Paths of Courage (19 page)

Half a world away, less than a mile out to sea off the North Korean coastline, the British Trident-class submarine's ESM picked up Ryder's ‘homer' signal, its captain somewhat relieved the waiting was over. He then ordered the vessel to the surface and the extract teams to prepare for a beach rescue operation. After more than several days of patrolling this dangerous stretch of coast, the captain and his crew could now return to base. The submarine surfaced and two inflatables were immediately released as twelve members of SAS ‘D' Squadron scrambled out of forward hatches into the eddying waters on the partially submerged hull. They entered the pitching vessels and headed with all speed towards land on the starboard beam.

*

Amidst a blaze of lights, the two North Korean helicopters landed not far away amongst the scrub and bush further inland. Ryder and the others watched with a sinking feeling as thirty or more heavily armed troops disgorged from the fuselages and fanned out towards their position. They looked urgently at one another, adrenaline pumping fiercely. Help would need to arrive soon or all would be lost.

First shots raked the helicopter and surroundings. The small band of men returned fire, immediately downing three of the enemy. Scattered rocks gave good protection. With the ammunition found in the helicopter and with a bit of luck, they should give a good account of themselves until help arrived. No way could they allow themselves to be captured alive. Should it come to it, the last bullets would be for them.

Bullets ricocheted off the rocks like metal rain and Ryder became concerned for Grace in the bush only a few yards away. He and Song quickly moved her closer under the protection of a large boulder.

They held the enemy's advance, then a cry from Bom – he'd been hit. Song, the nearest, moved to tend to him, but was waved away. The wound was not fatal and Bom carried on, returning fire with one arm limp.

Shortly after, Ryder was thrown to the ground, a bullet gauging the top of his left shoulder, but with effort, he too managed to continue firing. Their plight was now serious. Where the fuck was the cavalry?

Then they heard the distinct, powerful throb of more helicopters approaching from the north, flying low and parallel to the beach. In the situation they were in, they would have little chance of repelling a fresh onslaught. Their assailants were closing in fast.

The time had come.

Ryder rushed over to where Grace lay, looked into her pain-filled eyes, smiled and, without a word, kissed her gently on the forehead, then raised his pistol.

Suddenly, in a blur of activity, black-clad bodies moved in amongst them, took up positions behind the rocks and began to return withering fire at the enemy. For one awful moment, Ryder thought they were being overrun, but quickly realized, to his relief, the cavalry had finally arrived.

Hurriedly, they were helped down the beach to the waiting boats – two SAS carrying Grace on the stretcher; another two carrying weapons and packs. The rest of the twelve commandos fought a holding action.

Once in the boat, Grace was made as comfortable as possible whilst Ryder and the others slumped alongside. The rear guard was then ordered to retreat.

Shortly, the remaining SAS team came hurriedly down the beach, still firing while splashing through the water's edge without loss. Throwing in all the gear, they rolled over the gunnels and into the boats, continuing to fire up the beach as they headed fast out to sea.

Minutes later, three helicopters flew from the darkened land mass, veered seawards and gave chase. They closed fast, their powerful searchlights skimming the waves. Very soon, the two boats would be within range of their machine guns.

From the submarine bridge, the captain ordered the weapons officer to release missiles at the oncoming aircraft. One minute later, as shells and tracers began to churn up the sea around the incoming boats, three UGM-84 Block 1C Harpoon missiles with warheads containing 488 pounds of Destex high explosives left their casings and flew up into the night sky. Each steadied as the small turbojet engines kicked in, then flew straight towards their targets. Their seekers were now firmly locked onto the targets. Seconds later, the night sky erupted with three large orange fireballs scattering wreckage into the sea. Overkill, but the missiles had done their job.

The two inflatables arrived safely alongside the submarine. Ryder and his team were hurriedly taken on board, together with the boats. Once all were in, the hatches were closed and the warship slid silently beneath the waves to head back to the American base at Pusan. Operation Blue Suit had come to an end.

K267 sliced silently 600 feet below the surface of the water over the Puerto Rico Trench.

“Torpedoes!” cried the sonar operator. “Two inbound, bearing one-three-five. Range 3,000 yards.”

Captain Denko and his XO looked up in shock from the chart table.

“DIVE! DIVE! DIVE! Full speed! Angle twenty!” Denko screamed at the helm. Then to the weapons officer, “Launch noisemakers!”

“Aye, aye, sir. Launching now!”

Seconds later, “Launch decoys!”

“Aye, aye, sir. Launching mobile decoys now!”

Hissing and hollow thumps signalled the ejection of the two countermeasures.

Denko and his crew prayed that the decoys would work or a layer would deflect before the approaching torpedoes inevitably acquired them and changed to active sonar, creating the dreadful pinging sound, which told the occupants they had only a short time to live. In less than two minutes, they would know if they were to live or die.

K267 angled down 20 degrees to the horizontal; salt water flooding the forward ballasts as she gathered momentum, releasing MG-74 noisemakers, MT-70 sonar interceptors and bubble generators as she went, desperately seeking a thermocline that would deflect and confuse the torpedoes' guidance systems.

“650… 700… 750… 800 feet,” called the diving officer.

The high-pitched whine of the incoming torpedoes could now be clearly heard resonating through the hull. The sound grew louder as the torpedoes rapidly approached.

Two explosions shook the Russian submarine and for one awful moment Denko thought they had been hit, but it soon became evident the decoys had done their job. It had been a close call. Denko could not believe their luck; the torpedoes had come so near. But who the hell had released them?

“900… 950… 1,000 feet.”

The submarine began to creak.

“Level off. Maintain 1,000. Make your speed five. Zig-zag holding course,” he ordered, following standard procedure to avoid sonar taking a positive fix. “Prepare for action. Ready all tubes.”

The atmosphere was extremely tense throughout the submarine as the crew waited for another attack.

“Looks like we've lost them,” said the XO ten minutes later, still very shaken. “Americans?” he then questioned.

“Has to be,” Denko replied, adrenaline still pumping effectively. “The British and French have no need to attack in these waters. Count out K449; her presence has to remain secret if she is to accomplish her mission. Stealth, Sergio, is her only ally. Now the Americans know we are here; the risk of being tracked down before we can locate K449 has increased ten-fold. From now on, we need to be continuously looking over our shoulders.” Then, nodding his head, “Sergio, we must thank the almighty that the decoys worked.”

The XO gave a cynical half-smile. “More likely we should give thanks to the technos who put our safety first despite the cutbacks demanded by those who know nothing of the risks we take.”

Captain Denko smiled too, still nodding, and then surveyed the control room. He was highly relieved, knowing next time they may not be so lucky. “Stand down action stations. Bring her to 800 feet. Steer standard zig-zag pattern on course two-nine-zero. Speed five.”

“Captain – sonar. Minor bursts. Strike negative. Contact Sierra Nine lost.”

“Captain, aye.”

“Hit decoys. She's gone deep – got away,” said
Ambush's
XO.

Captain Curtis turned away from the data screens, hardly able to conceal his disappointment, and looked at his XO. “Fuck! How could we miss? Those fish went active at 2,000.”

“Diving sharply from 700 shortly after we released indicates her sonar latched on before that. At that depth, she could've gone through layers, deflecting the homing signal and we know the Akula IIs have acoustic countermeasures almost as good as ours.”

Curtis acknowledged the XO was right, but that didn't take away the disappointment of failure. It would be harder to track the Russian now she knew they were on her tail. If they were to ignore her and concentrate on finding the Delta, which Curtis was convinced was in this part of the Atlantic, he would perhaps do so at his peril: a) because she just might be the rogue sub they were all looking for; and b) she could attack his sub when least expected. Maybe it could even be a sub sent to track down and destroy the Russian rogue. He now had two Russian submarines to contend with.

“Inform COMSUBOP of our action and that we will stay searching the area until further orders.” He turned to the helmsman and ordered, “Steer course two-nine-five. Speed ten. Make your depth 600.” He desperately wanted to pick up the Russian Akula again or maybe even the elusive Delta III.

Alternating above and below the thermocline layers at between 400 and 700 feet on a zig-zag course, K449 made her way slowly along the southern edge of the Puerto Rico Trench, steering gradually northwest. Forty-eight hours later, she had reached the northwestern end of the Trench. Another twelve hours and she would be at the southern reaches of the Bahama string of islands, less than 900 nautical miles from where she intended to release the missile. Rigged for silence and cruising at seven knots, 400 feet below the surface with her keel almost five miles above the floor of the Puerto Rico Trench, K449 heard the underwater explosions.

“What do you make of that, Captain?” asked his XO.

“Too faint to be positive – could be anything. My guess: torpedoes or maybe depth charges.”

“Range and bearing puts them thirty nautical miles to the northeast. Too close for comfort.”

“Could be Americans conducting exercises. Unless subs other than American are out there, I would suggest likely.”

“We are being hunted, Lieutenant. All noise has to be treated with suspicion. Other subs could be out there looking for us, even the Russians. Any sub as close as this to the infidel's homeland would be a target under the circumstances; shoot now, question later would be the American position.”

The XO nodded.

A knock on the wardroom door.

“Enter.”

It was the officer in charge of the nuclear reactors. He saluted Captain Kamani and the XO with a worried look. “Captain, we are experiencing minor problems with one of the two VM-4 reactors driving the steam turbines.”

“What kind of problems?” snapped Kamani.

“The main coolant pump to the reactor in the primary circuit compartment has shown a slight reduction in velocity of water flow-through. In the secondary circuit compartment, small intermittent surges from the steam generator have slowed operation of the throttle valve into the main turbine.” Then, almost apologetically, he followed with, “We do not have a replacement pump and we cannot shut down steam flow to repair the throttle without serious loss of power for a number of days. No guarantee could be given that repairs would be successful, even if we could. If not corrected, it could become a serious problem.”

“In the name of Allah!” exclaimed the captain. “Are you telling me we have come all this way and may fail because of a faulty coolant pump?”

The officer nodded nervously. All three were well aware that Russian nuclear submarine propulsion systems had a history of breaking down with disastrous consequences. He replied, shedding his nervousness, “These faults may not get worse, Captain, at least until the mission is completed.”

“Could it fail completely at any time?” shot Kamani.

“Yes. However, we could continue with only one turbine working, but should the pump fail altogether, we would face a reactor meltdown.”

“Captain,” said Zaha urgently. “We must make a decision now – either to continue on at our slow rate and hope nothing happens or speed up and risk the consequences.”

“Russian junk!” spat Kamani. This was a complication he had not really expected and did not need. Too many Russian submarines had gone down from reactor failures and he found it hard to accept that everything now rested on the performance of a single pump. They had come a long way and were so near to fulfilling Islam's greatest blow against the infidel. A meltdown, however, would certainly prevent him from fulfilling the glorious will of Allah. Less so, he reasoned, if they could reach the release coordinates as quickly as they dared. He made his decision. “We will increase speed,” he said sharply to the XO. “Progressively recalibrate the coordinates as we go for release of the missile any time from now on.”

All three left the wardroom, the reactor officer returning to the problem and Kamani back on the control deck with his XO. Here the captain ordered the helmsman, “Maintain course. Make your depth 600 feet. Make your speed twelve knots.”

“Captain – sonar. Faint trace, sir. Too weak to translate.”

Captain Denko shot a worried look at his XO, then at the tracking screen.

“Captain, aye. Come right ten. Resolve ambiguity.”

K267 veered right 10 degrees to give her towed array a better look to confirm contact bearing and characteristics.

A short while later, sonar reported, “Captain – sonar. Contact confirmed, bearing two-seven-zero. Range twenty-five miles. Speed twelve knots. Checking profile.”

“Captain, aye.”

“The same boat?” asked Lieutenant Nanovich with a frown.

“My guess: no,” replied Denko. “Too far ahead, but at least we have some warning this time.” He worried where the attacker might be now, reasoning the last attack had come from the port quarter, meaning that if the attacker were a submarine and not a surface ship, it would need to have travelled at a fair speed to now be ahead, in which case sonar would not have failed to pick it up. No, this had to be a new hostile.

“Captain – sonar. Profile complete: engine lines, Delta III, K449.”

A stunned silence, then, “We've got her, Sergio! We've got her!” Denko could not hide his jubilance, slapping the XO on the back, rejoicing in the fact that his theory had proven right after all.

“Twelve knots, she's in a hurry,” Nanovich replied. “Big speed. Why come all this way and not remain silent below eight?”

The captain shrugged. “Any number of reasons: crew problems, food shortage, mechanical, eager to reach the target…”

“Or commit suicide,” Nanovich joked.

“Why such a risk in these hostile waters? Anyway, we've got her now.”

“Maybe we should just follow and wait until she's accomplished whatever she came here to do – give the Americans what they deserve.”

“As much as I would like that to happen, Sergio, we have our orders and we will carry them out.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Contact now bearing three-two-nine. Range twenty miles,” sonar reported.

Denko looked at the chart. “She's turned north along the Navidad Bank. We'll close to ten miles, then take her. Prepare for action. Prepare tubes two and four. Prepare tracking and firing solutions. He turned to the helm. “Steer three-two-five. Maintain depth. Increase speed to ten knots.”