U.S.S. Seawolf (25 page)

The ferry ran on south through calm seas. Shawn guessed she was making around 17 knots. There was barely a swell, but he could hear the distinctive slash of the spray from the bow wave hitting the still, flat water. It always sounds slightly louder when there is no chop, and he knew they had not yet reached the open ocean.

It was another hour before he sensed a gradual swing to starboard, possibly to a course of two-three-zero, and there was a noticeable increase in the motion of the ship. So far as Shawn could tell, they must be running down the coast toward either the huge tropical island of Hainan, where he knew there was a big Navy base, or toward China’s Southern Fleet headquarters, just to the north at Zhanjiang. So far as his excellent memory could recall, there was nothing significant between there and Canton.

Outside, peering through the windows, Shawn could see no land beyond the black expanse of moonlit water. No one had spoken a word since they had left the Navy yard, and the guards patrolled tirelessly, walking between the long benches, glaring at any member of the American crew who was still awake.

The captain and the chief of the boat were both sleeping, but Lt. Commanders Bruce Lucas and Cy Rothstein were wide awake. Indeed, it was “Einstein” who asked permission to speak and requested water for the men. Surprisingly, Shawn thought, the guard nodded curtly and spoke in rapid Chinese to a younger man who yelled more incomprehensible Chinese out to the viewing deck.

Ten minutes later, two of the ferry’s original stewards returned carrying four white buckets of water and some big plastic beakers. Since all the prisoners were manacled behind their backs, two Chinese guards walked down the length of each bench, one carrying the bucket, the other offering water to each American, holding the beaker to his mouth, tipping it, spilling it, almost choking the recipient, but allowing plenty of time for a few good gulps.

It wasn’t the most elegant drink they had ever had, nor the most hygienic. But it was wet and cold, and all they would get for many more hours.

And all through the small of hours of Sunday morning, July 9, they pushed on southwest in moderate seas. Most of the crew slept, but Lieutenant Pearson considered it his duty to keep awake to try and get some kind of a handle on their position. So far the Chinese security had been red hot. There had not been a moment in time when even a two-word conversation had been possible without incurring the wrath of the guards. But Shawn thought and hoped things might ultimately become a little more slack in the following days, and it was his job to know approximately where they were.

His watch had been taken, along with everyone else’s, on their first day of captivity, but through the windows on the port quarter of the ferry he could just see a rose-colored hue to the sky, and he guessed it must be around 0600, maybe a half hour before sunrise. He had detected a slight decrease in speed and he had guessed at Macao around midnight. Six hours running at possibly 13 knots average would put them more than 70 miles along the South China coast from the mouth of the Delta. Shawn grappled for clarity, trying to remember the charts he had studied so often as
Seawolf
had made her way through the waters just south of here. But he could remember just two islands, one of them quite big, the other to the west, much smaller. The names escaped him. All he could think of was Sichuan Dao, in memory of his favorite Chinese restaurant back home in San Diego. Hell, it was something like that, anyway.

A half hour later, the sun had fought its way out of the Pacific Ocean and was firing already warm, bright beams straight through the upper deck. And as it did so, the beat of the engines changed, and the ship began to make a hard turn to starboard. Shawn could see a sharp navigational light flashing every five seconds on a distant headland. He was not of course to know it was positioned on
the offshore island of Weijia, 400 yards south of Shangchuan Dao, which he had mistaken for a Chinese restaurant.

He could now see land all along the starboard side of the ship, but they seemed to be heading away from it at an oblique angle. Judging by the sun, Shawn guessed a northerly course of three-four-zero, but he was not able to see out of the port side because of a bulkhead.

And now the engines had slowed right down, possibly to a speed of only seven knots. Shawn guessed the captain was creeping through some badly charted shallows. He could see land up ahead through the open deck area, and it looked like a long flat shoreline, with a mountain range rising out of the jungle, possibly a half mile from the beach. He tried to get his bearings, confused by the fact that there was more open sea to the right of the land.

His best guess was that they were between islands, one to the right and one to the left, with the Chinese mainland a few miles to the north. He assessed that they were 80 to 90 miles along the coast from Macao, and that these must be the islands he had in his memory. The restaurant to starboard, the little one to port. But it was the little one to which they were slowly moving, through the sandy shallows.

Xiachuan Dao, virtually uninhabited for several hundred years, guardian of a military jail in which unspeakable cruelties had been enacted, lay dead ahead, its brightly lit torture chambers still intact after all these years.

0930. Saturday, July 8
.
Office of Admiral Morgan
.
The White House
.

Kathy O’Brien gazed at the unshaven, dishevelled figure of the man she loved. The admiral was sound asleep at his desk, leaning back in the big leather Navy captain’s chair, breathing deeply. It was a wonder he hadn’t frozen to death, since the air conditioner had been turned up and running flat out since midnight. The admiral liked it cold.

Kathy put down the dark-blue sailor’s duffel bag and kissed him lightly on the forehead, which had the effect of someone firing a cannon in the room. Arnold Morgan came hurtling back to consciousness after four hours’ sleep, like all ex-submarine commanders, in about one-tenth of a second. He jolted upright, focused on Kathy, and smiled.

“Hey, you found me,” he said superfluously.

“Arnold, my darling, this is not good for you. You have to get proper sleep.”

“I’ve just had proper sleep, crashed right here at around oh-five-hundred.”

“When I say proper sleep, I mean something a bit more relaxed, with clean pajamas, clean sheets, and a bed, hopefully next to me. Traditional stuff.”

“Oh, yeah, right,” he said, not really listening. “Quick, get the Chinese ambassador on the phone and tell him to get his ass in here right now.”

“Arnold, I’m not doing one single thing on this Saturday morning until you rejoin the human race. I want you to get showered, shaved, and changed. You’ve been in the same clothes for more than two days.”

The admiral shook his head. “There’s a crew of very frightened guys on the other side of the world who’ve been in the same clothes for more than two weeks. Anyway, I haven’t got any stuff here, and I can’t leave.”

Kathy pointed at the Navy duffel bag. “In there,
sir
,” she said with heavy emphasis, “you will find one shirt, one tie, one pair of shorts, one pair of dark socks, a pair of shoes, a dark gray suit, cuff links, your favorite soap, razor, green shaving gel, deodorant, shampoo, toothbrush, toothpaste, and aftershave. You will now report to that grandiose bathroom down near the pool and sharpen yourself up. When you return, in twenty minutes, you will find coffee and toast here. Who Flung Dung, as you insist on calling him, will be approximately ten minutes from his ETA. Is that more or less understood?”

“Christ,” said Arnold Morgan, “you’re more bossy than all of my wives put together.”

“I’m also dancing attendance on a very silly person who has no idea how to look after himself and thinks he’s still in a ridiculous submarine.”

The admiral grinned, picked up the duffel bag, and retreated aft, toward the bathroom, moving fast, with the unmistakable upright gait of one whose working life had been spent in military uniform.

When he returned he looked immaculate. And he
kissed Kathy, told her that he loved her beyond redemption, and steamed into the toast and coffee, preparing himself to treat his incoming Chinese guest with the utmost politeness—a trait that came approximately as naturally to him as to an Andalusian fighting bull.

At 10:00 sharp, the ambassador arrived, looking, as ever, pensive and worried, but still smiling and ingratiating.

“Hello, Ling, old buddy,” said the admiral. “How are you today?…Good…good…siddown…want some coffee or would you rather have tea? Tea? Excellent, excellent…
KATHY
!!”

Even Mr. Ling looked mildly surprised that the admiral had apparently dispensed with the telephone system and preferred to stand in the middle of the room and unleash a kind of roar.

“China tea for my old friend Ling,” he said, smiling when Kathy moved smartly back into the room.

“It’s on its way, sir.” She smiled back, a little too sweetly.

“Perfect,” he replied, offering the ambassador from Beijing an armchair in front of his desk.

“Now, sir, I did ask you for a formal statement from your government, and I forgive you for its lateness. I presume you have it with you?”

“Yes, Admiral, I do. Would you like to read it?”

“Absolutely,” replied the admiral as he took the offered piece of paper, which plainly had been prepared in Beijing and been transported to Washington in the diplomatic bag. The words were predictable.

The statement was designated as coming from the High Command of the People’s Liberation Army/Navy, and it bore the personal signature of the Commander-in-Chief of, the Navy, Admiral Zhang Yushu.

“Very nice,” said Admiral Morgan, nodding. “Extremely cooperative. That’s the secret of good international relations. Never look for trouble when there is no malice intended.”

The ambassador was dumbfounded. He sat staring at the Lion of the White House unable to believe his ears.

“We are trying, sir…” he began, but words almost failed him. “My government admires you very much here in America. Soon you will have your ship back. And I assure you your men are all very happy now.”

He sipped his tea, moistening his dry mouth. He was simply not able to comprehend the depth of the admiral’s change in attitude.

“That’s it for you, Ling, old pal. Now you pop off back to the embassy and keep me posted on the progress of repairs to
Seawolf
, there’s a good guy.…KATHY!!!…see the ambassador out, will you?”

A half hour later, the admiral was back in the Situation Room for the 1100 meeting. All the key men, both political and military, were there. And they were quite startled when the chairman announced that he had been working on a press statement to be issued from the Navy Office.

“You don’t think this merits a presidential broadcast?” asked Dick Stafford, the President’s speechwriter.

“It merits whatever we say it merits, Dick,” replied the admiral. “However, there are a couple of ground rules we have to stick with. The first is that any sign of panic, fear, weakness or worry betrayed by any of us will cause the press to go fucking berserk. We’ll get scare stories…
U.S. Navy fears Chinese have kidnapped
Seawolf
and crew
.

“Any such reports will convey our total disbelief in the Chinese statement, put them on full alert for a possible United States attack or rescue attempt, and cause them to put whatever they are doing on an even faster track than it is now. Any such reports, from our standpoint, would be counterproductive in the extreme.”

“And…?” said Dick Stafford.

“I want the entire thing played right down. Today we are going to make a press statement before someone makes it for us—I mean the Russians know about this, probably someone in Taiwan, there’s news correspondents in China, probably in Canton. Something’s gonna leak real soon…that the biggest nuclear attack submarine in the U.S. Navy is somehow tied up in a Chinese dockyard, and no one knows where the crew is, and no one’s talking. That’s the biggest newspaper story in the world this year, trust me.”

“What kind of announcement, Arnold?” asked the President.

“A small general press release from the Navy Department in the Pentagon. Nothing fancy. Nothing scary. Here, I just wrote it, lemme read it out:

“’
The U.S. Navy submarine
Seawolf
experienced minor mechanical difficulties during a patrol more than 100 miles off the coast of mainland China. The Navy of the People’s Liberation Army responded to a call for help from the American captain and assisted the 9,000-ton ship to a dockyard, where routine repairs are being carried out
.

“’
All of the American crew are safe, and are currently
guests of the Chinese Navy until they complete the work
. Seawolf
is expected to resume her patrol in the Far East, visiting Taiwan, in the next 10 days
.

“‘
The U.S. Navy Department is grateful for the Chinese cooperation, a direct result of the strong military and commercial ties forged by President Clinton. And a personal message of thanks has been sent by Admiral Joseph Mulligan, the U.S. Chief of Naval Operations, to Admiral Zhang Yushu, the Commander-in-Chief of the Chinese Navy
.’”

The President smiled. Admiral Morgan shook his head and added, “I never told that many lies in that few words in my life. Here, Dick…get ahold of this before someone strikes me dead.”

“Damned clever, that,” said General Scannell. “If the newspapers don’t smell a rat and they print that story as is, the Chinese will merely believe their subterfuge has worked.”

“Precisely,” said Admiral Morgan. “And that may buy us three or four extra days. With so many lives on the line we
ought
to be able to command them to print it. But under the Constitution we do not have that right. As usual, democracy favors the assholes.”

This caused a burst of laughter to break out from all around this right-wing table of right-wing thinkers. And it was the President himself who restored the grim reality of the situation.

“Arnold, can we know what the military plan is right now? I agree, by the way, with your media strategy…my own involvement would only heighten the chances of the press whipping up a frenzy we don’t need.”

“Sir, I should perhaps inform everyone that you and I burned a little midnight oil last night after John Bergstrom had left. As a result of that, I appointed a rather controversial figure to command our rescue operation…Colonel Frank Hart, who will serve as the SEALs staff officer and mission controller on board the aircraft carrier.”

A few eyebrows were raised at this, although the
admiral had run it by Harcourt Travis and Bob MacPherson in the early hours of the morning.

“My reasons were obvious. Colonel Hart, an ex-SEAL team leader and former Marine Corps officer, has a lot of experience in dealing with foreign governments on military matters. He is a born decisionmaker, he is used to working alone, and he understands this type of operation better than any one of us. He may have to think very fast once we get moving. He may even have to abort the mission in a split second before a lot of people get killed. We must have someone of his caliber. And he’s my choice. He ought to be here by now…where the hell is he?”

“And the actual operation…can we know?” asked Harcourt.

“Yes. John Bergstrom is putting together a team of approximately fifty of his combat-ready SEAL troops, taking men from several different active platoons. They leave for our base on the island of Okinawa midday Tuesday. The first minute we locate the jail where the guys are being held, we send in a twelve-man recon team, using a submarine and an SDV. In thirty-six hours they’ll have that jail well documented.

“As soon as they’re safe aboard, we check that
Seawolf
’s reactor is running. Then we launch the Hornet to take out the submarine. When that mission is achieved, under the cover of the mass panic in Canton, we send the SEALs into the jail. They overpower the guards, smash up the comms, blow up the helicopter and get the guys out, by Zodiac, SDV and submarines.”

“You think we can actually pull this off? Seriously, Arnold?” asked Harcourt.

“Well, we need three things for success. First, we gotta find the goddamned jail. Second, we must have the nuclear reactor running. Third, we must have commanding officers who will get the three submarines close in, possibly making the last three miles on the surface.”

“And what if they are discovered by a Chinese Navy patrol?”

“We’re hoping the disaster in Canton will totally overwhelm the entire Chinese Navy. If we get detected long-range, it’ll still take them more than two hours to get anywhere near us, because Canton will be right out of action and it’s a long way to Zhanjiang. It will still take ’em a damn long time to get to us…just means the SEALs will have to fucking hurry.”

“What are the odds against success?”

“The odds are not against. Ten bucks gets you twenty we’ll make it. It’s the surprise element. That and the fact that the Navy dockyard in Canton is going to be a nuclear wipeout.”

“What does Admiral Bergstrom think?” asked the President.

“He thinks we can pull it off. Otherwise he would refuse to send his precious SEALs in.”

“Joe?” said the President, looking directly at Admiral Mulligan.

“We’ll make it, sir. We’re sending in the best we got.”

The President arose. “Thank you, gentlemen,” he said. “Please don’t think I am unaware that most of you are doing this for me. And please tell the guys my personal thoughts and prayers will accompany them every yard of the way…may God go with them.”

And everyone heard his voice break when he added, “If they could just bring him back safe…”

And they all saw the great man brush his right sleeve across his eyes as he walked with immense dignity from the room.

Midday (local). Saturday. July 8
.
CO’s Office. SPECWARCOM
.
Coronado. San Diego
.

Admiral John Bergstrom arrived back in California at 0700, showered and changed at the base, having slept all the way on the military flight from Washington.

And now he was in overdrive, surrounded by three assistants, operating on the phone lines to Little Creek, Virginia, and to his own platoons right here on the Pacific Coast. He also had a phone open to Bradbury Lines, Herefordshire, England, headquarters of the British Army’s fabled SAS regiment, which worked in tandem with the SEALs more often than most people realized.