Stephen Coonts - Combat

He picked the growler phone from its bracket, careful not to scrape metal against metal. “Engineering, conn,” he said softly.

Their chief engineer, Lieutenant He Daping, answered immediately. “Shi de,” yes. He sounded harried and in the background the captain could hear the sounds of running water.

“This is the captain. How is it going back there?”

“Without the pumps we’re eventually going to take on so much water that we won’t have the power to rise to the surface.”

“We must not run the pumps. How long do we have?”

“Six hours, Captain, maybe less,” Daping answered. Captain Heishui knew the man well and respected him. He came from a very good family, and his service record was totally clean, an accomplishment in itself.

“Seal off the engineering spaces, then introduce some high-pressure air in there. That should slow the leaks.”

“I was just about to do that,” Daping said. If they could not get out of the fix they were in now and get moving soon, sealing the aft section of the boat would doom the crewmen back there. If the flooding got too bad, there would be no way of opening the hatches.

“I’ll do what I can,” the captain promised. “But we might have to fight. H o yùngi ,” good luck.

“Yes, you too, Captain.”

“Conn, sonar.”

Heishui glanced up at the mission clock, then switched circuits. “This is the captain. Is Sierra Seven back early?” They had designated the American Aircraft carrier as Sierra Seven and had timed her movements. She was on a zigzag course that brought her back to the same point approximately every twelve hours. It was 1120 GMT, the standard time kept aboard all submarines, which put it at 1920 on the surface. If it was the George Washington, he was slightly early.

“She’s fifteen thousand yards out, Captain, but it’s Sierra Eighteen,” Chief Sonarman, Ensign Shi Zenzhong, reported excitedly. “He’s moving. He’s on the way up, very slowly, on an intercept bearing with Seven.” Sierra Eighteen was the American submarine, and the captain could not imagine what he was up to.

“Have they sent up a slot buoy?”

“No, sir. And they’re running silent. No one on the surface will hear them.” Zenzhong’s voice was cracking, and the captain considered pulling him off duty immediately. But the man was the best.

“Have we been detected?”

“I don’t think so, sir,” the sonarman replied. The captain’s calm demeanor was helping him and everyone in the control room.

“Stand by,” the captain said. He motioned his XO, Lieutenant Commander Kang Lagao, over. “Get down to sonar and give Ensign Zenzhong some help. Sierra Eighteen is on the way up.”

“Maybe they’re rendezvousing with the George Washington, ” Lagao suggested. He was the oldest man aboard the submarine, even older at forty-six than the captain. And he was wise even beyond his years. Exactly the steady hand they all need. The American command structure could take a lesson.

“That’s what I think, but something is strange about it,” Heishui said. “See what’s happening and then start a TMA.”

Lagao was startled. “You’re not going to shoot, are you?” A TMA, or Target Motion Analysis, was a targeting procedure used to guide torpedoes in which the enemy vessel’s speed and position were continually tracked and plotted against the relative speed and position of the tracking boat.

“Not yet. But I want to be prepared. There’s no telling what they’re up to, or when we might have to shoot.”

“Very well.”

When Lagao was gone, Heishui picked up the growler phone. “Forward torpedo room, this is the captain.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I want all six tubes loaded, but not flooded, with 65-Es.” Heishui glanced over at his weapons control officer and chief of boat, whose jobs he was doing. They were studiously watching their panels. The captain did not want to bring any shame to them, but he wanted to make absolutely sure that no mistakes were made. Their lives depended on it. “I want this done with no noise. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’ll send the presets momentarily, but if there is any noise whatsoever, whoever was responsible will be court-martialed and shot as a traitor — if we survive to make it home. Do you understand that as well?”

“Yes, sir. Very well.”

“Carry on,” Heishui said. He replaced the phone, confused about many things though not about why he was here. Taiwan needed to come home, as Hong Kong had, or else be punished as a naughty child.

Hearing anything with precision from beneath the sharp thermocline was difficult except for a ship the size of the George Washington. Named for her class, the Seawolf was the state of the art in nuclear-powered attack submarines. No other navy in the world had a boat that could match her stealth, her nuclear and conventional weapons, her speed, and her electronics. Especially not her BQQ-8 passive sonar suite, which, according to the sonarmen who used it, could hear a gnat’s fart at fifty thousand yards. Her mission had been to patrol an area well north of the Seventh and Third Fleets in case the PRC tried an end run on them. The long ELF message they had received forty-eight hours ago irritated the Seawolf’ s captain because it put his boat at risk without an explanation why. He was ordered to rendezvous with the George Washington without allowing the carrier or any other ship to detect her. And less than an hour from now he was to pick up two passengers. The only reason he hadn’t “missed” the damn fool message was the last line: McGarvey Sends.

“Skipper, we’re at seven hundred twenty feet,” the Chief of Boat Lieutenant Karl Trela reported.

“Okay, hold us here,” Commander Thomas Harding told him. The bottom edge of the thermocline where the water got sharply colder was just twenty feet above the top of their sail. They were at the edge of the safety zone where they were all but invisible to surface sonars. He picked up the phone. “Sonar, conn.”

“Sonar, aye.”

“Where’s the George ?”

“Four thousand yards and closing, skipper. He’s on his predicted course and speed.”

“What else is up there, Mel?” Commander Harding asked in a calm voice. The trademark of his boat was a relaxed vigilance. A few of the crewmen called him Captain Serenity, though not to his face.

“There’s some action southeast. I think it might be the Marvin Shields . And there’re faint noises southwest, maybe thirty thousand yards. My guess would be the Arleigh Burke, but I’m not real sure, sir.” The Shields was a Knox-class frigate, and the Burke was a guided-missile destroyer. Both were a part of the George Washington’ s battle group.

“Any subsurface contacts?”

“Negative, sir.”

“Very well. Keep your ears open. I want to know as soon as the George has passed us and gets ten thousand yards out. We’ll be heading up.”

“Aye, aye, skipper.”

Commander Harding got his coffee and leaned nonchalantly against the periscope platform rail, a man without a care in the world. Whoever McGarvey was sending down in secret would be bringing the explanation with them. And it better be damned good, he thought, or there will be hell to pay . But then he’d had dealings with the man before. And McGarvey was, if nothing else, a man of consummate cojones. The mission would be, at the very least, an interesting one.