Red Phoenix

If they’d survived, Liberator would have made a more detailed contact report by now. Min was — no, had been — a veteran captain, one of the best. Meanwhile Great Leader’s patrol along Tsushima’s west coast had been completely undisturbed. Not a single sonar contact. Not a single significant periscope sighting.

The possibility that had been growing in his mind crystallized into a certainty — the Americans were transiting Tsushima’s east coast. And he and his submarine were in exactly the wrong place. Chun stepped to the Control Room’s plot table.

He laid out a course that would allow them to intercept the Americans to the north of Tsushima and then frowned, calculating times and distances. It would be at least a six-hour run at ten knots — a run that would leave the Great Leader dangerously short of battery power.

Diesel-electric submarines were the quietest on earth when operating on batteries, but endurance runs at speed weren’t exactly their forte. Kilo-class subs such as his could carry two hundred hours’ worth of charge in their massive battery stacks, but increased speed meant an increased battery drain. At ten knots the Great Leader’s electric motors would consume ten hours’ worth of charge for every hour of operation. It went up from there. An hour at fifteen knots ate fifty hours’ worth of charge, and using the sub’s maximum speed, sixteen knots, would drain every battery aboard in just two hours. The Great Leader’s batteries could be recharged while snorkeling and running on diesels, but diesels were noisy. And noisy submarines didn’t live long.

Still, he didn’t have much choice. The high command’s orders were explicit. This convoy must be stopped — at all costs. Chun faced his officers. “Left rudder. Bring us to new course zero zero three. And increase speed to ten knots.”

For a second the assembled officers stood motionless, surprised by his sudden decision to abandon the Great Leader’s slated patrol area. Then they scrambled to obey. They would go north.

ABOARD SIERRA FIVE, NEAR THE NORTH END OF TSUSHIMA

“Buoy number twenty-two down and marked. Drop point for twenty-three is coming up … now!”

“Buoy away!” A small parachute blossomed from beneath the P-3’s belly and drifted toward the ocean. In the aircraft above, the tactical coordinator watched the computer screen as a small symbol appeared, with “23” next to it. Sierra Five was just passing the small village of Toyo on the rocky northeastern tip of Tsushima Island, laying a new sonobuoy line from the southwest to the northeast. Four more buoys would complete the line, and then the P-3 could circle around to begin its patrol, always listening for the minute sounds — a noisy propeller, a hatch slammed shut too fast, a metal tool dropped on a metal deck — that could signal an enemy’s approach.

“Uh… Skipper?” It was one of the crewmen acting as lookouts through the side windows.

The pilot clicked his intercom switch. “Go ahead, Charlie. What’s up?”

“I think maybe I just saw something up north. Pretty far out there. All I could see was some kind of blinking or flashing.” The lookout sounded vaguely apologetic for having disturbed him.

Something to the north? On the surface? Maybe he’d made a mistake in leaving the P-3’s radar off. It had seemed unnecessary to have it on and all too likely to alert any enemy sub with ESM — electronic intercept — capability. Sierra Five’s commander clicked his intercom switch again. “Let’s get the radar going, Mike.”

“Warming up now.” Aft in the Orion’s electronics compartment, the petty officer assigned to run its APS-115 surface search radar flicked a series of switches and listened to the low hum as his gear came on line, going from standby to active status in seconds. Blips appeared instantly on the screen. “Contact! I’ve got two, no, three radar contacts bearing zero one six, range approximately twenty-three miles. Definitely small surface contacts, not periscopes.”

Up in the cockpit, the pilot glanced at his copilot. “Japanese or Korean fishing boats, maybe?”

His second-in-command looked up from leafing through a thick collection of charts and photocopied briefing papers. “Not in that sector. Not legally, anyway. The Pusan sea lane’s been posted off-limits since Day One.”

“Skipper!” It was the radar operator. “Contacts now bearing zero two zero. Their track is two three five, speed thirty-six knots!”

Those weren’t fishing boats. They were moving too goddamned fast. The P-3 banked hard right to come around on an intercept course. “Sparks, tell the O’Brien the good news. Frank, get your Harpoons ready to go. Looks like we’ve got targets for ’em.”

“Coming up, bossman.” The tactical coordinator had his face nuzzled up against a radar repeater scope, studying the contacts he was about to try to kill. Three distinct ships, each separated from the others by about a mile of open water. Three targets… and two Harpoons slung under Sierra Five’s wings. Well, two out of three wouldn’t be bad.

“Range eighteen miles and closing.”

The copilot had binoculars up to his eyes, sweeping the sea ahead of them. “Got ’em. Dead ahead. Small patrol boats. Probably Osas by the look of ’em. Definitely not friendlies.”

“Okay, that’s good enough for me.” The P-3’s pilot spoke firmly. “Nail the creeps, Frank.”

DPRK REVOLUTION

“Aircraft! Due south!”

The lookout’s shout brought Commander Sohn’s head around in time to see the two tiny flashes from under the P-3’s wings. “Missile warning! Hard right rudder! Come to new course two seven zero. Alert Retaliation and Avenger!”

Sohn held onto the bridge railing with both hands, braced against the tilting deck as the Revolution came around on its new course. Its two sister ships followed suit, turning in line abreast and throwing spray high into the air in twin roostertails.

Revolution’s gun turrets whined, spinning round to face south. The North Korean commander grimaced. Even though he’d ordered the radical turn to unmask both his boat’s twin-gun 30mm mounts, he knew they’d still have a difficult shot against the enemy missile. The briefings he’d received had said that the Harpoon could skim the waves at more than five hundred knots. Since his guns had a maximum effective range of just over a mile and a half, that meant they would have less than ten seconds to try to knock an incoming Harpoon into the sea before it hit home. Not very much time at all.

He let go of the railing with one hand and leaned over an open hatch to yell down to the boat’s signals rating. “Break radio silence. Inform Fleet Command and all units that we are under air attack and that we believe the enemy convoy is on a course east of Tsushima Island.”

Sohn didn’t wait for a reply but turned away, trying to spot the Harpoons streaking toward him. There. Twin shadows racing over the water almost faster than the eye could see. One was climbing, arcing into the sky as it popped up before plunging down onto Revolution.

Both the fore and aft 30-millimeter guns cut loose with a chattering roar, throwing tracers toward the missile climbing higher above the sea. Sohn’s hands gripped the railing as he willed himself to remain motionless. Yes! A 30mm round shattered the American missile, turning it into a tumbling ball of flame that struck the water two hundred meters short of the Revolution.

Sohn caught a split-second glance of the other Harpoon’s long, white shape as it flashed overhead and was gone. He spun round and staggered as a tremendous shock wave rocked the boat. There, less than a mile off, debris spiraled away from the center of an explosion. When the smoke and spray cleared, Retaliation, his middle boat, had vanished — blown to pieces by the missile’s 227- kilogram warhead.

He broke away from the boiling sea left by the explosion and sought out the enemy plane. It seemed to hang in midair, arrogantly loitering to see the results of its attack. “Hard left rudder! Bring us to one eight zero degrees. I want to close the range to that bastard!” He looked wildly around. “Comrade Lee!”

The boat’s portly weapons officer hauled himself to his feet. “Yes, Comrade Captain!”

“Prepare your SAM team! I want that plane down!”

The Revolution and its surviving consort, the Avenger, surged south, speeding toward the P-3 and closer to the rocky beaches of Tsushima Island.

USS O’BRIEN

“I’m sorry, Captain. The island’s blocking our fire. We just can’t hit those Osas from here.”

Levi nodded his understanding. His tactical action officer was right. The two remaining North Korean missile