Kilo Class

she was ready. They both broke through long Pacific swells, and down below Boomer stared at the horizon to the west. Seven miles off his starboard bow he could clearly see the two high masts on the Type II Udaloy destroyer, the Admiral Chabanenko. He could also see the two destroyers, the Type Ones. The shape of the big two-palm-frond antennae spread stark above the Chabanenko’s bridge was unmistakable.

Almost immediately the urgent voice of the ESM mast operator was heard: “Captain — ESM — I have at least eight different radars — you have danger-level racket on three of them — track 2405, 2406, and 2407.”

Commander Dunning, like all submarine CO’s, reacted with an instant persecution complex, detesting the thought of being seen by the highly effective Russian radars. “Down all masts,” he ordered. “Five down — three hundred feet — make your speed eight knots — left standard rudder — steer 180—I’m clearing the datum.”

Columbia angled down and away as she speeded up, heading east for deeper water. Boomer Dunning had seen enough. Furthermore, the warning from the ESM operator meant that the American Black Ops submarine was very much expected.

052120SEPT. 60.40N 173.30E. On board the nine-thousand-ton Russian destroyer Admiral Chabanenko.

Radar room, operator three: “Sir, I have a disappearing contact…three sweeps only…computer gives it automatic track number 0416.”

Officer of the Watch to Captain: “Sir, we had a disappearing radar contact…three sweeps only…bearing 155…range six miles off our port bow.”

Captain to Officer of the Watch: “Possible US SSN, eh? No surprise. But also no danger. He can’t hear the submarines, and he sure as hell can’t see them. He’s powerless, just as we planned. Even a crazy fucking American cowboy wouldn’t shoot torpedoes at Russian surface warships in Russian waters. The submarines? He knows nothing!”

Columbia pressed on eastward. Boomer accelerated as the depth increased, and then summoned Mike Krause to his tiny office to assist in drawing up a signal to SUBLANT. They waited for another hour, having put twenty-five miles between Columbia and the Russians. At 2300, they came to periscope depth and transmitted the following:

Situation

Unable to attack. Russian convoy stays on 150-foot contour. Surface ships forming long protective barrier for Kilos, two to three miles to seaward.

Intense and deliberate acoustic interference from surface ships prevents sonar detection of the Kilos. Therefore unable to make acoustic POSIDENT.

Physical placement of escorts with active EMCON policy for sonar and radar denies me ability to get close enough for VISIDENT of Kilos snorkeling if indeed they are there.

Obviously reluctant to send in weapons on the off chance of finding Kilos in difficult shallow waters inshore of the wall.

Intentions

To wait until convoy passes Petropavlovsk, to see if escort reduces.

To set up ambush in deep water first opportunity. This should occur in position 49.90N 154.55E between Onekotan and Paramushir, northern Kuril Islands, 300 miles south of Petropavlovsk. ETA 100800SEPT.

Boomer’s signal was received in Fort Meade at 0630. Admirals Morris and Arnold Morgan had waited all night, half-expecting that Columbia had put both Kilos on the bottom of the Pacific right off Ol’utorsky. Both men understood that Commander Dunning was operating under the most trying circumstances… attempting to lay an effective ambush for two dived submarines operating behind a highly capable escort, which was expecting just such an attack, and which would not hesitate to open fire, on or below the surface, with guns, torpedoes, or depth charges.

Boomer’s signal was frustrating, but highly professional. At least he was still operational. He was also unharmed and ready to attack at the first opportunity. Both men knew that if the Columbia’s CO pulled this one off, he would be placed, automatically, on the short list of Commanders due to be promoted to Captain. Right here they were discussing instant promotion, for a first-class submarine CO. Arnold Morgan would immediately demand that reward for the king of the Black Ops. And no one would argue.

Columbia returned to PD within a half hour to receive the SUBLANT reply. And it was there, terse and unambiguous: “Your para 2(B) approved.”

Admiral Zhang Yushu had returned from his summer home and to his official residence in Beijing. With the heightened tension caused by the impending arrival of the new Kilo Class submarines, he was now ensconced at the Chinese Navy Base in Shanghai in conference with Vice Admiral Yibo Yunsheng, the East Fleet Commander, who normally worked out of Fleet HQ in Ningbo, a hundred miles south across the long seaway at the mouth of Hangchow Bay.

The two Admirals had worked diligently with Russia’s Admiral Rankov to ensure the safe delivery of the submarines, and now they sat within sight of victory. Three Kilos were safely home, they had lost five, probably to illegal American action, but there now seemed nothing that could prevent the final two, K-9 and K-10, from arriving in the great warship-building port of Shanghai.

If indeed that did happen, the Russians had agreed to apply all Chinese money in part payment for the lost five, to five new Kilos — a circumstance that both the C in C, and his great friend Yibo Yunsheng, were already anticipating with enormous relish. They always stated, with solemnity and concern, that the Kilos were a pure defensive measure, to keep the US Navy out of legal Chinese waters. What they never said was that the Kilos, they knew, would facilitate within a few short months the military recapture of Taiwan, which would provide the nation with untold wealth, just as the re-annexing of Hong Kong had done a few years ago.

^{BERING SEA TO KURILS. The Siberian route of the Russian convoy. Somewhere south of the Bering Strait, Columbia, commanded by Boomer Dunning, prepares the ambush.}

The Paramount Ruler understood the motives of Zhang Yushu, and his most senior trusted Admirals, and he raised no voice against them. For they were all men who treated China’s problems as their own. They were also men who would gladly have laid down their lives for the Great Republic. Such men were rare, and the Paramount Ruler would indulge their ambitions.

For the past two weeks, Admirals Zhang and Yibo had watched the signals being routed through Russia’s Pacific Fleet Communications Center in Vladivostok, via the satellite, on a direct link to Shanghai. Every twenty-four hours they heard confirmation that the two Kilos were making smooth and steady progress along the icy northern route across the top of Siberia.

The C in C agreed that if the Americans were laying a trap, they would have done so in the GIUK Gap in the North Atlantic, as they had probably done for K-4 and K-5. He also agreed that the men in the Pentagon must have been furious when they realized the cunning of the Russian plan to go east instead of west, and to protect the Kilos with such an impressive flotilla of Naval power.

Each day, while the Russians and Admiral Yibo had grown more enchanted with their own brilliance, a feeling of disquiet had begun to cast a shadow over the street kid from the Xiamen waterfront, who had made it to the very top of the Chinese Navy. It was true, Zhang admitted, that the Americans may have been outwitted on this one… and yet he understood the ruthlessness of the men in the Pentagon, as well as their determination and their no- holds-barred attitude to military power. Of course he did. He was one of them. From another culture, another place. But nonetheless one of them.

In his hand he held the latest signal, transmitted from the destroyer Admiral Chabanenko at 2130, two hours ago, from somewhere off the eastern coast of Siberia. He kept reading the words over…“052120SEPT. 60.40N 173.30E. Short transient contact picked up…three sweeps radar. Six miles off our port bow. No data for firm classification. Did not reappear. Possible US SSN. No subsequent attack. No reason for additional defensive measures. Acoustic barrier in place. US powerless, especially