Attack of the Seawolf

For a moment Tien simply stared into Commander Soo’s eyes, trying to look into the man’s mind and see if he were telling the truth. Off in the distance of the bay water the formerly captive submarine kicked up a spray of water from its tail and surged ahead, obviously free of the sandbar it had been stuck on, and began sailing off into the distance. Tien felt like grabbing the patrol boat commander’s face and smashing it, but he realized it was too late. The patrol boat would probably be sunk just like the Nantong. As he watched, the submarine’s hull shrank into the distance until, even in bright moonlight, he could no longer see it. Commander Soo continued to stand in front of him.

Finally Tien turned away, walking down the pier to a P.L.A command vehicle he had commandeered from the armored force, got in, stared at Soo one more time, and drove off.

Soo’s sense of relief was what any condemned man might feel at the news of an unexpected reprieve.

An hour later at Hangu navy base Tien was linked into a UHF secure voice circuit to Fleet Commander Chu Hsueh-Fan at Lushun. Chu had been asleep and was annoyed to be awakened. Tien’s report on what had happened made him wish he were still asleep and this was only a nightmare.

Tien waited for the jet that Chu had sent for him, a vertical takeoff jet that would take him to the aircraft carrier Shaoguan, Fleet Commander Chu’s ship.

He might have lost the American submarine out of Xingang, but there was no way that sub would get out of the Go Hai Bay alive, not through the tight channel at the Lushun/Penglai Gap. The northern fleet at Lushun was a formidable force, enough to kill the submarines, not the P.L.A Navy skeleton force that had been tied up at Xingang.

There would be two destroyed subs by the time he returned to Beijing, Tien told himself. If not, he might as well never go back to Beijing at all.

USS TAMPA

A half hour after leaving the harbor of Xingang, Vaughn had managed to get the control room operational — at least, the equipment was operational. The crew were still in shock from their captivity. Vaughn scanned the horizon with his binoculars. The night sky had grown overcast with the approach of a storm. That could only help, lowering visibility for the forces that would inevitably begin searching for them. Vaughn called into his VHF radio down to the control room:

“Control Bridge. Morris, where are you?”

“I’VE GOT YOU, OVER.” Morris’ voice was calm.

“What’s going on there? We need to submerge ASAP.”

“I KNOW. LENNOX IS READY TO TAKE THE CONN. I’VE GOT SEALS ON THE HELM AND planes AND I’LL BE ON THE BALLAST PANEL.”

SEALs driving the submarine out? Vaughn had to find out what had happened to the men held up forward — he’d heard they were all like zombies. It would be a hell of a transit without a competent crew. But before he could take on that, he had to get the submarine down. He pulled all the clamshells up except the one on the starboard side of the bridge. He had rigged the bridge for dive, with the exception of latching up the final clamshell and shutting the upper hatch to the bridge-access tunnel. Baron von Brandt’s body had been lowered down the tunnel and was in the frozen stores room. Vaughn called Lennox to the radio and passed on his course and speed and approximate position, then handed over the conn. After a last look at the surface he closed the clamshell, ducked into the bridge-access trunk and shut the hatch above him.

He came down the ladder two rungs at a time and dropped to the deck of the upper level passageway, shutting the lower hatch and spinning the operating wheel to engage the dogs. He stepped into the control room.

“Last man down, hatch secured, Chief of the Watch uh, Commander Morris,” he said once he’d dropped to the deck of the control room.

He looked at Executive Officer Lennox. The man’s eyes were sunk into his skull, dark bags below them; his mouth was slack, his posture a slouch. Still, there was some intelligence in his eyes, which was more than could be said for some of the men who had been held forward, if Morris’s report was to be believed.

“XO, you want to take her down or do you want me to?” Vaughn asked.

“You do it, Eng,” Lennox said dully.

“Aye, sir.” Vaughn looked around at the control room for a moment, the operating stations manned with SEALs who didn’t have the slightest idea what they were doing. In spite of his audience he announced formally, solemnly, “This is Lieutenant Commander Vaughn. I have the deck and the conn.” He waited a moment, then spoke to the SEAL at the helmsman’s station.

“You at the helm. Say, ‘helm aye.”

” “Helm aye,” Buffalo Sauer said, trying not to smile.

“XO, raise the number-two periscope. Commander Morris, open all main ballast tank vents. Oh hell, move over a second.”