violet? Never, sir.”

  Donchez looked down at the message, read it, shut the metal clipboard cover and shoved it at Rummel.

  “Look at paragraph four.”

  Rummel glanced at the message, a status report from the Tampa. The first three paragraphs consisted of a report of ship’s material condition, ship’s position and the miserable weapon situation. Rummel skimmed down to the fourth section of the message: