Attack of the Seawolf

“What about the Stealth?” Dawson asked, frowning at General Bevin.

“Did you do an overflight?”

Bevin nodded at Dawson, then pointed to the Air Force aide, a colonel who vanished from the room and came back with a sealed enveloped marked top secret that he handed to Bevin. Three glossy black and-white photographs that Bevin handed to the President.

Dawson frowned at them, then passed them around the table. It seemed to take forever for the shots to reach Donchez.

The photographs were high-altitude shots of the Xingang pier where the Tampa was held. The destroyers were still tied up to her port and starboard sides, but now the starboard destroyer was tied up to the pier. A frigate was tied up to the pier forward of the Tampa, another one aft. The three hatches were open on the deck of the submarine, all of them guarded by P.L.A soldiers or sailors with large weapons in their hands. The second photograph was a similar shot from a different perspective. The third photograph was an infrared shot of the pier and the ships.

Heat was shown in orange or white, cool spots in blue, cold in black. The middle of the Tampa was a large white spot. Orange lines and spots continued aft in splotches. The reactor and steam plants, Donchez thought. Her reactor was critical and the steam plant was hot. Maybe she could still get out of this … “Mr. President,” he began uneasily, “I’d like to propose a rescue mission. I have a tentative plan—” “Well, Admiral,” Eve Trachea broke in, “I hate to say this, and correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems the ship’s selfdestruct didn’t exactly work out. If it had, there would be no need for a rescue, which will be much more hazardous than the original mission.”

Donchez bit his lip.

CIA Director Kent looked up from his notes.

“Mr. President, the Chinese have made no mention of this.

No diplomatic protests, no demands. Nothing.”

“How do you read that?”

“The facts just aren’t in yet—” “Bobby, just give me your best guess.”

“Well, maybe the Chinese P.L.A will try to use the submarine against the White Army, and so want to keep it quiet.”

“How could they make use of a sub against the White Armyi And don’t the Chinese already have nuclear subs?”

“Five of them, sir, the Han class. Roughly equivalent to the old Russian Victor’s. All useless in a fight with the White Army—” “Sir,” Donchez interrupted, “the Tampa has ten Javelin conventional cruise missiles on board. Those missiles are accurate enough so that if one were to be launched at me from Wyoming it would be able to hit my end of the room rather than yours. That well might be something that could help the Chinese against the Whites, but I feel the real issue is that the Communist Chinese are holding Americans, and an American vessel, a top-of-the-line nuclear sub with the latest weapons and firecontrol. We have to get her and the crew out of this.”

“Well, Admiral, I agree, but how the hell are we going to do it, short of landing the Marines? I don’t want a damned war.”

Ferguson spoke up: “Mr. President, it’s clear that diplomatic channels can’t be used to free the ship. If we ask for the boat back it’s an admission we sent her in there to spy, and that just might be the move the Chinese are waiting for. They could claim we sent her there covertly to fire missiles on Beijing. They’d get international sympathy, maybe they’d even get the U.N. in there to fight the White Army.”

“Sir,” Eve Trachea said, her tone one of sweet reasonableness.

“We were spying on the Chinese and got caught. We sank one of their navy’s ships trying to escape and they’ve captured and neutralized our sub.

Now they will probably hold the ship as a bargaining tool to keep us from entering this conflict on the White Army side. Since we aren’t planning to do that anyway, we should be able to send an envoy to Beijing who can convince them to release the sub and its crew.

We may need to admit what we were doing in their waters, however.”

Donchez fought down his anger.

“Sir, the submarine’s reactor is critical. The third photo shows it. Her crew is probably on board to run the reactor for power — maybe they can’t bring on shore power the voltage may be different. So, with the crew aboard, the reactor critical, what we need to do is put another submarine in there, sink the destroyers at the pier and Tampa sails out on her own steam.”

“Admiral,” Eve Trachea said, “how would you propose to get a submarine there now? The Chinese will be waiting for you. All you’ll have are two hostage subs. Or, if you do get in, your ship will kill a lot of their troops and probably sink the Tampa too. And then the rescue ship wouldn’t get out of the bay-Remember Carter’s failure in Iran, Desert One? A black eye for the Dawson Administration, contempt at home and hatred from the international community.”

“I like Donchez’s plan,” Defense Secretary Ferguson said.