by Don Keith
Meanwhile, the George Mason had received orders. They were to proceed to Subic Bay in the Philippines for a liberty call in four days.
Nice prize for a—mostly—successful drill.
Ψ
Two hours after the Yuan submarines disappeared beneath the waves, the two Type 93A nuclear submarines at Hainan completed their load-out. The last bus to pull up to the pier disgorged two platoons of black-uniformed Jiaolong Assault Team special operators. The highly trained and supremely fit Marines efficiently moved their mounds of equipment onto the submarines. A pier crane lifted each of their assault boats and swung them over to where they could be manhandled into each submarine’s dry-deck shelter. The shelter, like a giant wart on the sleek nuclear submarine’s back, had a large clamshell at its aft end that swung open to allow easy access to the shelter’s cavernous interior. There was plenty of room in each shelter to store a pair of assault boats and all of the team’s heavy weapons.
An hour after the Jiaolong Team arrived, the clamshells slammed shut on the shelters. The last special operator scurried across the brow as it was being lifted away. The two submarines moved out into the center of the channel and slipped out of the cave mouth. The sun was setting over Hainan Island as they steamed out into open water.
An hour later, the two dived at almost the same point where the Yuans had submerged that morning. But these two subs steered a course to the northeast. At a cruising speed of thirty kilometers per hour, they would be off the coast of Taiwan and ready to execute their mission in thirty-six hours.
An hour after they submerged, the Naval Ocean Processing Facility (NOPF) Whidbey Island was reporting their first hits on a suspected Chinese nuclear submarine in the South China Sea. The new seismic array lying on the ocean bottom on the south side of Taiwan—supposedly only there to detect earthquakes and potential tsunamis—was doing its optional job. NOPF’s high-speed computers churned away on the mass of acoustic data, separating the extraneous noise from the contacts of interest, and then applying advanced algorithms to identify the submarines and figure out what they were up to.
Fifteen minutes after the first alert warning, a message flashed on Rear Admiral Jon Ward’s classified computer. An hour later the first of a rotation of P-8 ASW aircraft was wheels up from Anderson Air Force Base on the island of Guam in the Marianas.
The USNS Impeccable, with her twin TL-29 towed arrays streaming over a mile behind the ship, was conducting a routine patrol in the East China Sea, just north of Okinawa. The ship spun around and headed south, but it would take a while before it could be of help. At its ponderous speed of four knots, it would be five days before the ship would be in a position to do any good in this search.
Ψ
The USS Boise cruised at periscope depth three miles off the coast of Prattle Island, on the western edge of the Paracel Archipelago, the cluster of reefs and islets at the northern end of the South China Sea. Being almost equidistant between Vietnam and China, the islands were claimed by both countries, but China currently possessed them. And they had wasted no time getting several of them heavily fortified.
That included Prattle Island. Though little more than a pile of sand and coral, Prattle now boasted a deep-water protected harbor and an airfield capable of handling heavy bombers. This was all protected with batteries of surface-to-air and surface-to-surface missiles, besides the menacing natural reefs that encircled almost all the island.
The Boise had spent the better part of a week cruising back and forth, steaming as close as they could safely and covertly, gathering all the electronic and communications signals that they could vacuum out of the ether. Being close but hidden allowed the submarine to gather intelligence when the other side had no suspicions that they were being monitored. And the submarine could stay on station for a very long time.
The downside was that it was excruciatingly boring work. As the navigator so eloquently described it, “So far all we’ve done is watch seagulls fornicate.”
“Conn, Radio, request captain come to radio.”
The sudden voice of the 21MC announcement disturbed the quiet in the control room. Commander Chet Allison ducked out the back door of the compartment, dodged around the ring-laser gyro binnacles, and stepped into the radio room.
The radioman of the watch was already extending to him a paper printout as he stepped inside the small room. The skipper scanned the document, then promptly spun on his heel and headed to the control room.
After a quick glance at the electronic navigation chart display, he ordered, “Officer of the Deck, come to course three-two-zero. Make your depth one-five-zero feet. Come to ahead standard. When we get to deep water, come to six hundred feet and a full bell.”
Turning to the chief of the watch, the skipper continued, “Send the messenger to find the XO and the navigator. Looks like a couple of CHICOM nukes are out of the barn. We are being vectored to find them.”
8
The little wolf pack of Chinese PLAN submarines —or lang qun, as Yon Hun Glo had dubbed them—steered a precise course of one-three-zero for exactly two hundred kilometers. Yon Hun Glo’s planners at naval headquarters back in Beijing had calculated that a two-hundred-kilometer diversion was the distance necessary to distract the Americans in that direction. At a signal from the Wushiwu, the lang qun swung around to a course of zero-seven-zero. That headed them toward the Luzon Strait, eleven hundred kilometers off their bows.
The admiral calculated that it would take the better part of six days steaming at their current ten-kilometer-per-hour speed. The slow pace was frustrating, especially to a man accustomed to going where he needed to be at all good speed. But the admiral knew that if they tried to go any faster, they would have to use their batteries to supplement their air-independent propulsion systems. The AIP simply did not have the capacity to push the boats at any more than a patrol speed. And, of course, using their batteries meant that the boats would have to snorkel frequently. Every time they ran their diesels, they were just inviting the Americans to come find them. Stealth was far more important than speed, typically, and especially on this particular mission. It was essential that they arrive in Tonga before the Americans had any idea that the Chinese Navy—and more importantly, four of their submarines—was swimming about anywhere in the South Pacific. Or noticed they were taking extraordinary steps to remain undetected.
Admiral Yon Hun Glo glanced up from the chart he was studying to see Captain Liu and Political Officer Yu walk into the control room, almost as if in lock-step marching formation. The two men seemed to always be together, shadows of each other. So far, he had never seen one without the other. He could only be thankful that he had left command of a submarine before a political officer had been assigned to his boat, there at his elbow to always consider the Communist Party aspect of any action the boat’s captain might desire to undertake. Nowadays, almost every ship in the PLAN had such a political officer.
Just then, he felt the boat angle upward and watched as the Wushiwu proceeded up to periscope depth. He frowned, then glanced over questioningly to where Captain Liu stood.
The officer answered the admiral’s unasked question. “It is time to copy communications. The operations order specifies copying communications every eight hours.”
The admiral glanced at his watch. Indeed, it had been precisely eight hours since they dove beneath the surface after departing Yulin. He sensed that this pair of officers were apparatchiks, blindly devoted to the Communist Party and totally incapable of independent thought. He was not surprised but reminded himself that he would have to take that into account going forward.
The trip to periscope depth and copying the broadcast proceeded without event. But then, as Admiral Yon Hun Glo read through the intelligence summary, he noted one message that immediately raised the hairs on the back of his neck. Navy Intelligence was reporting that an American submarine was scheduled for a port call in Subic Bay, Philippines, due to arrive sometime within the next four to eight day
s. The analysts gave the report a very high probability based on the reliability of the sources cited within the Philippines.
Yon Hun Glo smiled to himself as he read the information and credit given to the very spy network that he and his brother maintained in the Pacific island nation. Filipino civilian dock workers at the base. A stock clerk for a supplier. Deckhands on harbor tugs. Hotel clerks, taxi drivers, dollar-to-peso currency-exchange spots, anyone who might be alerted to expect an uptick in business. Even bar maids at the many joints that ringed the sprawling Subic Bay Freeport Zone—as the former US Naval Base was now known—just as they inevitably did at any port anywhere in the world. They all seemed to know the comings and goings of ships, aircraft, troops, and other assets, all before anyone else, and with impressive accuracy. They were also happy to accept a nice payment for information that proved to be correct and useful, even if they had no idea about the source of such extra income. Many of them unabashedly trafficked info to all sides if there was money to be made.
The admiral keyed the navigation display screen to shift to a scale that showed all of the South China Sea and beyond, out into the Philippine Sea between Luzon and the Marianas. Fiddling with the controls, he back plotted several possible tracks for the American submarine and immediately saw the very real possibility that its route might well pass right by where he was leading his little lang qun. That would be disastrous. The Americans were good. They were also relentless. Though they would have no reason to suspect that four Chinese submarines were transiting in the vicinity, and despite the PLAN boats’ stealth, there was a real chance they would be detected. That must not occur.
After staring at the electronic chart for a long time, Yon Hun Glo remembered yet another one of the interminable Sun Tzu sayings that his brother was always quoting: “Be where your enemy is not.”
But how could he tell for certain where that was? How far off plan did he dare redirect their course?
Then he saw a way. The shortest, least detectable, least expected route was right through the Philippines. Head south, down into the Sulu Sea, instead of north through the Luzon Strait. Then proceed through the Celebes Sea. He was well aware most of such a track would be within Philippine territorial waters. Going through there while submerged would be an act of war. But to hell with Philippine sovereignty. Such political territorial nonsense only mattered if he was caught. And nobody was going to catch his lang qun.
“Captain Liu, come to course south and steer for the Mindoro Strait,” Yon Hun Glo ordered. “Signal the lang qun to follow you.”
The political officer, Yu, snapped around to face him.
“Admiral, with all respect, we cannot simply make course changes on our own like this. We must discuss this in the context of broader Party objectives and potential ramifications. Then, when we have an approved plan, we would need to …”
Admiral Yon Hun Glo glared at the upstart and held up a hand, palm out.
“Political Officer Yu, there was no ‘we’ in my order. Nor was there any room for opinion or discussion. Take this as your one warning. If you dare to question any of my orders in the future, you will learn about ‘broader Party objectives’ in a very hard and painful way. Do you understand?”
The diminutive officer seemed to shrink to an even smaller stature under the flag officer’s tirade. He could only nod meekly that he understood, then slink off toward his stateroom.
“Now, Captain Liu, carry out my orders. Make best course for the Sulu Sea and then through to the Celebes Sea.”
For an instant, Yon Hun Glo actually hoped the submarine captain would question his orders, too. Then he could unleash the full wrath and power of his exalted position in the People’s Liberation Army Navy.
No such opportunity. The naval officer was well indoctrinated into doing what he was ordered to do by a superior without question. He promptly gave the orders to assume the new course. If there was an issue, it would be between the admiral and the political officer. And, as the Americans would say in their western movies, “Let the chips fall where they may.”
Ψ
HMAS Audacious was exactly where Commander Geoffrey Smythe wanted to be, doing a barrier search fifty miles to the west of the Paracel Islands. The Chinese wolf pack would surely turn south after clearing the shallow water around Hainan and head down the South China Sea. The Australian submarine was perfectly positioned to detect them and then fall into trail behind them to try to learn what they were up to.
Smythe knew that the Type 2076 sonar with which Audacious was equipped was far superior to the Yuan’s sensors. He also knew that his boat was quieter than anything the Chinese had afloat. It would not exactly be easy since he was outnumbered, but he also figured that four-on-one was about even odds.
The first leg, from west to east, had come up cold. It was time to turn around and do an east-to-west leg.
“Watch Officer, come left and steady on course two-seven-zero,” he ordered.
The big diesel submarine had just begun its turn when Sonar reported, “Possible contact on the 2065 towed array just before the turn. Best ambiguous bearings zero-three-zero and one-five-zero.”
Smythe smiled broadly as he grabbed the microphone. “Sonar, classification on the contact?”
“Captain, we didn’t hold it long enough before the array went unstable. No classification.”
The smile was gone. Smythe jammed the microphone back in its holder. Damn bad luck! Now there was nothing to do but finish the turn and pray that the contact would be regained. If not, then he could chase to the northeast, or maybe the southeast, to try to regain it. And it might not even be the Chinese boats. He could be chasing some amorous whale. There simply was not enough information to make any kind of intelligent decision.
The wait was interminable. Ten minutes after coming to the new course, Sonar finally reported that the array was stable and they were commencing a search.
An hour passed before Smythe admitted to himself that whatever they thought they had heard before the turn was now long gone. Even if it was really anything at all.
Ψ
“Do you know what a fumarole is?”
TJ Dillon had not a clue. “Some kind of sushi?”
Li Min Zhou smiled and took a sip of her tea. It was three a.m. local time in Taipei. Dillon and Zhou were the only customers in the McDonald’s, a block down the street from the Grand Hyatt in the city’s Xinyi District. An elderly employee slowly mopped the floor at the far side of the dining area. There were relatively few cars on the normally busy Songshou Road outside.
“Don’t feel bad. I had to Google it.” She gave him a brief description.
Dillon winced and shook his head. “Okay, I know we’re killing time until your guy gets here with my stuff, but why do we care about a pile of undersea mud?”
“Apparently, or at least according to some well-founded rumors, while Mother Earth was puking up all that sludge, she brought up a treasure trove of gold and left it there, on the bottom of the sea, for the taking. Assuming you have a means to go down that deep and scoop it up. That, we believe, is one of several reasons for a sudden and eager push within the Chinese government and military to extend their Belt and Roads Initiative down into the South Pacific. And into Tonga in particular. Not much else there unless you are working on a suntan.”
Li Min took another sip and glanced up at Dillon.
“Some higher-ups in the military know about the gold and would like to get a bunch of it for themselves. That meshes nicely with the desires of some others—in the Party and out—who have no idea about any gold mud. They simply want to restore the Middle Kingdom to what they see as its rightful place, at the center of the world. But they will not question such a favorable turn of events for their cause.”
The Chinese operative was getting more and more agitated as she continued her tirade.
“Then there is the third faction, the ones who have gotten filthy rich with their odd amalgam of communism and capitalism and would lik
e to keep things tense, all right, but definitely do not want to push the US or other economies so far that they and their fat bank accounts get hurt in the rebound. They’ve prevented hostilities so far, but, as you know, that has begun to change, and this group is outnumbered, outranked, and will soon find themselves on the outside.”
TJ Dillon sat, open-mouthed, staring at the beautiful spy with the stunning eyes. Then he shook his head again, trying to take it all in.
“Okay, most of that I know. At least the three factions. And a few guys who blur the lines. The part about the gold down there at the bottom of the ocean...I can see how that might tip things toward a new quadrant.” He finally took a sip of his coffee, not even noticing it was cold.
“Something was bound to,” Li Min Zhou went on. “The military doesn’t trust the Communist Party. The Party doesn’t trust the military. The quasi-capitalists don’t trust anyone but wouldn’t dare challenge anybody so long as they are taking over the world one iPhone or kid’s toy or American savings-and-loan at a time. Then, of course, there is enough corruption everywhere and at all levels that an explosion is inevitable. As big as they are, as many tentacles as these bastards have in governments all over, and assuming they don’t blow up the planet in the process, the global economy will be a disaster when it all hits the fan. And guess what that does to the value of that gold mud down there on the sea floor. If it even exists.”
She sat back and looked at the ceiling. For the first time in the six hours he had known her, TJ Dillon could detect signs of fatigue on her face. Fatigue and sincere worry.
