U.S.S. Seawolf

“Launchers One and Two ready.”

“FIRE ONE AND TWO.”

The roar of the aft launch from the two fire-belching missiles was deafening, and the crew members watched them shriek skywards, higher and higher, before turning down at 800 feet to complete their deadly business.

Captain Freeburg, still positioned directly off Xiangtan’s port beam, ordered both his five-inch guns, fore and aft, to sink the Chinese destroyer. And the shells arrived before the missiles, slamming into the superstructure of the ship, blasting havoc into the ops room, the bridge, the comms room and the helicopter flight deck.

Colonel Lee ordered retaliatory fire, but he was too late. Both Harpoon missiles crashed into the portside of the Xiangtan and exploded with shattering force. The massive K-E-R-R-R- R-B-A-A-M! literally blew the Chinese destroyer apart in a massive fireball, black smoke rising in a mushroom cloud 100 feet high into the rainy skies. The ship vanished, leaving only traces of its sudden death and an ever-increasing oil-slick, which spread thinly over the waters of the western Pacific.

Captain Freeburg and his team stood for a while, watching the smoke-cloaked aftermath of the gigantic destruction they had wrought. And there was not a man among them who was not conscious of some misgivings over the loss of hundreds of lives.

“1 guess they’da done it to us, sir?” said a lieutenant junior grade, a little sheepishly.

“Guess they would at that, Jack. Besides, they probably shoulda thought about all that before they decided to capture a crippled American submarine on the high seas, in international waters, against every kind of maritime law. Wasn’t real smart, right?”

“Nossir.”

Meanwhile, back on Greenville, Judd Crocker and Tom Wheaton watched the Emerson decoys do their work. The little computer screens showed the incoming torpedoes pass harmlessly by, one a hundred yards to port, the other even farther to starboard. Neither of them found a target, never even exploded.

Commander Wheaton accessed the UWT once more, heard the news, and announced he was coming to the surface to secure the damage to his sail, “because this sucker’s making a racket which is telling me she ain’t real happy.”

In the next 10 minutes, Admiral Barry detailed Reuben James to pick up any survivors, and set a rendezvous for the carrier to make the transfers from the submarine. After that they were heading directly to Pearl, where, for some reason, there was to be a Presidential welcome for the U.S. Navy SEALs and the rescued crew of the USS Seawolf.

13

Midday. Friday, July 21.

The Oval Office.

President John Clarke was, for the first time in a six-year association with Admiral Arnold Morgan, profoundly irritated with the man. In fact, he was rapidly being drawn to the conclusion that the fire-eating admiral was growing too big for his boots.

Two hours previous he had issued a presidential memorandum outlining his plans to go to Hawaii early the next week to meet the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan, which was bringing home his son. And almost by return of interoffice communication he had received a reply from Admiral Morgan that had only just stopped short of saying, “Don’t be a prick.”

The actual wording had been, “Not a terribly good idea, sir. In fact, if you stop to give it serious strategic thought, a very bad idea. I’ll be along momentarily to explain precisely why.”

The President was not used to being patronized. But more important, he knew that this was an argument he was certain to lose because Morgan did not write memorandums like that unless his logic was flawless. However, the President badly wanted to go to meet Linus, and he was damned if this bombastic admiral was going to stop him.

As he waited, in a dark and rather petulant mood, he was giving no thought whatsoever to the fact that Linus lived in the protection of the giant American carrier instead of a Chinese jail as the result of the determination, aggression and intelligence of one man: Arnold Morgan.

No, President Clarke had rather forgotten that. He thought only of the injustice of the situation, that he, the most powerful leader in the free world, was being warned against going to meet his own son, his only son, for God’s sake, by some kind of half-assed military red tape. And he was not having that. Nossir. Arnold Morgan could take his rulebook and insert it in the place where the sun does not shine. He, President Clarke, was going to meet his boy in Hawaii, and that was that.

The door was opened and the admiral was shown in, breezily remarking, “Hello, sir. Hey, you look kinda gloomy. What’s up?”

“Arnold, 1 thought your little note was insensitive in the extreme, given that you above all others understand how the capture and possible torture of my son affected me these last couple of weeks.”

“Note, sir? What do you mean?”

“Hawaii, Arnold. Going to Hawaii.”

“Oh that, sir. Right. Just forget all about that. You can do more or less anything you want, sir. But you can’t go to Hawaii.”

“Arnold. Might I ask why not? And who might take it upon themselves to stop me?”

“Sir, I’m just trying to stop you from committing suicide. Politically.”

“Then perhaps you had better explain yourself.”

“Sure. The main issue is USS Seawolf…as you know, we just lost it under highly mysterious, but not too sinister circumstances. Nuclear accident, after collision in the South China Sea, okay? Now, until this moment, the media have taken only a passing interest, because there has not been drastic loss of life, and accidents can happen. Also, they cannot find out much, because when they ask us, we say we’re still awaiting full report from velly solly Chinese pricks. And in Canton and Beijing they will be told nothing.

“Which means it’s all gone fairly quiet. The media have not been told anything about the crew, or the crew’s return, but they presume there will be a Navy statement when they arrive back in San Diego. In the meantime, we’re playing down any kind of drama. Just an accident. Chinese tried to help. But there was a fault in the reactor core.

“Just a valve. We’re secretly pleased it did not happen here. And the Chinese have very gallantly apologized for any part they may have inadvertently played. Not much harm done.

“Now, sir. We know the facts are very, very different from that, correct? We actually blew Seawolf to bits, causing a huge nuclear accident in Canton. We then damn nearly went to war with China over your son, Linus. Because, sir, I assure you, we would never have gone that far unless he had been on board. We blew up a jail on a Chinese island, killed up to one hundred Chinese military personnel, and blew up two other ships, one of them the biggest destroyer in the Chinese Navy. We blew up two helicopters, and took this country to a naval standoff out on the edge of the South China Sea. A real, shooting, missile-firing standoff. And in the very first case, we were spying on them with a major American nuclear boat in deepest Chinese national waters.

“That, sir, is without doubt the biggest single military story since Schwarzkopf clobbered the towelheads in the Gulf.”

“I still do not see what that has to do with my going to meet my son.”

“Because, sir, if you go, you will inadvertently take two hundred American media people with you, all of whom will have guessed that Linus either was or may have been on Seawolf. They’re gonna want statements, photo opportunities, and God knows what else. And you will have led them right into the middle of the biggest story any of them could imagine…right into the middle of sixty returning U.S. Navy SEALs, and one-hundred-plus returning former captives of the Chinese, all of whom witnessed a full-blooded military battle between the USA and China, with many dead. Make no mistake. This was a small, secret, classified war.”