Terminal Run

“Command Post, Sonar, yes. Recommend you commence a twenty-five-knot gallop to the north-northwest to attempt to close the probable locus of Target Number One.”

“Captain, aye,” Lien said. “Helm, all ahead full speed, turns for twenty-five knots.”

Zhou Ping returned. “Sonar has the picture, Captain. We’re on the gallop now. When will you slow down?”

“Twenty minutes,” Lien said. “We’ll spend fifteen minutes at eight knots, then speed up again. The American has to be to the north, probably in pursuit of the second task force.”

“If he is, sir, then he’s sped up to his maximum speed, hasn’t he?”

“Perhaps. But if it were me, I would linger to get a damage assessment, and to torpedo any lingering hulls.”

“If anything is left, it won’t be a high value target. Just a few oilers or supply ships.”

“If he departed the area, we may never catch him, but we can’t proceed north at maximum speed, because at some point he’ll clear his baffles, hear us coming in with our noisy pumps on, and he’ll have an easy down-the-throat shot. We have to preserve stealth, even in this miserable situation.”

“Yes, sir. But if we get him, I want to pull the torpedo trigger with my own hands, and spill his blood personally.”

“I can see why, Mr. First, but why do you hate the Americans any more than the rest of the officers?”

“Because this miserable failure happened on my watch, Captain. I want vengeance and I want my honor back.”

“Then you shall pull the torpedo trigger, Mr. First. Whether that returns you, your honor, I will leave that to you.”

15

Kelly McKee was shaken awake in the night, his curtain pulled aside by the messenger of the watch. He blinked in the light of the messenger’s red-hooded flashlight, sitting up on one elbow submariner style, since sitting upright would only result in a bang to the head on the low overhead of the coffin like rack enclosure. He felt the rack shaking, then realized it was the entire ship that was trembling. Judison must have increased speed to flank, up from the full bell, which was a violation of McKee’s orders to the fleet to proceed at high speed, but quietly, at the maximum revolutions possible in natural reactor circulation mode. He didn’t want his submarines clanking across the ocean, alerting the Snare or the British or even an Atlantic-penetrating Red Chinese submarine.

“What is it?”

“Admiral, the captain sends his respects at the hour of twenty hundred Zulu, and requests your presence on the conn, sir. There is top-secret message traffic and an update to the tactical situation, sir.”

“I’m up,” McKee said, throwing his legs out and jumping down from the bunk. “Tell Captain Judison I’ll be there in two minutes.”

“Yes, sir.” The messenger shut the stateroom door behind him as McKee turned on the desk lamp, the stateroom dimly illuminated. Karen Petri’s curtain opened, and she climbed out of her bunk and found her coveralls.

“We’re flanking it,” she said sleepily. McKee nodded at her as he pulled on his patrol-quiet boots.

“Judison has news on the conn,” he said. “You ready?”

Petri shook out her hair, pulled it back in a ponytail, and nodded.

McKee stepped out into the red-lit passageway and hurried forward to the ladder to the middle level, emerging on the forward bulkhead of the control room, which was also lit by red lights, but much dimmer than the passageway, the lights rigged to prevent loss of night vision for the officer of the deck in the case of an emergency periscope depth maneuver. Judison and his officers were gathered around the navigation chart.

“Good evening, sir,” he said crisply. “Hammerhead has increased speed to flank to get in position to intercept the Snare.”

McKee took the pad computer Judison handed over and read the Snare intelligence summary. Snare had transmitted a sitrep giving away her position, and a message had been intercepted from the hijackers telling Snare to rendezvous at Pico Island. An infrared satellite scan had captured the sub on the surface. She would be following the African coast on her way to the Indian Ocean, or so the Naval Intelligence experts supposed. It was great news, McKee thought, since they had finally located the out-of-control sub. All they had to do was sink her, and the first part of the mission was over, leaving only the Red Chinese and the British.

“What’s your plan to intercept the Snare, Commander?” McKee asked formally.

Judison pointed to the chart. “We’ve laid a course from Snare’s position that will take her to the Indian Ocean, along the fastest route. The variable is speed, because she may be going ten knots or fifty. For the sake of a tactical plan, we’ve assumed she’s doing a maximum-speed run, and we’re flanking it to intercept her track a hundred miles ahead of where she’ll be at that time. Then we’ll proceed slowly northward to intercept her as she comes south. It’ll be a long search if she’s slow and a short one if she’s barreling south like I think she is.”