Red Shark

Scott stepped aside to examine a console on which was displayed a wide-area geographic view of the Reno’s position relative to the coast of China. A blue pinpoint of light representing the Reno surrounded by green-lighted friendlies moved slowly northwest. South of Rizhao, in Haizhou Wan, a blinking red pinpoint indicated the position of the unidentified sound contact now classified by the fire-control party as Sierra One.

Scott turned to Kramer. “Rus, let’s take a look at Sonar.”

They entered the dimly lit sonar room, its positions fully occupied by watchstanders. The sonar supervisor hovered over the chief petty officer who was wearing headphones and a mike, and facing a vertical row of twin sonar monitors. Each monitor’s multicolored waterfall graphics currently displayed what the Reno’s spherical bow array had picked up earlier. The sonarmen’s faces were intent as they sifted the target’s tonals, searching for identifiable attributes.

“Chief, is it a diesel or nuke?” Scott asked.

“Diesel, sir.”

“Chinese or NK?”

“Working on it, sir,” the chief said. “Huntin’ for a match.”

The chief pointed to the upper monitor, where a thin, white vertical band moved slowly down the screen.

“Target’s been fadin’ in and out, but there’s something familiar about it. I think we’ve got ourselves another Kilo 636,” said the chief.

“Like the one we ran into off Matsu Shan,” said Kramer.

“Maybe the same one,” said the chief. “Something about its tonals — there we go.”

As the analysis continued, the tone line brightened noticeably. Below it, the monitored sound’s intensity and frequency showed an increase as well.

“Got him, Captain. Single blade turn rate indicates a speed of five knots,” the chief said. “It’s a match all right, the same goddamn Chinese Kilo we picked up off Matsu Shan.”

“What’s he doing here?” Kramer said.

“Training exercise,” suggested the sonar officer. “He’s probably based at Dingdao.”

“But I thought all PLAN subs are based at Huludao,” said Kramer.

“Just nukes,” the officer said.

“How long ago did we pick him up?” Scott asked.

“About an hour,” Kramer said.

“And he hasn’t moved?”

“Hardly an inch, sir,” the sonar officer answered.

Scott pondered a moment, then said, “All right, let’s move in — real careful — and see what he’s up to.”

“Any ideas, Captain?” said Kramer.

“The Chinese get real twitchy when they think someone’s messing around in their private lake up here. We saw how this guy got cozy with us until we took out the White Dragon. He sure as hell doesn’t know we’re here now or he’d be on the move. Maybe, just maybe, he’s looking for someone else who doesn’t belong here.”

44

China’s littoral waters

Aboard the Kilo, Captain Deng Zemin watched a faint green blip slide across the dual sonar monitors. Though the blip was still too weak to identify through all the background clutter, the Rubikon’s audio spectrum analyzer recycled and recycled until a tone line appeared on the monitor and under it, in flashing red, the message IDENTIFIED.

The sonarman said, “Captain, this tone line matches one of our earlier ones.”

“Are you sure?”

“Sir, the two sets of intermittent contacts are an exact match.”

Zemin looked at the overlay of lines and saw that indeed they matched perfectly. He turned to his first officer. “Do you agree that we have a match?”

“I do, Captain. I’m convinced it’s the submarine we tracked earlier.”

“Our orders from Admiral Chou are to find, identify, and take appropriate action against this target. And we will. Identify this contact as DPRK One.” Zemin stood erect, satisfied that his end-around tactic had worked: The North Korean sub had reappeared on sonar, east of due south.