Attack of the Seawolf

“Fleet Commander, excuse me, your orders are not to assist me. Your orders are to deploy the fleet as I request and find those submarines.”

Chu glared over the chart at Tien Tse-Min, hating the idea of deferring in a military matter to a political crony of the Chairman. But now that he was here there was nothing Chu could do except perhaps stand back and let the political commissar ruin the operation.

Chu reminded himself that if the operation failed, it was to Tien’s account, not his own. And yet, finding the two submarines coming out of the gap was the core of Chu’s job, it was a mission he had trained decades for, it was his profession, his life’s work. But then, if he interfered with Tien, all that would be over.

And even if Tien thought he was in command, perhaps he could guide the political officer’s actions and still get the American subs. Even if Tien got the credit, it would be a small price to pay.

Besides, three decks below, in the ready room of the Fourth Antisubmarine Forger Squadron, Chu’s son, Aircraft Commander Chu HuaFeng, waited to board his aircraft and seek out and kill the submarines. No matter what happened, he would try not to let a mistake by Tien endanger his son. His son was a warrior and a pilot, but he wasn’t invulnerable.

His thoughts collected, Chu spoke, his voice level.

“Leader Tien, I — and my fleet — are at your disposal.”

Tien nodded.

“Very well, then. I will be cleaning up. After a hot meal I will return to review the deployment of the fleet.”

Tien turned and left the Fleet Commander’s quarters.

As the door slammed, Chu shook his head and went back to his chart.

CHAPTER 27 MONDAY, 13 MAY 0505 GREENWICH MEAN TIME

GO HAD BAY

SIXTY-SEVEN MILES WEST OF THE LUSHUN/PENGLAI GAP

USS SEAWOLF

1305 BEIJING TIME

Pacino stood up from his stateroom’s conference table as the knock sounded at the door. He was still staring at the chart taped to the tabletop when Jack Morris, Greg Keebes, Bill Feyley and Ray Linden walked in.

All were noticeably tense as they gathered around the table. On the aft wall Pacino had taped a large chart of the Go Hai and Korea bays, the Lushun area in the center. The channel leading through the Lushun/ Penglai Gap’s forty-mile length was about twenty inches long on the wall chart. The conference table’s blown up photocopy was larger, the forty-mile-long channel taking up too much of the large table’s surface.

The chart was covered with a sheet of clear mylar. Colored grease pencils lay scattered on the table.

Pacino went up to the wall chart and took a pen from his coverall pocket to use as a pointer. The eastern mouth of the bay ended at Lushun to the north, Penglai to the south. The Lushun peninsula was a finger of land pointing southwest, the P.L.A Northern Fleet main base on the furthest south point of a bulbous tip at the end of the peninsula. Sixty miles south of Lushun Point was the northern hump of the broad

Shantung Peninsula, the blunt point of land that separated the Go Hai from the Korea Bay at Penglai, and extended further east to separate the Korea Bay from the Yellow Sea to the south. In the center of the restricted waters between Lushun and Penglai were the islands of Miaodao. The passage for shallow draft ships was fairly broad north of the islands, and there was also plenty of water for transit south, closer to Penglai. On the chart Pacino had drawn a red mark along the twenty-fathom curve, the minimum depth they would need to transit submerged through the gap.

For the twenty-fathom depth, there were two channels open to passage east. The larger of the two was the Bohai Haixia Strait, a tube of water forty nautical miles long and six miles wide at its narrow throat. The smaller channel lay to the south, the Miaodao Strait, south of the islands in the middle of the gap. Although the Miaodao Strait was wider at the mouth and the exit, it narrowed to a mere thousand yards in width north of Penglai.

Pacino said: “In less than three hours we’ll be at the mouth of the gap. In the next half hour I want to come up with our final exit plan. Our only constraint is our previous arrangement with the Tampa. The four of you consider yourselves the Chinese. Your force strength is listed in front of you. Leading the fleet is the aircraft carrier Shaoguan. It has four squadrons of Yak antisubmarine vertical takeoff jets, each jet equipped with MAD detectors.” He looked at Morris.

“Jack, that’s a magnetic probe that senses a disturbance in the earth’s magnetic field caused by large deposits of iron, like submarine hulls. Only works when the ship is shallow and when the jet is directly overhead, but it will confirm a sub’s position when sonar probes sniff it out. The carrier also has two squadrons of Harbin Z-9A choppers, also MAD equipped each designed to kill subs with torpedoes and depth charges.