Tiger's Claw

ABOARD A PLAN HARBIN Z-9 ASW HELICOPTER

THAT SAME TIME

“Contact!” the radar operator shouted. “Periscope, bearing zero-three-five, range twelve kilometers!”

The copilot made a mark on his chart. “We got you now, friend,” he said. On the command channel he radioed: “Jiâ, this is Yúying Three, radar contact periscope, thirteen kilometers northeast of you.”

Like a pack of starving wolves chasing down a deer, the six ASW helicopters zoomed to the location, then established a rectangular pattern. On cue, together they seeded the sea with sonobuoys. Once the sonobuoys hit the water they deployed a floating platform with a UHF antenna, then unreeled the main body with a hydrophone six feet under the surface. This first pattern was composed of passive hydrophones that only listened for mechanical sounds . . .

. . . and it did not take long to triangulate a bearing to an underwater target.

“Heavy rotor sounds overhead, sir!” the sonar operator aboard the Avenger radioed. “Now several sets of rotors! It might be a swarm, sir!”

“Reduce speed to five knots, come to a heading of zero-six-zero, make your depth two hundred meters,” Captain Yao Mei-Yueh ordered. He realized he had gotten too anxious about getting a photo of the carrier and had let errors multiply—sailing too fast, keeping the periscope up too long, and ignoring the threat from the helicopters—and now he might have to fight his way out of this. The farther he got away from the carrier and its escorts, the more likely it would be for the helicopters to break off their search and fly home.

They all heard it a few minutes later: the sound of active sonars pinging all around them. “Make your depth two hundred and fifty,” Yao ordered. “Come left zero-four-five, maintain five knots.”

“If the Chinese operators are good,” Commander Chien said, “they will have our position triangulated within minutes.”

“But they are not very good, Si-yao,” Yao said. “And if their helicopters are using their dipping sonars, that means they are hovering, not pursuing. Conn, make turns for fifteen knots.” He turned again to Chein. “The chase continues, Commander. If they try to pursue, we will just go silent again, wait for them to start banging away with their active sonars, and run again. We can do this much longer than they can.”