South China Sea

console splitting apart as it was raked by automatic fire. Then the deck lights went out. Red tongues of fire spat up into the derrick, ricocheting, zinging, and whining about.

As the Chical rolled to port, Danny clicked the safety harness release button and, as hard as he could, pushed himself off, jumping out into the darkness that smelled now of cordite and salt air. He hit feet first but at an angle, his lower back slapping the water like hard rubber on concrete. He thought he’d broken his spine. Sighting the spray of phosphorescence as he splashed into the water, the junk crew members fired into the general area, a hail of hot, sizzling 7.6mm and 5 .45mm splattering about him.

Mellin began a slow breaststroke away from the ship, refusing the temptation to pull the C0₂ cartridge on his Mae West. An inflated vest would keep him afloat but would prevent him from swimming, leaving him totally at the mercy of the current, which was flowing away from the coast of Brunei beyond the rig, back farther west toward more of the Spratlys. He’d wait and dog-paddle as long as he could, until the junk had cast off, then maybe he could swim against the current and back toward the drill ship.

It was hopeless and he knew it. The current was too strong to swim against, and he was swept slowly but inexorably out to sea away from Chical. His only hope now was to be picked up by one of the Chical’s weatherproof life rafts, which could hold up to sixteen men.

This too was a vain hope, for back aboard the Chical the junk’s crew was systematically destroying every Beaufort life raft canister and lifeboat on the drill ship, mainly with grenades. Out of the sixty-four men, from geologists to cooks and drillers, roughnecks and roustabouts, crane operators and mud loggers, welders and motormen, fifty-three were dead, leaving only eleven — including Mellin — who had made it off the drill ship before the junk crew could get to them. And now only six of these were still alive, the other five already taken by sharks. The predators, attracted by the turbulence of ship bumping against ship and the smell of blood in the water, killed the five — all Americans — in a feeding frenzy around Chical’s stern.

Now almost a quarter mile away, Mellin could hear the heavy-throated chugging of the junk under way, and nearer him he could dimly make out the jagged outline of oil-smeared planks.

In the North Sea he would have been dead already from hypothermia, but in the warmer waters of the South China Sea his death would be a lingering one, dying of dehydration in a world of water, unless he were taken by sharks.

Then he saw a high cone of roiling fire, its orange tongue curling hundreds of feet high, immediately followed by the thunderclap of an explosion. The wellhead had been blown, just as Saddam Insane had blown the wells in the Middle East. It didn’t make sense. What did they want?

Now he heard popping sounds, the junk crew using the madly dancing reflections of the wellhead fire on the water to take potshots at the Chinese and American bodies floating about the Chical, the junk men making sure mat all were dead. And in the strange penumbra of firelight, Mellin could see the black scimitars of shark fins cruising just below the surface.

Danny thought of his wife Maureen and promised God that if he were saved, he’d go back home and never leave the United States again. He hadn’t been this scared since ‘Nam, and he began to pray again, “Our Father…” for if nothing else, that would keep him awake, something in his gut telling him that if his fatigue passed into sleep, it would be the sleep of the dead.

Now the Mae West light went on, the salt having activated it, doing what it was supposed to. Immediately Danny cupped his hand over the bulb, cutting himself somehow on a nail in the loose raft of planks, leaving blood in the water. He jerked the C0₂ cord and the Mae West inflated, but he kept his right hand over the bulb lest the junk crew spot the pinpoint of light in the vastness of the sea and come to kill him. He remembered a prayer he’d always said with his two daughters when they were children:

… tender shepherd, hear me…

Through the darkness be Thou near me,

Keep me safe till morning’s light.

Beneath his hand, held over the light as if he was taking the oath of allegiance, he could feel me pulsing of his heart. It was so faint that for a moment he thought it had stopped.

* * *

The sound of the wellhead explosion — traveling at least four times faster in water than in air — raced up east of the Palawan Trough over the two thousand fathoms on the eastern edge of the South China Basin, through Luzon Strait past Taiwan and west of the Ryukyu Islands Trench, where it was heard by a Sound Surveillance System listening post on Taiwan’s east coast and another on the southernmost tip of Japan’s southern island of Kyushu. From the SOSUS listening post on Kyushu the message passed through the chain of command from the Seventh Fleet’s command ship, Blue Ridge, the message marked immediate to CINCPAC–Commander in Chief Pacific — copy to Pentagon, Secretary of Navy, Secretary of Defense, and on to the President as Commander-in-Chief.

1662 HOURS RECEIVED SUBSTANTIAL SONAR BLIP STOP ESTIMATE SOURCE SPRATLY ISLANDS STOP LATITUDE APPROXIMATELY 9 DEGREES NORTH LONGITUDE 115 DEGREES IO MINUTES EAST STOP SONAR TRACE INDICATES MAN-MADE EXPLOSION NOT VOLCANIC STOP MESSAGE ENDS

CHAPTER THREE

The White House

The message had merely mentioned an explosion, and they’d have to wait till morning Brunei time to find out exactly what was involved, but the mention of the Spratlys had Admiral Reese, Chief of Naval Operations, already off and running. The suspected explosion, if it was manmade, could be sabotage on one of the oil rigs or drill ships. If so, it opened a hornet’s nest of geopolitical significance.

“Mr. President,” CNO Reese said, “there are two consequences that directly resulted from the earlier administration’s defense cuts and lack of strategic overview in East Asia. Number one, they cut the budget first, as usual, then tried to figure out strategy. Back to front.”

“Stern to bow, Admiral,” the President joshed.

Reese allowed himself a brief smile in return, but his mood was too braced for relaxing this day. “The second point, Mr. President, is that because of our cutbacks and our loss of Subic Bay and Clark Field in the Philippines, we are perceived by the East and Southeast Asian countries no longer as ‘stayers.’ I mean by this that our loss of a solid base from which to move into the South China Sea, despite the Seventh Fleet’s berthing facilities in Singapore, creates the perception in these Third World countries — and not only in them — that this is not a United States determined to stay for the long haul. And in that mode of uncertainty, we have individual countries starting an arms race in the region. They figure if the U.S. doesn’t have a firm foreign policy — or rather, a policy determined primarily by strategic responsibilities instead of budget deficit considerations — then they have to look after themselves. Can’t say I blame ‘em.”

The admiral turned to a wall chart on naval growth in the Pacific. “China makes no bones about the fact that she wants blue water capability. She’s been hankering for it for a long time. She hasn’t got it yet, but in our perceived absence she means to have it as quickly as possible. SIGINT tells us that the Chinese plan to be ready with carriers, the new Luhu guided missile destroyers, and the new Russian Kilo derivative submarines by 2007. That’s not far away, Mr. President. We had hoped we might continue to cut the U.S. deficit by selling them some of our used carriers and other warships. Problem is, Russia is offering bargain-basement prices in China and Southeast Asia. Most importantly, potential buyers know the Russians can establish ‘through-life’ support and maintenance, because the Russians, ironically, keep building them while we’re cutting back and are unable to promise any kind of ‘through-life’ warranty.”

The admiral’s assistant flicked over the China chart to one of Japan. “A further measure of these Asian countries’ independence is the fact that the Japanese Defense Force, for example, now has the best ship-carrying air defense system.”

“In Southeast Asia?” the President interjected.