Attack Of The Seawolf

by Michael Dimercurio

  4. CREW SITUATION POOR. TWENTY-NINE (29) MEN AND

  OFFICERS KILLED BY CHINESE GUARDS DURING REPOSSESSION

  OF SHIP. COMMANDING OFFICER CDR. S. MURPHY

  IN GRAVE CONDITION AFTER EMERGENCY

  SURGERY. SURVIVING MEMBERS OF CREW IN SEVERE

  SHOCK AND UNABLE TO PERFORM DUTIES. SHIP OPERATIONS

  BEING CONDUCTED BY SHIP’S EXECUTIVE OFFICER,

  ENGINEER, SINGLE SECTION WATCH AFT WHO

  WERE GIVEN SPECIAL TREATMENT DURING CAPTIVITY,

  AND SEALS. CREW SHOCK CAUSED BY TORTURE—CREW

  GIVEN CHOICE OF STARVATION OR EATING CORPSES OF

  MEN EXECUTED DURING CAPTIVITY. ALL ATTEMPTS TO

  FEED CREW CAUSE VIOLENT HYSTERICAL REACTIONS.

  DUE TO STARVATION AND DEHYDRATION AND PSYCHOSIS,

  CREW WILL NEED MEDEVAC TO HOSPITAL FACILITIES

  IMMEDIATELY UPON REACHING INTERNATIONAL

  WATERS.

  “Jesus,” Rummel said.

  A whooping noise rang out. Rummel answered a sound-powered phone making the noise. He listened for a moment, hung up.

  “NESTOR circuit open. Admiral. SecDef is standing by.”

  Donchez reached for the red handset of the UHF satellite secure-voice NESTOR radio and began to speak. And as he did, a thundercloud passed over his face.

  twenty kilometers south of lush un PRC

  The fuselage of the two-seat YAK-36-A Forger trembled as the pilot throttled down the main cruise engine and started the lift engines. Up ahead, barely visible in the rain-swept fogged plastic of the aft canopy, the dark gray shape of the carrier Shaoguan materialized out of the clouds, the deck of the ship seeming impossibly small in the vast waters below. The lift engines were apparently working because the vibrations of the

  main jet were quieting. The VTOL jet coasted to a halt about thirty meters over the deck of the carrier, the lift engines now roaring in the tiny cockpit. After a moment suspended motionless, the jet came straight down in what seemed a barely controlled crash, slamming into the steel deckplates and bouncing twice, its weight finally settling down on the wet non-skid paint of the flight deck. The whine of the lift jets died to a low howl, then cut off, leaving the cockpit eerily quiet.

  The comparative stillness was interrupted only by the rain on the windshield, the sound of the wind and the ringing of sore ears.

  A crowd of men came running toward the jet, each wearing oversized helmets, each performing a different function, one attaching a kind of tractor to the nose wheel, a second connecting a cable to a connection in the nose, two more tying the wings to the deck while another rolled a ladder to the cockpit. The canopy of the jet slowly opened, admitting a salty wet sea breeze. The man on the ladder pulled, and after a moment the man in the rear seat of the plane stood, his muscles aching from the ride. He allowed the technician on the ladder to help him down the rungs, and in a moment his boots rested on the solid deck of the Northern Fleet vessel Shaoguan.

  An officer in a rain suit ran up and saluted, pointing to the superstructure on the starboard side. The door in the island opened and the officer and the man from the newly arrived jet ducked inside. The noise of the wind and the rain died down when the officer shut the door.

  “Welcome to the Shaoguan, Leader Tien Tse-Min.

  I have been authorized to escort you to your quarters—” “No time. I need to speak to the Fleet Commander.”

  The officer walked quickly to a ladder on the starboard side. Five flights up and down a passageway guarded by an armed P.L.A soldier, Tien was led up a heavy steel door. Inside the fleet commander’s suite, Tien pulled off his sweat-and rain-soaked helmet and tossed it on a couch, then went to the chart table on the port side of the room. Behind the massive table stood Fleet Commander Chu Hsueh-Fan. Chu stared out at Tien from under bushy gray eyebrows, his black eyes rimmed by a network of wrinkles, his mouth set into a tight line, the muscles of his jaw clenched. Tien did not need any further signs to understand that the fleet commander did not want him there. Too bad. He was to be in charge of the search-and-destroy operation, and the sooner Chu realized that the better.

  “Beijing came up on the tactical net.” Chu bit off the words.

  “I have orders to assist you to find the American submarines.”

  “Fleet Commander, excuse me, your orders are not to assist me. Your orders are to deploy the fleet as I request and find those submarines.”

  Chu glared over the chart at Tien Tse-Min, hating the idea of deferring in a military matter to a political crony of the Chairman. But now that he was here there was nothing Chu could do except perhaps stand back and let the political commissar ruin the operation.

  Chu reminded himself that if the operation failed, it was to Tien’s account, not his own. And yet, finding the two submarines coming out of the gap was the core of Chu’s job, it was a mission he had trained decades for, it was his profession, his life’s work. But then, if he interfered with Tien, all that would be over.

  And even if Tien thought he was in command, perhaps he could guide the political officer’s actions and still get the American subs. Even if Tien got the credit, it would be a small price to pay.

  Besides, three decks below, in the ready room of the Fourth Antisubmarine Forger Squadron, Chu’s son, Aircraft Commander Chu HuaFeng, waited to board his aircraft and seek out and kill the submarines. No matter what happened, he would try not to let a mistake by Tien endanger his son. His son was a warrior and a pilot, but he wasn’t invulnerable.

  His thoughts collected, Chu spoke, his voice level.

  “Leader Tien, I—and my fleet—are at your disposal.”

  Tien nodded.

  “Very well, then. I will be cleaning up. After a hot meal I will return to review the deployment of the fleet.”

  Tien turned and left the Fleet Commander’s quarters.

  As the door slammed, Chu shook his head and went back to his chart.

  CHAPTER 27

  MONDAY, 13 MAY

  0505 GREENWICH MEAN TIME

  Go had bay sixty-seven miles west OF THE lushun/penglai gap USS seawolf 1305 beijing time

  Pacino stood up from his stateroom’s conference table as the knock sounded at the door. He was still staring at the chart taped to the tabletop when Jack Morris, Greg Keebes, Bill Feyley and Ray Linden walked in.

  All were noticeably tense as they gathered around the table. On the aft wall Pacino had taped a large chart of the Go Hai and Korea bays, the Lushun area in the center. The channel leading through the Lushun/ Penglai Gap’s forty-mile length was about twenty inches long on the wall chart. The conference table’s blown up photocopy was larger, the forty-mile-long channel taking up too much of the large table’s surface.

  The chart was covered with a sheet of clear mylar. Colored grease pencils lay scattered on the table.

  Pacino went up to the wall chart and took a pen from his coverall pocket to use as a pointer. The eastern mouth of the bay ended at Lushun to the north, Penglai to the south. The Lushun peninsula was a finger of land pointing southwest, the P.L.A Northern Fleet main base on the furthest south point of a bulbous tip at the end of the peninsula. Sixty miles south of Lushun Point was the northern hump of the broad

  Shantung Peninsula, the blunt point of land that separated the Go Hai from the Korea Bay at Penglai, and extended further east to separate the Korea Bay from the Yellow Sea to the south. In the center of the restricted waters between Lushun and Penglai were the islands of Miaodao. The passage for shallow draft ships was fairly broad north of the islands, and there was also plenty of water for transit south, closer to Penglai. On the chart Pacino had drawn a red mark along the twenty-fathom curve, the minimum depth they would need to transit submerged through the gap.

  For the twenty-fathom depth, there were two channels open to passage east. The larger of the two was the Bohai Haixia Strait, a tube of water forty nautical miles long and six miles wide at its narrow throat. The smaller channel lay to the south, the Miao
dao Strait, south of the islands in the middle of the gap. Although the Miaodao Strait was wider at the mouth and the exit, it narrowed to a mere thousand yards in width north of Penglai.

  Pacino said: “In less than three hours we’ll be at the mouth of the gap. In the next half hour I want to come up with our final exit plan. Our only constraint is our previous arrangement with the Tampa. The four of you consider yourselves the Chinese. Your force strength is listed in front of you. Leading the fleet is the aircraft carrier Shaoguan. It has four squadrons of Yak antisubmarine vertical takeoff jets, each jet equipped with MAD detectors.” He looked at Morris.

  “Jack, that’s a magnetic probe that senses a disturbance in the earth’s magnetic field caused by large deposits of iron, like submarine hulls. Only works when the ship is shallow and when the jet is directly overhead, but it will confirm a sub’s position when sonar probes sniff it out. The carrier also has two squadrons of Harbin Z-9A choppers, also MAD equipped each designed to kill subs with torpedoes and depth charges.

  “The fleet has five subs, three Han-class nukes, two Ming-class silent

  diesel-electric boats. Destroyers-seven Ludas, four Udaloys, three Luhus. Frigates-thirteen Jianghus, three Jiangweis and one Jiangnan.

  Thirty-four fast attack torpedo patrol boats. And two dozen land-based Hind helicopters modified for antiship service. Now, I’m going to the conn to get to periscope depth and grab our traffic off the satellite and get a final navigation fix. I’m hoping for some last minute intelligence on the deployment of the fleet. I’ll be back in, say, twenty minutes. When I get back the four of you will outline your plan to keep the two American subs from escaping your bay. You got all that?”

  The officers nodded. Pacino left them, knowing that if they sweated over the plan as much as he had they would be more likely to understand his reactions over the next few hours.

  In their shallow transit it took only moments to slow and come up to periscope depth. Pacino hadn’t seen the outside world since the evening before, when he had been shooting at the Chinese aircraft and the frigate.

  When he raised the periscope, he was surprised by the grayness of the sky and the ugly brown of the bay water. Raindrops clouded the scope lens as a fierce wind blew on the surface. Visibility was still good, unfortunately, but the wind was blowing the wave tops to a height of two to three feet, a high sea for an enclosed bay like the Go Hai. Radio reported the satellite transmission had been received in the computer buffer. The global positioning system had swallowed their navigation fix from the GPS NAV SAT pinpointing their location with an accuracy of a few inches. Pacino lowered the periscope and ordered the ship back down, then walked to the wardroom to grab a cup of coffee. He nodded at the officers gathered around the table, most of them unable to sleep knowing that the evening watch would be a combat watch. Pacino splashed the coffee into a Seawolf cup, the steam of the dark brew

  rising to the overhead. He downed a sip, burning his tongue, and saw Sonar Officer Tim Turner and Communications Officer Jeff Joseph looking at him.

  “What’s the word, Captain?” Turner asked.

  “We breaking outta jail tonight. Skipper?” Joseph put in.

  “We’ll do our damndest,” Pacino said quietly.

  “Are you gonna brief us on how?” Turner asked.

  “Nothing to brief. We line up our torpedoes and our Javelins and our Mark 80s and we come out shooting.

  At the end of the day we’ll see who’s left.”

  “That’s it?”

  Pacino looked at them. What more was there to say? Finally Pacino spoke: “Trust me. We’ll be back in Yokosuka before you know it, and then you’ll get Captain Duckett back.”

  The two junior officers shared a look. Joseph spoke.

  “Sir, we were hoping that you’d be staying on as captain.”

  Pacino looked up from his cup.

  “Thanks, but after this is over I’ll be run out of town on a rail. Admiral’s orders.”

  “Then is it true, sir? The rumors that you’re here because you’re not afraid to shoot?”

  “I don’t think so, Jeff. True, I have no career to protect, no ass to cover, but the reason I’m here is that I’ve done this before. Two years ago, under the polar icecap.”

  “What happened?” Joseph pressed.

  “My ship went down. Lost the crew to the sea and radiation.” Pacino said, amazed at his voice staying level.

  “What about the other guy?”

  “We took care of him.”

  The lieutenants smiled. Pacino headed for the door.

  Turner called after him: “Sir?”

  “Yes, Mr. Turner.” Pacino looked into the younger man’s eyes.

  “Good luck, sir. Kick their butts.”

  Pacino nodded solemnly, realizing the young officers had just told him they trusted him in spite of the news about his last mission.

  Pacino walked back down to his stateroom, taking the radio message board from the radioman. He paused outside his door, reading the message from the Tampa to Donchez stating the wounded ship’s status.

  The line about Murphy being operated on was news-Morris had told him about the rest, and it had sickened him, making him look forward to the moment when he could release his weapons. He fought hard to keep his mind from flooding with images of the old days with Sean Murphy, the friend who had shared his whole adult life, the friend who had risked his own Navy career to go A.W.O.L. to attend Pacino’s father’s memorial service, the friend who had sat up night after night next to Pacino’s hospital bed when death was close, the friend whose wife and children formed a second family. A friend who now lay dying from two bullet wounds and the torture of men who now would try to sink them. Pacino stuffed the message into his pocket. Beneath it was the intelligence message he had hoped for, Donchez’s relay and interpretation of the deployment of the Chinese fleet. But something seemed wrong.

  Either the Chinese were screwing up, or the intelligence was flawed.

  lushun/penglai gap, bohai haixia strait eight kilometers from international waters P.L.A navy aircraft carrier shaogvan 1312 beijing time

  The strategy room’s huge tabletop was covered with a large-scale chart of the Lushun/Penglai Gap. Northern Fleet Commander Chu Hsueh-Fan held a long pole in his hand, the end of the instrument shaped like a hoe, used for moving small ship models on the table. He had arranged a fleet of destroyers and frigates to the

  west of the gap, the ships organized in a forward deployed mobile force, a hunter-killer group. In the northern Bohai Haixia Strait, at the channel entrance, a large force of attack vessels was stationed. The zone in between the forward force and the channel entrance force was filled with the symbols of helicopters and Yak-36A VTOL planes.

  Leader Tien Tse-Min stared at the chart from its west end.

  “Give me the pointer,” he said, reaching for Chu’s implement.

  “Sir, this is the way the fleet should be deployed,” Chu protested, but handed over the hoe anyway.

  Tien pulled all the ships and aircraft to a corner of the table, and began setting them up his way. When he had finished, Chu nearly felt sick. Instead of having a forward-deployed force searching in the east corner of the bay at the approaches to the gap, Tien had arranged most of the destroyers and frigates at the entrance and exit of the smaller channel to the south, the Strait of Miaodao. The surface forces had been relegated to the positions of sentries, gate guards. He had put a token surface force at the throat of the wider Bohai Haixia Strait, at the exit of which the Shaoguan was positioned.

  “The submarines,” Tien went on, “will transit through the southern strait, here at Miaodao. They may execute a feint to the north but they will be headed through the southern channel. I have arranged a gate-keeper force here at the entrance, another here at the exit. The center throat of the channel will be mined with acoustic and contact mines. Fast patrol boats will be stationed on either side of the mined area. And to ensure that the Americans are not tempted to change t
heir plans and go through the northern passage at Haixia I have stationed an impressive though small force at the midpoint of the channel, with the Shaoguan at the exit of the channel.”

  Chu almost laughed. It was obvious to him that Tien was placing

  himself out of the combat zone by ordering the aircraft carrier to the farthest point from the anticipated action in the southern passage.

  “Sir, the Americans will transit through the north channel, not the south. The Strait of Miaodao is much too tight, only a kilometer wide at the throat. They will have no room to maneuver there.”

  “Yes. That is why they will go to the southern passage.

  Since it is tight they will assume we will neglect it. But I am not assuming, Chu. My intelligence people assure me they will go to the southern passage.”

  “Please, tell me how they know that, sir. We have not even been able to track the subs after they left Tianjin. One aircraft was blown up trying to follow up a possible detection. An enemy radio transmission turned out to be a false alarm. So how do you know where the Americans will go?”

  “I know the mind of the American commander like my own.”

  “Because you interrogated him?” He didn’t say “tortured.”

  “And, sir, we know nothing of the mind of the commander of the rescue sub.”

  “Or commanders, Chu. There are more than one, which is another reason we will use a gate-keeper force instead of a mobile force.”

  “Sir, grouping a task force together like this in restricted waters is like lining them up in a shooting gallery.”

  “No. If the Americans shoot they give away their location. When and if that happens we launch the helicopters and Yaks from the Shaoguan and together with the missiles and depth charges and torpedoes of the main and auxiliary forces we will prevail.”

  Chu reluctantly nodded, seeing that even though the plan was flawed, it just might barely suffice.

  “Can we at least strengthen the northern task force, just in case?” Chu calculated, betting that Tien was a coward.