Kilo Class (56 page)

Whoever the American was, he would have a good match in Captain Kan, who would shoot to kill at the slightest provocation. And these were orders Admiral Zhang had no compunction about issuing. Not in this instance. And the new satellite message to K-10, as it headed for Shanghai, bore out his views to the letter.

231730SEPT. In the Shanghai Naval Base. Admiral Zhang Yushu threw his arms around Captain Kan with delight as the commanding officer of K-10 stepped ashore from the submarine, which had journeyed the Siberian route from northern Russia. He instructed his staff to ensure that the Russian liaison team that had accompanied the Chinese Captain halfway around the world be treated with honor. He then invited the six Russians to dine with him and the senior Chinese officers that evening.

Before dinner he would personally debrief Captain Kan. But in the ensuing hour he learned little that he did not already know.

No, the submarines had never been aware of a pursuing US nuclear boat. Yes, the underwater sound barrier, which they had believed would keep them safe, did in fact block out everything. No, they had no hard evidence of an attack. If the ninth Kilo had been hit by a torpedo it had to have been brilliantly delivered. Yes, they had been almost a mile away at the time. Yes, their sonar room had reported an explosion at that time, but it was just impossible to conclude what had caused it, with all the tremendous noise they were surrounded by. As indeed they had been since the Bering Strait.

Admiral Zhang finally asked the one question that would plague him for all of his days: “Do you think it would have been better to make the Americans aware of the presence of the Typhoon running south between the two Kilos?”

“Yessir. Yes, I do. As a matter of fact I assumed they were aware. You have surprised me greatly… I cannot believe no one knew the Typhoon was in attendance.”

On October 1, Admiral Zhang dispatched the new Kilo to Canton, a 1,200-mile journey south from Shanghai that would take six days, under the command of Captain Kan, now with an all-Chinese crew.

On October 7, at the new submarine docks on the Pearl River, the Kilo was formally handed over to Vice Admiral Zu Jicai, the Commander of the Southern Fleet. Admiral Zhang believed that the submarine’s business was better conducted from Canton, because he might soon send it much farther south, to find out precisely where the Taiwanese were conducting their nuclear experiments. The actual recapture of the Island of Taiwan would have to wait until he had negotiated a new deal for more Kilos from the Russians.

At 1030 on October 14, a Field Officer in the Chinese Intelligence Service reported to General Fang Wei that Professor Liao Lee of Taiwan National University had suddenly vanished. He had failed to show up after the Double Tenth National Day vacation. Students mystified. Faculty silent.

General Fang hit the secure phone line to Admiral Zhang’s office in nearby Naval Headquarters, Beijing. He reported the conversation with the Field Officer and requested any information about the departure of Hai Lung 793.

Admiral Zhang suggested the General come to his office instantly. One hour later they had ascertained that the Dutch-built submarine had already left two days previously, on October 12. Both men were now certain that the renowned nuclear physicist was on board. They were equally certain that something important had happened at the mysterious nuclear laboratory, wherever it was in the cold south.

But Zhang thought he knew where, and he sent an immediate signal to Admiral Zu Jicai in Canton: “
Order recently arrived Kilo to the southern Indian Ocean island of Kerguelen within 24 hours. Distance 8,500. Refueling south of Lombok Strait. Briefing follows
.”

Twelve hours later, at 1100 local — it was still October 14 at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia — the Far East Chief Frank Reidel fielded a coded satellite message from Taipei. It had plainly originated from their priceless dock foreman in the submarine base at Suao… Carl Chimei.

It stated that he was almost certain he had recognized a civilian passenger boarding Hai Lung 793 at first light on October 12, two days previously. He had recently read an article in a Taiwan National University brochure that carried two photographs of the man. Carl Chimei would swear the passenger was Taiwan’s most eminent nuclear physicist, Professor Liao Lee.

Frank Reidel cast protocol to the winds and opened up the ultra-secure line to the White House straight through to Admiral Arnold Morgan.

“Morgan… speak.”

“Frank Reidel here, sir.”

“Hi, Frank, what’s hot?”

“Our man in Taipei is certain he saw the most important nuclear scientist in Taiwan board one of the Hai Lung submarines, hull 793, at first light on October 12. It left almost immediately, no one knows where.”

“Hey, Frank. That’s good information. Real good. Keep it tight.” At which point he just slammed down the phone.

“Rude prick,” said the CIA man, grinning. But added to himself, “Some kind of an operator that ignorant sonofabitch… and the worst part is… I almost like him.”

Admiral Morgan told his secretary to get Charlie right outside the door and then to call Admiral Mulligan and tell him to “sit still, till I get there.”

In the Pentagon an hour later, it took only a few minutes for the two Admirals to agree it was about time they took a serious look at the activities of the Taiwanese on “that goddamned island.” “Jesus Christ,” said Arnold Morgan. “Those crazy pricks might be into germ warfare or something… they’re so damned neurotic about the mainland Chinese.”

“More likely nuclear, especially with this hotshot professor on his way there in a goddamned submarine,” growled the CNO.

At 1237 Admiral Mulligan put a secure signal on the satellite to
Columbia
in Pearl Harbor: “
Personal for Commander Dunning: proceed with dispatch to Kerguelen. Conduct thorough search of the island for duration two weeks
.

“
Aim: Locate clandestine Taiwanese operations. Remain undetected, repeat, undetected
. COMSUBPAC
informed of your continued operations under
SUBLANT OPCON.
Suspect either germ warfare factory, or nuclear weapon fabrication in place. And/or potential government hideout in event of Chinese occupation
.

“
Taiwan Hai Lung submarine hull 793 cleared Suao October 12. ETA Kerguelen November 18/19, most probably on resupply task to Taiwanese facility. Your job is to find
WHERE.
Nothing else
. ROE
self-defense only — negative preemptive self-defense
.

“
When your aims are achieved, clear area immediately and report. Further action, in event your success, still under consideration
.”

151200OCT. China’s newest Kilo Class submarine left Canton and ran fair down the Pearl River for fifty miles, past the twin cities of Kowloon and Macau, which stand on opposite banks guarding the huge Chinese estuary. Beyond the myriad of tiny islands that litter the hectic expanse of the South China Sea, the Kilo dived and headed east, making nine knots. It would take her three and a half days to clear the northern point of the Philippines, before turning south for the distant Lombok Strait and then Kerguelen. Captain Kan Yu-fang was in command.

151936OCT. USS
Columbia
headed south down the long, historic waters of Pearl Harbor. On the bridge, wearing his dark blue jacket against the evening chill, Commander Boomer Dunning stood next to the navigator, Lieutenant Wingate, and his XO, Lieutenant Commander Krause. They had a long, long journey in front of them — 11,700 miles. The nuclear boat would run at around 550 miles a day. They would be oblivious to the very worst the Southern Ocean could throw at them. The waters they would travel would be cold and deep, but calm — more than three hundred feet below the surface. Lee O’Brien had the reactor running perfectly and
Columbia
was in top condition. Had he not been in such bad shape with the President’s National Security Adviser, Boomer would have been at ease with the world. He knew that the NSA would not have instructed Admiral Mulligan to forward that withering, coded judgment unless he had been absolutely furious. Boomer felt somewhat defenseless about the whole incident; it was all true. He
could
have hit the fucking Typhoon. God, wouldn’t that have been awful? Trust Morgan to comprehend with slicing clarity Boomer’s derelictions.

The incident was still manifest in the minds of everyone concerned. There had even been a satellite signal from SUBLANT 15 minutes before they left, informing the Commanding Officer, personally, that K-10 had cleared its berth in Canton and was heading along the Pearl River. Destination unknown.

Despite his jacket Boomer shivered as
Columbia
shook off the Hawaiian Islands and pressed on down the Pacific. At 2030 he cleared the bridge with his two officers and took the submarine down, where she would stay — all the way down the east coast of Australia, around Tasmania, and along the Southern Ocean to the frozen hellhole of an island he had once visited, under more agreeable circumstances.

God knows what I’ll find, he thought. “I just better do exactly as they say, and no more. My career’s probably shot anyway. And I may not make Captain. I just don’t really wanna return to New London as a civilian.”

The Chinese Intelligence Service pressured their field officers in Taipei for more and more information. It trickled through slowly to the office of General Fang Wei. By October 24 there was no longer any doubt — the Taiwanese were developing a nuclear capability somewhere among the three hundred islands of the Kerguelen archipelago.

The General met with Admiral Zhang at Naval Headquarters in Beijing and aligned him with the latest information, some of which dealt with secret deliveries to the submarine base of heavily guarded containers from two of Taiwan’s nuclear power stations. It was plainly uranium.

Zhang spent another two hours studying the detailed chart of Kerguelen, compiled under the supervision of the Royal Navy’s hydrographer, Rear Admiral Sir David Haslam. At 1630 he drafted a signal for his friend and colleague Admiral Zu Jicai in the south. It ordered him to transmit the following message to the Kilo:

Locate and destroy Taiwanese laboratory/factory on Kerguelen. Avoid southeast area near French weather station at Port-aux-Français (49.21N 70.11E) on southern coast of Courbet Peninsula. West coast also unlikely, high coastal terrain and unprotected from prevailing Antarctic weather.
Most likely area big bays to the northeast — Gulf of Choiseul, Rhodes Bay, and Gulf of Baleiniers. Possible ex-French nuclear submarine reactor power source could assist detection. Use whatever means necessary to complete destruction of Taiwanese facility.

Except for her daily communications routine at periscope depth,
Columbia
ran deep at around twenty knots all the way. By October 18 Boomer had covered 1,600 miles and was almost across the Central Pacific Basin. The submarine passed the Fiji Islands on October 21, and three days later entered Australia’s Tasman Sea. By noon on October 26 she was off Hobart, Tasmania, on latitude forty-five degrees, south of the big hotel on Storm Bay where Boomer and Bill Baldridge had delivered
Yonder
on the last day of February.

Ahead of them was 3,500 miles of the Southern Ocean, which in late October was subject to wild swings in weather patterns, often culminating in raging gales and mountainous seas. All of which
Columbia
would treat with supreme indifference.

The Black Ops submarine ran swiftly westward on the Great Circle route toward Kerguelen. The atmosphere was relaxed, as it had been ever since they burst clear of the Arctic pack ice. They had survived the submariner’s nightmare of being trapped under the water, and for most of them, this routine search of a desolate island was kid’s stuff. They were not going to shoot anyone, and no one was going to shoot them. They could slide up to the surface whenever they wished. The weather might be god-awful, but all weather is sublime compared to being trapped under the ice. Life in the nuclear hunter-killer was more relaxed than it had been at any time since they had left New London almost twelve weeks ago.

They had renewed their supply of videos at Pearl, everyone was tanned and fit, and Lieutenant Commander Curran, in partnership with Dave Wingate, was in the process of winning a long-running contract bridge tournament, in which all other contestants were like lambs to the slaughter. “Jerry’s got fucking X-ray eyes,” was the verdict of Lee O’Brien, the mathematician of the engine room, who found it incomprehensible that anyone could count the cards, as they were played, more accurately than he could.

The only other serious bridge player in the entire crew was Chief Spike Chapman, the highly trained ship’s systems boss, who worked long hours at the console that controls every mechanical and electrical function in the submarine, except for propulsion. He could count the cards and he could play well, but his regular partner, Lieutenant Commander Abe Dickson, tended to bid rashly, and even as a guest in the wardroom, Chief Chapman was occasionally heard to sigh, “Jesus Christ, Abe, sir… couldn’t we play it safe… just once?” His barely controlled exasperation caused everyone to fall about laughing, as the Deck Officer set off up the mountain of seven hearts before finding out that three would have been a more realistic contract.

The Commanding Officer was not a bridge player. Which was just as well because Boomer had been very self-absorbed throughout the journey, not really at all like his usual self. His closest officers in the crew were slightly baffled by this, but then, none of them had read the communication from Admiral Arnold Morgan.

But there was something more on the mind of Commander Dunning. And it was a feeling of general unease about Kerguelen. He was the only man on board who had been there, and he was the only man on board who had taken a serious interest in the mysterious disappearance of the
Cuttyhunk
. Boomer was normally rock solid in his judgments, and he never mislaid a truly salient fact. With regard to the disappearance of the
Cuttyhunk
, Boomer had concluded, there was just such a fact, and he had recorded it — the last satellite message of radio operator Dick Elkins: “
MAYDAY… MAYDAY… MAYDAY
!!… Cuttyhunk 49
south
69…
UNDER ATTACK… Japanese
…”