“Each train of satchel charges will have a float with a radio trigger. When I hit the key, the floats receive the signal and detonate the fuses, which are wired in parallel to the float.”
“Someone could see the float. Or the guy carrying the trigger radio could get hit,” Pacino said.
Morris shot back: “If the satchel charges screw up, you can go ahead and fire your catch-me-fuck-me missiles. Plus, I’ll put all the swimmers on the satchel charge operation. That’ll make it quicker. When we’re ready we’ll board Tampa, get topside and blow the charges.”
“Your guys will be worn out by the time it comes to board,” Pacino said.
“Cap’n, my men do this shit all day, every day. You leave them to me.”
“Fine,” Pacino said, reasonably satisfied. “Then we’re decided. The SEALs will lock out, lay the satchel charges, board the Tampa and take her over. As soon as your guys are out of the water, blow the satchel charges. I’ll be the backup with the Javelins. Have you got radios for signaling us if you need the missiles?”
“Scrambled VHF voice units,” Morris said.
“I’ll give your radiomen the freaks.”
Pacino pulled a large roll of papers from his bunk and spread them across the table.
“These are the plans for the Tampa. In the next two days I suggest you walk this ship with me and find out what you can shoot at and what needs to be spared damage.”
“Taking the sub won’t be a problem, Cap’n. We’ve practiced this before with 688-class subs in New London. Last month we captured the Augusta — man, was her captain pissed.” Morris looked at Pacino. “So once we take the sub, what then?”
Pacino looked at Kurt Lennox, who until then had mostly frowned at the exchanges.
“That’s where Commander Lennox comes in. Kurt is the XO of the Tampa. He knows her inside out. He’ll relay the escape plan to Captain Murphy and coordinate with us to get out of the bay. If the captain or other officers are injured, dead, missing, he’ll take command to get the boat out.”
“Excuse me,” Morris said, “but just how is Lennox getting to the Tampa?”
“He’ll swim out with your men.”
“Bull-fucking-shit he will. We don’t take noncombatants on SEAL operations. Sir.”
Pacino gave it back: “What is it you guys say? “You don’t have to like it, you just have to do it.” Or if that won’t serve, try the Coast Guard motto: “You have to go out. You don’t have to come back.” Besides, Commander Lennox, if I recall rightly from his file, is a qualified Navy diver.”
“I took the four-week SCUBA course years ago but I haven’t done anything other than a security swim since then,” Lennox admitted. “My qualifications lapsed some years ago. And I didn’t use the kind of stuff these guys have. I don’t know, Captain, tell you the truth, this is kinda shaky …”
“You’ve got two days to learn the gear and the operation. Morris, you and Lennox will be twins for the next two days, and you and your XO will have to know everything Lennox does in case he gets hit on the way in. I don’t want Captain Murphy to take command of his ship and not know our plan to get him out.”
Morris nodded but obviously was unhappy with the order.
“Next topic,” Pacino said, spreading out a chart of the Go Hai Bay. “The escape. Tianjin’s here on the west, about one hundred and seventy miles from the bay entrance here at the Lushun/Penglai Gap. The mouth of the bay is only sixty miles wide, and the navigable channel is much tighter. With our draft, for us to stay submerged, the channel is only six miles wide, up here north of the Miaodao Islands. That choke point will be patrolled heavily by the Northern Fleet, based out of Lushun.”
“Force strength in the fleet is formidable. We’ll brief this in detail to the wardroom, but for now I expect to see up to three task forces. The total surface forces include three missile cruisers, fourteen destroyers, sixteen frigates, thirty-four torpedo patrol boats and their new aircraft carrier, the one they got from the Russians, the Shaoguan. There are some two dozen minor coastal patrol craft but none of them can hurt us unless we surface. The skimmer forces are most formidable because of the helicopters they carry. Between the carrier, the cruisers, destroyers and frigates I expect to see over forty seaborne choppers. There could be more, a lot more, in the form of aircraft based on land out of Lushun, maybe another two dozen. Plus, the Shaoguan will be putting up vertical takeoff landing aircraft like the Yak-36, except they have a VTOL Yak that hovers on top and drops depth charges. That puts our two submarines up against sixty-seven major combatants and sixty-four helicopters. Not to mention three Han-class nuclear-powered attack subs and two Ming-class diesel subs, both of them new. The exit has to be planned assuming the Tampa has no weapons-firing ability. If she can, that’s great, but I’m not counting on it. So that’s us against seventy-three ships and six dozen helicopters … Now, how do we get out of the bay?”
After a moment of silence, Pacino frowned.
“Oh, hell, maybe we just worry about that when the time comes. Dismissed.”
The officers filed out of the room. The expressions on their faces were all somber.
CHAPTER 13
Pacino watched from the galley door to the darkened wardroom as the officers concentrated on the large projection screen on the aft wall. Lieutenant Commander Greg Keebes stood at the outboard corner of the room, holding the control to the digital image console.
The picture on the far wall was a periscope photograph of a sleek new destroyer, the crosshairs of the periscope centered on the large central funnel. On the aft deck a helicopter’s rotors spun as it prepared to lift off the deck.
“Turner,” Keebes barked. “Identification.”
“Luhu-class DDG,” Turner said from somewhere in the darkened room.
“Weps. ASW armament.”
“Two triple tubes of thirty-two-centimeter ASW Whiteheads,” Feyley said. “Just aft of the funnel—”
“Joseph, what else?” Keebes broke in.
“ASW mortars, up forward, twelve-tube fixed launcher.”
“Parsons. Sonars, go.”
“It’s got a hull-mounted active-search medium frequency Laihai and a variable-depth dipper, also active in the medium freaks.”
“Mr. Vale, chopper, go.”
“Carries two Harbin Dauphins. They’ve got dipping sonars, the HS-12. Also a magnetic anomaly detector. Has Whitehead torpedoes and up to four antiship missiles.”
Keebes clicked the controller. Another destroyer flashed on the screen, another periscope shot.
“Brackovic. Identify!”
“Udaloy-class DDG. Baddest destroyer in the bay.”
“Turner. ASW weapons.”
“Eight fifty-three-centimeter tubes with the Type 53 with active or passive homing. RBU 6000 mortar launcher.”
Keebes clicked the control and a periscope photo of a huge aircraft carrier came up, taken from such a low angle that it seemed as if the sub taking the picture would have to have been run over moments after snapping the picture.
“Schrader. What is it?”
“Kiev-class CV, obtained from Russia last year, formerly the Novorossiysk, renamed the Shaoguan.”
“What’s she got?”
“Hell, XO, what hasn’t she got?”
And so it went, Keebes clicking periscope shots and firing questions at the officers. The sheer number of Chinese surface ships was staggering. And nearly all of them could hurt a submarine. Hurt? They could blow the Seawolf into scrap metal between breakfast and lunch.