Attack of the Seawolf

“You’re just going to play dead and hope they don’t shoot?”

Pacino nodded.

“Conn, Sonar,” his headset intoned, “sonar is back.”

Pacino stared at the screen, the digital images of the broadband sonar suite now forming on the chart, the screen taking a few moments to generate history as the sounds fell down the waterfall display.

“What have you got out there. Chief?”

“Bad news. Helicopters every point of the compass.

One real close, must have a magnetic anomaly detector.

Closer now, sir. Definite helicopter hovering directly overhead, and he isn’t moving.”

“Talk about worst case scenario,” Pacino muttered.

“Conn, Sonar, the other aircraft are closing.”

Pacino shook his head. Morris watched him, seemed to be studying him.

“Conn, Sonar, we have approximately thirty helicopters and one jet aircraft on our screens, not counting anyone in the baffles, and they’re all hovering within a thousand yards … Sir, I’ve just gotten two splashes directly overhead. We’re getting depth charged

The depth charge detonated, and Pacino’s only impression was that Jack Morris’s face vanished, to be replaced by the deck, and when the darkness came he couldn’t tell whether it was because the lights went out or that he was no longer alive.

BOHAI HAIXIA STRAIT

The explosion from the depth charge lifted ten thousand liters of water skyward in an angry fan of phosphorescent foam. Chu pulled his stick to his thigh, circling the Yak in a tight circle to port, trying to find evidence of the submarine’s presence. To the east and west several dozen helicopters were inbound. The other Yaks of his squadron had already gone back to Lushun, their fuel low. Chu’s tanks were going dry but he didn’t care. He would orbit the position of the submarine until his turbines sucked fumes if he could just see the American ship sink. It would be worth ditching the jet in the bay as long as he could have a piece of the damned Americans.

Chu climbed for a better view as the helicopters of the task forces, the squadrons from the Shaoguan and the land-based Hinds jockeyed for position along the channel as they searched for the sub, preparing to drop their ordnance. Chu half-expected the air commander to order indiscriminate depth-charging if for no other reason than to relieve their frustration over the submarine so far evading them. Finally he did order that, the helicopters with depth charges forming up into a line of aircraft, each to drop a depth charge in the channel midpoint with horizontal longitudinal separation of a hundred meters. The air commander then ordered that once the depth charges were gone, all torpedoes would be shot, going from west to east.

No submerged vessel should last long with that kind of weapon saturation.

For the first time in his flight Chu smiled in satisfaction as the helicopters moved into their depth-charging positions. Even if his Yak only had another ten minutes of fuel, he would still be airborne when the submarine sank, and he would have a grandstand seat.

* * *

“Razor Blade, this is Shaving Cream, over.”

Commander Jim Collins heard his squadron’s call sign on the UHF tactical control frequency and lined up his radio to transmit. This was probably the order to abort the mission, he thought. The F-14s of VF-69 were only a minute from their hold points, and he had expected only one radio exchange, either go or no-go.

“Shaving Cream, this is Razor Blade, read you five by over.”

“Roger, Razor Blade, break, you are authorized to proceed to the store and purchase all groceries on the list, I say again, you are authorized to proceed to the store and purchase all groceries on the list, break, over.”

“Roger, Shaving Cream, Razor Blade out.” Collins cut out the transmitting circuit-breaker on the radio console, annoyed that he had been asked to transmit.

But what the hell, he thought, the Chinese would soon know they were there.

“You hear that, Bugsy?”

“Yeah, Mugsy. We’re going in.”

“Arm everything and track everything.”

Collins put the stick down and dived for the deck, pulling up at an altitude of only twenty-five feet, the waves of the Korea Bay coming at the plane at Mach 2, the shock wave astern sending up twin rooster tails in the sea. A few minutes later the firecontrol radar was locked on to multiple airborne targets, all of them orbiting a single point in the sea.

“Mugsy, we’re in range, I’m tracking thirty-seven helicopters and a fixed wing aircraft all within a couple miles of each other. No surface contacts, all airborne.

The Mockingbird missiles are all armed, all locked on, I’m calling Juliet.”

“Roger, releasing now.”

Collins hit his stick button a dozen times, launching the supersonic air-to-air Mockingbird missiles, the sky lighting up with each launch, the plane’s inventory quickly gone.

“Missiles away.”

To the north and south other flashes of light shone briefly as the other planes of the squadron of F-14s also fired their missiles, the squadron still on approach at supersonic speed.

* * *