Virginia Class

19

Stevens punched up the data on Garrett's monitor— several hundred meg of photographs, charts, and documents brought along in his sealed canister. Rather than storing the data on a CD or a set of floppies, it resided on a specially designed hard drive, one that would in true spook fashion fry into a useless chunk of carbonized circuits if anyone tried to access it without certain key programs running. He'd come to Garrett's closet-sized office right after he'd finished eating, and connected the hard drive to an IEEE port on the office computer.

"China," Garrett said, reading the first few document pages. He nodded. "I thought so."

"Why?" Stevens asked him. "The Chinese have been playing this one very close to the vest. It took us a good two weeks of digging to figure it out. How do you know it's the Chinese?"

"Style," Garrett replied. "That attack on us this morning… whoever was behind the sights on that other boat was a pro. He was well trained, and he was experienced. Somehow, he picked us up and tailed us… not an easy thing to do. And he caught us when we were vulnerable and took his shot." Garrett shook his head. "We were damned lucky he didn't connect. The point is, he didn't act like an amateur. The only people around this part of the world with that degree of skill — and balls — are the Chinese."

"Mmm. Keep reading."

A moment later, Garrett looked up, obviously surprised. "Pakistan?… "

Stevens nodded. "Not Pakistan per se, but a cabal within the Pakistani navy that supports al Qaeda. We think the rogue boat is Pakistan's latest purchase from our former playmates in Moscow, S-137, which they've named Al Saif. The Sword."

"Huh." Then he shook his head. "I don't buy it. Some of the Pakistani officers have a fair amount of experience, but they haven't been in a shooting war for some time, now. India is their enemy of choice, and the last war between them was, when? The early seventies?"

"In '71," Stevens said, nodding. "Though they started openly clashing again over Kashmir in 1983. But things have been a little calmer since both countries exploded test nukes in '98. Mutual assured destruction, y'know?"

"But no naval action since the seventies," Garrett said. "Mr. Stevens, Virginia was up against a pro this morning. I don't buy the Pakistan connection."

"We have that connection on very good authority," Stevens said. "What authority?"

Stevens considered the question. The nature of intelligence work demanded compartmentalization and the sharing of information on a strictly need-to-know basis. The fact that the CIA had received information leaked to them by a high-ranking member of the Chinese naval bureau was not for casual dissemination.

"How much do you know about Chinese politics, Captain?" Stevens asked.

Garrett shrugged. "That it's pretty rough-and-tumble sometimes. Why?"

"Suffice to say that there is within the Chinese military hierarchy a small group of men who oppose their government's current adventurism. We call them 'the Conservatives.' Traditionally, China has been interested in keeping its own borders secure, and intervening beyond their borders only when they feel directly threatened — as they did in Korea. Some of the younger up-and-comers see China's future as a major player in the region and want her to have a military role to match. We call them the Expansionists. The Conservatives see this as the short road to hell, at least until they can match us at sea. Some of them might be helping us to help their own cause in Beijing."

"Makes sense. You're talking to some of the Conservatives, then?"

"There are times," Stevens said, sidestepping the direct question, "when a government will deliberately leak information in order to pass a message to the other guy. We're still examining this leak carefully to see if it's misinformation, a fancy bit of political back-stabbing, or the real McCoy. But right now, this looks like it's either real, transmitted by an idealist, or real, transmitted by someone trying to hurt a political rival. Either way, we're taking it seriously."

Garrett kept reading. "Okay," he said after a time. "This is all very interesting, but it's not telling me what I need to know. Is my finger on the trigger, or not?"

"It's on the trigger, Captain. Washington intends to send a rather pointed message of its own. We will hunt down and destroy terrorist cells wherever we find them, and we will not tolerate any nation's support of those cells. At the same time, however, we don't want another Iraq."

"Meaning an open war?"

"Exactly. Bush took us to war against Iraq three years ago not because of those infamous weapons of mass destruction everyone was harping about— though the DOD's suspicions about that was a factor. It was because we had hard evidence of Iraq's support of al Qaeda… but it was evidence we couldn't make public without compromising our sources. So we publicly focused on the WMDs."

"Which were never found."

"Right. We took a PR hit on that one in order to deal with the terrorist issue."

Garrett snorted. "The hell with public relations."

"A warrior's response, Captain. But the decisions are made by politicians."

"And rightfully so. It doesn't make it any saner." He studied the document a moment more. "So… what all this is saying is that the Chinese — for reasons of their own — are covertly supplying help to a Pakistani submarine that has gone rogue, and is now operating at the behest of al Qaeda."

"That's it."

"What do the Chinese get out of this alliance? They don't do something like this without a considerable payback."

"Plausible deniability when the rogue hits Vietnamese and Filipino interests in the Spratly Islands. The Expansionists want to make the Spratly group a solidly Chinese bastion, both as an overseas site for naval facilities and for future access to possible oil reserves in the region. The Spratlys' strategic location astride the sea lanes between Singapore and Japan is a factor too. There's also this."

Reaching across the desk, he brought up a new page on the intelligence briefing. Garrett read it. "Shit," he said. "This is hard?"

"It's hard. We were pretty sure that one Chinese submarine, one of their new Kilos, had left Darien a month ago. They tried to hide it with a decoy, but wood and fiberglass don't reflect the ultraviolet in sunlight the same way steel does. We spotted that one right off. Three days ago, the rest of these subs sailed from Hainan. They must be in the region by now."

"For what purpose? I thought you said the Chinese are letting the AQ take the heat for this one?"

Stevens sighed. "I wish we knew for sure. Intelligence work is mostly guessing, you know. But one good guess has it that Beijing is expecting us to overreact to the AQ sub's attacks. We send in the Seventh Fleet, shooting up everything in our way. And they have a fleet of very quiet submarines waiting to take us down a notch. Our… informant suggested that one of their targets might be the Roosevelt."

"A supercarrier would be a pretty impressive notch on their gun," Garrett agreed.

"Yup. And they could still plausibly deny involvement, and say the AQ did it. But the loss of an asset like the Roosevelt would make us think twice and maybe three times about overextending ourselves in the South China Sea. Beijing could become the preeminent power in the region almost by default."

"It would make their designs on Taiwan more realistic, that's for sure," Garrett said. "I gather then that you're saying I can take on submarines working for the AQ to my heart's content, but that I'm not supposed to go after Chinese submarines."

"That's about the size of it."

"Shit, Stevens! How the hell am I supposed to implement that as a mission order? Sonar targets do not advertise their nationalities!"

"You are expected to defend yourself, Captain. If you are fired upon, or have a reasonable expectation that you are about to be fired upon, you have weapons free, and can take whatever tactical action you consider appropriate."

"Those are part of an attack boat's standing orders, Mr. Stevens. If attacked, we strike back. But without knowing who is who out here, some Chinese boats might be hit."

"Part of Washington's idea here, Captain, is to use this incident to send a very strong message to Beijing. 'Do not provide assistance to the AQ or other terror groups.' If it takes sinking one or two of their submarines to send that message, well… we just expect you to be discreet about it."

Suddenly, surprisingly, Garrett laughed, long and loud. To Stevens' ear, it sounded as though a great deal of pent-up frustration and stress was behind the laugh, which stopped just short of becoming touched with hysteria.

The outburst, from a submarine skipper, was unsettling, to say the least.

Garrett leaned forward in the command chair, hands clasped, studying the scene displayed on the big control room monitor. Jorgensen stood to his left, Stevens to his right. All conversation in the control room had ceased, as those not immediately focused on their duties watched the scene as well.

"Holy shit," Jorgensen said softly after a long moment. "That is one hell of a marina."

The television monitor showed an image picked out in infrared, and so was a grainy monochrome picture in various shades of green, ranging from almost yellow to dead black.

The structure was enormous, raised on pylons above the sea. It was low tide, now, so bits of the coral atoll showed above water. Most of the four-story main building was elevated above the coral, however, looking like the crew facility for a remote seabed oil rig which, in fact, it almost certainly was. Light gleamed brightly from several dozen windows, and from the off-center helipad raised above the flat top of the building.

To one side, however, was a huge structure nearly as large as the building, if not quite as high. It possessed no windows, but the western face was pierced by an enormous set of sliding doors, opening onto a cavernous, brightly lit interior that was clearly designed to shelter boats or small ships.

"Do you think we could get closer?" Stevens asked.

"Take us in closer, Weps," Garrett said. "I'd like to see inside if we can."

"Aye aye, Captain," Lieutenant Bill Carpenter said. "I'll see what I can do."

Carpenter was not conning the Virginia, though the view on the big control room monitor might have conveyed that impression. The weapons officer was seated at his console against the control room bulkhead to Garrett's left, using a joystick and touchscreen to control a torpedo-sized extension of the submarine, an AN/BLQ-11A LMRS Mod 4 reconnaissance/monitor platform, or "Junior," for short. The initials LMRS stood for "Long-term Mine Reconnaissance System," and referred to a remote-piloted Unmanned Underwater Vehicle, or UUV.

Junior was a torpedo without a warhead. Instead, it had an extremely sophisticated command control system and a sensor/camera suite. It was a bit shorter than a Mark 48 ADCAP, but the same width, so it could be released through a torpedo tube; a completely retractable Photonics mast let it cruise just beneath the water's surface while gathering electronic and visual data. Images, sensor data, and position information were relayed back to the Virginia either via a satellite relay, or directly through the water using a low-frequency coded acoustical data link. Carpenter's fly-by-wire control instructions were transmitted to the UUV the same way. Virginia's torpedo tube one could be fitted with a long, telescoping arm that could literally reach out, snag Junior, and haul him back inside at the completion of his mission.

The LMRS had originally been conceived as a means of investigating minefields and strange objects on the bottom that might be mines; Junior was certainly more expendable than a billion-dollar attack submarine and crew. By the time Virginia had been launched, however, UUV technology had advanced to the point that Junior was capable of handling a broad range of remote reconnaissance missions. It could detect and scout mines, yes, but it could also creep close to an enemy harbor or base and return detailed images of what it saw there.

That was what the control room crew was watching now. Virginia was submerged at periscope depth a safe ten miles northwest of Small Dragon Island, while Carpenter used his joystick to send low-frequency acoustical data link signals — or L-FADs — to Junior, nudging the remote closer to the open hangar door on the side of the Chinese base.

Using L-FADs in these waters was a calculated risk, of course. The acoustical signals were, in fact, active sonar signals, and emitting them could call unwanted attention to either Virginia or Junior or both. Those signals were not conventional sonar pings, however, and they were masked by seemingly random patterns of noise that were filtered out by the computers that processed the signals at both ends. They were also transmitted in frequencies outside of the range generally monitored by antisubmarine passive sonar systems. Chances were that the occupants of that base were totally unaware of the streams of data flowing back and forth across the miles, and that they'd have no idea what they were listening to if they did hear anything.

Junior accelerated slightly, moving at less than three knots to avoid putting up a wake. It was completely submerged except for the slender Photonics mast extending above his hull, about where a sail would be on a conventional submarine. The darkness masked the UUV's approach, as did the layers of radar-absorbent materials coating the mast. Slowly, it crept closer.

"Looks like some kind of activity inside," Jorgensen said. "Hard to see, though."

Rain earlier in the day had given way to something midway between mist and drizzle. The light spilling from the open hangar tended to blur and smear the infrared image, making details fuzzy. But it did look as though something was moving inside.

Alphanumerics on the lower right-hand corner of the display gave Junior's coordinates, speed, depth, and the range to the target — determined by a tiny infrared laser mounted on the Photonics mast. When they were eighty meters from the near side of the hangar, Garrett said, "All stop on the UUV."

"Aye aye, sir," Carpenter said, tapping out a command on his touch screen. Junior drifted forward a few more yards before coming to a halt, partly on inertia, partly on the time delay as acoustical signals traveled from Virginia to the UUV. The sea state was considerably lower than earlier in the day, but there was enough of a swell to make the transmitted image roll and pitch slightly with the waves. Carpenter was doing an amazing job of keeping the camera platform reasonably steady.

"We definitely have a new contact, Captain," Carpenter announced. "I'm getting screw noises. Twin screws, moving dead slow."

A moment later, a shape resolved itself out of the blur of green light, a sharply curving prow, a high superstructure with an elevated flying bridge, two decks' worth of portholes above the main deck.

"Rich man's yacht," Jorgensen said, eyebrows rising. "Is that Al Qahir?"

"That's her," Stevens said. "We've just lucked out."

"Mr. Jorgensen," Garrett said, "alert the SEALs. We have a target for them."

"Aye aye, sir."

Al Qahir first… and then the Chinese base.

The rain had stopped some time ago, but visibility was still poor — blessedly so, since Zaki wanted to be far from Small Dragon Island by the time the clouds lifted and the ocean surface was again visible to the prying eye of American spy satellites. He walked over to the circular screen of the yacht's radar display and studied the empty green sweep of the rotating cursor for a moment. Al Qahir was alone, for the moment, on a wide empty ocean.

Which didn't necessarily mean safety, of course. Turning, he walked toward the rear of the bridge area, to the console where a young Saudi sonar technician seemed to be puzzled about something he was hearing.

Though she looked like a typical wealthy man's yacht, Al Qahir had some very special appointments indeed — not the least of which was a highly advanced sonar system, a Russian-built Tamir high-frequency system capable of picking out the approach of submarines or underwater commandos from the background noise of the ocean deeps.

Zaki was extremely aware that American submarines could be operating in the area.

"What is it?" he asked.

The sonar man shook his head, then removed his earphones and handed them to Zaki. "At first I wasn't sure, sir. I was picking up a strange noise of some sort. But listen." He grinned.

Zaki held one of the earphones to his ear and listened. The far-off, eerie cry, echoing through the deeps, was at once familiar and hauntingly alien.

"Whalesong," he said.

"Yes, sir. A whale love song."

"Then perhaps we can relax," Zaki said, smiling as he handed the headphones back. "If whales are making love beneath us, that means there is nothing about to disturb them… like American submarines!"

"Exactly what I was thinking, sir."

Zaki returned to his usual spot behind the bridge windscreen to the right of the Saudi pilot, staring out into the empty night, giving thanks to Allah for the darkness, the clouds, and the solitude.

He would be glad when this mission was over. Al Qahir would remain in the area only for another five days, coordinating the activities of Shuhadaa Muqaddaseen. After that, with the American fleet entering the Spratly group and — in all likelihood — engaging the Chinese, they would round the western coast of Borneo and make for Jakarta. The Maktum cell in Indonesia would provide him with the papers and identity necessary to smuggle him back into Europe. He would also turn the two women over to the Maktum people in Jakarta. Let them worry about ransom, about keeping them safe from the sexual appetites of their guards… or about the possible repercussions that might descend out of the night sky.

Lieutenant Mark Halstead leaned forward in the number-two pilot's seat of the ASDS, watching the blip representing the target grow slowly closer. "Range four hundred," he said softly. "Relative bearing still zero-zero-zero, closing at eighteen knots."

So far, so good, he thought. They were only going to get one shot at this, and it had to go down perfectly.

Once Al Qahir had been positively identified emerging from the sheltered base at Small Dragon Island and her westward course confirmed, Virginia had swung around to the southwest, putting herself directly in Al Qahir's path. The SEAL detachment had climbed up the escape trunk ladder and into the ASDS. When they were a mile from the approaching Al Qahir, the SEAL minisub had cast off from its larger consort, heading due east, bow-on to the yacht.

The ASDS had a sixty-seven-horsepower motor that could propel the fifty-five-ton minisub at a top speed of eight knots. Al Qahir was currently moving at ten knots which, combined with the ASDS's speed of eight, meant the two were approaching each other at eighteen knots — about twenty miles per hour. Four hundred yards at eighteen knots… about forty seconds more to contact. If the yacht veered off to right or left, the ASDS would be hard pressed to match the maneuver; if they missed on their first pass, the minisub would not be able to catch up in a stern chase. Virginia would have to disable the yacht instead, and that would be both messy and dangerous.

The idea was to take the yacht down as swiftly and as quietly as possible, both to prevent those on board from putting out a distress call and alerting the defenders of Small Dragon Island, and just in case there were hostages on board. The passengers and crew of the Sea Breeze were still unaccounted for, so the SEALs would be treating this as a hostage rescue.

First, though, they needed to stop the yacht, and they needed to stop it without alerting its crew.

He checked the sonar screen once more. One hundred fifty yards. Whalesong chirped and clicked and moaned, startlingly loud in the tiny control compartment.

The ASDS was using active sonar — they had to in order to get precise range and target data. But they were trying a new twist; irregular sonar pulses were masked behind a computer recording of a couple of mating humpback whales. The ASDS computer could mask out the recording in order to receive clearly the echoed sonar returns. Anyone listening on board the target, however, would hear only the whales — unless they were very good, or had extraordinarily sophisticated equipment.

Or unless whoever was listening on board the target happened to know that humpback whales didn't frequent these seas, or mate at this time of year.

A calculated risk.

As was this head-on approach. The ASDS didn't mount torpedoes or other weapons. In order to stop the yacht, they would have to use the minisub itself as a blunt-nosed torpedo.

One hundred yards, end zone to end zone on a football field.

Like Virginia, the ASDS possessed a Photonics mast. Its sensor suite included a camera that relayed the view to a large-screen monitor in the control compartment. Right now, all that Halstead and Michaels could see on the screen was the dark gray nose of the ASDS below, and above the diffuse glow of hull lights reflected from tiny particles of muck adrift in the water. Going in with the forward hull lights on was another calculated risk; the Al Qahir's pilot might see the light in his path — a light that might be mistaken for natural phosphorescence, but which also might give the game away seconds too early.

The ASDS was traveling at a depth of fifty feet, too deep for the light to show on the surface. Michaels, at the controls, was going to have to do some fancy flying in the next few moments to avoid having the lights visible on the roof while still hitting the target.

Fifty yards….

"I'm starting to bring her up," Michaels said.

"Right." Halstead picked up the intercom mike. "Listen up back there! We're on our final approach. Brace for collision!" He checked his own seat belt. He didn't know how rough the impact was going to be. The ASDS was ruggedly built. She should survive the collision… he hoped….

The ASDS's active sonar continued pinging down the range, a few yards at a time, with the actual figure counting down on the main view screen. Ten yards…

The bottom of the yacht became visible, a dark shadow against a deeper blackness overhead, wedge-shaped, sharp-prowed, churning through the water straight toward the minisub's bow.

Rising parallel to the surface, the ASDS made contact first with its dorsal surface, scraping hard against the yacht's keel. The clang of impact rang through the minisub's interior, and Halstead felt the vessel roll sharply to the right.

Directly ahead on the monitor, he could see the yacht's twin screws churning through the dark water, illuminated by the minisub's lights.

With a second, louder clang, the ASDS's nose slammed into the yacht's starboard screw and rudder. Again they rolled hard, this time to the left, shuddering with the impact. The continuous metallic scrape of hull on keel sounded like the minisub was tearing open.

And then the sound, blessedly, ceased. Michaels tapped out commands on his touchscreen, pushing his joystick forward and to the right. The ASDS heeled hard over to starboard as it dropped into a sharp, descending turn. "Kill the lights!" he snapped, and Halstead hit the touchpoint on his own screen. Instantly, the scene on the monitor was plunged into darkness absolute.

"Are we okay?" Halstead asked.

"Never better," Michaels replied. "That did kind of jar the fillings in the teeth, though, huh?"

Halstead studied the sonar screen a moment. "Target has ceased movement," he said.

"Right! Time for you guys to do your SEAL thing!"

"Roger that!" Unsnapping his seatbelt, Halstead stood and, stooping to avoid hitting his head against the low overhead, began making his way aft toward the lockout chamber.

"Hoo-yah!" DiMercurio said, meeting him in the chamber and handing him an H&K MP5.

"Time to earn our pay," Halstead replied. "Let's get wet!"

Zaki grabbed hold of the console in front of him to keep from being thrown down. "What was that?"

The impact, sharp as it was, went on for several seconds, dragging down the length of Al Qahir's keel with a shuddering, grinding series of jolts.

"We've hit a reef!" the pilot snapped.

"Nonsense. Small Dragon Island is the closest reef around, and that's twenty kilometers behind us!.. "

Unless they were badly off course. Turning, he hurried back to the sonar station. "What's our depth?"

"Sir… I'm showing nine hundred meters! No sign of a reef or rock or anything we could have hit!"

Al Qahir possessed two types of sonar — the Tamir array for tracking submarines or other undersea noises, and a depth indicator, a simple-minded idiot by comparison. This last gave its readout as a depth in meters at the helm, and here, at the sonar console, as a visual graph showing the seabed as a contour line. Zaki peered at the display, then pointed. "What's this?"

The depth indicator showed a kind of shadow beneath and behind the yacht.

"Fish, probably," the sonar operator said. "You can use this instrument as a fish-finder, you know."

"Fish? Or something else?" The shadow was too small to be a submarine. Perhaps one of those lovestruck whales they'd been listening to?

The helmsman was turning the yacht's ignition key. The engines had stopped when they hit the thing, whatever it was, and he was trying to restart.

"What is the problem, Jabal?" he asked.

"Our right propeller is damaged, sir," the pilot said. "Both engines stalled when we hit. I think I can get the left engine going again, but the right screw is useless."

Zaki was suddenly worried… and not by the damage report alone. They might have hit a whale… but they might have hit something else as well.

He picked up the intercom microphone. "Attention! All hands!" he snapped. "Go to combat stations!"

Better, he thought, remembering an American expression, to be safe than sorry.

Or dead.