Seawolf Class

11

"All clear topside," Garrett said, walking the scope around in a full circle. "Take us up, Mr. Tollini."

"Now surface, surface, surface," Tollini called over the boat's intercom. "Up bubble, ten degrees. Helm, steady as you go."

"Up bubble, ten degrees, aye aye," the planesman announced.

"Helm steady as she goes, aye," the helmsman added.

"Blow main ballast," Garrett said.

"Blow main ballast, aye." Tollini brought his palm down on the main ballast release, sending high-pressure air into the sub's ballast tanks.

The deck tilted, and Seawolf rose from the darkness of the ocean depths.

This was, Garrett thought, an unnatural act, akin to a reluctant paratrooper's lament about jumping out of a perfectly good airplane. Modern submarines did not belong on the surface… and he hadn't needed the Board of Inquiry after Operation Buster three years ago to tell him that. Submerged, an attack submarine was one of the deadliest and most formidable of all modern weapons platforms, hard to find, hard to kill; on the surface, she was remarkably vulnerable and weak, visible to all, with a hull so thin even a lightly armed patrol boat or aircraft could take her out.

And surfacing here, just twenty miles off the mainland Chinese coast…

"Feeling a case of the jitters, XO?" Captain Lawless asked from the passageway forward.

Did it show that much? "No, sir." He grinned. "Not much, anyway."

Garrett had the watch as OOD, but Lawless had dropped in moments before to watch the surface maneuver. He hadn't taken command but silently looked on as Garrett checked the area for surface vessels, then gave the orders to surface.

He felt the slight shudder in the hull as the sail broke the surface, creating a sudden drag as the rising sub churned up a wake. The hull broke the surface a moment later, leveling off as the bow planes stopped biting water.

"We are on the surface, sir," Tollini announced. "Running smooth and normal."

"Very good," Lawless said. "I've got the deck now. Lookouts topside. XO? Care to accompany me?"

"Gladly, sir."

They climbed the ladder through the narrow confines of the sail, cracking the overhead hatch and letting a splash of cold seawater rain down on them. The lookouts went up first, climbing into their respective sail stations. Garrett was first onto the weather bridge, followed a moment later by Lawless.

Garrett blinked in the bright, afternoon sunlight glaring from a steel-blue sea. Ahead, to the north and northwest, lay Mainland China, low, rolling hills aglow in golden light, beneath cumulous clouds towering into the heavens. To left and right, huge numbers of surface craft crowded the water, though the Seawolf was being given a generously wide berth. Most of the boats were junks and fishing yawls; one ominous watcher, though, was running parallel to Seawolf,a kilometer off her starboard beam: a Luda-class destroyer, superficially like the old Soviet Kotlin class, but larger, with a flat transom aft and a bulkier superstructure. Flying astern of the destroyer was a Kaman SH-2F LAMPS I helicopter, an American design sold to the People's Republic of China in the past few years specifically for antisubmarine work.

It would be one hell of a note, Garrett thought, if the 'Wolf was to come under attack by a former American ASW helo.

Destroyer and helicopter appeared to be shadowing the Seawolf, not coming too close but staying where their presence would serve as a warning. We see you, Yankee, and we are ready for you….

They maintained their northwesterly heading through flat seas, accompanied by clouds of civilian craft, fishing boats, junks, cabin cruisers, sailboats. The hills ahead slowly resolved into sharper focus… impossibly green and strangely humped, rising from the blue mirror of the ocean. Garrett had been here before, once, when the USS Portsmouth made a show-the-flag call back in '95. Hong Kong had still been a British colony then. So far, it didn't look as though much had changed in the intervening years or with the hand-over of the territory to the PRC.

"What are you thinking, XO?" Lawless asked.

It seemed an uncharacteristic question, and it caught Garrett off guard. Still, to his surprise during the past few days, Garrett had found himself understanding Lawless better. Dougherty had been right. The captain was tough, hard, and supremely demanding. He was also fair and devoted to the 'Wolf's crew. The only fault Garrett could find with the man — aside from his occasional bigotry against people of Asian descent — was his habit of not pushing that extra hundred yards to close with a potential enemy or gather the extra bit of hard intel. And that could be explained easily enough by his desire not to put his men or his boat needlessly in harm's way.

"I'm thinking, sir," he replied, "that the conversation on the mess deck last night before the movie didn't do justice to this by half."

"What conversation was that?" Lawless had not attended the movie.

"Some of the guys were saying that our foreign policy so far as the People's Republic goes doesn't make sense. First we spent a couple of decades propping up Chiang's claim that he represented all of China. Then we tried to make up to Beijing and dumped Chiang, but gently… trying to keep him on as a trading partner without admitting that Taiwan was a country or making Beijing mad. Then we're helping Taiwan again, when Beijing starts tossing missiles and trying to intimidate us and Taipei. And now… "

"And now they pull another switch and make kissy-face to Beijing," Lawless said, completing the thought. "Suffering from whiplash yet?"

"Not quite, but it's getting there. What do you make of it, sir?"

Lawless shrugged. "That it's pretty much business as usual. Washington doesn't want a war with China. We want to do business with both the mainland and with Taiwan, which makes sense, since trading partners are more fun to play with than military enemies or radioactive deserts. But Beijing and Taipei don't want to play nice with each other, which leaves us in a hell of a position. Either we support Taiwan and get ourselves into one hell of a war… or we prove to the rest of the world that our word can't be trusted, that we don't stand by our friends."

"The rest of the world probably got that message when we stopped recognizing the Taipei regime as legitimate."

"Maybe. Of course, nobody else in the world recognizes Taiwan as a real government anymore, except twenty-odd nations that are either too small to be noticed by Beijing or are outcast states anyway. South Africa. Israel. Singapore." He chuckled. "Did you know that Lithuania tried to recognize Taiwan when they got their independence from the Soviet Union? Beijing landed on them hard, threatening all kinds of diplomatic bluster and thunder. Lithuania had to back down finally. They couldn't afford that kind of pressure."

"I hadn't known that."

"S'truth. China, the PRC, has been playing this game for a long time, and they've been playing hardball. They're patient. They haven't wanted a war, either. But they're also determined to get their way, to get their rebellious province back in line."

"So why are they pushing so hard now?" Garrett asked.

"Combination of factors. First, they know that if the PDP stays in power, there's a good chance they'll finally win recognition as an independent state, the Republic of Taiwan. Once that happens, Beijing can't claim that other countries are interfering in their internal affairs by recognizing Taipei, by selling them up-to-date arms and munitions, or by forming trade or defense alliances with them.

"And second…there's the Terrorist War. This must be a God-given chance for Beijing, with our military stretched to the limit right now in Iraq, Afghanistan, and half a dozen other places scattered all over the globe. They know we can't commit to a big war here, or a long one, or an expensive one. They're gambling that when they push hard enough, we're going to back down, that Taiwan is a small price to pay for peace."

"They know us pretty well."

"We don't exactly make it hard for them," Lawless said. "China has a culture going back a couple of millennia. They're used to taking the long view. To being patient. Like a cat at a mouse hole."

"And right now I feel like the mouse." Garrett smiled. "So why are we sailing blithely into Hong Kong harbor, with the cat waiting to pounce?"

"Damfino. At a guess, I'd say some lead-asses in the State Department see their careers tied to good relations with Beijing and are willing to do or say just about anything to keep things friendly."

"Sometimes, Captain, I think the world is drowning in stupidity."

"The two most common elements in the universe, Mr. Garrett, are hydrogen and stupidity. I forget who said that."

"Hm. You know, sir, sailing a three-billion-dollar Seawolf-class submarine into the middle of a potential enemy harbor is not exactly a friendly gesture."

"Sure it is. You think the PLA is going to start anything with us in the middle of one of their busiest harbors? Cruise missiles make wonderful equalizers. They'll be very friendly."

"Yes, sir, and you know as well as I do that those cruise missiles would be better employed from a weapons platform that was safely tucked away out of sight a couple of hundred miles offshore, and under about three hundred feet of water. If Beijing decides to cut off talks while we're parked in there, we're going to have a hell of a time getting clear." He cast an uneasy glance toward the swarm of small craft to starboard, just beyond the ominous gray shark-shape of the PLA destroyer. "You know, I keep looking at all of those small boats and remembering that these waters used to be pirate hangouts."

"You think they may try to board and storm us?"

Garrett shook his head. "They wouldn't get through the deck hatches. But I do think about the Cole."

The USS Cole was the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer savaged in Aden Harbor by bin Laden's Al Qaida terrorists eleven months before the attacks on New York and the Pentagon in 2001. The Cole had been in the process of preparing to take on fuel when a small boat came alongside and exploded, ripping a gaping hole in her side, killing seventeen sailors and wounding thirty-nine others. Most Navy personnel today thought of that attack as bin Laden's true declaration of war, a declaration that had been ignored at the time.

"So we keep the Cole in mind and don't let security slip for an instant," Lawless said. "What do you recommend?"

"Armed guards on deck. No local boat allowed to approach within fifty meters."

"That might be tough to enforce in that harbor."

"Yes, sir. Other than that… " He stopped. "Are you authorizing liberty, Captain?"

"Yes. This is supposed to be a diplomatic call, remember. Business as usual… and, no, you guys haven't been shooting live missiles at our friends across the Formosa Strait." He shrugged. "My call, of course, but our orders specified that liberty was to be permitted."

"Then I suggest a word to the hands about security before they go ashore. Small groups ashore one at a time only, rather than port and starboard liberty. We'll want a full watch on board at all times. And let 'em know they could be called back on board at any time, if the situation changes. We treat this as a high-threat situation, and we let no one come close aboard without a real good look-see."

Lawless nodded. "Pretty much what I was going to recommend. Very good, Mr. Garrett. We'll make a sub skipper out of you yet."

The words rankled, but Garrett pushed the jibe aside. Half the time, he still couldn't tell whether Lawless was being humorous but clumsy, or deliberately abusive.

"I do wish I knew what State hoped to accomplish by having us go in there," Garrett said.

"Eh? That's simple. Two birds with one stone, and all that. They demonstrate to Beijing that we're friendly but prepared… and they keep us out of trouble."

"Us? Out of trouble? How do you figure, sir?"

"Easy. Washington knows there are ten-plus Kilo boats operating out here, and us deployed to track them. Right now, the bureaucrats and armchair admirals are wetting their collective pants over the thought that we might go and trigger World War Three…by, just for instance, bumping into one of those Kilos by accident?"

Garrett frowned. "That's not very funny, sir."

"It wasn't intended to be. You know how often our boats brushed with the Russians during the bad old days of the Cold War. The situation is a lot more tense out there now. State is hoping to defuse things a bit… keep us in the area and very visible, but also off somewhere where we won't accidentally trigger a shooting war."

True enough. American attack boat skippers had long had the rep of being particularly aggressive when shadowing Soviet boats. More than once they'd run into the subs they were following, often with damage to both vessels.

And Garrett had had his own run-in with a Chinese Kilo under exactly those circumstances.

"So, to keep us from starting World War Three," Garrett said, "Washington wants us to let those Kilos run free in the strait while we hole up inside a harbor that, twenty-four hours ago, would have been considered an enemy harbor… and which could turn into enemy territory again at any moment." He shook his head in disgust. "Whose side are they on, anyway?"

"All in the cause of world peace, Mr. Garrett. All in the cause of world peace. Have faith in your government. They care for you."

Garrett chuckled, but the sound carried little in the way of humor. "Of course you can trust the government. Just ask any Indian!"

"Have some respect, Mr. Garrett. That's 'Native American,' if you please."

"Aye aye, sir."

The easy banter was interrupted as a harbor tug approached, an ugly little workhorse flying the PRC flag.

Local pilots were emphatically not permitted on board a Navy vessel, but the Seawolf was required to follow the tug into port. The craft signaled its intent with impatient hoots from its whistle, then came about and began leading the Seawolf into the harbor approaches.

And a good thing, too. As the Seawolf slowly rounded the island of Tung Lung Chau and entered Tathong Channel, the tangle of shipping and small craft crowding the waterways around the myriad islands grew denser and even more chaotic. It would be easy to lose oneself in these approaches without a firm knowledge of the waters and the local conditions.

Hong Kong Island proper was a roughly football-shaped land mass perhaps twelve miles across. A semicircular bite snatched out of the northern coast formed the basis for Victoria Harbor and the setting for the busy downtown of Hong Kong itself, the district known as Central. North, across the bay, Kowloon thrust southward like a dagger; beyond, to the north, lay the New Territories and the unimaginably vast sprawl of Mainland China. Ships approached Victoria Bay from east or from west, through winding channels and labyrinths comprised of hundreds of islands, ranging from mere bare rocks and reefs to huge Lantau in the west, an island twice the size of the island of Hong Kong. The crowding, the clutter, the chaos, the noise— all were indescribable.

Past Quarry Bay and around North Point, the harbor pilot tug led the Seawolf slowly into Hong Kong's Victoria Harbor, a seething, teeming traffic jam of boats, ships, and watercraft of every size, tonnage, and description. Hong Kong may have belonged to the PRC for the past six years, but so far Beijing had kept its promise here to enforce "one China, two systems"… allowing Hong Kong's flamboyantly capitalist economic system to continue more or less unchecked, demanding only that Beijing be responsible for its military defense and foreign affairs policy.

The gleaming gold and silver skyscrapers lining the harbor shone as brightly in the afternoon sun as ever, potent symbols of the former British colony's rampant glorification of consumerism and business interspersed with towering advertising boards and signs. The landmarks stood just as they had during the capitalist era: the garish gold, silver, and ceramic facade of the Central Plaza Building; the oddly geometric glass tower of the Bank of China; the stolid polished granite and glass stacks of Exchange Square; and the bizarre steel anvil shape of the Peak Tower atop Victoria Peak, among dozens of other buildings of every shape and description. The futuristic cityscape provided a dramatic, sun-gilded backdrop to fleets of junks that might well have just emerged from the thirteenth century and a starkly alien contrast to the more squalid tenements, condominiums, office buildings, and shacks crowded into the district of Kowloon on the north side of the bay.

Garrett wondered how long Beijing would leave Hong Kong to pursue its gods of commerce and dollars in peace. It was widely assumed throughout the Naval Intelligence community that the PRC was on its best behavior with Hong Kong in hopes of convincing its "renegade province," Taiwan, of the benefits of peaceful assimilation.

Besides, Hong Kong and Taiwan both were the commercial jewels of the west Pacific Rim. Strangling their economies for the sake of ideology would quite literally be killing the goose that laid the golden eggs.

Garrett decided that was the most comforting thought. The PRC wasn't about to start a war when they could win what they wanted through negotiations, persistence, and patience. Seawolf would be safe enough inside Victoria Harbor; after all, an attack on her would bring down upon the PRC the full weight of America's military, a confrontation that Beijing simply could not afford to face.

He did wish, though, that he could shake some of the scenes from last night's movie… especially those about an American warship isolated far up a Chinese river, surrounded by hostile forces.

The tug led them to the left, into the harbor in front of the district known as the Admiralty, beneath the former Government House and the looming towers of the Bank of China and the Bank of America. Other warships, Garrett noted, were already at their moorings— the British carrier Hermes, a Russian Krivak II-class frigate, and the Jean de Vienne, a French guided-missile destroyer.

He noticed another foreign vessel in port… not a warship, exactly, but an interesting visitor nonetheless. She was a Russian Onega-class GKS vessel. GKS stood for Gidroakusticheskoye Kontrol'noye Sudno, meaning "Hydroacoustic Monitoring Ship," a seagoing sensor platform designed specifically to detect, record, and measure the acoustical signatures of other ships. A number of her crewmen were on deck as the Seawolf cruised slowly past, watching the American submarine. He wondered if they'd learned the Seawolf was paying a visit and arranged to be here just so they could listen to the submarine's near-silence. Maybe they were here by chance.

Seawolf's deck party swarmed smartly up out of the hatches and stood by to handle lines. With Captain Lawless giving commands over the intercom hookup from the sail bridge to the control room, the submarine gentled herself up to a pier, port-side to, where a Chinese shore party waited with monkey fists ready. As the Seawolf edged in close enough, the monkey fists — large balls of heavy, knotted cable attached to slender tethers called "small stuff" — were tossed across the water and the sub's deck, where the line handlers could grab them and haul in the heavier mooring lines waiting coiled on the pier. Within a few moments Seawolf was spring-tied to bollards fore and aft, and Lawless had given the order, "All stop, now secure engine."

A small cluster of Chinese government officials, customs police, and military officers stood at the head of the pier, quietly waiting. "I'd better get the formalities out of the way, XO," Lawless said. "If you would address the matter of security?"

"Aye aye, sir."

He clambered back down the sail hatch, descending the ladder to the control deck.

"Mr. Garrett?" One of the kids from the radio room was waiting for him as he stepped off the ladder and into the control room.

"Yes, Zollner. What is it?"

"We went ahead and started taking in radio traffic as soon as we surfaced. Got this for you. It's a family gram."

"Oh?" He accepted the message printout from Zollner.

Family grams had evolved as a means of letting submarine crew members stay in touch with family and loved ones ashore. Normally they were reserved for enlisted personnel and their families, especially for crews aboard the big boomers that might be at sea for months at a time without surfacing to permit normal ship-to-shore communications. On a typical cruise, each man was allowed to get about eight fifty-word family grams. Sometimes they arrived in code that only the captain could decrypt… so that he could decide whether to give the crewman news from home about a death or a dear John.

This one was dated May 17—yesterday — which was pretty quick. Sometimes, censors ashore would hold up family gram transmissions, again to check them for news that might adversely affect a member of the sub's crew.

Garrett took a deep breath. Forty-six words, just under the limit, filled with promise. "ILY" was standard family gram code, turning the three words of "I love you" into a single word. The reference to the lion, however, was purely their own, personal code… a reference to the time when Garrett had stalked on all fours across the bed, roaring like a lion, before pouncing on the squealing Kazuko.

And the no-roommates bit was delightfully self-explanatory.

Kazuko was going to be in Hong Kong? It would be good to see her, assuming he could get an evening free. They'd done this before several times when he'd been traveling on ONI business to the Philippines, Bangkok, and Singapore, and she by coincidence was working flights to those same cities.

The one thing that was disquieting about the message was her reference to WCN. He didn't like the idea that the World Cable Network news had learned and announced Seawolf's visit to Hong Kong almost at the same time that the 'Wolf herself had received the orders. What the hell was going on?

It was something he would have to take up with the skipper. For now, though, he needed to make sure that Seawolf's security detachments were clear on their orders. No one was going to get close to the Seawolf while she was in port.

Not without a hell of a fight.

"Aw, man, it was one hell of a fight!" Chief Toynbee leaned back against one of the mess tables as he regaled the sailors gathered around on the recollected joys of liberty in Hong Kong. "The British Royal Marines, they're pretty good, see. As good as our Marines, or at least that's what they'll tell you. Our jarheads claim descent from the Royal Marines.

"Anyway, there we were, toe-to-toe with the queen's finest, and neither of us about to back down. One of 'em made a crack about 'colonials living in sewer pipes,' and that was it. We waded in and decked 'em!"

"How many Brits did you say there were, Chief?" Quartermaster Chief Thompson asked.

"Five of them, against the four of us. And we gave as good as we got, let me tell ya!"

"Now, the way I heard it," Thompson said with a laugh, "was that it was you and three other guys against two British Marines. And they mopped the deck with you!"

"That's a damned lie! Who said such a thing?"

"Doberly, for one. He was there!"

"Shit! Dobie can't count to two without using the fingers of both hands. And he transferred out when we were at Yokosuka. You gonna believe me, or a lying sonuvabitch who ain't even here?"

"Dobie said he got fifteen stitches in his scalp when one of the Brit jarheads clobbered him with a bottle. And he said you ended up in the sick bay aboard the Inchon for a week with a concussion!"

"It was only three days, damn it. I told ya he was a lyin' sonuvabitch!"

"So after you mopped the deck with them," HM1 Ritthouser said with a grin, "what happened?"

"The SPs showed up and cleared the joint out."

"How would you know, Chief?" RM2 Meyers asked. "You had a concussion, remember?"

"Actually, I don't remember much of anything. But man, that was one hell of a great Hong Kong liberty!"

"Are you going back there, Chief?" Ritthouser asked.

"Sure am, Doc. Ya wanna come? Best little whorehouse in Hong Kong, I tell ya!"

Seawolf's corpsman shook his head. "I don't know about that, Chief. I'm supposed to be warning you poor, benighted souls about the dangers of places like that, remember?"

"Aw, c'mon, Doc!" TM1 O'Malley laughed. "How ya gonna know what to warn us about if you ain't been there yourself?"

"I'm also married!"

"So? What's that got to do with it, Doc?" YM1 Haskell asked. "We won't tell on you!" The others laughed and hooted.

"It's gonna be an interestin' visit, though," Chief Toynbee said. "That was… lessee, I was a first class then. It was, yeah, 'ninety-five. This is my first visit back to this port since the Commies took the place over. Now, they say nothin's changed, but I wonder if the old fleet watering holes are the same."

"Of course they are, Chief," Thompson said. "Half the port must live off the various navies that visit here. That's not going to change just because of a little switch of government. People are still people, and sailors still have more cash than sense when they get liberty."

"Well, it's not like the old days, when we always had ships calling at Hong Kong."

"No, but they still do," Thompson said. "I think the Navy likes to run L.A. boats and the occasional carrier through here just to remind the Chinese we're here, y'know?"

"Well, I know one thing," Toynbee said. "And let this be a warnin' to each and every one of you guys. Stay out of trouble! Back in the old days, the local Hong Kong police boys were efficient, but they were also friendly and they could be real reasonable if you had American dollars. I don't know that I'd want to try to bribe a Chicom cop, know what I mean?"

"Cops are cops everywhere," Ritthouser said. "Maybe you just need to make their acquaintance!"

"And maybe a certain smart-aleck corpsman is going to see Hong Kong by way of the number one torpedo tube!"

"Attention on deck!"

The men started to come to their feet, but Garrett waved them all back down. "As you were. What's up?"

"I, ah, was just filling the guys in on personal hygiene, sir," Ritthouser said. "Especially on how not to come back aboard with STDs."

"Yeah," Meyers said. "He was telling us how guys' dicks fall off when they visit HK cat houses."

"Sounds like a cool lecture, Doc. Wish I'd heard it."

"Yes, sir."

"Chief Toynbee? I understand you've been in Hong Kong before."

"Uh… yes, sir. A long time ago… "

"I need to talk to you."

The XO led Toynbee off to the side of the compartment, where they began speaking in low voices. Meyers looked at the others. "I say the new XO is okay!"

"He'll do," Ritthouser said. "Meanwhile… tell me about this whorehouse…."

"Well," Haskell said, "it's called the Fuk Wai, and you'll know why when you see the girls…"