Four hundred feet below the surface, Cheyenne picked up her next sonar contact.
'Conn, sonar,' the sonar supervisor reported, 'we're getting a sonar contact, sounds like a Chinese merchant ship. It's heading toward Swallow Reef.'
Mack thought the situation over quickly and decided to ignore the merchant vessel. Cheyenne had a mission to perform, and he didn't want to be delayed by taking out a noncombatant. He also didn't want to alert the Chinese task group that Cheyenne was heading their way.
Mack went to the conn. 'Proceed at full speed, course 316,' he ordered the OOD. 'Let the merchant go.'
The OOD acknowledged his captain's order.
Slowly the Chinese merchant vessel steamed out of sonar range as Cheyenne continued on her way, not knowing that it had been a target and was saved by the graciousness of Captain Mack Mackey.
Eighty-five miles southwest of the Spratlys, Cheyenne turned and headed northwest to bypass the Chinese- occupied Spratlys. Naval intelligence had reported a high probability of mines in the area, and Mack had opted to avoid the risk.
The Chinese task group was still being tracked by the U.S. satellites. In addition, the carriers Independence and Nimitz-which were currently sailing in the Pacific- were monitoring radio traffic and electronic signals for any indications of the Chinese fleet's plans.
Cheyenne continued the 'sprint-and-drift' technique during her long transit, but she also periodically went to periscope depth to communicate via SSIXS and to obtain better information on the position of the Chinese fleet. She also received a refinement of her orders-a refinement that Mack approved of, even though it carried an element of risk.
Cheyenne was scheduled to arrive on station a full day ahead of the Chinese task group. Within twelve hours, Chinese helicopters would come within range of Cheyenne's position, dropping lines of sonobuoys all around them. Cheyenne would have to stay like this, deep and silent, until the task group came within fifty miles of her position. Depending upon Mack's assessment at the time, his SSN was then supposed to proceed to shallow depth and launch her Harpoon aniiship missiles. If there were more targets than Harpoons, Cheyenne was instructed to attack the remaining ships with her Tomahawk antiship missiles (TASM).
The TASM was a longer range missile than the Harpoon, and it carried a warhead with nearly twice the explosive. The Harpoon, on the other hand, was smaller and about fifty knots faster and thus much harder to destroy. The alternative was for Cheyenne to use only her Tomahawks and attack the Chinese task group from more than 250 miles away. But that would require external targeting information from either a U.S. aircraft or a satellite.
That would be safer for Cheyenne, at least initially, but with only six Tomahawks on board, Cheyenne had no chance to destroy the entire task group from such a distance. Mack would then have to decide between allowing at least two Chinese ships to get away, or waiting for those ships to close to within Harpoon range before he could attack them.
Mack didn't want to do that. In the long run, it put Cheyenne more at risk. Launching the Tomahawks would give away their genera! bearing, and every helicopter and surface ship in the area would be coming after Cheyenne.
No, Mack liked the other plan better. He'd wait until he could release a large number of missiles all at the same time. Cheyenne would then dive deep and head back to the Sulu Sea and the waiting submarine tender McKee in order to rearm and resupply for another mission.
Mack had the OOD slow and come shallow enough for the floating wire to copy.
'Conn, radio, we're receiving important traffic on the floating wire. It seems there may be some submarines operating at our planned launch point. The reports indicate that they might even be Alfas.'
'Maintain your present course and speed,' Mack said totheOOD.
'Maintain my present course and speed, aye, sir,' the OOD replied.
Cheyenne was making ten knots at 247 feet, close to the point of inception of cavitation. Mack made his best selection of speed versus depth for continuous broadcast copying.
The American frigate Ingraham (FFG-61) was nearly five hundred miles from Independence, and she was alone. She had been ordered to an area north of the Spratiy Islands so that her two SH-60B Seahawk helicopters could help Cheyenne's target missiles. Her captain was pleased with neither her mission nor the reasoning behind it.
Ingraham, an Oliver Hazard Perry class frigate, had been selected for this mission for two simple reasons: she could do the job and she was expendable. The 3,500-ton Ingraham was cheap, inexpensive, and had about 150 fewer sailors on board than did the more powerful Ticonderoga class cruisers.
The captain had received word of this mission three days ago when his ship was dispatched from the Nimitz Carrier Battle Group into the South China Sea. He knew that Nimitz could have sent one of the more powerful Aegis cruisers or destroyers, but that would have left the carrier more vulnerable to attack.
Ingraham's captain didn't like being thought of as expendable-but he couldn't really argue with the logic. And it didn't matter anyway. He would carry out his orders to the best of his ability, whether he liked them or not.
He didn't know much about Cheyenne, the submarine he would be supporting. He knew that, like Ingraham herself, Cheyenne was the last of her class. He also knew that Cheyenne, though commissioned less than a year earlier, had already become one of the most successful submarines in American naval history. And he knew that her skipper, Captain Mackey, was a good man and a highly respected commanding officer. He hoped that this mission would put his own selection board jacket on the top of the pile when the O-6 selection board was next in session.
For this support mission, Ingraham was equipped with a full loadout of weapons, which had both pleased and surprised her Captain. He guessed that the full loadout was his admiral's way of compensating for sending Ingraham on such a mission, without any support. Ingraham's armament included thirty-six Standard SM-1 surface- to-air missiles, four Harpoon missiles, and a full load of Mk 46 torpedoes for their Mk 32 torpedo tubes, plus lots of ammunition for both their Mk 75 gun and their 20mm Phalanx CIWS. The frigate also carried two SH-60B Seahawks, each of which was equipped with a powerful APS-124 surface-search radar under its nose. This radar would be invaluable in providing mid-course guidance to the antiship missiles launched from Cheyenne.
Ingraham's job was to support Cheyenne. If any of the submarine's missiles failed to hit their mark, Ingraham had permission to fire her Harpoon missiles at the Chinese task group. She was also permitted to fire on any enemy vessels or aircraft with which she came into contact, but the emphasis of her mission was to support Cheyenne.
On board Cheyenne, the communicator had an update for Mack. 'Captain,' he said, 'we just received word that Ingraham has arrived in position. She relayed a message for you. Captain. It reads, 'all quiet on the northern front.''
Mack smiled at that. 'Funny,' he said. 'How long until we reach our launch point?'
The OOD conversed quickly with the QMOW (quartermaster of the watch) and determined that Cheyenne was currently ninety-two miles southwest of where she needed to be. 'If we increase speed to full, our ETA will be in four hours, Captain,' answered the OOD.
Mack acknowledged that. 'Come right to course 045, speed full, depth four hundred feet,' he ordered.
Two hours later the sonar room began buzzing with action.
'Conn, sonar, we have two convergence zone contacts on the spherical array, classified as probable Alfa class SSNs, bearing 010 and 014.'
As the sonar supervisor continued the basis of his classification, a picture emerged that Mack didn't like- and one that Ingraham's captain was going to like even less.
The frigate was supposed to be on station forty-three miles northeast of Cheyenne. Mack didn't know it yet, but the two sonar contacts, Masters 37 and 38, were traveling next to each other forty miles northwest of Ingraham, which put them at the third point of an almost equilateral triangle, approximately forty-two miles from Cheyenne.
