Warshot (The Hunter Killer Series Book 6)

by Don Keith

  “Comrade Captain Liu Zhang,” the admiral said, glancing up at the submarine’s captain. The admiral no longer made any effort to avoid sounding condescending when he spoke to the commanding officer. “Please signal the lang qun to come left to course one-four-seven and slow to ten kilometers per hour.” Yon Hun Glo stopped, watching the toady little officer constantly nodding as he wrote down every single word. “And then you change course and slow accordingly. Do you understand my orders, Captain?”

  Liu Zhang nodded even more vigorously as he stepped over to the submarine’s underwater communications system. He first referred to his notes, lips moving as he ticked off each step.

  Only then did he begin to send his message out to the rest of the trailing Chinese submarines.

  Ψ

  “Detecting underwater comms from Sierra Four-Five,” Josh Hannon called out, a hint of pent-up excitement in his voice. “Fifteen-point-four kilohertz. Equates to a Chinese Wolfdog encrypted acoustic comms.”

  Jackson Biddle jumped across the George Mason’s control room to look over Hannon’s shoulder at his display. “Are you sure?”

  “XO, I really gotta cure you of jumpin’ on my screen every time I report something,” Hannon complained, only half joking. “You can see the same thing on the command display and it’s a whole lot easier for me to do my job without you breathing down my neck.”

  Biddle, mumbling something about sonar techs and their love of taking showers, stepped back over to the command display. There, Billy Jonas was already trying to make sense of the tactical picture of what Hannon had just observed.

  “XO, this doesn’t add up very well at all,” Jonas admitted. “Their Wolfdog system is supposed to be very narrow-beamed, highly directional, and very short range. Primarily for one sub to briefly communicate with another or with a single vessel on the surface. This guy’s basically broadcasting. So, who is our Chinese friend trying to talk to? And where is whoever that might be?”

  “Eng, I have the same questions,” Biddle told him. “We’ve been tracking him putzing along due south for the last several hours. He’s been staying real quiet, like he doesn’t want to get his ass found out here. Now, all of a sudden, he has gotten real talkative. What gives?”

  Just as Jonas was about to reply, Josh Hannon called out an update that was even more puzzling.

  “Possible contact zig based on bearing rate. Zig toward. Increasing bearing rate.”

  Jonas immediately punched up the display for the narrow-band passive towed array. He cocked his head, now even more perplexed.

  “I’m not seeing any change in received frequency. How sure are you that you’re seeing a contact zig?”

  “Went from a right-point-zero-five-degree per minute to a left-point-one. Pretty definite change in speed across the line of sight. He had to have zigged,” Hannon explained.

  “Well, he sure didn’t change his speed in the line of sight,” Jonas shot back. “Solid eleven-point-one hertz. No change.”

  Jackson Biddle, listening to the exchange, tapped his chin with a forefinger.

  “Boys, a wise old submariner once told me that there are only two truths in passive ASW, bearing and received frequency. Everything else is a guess. If our two truths are telling us different stories, there is something we don’t yet understand. And we absolutely need to, correct? Now, what are we overlooking? And do I need to remind you that this is not a drill? We are tailing a Chinese submarine in a highly inappropriate portion of the ocean.”

  As the three were trying to sort out the problem, the passive search operator suddenly called out, “I have a second eleven-point-five-hertz contact. Two degrees to the right of Sierra Four-Five. Designate...Sierra Four-Seven. Classified submerged Yuan-class submarine.”

  The three men looked at each other.

  “Well, that probably solves the riddle of who Sierra Four-Five was jabbering with,” the exec said. “This thing just got twice as interesting, I’d say. But it still doesn’t resolve our zig riddle.”

  Ensign Sam Walters was sitting at the fire control panel.

  “XO, I might have an answer,” he volunteered. “If I put an anchor on the solution where Hannon called a zig, then slew the solution course to match the bearings, then slow the solution to five knots to keep the speed in the line-of-sight constant, I get a solution that matches both the bearing rate and the frequency. I reckon he slowed when he turned.”

  Biddle nodded. It made sense. But now he had two Chinese subs out here to worry about. Two boats where they should not necessarily be, doing maneuvers that indicated they had some purpose in these waters rather than simply passing through. And even more worrisome, two submarines that might take violent issue with George Mason and her crew spying on them. One thing was certain. His orders from COMSUBGROUP SEVEN were to trail the Yuan and not lose contact. He meant to use every technology that his submarine possessed and every trick that he knew to make sure the Chinese subs didn’t slip away.

  He turned to Jonas. “Eng, stay on this course for now. Don’t close either of the contacts within twenty-thousand yards. Last thing we want is for these two guys to know we are in the vicinity. I’m going to go wake the skipper and give him the good news.”

  Just as Biddle headed out of control toward the CO’s stateroom, Josh Hannon called out some even more interesting news.

  “New contact! Sierra Four-Eight, bearing two-one-two, just to the left of Sierra Four-Seven, another eleven-point-five line.” A moment’s pause. “Classified Chinese Yuan-class submerged submarine.”

  “Damn, this swimming pool is suddenly getting very crowded,” Biddle muttered.

  Then he hurried to let the CO know they were no longer shadowing a single PLAN submarine. It had turned into a wolf pack.

  Ψ

  The brilliant sunshine effectively blinded Jim Ward as his head emerged from the USS Hawaii’s personnel access hatch. The noontime tropical sun hung high over Singapore. The waters of Changi Bay twinkled with a thousand diamonds. Even the young SEAL-team commander’s Oakley sunglasses did not really help. Too many days spent in the “fluorescent sunshine,” as his dad, the former sub skipper, used to call the lighting inside a submarine.

  Ward’s team had been assigned to ride the Hawaii for another month, but with the SWCS shot up there was no reason for them to stay onboard. So, the submarine had pulled into Singapore to unload its SEAL team passengers. Now their first chore was to lug all their gear topside and pile it onto the pier. Then they would need to catch a ride to the airport where a flight was supposed to be ready to haul them back home.

  Jim Ward, his heavy pack strapped to his shoulders bending him over at the waist, was just stepping off the brow onto the wharf when someone stepped between him and the broiling sun.

  “Need a hand, sailor?”

  The voice startled Jim Ward. Somebody very familiar. Then he realized who it was as he slid out of his pack and stood up straight.

  “Dad! What in the world are you doing here?”

  Rear Admiral Jon Ward smiled broadly, enveloped his son in a tight bear hug, and pounded him on his back.

  “Pretty much the same thing you’re doing, son. Enjoying the tropical sunshine. Doing some sightseeing.” He pulled back and looked his boy in the face. “And you are a sight for sore eyes, Commander. Even if I have to fly halfway around the world at taxpayer expense to get a look at you.”

  “Speaking of flying, Dad, you being a flag officer and all, reckon you could arrange us a ride over to the air terminal? We got a plane over there that’s supposed to be waiting for us. I’m due for a month’s leave and I can’t wait to get home and have some of Mom’s cooking.”

  Jon Ward cleared his throat, frowned, and looked around the area where they stood. The rest of the SEALs were still on the submarine’s deck about to cross the brow to the wharf, carrying loads of gear to add to the steadily growing pile. Nobody else was nearby.

  “About that, Jim. We need to talk. Let’s step over here out of the way fo
r a minute. Maybe find some shade.”

  Jim knew his dad well enough to understand that he had just switched from father role to head-of-naval-intelligence role. The two men stepped out of the way of the heavily loaded, hard-working team as they brushed by them.

  “You men don’t mind if I borrow this pack mule for a minute, do you?” Jon Ward asked.

  “He’s just gettin' in the way anyhow, sir,” one of the SEALs replied. “He’s all yours.”

  The two men found a narrow sliver of shelter from the sun behind an idle forklift and a stack of shipping crates, well out of earshot.

  “Son, I’m afraid Mom’s cooking is going to have to wait for a bit,” the admiral said, a solemn look on his face. This conversation was decidedly serious now. “Much as I enjoy the opportunity to meet you at the pier, this is a business call, not a personal one.”

  “I assumed so.”

  “I have a couple of things to discuss. First off, the intel weenies have been deconstructing that sensor you brought back. First cut, it looks like some kind of acoustic monitoring system. We think the Chinese are making preps to set up one of their ‘we dare you to stop us’ bases on the North Luconia Shoals. We’ve given the Indonesians a heads-up.”

  The elder Ward took a breath and wiped perspiration from his forehead with a handkerchief. He noticed his son had hardly broken a sweat. “Now, the part that really affects your leave plans. A very reliable intel source tipped us to some possible Chinese activity. If it’s what she thinks it is...”

  “She?”

  “Gender is not important right now. If it is what she thinks is behind the activity, we need to be in a position to observe.”

  “And by ‘observe,’ I assume you mean ‘and possibly engage.’”

  Jon Ward grinned, nodded, then got serious again, glancing around the pier. Still no one within hearing distance.

  “You’re getting ahead of me. Another tendency you inherited from your mom. Here’s all I can tell you right now. You’ll get details at the briefing in an hour. It seems the Chinese are really working hard to piss off the Vietnamese. Troops right up against the border, strike fighters flying attack profiles before banking hard, right at the border. And shooting up anything Vietnamese that blunders into waters that they claim. They just wiped out a bunch of fishermen a couple of weeks ago.”

  Jim Ward nodded somberly. “Nothing new in any of that. What do you need us for? Worth giving up Mom’s pork chops and applesauce?”

  “Two things. First, the Chinese are being especially blatant about all of this. It is almost as if they are waiting for a satellite pass to initiate action. I’m surprised they aren’t calling up CNN and asking for a camera crew to be on hand. But the big reason? Our Vietnamese friends have asked for our help. We sent in a very special team to set up a covert signal intercept station near their border with China. They are there to give the Vietnamese early warning of any imminent Chinese attack. We have actually gotten quite good at intercepting both their comms and data links. Plus, with their carefully orchestrated command and control philosophy, they have no choice but to be quite talkative. An intercept station close to the border is capable of giving us fifteen minutes to half an hour of a heads-up. More than enough time.”

  The admiral took a breath and once again glanced around before continuing. Jim Ward’s SEAL team had gone back aboard the Hawaii and were now bringing over the last of the equipment that had been heaped in a mound near the sub’s hatch. The men were in a good mood, joking with each other, ready to head for home.

  “The Chinese may have gotten wind of our having ears there. Noisy and belligerent as they have been, we don’t think having us there fits into their plan. Our source says that they are sending a special ops team, and I don’t think they are just making a social call. We can’t let them find our team. Or, worse, capture anything or anyone. Especially that close to their border. You know they’ll claim we violated their sovereignty. They’re really good at doing that lately.”

  “Okay, Dad,” Jim said. “Can you give me a quick preview of the briefing, then?”

  Jon Ward closed his eyes and took a deep breath. This was one of the situations to which he had not yet grown accustomed. Parents of SEALs or other special military units typically had no idea where their sons or daughters were, what they were doing, what risks they might be undertaking at any given moment. Certainly not before and usually not afterward, either. He did not have such a blessing of ignorance. Most of the time, he knew exactly what his boy was doing, where he was, and the kind of danger he was facing. More often than not, he was the one giving him the orders.

  The admiral answered, “We need you and your merry band of miscreants to high-tail it up there to answer the door when they come calling. Let’s hope they don’t. But our source has not steered us wrong yet.”

  Jim looked perplexed. “Why aren’t the Vietnamese providing the security? It is their country, after all.”

  “Well, the fact is not everyone in Vietnam knows that we are there, and we would kind of like to keep it that way. Some of them would not approve. We are using an industrial park, a khu cong nghiep, as the Vietnamese call it, just outside Quang Dien, for our listening post. It’s a Texhong fabric mill that normally has a slew of CONEX boxes stacked in its lot. A few extras don’t raise any eyebrows. Far as we know, not even the workers know we are there. But it looks like somebody is aware now. I’ve got a flight laid on for you up to Haiphong. You will be met there.”

  Jon Ward stopped and dropped his head, almost as if he was suddenly exhausted. Jim touched his dad’s shoulder. Anyone watching the exchange would have assumed this had been a typical but emotional father-and-son visit.

  “When you gonna quit worrying about me, Dad? I’m not borrowing the car to go to the prom for the first time.”

  The elder Ward looked up with a quick grin.

  “I’ll quit worrying when your mom does. And you know when that’ll be?” The young SEAL shrugged. “When a red man with horns and a pointed tail comes running up screaming, ‘It froze over! It froze over!’”

  The two men hugged again and then stepped back out into the blistering heat of the Singaporean sun.

  11

  “Skipper, on this course, our Chinese friends are making directly for the Mindoro Straits.” Jackson Biddle looked up from the Projected Track display on the ECDIS aboard the submarine George Mason. “If our solution is worth the electrons we spent solving it, they will be in Philippine territorial waters in about half an hour.” The XO’s report contained an obvious unasked question: What the hell are we going to do, Skipper?

  Brian Edwards nodded as he gazed at the electronic display. The yellow generated solution track crossed the bright red territorial waters boundary into the open waters of the Sulu Sea. Operating a submerged submarine in someone’s territorial waters without permission was considered an act of war by international law. It certainly appeared that the Chinese wolf pack meant to do just that, counting on not being seen while they did. But Edwards and his boat were about to do the very same thing while tailing the PLAN boats.

  The George Mason’s CO knew that he had some decisions to make and not a lot of time to make them. And there was a good possibility that whatever he did would be wrong.

  Should he follow the Chinese into the Sulu Sea and risk a major international incident with an allied country that had been a bit prickly lately? Or should he peel off at the boundary line to call home? If he precisely followed his instructions to shadow the Chinese boats and got caught, he knew that he would not be able to hide behind his orders. COs were expected to know and follow international law. On the other hand, if he peeled off and called home, the Chinese would almost certainly be long gone by the time anyone got back to him. And COs were expected to complete their missions, if at all possible.

  Edwards stepped back and rubbed his chin, deep in thought. His mind was telling him to be cautious, pull off track, and call home to request instructions. His gut was screaming that
this bunch was up to no good and he was the only one in position to stop them.

  What should he do? What would his old skipper, Joe Glass, do in this situation?

  “Well, XO,” Edwards said with a crooked grin. “There are two old submarine sayings that cover this situation.”

  Biddle looked at him quizzically. In their time together, he had never seen Brian Edwards resort to riddles.

  “Okay.”

  “Yep,” Edwards went on. “‘No balls, no blue chips.’ And, ‘What’s the use of being a submarine if you can’t hide from everybody every once in a while.’”

  Biddle looked even more confused.

  “XO, here’s what we’ll do. We’ll get up ahead of our friends and pull off to the side a little. As they march through the door into Philippine waters, we’ll call home and tell them what is happening and that we intend to remain in trail as long as we hold contact. We’ll ask them to please clear with the Philippine government. The next comms period will be in twelve hours. By the time they get everything sorted out, we’ll be well on our way to figuring out what our Chinese friends are up to.”

  Biddle smiled as he caught on. “You really think it will take Group Seven twelve hours to figure out what we should do?”

  Edwards looked at his XO and, with considerable seriousness, said, “XO, I expect you to scrupulously follow the chain of command and copy every addee that was on our tasking order. There were enough four-star brass and three-letter government agencies on that list that it will be the second Tuesday of next week before they all figure out and agree on what to do. Now, you get in to radio and draft up the message while I get us off track and up to periscope depth.”

  Ψ

  Joe Glass was still finding his way around his new temporary digs in Pago Pago Harbor. One thing he found quickly was that the Chesty Puller was immense, much larger than any submarine tender he had ever been on. At over seven hundred and sixty feet long and displacing over eighty thousand tons, it was nearly twice the size of submarine tenders that Glass had pulled up alongside. And the helo deck on the roof took some getting used to.