Terminal Run

Leopard had been sailing a southern course parallel to the Chinese battle group track, but fifty miles east, outside of their detection range, but at the very point that their own sonar systems had to strain to hear the loud convoy. The ship had been called to periscope depth to receive an E-mail intelligence update and to send a situation report, and the time shallow at six knots had allowed the convoy to disappear far over the horizon, and had called for a flank run to catch up. Fortunately, they had made their last trip to periscope depth until time-on-target. Since the flank pursuit began, every ninety minutes the Leopard slowed to ten knots and maneuvered back and forth in a target motion analysis wiggle to allow their passive sonar system and the battle control computer to recalculate the battle group position and course. Once the battle group movement was determined, Leopard would speed back up to flank. She would keep up this sprint-and-drift tactic until she was fifty nautical miles ahead of the fleet, when Dixon’s orders had them turning to intercept the track of the battle group and coming to periscope depth as the Chinese ships sailed directly toward them. By the time the huge surface ships were about to run over Leopard, Dixon’s torpedoes would begin connecting.

“Torpedo room ready?”

“It’s like being at the Academy the night before final exams before Christmas, Captain. Everyone’s tense and nervous and excited and happy at the same time.”

“Keep up the max parallel scan for Chinese attack submarines, OOD. Intel has the battle group steaming with the Julang-class, and we don’t know what she sounds like.”

“Yes sir. We’ve got the transient processors straining, and we’researching the probable tonal frequencies, but so far all we’ve heard are the surface ships.”

“The battle group is the haystack. Find the needle.”

“We’reworking it, Cap’n, but the flank run isn’t helping. Our signal-to-noise ratio blows with us blasting through the ocean.”

“We’ll continue on the parallel course to the battle group until we’re a hundred miles further south of them. Then turn to intercept their track at a right angle. We’ll close the track at flank so it will only take an hour, then we’ll slow to four knots and orbit at the hold position. When we get to the battle group track, they’ll still be sixty-five nautical miles north, a two-hour trip for them to overrun our position. In that two hours we’ll be rigged for ultra quiet and pacing back and forth across the battle group incoming vector. Odds are, an antisubmarine escort sub will be twenty or thirty miles ahead, but he’ll come clanking in at his flank speed. We’ll catch him first.”

“Will we fire on him if we see him?”

“No. We’ll let him go by, but we’ll keep tabs on him. If we shoot him and miss, he’ll alert the convoy and they’ll disperse, and they’ll get away. As soon as we release weapons against the Chinese battle group we’ll put the remainder into the Julang-class SSN. Then we can put our feet up on the table and smoke cigars.”

“It’s an excellent plan, Captain,” Kingman said. “Damned glad I thought of it.”

“Recompute the intercept time and get the navigator up here to examine the new courses. The XO will brief the crew in the mess decks. We’ll man battle stations at zero three hundred.”

Captain Dennis Pulaski stood up from the console he’d been leaning over. The overhead satellite image appeared on the two-meter-tall bulkhead display screen, the resolution startlingly detailed on the high-definition display.

Admiral Ericcson slowly unwrapped a fresh cigar as he scanned the screen.

“Good weather shot,” he said slowly. “Suez Canal is busy today.”

“Busy every day, sir,” Pulaski said. “Twenty tankers in the queue waiting to enter the canal from the Med side. Another fifty at anchor waiting their turn. The Red Sea side is lighter, but not by much. And the canal itself is filled nose-to-tail with tankers big and small. The Red Sea channels are choked with hundreds of vessels.”

“Any cruise ships?”

“Nothing showing up here, sir.”

“Chore number one, Dennis, is to find out where the nearest passenger vessels are.”

“I’mon it, Admiral.”

“What about the British? Where are they on the Suez approach?”

Pulaski leaned over the console and adjusted the display.

The vantage point of the view climbed as northern Africa and the Mediterranean came into the picture and the Suez shrank. Pulaski made an arrow appear on the display.

“The better part of the Royal Navy carrier battle groups are transiting here, north of the Libyan Gulf of Sidra, west of Crete, Admiral. But we don’t have anything on the positions of their submarines. There’s a chance they were sent on ahead.”

“What’s the British speed of advance?”

“Thirty-eight knots, sir.”

“Not bad. Nothing like what we’redoing, though.”

“Oilers and tender ships are keeping the group’s speed down.”