Korea Strait (27 page)

But what good was a glimpse ahead if it couldn't tell him how the decision turned out? And if foreknowledge, what was that It, unbound by time and causality, that foreknew?

At a loss, appalled, he squeezed his eyes closed and asked whatever was behind the mystery, behind all the mysteries, that his decision be right.

Then added, “This is TAG coordinator. Out.”

M
Y officers tell me you're not feeling well,” Jiang said, sipping tea as he reclined. Dan was doubled over the table, unable to even think about eating. The commodore's stateroom reoriented itself slowly in space. The temple calendar shifted on the bulkhead. A golden slice of sun blazed through a porthole and sauntered across the tatami.

“It'll pass. Upset stomach, that's all.”

“Korean food can seem strange to a Westerner.”

“Oh, that's not it,” he lied again. Or maybe it was the truth. “Just a bug. Some kind of intestinal flu or something.”

“I asked my steward to prepare something special for you this morning. Something more like what you get at home.”

Jung nodded, and with a flourish the white-coated server set the plate before him. Dan blinked at a folded yellow object, square, possibly incorporating egg.

“I gave him personal directions. Straight from Waffle King.”

Dan cleared his throat. Hunger locked horns with nausea. It smelled okay. He picked up the fork. The steward hovered, wringing his hands like a newlywed serving her first meal.

The first bite of the omelet froze his mouth. He tried not to gag. Square-cut bits of carrot, green peas, spilled from the interior, hoary with frost. He chewed it grimly down to a cold paste, trying not to break a tooth on the frozen veggies. Swallowed, and set the fork carefully aside instead of driving it into Jung's expectant smile. “It's… absolutely wonderful. How thoughtful of you.”

“Is good?” The steward beamed.

“Just like Mom's! But I'm just not really up to it yet.” He raised his cup to the commodore. “I'll stick with tea for now.
Salut.”

”Keon Bae,”
said Jung, returning the toast with the beatific grin of a successful Samaritan.

The morning after the night before. He'd actually slept eventually, for a couple of hours. A pour-over and scrubdown, standing in one of the red plastic washtubs; a shaky shave. Then he'd stopped in CIC for an update from one of the Kims before responding to Jung's breakfast invite. The chart showed 1800 meters here, but to the south it started to shallow. First to 400, then another deep basin before the bottom rose again as you approached the Strait proper. He'd asked about sonar conditions. With the layer mixing from Brendan, they weren't good. Maybe 1200 meters direct path, though they might get convergence zone effects as the approaching contacts crossed the band.

Insofar as tactical disposition went, they were deploying out in a thirty-mile barrier oriented across the incomers' expected track, with the two ASW-capable ships' towed arrays streamed to try for long-range detection. Jung had them placed, from left to right,
Kim Chon, Chung Nam, Mok Po. Chang Bo Go
was thirty miles astern; even surfaced, the 209 was slower than the cans. She'd not yet deployed her own array, since that further reduced her speed of advance.

“We know anything else about these unidentifieds?” Dan had asked.

“We think there are four now,” Kim had said.

Dan had checked the sea from the bridge wing. It stretched away, undulating like an antique mirror, prosaic, glossy, oily-looking. Bands of pewtery shadow crossed its gently bulging surface, narrowing as they neared the horizon. That watery margin where the sea shimmered into the sky, as if out there, at the edge of the world, it was boiling away with the heat.

Jung interrupted his musing. “You decided to stay.”

“Yes, sir.”

“May I ask why? Captain Yu tells me there was an exchange with Commodore Leakham.”

“Not with him personally. I was speaking with his staffer.” Dan
explained the recall order. He wasn't sure if he should reveal that the whole U.S. Navy was pulling out, so he just said, “CTG 75.1's leaving the exercise. I guess, heading back to Yokosuka. He wanted us to crossdeck. I declined.”

“Declined, or refused?”

It seemed like a good Korean-type answer, just to smile faintly. “I hope it is not out of place.”

“So far you and I have been able to work together. Perhaps now exercise play has been suspended, I may call on you for tactical opinions now and then?”

“I'd be honored to help, if I can.” He held out his cup and the steward refilled it.

“Then riddle me a riddle. Why has your navy suddenly pulled out of the Eastern Sea?”

So much for not telling him. “That I don't know, Commodore.”

Jung's gaze was slicing-sharp as a wood chisel. “They didn't inform you? During this conversation in which you refused orders, and told them you would remain with us?”

“No sir. I asked more or less that same question, but they didn't have an answer.”

Jung lowered his eyes and swirled his tea. “What do you know about this attack group—these unidentifieds—that would be useful to us?”

“Sir, I'm as much in the dark as you. It seems to me the Japanese, or whoever sent us that data, could have forwarded a lot more than just lat-long coordinates. Since they were tracking them for two days.”

“The only conclusion I can draw is that they are Chinese. If they were Korean, or even Russian, the Japanese would have announced it and demanded an explanation.”

Which was exactly what O'Quinn had said. Dan tipped in sugar and swirled his own tea while he contemplated the next step in the strange dance of a conversation every talk with this man seemed to become. “You think they're afraid of the Chinese.”

Jung looked sleepy. “I'd say they are
wary
of them. The Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force is very good. They are a first-class people, the Japanese. I will be the first to admit it, though Korea has suffered from their ambition. But their navy is small. And the Chinese
buy many Japanese goods. I think the wariness may be as much economic as military.” He sipped and added, “But it seems to me your country could be more helpful too. They must know more than we about these intruders. What precisely is your satellite detection capability in shallow seas? Synthetic aperture radar, temperature anomalies, internal wave effects?”

“Even if I knew that, Commodore, I couldn't tell you without specific clearance.”

“Of course not,” Jung said, but still he sounded disappointed, as if expecting Dan to pull some high-tech rabbit out of his cap. He waved at the tea things, signaling the steward to clear, and shook out one of his personal silver-tips. The Zippo clicked and flared. “Of course not. So. We are deploying to stop them. You know we think there are four now? At least that's what the Japanese have decided to give us. From their fixed array monitoring.”

Dan decided to wet a hook of his own. “Does the Republic of Korea have fixed arrays in the Eastern Sea?”

“I could not tell you that without specific clearance. To use your words.”

“If you did, you wouldn't have to depend on the Japanese.
Or
on us.”

The commodore ignored that. “I'll tell you one other thing. Our Second Fleet has picked up another unidentified submarine contact in the Western Sea. Off Kunsan.”

”Another
unidentified?”

“It is so.”

Dan rubbed his chin. “But only one?”

“So far.”

“A diversion?”

“That was my thought too. You know the sonar conditions?”

“I saw the 0300 bathythermograph drop.”

“They suck. If we get a thousand yards direct path we'll be lucky.”

“I see you're planning a sonobuoy barrier to west and east. In case they try a runaround.”

Jung said he didn't expect them to. “Not to the west, anyway. They're tracking down just off the boundary of the exclusion zone. My feeling is they won't cross it until they reach the Strait. And any easting they make, they'll attract the attention of the Japanese again. So I think they'll head right down our throats.”

“Then what? They wouldn't identify for the Japanese.”

“They'll identify for us,” Jung said, and set his jaw like a lineman taking a grip on his mouthpiece. He turned his wrist to see his watch, and Dan realized their moment was over. “Now I'll go to the bridge. I enjoyed your company very much, and hope you feel better later in the day.”

DAN wrote a message explaining his reasoning in keeping Team B with the Koreans. He addressed it to TAG, info CINCROKFLT, CINC-PACFLT, and anyone else he thought might have an interest. As an afterthought he added COMDESRON 15. Not that he cared what Leakham thought; he just didn't want to be accused of going behind his back. He turned that in for Yu's countersign. Just like on a U.S. ship, nothing could go out without the skipper's chop. He chugged an orange pop to stay hydrated and went back to his stateroom to lie down.

At 1000 he was in CIC again, in the chair near the Harpoon console that had become the Americans' unofficial watch station. All battle stations were fully manned, compacting the limited space with un-showered bodies and tobacco smoke, but nobody spoke much. He watched green pips inchworm across radarscopes, aligning into the barrier, then begin their sweep northeast. At some point, the South Koreans and the oncoming group, whatever it was, would meet. Like a warm front and a cold. The result could well be thunderstorms.

Unless they missed each other. Which could happen in such wretched sonar conditions. The task force's biggest asset might well be radar. Diesel-electrics had to poke their snorkels up on a regular basis to vent the boats and recharge the batteries. To run at high speed, they had to keep those snorkel heads—larger than periscopes, and easier to catch on radar—above the waves full-time. In calm seas the SPS-10
Chung Nam
carried should pick one up at fifteen thousand yards, seven and a half nautical miles.

Hwang came in. Dan watched him move from console to console like a bee making its rounds. When he got to Dan, Dan asked him, “Taking the duty?”

“From now on either the commodore or I will be in CIC. Or on the bridge.” The chief of staff fingered a scroll under his arm. “What are your men doing now?”

“Not much. Securing the nineteen, boxing up the data forms from Phases I and II. What can we help you with?”

“The commodore would like to discuss a sort of… battle staff. Your people are deeply skilled in ASW. Would you be willing?”

This was an amazing honor, one he couldn't even imagine a U.S. task force commander extending to foreign riders. “We'd be happy to help. Sure! But… your crews are very good too.”

“We are adequately trained on the ship-to-ship level. The commodore is thinking more broadly than that.” Hwang pursed his lips. “He seems to believe you are well placed with the De Bari administration. Is that true, Dan?”

He almost rolled his eyes, before figuring that might be insulting. “Oh, jeez—only very indirectly. I know why he thinks that. He met my wife in Pusan. But I don't have any kind of political pull. No
influence,
if that's what he means.”

“Would the president know your name?”

“I don't know. I went jogging with him…. Actually, yeah, he might. Since I was one of his aides. But not necessarily in a good way.”

“You are modest. The commodore said that about you. In your situation a Korean would say he had great influence. He would even boast of it.”

“Believe me, it's not modesty,” Dan told him. “Commander, please,
please
don't let him think I've got some kind of clout in Washington. Through my wife or any other way. We can advise on any tactical issues that come up. And we'll be happy to do that. But that's all he should count on.”

Hwang glanced toward the door, but lingered. “I should also tell you this: ROK forces have gone to ‘Fast Pace' along the DMZ and elsewhere.
Jin do Kae.
As of 1030 this morning.”

“What's ‘Fast Pace'? And this
Jin do—”

“It's our highest readiness posture short of martial law and a state of war. The same as Defcon Two in your vocabulary. Clear and immediate threat of an enemy attack. We are mobilizing our reserves and going to intelligence Watchcon One.”

Dan nodded slowly. He understood the increased manning in CIC now, and the lack of the usual hubbub and horseplay. “That's serious, all right. What's the trigger? Not this intruder group?”

“They know in Seoul. We don't out here. I don't think it is this group. At least not just them. There may be other intelligence indicators we don't know about.” The chief of staff looked toward the door again. “If I need to consult with you, where will you be?”