Stephen Coonts - Combat

“If we start a shooting war, it could escalate. Go nuclear.”

“McGarvey, there’s a real chance that every time we untie one of our carriers from the dock and send her to sea we’ll get ourselves into a nuclear war. Are you telling me that Taiwan isn’t worth the risk?”

“That’s the current feeling in Washington.”

Ryland glanced again at his officers. “A dose of refreshing honesty for a change. It’s a wonder that you’ve kept your job for so long. What are we doing here then?” he asked angrily. “Sooner or later there’ll be another accident. Then another, and another until all hell breaks loose! That’s the way it works, you know.”

“The Nanchong was no accident, Admiral. The Chinese sank her. That’s why the President sent me out here, to work out a solution that’ll keep everybody happy — Taipei and Beijing.”

“If that’s true, it explains a couple of things that we were wondering about,” Byrne said. He and Ryland exchanged a look.

“How many men were aboard her?” Ryland asked.

“We’re not sure, but probably no more than a dozen. Just enough to take her to sea, but not enough to fight her.”

“Gives the PRC a supposedly legitimate reason to be here,” Byrne observed.

“And us, too,” Ryland agreed. “What do we do about it?”

“We’re going to sink one of our own.”

Ryland sat forward so fast that he practically levitated from his chair. But he hesitated for just a moment before he spoke. McGarvey could almost hear him counting to ten. “I don’t think that you’re saying what I just heard. The Chinese may be willing to kill their people, not us.”

“Thirty-six hours from now there’ll be an underwater explosion a hundred miles from here. Five minutes later one of our submarines, the Seawolf, will send up a slot buoy to report that they have engaged an unknown enemy, were damaged, and are in immediate danger of sinking. Before the message is completed the communications buoy will break loose from the submarine, there’ll be another intense underwater explosion, and then nothing.”

Byrne got a chart of the area, and McGarvey pinpointed the approximate location for them. The George Washington ’s captain saw the plan immediately.

“That’s sandwiched between us and the Kennedy. No Chinese assets that we’re aware of within a hundred fifty miles.” Townsend looked up. “That gives the Seawolf a clear path into the open Pacific. Is that what you have in mind?”

McGarvey nodded. “There’ll be an extensive search, of course, and some wreckage will be found. Twenty-four hours later we’ll announce that the Swordfish was lost with all hands, and was probably torpedoed.”

“The Swordfish? She was pulled from duty six months ago,” Byrne said. “She’s back at Groton.”

“That’s right. And when this is over with, she’ll be taken in secret and sunk just off our continental shelf.”

“If we blame the Chinese, they’ll have to figure that we’ve pulled the same stunt on them that they pulled on the Taiwanese,” Byrne said.

“It won’t matter,” McGarvey told them. “Everybody will back off to let the situation cool down and allow the politicians to hash it out.”

“That’ll only buy us a few days, maybe a week, and then we’ll be right back in the same situation we’re in right now,” Ryland opined. “What will we have gained?”

“After seven days the PRC Navy will return to their home bases and so will we.”

Ryland glanced at the President’s letter on the coffee table. “That’s the part I’m not supposed to ask any questions about.”

“You wouldn’t want to know, Admiral. As soon as it gets dark we’ll be out of your hair.”

Ryland turned to Hanrahan. “You’re in on this, Lieutenant?”

Hanrahan stiffened. “Yes, sir.”

Ryland waved him off. “Relax, I’m not going to order you to tell me. Except how in the hell do you think you’re going to get off this ship without the Chinese knowing something is going on? If you’re not flying, you’ll have to be transferred to one of our frigates or destroyers, and they’ll see that, too.”

“Sir, we’re exiting the ship from the port hangar deck just forward of the Sea Sparrow launcher.”

“What the hell—” Townsend exploded.

“Relax, Pete, I think I know at least part of what they’re up to,” Ryland said. “The Seawolf is coming to pick you up.” He shook his head. “That’s a dicey maneuver no matter how you slice it.” He turned to the captain again. “We’ll have to warn sonar.”

“That won’t be necessary, Admiral. Your people haven’t detected her yet, have they?” McGarvey asked.

“No,” Townsend said, tight-lipped. “Where is she?”

McGarvey glanced at his watch. It was a few minutes after seven in the morning. “Actually we’re passing over her about right now. She’s been lying beneath a thermocline nine hundred feet down since yesterday morning.”

“We’re on a twelve-hour pattern,” Townsend said. “We’ll be right back here around seven this evening.”

“That’s about when we go overboard,” McGarvey said. “When you’re clear, she’ll come up to about fifty feet, we’ll dive down to her and lock aboard.”

“Does Tom Harding know what’s going on?” Ryland asked. Harding was the Seawolf’ s skipper, and a very good if somewhat conservative sub driver.

“No.”

“Well, I can think of at least a hundred things that could go wrong. But considering the alternatives we’ll do whatever it takes to get you down to her in one piece.”

“In secret,” McGarvey said. “As few people outside this room as possible are to know that we’ve gone overboard.”

“I’ll arrange that,” Townsend said, and he shook his head. “I think you’re nuts.”

McGarvey nodded. “You’re probably right, Captain.”

Lying just off the floor of the ocean one thousand feet beneath the surface, the PRC Han-class nuclear submarine Hekou was leaking at the seams, the air was going stale, and the radiation levels inside the hull continued to rise, the last fact of which was being withheld from the crew. Her home base was at East Sea Fleet Headquarters in Ningbo, and she had been among the first to sail when the trouble begin. By luck she had been lying on the bottom eight days ago hiding from the American ASW aircraft above while the engineers were frantically correcting a steering problem when sonar picked up the George Washington passing almost directly overhead. When the steering problem had been fixed, and the aircraft carrier was well past, the Hekou’ s skipper sent up a communications buoy to get instructions. He was told to stay where he was, maintain complete silence, and wait for the moment to strike.

The message unfortunately was not clear on when that moment might be. In the meantime Captain Yuan Heishui was having problems keeping his boat alive, and there was the American submarine five hundred meters off its starboard bow, also hovering just off the bottom mush.

Twenty-four hours ago sonar had detected the American Seawolf -class submarine approaching their position very deep and very slowly. The approach had been so slow and so stealthy that the Americans had been on top of them before they knew what was happening. Even before Heishui could order his torpedo tubes loaded and prepared to fire, the Seawolf went quiet and settled silently in place, apparently completely unaware that they were not alone.

Since that time Captain Heishui had ordered all nonessential machinery and movements aboard his boat to stop.