U.S.S. Seawolf

angle. Right below the fuselage, the bomb automatically released, and the big Paveway 3 was flung upward by the sheer force and momentum of the aircraft 3,000 feet farther into the sky, whistling through the darkness at a decreasing velocity, the first mile in four and a half seconds, the second, third and fourth in less than 30.

And now, as it reached the top of its trajectory, it began to head down into its long flight to the ground, its laser guidance system scanning the terrain below, searching for the tiny illumination so meticulously aimed by Quinlei Dong.

Lieutenant Commander Farrell made an Immelmann turn, racing higher in the sharpest loop he could, upside-down and then rolling out, carefully easing back down to 250 feet above the wetlands. Then he gunned the aircraft back over the central channel, turning south toward the open ocean. Still making almost 600 knots, he was past Kowloon just a few moments before Quinlei Dong parked his car at Hong Kong International Airport.

And like Dong, he would keep going until he touched down on American soil, or at least American steel.

Meanwhile the bomb hurtled downward through the darkness, silently locking on to Dong’s laser illumination, its fins making the course adjustments as it fell, steering the dark green killer immaculately toward its target. No one could see it. No one could hear it. No one could possibly know it was coming.

There were six guards on the foredeck, six Chinese technicians in the sonar room, and twenty other submarine experts in various parts of the ship, several of them Russian. No one knew a thing about it when the Paveway 3 smashed into the casing at 2140 precisely. It came in making a strange, soft, eerie whistle. Inside one millisecond its armor-piercing head had smashed straight through the pressure hull and into the massively protected reactor compartment, exploding with a dull, shuddering K-E-R-R-B-A-A-M six feet from the seething mass of the reactor core.

The actual explosion of the Paveway was brilliantly contained by the iron grip of the American-built compartment, but the bomb wreaked fearsome damage internally, catastrophically rupturing the steel pipes of the primary coolant circuit in four places. The water system driving through the reactor under pressure of 2,300 pounds per square inch blew open, flashing off to steam instantly, blasting into the compartment.

The pumps stopped as the control rods automatically dropped into the core to scram the reactor. Both of the big isolation valves, failing safe even after the explosion of the bomb, slammed shut, automatically sensing the cataclysmic drop in pressure in the circuit outside the steel reactor vessel. And now the reactor was being starved of the purified, pressurized water that takes away the heat caused by the fission of the enriched uranium-235 in the core. Control of the lethal fast neutrons was quickly slipping away as the core grew hotter and hotter and hotter.

There was only one chance to save the reactor, and that was the automatic emergency cooler system built to cope with occasions such as this — catastrophic failure of the primary coolant circuit. This, too, has two big valves and is designed to suck in seawater — any water, for God’s sake — and drive it through the core, for its hydrogen content to fight the diabolical energy of the neutrons, the basic energy of an atomic bomb. And the water was life- giving in more senses than one: Its sheer cooling effect is designed to prevent the meltdown of the whole core.

The incoming water is known as the “cold leg.” By the time it powers away from the mass of seething silver- colored uranium-235, it is outrageously hot, and will be driven out through the pipes of the second part of the system, the “hot leg.” But, thanks to the thoughtful activities of Judd Crocker and Mike Schulz while Seawolf was being towed into Canton, the isolation valve had been sabotaged to drift open, and now the ship had two hot legs, which represented a total disaster.

The emergency cooler circuit was dead. And the Chinese in the machinery control room, already terrified by the tremor of the bomb’s blast, now saw to their horror how dead it was. They could see the core temperature rising spectacularly, racing upward toward inevitable meltdown. This was a Chinese Chernobyl.

They struggled against it, praying to whatever god might be available on this Sunday night that the emergency system would suddenly kick in. But Mike Schultz had made no mistake. Nothing was kicking anything, except for the bomb, in the context of Chinese ass.

Four minutes later, all indications of any possible salvation were lost, and the core temperature was now well above the danger level. Deep in the reactor room the residual radiation and heat were beginning to melt away the casing, and at 2148 the white-hot mass of uranium and stainless steel burned clean through the 15-foot-wide fortified bottom of the reactor vessel and dropped down onto the hull of the submarine.

In a few seconds, it reduced that colossally strong five-inch-thick steel casing to melted butter and dropped into the waters of Canton Harbor. On its way it turned Seawolf into a death trap, the radioactive fallout filling the reactor compartment and beyond. The waters of the harbor would be lethally unsafe for a minimum of 40 years.

Up in the control room, the scientists were fully aware of the scale of the disaster. There were radiation alarms sounding everywhere, and there was a weird glow in the water. The warning, “CORE MELTDOWN…CORE MELTDOWN,” had already echoed through the ship, where mass panic now ensued.

The acting CO ordered “ABANDON SHIP!..WE HAVE CORE MELTDOWN!”

There was a stampede to disembark as technicians, scientists, and seamen alike raced for the hatches and the gangways. Seawolf still floated, even with her reactor compartment flooded with seawater, but anyone who spent more than 10 minutes on the ship right now was a dead man, probably with a maximum of three weeks to live.

Admiral Zhang’s dream of copying the great American emperor of the deep was over, and suddenly, in the space of just 15 minutes, they were in a desperate damage-control situation. The officer in command literally ran for his life, followed by the scientists, and he roared at them to keep running to the most distant of naval offices right out by the gate.

When he arrived the office door was locked, and he blew the lock off with his service revolver. They all headed for desks and telephones and opened up a conference line to Fleet Headquarters at Zhanjiang, direct to Admiral Zhang Yushu.

The C-in-C was stunned, and he found himself in an argument with the on-the-spot nuclear physicists, who felt that the only way to cope with the catastrophe was to sink Seawolf right here, letting her subside and settle on top of the reactor core. Then somehow, they could isolate the area for possibly 500 yards and perhaps contain the water around the submarine, possibly with a dam, anything to stop the contamination from spreading into the city.

However, there were technicians who very much wanted a second shot at the American boat, and they wanted to tow the submarine out into the open ocean and try to remove the key systems from it.

For Zhang this was a ray of hope in the darkness and now, yelling on the increasingly hysterical conference line, he demanded they do as he ordered, tow the submarine out and then board it and have one more try at removing the critical parts.

Dr. Luofu Pang, the senior physicist and one of China’s most respected scientists, finally agreed, or at least he seemed to agree. “Admiral,” he said, “if that is what you order, then I am not in a position to tell the Navy what to do. And so be it.”

But he added, “I will, however, issue to you my final thought: any man who boards that submarine for just ten minutes will die. If you send in many of our expert technicians, we will lose them all. I deeply regret to inform you, sir, that this is not a practical proposition. And if you do issue an order that knowingly sends our best men to their immediate death, after an accident in which I have been personally involved, my advice must be properly recorded, and I shall take immediate steps to ensure it is.”

And then his voice hardened. “Admiral,” he said. “Forget it.”

Zhang knew bald-faced reason when he heard it. And he just said quietly, “Very well, Dr. Luofu. I am disappointed, as a military man. But I bow to the great scientist. Please do everything you can to ensure the safety of everyone in the area. And sink the submarine as you see fit.”

They were big words from, essentially, a big man. Admiral Zhang had not become the youngest-ever Commander-in-Chief of the People’s Liberation Army/Navy by some kind of fluke.

At this time, in the minutes before 10:00 on this Sunday evening, July 16, 2006, the big Navy yard began to react, its nuclear accident organization activating the predetermined plan to deal with such disasters — radiation monitoring and decontamination teams, fire and medical squads, wind and weather checks.

Back in the central area of the city they slowly learned there had been an accident on the base. The police moved quickly to evacuate and cordon off the immediate areas around the submarine, particularly downwind and