Red Phoenix

CHAPTER 38 Dire Straits

Captain Richard Levi, USN, sneaked a glance at the barometer as he came on the bridge. It was still holding steady, a reading confirmed by the nearly cloudless sky and by the gentle, rolling motion of O’Brien as she steamed toward Pusan at twelve knots. His compact frame easily followed the motion of the deck.

His bridge crew stiffened slightly but didn’t react in any other way. Levi didn’t like a lot of fuss in normal times, and he especially didn’t like needless ceremony under war conditions. People busy saluting and clicking their heels were all too likely to miss that first crucial warning of an incoming missile or torpedo.

He nodded to his executive officer and stepped out onto the bridge wing, leaning out over the rail to look back at the three boxy cargo ships trailing placidly in his Spruance-class destroyer’s wake. One wore the dull-gray paint scheme that marked it as a Navy Sealift Command ship, but the others stood out in bright colors designed to please the eye and attract paying customers.

Together the three merchantmen carried a vital cargo — a major share of the 25th Infantry Division’s heavy equipment. The 25th’s personnel had been flown into South Korea over the preceding week, but they would remain as useless as if they were still in Hawaii until equipped with the tanks, artillery, and APCs loaded aboard USNS Andrew T. Thomas, the Liberian-registered Polar Sea, and the Danish-flagged Thorvaldsen. Seventh Fleet’s orders were clear. All three had to get through.

U.N. Forces were fighting hard on the peninsula, but they were still being forced backward, away from now-besieged Seoul. Scuttlebutt said the ground pounders needed all the help they could get to avoid being shoved into the sea. The 25th’s heavy weapons were part of that help.

Levi put his back to the chill, five-knot wind sweeping across the destroyer’s superstructure and looked east, his eyes hunting for the other part of his command — the tiny, Perry-class frigate Duncan. There she was. He could just make out a slightly darker patch of gray rolling up and down above the gray-green sea. He’d put the frigate about four miles out on the convoy’s eastern flank. Out where her hull-mounted SQS-56 sonar had a better chance of picking up an NK diesel sub moving in for a sneak shot inside the O’Brien’s “baffles,” an area aft of the destroyer where the noise of her own engines and screws deafened her sonar.

The wind veered slightly and strengthened, whining through the radar and radio antennas clustered above the destroyer’s bridge. Levi ignored the noise and squinted into the morning sun climbing skyward beyond his companion frigate. Sunlight glinted off a Plexiglas canopy. Duncan had one of her two SH-60B Seahawk helicopters up, laying a passive sonobuoy line several miles to the north and east of the convoy’s track — right along the most likely angle of approach for an enemy sub looking for an easy kill.

But not the only one. Wings winked silver at the edge of his vision and then dipped from view. Seventh Fleet had allocated a P-3C Orion to the escort and he’d stationed it well to the north — twenty miles or so ahead of the small group of UN vessels bound for Pusan. The P-3 had been systematically laying successive lines of passive buoys, trying to clear a path for the O’Brien and her invaluable charges.

North and east were covered as well as they could be under the circumstances. And Levi had brought his convoy as close to the western edge of the island of Tsushima as he possibly could without running them aground. The water was so shallow at that point that any damned NK sub trying to stay submerged would have to be half-buried in the mud. He could pretty well rule out that direction, at least until they emerged from alongside the island. He’d have to rearrange his escorts and air assets when that happened. He also planned not to worry overly about his back. Any diesel submarine coming in from the south, chasing after the convoy, would either run its batteries flat or make so much noise snorkeling that it would be easy to hear, pinpoint, and destroy.

Levi blinked rapidly, clearing the dazzling afterimages left by looking too near the sun out of his eyes. With a last, quick glance around the horizon, he turned and reentered the comparative warmth of O’Brien’s bridge. They were coming into the danger zone and it was time for him to get back to the ship’s Combat Information Center. It was also time to move a little more cautiously. Levi didn’t plan to walk into an ambush with his eyes shut or his sonars less than one hundred percent effective.

“Mr. Keegan?”

“Sir?”

“Slow to eight knots, and signal the rest of the convoy to do the same.”

“Aye, aye, sir.” His executive officer nodded to the rating standing by with a signaling lamp. O’Brien would keep radio silence for as long as possible. There wasn’t any point in handing the North Koreans a free fix on the convoy’s position. Levi intended to make them work for it.

Senior Captain Chun Chae-Yun studied the plot carefully, conscious of the need to keep a confident, relaxed expression on his face. It had been a long war already for Great Leader and its crew. Many of the junior ratings were starting to show signs of the enormous strain imposed by the need for constant noise discipline and by the high state of readiness required on a war cruise. So, under the circumstances, it was vital that he set a good example by remaining unrattled — no matter what happened.

Chun had to admit that it was hard to control his mixed feelings of dread and excitement as the prospect of new action loomed nearer. After several successive victories during the first days of the war, most of Great Leader’s maneuvers since had been wholly devoted to its own survival — and many of its fellow submarines hadn’t been so fortunate. One by one they’d fallen prey to American and South Korean aircraft or to hunter-killer groups of enemy frigates and corvettes. They’d exacted a heavy toll of imperialist merchant shipping and warships, but the exchange ratio remained lopsided and tilted in entirely the wrong direction.

Now, the latest signal from the high command offered a chance to avenge those defeats. Intelligence agents in the Japanese port of Yokosuka had signaled the departure of a small but important convoy. Such a convoy could have only one destination — the imperialist supply base at Pusan. And so Chun’s Great Leader and two older, Romeo-class boats lurked in its projected path, ready to send the American convoy to the bottom of the Tsushima Strait. A small squadron of three fast attack boats — Osa-class boats armed with Soviet-made SS-N-2C Styx surface-to-surface missiles — waited north of the island, equally ready to pounce on any survivors left afloat after the submarines struck.

Chun had placed his newer, more capable Kilo-class sub in position to cover the western approach to Pusan. The two Romeos waited to the east of Tsushima — forced by their inadequate sonars to rely heavily on periscope sweeps to visually detect an oncoming enemy. Even so, the Americans should find it impossible to slip by them unobserved. Or so he hoped.

He pondered the chart again, rubbing his chin reflexively. Perhaps it would have been better to concentrate his entire force north of Tsushima, close to Pusan’s outer approaches. It would have exposed his units to more risk of detection, but it would also have made it more likely to find and strike the American convoy before it reached the safety of the harbor. Perhaps… Chun shook his head almost imperceptibly. Such thoughts were of little use now. His first plan was undoubtedly the best. Second-guessings were a waste of time and energy. He had a battle to prepare for…

The navigator’s voice broke in on his thoughts. “We’ve reached the westernmost edge of our patrol circuit, Comrade Captain.”

Chun looked up from the chart. “Very well. Come about to zero nine zero degrees. Maintain a speed of five knots.” He caught his first officer’s eye. “Make another inspection of the boat. Ensure that all compartments are fully prepared for noise discipline and for possible damage control.”

They could expect to make contact with the enemy force at any moment now. Great Leader would be ready.

Captain Min Sang-Du stared at the chronometer hung on one wall of Liberator’s tiny plot office. Where the hell were the Americans? He’d run the calculations over and over in his mind and on the chart. Given the last known course and speed of the American convoy, he should have sighted them by now. So what were they up to?

Had they gone west of Tsushima? That possibility didn’t concern him very much. Such a course would take the imperialists straight into the waiting torpedoes of Great Leader. True, that would rob Min and his crew of their share of the glory, but glory was overvalued when the fate of nations was at stake. No, it was the other possibility that bothered Min. The possibility that the Americans were slipping farther to the east than expected — and might already be crossing behind him on their unimpeded way to Pusan. Any captain who allowed that to happen could expect the worst from the naval security service, and he would receive it.

Min shivered in the cold, clammy air. The air inside Liberator’s cramped hull was growing fouler and damper by the hour. Condensation ran off the walls, even off some of the equipment. He leaned over the chart once more and penciled in a hypothetical new course for the American convoy — one that would carry them well away from his current patrol path — and then stood back to look at his handiwork. Yes, that seemed right. And at twelve knots, the imperialists could be… there. He marked the spot and made a decision. The Americans were not here, therefore they must be there.

The North Korean captain made his way back into the crowded Control Room. His first officer waited, eyes questioning.

“Comrade Sung, lay us on course zero three five.”

The submarine heeled slightly as it spun slowly through the water, turning to the northeast.

The P-3C Orion shuddered slightly as it hit a small pocket of turbulence. Sierra Five was flying low, cutting through a zone where the hotter air rising off Tsushima ran into colder air held over the ocean. It was hunting submarines, flying low over a twenty-mile-long line of previously dropped sonobuoys, listening in at each in turn for the first sound that might warrant a Mark 46 torpedo.

The Orion shuddered again, this time sloshing hot coffee down the front of the second sonarman’s flight suit as he tried to slide back into his chair. He swore viciously and tried mopping at the spilled liquid with the corner of an air navigation chart.

The first sonarman didn’t pay any attention. He was too busy punching the intercom button. “Skipper! I’ve got something on number ten, a very weak signal. Could be a diesel boat creeping.”

Sierra Five banked even more sharply as it came around to head back up its sonobuoy line. More coffee spilled onto the second sonar operator.

Up in the cockpit the pilot leveled out of his climbing turn and dropped the Orion’s nose to lose altitude. They were closing on the plotted position of Buoy 10 at more than three hundred knots.

“MAD on?”

“MAD is on,” Sierra Five’s tactical coordinator confirmed. The cheap LOFAR sonobuoys they’d dropped had such a limited range in these noisy waters that any sub they detected with them had to be very close indeed. Close enough so that the Orion’s magnetic anomaly detector — its MAD — should have a good shot at picking up the slight distortion of the earth’s magnetic field caused by a submarine’s metal hull.

“Passing number ten… Now!”

The P-3 roared low over the gray-green sea. An onboard display suddenly spiked upward.

“Madman! Madman! Positive contact! Smoke away!” A smoke float tumbled away from the Orion and ignited, settling onto the water to mark its prey.

“Drop a DICASS.” The tactical coordinator wanted a firm fix and he wanted it fast. A DICASS buoy could go active and get both a bearing and range on a detected target.

The Orion banked steeply again, trading airspeed and altitude for a tighter turn. The buoy popped out of its belly and swayed down into the water.

“New buoy number fifteen is on. Target! Bearing one three five, range four hundred yards!” The sonarman fought to keep his voice from cracking with excitement.

Sierra Five settled back into level flight, this time aimed right at the submarine picked up by its active sonobuoy.

“Weapon away!”

Nobody aboard the Orion saw the splash as its Mark 46 torpedo hit the water. They were too busy preparing for another attack run.

“Torpedo in the water! Bearing three three zero!”

The sonarman’s shout froze Min for a crucial half-second. Then he turned and screamed at the helmsman, “Right full rudder! Flank speed!”

The submarine tilted abruptly as it turned and accelerated toward its meager full speed of fourteen knots. Min pulled himself across the control room and into the plot office. He sighed. It was as he’d thought. The water was too shallow to allow any serious maneuvering in the vertical plane. He’d have to try to outturn the American torpedo and hope it lost him. Not that there was much chance of that.

“Torpedo still closing, Comrade Captain!” Min could hear the fear in his first officer’s voice and knew the same hopelessness. Still, they had to try.

“Left full rudder, then!”

Liberator heeled in the opposite direction as the helmsman executed his order immediately. One man at least hadn’t panicked. That was something. He waited, bracing himself for the impact.

“Torpedo screws fading, Comrade Captain! It has lost us!” Cheers greeted the sonarman’s report.

Min smiled tightly. He would let the poor fools celebrate. They would learn the truth soon enough.

“That first torp missed, Skipper. Still running, but it’s moving away from the contact.”

The P-3’s pilot, a burly Naval Reserve commander with the name LAMBROS stenciled across his flight suit, looked at his copilot and smiled. “Ya know, the biggest ASW mistake the Japanese made during Word War II was giving up too soon. I’m not making the same mistake.” His hands pulled the Orion into another turn.

“Madman! Madman!”

“Weapon away.”

The cheers faded into a collective groan.

“Right full rudder!” Min turned to his first officer. “Raise the radio mast.”

“But…” Sung looked confused. “Comrade Captain, the enemy will see it… especially at this speed!”

“Idiot! Do you think that will matter? Listen!” The pings of several active sonars could be heard clearly, even above the noise made by Liberator’s laboring screws. “Signal all units that we are under attack. And do it while there is still time.”

Min watched his lieutenant enter the Radio Room and then leaned back against a bulkhead to await his fate. They had been lucky once. They wouldn’t be lucky again.

“A hit!”

Water fountained skyward in a column of white foam, dead fish, and pitch-black oil. The P-3’s pilot winced slightly watching it. He had an active imagination and could easily visualize how the Mark 46’s high-explosive warhead had killed the enemy submarine — it must have ripped the sub open like a gutted trout. He stared at the oil-coated waves rippling away from the impact zone. There wouldn’t be any survivors. Not in the middle of that.

With an effort he pulled his eyes and mind away from the dead submarine. “Signal the O’Brien. Tell ’em we got the bad guy.”

“Aye, aye, Skipper.” The tactical coordinator’s voice was jubilant. “That’s one down and surely more to go.”

Commander Sohn Chae-Hwan studied the message flimsy. “You’re sure this is all that was sent?”

The signals rating nodded. “Yes, Comrade Captain. Just the call sign for Liberator and those words, ‘under attack.’” He flinched as a dollop of spray sluiced across the Osa-class missile boat’s open bridge. He’d grown too used to his warm cubbyhole belowdecks and didn’t like standing outside, fully exposed to the cold sea.

Sohn dismissed him with a curt gesture and turned to look at the chart for Liberator’s last known position. He had to assume that the submarine had been sunk by whatever enemy had attacked it. And that left just one Romeo-class antique in the probable path of the American convoy. He sneered. It was unlikely that one ancient diesel submarine would be able to do much on its own.

He glanced up from the chart, studying the stubby silhouettes of the other two missile boats that made up his command. The original plan hadn’t called for the Osa squadron to attack until the mop-up phase, but the original plan had just gone by the boards. Liberator sunk without even exacting a price for its loss. Disgraceful.

But perhaps a sudden attack by the twelve SS-N-2C Styx missiles his boats carried could sow enough confusion to give that last Romeo a fighting chance. It was worth trying.

He snapped out an order. “Signal the squadron. New course is two three five degrees. Full speed ahead!”

Sohn felt the Revolution leap under his feet as its three-shaft diesel engines roared into life. The three missile boats turned southwest, toward the northernmost tip of Tsushima Island, racing ahead at thirty-six knots.

Levi watched as a rating updated the CIC’s plot, showing the P-3 moving further north to lay another sonobuoy line across the northern tip of Tsushima Island. Another seaman entered the convoy’s current position.

He turned to his ASW officer. “Well, what do you think, Bill?”

“I think we’re right on the edge of game time, Skipper. I sure as hell don’t think that NK sub was out there all alone. He’ll have company around somewhere.”

“Agreed. Okay, then. Let’s get Duncan’s helo down for refueling. But tell Vandermeier I want his replacement in the air first. I want continuous coverage to our east. Clear?”

The ASW officer nodded.

Levi glanced at the air status board. They hadn’t been updated yet. He frowned. “What’s the latest on our own birds?”

“Hotel Three is at plus-five. Ready to launch at your order.” The ASW officer followed Lev’s frown and frowned himself. Somebody was being slow.

“What about Two?”

“Still down. They’re trying to get that cracked rotor casing off for repair, but it looks like an all-day job.”

Levi’s frown grew deeper. His second SH-2F Sea Sprite had been out of commission off and on ever since leaving Pearl two weeks before. What the hell use was a helicopter that wouldn’t ever fly? “Well, try to light a fire under them down there, Bill. You know the old saying, ‘For want of a helo…’”

The ASW officer grinned. “Aye, aye, Skipper. Consider the pyre lit.” His grin faded. “But I don’t think it’s going to do much good.”

“Yeah, well. At least it’ll make me feel better. So get it done.” Levi turned his attention back to the plot, trying to guess where the NKs would come from next.

Senior Captain Chun pondered the fragmentary message relayed by East Sea Fleet Command at Wonsan. “And there has been no further contact with Liberator?”

“No, Captain.”

Chun dismissed the man with an absentminded wave. Min and his submarine had almost certainly been sunk. If they’d survived, Liberator would have made a more detailed contact report by now. Min was — no, had been — a veteran captain, one of the best. Meanwhile Great Leader’s patrol along Tsushima’s west coast had been completely undisturbed. Not a single sonar contact. Not a single significant periscope sighting.

The possibility that had been growing in his mind crystallized into a certainty — the Americans were transiting Tsushima’s east coast. And he and his submarine were in exactly the wrong place. Chun stepped to the Control Room’s plot table.

He laid out a course that would allow them to intercept the Americans to the north of Tsushima and then frowned, calculating times and distances. It would be at least a six-hour run at ten knots — a run that would leave the Great Leader dangerously short of battery power.

Diesel-electric submarines were the quietest on earth when operating on batteries, but endurance runs at speed weren’t exactly their forte. Kilo-class subs such as his could carry two hundred hours’ worth of charge in their massive battery stacks, but increased speed meant an increased battery drain. At ten knots the Great Leader’s electric motors would consume ten hours’ worth of charge for every hour of operation. It went up from there. An hour at fifteen knots ate fifty hours’ worth of charge, and using the sub’s maximum speed, sixteen knots, would drain every battery aboard in just two hours. The Great Leader’s batteries could be recharged while snorkeling and running on diesels, but diesels were noisy. And noisy submarines didn’t live long.

Still, he didn’t have much choice. The high command’s orders were explicit. This convoy must be stopped — at all costs. Chun faced his officers. “Left rudder. Bring us to new course zero zero three. And increase speed to ten knots.”

For a second the assembled officers stood motionless, surprised by his sudden decision to abandon the Great Leader’s slated patrol area. Then they scrambled to obey. They would go north.

“Buoy number twenty-two down and marked. Drop point for twenty-three is coming up … now!”

“Buoy away!” A small parachute blossomed from beneath the P-3’s belly and drifted toward the ocean. In the aircraft above, the tactical coordinator watched the computer screen as a small symbol appeared, with “23” next to it. Sierra Five was just passing the small village of Toyo on the rocky northeastern tip of Tsushima Island, laying a new sonobuoy line from the southwest to the northeast. Four more buoys would complete the line, and then the P-3 could circle around to begin its patrol, always listening for the minute sounds — a noisy propeller, a hatch slammed shut too fast, a metal tool dropped on a metal deck — that could signal an enemy’s approach.

“Uh… Skipper?” It was one of the crewmen acting as lookouts through the side windows.

The pilot clicked his intercom switch. “Go ahead, Charlie. What’s up?”

“I think maybe I just saw something up north. Pretty far out there. All I could see was some kind of blinking or flashing.” The lookout sounded vaguely apologetic for having disturbed him.

Something to the north? On the surface? Maybe he’d made a mistake in leaving the P-3’s radar off. It had seemed unnecessary to have it on and all too likely to alert any enemy sub with ESM — electronic intercept — capability. Sierra Five’s commander clicked his intercom switch again. “Let’s get the radar going, Mike.”

“Warming up now.” Aft in the Orion’s electronics compartment, the petty officer assigned to run its APS-115 surface search radar flicked a series of switches and listened to the low hum as his gear came on line, going from standby to active status in seconds. Blips appeared instantly on the screen. “Contact! I’ve got two, no, three radar contacts bearing zero one six, range approximately twenty-three miles. Definitely small surface contacts, not periscopes.”

Up in the cockpit, the pilot glanced at his copilot. “Japanese or Korean fishing boats, maybe?”

His second-in-command looked up from leafing through a thick collection of charts and photocopied briefing papers. “Not in that sector. Not legally, anyway. The Pusan sea lane’s been posted off-limits since Day One.”

“Skipper!” It was the radar operator. “Contacts now bearing zero two zero. Their track is two three five, speed thirty-six knots!”

Those weren’t fishing boats. They were moving too goddamned fast. The P-3 banked hard right to come around on an intercept course. “Sparks, tell the O’Brien the good news. Frank, get your Harpoons ready to go. Looks like we’ve got targets for ’em.”

“Coming up, bossman.” The tactical coordinator had his face nuzzled up against a radar repeater scope, studying the contacts he was about to try to kill. Three distinct ships, each separated from the others by about a mile of open water. Three targets… and two Harpoons slung under Sierra Five’s wings. Well, two out of three wouldn’t be bad.

“Range eighteen miles and closing.”

The copilot had binoculars up to his eyes, sweeping the sea ahead of them. “Got ’em. Dead ahead. Small patrol boats. Probably Osas by the look of ’em. Definitely not friendlies.”

“Okay, that’s good enough for me.” The P-3’s pilot spoke firmly. “Nail the creeps, Frank.”

“Aircraft! Due south!”

The lookout’s shout brought Commander Sohn’s head around in time to see the two tiny flashes from under the P-3’s wings. “Missile warning! Hard right rudder! Come to new course two seven zero. Alert Retaliation and Avenger!”

Sohn held onto the bridge railing with both hands, braced against the tilting deck as the Revolution came around on its new course. Its two sister ships followed suit, turning in line abreast and throwing spray high into the air in twin roostertails.

Revolution’s gun turrets whined, spinning round to face south. The North Korean commander grimaced. Even though he’d ordered the radical turn to unmask both his boat’s twin-gun 30mm mounts, he knew they’d still have a difficult shot against the enemy missile. The briefings he’d received had said that the Harpoon could skim the waves at more than five hundred knots. Since his guns had a maximum effective range of just over a mile and a half, that meant they would have less than ten seconds to try to knock an incoming Harpoon into the sea before it hit home. Not very much time at all.

He let go of the railing with one hand and leaned over an open hatch to yell down to the boat’s signals rating. “Break radio silence. Inform Fleet Command and all units that we are under air attack and that we believe the enemy convoy is on a course east of Tsushima Island.”

Sohn didn’t wait for a reply but turned away, trying to spot the Harpoons streaking toward him. There. Twin shadows racing over the water almost faster than the eye could see. One was climbing, arcing into the sky as it popped up before plunging down onto Revolution.

Both the fore and aft 30-millimeter guns cut loose with a chattering roar, throwing tracers toward the missile climbing higher above the sea. Sohn’s hands gripped the railing as he willed himself to remain motionless. Yes! A 30mm round shattered the American missile, turning it into a tumbling ball of flame that struck the water two hundred meters short of the Revolution.

Sohn caught a split-second glance of the other Harpoon’s long, white shape as it flashed overhead and was gone. He spun round and staggered as a tremendous shock wave rocked the boat. There, less than a mile off, debris spiraled away from the center of an explosion. When the smoke and spray cleared, Retaliation, his middle boat, had vanished — blown to pieces by the missile’s 227-kilogram warhead.

He broke away from the boiling sea left by the explosion and sought out the enemy plane. It seemed to hang in midair, arrogantly loitering to see the results of its attack. “Hard left rudder! Bring us to one eight zero degrees. I want to close the range to that bastard!” He looked wildly around. “Comrade Lee!”

The boat’s portly weapons officer hauled himself to his feet. “Yes, Comrade Captain!”

“Prepare your SAM team! I want that plane down!”

The Revolution and its surviving consort, the Avenger, surged south, speeding toward the P-3 and closer to the rocky beaches of Tsushima Island.

“I’m sorry, Captain. The island’s blocking our fire. We just can’t hit those Osas from here.”

Levi nodded his understanding. His tactical action officer was right. The two remaining North Korean missile boats were sheltered from his Harpoons by the Japanese island’s hills. The geometry just wasn’t quite right. For a second he wondered if the NK commander had planned it that way. Then he dismissed the thought. It didn’t matter. What did matter was finding a way to get a shot at those fast attack boats before they could launch on him.

Levi ran his eye over the plot, half-listening to the constant stream of reports flowing in from the P-3 twenty miles ahead. There really was only one practical maneuver. He stepped to the intercom. “Mr. Keegan, alter course to zero three zero degrees and increase speed to twenty knots. Signal the Duncan to take station astern and order the convoy to alter course to zero nine zero degrees.”

“Aye, aye, Captain.”

Levi stepped back to the plot to speak to the tactical action office. “That’ll help us get a clear field of fire faster. And it’ll keep the merchies behind us if missiles start flying.”

The other man smiled, but Levi’s ASW officer didn’t look so pleased.

“Problems, Bill?”

“If there’s a sub out there, Captain, we’re in a world of hurt. At this speed, our sonars aren’t going to be worth a damn.”

Levi nodded gravely. “I’m aware of that. But that’s a risk we’ll have to take. Our helos will have to shield us while we take out those NK boats.” He stopped, hoping he wouldn’t have to eat those words at the court-martial that would follow any defeat.

“They’re still closing, Skipper. Now less than seven miles away.”

The P-3’s pilot smiled. “Maybe they think we’re gonna let ’em get close enough to use those machine guns on us. Keep your eyes on them, though. The boys on the O’Brien and Duncan can use any info we pick up.”

Sierra Five continued its lazy orbit, watching as the two North Korean missile boats charged in. Navy intelligence reports said the NK Osas didn’t carry any significant antiaircraft weapons.

Sohn kept his eyes moving, swiveling back and forth from the American plane to the SA-7 SAM team crouching low beside the aft 30 mm gun turret. They were almost in range — just a few hundred meters more. Closer. Closer. He brought his hand up, ready to signal the attack. Almost…

“Range is now five miles, Skipper.”

The P-3’s pilot heard the questioning note in his radar operator’s voice and let it feed the small uncertainty growing in his own mind. The North Korean missile boats were now clearly visible to the naked eye. “Yeah. That’s close enough. Let’s put some airspace between us and get that sonobuoy line laid.”

His hands were already busy banking the aircraft in a shallow turn away from the NK craft.

“It’s turning away!”

Sohn saw the massive four-engined aircraft changing shape as it changed course, pulling out of the slow figure-eight orbit it had been following. He leapt for the rear bridge railing. “On your feet! Fire! Fire!”

“But Comrade Captain…” The boat’s weapons officer tried to stop him, babbling something about the angles and ranges. It was too late.

The sailor clutching the SA-7 Grail SAM launcher rose from beside the aft gun turret and lifted it to his shoulder, letting the missile’s seeker head find the heat emanating from the P-3’s engines. It locked on and he fired, braced against the pitching deck as the missle ignited and flashed into the sky.

“Shit!” The P-3’s pilot saw the smoke trail curving after him and jammed the throttles all the way forward. A fuckin’ missile, he thought, they’ve got SAMs on those goddamned things. Who would’ve thought it? You should have, cried a voice inside his skull. He watched the airspeed indicator climb, agonizingly slowly, as the SAM gained on them, streaking in at close to a thousand knots.

Sierra Five got lucky.

The SA-7 closed rapidly on the P-3, veering toward the heat thrown off by its two port wing engines. Then, just two hundred yards or so behind its target, the North Korean missile — its propellant exhausted and momentum gone — tipped over and fell away into the sea. The P-3’s turn and burst of speed had carried it out of range.

The pilot breathed out, a little more shakily than he would have liked. That had been too close. He looked into the mirror. Now far behind him, the two surviving North Korean boats were curving away, heading southeast.

“Tell the O’Brien that she’s gonna have company in a few minutes. Those NKs look like they plan to go head-to-head.” Then he clicked the intercom to speak to the whole crew. “Okay, guys, that was fun. But now let’s get back to doing what they pay us for — killing subs.”

A faint cheer echoed his words. Submarines didn’t shoot back.

Levi wheeled toward his tactical action officer. “Light ’em up. Signal Duncan weapons free!”

The response was immediate. “Two small surface contacts! Bearing three five one. Range eighteen point four miles!”

At the same time, Levi could hear one of this ratings yelling, “ESM report! Strong Square Tie radar emissions, bearing three five one!”

“Fire four Harpoons! Two at each contact.”

Four missiles roared away from one of the ship’s two Mark 141 launchers.

“Five radar contacts, Comrade Captain. Two medium-sized, bearing one seven one, range twenty-nine point five kilometers. Two large and one medium-sized, bearing one six nine, range thirty-five kilometers.”

Sohn smiled. He’d been right. He’d found the American convoy. “Inform all units of the position, course, and speed of the enemy.”

“Missile alert! Four missiles fired at us from the lead group of enemy vessels!”

Sohn slapped a hand on the bridge railing, making his officers jump. “Very well! Those must be the enemy escorts. If we sink them, our submariner comrades will find it easy to deal with the merchant tubs left afloat.” He looked at the chubby weapons officer. The man’s face was wet — though whether from salt spray or fear-induced perspiration was beyond Sohn’s ability to guess. “Fire our own missiles at the lead enemy vessel. Avenger will fire at the other.”

The man turned to obey, and Sohn and all the rest ducked away as the Revolution’s four SS-N-2C Styx missiles thundered out of their enclosed launchers and sped toward the as-yet-unseen American ships, trailing tongues of fire and choking thick white clouds of missile exhaust.

The radar operator’s voice squeaked into a falsetto that would have been comical under other circumstances. “Missiles inbound! I count… seven, eight small, high-speed contacts!”

Levi stayed calm. He’d already calculated the odds. “Warn Duncan. We’ll engage when the inbounds are within range.”

The situation he and his ships confronted showed the need for close teamwork. As a Perry-class frigate, the Duncan didn’t carry the destroyer’s big five-inch guns or an ASROC launcher. On the other hand, its Standard SAM missiles far outranged the Sea Sparrows on the O’Brien. Essentially, Levi knew, his destroyer was the escort’s sword. And Duncan was his shield.

He stood watching the CIC’s display screens, listening to the chatter from the men around him as the opposing missiles sped toward their respective targets. For the moment he was as much a bystander as if he’d never taken a Navy commission. This battle was in the hands of the computers and the men who served them.

He watched as six Standards raced out from the Duncan toward the first group of four North Korean missiles. The rival groups merged in just thirty seconds, and three of the Styx missiles disappeared — blown out of the sky. The fourth kept coming. Two more Standards reached out and intercepted it while it was still more than ten miles from the O’Brien. Four others met the second wave of Styx missiles and drowned two of them. The two survivors made it to within seven miles before they were shot down by the destroyer’s own Sea Sparrows.

At the same time, O’Brien’s four Harpoons skimmed the waves on their way toward the NK Osas. Aware of the threat, the two North Korean boats turned and fled north, jinking wildly from side to side in a vain attempt to shake off the pair of American missiles pursuing each of them. Their close defense weapons missed, and Levi kept his eyes on the radar plot as the Harpoons struck, annihilating their targets in a series of blinding explosions. All the screen showed was a sudden absence of any blips. But sixty North Korean sailors were dead.

Levi heard the collective sigh of relief from his CIC crew and felt the tension draining away from all around him. Some of that was good, but too much relaxation on their part would be bad. He brought them back on guard with a rapid series of orders. “Signal the convoy to resume normal steaming positions, course, and speed. Mr. Keegan?”

“Yes, Captain?”

“Slow to twelve knots and take us back to the front of the convoy.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

Satisfied that his men were back in hand and paying attention to their duties, Levi allowed himself his own slight smile of relief.

The action had taken just over two minutes.

“Sonar reports multiple explosions bearing three four three, Comrade Captain.”

The North Korean captain’s pockmarked face looked up at the interruption. He’d been jotting down notes for his next political lecture. The captain had never been a particularly agile public orator, and he found it difficult to speak coherently, especially when using the standard Party jargon. As a result, he often found himself trying to cram additional preparation time in whenever he could — even while his submarine was busy hunting an enemy convoy.

“Explosions? Any other noise — propellers, sonars, that sort of thing?”

“No, Comrade Captain. Just the explosions.”

The captain grunted, unsurprised that his sonar operators hadn’t heard anything more. In these confined waters the Romeo-class submarine’s Feniks passive sonar was lucky to pick up any kind of sound within five kilometers.

“Very well. I’ll come forward.”

With a stifled groan he stood up from his narrow writing desk and waddled forward to the Control Room. His chief officers were all there waiting for him. He fixed his eyes on the senior lieutenant. “Anything more to report?”

“No, Comrade Captain. There have been no further explosions or other sonar contacts.”

“I see. Well, let’s take a look at what’s going on. Raise the periscope.”

The captain waited for the scope to come all the way up out of its housing before stooping to stare through the eyepieces. Something in Admiral Yi’s plain fare had given him a severe case of indigestion — indigestion that made sharp movement painful. “Nothing there.”

He started to spin the scope through a full circle. After all, he might as well check the whole horizon while he was at it.…

“So I said, ‘Sorry, babe, I’m fresh out of quarters.’ Man, you should have seen the look in that bimbo’s eyes. Talk about pissed off…” Hotel Three’s pilot broke off as he saw something strange off the helicopter’s port side. “Holy God! That’s a mothafuckin’ periscope!”

The SH-2F Sea Sprite dipped and spun round to face the long, thin cylindrical object sticking six inches above the sea. Sunlight sparkled off the lens. There couldn’t be any doubt that it was a periscope.

“Want an active buoy?” the helo’s copilot asked, still stunned by the suddenness of it all. Not one of their passive buoys had picked the submarine up. Not one.

“Hell, no! Drop a torp! Left search pattern,” the pilot snapped as he brought the Sea Sprite into hover right over the spot where the rest of the enemy submarine had to be.

“Weapon away!” The helicopter lurched upward, freed from the weight of the Mark 46 as it plunged into the sea. It acquired the enemy submarine within seconds and dove straight for it.

The captain and crew of the DPRK submarine Admiral Yi died without ever knowing they were under attack or even how close they’d come to finding the American convoy.

Chun sat rigid, holding Revolution’s last contact report crumpled in his hand. His plans had failed. His forces had attacked piecemeal and they’d been defeated piecemeal. Worse yet, the Americans were ahead of him — a fact that would make it difficult, if not completely impossible, to successfully intercept them.

“Do you have any change to make in our orders, sir?” His first officer sounded solicitous. Chun’s lips thinned. The man was right to worry about him. A failure now would erase any memory of Chun’s earlier successes and would probably result in his being stripped of command, rank, and all their accompanying privileges.

He shook his head. “No. Carry on with your duties, comrade.” He tried to smile and partially succeeded. “We’ll catch them yet.”

The first officer smiled back and nodded. “Of course, Comrade Captain.” He started to turn away and then stopped. “Would you care for some tea, Captain?”

This time Chun’s smile was more genuine. Tea would be just the thing to help settle his nerves and occupy his mind during the long quiet run ahead. “Indeed, comrade. And have the cook prepare enough for all of us. After all, you know I hate to drink alone.”

Polite laughter greeted his small jest.

“Hear anything?”

The sonarman sat straighter in his chair and stretched weary muscles. His back was killing him. “Nope, Skipper. Not a peep on any of the buoys. Maybe we got ’em all.”

“Maybe.” The P-3’s pilot didn’t sound convinced. “Anyway, this is why Uncle Sam sends us such big monthly checks. So stay sharp, guys. Only four more hours till we have to land and refuel.”

The expected groans met his announcement. They’d already been airborne for eight hours.

The chief cook grumbled to himself as he bustled about in the Great Leader’s tiny galley. Officers! First do this. Then do that. And none of them appreciated the difficult conditions under which he worked. They wanted tea prepared — tea for all of them to guzzle. Well, he’d be willing to bet that not a single one of them realized his tiny electric burners could only boil two kettles of water at a time. Yes, he’d wager a month’s ration books on that.

He rummaged through storage cabinets, looking for the special tea leaves the sub’s officers insisted on using and cursing under his breath all the while. Behind him, one of the kettles started to whistle thinly. Too soon, damn it! The cook spun round to turn the burner down.

Disaster struck. As he turned, his elbow knocked a stack of metal pots off the shelf. Instead of simply falling quietly onto the Great Leader’s rubber-coated deck, they tumbled and clattered against each other all the way down. Startled by the sudden noise, the cook slipped and his hand landed palm-first on the boiling kettle. The man’s scream echoed throughout the submarine.

Chun reacted instantly. “Slow to five knots! Rig for silent running! And tell that fool to shut up!”

“Transient! I have a metallic transient and other noise on number forty!” The sonar operator’s shout brought the Orion around in a tight turn, orbiting around the plotted position of sonobuoy number forty.

“Anything?”

The sonarman shook his head unconsciously before realizing that his commander couldn’t see him. “Negative, Skipper. Whatever’s down there just went real quiet. And I mean quiet. Like, they’re doing a pretty good impression of being a plain, old, harmless water molecule.”

Forward in the cockpit, the P-3’s pilot considered that. Any sub that could stay that silent was a damned big threat to the convoy, and it would probably be impossible to localize with passive sensors alone. On the other hand, staying that quiet also meant it couldn’t be moving very fast. Which meant it was still close at hand. He clicked his mike, “Frank?”

“Yeah, Skipper?” the Orion’s tactical coordinator answered.

“Drop a DICASS. I think we can ping on this guy.”

“You got it.”

The active sonobuoy splashed down noiselessly into the water and unreeled its hydrophone.

“Activate.”

Sound waves pulsed out through the water in widening circles, seeking something solid to bounce off. They found it.

“Bingo! Sonar contact bearing one four five. Range fifteen hundred yards!”

Piinng!

“They have us, Captain.”

Chun nodded. The noise was too loud for any other possible conclusion. “Take us to periscope depth, comrade. We’ll scratch this flea off our back.” He hoped his voice conveyed his confidence.

Although detected by some kind of American ASW aircraft, they still had a chance. Its Soviet builders had equipped Great Leader to deal with such a contingency. The submarine’s periscope mast carried an SA-N-8 SAM system. Now Chun and his crew would learn whether or not the system was worth the added expense.

Piinng!

“Up periscope!”

“Contact bearing steady, range one thousand yards.”

The P-3’s pilot eased his throttle back, settling the plane into its attack run.

“Look! Dead ahead!”

He followed his copilot’s pointing finger. Their target had raised its periscope well above the water. It made a good aiming mark. But what was that box attached to the scope?

“Jesus!” His startled shout was echoed by the other man in the cockpit as a finger of orange-red flame suddenly erupted from the box.

The missile flew straight into the Orion’s outer starboard engine and exploded — throwing red-hot fragments into the turboprop’s fuel lines and fans. It seized up and fireballed. The P-3 dropped toward the water with its starboard wing trailing flame.

“Feather number four and activate extinguishers!” He held the Orion on course while the copilot and flight engineer worked frantically to put the fire out.

“Range five hundred yards.” The sonar crew was still on duty.

“Dump that torpedo!”

The pilot felt the Orion lift momentarily as the Mark 46 released. He pulled back on the control, trying to gain altitude.

“Skipper, the fire’s out of control. It’s gonna — ”

Sierra Five exploded in midair.

Chun watched pieces of the American plane fall into the sea and grinned. “We got him! We killed the American bastard!”

“Captain! High-speed screws bearing three two five! Range close!”

Chun pulled his head away from periscope and whispered, “And he has killed us…”

Then he recovered and roared, “Left full rudder! Flank speed!”

He had to try to save his boat — not just for himself and for his crew, but for his country as well. Great Leader was North Korea’s most modern, most effective submarine. Without it, the North’s already uphill battle to interdict the South’s sea lines of communication would become completely unwinnable. American reinforcements and materiel would flow virtually unchallenged into the South’s teeming harbors.

Chun felt Great Leader’s deck cant as it turned, slowly at first, but faster as the submarine’s speed picked up.

It was still too slow. When the American torpedo reached its target area, the Great Leader was moving at just nine knots. That wasn’t fast enough for Chun’s abruptly ordered turn to form the “knuckle” of disturbed water needed to confuse the torpedo’s onboard sonar.

Instead, the torpedo steered right through the patch of mild turbulence, corrected its course slightly, and then drove straight into the Great Leader, striking just aft of its conning tower.

The Mark 46 exploded and ripped open a gaping hole in the Great Leader’s pressure hull. The submarine flooded in seconds and settled to the bottom on its side, trailing a stream of bubbling air, debris, and fuel oil.

North Korea’s prewar naval strategy sank with it.

Captain Richard Levi swept his eyes over the rows of merchant ships riding at anchor in Pusan harbor and then looked back at the three moored closest to O’Brien. Andrew T. Thomas, Polar Sea, and the Thorvaldsen. He’d done it. He and his crews had brought their ungainly charges to safety. Now gangs of South Korean longshoremen swarmed over the three, unloading their precious cargos for immediate shipment to the front. Levi permitted his shoulders to sag ever so slightly. Now he could rest.

“Captain?”

He turned to find a signals rating waiting. “Yes?”

“Message from Seventh Fleet, sir. Marked urgent.”

Levi took the message and scanned it. Almost imperceptibly he straightened. Relaxation would have to wait.

“New orders, Captain?” his executive officer asked.

“Yes, Mr. Keegan.” He looked out across the crowded harbor again, focusing on a group of gray-painted Navy ships anchored together near Pusan’s largest dock. “We’ve been assigned to the amphibious group assembling here. We’ll join the escort when it sails north.”

For a moment he stared at the massive amphibious transports and helicopter carriers riding uneasily at anchor. It was time to strike back. Time to cut the North Koreans off at the knees. Then Levi turned away from the sight. He and his officers had a lot of work to do before O’Brien would be ready to get under way again, and not enough hours to do it in. He didn’t have time to waste.