Seawolf Class

2

Garrett looked across the control room at Pittsburgh's weapons officer, Lieutenant Roger Yantis. "Weps, ready warshots, tubes One and Three. Do not, repeat, not flood the tubes."

"Ready warshots, tubes One and Three," Yantis repeated. "Do not flood the tubes, aye, sir."

"Maneuvering."

"Maneuvering, aye, sir."

"Down scope. Down bubble, ten degrees. Make depth one-two-zero feet."

"Down scope, aye, sir. Make depth one-two-zero feet, aye." The planesman pushed the aircraft-style control yoke forward, and Garrett felt the deck tilting beneath his feet.

They would be quieter completely submerged. When Pittsburgh's periscope and radio masts extended above the surface, the wake caused by the sub's movement and maneuvers could be picked up by a listening enemy. Unfortunately, this would put them out of touch with the SEALs until they could return to periscope depth.

After a moment the deck tipped back to a level plane. "Leveling off at one-two-zero feet, sir," Master Chief DePaul said.

"Helm, come about to port… a slow turn to one-eight-four degrees. I want to slip right into that bastard's baffles without him smelling us."

"Come about to port, make course one-eight-four degrees, aye, sir." The order was passed to the helmsman, the acknowledgment passed back up. "Slow turn to port, make course one-eight-four, aye aye, sir."

"Pass the word through the boat — no unnecessary noise. Let's see if we can outquiet a Kilo."

Which wasn't easy. The Russian-built submarine designated by NATO as "Kilo" was one of the quietest in the world. It didn't have the range, tonnage, or staying power of the bigger nuclear boats, but its diesel-electric engine let it travel in almost perfect silence, so long as it stayed below about five or six knots.

The Russians called the Kilo class Varshavyankas, and had made them one of the mainstays of their foreign trade program. Anyone with about $300 million could buy one, and in recent years customers had included Libya, Iran, India, and, most recently, the People's Republic of China.

While that "hole in the water" out there might be a neutral foreign sub practicing maneuvers on an unsuspecting freighter, Garrett had to assume that it was an escort, one of the new Chinese Kilos riding shotgun on the freighter and her cargo.

And if that were true, he just might have an explosive situation on his hands. Starting a war with China would not look at all good in his service record.

But the way things were shaping up, it was possible that he wouldn't be given any other options.

"Whalesong, this is Hammerhead! Whalesong, this is Hammerhead!" Again and again Morton keyed his Motorola, trying to reach the Pittsburgh over the scrambled command channel. There was no answer, and since none of the SEALs could raise the sub on any of their radios, there were only two possibilities open. Either the Pittsburgh's communications were out, or the submarine had submerged.

Either way, the timing sucked.

The three SEALs had reemerged from the depths of the freighter's aft cargo hold, and were now crouching in the shelter afforded by some oil drums stacked on the main deck just forward of the bridge house. With flashlights doused, they again wore their starlight masks, which turned the glow from the bridge overhead into a fierce, green-yellow glare and rendered the deck nearly day-bright.

According to the op plan, they needed to get a final go/no-go from Special Operations Command, by way of the Pittsburgh's communications center. Plan Alfa had them take down the freighter themselves. Bravo had them return to the sea for recovery aboard the Pittsburgh, at which point the Kuei Mei would either be sunk by the Pittsburgh or boarded by conventional forces off of an American Coast Guard cutter.

That the matter was still in doubt was a testament to the incredible power of bureaucracy. The civilians who needed to make the decision about the Kuei Mei's fate wanted all of the information before making that decision. Morton understood that. In his line of work, good, solid intel was worth a hell of a lot more than gold. But in this case, it deprived the SEAL Team on-site with the freedom to make their own decisions based on the tacsit as they saw it. Micromanagement was never a good option in a combat situation. Jimmy Carter had tried running the op personally during Operation Eagle's Claw, the attempt to rescue the American hostages in Iran back in 1980, and in the end General Beckwith, in command on the ground at Desert One, had elected to have "communications difficulties."

Morton looked up at the black and unpromising sky. A light rain, lashed by a stiff wind, was starting to fall. If they'd brought their own satcom gear, they might have established a direct link to SOCOM at Fort Bragg. But the team had already been heavily loaded for an underwater lockout and approach, so the decision had been made to relay all communications through the waiting Pittsburgh.

Only now the 'Burgh was out of touch. And if they didn't make contact soon, Morton know he would have to make his own decision about this cluster fuck without Washington's help, a notion that at the moment was looking better and better.

Lieutenant Ralph Henderson, Pittsburgh's navigation officer, looked up from the starboard chart table. "Turn complete," he said. "We're in his baffles, sir."

"Should be," Garrett replied. "If he didn't change course while we were swinging around behind him."

Not being able to see, playing the game with sound and maneuver alone, was a real challenge. Things were a lot tougher when you couldn't see the other guy, when even the sound he was making was so faint it was like following whispers down an echo-ridden alley. Worse, passive sonar only gave relative bearing on the target, not range — with only an occasional educated guess on the actual distance if the sonar team was very good. Pittsburgh's sonar people were the best, but Garrett had to keep reminding himself that their determinations were only guesses. If the sierra contact up ahead had maintained his speed and course throughout the maneuver, he ought to be about six hundred yards in front of Pittsburgh's bluntly rounded bow. The first law of military tactics, however, was that the other fellow never did what he was supposed to do.

"Sonar, this is the Captain. You still have Sierra One-two?"

"Captain, Sonar," Chief Schuster's voice came back. "Intermittent contact, sir. We're picking up some prop wash. Sounds like we're smack in his baffles. Range, I'd make it about five hundred, five hundred fifty yards."

Even the quietest submarine stirred the water astern with its screw. That caused some noise, of course… and also left the water turbulent, making sonar reception difficult through the disturbance. The result was that a submarine was largely deaf to the area dead astern; a stalking sub could follow literally in its wake, able to hear the prey without being heard in turn. Tactically, it was the ideal place to be when hunting another submarine.

It was also dangerous. If the Kilo up ahead decided to stop or slow suddenly, Pittsburgh could ride right up his wake and smack him in the ass — an embarrassment, to say the least, and a possible international incident best avoided. Back in the wild and woolly days of the Cold War, there'd been a number of collisions between U.S. and Soviet subs hunting one another, boats whose skippers had been unlucky, become careless, or, just as bad, had been too aggressive.

Garrett's first responsibility — after the captain's ever-present responsibility to ship and crew — was to the mission, which meant the safety of the SEAL team aboard that freighter, the successful completion of their operation, and their safe recovery afterward. The Kilo was germane to all of that only in so far as it became a threat — to the Pittsburgh first, then to the mission.

Stewart joined Garrett at the chart table. "Skipper, I'm going over it and over it," he said, shaking his head, "and I still can't figure it. What the hell is a Kilo doing way out here?"

"If he is Chinese," Henderson added, "he's a hell of a long way from home. Kilos have a top range of, what? Three thousand miles, before they have to refuel? That would almost take him from the China Sea to the West Coast along the Great Circle… and leave him stranded."

"Maybe he's Russian," Stewart said, "operating out of Petro. That would extend his trans-Pacific range a bit."

"He'd still need to meet with a sub-provisioning ship out here to make it home," Garrett said. "Kilos just aren't meant to be used at long range. Stew, we need some updated intel on ship movements out here, with an emphasis on sub tenders."

"I'll have Sparks get on that, as soon as we can get a transmission out."

"Good."

The problem was, the Kilo was a threat, both to the Pittsburgh and to the mission. Garrett refused to believe that the other sub was here by accident. It was deliberately trailing the Chinese freighter, which probably meant it was an escort, protecting the freighter and its mission. And that meant that the Kilo and the 'Burgh were already on an intercept course, whatever the plot table might say.

Suddenly, the control room seemed a bit crowded to Garrett… as if a whole host of politicians, bureaucrats, and armchair-bound second-guessers were watching over his shoulder. No matter what he did in the next few minutes, there was a better than even chance that someone would very soon be pointing out how he'd made exactly the wrong decision.

"Maneuvering," he said. "Planes, up five degrees. Bring us to periscope depth."

"Planes up five degrees. Set periscope depth, aye, sir."

They couldn't do a thing for the SEALs on board the freighter if they didn't have the sub's radio mast above the water, if they weren't available to pass on communications between the SEALs and SOCOM.

And if that meant risking detection by the Kilo, so be it.

"We can't wait any longer," Morton told the others, speaking over the tactical channel so every man in the VBSS team could hear him. "Execute Plan Bravo. Repeat, Bravo."

Morton's personal preference would have been to go for Alfa — to take the bastards down and take over the ship — but both training and professionalism dictated a safer course. They would retreat to the sea. To remain on board the freighter much longer was to invite the risk of being discovered and forcing them into a fire-fight. The freighter was still several days out from U.S. waters; once they reestablished contact with the 'Burgh, they would let SOCOM and Washington decide what to do with this mess. The trick, of course, was to get in touch with the sub again; there was no way to know what had gone wrong, or why the Pittsburgh was currently out of touch. She must have been forced to submerge… but why?

They would sort that out later. Right now it was imperative that the SEALs get off the freighter, preferably unnoticed and with their valuable intelligence coup intact. One way or another, the Kuei Mei would not be unloading her death-dealing cargo at Long Beach, for distribution to the street and drug gangs of Los Angeles, and that was all that mattered.

"One, Two" sounded in his earphone. "Confirm Plan Bravo. We're moving."

So Conyers and his team, assembled now on the freighter's port side, had the word and were returning to their CRRC. It was time for Morton and his people to do the same. "Let's get the hell out of Dodge," he told Vandenberg, crouched in the shadows at his side. They started moving toward the starboard companionway aft.

The eruption of gunfire was as spectacular as it was sudden, a sharp and thunderous clatter accompanied by stabbing bursts of muzzle flash, dazzling against the night. The first burst, from the port side forward, was matched almost immediately by a second burst from the port wing of the bridge, high above the main deck.

"Hammerhead One, this is Two!" sounded over his earphone. "We are compromised! We are compromised! We are taking fire!"

"Copy, Two! All Hammerheads, we are weapons free, repeat, weapons free! Support Hammerhead

Two!"

Powerful searchlights on the bridge wings snapped on, bathing the main deck in an actinic, blue-white glare. Raising himself above part of the base mounting for a deck crane, Morton snapped off the safety on his H&K, shouldered the weapon, and loosed a three-round burst at one of the lights. The searchlight flared, then died in a scattering cascade of sparks and hot, falling shards of glass. A shadowy figure behind the light shrieked something in high-pitched Chinese.

A stabbing blaze of gunfire from the bridge wing nearby sent rounds snapping over Morton's head and clanging wildly off the crane. He returned fire, his H&K chuffing off rounds in near silence, spent brass clinking at his feet as he targeted the shadowy gunman high above the deck. He thought he hit the guy but couldn't tell for sure. More gunfire erupted from the port side as Chinese sailors converged on Conyers and his team.

This was getting very nasty, very fast.

"Conn, Sonar! I'm picking up what sounds like gunfire from the freighter! It's pretty noisy up there!"

Shit. The balloon had just gone up.

The deck leveled off beneath Garrett's feet. "Leveling off at five-eight feet, Captain," the diving officer announced.

"Up periscope. Sonar! Bearing on Sierra One-one and on Sierra One-two!"

"Sierra One-one at one-seven-five degrees, range approximately one thousand. Sierra One-two at one-eight-one degrees, range approximately five hundred."

Sierra 11 was the freighter, 12 the probable Kilo. Right now the Kilo was between the freighter and the Pittsburgh, offset by a small amount.

The starboard periscope slid smoothly in its housing, rising in front of Garrett until he could snap down the handles and lean into the viewer. Swinging the scope to five degrees off to the east of due south, he peered into darkness, highlighted by the eerie green-yellow of starlight optics.

There she was, green-lit and stern-on, the Chinese freighter rolling slightly in the heavy swell. He could see the glare from a searchlight forward, mostly masked by the loom of the deckhouse, funnel, and masts.

"Communications!" he rasped. "Get me a channel to Hammerhead."

"We're picking up tactical chatter, sir."

"Put it on speaker."

Now that Pittsburgh's periscope-mounted radio mast was above the surface again, they could hear the communications chatter from the SEAL Team.

"Watch it! Shooter on the starboard bridge wing! Shooter on the starboard bridge wing!"

"I see him. He's down. Cover me!"

"Cyzynski! On me! Move it!"

The words were sharp and urgent, punctuated by rattling bursts of automatic gunfire and the shriek and chirp of ricochets.

"Conn! Sonar! Cavitation noises from Sierra One-two! He's slowing!"

"Helm! Come right forty-five degrees!"

"Helm right four-five degrees, aye aye, sir!"

"Conn, Sonar! I have ballast noise from Sierra One-two! He's surfacing!"

Garrett swung the periscope slightly to the right, looking for the surfacing sub. Ballast noise meant he was blowing his tanks, replacing water with air to take him to the surface. The fact that he was slowing suddenly meant that the American boat was in immediate danger of ramming him. The Pittsburgh was almost 110 meters long and had a submerged displacement of over seven thousand tons. She was currently traveling at eight knots — not fast at all, but you did not stop that much mass on a dime.

"Hammerhead One" rasped from the bulkhead speaker. "This is Two! We need fire support!"

From the sound of things, the SEALs on board the Chinese freighter were fighting for their lives.

And in the next few minutes the Pittsburgh might well be doing the same.

The second spotlight flared and died in a burst of broken glass and sparks. Morton keyed his mike. "All Hammerheads, execute Plan Alfa! Repeat, execute Alfa!" It was always dangerous changing horses in midstream, but if they continued trying to get back to their CRRCs, they risked being pinned down on deck in a deadly gunfight. It was time to go over to the offensive.

In Plan Alfa, Morton, Schiff, and Vandenberg were tasked with securing the Kuei Mei's bridge, which meant moving aft to the starboard companionway, then up a partially enclosed ladder. Schiff opened fire on full auto, spraying the bridge and bridge wings so Vandenberg and Morton could sprint for the partial cover of the deckhouse. A Chinese sailor stepped through an open door in the front of the house, an assault rifle at the ready. Morton triggered a three-round burst as he ran, not even slowing as the other man spun to the side and collapsed. Morton and Vandenberg paused at the ladder, waiting as Schiff pounded across the deck and joined them.

Up the ladder, then, rubber boots almost silent on the metal rungs. The ladder opened onto the first deck above the main deck. Another Chinese sailor with striped shirt and an assault rifle turned as they emerged from the ladder well. Schiff triggered his H&K twice, a double tap on semiauto that punched the sailor back, slammed him against the bulkhead, and put him down with a heavy thump that was louder than the soft chuffing of the sound-suppressed submachine gun.

Around the corner and up another ladder took them to the bridge level, emerging on a partially enclosed passageway leading to the bridge's starboard wing.

An officer — his cap and jacket identified him as such — stood on the wing, staring at them in gape-mouthed astonishment. Schiff double-tapped again, but the man was already moving, lunging through the door to the bridge, shrieking warning in a high-pitched singsong.

The door to the bridge slammed, clanking as it was dogged shut. Vandenberg slapped a breaching charge over the hinges, yanked the pull ring on the detonator, and stepped back. There was a sharp crack, then a clang as the heavy door blew partway open.

Morton leaned around the opening and tossed a flash-crash into the bridge compartment as Vandenberg kicked the partially opened watertight door aside. An instant later the darkened bridge lit up like a strobe flash as a deafening crack echoed from steel bulkheads. Morton and Schiff together each loosed a pair of three-round bursts into the compartment as someone inside screamed. Schiff rolled through the opening, followed by Vandenberg; Morton followed close behind, triggering his H&K again, to catch a Chinese sailor in the act of raising his assault rifle to his shoulder. Several more bursts and two men still on their feet went down.

"Hammerhead," Morton said into his mike. "Bridge clear."

The huge, front windscreens enclosing the bridge had been shattered from the earlier exchange of gunfire, and wind and a light, misty rain streamed through the openings. Six bodies lay strewn about on the deck, and the ship's wheel slowly turned on its own. The lights were out, but the scene was painted in sharp luminescence in the SEALs' night vision goggles.

Vandenberg ran aft to the door leading to the freighter's radio room. The door was locked, but the SEAL's shotgun, referred to with wry humor as a "Masterkey," boomed in the smoky, enclosed compartment, shattering the lock. Schiff and Morton rolled through the open door together, catching a Chinese radio officer hunched over the radio. He looked up at them with wide eyes as his hand closed on a pistol holstered at his hip. Schiff took the man down with three rounds to his center of mass.

Vandenberg looked at the radio. "You think he got a call out?"

"Doesn't matter now," Morton said. "Make sure no one else does." Vandenberg's shotgun thundered again, smashing the radio's console.

"Sir!" Schiff called from the starboard side of the bridge. "Look at this!"

Morton joined the other SEAL, looking out the shattered doorway onto the exposed right wing of the bridge. Spray cascaded from the surface of the ocean less than fifty yards off to starboard, where something huge, a night-black whale with a low, squared-off dorsal fin, emerged in an explosion of foam, wind-whipped spindrift, and crashing waves.

His first thought was that the Pittsburgh was surfacing… in stark and utter betrayal of her orders to avoid possible detection by the enemy.

But he immediately abandoned that idea as he got a clearer view of the sub. The sail was all wrong, too long and not nearly tall enough. Though size was always tough to gauge without known referents, the sub wasn't nearly big enough to be a Los Angeles-class boat by at least a quarter. Other details — the shape of the hull, with a sharply-angled platform rising to a flat deck above the rounded hull, and the lack of diving planes mounted on the sail, the lack of an LA-boat's characteristic gray-mottled camouflage on the periscope masts — all added up to one incontrovertible fact.

That was not the Pittsburgh surfacing off the Kuei Mei's starboard beam. It wasn't even American. Morton's knowledge of the submarine classes of other navies was less than expert, but he thought the boat had the look of a Russian sub.

He was pretty sure it was their export diesel boat—

a Kilo.

What the hell was a Kilo doing way out here? There was no way to judge the nationality. If it was a Kilo, it might be Russian, or it could belong to China, India, or any of several other nations.

But then, the fact that it was trailing the Kuei Mei so closely suggested it was probably one of the new Chinese Kilos, accompanying the freighter as escort. If so, the SEAL op had just encountered one hell of an unexpected twist.

In the spray and rain-lashed darkness, Morton could just make out several shapes appearing in the Kilo's weather cockpit, atop and at the front of the sail, just beneath the periscope array. A loud-hailer squealed, and then he heard a staccato burst of Chinese, calling across the water.

That settled the nationality question, at least.

And it answered the question of what had become of the Pittsburgh as well. The American sub must have dropped below periscope depth in order to stalk the Kilo or to avoid being spotted herself.

A searchlight blazed from the Kilo's cockpit, illuminating the Kuei Mei's bridge. More orders were barked in Chinese over a loud-hailer, followed a moment later by a burst of automatic gunfire. A bustle of activity on the sub's forward deck suggested that they were getting a boat ready to send a boarding party across.

There were damned few options open to the SEALs now. They could wait and face capture by the crew of the Chinese submarine. They could fight back, and trigger the international incident they'd been ordered to avoid at all costs. They could try to steer clear of the Chinese boarding party… but that could only be carried out for so long.

They could also pray that the Pittsburgh returned quickly to radio contact, so the question could be boosted upstairs.

Morton snorted at that idea. The bureaucrats were safely stateside, warm and dry, not here. He would decide how to pull his boys out of the fire.

Deciding, he raced across the bridge to the helm station, where the ship's wheel was slowly turning free above the body of the freighter's helmsman. The engine room telegraph was marked off in Chinese characters, but it was easy enough to guess that pulling the red-handled lever all the way back, then shoving it full forward, was the cue to go to full steam ahead. At the same time, he grabbed the ship's wheel and spun it hard to the right. They might be able to avoid a gun battle if he could distract the Chinese submarine for a moment…by ramming her.

But the Kuei Mei was sluggish and handled slowly, especially wallowing in these heavy seas. Her best speed was twelve knots, about the same as a Kilo on the surface, but the Kilo was far nimbler and more responsive to the helm. Morton's ramming attempt would work only if he could catch the skipper of the Chinese sub off guard.

The sub driver was good, though, or at least alert. As the freighter clumsily swung to starboard, so did the Chinese submarine, dancing easily out of the Kuei Mei's reach.

"Conn, Sonar! Change of aspect, on Sierra One-two! He's turning hard to starboard!"

Which meant the other sub was suddenly cutting across the Pittsburgh's path.

"Estimated range to Sierra One-two!"

"Estimate… two hundred yards, sir!"

"Diving Officer! Emergency dive! Down bubble, twenty degrees! Helm, come hard right rudder!" The deck tilted down, sharply, then slanted to starboard as the Pittsburgh dropped into a sharp, plunging turn. The Kilo's turning radius was tighter than the Pittsburgh's; her shorter hull made for more maneuverability. At six knots, the Pittsburgh might slow in time, but she stood a better chance of turning away from the other sub and trying to drop beneath her. If he cut speed, he would lose maneuverability. So many decisions to be made in so short a time…

And then there was no time for decision making. Garrett could hear — they all could heart — the steady thrum of the Kilo's screw ahead and above, growing closer, almost masked by the heavier pounding of the freighter's propeller. It was going to be close….

Garrett grabbed the microphone and switched it to intercom speaker. "All hands! Brace for collision! Sound collision alert!"

The klaxon sounded its shrill warning squawk, and then they struck with a thunderous impact, dimming the lights and flinging them all hard and to the right. For a horrifying nightmare of a moment it felt like Pittsburgh was about to go bellyup….