U.S.S. Seawolf

have that could catch them is the one with the new enlightened towed array.”

“When do I send it, sir? First light?”

“No, Jicai. Not first light. Send it now. And tell Colonel Lee to find the Seawolf. Personal orders of the Commander-in-Chief.”

0200.

Canton Naval Base.

They cast off all lines at 0235, and two tugs hauled the 500-foot-long Luhai-class warship out into the wide south-flowing stream of the Pearl River. Her new name, Xiangtan, could be seen, freshly painted in black, high on her light gray hull. A sweeping, blood-red stripe at the waterline was reflected in the dock lights that glistened in the dark shadows of Canton’s ancient river. Colonel Lee ordered, “All-ahead half speed.”

The Navy tugs escorted her downstream for 15 miles to the great Delta, even though she ran on her own enormous power, two Ukrainian-built turbines. The tugs positioned themselves on either side of her bow, acting more as pilots than extra engines and brakes. And they steered her through the tricky shallow waters of the southern fork of the river.

Xiangtan was a warship in the old-fashioned sense, armed to the teeth with antiaircraft guns, torpedoes, and missiles, surface-to-air, and surface-to-surface, the latter a phalanx of sea skimmers with a range of 70 miles. She was the most modern frontline fighting ship in the Chinese Navy, and she could make 30 knots through the water, a crew of 250 manning her, two heavily armed Harbin helicopters on her stern, to increase the speed and reach of her ASW capability.

Her radars and sonars were the finest that PLAN could purchase, but tonight they were overshadowed by the giant towed array, an ultrasensitive underwater acoustic cable that would soon be strung out behind her, trailing deep astern of China’s finest warship, listening to the strange acoustic caverns of the ocean, distilling the noises, filtering the fleeting contacts, but listening hardest of all for the least suggestion of Seawolf’s machinery.

Xiangtan’s crew had answered the call of their commander, many of them racing in from their homes around the dockyard, to take up what amounted to “action stations” in the middle of the night. No one knew what was happening, except they were going downriver to the open ocean, two days ahead of schedule. Whatever it was, it must be big. “They’re saying Admiral Zhang Yushu ordered it personally.”

Through the darkness they swept southward, the tugs with big probing spotlights above their bridges, in addition to regular running lights. As the Delta grew ever wider, the escorts peeled away, leaving the destroyer to run down the strictly marked channel to the west of Lan Tau Island. She then steamed past Guishan Dao and Dhazizhou Dao, leaving Macao seven miles to starboard, heading straight into the defined navigational routes that lead all ships from Canton out to the China Sea.

By 0500, in the pearly predawn light of Wednesday, July 5, Colonel Lee had his ship running fast through the still-calm waters, in light rain, almost 100 miles south of the Pearl River Delta. He could not of course know it, but Lt. Commander Linus Clarke was conning USS Seawolf slowly back toward the east, some 15 miles off his starboard bow.

Colonel Lee was pleased at his progress so far. They’d made good time into the search area, and his crew had deployed the towed array perfectly, and now it hung off the stern, riding back in the water for 1,000 yards, a grotesque electronic tail, five inches in diameter, black in color, its core the most advanced acoustic electronics in all the oceans.

If there was an element of doubt, it was only in the Chinese scientists’ ability to hook it up to the onboard computers, to process the array’s astonishing acoustic capability. The technique they had yet to master was that processing, because the Americans had improved it by a factor of 100. Nothing in all the history of modern naval warfare had ever been so good at identifying specific target frequencies from the monstrous background noise of the ocean. Admiral Zu Jicai knew its capability, knew it could hear a clockwork mouse scampering under the Tower of Babel — from 20 miles away.

050500JUL06.

20.30N 113.45E. Speed 10. Depth 150.

Course zero-eight-five.

Seawolf was at peace. Nothing was coming up on sonar, Captain Crocker had finally gone to bed, and Linus Clarke had the conn. It was not until 0525 that Frank’s operator began to pick up faint engine lines, faint but getting stronger as the hard-charging Xiangtan ran toward the Americans’ chosen course.

Normally, the approach of any warship — never mind a big Chinese destroyer — would have necessitated an immediate call to the captain to return to the control room. But Linus Clarke did not think he was personally having a good patrol. There had been three times when he had betrayed nerves of a kind no XO who hopes one day to have a command should ever display.

In his mind, he had only betrayed natural human reactions to extreme danger: the flooding of the torpedo room, deep beneath the surface; straying right into the path of incoming underwater missiles; being spotted by the big Chinese ICBM submarine. Linus knew that Captain Crocker was a top-class commanding officer, but he also knew their orders forbade them from getting detected. And so far they had been detected three times, once off Taiwan, obviously, once by the Xia, and again last night by shore radar. Judd might be tough, experienced and gifted, but he wasn’t Superman, and Linus thought it was about time he showed some of his own mettle, demonstrating that he too was capable of commanding an American nuclear boat on a highly classified mission.

He had a lot of CIA background now, and a lot of important contacts. He really wanted to take a look at this oncoming Chinese warship, and he ordered Seawolf’s team to reduce speed and slide up to periscope depth as the contact came within two miles. They might as well take a good look. If push came to shove, they could always go deep and outrun her, just as Judd had done to the much smaller Luda.

In the ops room of the Luhai destroyer there was a ripple of activity. One of the sonar operators, new to the screen that reflected the findings of the giant 1,000-yard-long American-designed towed array, thought he was getting something, but he could not tell what.

It was, however, a sufficient change in the levels for him to call out engine lines. And Colonel Lee, the very senior captain of the ship, instantly ordered a reduction in speed, as if silencing the water beyond the hull would make their contact more easy to identify. Xiangtan slowed almost to a halt while the Chinese technicians worked the computer keys, trying to tap into the new electronic system.

Meanwhile, now at periscope depth, Seawolf was 2,400 yards off the Luhai’s starboard beam. Clarke had his night-sight camera up and snapping, and he was visually able to see a large modification to the destroyer’s stern, an unusual housing, bigger than normal for foreign ships, though not entirely unusual in the U.S.

Linus’s mind raced. He knew what he was seeing. Everyone in the Silent Service knew that China had gotten its hands on that high-tech modern towed array, along with its processing computers. And right here was the evidence, a major Chinese warship with a big winch housing for a long towed array, the design and technology of which had been flagrantly stolen from the U.S.

“I’m going in closer,” he said. “Officer of the Deck, keep her straight and level, PD…I want to pass in across her stem and get some closeups of that housing. Might even catch a glimpse of the actual array in the water.”

“Steady, sir…” Andy Warren was issuing a veiled warning. “We don’t know how long that array is.”

“Don’t worry, Andy. I’m not going in closer than a mile. It won’t be that long, will it? And this is a destroyer…the array will be angled down in the water, not straight out behind like a submarine deploys.”

“Sir.” Master Chief Brad Stockton had arrived in the control room. “You want me to let the CO know we’re groping around the ass of a six-thousand-ton Chinese destroyer? It’s the kind of thing he takes a big interest in.”

“I don’t think there’s a need, Brad. Just taking a look. She’s not even transmitting on anything. I thought we’d cross her wake about a mile astern, get our pictures, then retreat a couple of miles and keep the ESM mast up, see if we can vacuum up a few details of her new radar and communications systems. Ex-USA, I believe.”

“Well, okay, sir. If you say so. But I do think the CO should know roughly what we’re up to. We’re awful close