Attack of the Seawolf

CHAPTER 21

Jack Morris looked over at Bony Robbins, both men’s faces pressed down on the cool tile of the deck aft of the control room. Gunfire from the control room had suddenly stopped. Every weapon had exhausted its clip of ammunition at the same time. Stupid, Morris thought, to shoot at shadows and use a whole clip at once. He gave Robbins a shrug as he reached for a stun grenade, pulled the arming pin with his index finger and rolled it into the control room. The stun grenade sounded, and soon after, the panicked coughing of a room full of Chinese guards.

Morris grabbed a second grenade and tossed it in after the first one. As it went off he heard the sound of weapons clattering to the deck. He reached into his vest’s side pocket and pulled out swimming goggles and a spongy filter mask similar to a surgeon’s except that it had no straps and was moist — a wet filter. He slipped the mask under his balaclava hood and strapped on the goggles over his eyes. A glance at Bony confirmed that his teammate was similarly equipped. Morris gave the order to go in.

He rose up slightly and ran into the room, cutting to the right. The place was completely filled with the smoke of the stun grenade, traces of it leaking through the gaskets of Morris’s goggles and making his eyes water. Actually the grenade was a simple smoke bomb surrounded by the stun solution, which was nothing but the juices of pepper, including jalap enos the pepper juices had the effect of causing mucous membranes to water and swell. An exploding stun grenade within twenty feet of a man’s face would literally shut his eyes with a painful watering, cause his nose to run and nearly close off his throat. The gunmen would be on the deck, grabbing their throats, gasping for breath, blinded. The grenade was far more effective than tear gas, though within some thirty minutes a victim would be normal. The major problem was keeping the mucous membranes of the attackers from suffering the same effects as the targets.

Morris heard the spasms of men coughing as he ran forward along the attack center row of consoles. He could make out the shapes of the enemy on the deck, still suffering from the stun grenades. Morris aimed his machine gun, careful that his bullets would not hit equipment or ricochet into consoles. A scene like this would never play well in Hollywood, he thought — too cold-blooded. The movies would show the commandos roping the Chinese together as prisoners. Bullshit, he thought as he fired. This was real time, real life. A killing job. Them or us.

The ten guards were dead. Morris ejected his clip and replaced it. He looked up at Robbins, who nodded back at him. They moved to the door on the forward bulkhead, on the centerline, which led to the captain’s and XO’s staterooms, the sonar display room and forward to the weapons-shipping hatch and the sonar equipment space. The two crouched on either side of the door. As Morris was about to kick the door open, a rumbling sound began, followed by a deep growl. The room’s smoke vanished in a blast of cool, clean air. The nukes back aft must have gotten the reactor restarted, he decided. He kicked the forward door open, and saw that down the passageway the captain’s stateroom door was opening. He aimed his weapon at the doorjamb, and as the Chinese officer came out of the door he prepared to fire — when he saw something that stopped him.

“Hold it,” he whispered into his lip mike to Bony.

The P.L.A officer was holding a hostage, one of the ship’s officers, and had an automatic pistol up against his hostage’s head. By the look on the hostage’s face he was in bad shape, perhaps unconscious.

“I’m holding the ship’s captain,” the P.L.A officer said in an odd accent, the lilting sound of it partly Chinese, partly aristocratic British.

“Withdraw or I will be forced to kill him.”

“Go for it,” Morris said.

“You realize you’ll never make it to—” And interrupted himself by opening fire.

He had been through hundreds of training scenarios like this one, and had connected with the terrorist ninety-eight percent of the time. He would have been dead-on with this shot too, if the ship had not unexpectedly lurched just as he was firing. The good news was that the Tampa was obviously underway, accelerating backward away from the P.L.A pier, the mission to free the ship now into its second phase.

The bad news was that Jack Morris, inadvertently, had just hit the hostage.

The sound of a faint rumbling noise could be heard through the hull of the control room. Pacino looked up at the sonar monitor sele>.i.ed to the hull array and noted the noise streaks on the screen.

“Sonar, Captain,” he said into his boom microphone, “what’ya got?”

“Conn, Sonar,” Chief Jeb drawled, “explosions bearing three four eight, bearing to P.L.A piers. Sounds like secondary detonations after the two main explosions.

Tough to tell.”

Pacino raised his voice to the watch standers in the room: “Lookaround number-two scope.” The Diving n iriicituci Lfiincrvunv

Officer reported their depth at seventy-nine feet, speed zero knots.

The periscope seemed to take a full minute to climb out of the well. Impatiently Pacino crouched, snapping the grips down as soon as the optic module came up at the deck level, putting his eye on the eyepiece before the unit rose to knee level.

The view was black, the scope lens only breaking the oily water of the bay as the optic module thumped into the stops at the overhead. Pacino had moved the ship two thousand yards down the channel to the southeast of the supertanker-piers, then turning so his bow faced the action at Xingang, hoping to be positioned to get a better view of the P.L.A piers than he had had of the tanker-pier point. But when the lens cleared Pacino saw nothing but orange-and-white flames, the massive balls of fire sent up by the impact of the Javelin explosions. As he watched, a secondary explosion flared from the P.L.A piers, this fireball’s diameter a ship length wide, the glow from it making the scene seem lit by the sun at midday. Pacino could only hear one thought in his head: I sure hope that’s not your ship I see burning, Sean.

“Down scope,” Pacino called reluctantly.

Now that his window to the outside world was again shut, Pacino paced the periscope platform, frustrated.

For the moment the operation was out of his hands.

He had to trust that the SEALs could pull this off.

But what about the Javelins? Had the SEALs realized what was happening in time? Or had the explosions fried them as they had the ships at the pier? And what if the missiles had ripped into the Tampa? What if the detonations had killed the SEALs in the water, or set off their contact charges while they were still diving beneath the hulls of the destroyers? And what if the Chinese were now sending warships to kill the Seawolf, now that her position was compromised from the Javelin launches? There was no way of knowing, short of more periscope exposure, which would imperil the crew of Seawolf.

He itched to get the Seawolf into action, a chance to do something to save his friend, something other than pace the conn in suspension — suddenly, his headset crackled.

“Conn, Sonar, we have a diesel engine startup bearing three five two. Bearing correlates to the pier position of Target Four, Jianghu Type II fast frigate.

Captain, we now have twin screw noises at high RPM.

I’d guess Target Four is getting underway to come see us.”

Pacino didn’t acknowledge Chief Jeb. At his last words Pacino had already called out look around number-two scope” and raised the periscope. As the lens broke the surface he saw the Jianghu frigate backing into the bay from the pier, the wake at her stern foaming up as she reversed her screws. The bow of the vessel turned toward him, the bow wave building up as the ship accelerated, the tall central mast waving flags lit by a spotlight, the wash of the light illuminating the exhaust smoke pouring out of her stack. Pacino called out to the control room watch standers without removing his eye from the scope.

“I’ve got Target Four, Jianghu-class frigate, underway and making high-speed turns directly toward us.

Standby for observation … Bearing mark. Range mark, two divisions in low power, angle-on-the-bow zero. Down scope.”

“We have a firing solution, Captain,” Firecontrol coordinator Keebes reported from the firecontrol consoles of the attack center.

“Recommend shooting.”

“Very well. Attention in the firecontrol team. We’re going to shoot two torpedoes down the bearing to Target Four, give him something for breakfast. Weps, set Mark 50 torpedoes in tubes three and four to surface homing mode, shallow transit, medium-to-low active snake search, wake homing mode on reacquisition, anti-self homing disabled, anti-circular run disabled.

Report status.”

“Sir, tubes three and four are lined up. Mark 50s,” Feyley reported from the weapons console, repeating back Pacino’s mode selections, his voice sounding doubtful at Pacino’s orders to disable the safety interlocks on the weapons. Pacino looked at Keebes, waiting for Keebes to object to risking the ship with torpedoes that could turn around and impact Seawolf. None came.

“Firing point procedures, tubes three and four. Target Four,” Pacino ordered, raising the periscope.

“Final bearing and shoot.”

“Ship ready,” Officer of the Deck Turner reported.

“Weapons ready,” Feyley called.

“Solution pending,” Keebes said.

Pacino’s eye hit the eyepiece at waist level as the optic module rose from the well.

“Observation, Target Four …”

“Ready,” Keebes said.

“Bearing … mark!” The frigate’s bow was plowing directly toward them, her slender bow slicing the calm waters of the bay, her guns trained on their position, a crew of men standing at the antisubmarine mortar launcher in the fo’c’sle. The crosshairs of the periscope reticle framed the graceful form of the ship, and the odd thought came to Pacino that the frigate was truly beautiful, an elegant efficient design. He smirked in self-mockery: a beautiful ship, bent on killing him.

“Range mark! Four divisions in low power, angle-on the-bow zero. Down scope.”

The screws of the ship could be heard with the naked ear through the steel of the hull, the throbbing thrashing sound of their angry cavitation a clear indication of the frigate’s hostile intention.

“Solution ready,” Keebes said.

“Set.” Feyley.

Pacino was about to call shoot when sonar called over his headset:

“Conn, Sonar, we’ve got steam turbine transients and screw noises from bearing three four five, correlates to Friendly One. The Tampa’s underway!”

“Check fire!” Pacino half-shouted, realizing that the two torpedoes,

if they missed the frigate on the first attempt, would surely detect the hull of the Tampa and put her on the bottom. The screws of the frigate got louder, the sound of the violent pumping noise now blaring through the space, forcing Pacino to shout to be heard.

“Diving Officer, flood depth control at full-open and keep flooding till we bottom out,” Pacino ordered. If the frigate didn’t turn it would run right on top of them, easily shear off the sail or rip open the pressure hull. The deck sank under Pacino’s feet, his stomach rising as if he were on an elevator in a skyscraper, the ship plunging to the bottom of the deep channel.

The screw of the frigate passed overhead, its loud floosh rising to a crescendo from directly overhead, then fading away again astern. The deck below thumped as the ship’s keel hit the bottom of the channel.

“Ship’s on the bottom. Captain,” the diving officer reported.

“That bitch ran right on top of us. Skipper,” Keebes said, looking down at the Pos Two display.

“Let’s hope he’s not going to drop depth charges this way.”

“Conn, Sonar, Target Four is turning around and heading back for the P.L.A piers at max speed.”

“Probably heading back for the Tampa,” Keebes said.

The screw of the frigate passed overhead again, just as loud and insistent as the first time.

“Dive, blow depth control and get us back up, fast, depth seven nine,” Pacino commanded.

“Observation number-two scope, target four.”

The scope was up before the Diving Officer was able to get the ship back to periscope depth. Pacino waited, his lens trained upward, watching the lights from the pier fires reflecting off the gentle waves above, cursing the ship’s inertia. But now, though he felt the same impatience, he felt the steely sensation of control. He was back in command, once again able to influence the outcome of this fight. And the Tampa was underway.

His exhilaration plunged when chief sonarman Jeb reported over the headset the sound of helicopters hovering at the bearing to the Tampa.

Buffalo Sauer crouched outside the door to the wardroom in the forward compartment middle level, straining to hear the radio report from Buckethead Williams, who had slipped through a passageway to the second door to the wardroom. As Sauer set up with Williams, he was nearly thrown to the deck by the lurch of the ship as it accelerated backward. Buffalo glanced at his watch — Baron and the ship’s XO had gotten the vessel underway right on time, he thought.

When Buckethead reported that he was ready, Buffalo called out the order to storm the room and then kicked in the locked door. Actually the door did not open fully but stopped halfway. And even as Buffalo saw the reason for the door stopping he realized that he was in for another scene like he’d just survived from the crew’s mess. The body of a man on the floor had kept the door from opening all the way. The man leaned against a sideboard, legs thrown out in front of him, eyes sunk deep in his sockets, face terribly pale.

Buffalo launched himself into the room, trying to avoid stepping on the man’s legs. Once he was inside the stench hit him, as bad as it had been in the crew’s mess. He had a brief impression of the room around him, the central feature being a large table used for the officers’ meals and meetings. On top of the table were two bodies, the skin of their faces green with decay, the foreheads open and raw from bullet wounds. Both men looked vaguely young, although the bloating of the corpses hid their ages, as did the facial wounds. They were both wearing the silver dual bar insignia of lieutenants. The thought occurred to Buffalo that the men in the room were meant to see the butchered, decaying corpses of their fellow officers, perhaps as a reminder not to do what they had done. Perhaps the dead lieutenants had tried to escape or defy the guards.

Seated around the table were the ship’s officers, eight of them. The scene was eerily grotesque, as if the Chinese captors had insisted that the officers sit about the table with the dead bodies lying out on it like some sort of nightmare meal. Each man’s chair was drawn up to the table, and the men on the far side of the room all had their heads on the table. The others, the ones with their backs to the doors, were sitting straight up, as if at attention. Whether that was by order of the guards or because of revulsion at the dead bodies, Buffalo had no clue. For a moment Buffalo was reminded of plebe year at the Academy, the harassed plebes sitting around their tables at attention, forbidden to look at their plates, their eyes locked into the distance by order of the first-class midshipmen.

The men at the table had eyes staring blankly like that, except haunted by madness rather than mere fear.

Buffalo looked toward the wall of the room opposite his door and saw Buckethead sailing into the room. For a moment he wondered what had taken Williams so long, but then as he saw the way Buckethead’s body seemed to float slowly into the room he realized that he was experiencing the dilation of time peculiar to intense injections of adrenaline, and that he himself had only been inside the room for less than a second. Williams saw the scene in the corner of the room at the same time Buffalo did.

A Chinese guard had a pistol to the head of one of the officers seated at the table. As he watched, the guard pulled the trigger. Before Buffalo or Buckethead could react, the guard turned his pistol to the next man at the table and fired. The man slouched in his chair, his head hitting the table. It was only then that Buffalo realized that the men against the far wall had their heads on the table because each of them had already been executed.

For a moment Buffalo was thrown off-balance as the guard continued to execute the men at the table rather than defend himself by shooting at the invading SEALs, and by the awful reality of watching men being executed at a table without resistance. What had these men seen that paralyzed them so, even in the face of certain death?

One answer came as Buffalo aimed his MAC-10 at the guard and squeezed the trigger, the HydraShok bullets exploding the interior of the guard’s abdomen, his pistol dropping to the ground as his body slammed against the aft bulkhead and slipped toward the deck.

The answer in Buffalo’s mind kept his trigger finger tensed, continuing to shoot into the guard’s body.

These men had seen things so horrible that they no longer wanted to live. For them, death was a deliverance.

Buffalo was suddenly thrown into the sideboard by the force of the ship turning, the deck tilting as the ship came around. He found himself staring into the glassy eyes of the man lying on the deck, the one who had been lucky enough not to have had to sit and stare at the rotting corpses. The man wore the single silver bar of a junior-grade lieutenant on the collar of his coveralls. Above his left pocket was a set of gold submariner’s dolphins. His eyes were dead, as if he had been lobotomized. Buffalo waved his hand in front of the man’s eyes. At first the man blinked, then shut his eyes. Buffalo shook him, heard mumbling. He put his ears next to the man’s lips, straining to make out a voice distorted by thirst and hunger and sickness and fear. Finally came the words.

“What took you so long? God, what took you so damned long? …”

The man lost consciousness, collapsing in Buffalo’s arms. Buffalo glanced at Buckethead Williams, whose jaw had tightened.

Buffalo reloaded his MAC-10 while speaking into his lip mike, trying to raise the men he’d sent to the chiefs quarters, “Peach” Pirelli and “Roadrunner” Kaplan.

“Peach, Roadrunner, you up?”

“Roger, One.”

“What’s the status?”

“CPO quarters are a meat grinder Mr. Buffalo.

They’d executed five of the chiefs before we could nail the guards. Just like the crew’s mess. Almost as if they were carrying out orders in case of a raid. Like they were expecting us.”

“How are the survivors?”

“Pretty bad, One. Must have been tortured. They seem like they’re in deep shock.”

“Roger. Keep Roadrunner there and meet me in the passageway to make sure the level is clear.”

Any remaining guards hiding in cubbyholes or staterooms would need to be dealt with before the middle level was considered secure. When it was, they’d help the other teams on the other levels. Until then, it would be best to stay out of the line of fire.

As Buffalo made his way down the narrow passageway, he almost hoped to see another Chinese guard.

The more he saw of the prisoners, the greater the itch in his trigger finger.