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  Barracuda: Final Bearing

  ( Michael Pacino - 4 )

  Michael Dimercurio

  In a frighteningly plausible tale, a new independent state emerges from the Chinese Democratic Revolution and the fall of the Soviet Empire. This state calls itself Greater Manchuria, and is nuclear-armed thanks to its new leader. It also stands in close proximity to Japan, which has come to feel abandoned by the West. In order to assure its public that Greater Manchuria will never use its weapons against Japan, the Japanese execute a plan involving the launch of a new and devastating weapon known as the Scorpion. Yet the Japanese plan has more than military repercussions, as worldwide outrage at the Japanese attack provokes the U.N. to blockade the trade-dependent nation. But Japan resolves to destroy the blockade and does, using its superior submarine fleet and a squadron of Firestar fighters. Admiral Michael Pacino returns as advisor to Captain David Kane, whose "mission impossible" is to sink the Japanese sub fleet.

  Barracuda, Final Bearing is an absolutely accurate representation by a veteran Navy officer of submarine combat, both as it exists today and as it will surely exist in the very near future.

  Michael DiMercurio

  Barracuda: Final Bearing

  To the woman who gave me my life back, the one I dearly love, Patti Quigley

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  With special thanks to Nancy P. Wallitsch, Esq., who is one of those rare people on this earth who are so amazingly good at what they do that it is an exquisite pleasure to watch them work. Nancy, of all those people, is the best.

  Deepest thanks to Michael Perovich, who labored as much as I did delivering the book.

  Heartfelt thanks to the Quigleys, who showed me what family really means.

  Thanks to Matthew and Maria, who persevered through the toughest times, and gave me unconditional love through it all.

  Thanks also to Bill Lord, who with skill and certainty, irrevocably and dramatically changed two lives for the better. His good deed will, in may ways, outlive us all.

  And to living legend Don Fine, who opened the door to me and made all of this possible.

  EPIGRAPH

  “CHAPTER II. RENUNCIATION OF WAR ARTICLE 9.

  Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes.

  In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.”

  — ARTICLE 9 OF THE JAPANESE CONSTITUTION

  “Rest peacefully, for the error shall not be repeated.”

  — JAPANESE SCRIPT ON THE GRANITE FACE OF THE PARK OF PEACE CENOTAPH, HIROSHIMA, JAPAN

  “The United States is being utterly conceited, obstinate and disrespectful. It is regrettable indeed. We simply cannot tolerate such an attitude.”

  — Y. HARA, PRESIDENT OF THE PRIVY COUNCIL, DECEMBER 1941

  “Both the United States and Japan are victims of forces they can neither control nor resist. The tragedy of this war, as in many of history’s greatest wars, is that it will be fought by two altogether decent nations, neither of which harbors real ill will toward the other. Yet the fear that seems to dominate the human condition quite as much as love is supposed to will overwhelm the decency of each … if there is any hope in avoiding a second U.S.-Japanese war, it rests in our leaders becoming frightened.”

  “The vanquished seem repeatedly to rise anew, to try their hand at making history again.”

  “Everything happens twice.”

  — GEORGE FRIEDMAN/MEREDITH LEBARD, THE COMING WAR WITH JAPAN

  “Sooner or later, the United States must come to grips with the fact that Japan has become the leading industrial nation in the world. The Japanese have the longest lifespan. They have the highest employment, the highest literacy, the smallest gap between rich and poor. Their manufactured products have the highest quality. They have the best food. The fact is that a country the size of Montana with half our population, will soon have an economy equal to ours … The United States is now without question the weaker partner in any economic discussion with Japan.”

  — MICHAEL CRICHTON, RISING SUN

  “You are being offered a glorious way to die.”

  — VICE ADM. RYUNOSUKE KUSAKA, IMPERIAL JAPANESE NAVY COMBINED FLEET, CHIEF OF STAFF, TO VICE ADM. SEIICHI PRO, COMMANDER SECOND FLEET, PRIOR TO OPERATION TEN’ICHIGO (HEAVEN NUMBER ONE), IN WHICH THE BATTLESHIP YAMATO WAS SENT ON A SUICIDE MISSION TO OKINAWA. AS YAMATO CAPSIZED AND EXPLODED, ADMIRAL ITO CHOSE TO REMAIN ABOARD, RETIRING TO HIS SEA CABIN. CAPT. KOSAKU ARIGA, COMMANDING OFFICER OF THE YAMATO, LIKEWISE WENT DOWN WITH HIS SHIP, LASHING HIMSELF TO AN ANTIAIRCRAFT COMMAND STATION ON THE BRIDGE.

  BOOK ONE

  HIROSHIMA

  SECRET NUKES ALLEGED

  Surrounded by Enemies, Poom Manages Without Military

  Edmund Tarawicz, WorldWide Press

  Changashan, Greater Manchuria — Ever since the new state of Greater Manchuria was formed from the remnants of an ex-Soviet republic and an East China province. President Len Pei Poom has been considered one of the most brilliant diplomats of the decade. But persistent rumors have circulated that Len’s organization of this fledgling nation was backed up by a seized stockhold of weaponry from the Russian Republic.

  Although Len’s administration has continued to deny such rumors, unnamed sources have reported the existence of a secret weapons depot in the Ozero Chanka valley north of the port city of Artom, formerly Vladivostok. What may be stored at the depot is unknown, but some political analysts assert that the facility maintains a cache of nuclear-tipped medium-range missiles, despite the nuclear exclusion treaties of the past fifteen years.

  If Len does indeed have possession of nuclear weapons, it would certainly explain why he was able to ensure Greater Manchuria’s survival in the face of the hostility of West China, the renewed nationalism of the Russian Republic and the second thoughts of formerly friendly East China, particularly in view of the fact that Greater Manchuria has essentially no army…

  InterGov Network E-Mail — Security Monitored — Top Secret/ Release 12

  From: DirNSA R. Donchez

  To: President/National Security Council

  CC: Copy Protected/Distribution Controlled/Release 12

  Serial: SM-TS/R12-04-0890

  Date: 21 November

  Time: 1653 EST

  Subject: Manchurian Nuclear Weapons, Rumors Concerning

  This EMAIL is a joint transmission of NSA and CIA.

  Issued under authority of R. Donchez, Dirnsa, and B. F. Leach III, Dircia.

  Screen readout lifetime: 20 seconds.

  1. (Unclass) Recent press reports allege the existence of nuclear missiles held by President Len Pei Poom in the fledgling state of Greater Manchuria.

  2. (Secret) At the request of Presidential finding 0417, CIA and NSA were directed to report on the possibility of nuclear missiles in Greater Manchuria.

  3. (Top Secret) Details of the report are transmitted separately in EMAIL serial SM-TS/R12-04-0891 dated 21 November.

  4. (Top Secret Release 12) Conclusion: There are no, repeat no, nuclear weapons held in Greater Manchuria.

  5. (Top Secret Release 12) Despite Para 4, Len is managing by some unknown means to hold off the aggressions of the Russians, the West Chinese and the East Chinese. How this is being done should be explored immediately. CIA/NSA recommend the draft of a finding to authorize further intelligence operations to understand the dynamics of the border situation.

  This messag
e will self-delete.

  Intellivox Transcription:

  Date of Voice Mail: 21 November

  Time: 0817

  Initiating Party: A. MacHiie

  Initiating Location: Tokyo 27, Ministry of Information Suite 200

  Security Level: Layer Fifteen

  Destination Code: 05412

  Destination Party: H. Kurita Voice

  Transmittal:

  Honored Prime Minister, this is Asagumo on Tuesday shortly after eight o’clock. I sincerely hope that you had a good rest. The meeting will be held in the central suite as you requested.

  I am calling to let you know that we have confirmation from the Galaxy satellites that the weapons depot in Greater Manchuria is indeed manned and that our infrared micro-scan hints at the possible — but unconfirmed — presence of nuclear warheads. We are now uploading a mission request for a human agent deep penetration to confirm the presence of the warheads. The mission, as you suggested earlier, will be done with a Divine Wind Battalion warrior. Mission start time is estimated at eight to twelve hours after your authorization.

  Once again, your instincts prove you correct. Honorable Prime Minister. I will see you shortly at the meeting. You have my sincere hope that your health remains well.

  [End Transmision]

  PROLOGUE

  SEA OF JAPAN ALTITUDE 20,000 METERS

  The cockpit shuddered as the ramjet engine shut down, fired its explosive bolts and detached, the pilot’s flickering display showing the propulsion module tumbling into the sea below.

  “Phase two,” the pilot murmured in Japanese into his boom microphone. “Aircraft stable in full glide. Descending on glide path at nineteen thousand meters.”

  There was no need to maintain radio silence — the electronics saved the voice data, video camera images and avionics telemetry into a magnetic bubble memory and transmitted a compressed burst once every five to ten minutes on a constantly changing frequency with time-varying encryption codes aimed in a beam to randomly selected Galaxy multipurpose satellites. The communications suite was frontier technology, Japanese technology, the most advanced in the world. Maj. Sushima Namuru would continue to transmit despite the fact that this was the most secret human intelligence operation ever taken on by the Japanese Self Defense Force.

  The cockpit hummed from the instruments and the gyro. Namuru half closed his eyes, at one with the airplane, which moments before had been a high-speed jet and was now gliding silently, its polymer airframe and fabric skin making it invisible to radar, its lack of an engine making it invisible to infrared scanners, its lifting surface shape eliminating much of the wingtip vortex swirl making the flight whisper quiet. The plane was a prototype, named Shadowstar by Namuru, the name resonant with meaning to him. For a moment he saw images of the morning, his goodbye to his wife and young son, the send-off party with his squadron of Divine Wind flyers, his time alone in the shrine, feeling his ancestors surround him, giving their approval.

  He glanced at the tiny camera eye set in the overhead, the one that monitored him and his reactions, hoping that someday his son would see the video and have pride in his father.

  Namuru’s reverie ended two seconds after it had begun, his attention now taken up in his display’ screen, its three-dimensional display of glide slope superimposed over the terrain model so real that despite working with it for years, Namuru was still tempted to reach out and touch the objects in the display. The screen was all Namuru needed to fly the plane — there were no windows to the world outside. The only thing the display was unable to do was allow a windowless landing approach; for that a pilot still needed a real view. But on, this mission, Namuru’s Shadowstar would not be landing.

  The aircraft passed over the line marking Greater Manchuria’s territorial waters, then soon flew over Greater’ Manchuria’s coastline. Namuru shook his head slightly, amazed at how close this new barbarian nation was to Japan, just across the Sea of Japan, the state once divided between Russia and China, but now a united threat merely 300 kilometers from Japan at its closest point, the distance between Tokyo and the Greater Manchurian capital of Changashan only 1050 kilometers, well inside the range of the old Russian SS-34 nuclear-tipped missiles. The missiles were supposedly destroyed under the United Nations ban on nuclear devices years before Greater Manchuria’s formation, but if they were, Namuru’s mission would not have been ordered. The intelligence brief, held an hour before his takeoff, detailed the satellite data that pointed to a nuclear-weapons storage depot in the sleepy railhead town of Tamga 200 kilometers northeast of Port Artom, the city the Russians had called Vladivostok.

  The evidence was frightening. That a ketojin, a savage, like Len Pei Poom could form a nation of barbarians so close to Japan could not be permitted. Especially if they were in possession of nuclear missiles. Namuru almost longed for decades past when the Soviet Union and China and America were too busy threatening each other to be a danger to Japan. But now that Japan was alone it would be up to him, Namuru himself, to give his commanders the intelligence they would require before taking action against this threat. Namuru watched the glide path on the display. The glider had floated silently to an altitude of 5000 meters, completely undetected, now within twenty kilometers of Tamga.

  The computer flashed up the countdown to aircraft destruct. Scarcely a minute now. Namuru glanced at the pilot-monitor camera as he spoke.

  “Phase three. Two minutes to aircraft destruct. As yet no sign of detection.”

  YOKOSUKA, JAPAN, TWENTY-FIVE KILOMETERS SOUTH OF TOKYO

  YOKOSUKA CENTER

  “Please remain seated,” the man in the business suit said, his voice quiet but full of authority. The officers in the command center remained at their consoles, glancing briefly, respectfully up at Prime Minister Hosaka Kurita as he walked slowly among the rows of equipment with his escort, Gen. Masao Gotoh, the chairman of the Joint Staff Council. Gotoh led Kurita to an isolated area of the dark room, the command corner, where an enlarged screen four meters wide and two meters tall flashed views fed by the defense computer network. The screen was split, one-half of it showing a helmet and oxygen mask, the only signs that a person was present the eyes, the other screen half showing a terrain model with superimposed computer graphics. It was gibberish to Prime Minister Kurita. Gotoh explained, his own eyes on the display.

  “These are the transmissions from Colonel Namuru in the Shadowstar aircraft. We are seeing them at a five minute delay from real time since the data is recorded, compressed and relayed at a burst to a satellite — that way it is unlikely he would be detected even against an advanced adversary. Against the Greater Manchurians, he is invisible. In a few minutes Namuru’s aircraft will put him down near the Tamga weapons depot. We will be monitoring him as he executes his mission.” Kurita took a peek at his watch and settled into a leather command chair, his eyes unblinking as he took in the screen. “What if something happens to him? What if he’s caught?” Gotoh smiled to himself, knowing Kurita had been fully briefed, but also knowing the older man liked richness of detail. Briefings alone were not enough for him.

  “Colonel Namuru and the other Divine Wind Warriors have an implanted chip with a small chemical canister surgically placed in their abdominal cavities. On a signal from the satellite, the chip will release a small dose of poison into Namuru’s body. Thirty seconds later he will be dead. There is no antidote.”

  The Prime Minister nodded.

  The two men watched the data display in silence. “You can see him here preparing for the aircraft to destruct,” General Gotoh said, the pilot’s image busy in the cockpit. Suddenly the screen image bounced violently, then winked out.

  * * *

  The Shadowstar glider sailed at 150 kilometers per hour, 3000 meters over the scrubby hills, four kilometers outside of Tamga. The cockpit’s computer display numerals reached the single digits, rolled too quickly to one, then zero. The aircraft self-destruct sequence began.

  The polymer of the airframe was
as strong as aluminum when in solid form. Running through the skeletal structure of the framing were hundreds of small polymer tubes and capillaries, all of them connected to a foillined polymer tank filled with a mixture of sulfuric acid and several advanced solvents. A small cylinder of highpressure nitrogen inside the top of the tank, on a computer signal, opened to the tank, the whooshing gas pressuring the fluid inside while a valve at the tank bottom snapped open, allowing the acid and solvent mixture to flow into the pipes and tubes and capillaries leading to the plane’s airframe structural components. The walls of the tubes were machined precisely so that they would carry the acid to the remotest tubes just before dissolving themselves. The dissolving tubes then spilled the acid into the hollow regions of the airframe structures and along their outsides. The polymeric composition of the airframe was chemically synthesized so that it reacted exothermically with the acid while dissolving in the solvents. Areas of the structure not directly in the wash of acid and solvents reacted from the heat of the adjacent melting structures, the acid molecules diffusing throughout the liquefying mass. Over the next twenty seconds, what before had been a network of solid curving beams and struts making up the shape of an airplane became a melting waxy semisolid, then a liquid, then finally as the reaction rate increased, a vapor. The airplane’s lifting body shape melted into a large teardrop, the liquid flying off into the slipstream behind it, the liquid turning to a plume of gray smoke, until all that was left of the aircraft was the egg-shaped carbon composite cockpit module, now tumbling end-over-end to the rocky slopes below.