Fatal Thunder: A Jerry Mitchell Novel (48 page)

“Yessir, I understand. We won’t let you down,” Jerry answered resolutely.

“I’m not worried about that, Captain Mitchell, but I would appreciate it if you’d stop making my life so complicated.”

17 April 2017

1800 Local Time

USS
Oklahoma City

Apra Harbor, Guam

“Squadron Fifteen, arriving!”

Habit overcame urgency as Commodore Simonis paused just long enough to salute the ensign fluttering at the stern of the sub and then return the OOD’s salute. Lieutenant Commander Gill Adams,
Oke City
’s XO, was waiting, but was careful to keep out of the commodore’s way.

Adams started talking as soon as Simonis returned his salute, and continued his rapid-fire briefing as Simonis took the ladder in the amidships escape trunk down into the boat, then headed forward toward control. “Bismarck reported the object eleven minutes ago. We called you as soon as we saw the images. It can’t be anything but a torpedo.”

Simonis was moving fast. Sailors either ducked into doorways or flattened themselves against the bulkhead. “What about the Chinese?” the commodore asked over his shoulder.

“The skipper was calling the Chinese liaison when I left.”

Commander Bruce Dobson,
Oke City
’s commanding officer, was the only one who came to attention when the commodore burst into the control room, and then only momentarily. More to the point, he immediately offered Simonis a sheet of paper. “This is the best image so far. It has to be the Russian weapon.”

It was a false-color sonar picture, but the torpedo’s shape was immediately obvious—angled down and apparently embedded in the harbor bottom. The front of the weapon was fuzzy and possibly misshapen, although it was hard to tell.

Dobson reported, “We were lucky that the torpedo went in nose-first. We’ve got clean pictures of the back end, and the fins and pumpjet are completely consistent with a Russian UGST torpedo.”

Simonis asked, “Just in case this was not the correct torpedo?” He almost laughed.

Dodson shrugged. “It could happen. And wouldn’t we all be very embarrassed?”

“What about the front end?” Simonis asked, pointing to the printout.

“There’s stuff in the mud that is likely messing up the return, and the weapon may have struck something hard when it angled over and into the bottom. It doesn’t look like the damage goes back as far as the warhead section. We should be so lucky. We will warn the divers, of course.”

A display on the bulkhead changed from a map of Hong Kong to an image of “Lieutenant” Li, who had either volunteered or been picked as the liaison with the Americans. He was visibly excited. “We have the images and the position you sent us! Captain Zhang has left to alert the helicopter crew. The minesweeper is almost on top of the location and the divers are preparing to enter the water. I’m going to connect us with the captain on the minesweeper now.”

Li typed on his keyboard, and the screen split and a second image appeared, even fuzzier and more badly angled than the first one. Simonis imagined it coming from a cell phone propped up on, or more likely taped to, some fitting on the bridge. They could make out pale gray bulkheads crowded with boxes and fittings, but there was nobody in the picture. After about twenty seconds, which seemed more like an hour, a crew-cut man in a dappled-blue camouflage shirt popped in from the side. He fired a string of Mandarin that hardly sounded like words to Simonis.

Li reported, “He says he sees the UUV’s strobe light, and has marked the location.” Minesweepers were very good at navigation. They had to be, considering their line of work. Simonis wasn’t worried about them losing the position.

Dobson replied, “Good. Tell him we’re moving the UUV away now. He should be able to watch it back away from his bridge.”

Although Bismarck’s sonar made it a vital part of the search, once it found and marked the position of the object, there was nothing it could do to help the divers. Both the Chinese and American planners had tried to find some way that the divers could attach a line to the UUV, and then follow it down, but the external casing was perfectly smooth. With the Chinese divers on station, the best place for the vehicle was out of the way.

Simonis watched as the petty officer on
Oke City
controlling the vehicle reported in a voice loud enough to be heard over the microphone, “Bismarck is moving two hundred yards to the south, speed three knots, sonar is
off
.” He emphasized the last word, and Simonis, Dobson, and Li on the screen all nodded approvingly.

Although short-ranged, the vehicle’s sonar was still powerful enough to be painful to anyone caught in its beam. During the planning for the search, and then again while the vehicles searched for the device, all hands had been briefed on the hazards associated with operating close to the UUV.

The minesweeper’s captain, whose name was Min, listened to Li’s translation, nodded, and shouted something over his shoulder.

Dobson then told Li about the possible damage to the front of the torpedo. “The forward part may be crumpled, but it doesn’t extend very far aft.”

Li spoke quickly to Captain Min, who answered, then reached toward the camera, his hand blotting out the image.

“They’re using a standard torpedo collar, the same kind we use to recover expended exercise torpedoes; the damaged nose shouldn’t be a problem. And the captain says that the next model of your UUV should have a pad eye on it.”

The image was shaking and flashing, and Li said something in Chinese, but there was no immediate reply. A moment later the screen was flooded with light, and everyone could see the stern deck of the minesweeper, cluttered with diving gear and men, as well as the booms and winches used to handle the ship’s sweep gear.

Li translated Captain Min’s explanation. “He’s taped the camera to a fitting so we should be able to see what happens. There are two divers already in the water, and two more standing by if they are needed. The water temperature is good, twenty-three degrees Celsius, and the depth is only seventeen meters here, so they won’t even need to decompress.”

Simonis could see two divers, already in wet suits, surrounded by other crewmen and helpers. One of the divers was wearing a headset.

Dobson asked Li, “What’s the current like?”

Li answered quickly, without even passing the question to Min. “The tidal range near Stonecutters Island is only a meter or so. The tide is going out, but it shouldn’t be more than a knot. The biggest problem will be visibility. They are both wearing lights, and one of the divers has a handheld sonar, but they’re literally searching in the dark.”

All they could do was wait. The camera image jiggled and moved constantly, either from the motion of the ship or vibrations as equipment was used or from someone walking nearby. Simonis could see lines draped over the railing by the stern, starboard side. He knew one led to the collar, and another a communications line.

Five minutes into the search, the diver on the headset called out something, and Li translated. “Visibility isn’t good, but they’ve seen worse. They’re starting on a third circle, centered on the anchor.”

Simonis was a submariner, so naturally he tried to do the math. With two divers swimming abreast, searching with flashlights and sonar, they could sweep a section maybe two meters wide. They’d tie a line to the anchor, and hold it while they swam in a two-meter circle. Then they’d move out to four meters from the anchor and go around again. Then six meters, but it was a larger circle now. How far do you go out before you worry about having missed the torpedo? He wondered how good their handheld sonar was. On the inner or outer diver? Outer, he thought.

The diver with the headset said something, and Li relayed, “Fourth circle.”

That one would take longer still. How long did it take to swim twelve and a half meters in a circle? In really rotten visibility? By rights, the torpedo would be hard to miss. Even with the front third stuck in the mud, it would still stick out fifteen feet or so.

Li reported, “Fifth circle.” What if the torpedo was covered by mud? A thin layer would not even show up on the UUV’s sonar, but would make the weapon invisible to a visual search, and might block the handheld sonar. And even if they found it, then they’d have to dig the thingie out of the bottom so they could attach the collar.

“Sixth circle.” Simonis knew he was a worrywart, but it came with the job. If this went on too much longer, he could offer to use the UUV somehow to mark the torpedo’s position. Bismarck knew its location within inches, but had lousy verbal skills.

He could ask the divers to go shallow, then send the UUV back in. When it was directly over the torpedo, they could turn the sonar off and set the speed to zero. But then they’d have to find the vehicle first.

They all saw it in the control room before Li translated the excited shouts. The diver with the headset yelled something, and suddenly everyone on the stern was moving purposefully. Li reported, “They found it, and the midsection is clear of the bottom! They are attaching the collar.”

Li called to someone offscreen, and then told the Americans, “The helicopter will be airborne in moments.” He repeated the same thing to Captain Min in Mandarin.

Sailors on the stern were taking the line that was attached to the torpedo collar and passing it through the block on a boom. As soon as they were finished, the boom swung out to starboard and up, ready to take a strain.

Simonis half expected to see the line jerk or straighten like a fish on a hook, but they were leaving in a lot of slack, so the divers were free to work. How long would it take to attach the collar to the torpedo? He didn’t know exactly how the Chinese model worked, but if it was anything like the U.S. version, it was pretty simple. After all, it was designed to be used on a weapon that was floating in the water. Clamping it on one that was stationary should be even easier.

The diver with the headset called out and they watched the boom swing out a little farther. The line became taut.

Simonis started praying. This was the moment of greatest danger. There had been extensive discussions about the chance that the warhead had been fitted with anti-tamper devices, such as a sensor to detect movement. Such a device would activate once the torpedo had reached its destination. After that, any attempt to remove it would trigger the warhead.

It was impossible to defuse or disable the torpedo in place. Trying to do it on the deck of the minesweeper would take a long time, and then there was still the concern that the access panels had all been wired somehow. Both the Chinese and American planners had studied the photos from the torpedo shop that showed the weapon’s mechanism, looking for clues as to whether anti-movement devices had been fitted, but finding nothing.

In the end, they’d had to fall back on logic and hope. The installation had been improvised, and while anything involving nuclear weapons could not be described as “crude,” it was simple. And while booby-trapping the access panels was within the technician’s ability, a motion sensor seemed a bit much. In the end, all they could do was hope for the best.

If the warhead was fitted with any kind of anti-movement device, pulling it out of the mud would be more than enough to set it off. Of course, Simonis and
Oke City
’s crew were safe in Guam, but the crew of the minesweeper, and Li, and the population of Hong Kong were about to find out if their logic had been correct.

The boom operator was working the controls, but everyone else on the stern had paused. There was little to do now, which probably gave them more time than they wanted to think about what was happening on the bottom of the harbor. Li was staring at the screen intently.

The line to the torpedo collar was still taut, and vibrated a little with tension, but only for a moment, then moved a little back and forth. Li hardly had to translate the diver’s report that the weapon was free of the bottom. Sailors clapped and patted each other’s backs. Simonis could see money changing hands, and wondered what that bet had been about.

The boom operator was bringing it up steadily, and other crewmen on the stern were getting ready to receive it. It finally broke water, followed by the two divers. The other members of the dive team helped them back aboard, while a sailor played a fire hose on the weapon, rinsing off the mud and giving them a clear look at the nose.

The front was badly crumpled, one side almost caved in, but that section held the torpedo’s acoustic seeker, not the warhead. Most of the dark green cylinder was undamaged.

They swung the torpedo over the stern gently, while everyone stayed well clear. This was not because the warhead was sensitive to movement, but because the torpedo weighed well over a ton, even with its fuel expended. Getting caught by either end as it swung past would be good for a broken bone.

A photographer to one side was taking pictures of everything, and a petty officer passed what looked like a radiation sensor down one side of the torpedo and back up the other before signaling all clear.

Everyone was moving quickly, and it was clear they had drilled ahead of time. Within a minute, the torpedo was poised over a cradle that had been waiting on the stern. They slipped a lifting harness over each end and then lowered it into the cradle. Simonis noticed that unless a Chinese sailor was actually working on the torpedo in some way, they tended to congregate at the far end of the stern, as far away from the weapon as they could get.

Simonis couldn’t see the helicopter’s arrival, but he could tell it was overhead by the noise and the sudden swirling wind, as well as most of the crewmen looking up and waving. A hook appeared in the top of the frame and came down until one of the Chinese sailors grabbed it and put it through a loop on the lifting harness. He signaled it was ready, and the line became taut, and lifted the torpedo up and out of the frame.

Simonis could hear the helicopter’s engines become louder as the pilot opened the throttle. Nobody was sure whether the warhead was set to detonate in minutes, hours, or even days, but the pilot was doing his best to not be part of the fireball.