South China Sea

congratulations from the carrier. The other pilot said nothing, part of him exhilarated by the kill, the other half feeling sorry for the downed Chinese pilots, only one having a chance to eject. In a way, attacking the two Shenyangs, whose maximum speed was 957 mph, with two F-18s at 1,190 mph, was a little like Mario Andretti’s Formula One chasing a pickup. Unless the Chinese fighters happened upon F-18s with complete surprise — highly unlikely, given the F-18s’ multimode air-to-air and air-to-surface tracking radar — the Shenyangs didn’t stand a chance, despite their having jettisoned “hot spots”—magnesium flares — to decoy the U.S. missiles.

But if the two American pilots from the Enterprise had good reason to be supremely confident of their aircraft’s ability, they gave the Chinese pilots top marks for courage. Neither Shenyang pilot had run from the fight, but had kept coming head-to-head to do battle. Both American pilots and those back in the Enterprise’s CIC knew how different the outcome might have been had the Chinese sent out their MiG-29s — the Fulcrums — now being purchased at bargain basement prices by China from Russia and other republics within the CIS.

The Fulcrum, with a maximum speed of 1,518 mph, was faster than the F-18s by 328 miles per hour and was considered by many, particularly by the modern German Luftwaffe pilots, as the world’s preeminent fighter. Without the Shenyangs as cover, the two H-5 bombers were embarrassingly easy for the two F-18s to shoot down, one exploding in air, the other afire and in an uncontrollable spin, one crewman ejecting, his white chute blossoming against the blue expanse of sea and sky. For some reason the spiraling H-5’s two 23mm nose cannons kept firing, their aimless bullets striking the sea like errant pebbles scattered over the water.

“All right!” Danny Mellin said as the H-5 smashed into sun-glinting pieces as it struck the sea in excess of 500 miles per hour. The Chinese crewman who had refused to help Mellin rescue the guard, who was only now coming around, looked at Mellin with an expression of sheer hatred for the American. He said something to Mellin, but despite Mellin’s basic knowledge of Chinese from his POW days in ‘Nam, he couldn’t understand, though he guessed it was some kind of insult. The Chinese crewman repeated himself, this time jabbing his finger at Mellin. Danny, his eyes squinting in the harsh glare of the sun on water, nodded as if he understood. “Yeah, well fuck you too, Sheng.”

“Sheng,” the first thing that came into Mellin’s head, means one liter, and the Chinese crewman was utterly perplexed.

“Sheng?”

“Oh Sheng fuck!” Mellin said, not feeling as cavalier as his tone suggested. He knew for sure that once he fell asleep, the crewman would push him off the raft. He had to stay awake, and so a deadly waiting game began. The guard, alternately coughing and moaning, still lay in the fetal position on the undulating floor of the raft.

“Sheng?” the crewman said.

“That’s right,” Mellin replied, both men watching each other as intently as two cats with territory in dispute. The raft should have had several liters of water as part of its supplies, but the only thing attached to the gunwales was an ancient packet of hard crackers and salt tablets. Mellin looked about for other rafts to hail, but the half dozen or so he could see were too dispersed, several bodies — or rather, what was left of them— floating up and over the swells, which were growing in intensity and height.

* * *

A Chinese container ship, the Wang Chow from Shanghai, en route to San Francisco via Honolulu when hostilities broke out, had been turned back by a U.S. Navy destroyer northeast of Maui. The destroyer escorted the Wang Chow back to Honolulu, where its cargo, mainly cheaply made cotton clothing destined for the American market, was impounded and its crew of thirty-two interned.

That evening produced one of the Hawaiian Islands’ legendary sunsets, an incandescent orange turning to a crimson, the streaked high cirrus clouds giving the promise of another splendid day in paradise as the USS Madison, a combination Hunter/Killer/Ballistic submarine of the Sea Wolf III series, egressed out of Pearl Harbor past degaussing ships — the magnetic signature of the ship “wiped,” lest an enemy pick up the signature and file it in its threat library.

Had the Madison been in any foreign port, no matter how urgently she was wanted elsewhere, her departure would have been delayed until four divers — it used to be three — had “swept” her acoustic-tiled hull and declared her “clean.” But given it was in COMSUBPAC’s home port, and the urgency of the situation in the South China Sea, the USS Madison set off promptly.

Once having cleared the safety nets in Pearl, she headed up the channel, her sleek shape, more like a cigar than a teardrop, slicing through the water as easily as any behemoth of the deep. The explosion took place at 1109 hours as she was preparing to dive, shattering the hull underneath and forward of the fairweather or sail, ripping out the torpedo room, water tank, forward trim tank, and Tomahawk vertical launch system. It also ruptured two of the three forward starboard-side ballast tanks, whose implosion doused some of the forward sub’s fires, but not all of them.

Within a minute firefighting teams had donned their white asbestos-hooded Nomex fire suits, some strapping on the emergency air breathing apparatus hose, others the more portable OBX, oxygen breathing apparatus. Temperatures were already 52 degrees Celsius and climbing, fire control crewmen trying desperately to make their way through choking, dense smoke with their infrared thermal imagers. Had it not been for the quick action of a Charles F. Adam-class destroyer nearby, with her fire hoses and her bravery in coming alongside despite the acute danger of the torpedoes in the Madison blowing, the whole sub and its crew might have been lost instead of the sub being badly damaged with thirty-three of her 132 crewmen reported killed.

It had been a torpedo attack right off the mouth of Pearl Harbor, or more precisely, it had been a mine, a U.S. acoustic Mark 6 °Captor mine — in effect a long, tubular sheath housing a Mark 46 torpedo, its computer control programmed to lie in wait for certain classes of sub with their telltale cavitation. Upon sensing this, the torpedo would be let loose from its housing.

From now on, as directed by the CNO, all U.S. submarines, including all deep-diving submergence rescue vehicles, had to be swept, along with egress lanes, whether in a home or foreign port.

The extent of Madison’s damage would keep the boat in dry dock for at least three months, as well as necessitating an undersea and an evaluation center test. The Chinese ship Wang Chow was soon swarmed by SEALs and other underwater demolition teams, and they’d found brackets for a half-dozen Mark 6 °Captor mines underneath, set into her hull.

“Thank God they didn’t sink it altogether,” a petty officer said. He meant the Madison.

“Might as well have,” an ensign said. “It’s going to slow down one hell of a lot egressing out of Pearl — sub or surface vessel. Damn Chinese might just as well have sunk her.” Two of his best buddies had died during the mines’ attack. COMSUBPAC’s naval intelligence confirmed from serial numbers on remaining U.S.-made Mark 6 °Captor mines that they had been among those purchased and then resold in East Asia prior to hostilities by a South Asia Industries owned and operated by a Mr. Jonas E. Breem.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

While Tazuko Komura was packing some food and juice in her kitchen, she thought about a man in the phone booth she’d seen the night before below for what seemed an unusually long time. Through the small telescope in her tiny, three-room apartment she’d been able to see that the man wasn’t using the phone, but was dusting it with a small brush. It both frightened and reassured her — frightened her, because it meant police or JDF agents were closing in, altogether too close, but reassured her because they were dusting for prints. Obviously they didn’t know who had used the public phone. And what would they have heard when they tapped it? A man’s voice asking for a Mrs. Yoshio, and a woman’s voice, hers, answering that there was no Yoshio “living here.” And anyway, the police who were following up the call couldn’t possibly know it was the signal for her to act, to do what her cell of three had spent months planning.

Even so, Tazuko knew she would be in grave danger the moment she stepped out on the street. If anyone searched her shopping bag, they might find the explosive. Or would the way she had camouflaged it fool them? As she finished her coffee she noticed her right hand was trembling, half from fear, half in excitement. She knew she must control it, and in order to do that she first had to lose control. She was wound up tighter than a spring.