Attack Of The Seawolf Page 8

  Near the pier a strange assembly, looking like three ships lined up alongside each other, was maneuvering toward the pier. Donchez looked at the photo for a moment, feeling sick to his stomach. That photo had engraved itself in his mind. He pulled it off and replaced it with a blowup showing only the three ships together, the image becoming grainy from the magnification;

  The shape between the destroyers was the cigar shape of the topside portion of a nuclear submarine, her paint blown off in patches to reveal bare metal, perhaps scars from the battle that had resulted in her capture.

  “I regret to tell you that Tampa has been taken captive by the Communist Chinese. As you can see, there is a destroyer tied up on both Tampa’s port and starboard sides, and she’s being pushed in toward the pier.”

  Donchez turned off the projector, not wanting to look at the image of one of his fleet’s finest submarines captured by the Chinese.

  “That’s all I have,” Donchez concluded.

  “I requested an overflight by an RF-117E, the reconnaissance aircraft that’s equivalent to the Stealth fighter.

  So far we haven’t heard from the Air Force.”

  He sat down on Kent’s side of the table, opposite Dawson, Trachea, Ferguson and Steuber.

  “What about the Stealth?” Dawson asked, frowning at General Bevin.

  “Did you do an overflight?”

  Bevin nodded at Dawson, then pointed to the Air Force aide, a colonel who vanished from the room and came back with a sealed enveloped marked top secret that he handed to Bevin. Three glossy black and-white photographs that Bevin handed to the President.

  Dawson frowned at them, then passed them around the table. It seemed to take forever for the shots to reach Donchez.

  The photographs were high-altitude shots of the Xingang pier where the Tampa was held. The destroyers were still tied up to her port and

  starboard sides, but now the starboard destroyer was tied up to the pier. A frigate was tied up to the pier forward of the Tampa, another one aft. The three hatches were open on the deck of the submarine, all of them guarded by P.L.A soldiers or sailors with large weapons in their hands. The second photograph was a similar shot from a different perspective. The third photograph was an infrared shot of the pier and the ships.

  Heat was shown in orange or white, cool spots in blue, cold in black. The middle of the Tampa was a large white spot. Orange lines and spots continued aft in splotches. The reactor and steam plants, Donchez thought. Her reactor was critical and the steam plant was hot. Maybe she could still get out of this … “Mr. President,” he began uneasily, “I’d like to propose a rescue mission. I have a tentative plan—” “Well, Admiral,” Eve Trachea broke in, “I hate to say this, and correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems the ship’s selfdestruct didn’t exactly work out. If it had, there would be no need for a rescue, which will be much more hazardous than the original mission.”

  Donchez bit his lip.

  CIA Director Kent looked up from his notes.

  “Mr.

  President, the Chinese have made no mention of this.

  No diplomatic protests, no demands. Nothing.”

  “How do you read that?”

  “The facts just aren’t in yet—” “Bobby, just give me your best guess.”

  “Well, maybe the Chinese P.L.A will try to use the submarine against the White Army, and so want to keep it quiet.”

  “How could they make use of a sub against the White Armyi And don’t the Chinese already have nuclear subs?”

  “Five of them, sir, the Han class. Roughly equivalent to the old Russian Victor’s. All useless in a fight with the White Army—” “Sir,” Donchez interrupted, “the Tampa has ten Javelin conventional cruise missiles on board. Those missiles are accurate enough so that if one

  were to be launched at me from Wyoming it would be able to hit my end of the room rather than yours. That well might be something that could help the Chinese against the Whites, but I feel the real issue is that the Communist Chinese are holding Americans, and an American vessel, a top-of-the-line nuclear sub with the latest weapons and firecontrol. We have to get her and the crew out of this.”

  “Well, Admiral, I agree, but how the hell are we going to do it, short of landing the Marines? I don’t want a damned war.”

  Ferguson spoke up: “Mr. President, it’s clear that diplomatic channels can’t be used to free the ship. If we ask for the boat back it’s an admission we sent her in there to spy, and that just might be the move the Chinese are waiting for. They could claim we sent her there covertly to fire missiles on Beijing. They’d get international sympathy, maybe they’d even get the U.N. in there to fight the White Army.”

  “Sir,” Eve Trachea said, her tone one of sweet reasonableness.

  “We were spying on the Chinese and got caught. We sank one of their navy’s ships trying to escape and they’ve captured and neutralized our sub.

  Now they will probably hold the ship as a bargaining tool to keep us from entering this conflict on the White Army side. Since we aren’t planning to do that anyway, we should be able to send an envoy to Beijing who can convince them to release the sub and its crew.

  We may need to admit what we were doing in their waters, however.”

  Donchez fought down his anger.

  “Sir, the submarine’s reactor is critical. The third photo shows it. Her crew is probably on board to run the reactor for power—maybe they can’t bring on shore power the voltage may be different. So, with the crew aboard, the reactor critical, what we need to do is put another submarine in there, sink the destroyers at the pier and Tampa sails out on her own steam.”

  “Admiral,” Eve Trachea said, “how would you propose to get a submarine

  there now? The Chinese will be waiting for you. All you’ll have are two hostage subs. Or, if you do get in, your ship will kill a lot of their troops and probably sink the Tampa too. And then the rescue ship wouldn’t get out of the bay-Remember Carter’s failure in Iran, Desert One? A black eye for the Dawson Administration, contempt at home and hatred from the international community.”

  “I like Donchez’s plan,” Defense Secretary Ferguson said.

  “What’s your plan again. Eve? Apologize for the incident” Donchez spoke up before she could answer. This sort of wrangling was getting them nowhere. The main issue was losing out. He looked directly at President Dawson.

  “What if I get the ship out in complete secrecy, sir?”

  “If you could do it fast enough I’d consider it.

  What’s your plan?”

  “Insert a submarine right next to the pier where Tampa’s held. It’ll be no problem getting her in. I’ll send the Seawolf, the quietest, most stealthy submarine there is. When she’s there we’ll insert a team of SEAL commandos to board and liberate Tampa. The sub will break away from the pier using her own power, which is more than enough to part those lines holding her, and out she goes, the Seawolf escorting her.”

  “What about the fleet piers at Lushun,” Kent asked, “where the P.L.A has its Northern Fleet Headquarters, including antisubmarine surface ships and choppers?

  They’ll be waiting for your subs at the Lushun/Penglai Gap. You could lose both submarines.”

  “Seawolf will get through,” Donchez said quietly, intensely.

  “She’s so quiet, our own surface ASW ships can’t detect her. She’ll get through and in the process create a diversion—perhaps even surface and resubmerge. The Chinese fleet goes after her, and meanwhile the Tampa goes right by. Net result—we get the submarines back, with all their intelligence, with no American loss of life and only a few Chinese. And the media, with luck, may never hear about it.”

  “What if the SEALs fail. Admiral?” President Dawson asked.

  “Then, sir, you authorize the fleet’s firepower to … give the Chinese something more to think about.”

  “General Bevin?” Dawson looked hard at the general.

  “I agree, sir. And suggest givin
g the Navy first crack.”

  “Eve?” Dawson said to Trachea.

  Her answer reflected her dual role as National Security Advisor and Secretary of State.

  “I’ll go along, sir, but if the SEALs fail, the Seawolf must withdraw. And no shooting. I also suggest this affair should be a lesson for future adventures of this kind, Mr. President.”

  Dawson noted her skating on both sides of the ice.

  “Okay, Admiral Donchez,” he said, rising from the table, “get the Tampa out using the SEALs. Tell your sub commander to avoid shooting and explosions, if at all possible. I can’t tell you not to shoot if you absolutely have to, but minimize it. If the mission goes sour, and you can’t get the Tampa out of there, for God’s sake, get the Seawolf out of the bay.”

  Donchez stood.

  “I’ll keep you informed of our timing.

  My aide will bring over the Penetration Order request for the Seawolf in an hour.”

  washington, D.C.

  pentagon e-ring—U.S. navy flag plot 2110 eastern daylight TIME/0210 greenwich mean time

  Admiral Donchez unwrapped a Havana and fished in his tropical white uniform trousers for his USS Piranha lighter. With three efficient puffs, the cigar’s tip glowed red, the smoke creating a cloud around the admiral. Captain Fred Rummel, Donchez’s aide, a heavyset officer in his fifties, coughed in the smoke.

  Over their last decade together, since Rummel was a lieutenant commander and Donchez a rear admiral, the men had worked together, and Donchez had always smoked and Rummel had always coughed. It made the relationship comfortable, familiar, Donchez thought.

  Donchez looked up at the electronic wall chart of the western Pacific, showing the blue dot in the Go Hai Bay labeled USS TAMPA SSN-774. The usual status indicator, either SUBMERGED OPERATIONS or SURFACED TRANSIT, was missing, there being no protocol for a status line when a submarine asset was held captive. The position of the dot was not just Top Secret, it was special compartmented information, and was shown only when Donchez and Rummel were in Flag Plot. At the moment, they were the only people in the room other than a crypto technician and a senior chief radioman. But the Tampa was not the blue dot they were looking at. It was a second blue dot that concerned them, a dot a hundred miles south of the island of Japan in an area of the Pacific marked YOKOSUKA OP AREA

  The dot was labeled USS SEAWOLF SSN-21 SUBMERGED

  OPERATIONS (SEA TRIALS).

  “Take a message to the Seawolf, Fred,” Donchez said, the cigar still clenched in his teeth.

  “Classification Top Secret, personal for commanding officer. Priority immediate.”

  “Who’s the captain, sir?”

  “Duckett, Hank Duckett,” Donchez said.

  “You ready? Paragraph one: USS Seawolf to make port at Yokosuka Naval Station immediately. Paragraph two:

  commanding officer and executive officer will be flown to Washington, D.C.” by Navy transport for conference.

  Paragraph three: Purpose of trip is to testify before the Armed Services Committee about the value of the Seawolf submarine class. Be prepared to discuss ship capabilities in detail. Trip duration, approximately three weeks. Paragraph four: Admiral R. Donchez sends. That’s it.”

  “Sir, before this goes out, may I ask what you’re doing? Isn’t Seawolf going to do the rescue mission?”

  “She’s the one.”

  “So … why are you recalling her skipper?”

  “We’re giving Seawolf a new captain for this operation, someone who’s been in combat before, the best sub driver we’ve got.”

  “Combat, sir? Our best? The only U.S. sub skipper in the last few decades to launch a torpedo in anger is Michael Pacino, and not only did he lose the Devilfish under the polar icecap, he left the Navy for medical reasons. And maybe personal reasons, too, if I remember. So who have you got in mind?”

  “Right on the first time, Fred. We’re bringing Mikey Pacino out of retirement for this OP. He’s got the guts to do it, plus the brains and experience. The other captains, they’re okay, but like our friend Marty Steuber, they seem allergic to risk. We need someone who isn’t afraid to take chances. That’s the only reason he had Devilfish shot out from under him. And let’s not forget what happened to the other submarine in that incident—anyone other than Pacino would have come back dead or not at all.”

  “So, how are you going to convince him to go back to sea?”

  “I’ll personally order him. Get out a message to NAVPERS transferring Pacino back to active duty.”

  “I don’t know. Admiral. We’re talking about the most sensitive mission in maybe forty years. Even if Pacino comes back, he’s a Piranhaclass sailor—he won’t know the first thing about the Seawolf. And as a civilian, he’s under no obligation to go back to active duty to do this—” “Leave all that to me,” Donchez said.

  “Just get those messages on the wire.”

  CHAPTER 7

  THURSDAY, 9 MAY

  1150 GREENWICH MEAN TIME

  severn river inlet annapolis, maryland 0650 eastern daylight time

  Michael Pacino finished his morning run with a sprint to the back of the waterfront property, stopping in the middle of the yard to rest with Max, his big golden retriever. The sun was already turning the morning into a humid furnace. Legs aching, Pacino climbed the steps to the deck, leaned on the railing and stared across the river at the Naval Academy complex.

  For a long time he stood there, staring at the copper roofs of the 150-year-old granite buildings, but seeing instead his own past. Himself as a midshipman two and a half decades earlier. The Academy had always been a time machine, taking him back to his youth, the years that were the best and worst of his life. He had chosen the house for its water view, but not just the view of the water, but the spectacular vista of the harbor of Annapolis, teeming with sailboats, the Capitol dome in the background dueling for grandeur with the Academy’s copper-domed chapel. It was not the only way he brought back the past.

  For a moment he looked down at the baseball cap he had been wearing on the run. Dark blue, soaked with sweat, the brim white where the accumulated salt had stained the cap. The cap’s bill had an emblem, the golden embroidery thread forming twin-fish facing a submarine conning tower—submariner’s dolphins.

  Above the dolphins, block embroidery letters spelled USS TAMPA; below, the letters read SSN-774. A gift from Sean Murphy, his best friend and former Annapolis roommate who now commanded the Tampa, a new Los Angelesclass nuclear fast-attack submarine out of San Diego.

  But when Pacino looked at the cap’s letters they reformed into the name USS DEVILFISH, SSN-666, the name and number of the ship he had lost two years before. The Devilfish was now a crumpled wreck at the bottom of the ocean, the bodies of the men he had lost trapped aboard. Pacino looked away at the water, unaware that his wife Hillary was looking at him from inside the house.

  Hillary walked out onto the deck, a glass of ice water in her hand. She set the glass on the deck railing in front of him. He ignored it.

  “Michael. You okay?”

  There was no answer. She tried again.

  “Honey, isn’t it time you got ready for work?”

  “I guess,” he mumbled, passing her on the way inside, the glass door sliding shut behind him and the dog.

  Hillary looked back at him for a moment, then out at the sun-drenched harbor and the quaint village, the boats getting underway one by one for a day of pleasure sailing. She had hoped the setting and the Academy would help Michael heal, but the truth was, it was making him worse. She and their son missed the man he had been two years before, a confident man, a nuclear submarine commander. Maybe they needed to move inland, get away from the bay and the water and the Academy and all the reminders of his past.

  Or maybe what he really needed was to go back to sea, exorcise the beast that haunted him. If the Navy would take him, and if he would go back, and if there were another submarine for him … Finally she too went inside, the ice water still on th
e deck rail, forgotten.

  U.S. naval academy annapolis, maryland 0830 eastern daylight time

  Admiral Richard Donchez followed a midshipman into a cavernous high-bay dimly lit room. Donchez craned his neck looking up at the heavy steel rafters of the room, holding up another set of steel rails above the concrete walls of a large oblong pool. The midshipman led Donchez up steel stairs to a platform overlooking the edge of the tank. The models used for this tank were huge, some of them fifteen or twenty feet long. Below the tow platform with its trailer was a large model submerged below the surface.

  Not much of it was visible, but from what Donchez could see, it was a submarine.

  “What is this thing?” Donchez asked.

  “Tow tank,” the midshipman replied.

  “The platform there can move along the rails above the water, dragging a ship model. The computer systems collect the data and use it to evaluate the ship design.”

  The sound of the wave generator startled Donchez for a moment. The angled plates at the end of the tank began pulsing, undulating back and forth, the waves building up in the tank until they were some five feet high.

  The platform, with its office trailer on top, suddenly accelerated away from them, the drive mechanism whirring loudly. Donchez had to shout over the noise to be heard.

  “Like I said,” Donchez reminded his guide, “I need to find Dr. Pacino.”

  “He’s either in the control room or on the platform.”

  Seconds after it had started, the model test run was over, the wake of the model and the waves in the tank splashing the surface below. Slowly, the model platform began to return to its starting position.

  “I think I see someone in the platform control space,” Donchez said as the model platform drew up to them and slowed.

  “Thanks for your help.”

  The midshipman nodded and walked back down the stairs and disappeared through the double doors.

  The model platform’s trailer door opened on the other side from Donchez. Through the trailer’s windows a man could be seen walking out of the trailer and toward the catwalk between the platform and the observation deck. It was Michael Pacino, who momentarily froze when he spotted Donchez.