The Vigilant Spy

by Jeffrey Layton

  After the PLAN helicopter landed on the cutter and Zhou transferred to the ship, he ordered the Z-9D Dauphin pilots to return to the Lian and wait until the Coast Guard cutter caught up. Low on fuel, the helo returned to shore after Zhou boarded the Lian.

  Captain Zhou scanned the horizon to the southwest with a pair of binoculars. Finding nothing of interest he lowered the glasses. Discouraged, he muttered, “Where are they?”

  “Could they have returned to Sanya?” asked the CCG lieutenant.

  “That would make no sense at all,” Zhou said, frustrated. “Call your helicopter again.” He referred to another version of the Z-9 Dauphine deployed from the Coast Guard base at Sanya.

  The lieutenant used a portable radio he carried to contact the helo. The crew reported no sign of Lian’s runabout. The CCG Dauphine had flown on a heading for Da Nang at an altitude of two hundred meters. It exceeded the RIB’s maximum possible range by fifty kilometers.

  When Zhou had boarded the Lian after the Coast Guard assault team secured the ship, he noticed that the RIB was missing. Stored on the ship’s stern deck near the A-frame control station, the twenty-four-foot inflatable served as the ship’s tender and was also used to support the deployment of scientific equipment. With its thirty-knot speed, the RIB also made an ideal getaway platform.

  Zhou stepped to the navigator’s station; the Coast Guard officer followed. Zhou studied the digital chart before facing his subordinate. “They’re tricky bastards. They set the ship on a course to Da Nang to throw us off. The RIB isn’t headed there…it’s going to rendezvous with another boat.”

  The lieutenant caught on straight away. “We need to expand the search!”

  “Exactly, you call your flotilla commander and tell him I want every air asset he has available launched immediately plus all of his floaters. If we have to, we’re going to search every ship, boat and skiff within a hundred twenty-kilometer radius of our position.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain.”

  Zhou entered the Lian’s radio room. He needed to update S5.

  Just hang on Park. We’re on the way now.

  Another hour would pass before Zhou discovered he had erred.

  Chapter 71

  Dr. Meng Park couldn’t stand it any longer. Her legs cramped and her lumbar spine ached. Besides, the barbarians had stopped talking fifteen minutes earlier. The Asian sitting in the adjacent passenger seat fell asleep; she heard him snoring.

  Park faked a cough and stirred in the bucket seat, shifting her hips.

  The brute occupying the pilot’s station noticed. He called out to his companion, “Jeff, wake up. She’s back with us.”

  Park turned to her side. The bare chested Asian awoke instantly. He smiled while stretching out his arms. “Hi there,” he said.

  Chang had shed his T-shirt twenty minutes earlier. The temperature inside the submersible was eighty-five degrees Fahrenheit. With three radiating bodies, no air conditioning and surrounding tropical waters, the Xiu Shan’s closed atmosphere had warmed.

  She tried to talk but the gag mumbled her words. The Asian peeled away the strip of tape, taking care not to injure her skin.

  “Where are you taking me?” Park demanded.

  “You’ll know soon enough.”

  “Why are you doing this to me?”

  “You know why, Dr. Meng.”

  “You stinking pigs!” Park screamed in Mandarin as she arched her spine upwards from the bucket seat. She leveraged her body mass, trying to break free of the cable ties that bound her wrists to the armrests. After two additional attempts, she gave up and settled back into the seat. Red welts erupted on her skin under the plastic ties.

  Defeated, she eventually asked, “May I have some water?”

  * * * *

  Captain Zhou and the CCG Lieutenant relocated to the Lian’s submersible hanger. Ten minutes earlier, the assault team discovered the engineer and other detained crew members gagged, bound and locked inside the shipping container near the hanger.

  “You’re certain it was aboard and not transferred to shore for maintenance?” Zhou asked the engineer, stunned at the turn of the events.

  “Yes, Captain. I saw it yesterday afternoon when I was in the hangar. No question about it, the Xiu Shan was in its cradle.”

  Zhou stared at the parallel tracks that ran aft through the open hangar door to the A-frame crane at the stern. The cradle was parked at the end of the tracks under the hoist—minus the submersible. Zhou cursed.

  “Captain,” the China Coast Guard officer said, “do you think they escaped in the submersible instead of the tender?”

  “That just doesn’t make any sense. The submersible is slow compared to the RIB. Why would they?” Zhou’s voice faded as a new horror flashed into focus. “We’ve been deceived. An American submarine must be nearby. That’s where they’re going with the Xiu Shan.”

  * * * *

  Half a world away in Langley, Virginia, CIA officer Steve Osberg monitored the events taking place offshore of Sanya. He currently had control of several NRO minisatellites. Each spy bird was about the size of a shopping cart basket and was equipped with a high resolution video camera. The medium orbit constellation provided sporadic real time monitoring of the South China Sea.

  Osberg was seated at a workstation in the Ops Center. He eyeballed a Dell monitor. Displayed on the flat panel wide-screen was a bird’s-eye view of the Lian. The ship sailed southward at eight knots. The sun was up, allowing direct satellite observation without the need for infrared optics.

  Osberg massaged the back of his neck. So far, so good, he thought. During Chang’s last call from the Lian, Osberg learned of Kirov’s seat of the pants Plan B. Da Nang was out; they’d never make it in time with the RIB. Besides, they had a prisoner. Should China unravel the charade, removing Dr. Meng from Vietnam would be a diplomatic nightmare.

  Using the RIB as a decoy—brilliant plan!

  By monitoring comms from the China Coast Guard cutter and other local Sanya maritime radio traffic, the National Security Agency and Naval Intelligence ascertained that the Chinese had yet to discover the real escape avenue.

  What incredible balls Kirov has!

  Osberg marveled at Yuri’s mettle. Earlier, he had watched Yuri when he jumped overboard as the Lian accelerated from a deadstart.

  Too bad our birds can’t see underwater.

  Once the submersible descended, Osberg lost contact with his operatives. Chang had provided the rendezvous coordinates during his last transmission. Osberg checked his wristwatch. In roughly fourteen hours, the minisub was scheduled to surface at the designated earth coordinates.

  I just hope Colorado arrives in time.

  Chapter 72

  “Are we getting close?” Jeff Chang asked. He had pulled on his T-shirt twenty minutes earlier. The Xiu Shan cooled as it descended into the deeper and cooler waters.

  Yuri checked the Xiu Shan’s control panel. The water depth gauge displayed 191 meters—627 feet. The digital clock showed: 12:25 PM. He did the math. “We’ve got about five nautical miles to go before we hit the steep part of the bottom slope. That will take another hour and a quarter.”

  “They must be looking for us by now.”

  “I know. Hopefully, we’ll get below the thermocline before we’re spotted.”

  * * * *

  Still restrained in the starboard bucket seat, Dr. Meng Park stared through the acrylic sphere. The submersible cruised just above the seabed. Sunlight penetrated to the Xiu Shan’s depth but its intensity gradually lessened as the water depth increased.

  Dipping below the thermocline—so that’s his plan.

  Schooled in submarine evasion tactics as part of her work on Serpent, Dr. Meng understood how effective the thermocline could be for a hiding a submarine. Once below the layer of rapidly changing water temperature, a submarine co
uld hide from sonar. The thermocline (aka the “layer”) acts as a barrier to acoustic energy, shielding a sub from surface sonars deployed by ships and aircraft.

  Jun must be looking for me by now. Somehow, I’ve got to let him know where we are before it’s too late.

  * * * *

  Captain Zhou Jun took command of the Lian and the overall search operation. He also drafted the China Coast Guard officer who had accompanied him from the cutter to serve as the search coordinator. The taskforce had ballooned to six aircraft and five additional Coast Guard vessels beyond the Lian and the cutter.

  Zhou and the lieutenant hovered over the chart table. The Lian’s current position was marked by a cobalt blue ship icon as forty-four nautical miles south of Sanya. Nineteen miles to the north was a solid red dot. It represented the assumed dive location of the submersible, which was determined by reconstructing the Lian’s path from the ship’s GPS log. After departing Sanya, the research ship had loitered for nearly half an hour some twenty-five miles south of Hainan Island.

  Centered on the red spot was a red circle with a radius of 178 kilometers—ninety-six nautical miles. Zhou was privy to the Xiu Shan’s basic operational parameters from his deep-sea excursion with Meng Park. The submersible had enough power for twenty-four hours at four knots, which he used to establish the maximum possible search ring. Higher submersible speeds would dramatically cut battery power life, reducing the range.

  Captain Zhou pointed to the southeast quadrant of the circle. “I want at least sixty percent of our assets in this sector. It’s deep there. That’s where the sub will be lurking.”

  “Understood, sir. How about the northeast sector, should we task additional assets there, too?” The autonomous patrol boats guarding Yulin and Shendao searched the nearshore waters but were useless elsewhere. The drones were configured for shallow water ASW ops only.

  “Maybe later, if we can get anything running from Yulin.”

  To Zhou’s dismay, none of the antisubmarine warfare combatants moored at the Yulin Naval Base were operational due to the EMP attack. The only ASW warship immediately available to Zhou was a destroyer from the Shendao Naval Base. Moored at a pier in an inlet north of the aircraft carrier pier and S5, the Nanchang had arrived a week earlier. It was on loan from the North Sea Fleet.

  To further muddy the tactical situation, none of the CCG helicopters currently in the air were ASW equipped. However, three PLA-Navy antisubmarine warfare helos and two fixed wing ASW airplanes at Lingshui were presently being prepped for subsea combat.

  Captain Zhou pointed to the southwest quadrant of the circle. “Keep two vessels and two helicopters here. Even though the submersible doesn’t have the range to make it all the way to Da Nang underwater, the hijackers may have a backup plan to rendezvous with a boat and then make a highspeed run to shore.”

  “They’d probably try that at night.”

  “Exactly. It’s unlikely but we need to be prepared just in case.”

  “If that does occur and they make it into the territorial waters of Vietnam, should our people continue the pursuit?”

  “Absolutely. They are not to land on Vietnamese soil.”

  “Understood.”

  The lieutenant noted another ship icon on the electronic chart near the center of the southeast search quadrant. He pointed to the chart. “How soon will the Nanchang start its search?”

  “It’s making a passive run to reestablish background conditions. It shouldn’t be long before it goes active. That’s when it will get really interesting.”

  “The American submarine?”

  “Yes, if one of their subs is hiding anywhere near here and expects to sneak in for a quick rescue, that’s not going to happen.”

  “The destroyer will attack it.”

  “Yes, with depth charges and torpedoes.”

  The lieutenant nodded ardently. “What about the submersible.”

  “When the Xiu Shan runs out of power, they’ll have no choice but to surface.”

  “And we’ll be waiting,” the lieutenant said smirking.

  “That’s my plan.”

  Chapter 73

  “It sounds like it’s getting closer,” Jeff Chang said, his voice strained.

  “They haven’t found us. We’re well below the layer now.” Yuri checked the depth gauge: 373 meters—1,224 feet. He piloted the submersible ten feet above the sterile mud bottom. Blackness surrounded the transparent dome even though it was 2:10 P.M. topside. To conserve power, Yuri had cut the floods to just one light.

  Another distant muffled “ping” reverberated through the deep, its tone muted by the thermocline. The PLAN destroyer patrolled several miles away, executing a grid search with its bow mounted active sonar. The hunt had started fifty minutes earlier.

  Although they were able to reach deeper water without detection, Yuri’s worry factor had skyrocketed. If the ship hunting them also had variable depth sonar capability, hiding under the water temperature gradient would not shield the submersible from detection. A VDS or Variable Depth Sonar towed body equipped with active and passive sonars could be lowered below the thermocline by the vessel that stalked the minisub. That would allow the waters below the ‘layer’ to be searched uninhibited.

  Battery life was Yuri’s other concern. The initial seven knot sprint had consumed power at a prodigious rate, a mistake Yuri now realized. The submersible’s current power supply was marginal—just 32 percent charge. Half an hour earlier, Yuri reduced speed from four to three knots and shut off all noncritical systems.

  Yuri had to reserve enough juice to keep the submersible hidden until it could rendezvous with the Colorado. Although the Xiu Shan could ascend without propulsion by jettisoning ballast, electrical power was required for navigation and life support systems.

  Fortunately, oxygen was not a worry. The submersible had a reserve supply of sixty hours of air. CO2 toxicity, however, was a huge concern. The minisub employed electric powered fans to pump air into the scrubber system, which removed excess carbon dioxide by a chemical filtration process. Without removal of the exhaled carbon dioxide from the three occupants, the atmosphere inside the acrylic dome would turn toxic in minutes.

  Yuri adjusted a vertical thruster to maintain ten foot bottom clearance when Meng Park looked over her shoulder at Yuri. “I’m cold.” Still restrained, she visibly shivered. “Please turn on the heater.”

  “Can’t do that. We’re all cold. You’ll just have to deal with it.”

  Meng sneered and turned back.

  Jeff Chang glanced at Yuri, rolling his eyes.

  Once the submersible had dipped under the thermocline, the chilled outside water temperature began to seep into the sphere. The current water temperature was 13.3 degrees Celsius—56 degrees Fahrenheit. Earlier, Jeff had put on his T-shirt and donned a jacket from his rucksack. Yuri’s own jacket draped Meng’s shoulders. He endured the chilly atmosphere in his now dried out long sleeved shirt and pants.

  * * * *

  “What is it?” asked Commander Bowman. He stood beside the sonar supervisor in the Colorado’s control room.

  “Ah Captain, we’re close enough now for a tentative ID. The hull’s acoustic output is consistent with one of their new platforms, probably a Type 055.” Petty officer Anderson had swiveled his chair away from the sonar console to speak with Colorado’s commanding officer.

  Anderson’s report raised the hackles on the back of Bowman’s neck. The 055 was China’s latest guided missile destroyer. At nearly six hundred feet in length, the ship was actually in the ‘cruiser’ class. Bristling with sensors and weapons, the 055’s main role was to serve as an escort for China’s aircraft carriers, providing air defense and protection from submarines. The Type 055’s leading edge sonar systems and arsenal of ASW weapons were designed to seek out and destroy hostile subs like the Colorado.

  “What�
�s the range?”

  “Best guess at this point is two convergence zones, say sixty nautical miles.”

  “So, it’s still offshore of Sanya.”

  “Yes, mowing the lawn. They’re obviously looking for something.”

  “Very well. Let me know ASAP if you think they’ve got a target.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain.”

  The Colorado’s sensors detected the active sonar about three hours earlier. Bowman ordered the ship’s speed reduced from thirty-two knots to sixteen knots to lessen the chance of detection. The high-powered sonar pings at that time were emitted by the Type 055’s hull-mounted transducer.

  But twenty minutes earlier, Colorado detected a new active sonar. The destroyer’s variable depth towed sonar fish sank below the thermocline and began a new round of pinging.

  The submersible was a tiny target and if it went deep, as Commander Bowman expected, locating it was akin to finding the proverbial needle in the haystack. But that also applied to Colorado. How would the sub find and rescue the mini with the Type 055 looming overhead?

  Chapter 74

  “I understand, Admiral. I’ll implement your orders immediately.” Captain Zhou Jun returned the telephone handset to the desk stand. He was alone inside the Lian’s radio room, sitting at the military-grade satellite phone console.

  Zhou’s conversation with the commander of the South Sea Fleet did not go well. The admiral requested an update on the search for Dr. Meng and the missing submersible. It was 5:53 P.M. Sunset was half an hour away and there still was no sign of the Xiu Shan. The PLAN destroyer probed the depths with its VDS sonar but had not yet detected the minisub.

  The Xiu Shan must be hiding on the bottom—but for how long?

  The one positive finding so far was the absence of hostile submarine activity in or near the search zone. Besides the Nanchang and its two helicopters, three shore based ASW helicopters with dipping sonars and two antisubmarine patrol planes from Lingshui Airbase had joined the hunt. Sonobuoys parachuted from the planes and choppers saturated the ocean with acoustic sensors above and below the thermocline. Magnetic sensors in the tails of both four-engine propeller-driven airplanes also sniffed for the presence of steel hulls.