At four thousand feet the rocket motor of Unit One cut out, the missile still rising skyward from the momentum of the initial thrust. At forty-five hundred feet eight explosive bolts detonated at the ring joint between the missile and the solid rocket booster. At five thousand feet the unit’s upward velocity stopped and for a moment the unit flew horizontally, until the missile nosed over and began a dive, popping out the wings and the air-intake duct, the rudder turning, taking the weapon toward the north as it began to pull out of its dive.
Moments later the second unit also discarded its rocket motor, came to its peak altitude and nosed down toward the ground, this unit turning south. As both weapons picked up speed in their plunge toward earth, the jet engine sustainers came on-line, propelling both units at speeds just under Mach 1, the better to avoid a sonic boom that would give the missiles away. Once their rocket trails vanished, the missiles would likewise disappear, vaporizing into the radar grass and ground clutter.
The first unit pulled out of its dive at an altitude of forty feet, continuing to the north, flying over the P.L.A Navy compound and continuing north and inland, flying over the dingy buildings of the village of Dagu.
The second unit pulled out and headed south, hugging the coastline of the bay.
Both weapons had been “over-the-shoulder” shots.
The distance from the Seawolf to the targets had been much too close for the units to perform their climb outs jet engine light-offs, pullouts and target approaches in a mere two hundred yards. The minimum firing range was four thousand yards. The weapons had to be ordered to reach their targets by first flying away from them, then when stable at low altitudes to turn and fly back.
Unit One continued north for a mile, then wiggled the rudder and pulled three g’s in a 180-degree turn.
Once settled on the southern course, back toward the pier, the unit turned on its radar seeker, the superstructures of the enemy surface ships memorized. It flew south at 570 knots, returning over the village of Dagu, intent on finding its surface-ship target at the P.L.A Navy piers. While Unit One flew in from the north. Unit Two made its 180-degree turn, steadying up on a course of due north, the ground of the bay’s coast streaking by beneath the fuselage.
Now at the pier, the two missiles flew in on straight flight paths, one from the south, one from the north, radar-seekers searching, warheads arming.
Fighter Sai climbed out of the hatchway and stretched on the curving hull of the Tampa. He was hungry.
Leader Tien Tse-Min was obsessed, he thought, never stopping an interrogation until he’d gotten the last possible bit of information, and confession-reading.
The man was a pain in the ass. He put his outsized hands in his pockets and slowly walked toward the gangway leading to the Kunming, the destroyer tied up between the American submarine and the pier. As soon as the guards on the pier were ready and the buses were started, he would begin offloading the prisoners for their all-night trek to the Shenyang Camp.
Sai wasn’t told how long the men were to be kept there, but if they were going to Shenyang the stay would probably be permanent. Who cared? This was all a welcome diversion in the war with the White Army. As soon as the prisoners were moved he would return with Tien to Beijing and join the P.L.A forces guarding the city from the expected White Army offensive.
He felt better as he thought of killing Taiwanese soldiers and turncoat mainland rebels.
Abruptly, the noise of a crashing explosion sounded from behind him.
He slammed into the deck of the gangway, startled when the noise did not end but continued, an earsplitting shriek, from the direction of the supertanker-pier. For a moment he thought that a supertanker had exploded into flames. Slowly the noise receded, and by the light of the fire behind him he found the railing of the gangway and pulled himself up.
In the sky to the south, two rockets were blasting into the atmosphere, their tails spewing white smoke that seemed to originate at the seaward tip of the empty supertanker pier. He hurried back down the gangway, turned toward the access hatch and lowered himself down the ladder to the Tampa’s upper level.
It took several minutes to find Leader Tien Tse-Min, and when Sai reported what he had seen, Tien’s face became flushed. It was the first time Sai could remember Tien showing any emotion.
Commander Jack Morris thought he had heard something, a thudding sound. Almost like one of his air bottles had knocked against the other, but the bottles were covered with rubber to deaden any such noise.
After a moment he heard the sound again, and then nothing more. The trouble with interpreting sounds in water was the sound velocity. With two ears, listening in air, sound speeds were slow enough so that one ear heard a noise before the other, giving the brain a clue to the direction of the noise. Underwater, sound velocity was so quick that both ears heard a noise at the same time, making it impossible to determine what direction the sound had come from.
Morris decided to take another look at the pier. He tugged on his buddy-line to Black Bart and the two men slowly ascended to the surface between the bow of the seaward frigate and the stern of the neighboring destroyer. Morris was preparing to unbuckle the lanyard to Bart and climb up on the pier pilings when he saw the white plume of a rocket exhaust overhead, terminating at an orange point of light high in the sky above.
Quickly Morris submerged, pulling on Bart’s lanyard, pulling him deep. Morris hauled in the line, putting his mask up to Bart’s. Morris directed him to the outboard destroyer while Morris headed for the inboard destroyer. Only an emergency would make Morris split from his swimming partner. This was definitely an emergency … two cruise missiles were on the way in to hit the very ships on which his men were laying explosive keel charges. The demolition operation would have to be aborted; the men would have to be extracted and prepared for boarding the Tampa.
Morris gave hand signals to Bart in rapid Ameslan, the sign language for the deaf: “You and first platoon go to bow, attack ship immediately after missile impacts.”
As soon as the Javelins exploded, Bart’s bow platoon would board and take the hatch forward of the sail. At the same time Morris’s second and third platoons would board and take the aft section of the ship, third platoon going in the aft hatch to the engine room second platoon in the amidships access to the aft part of the forward compartment.
“If no impact in fifteen minutes, missiles are dead and we go back to kill the destroyers.” Bart nodded.
“Lennox goes with me,” Morris’s hand signs added. Bart gave an okay sign. Morris slapped his head, a SEAL gesture for good luck.
As Morris swam the length of the destroyer’s barnacle-encrusted hull, waving the men away from their demolition task, he had to consider why Seawolf had launched. What came to mind was that the Tampa crew were being moved and Pacino hadn’t had time to tell him. Morris bit angrily into the rubber of his regulator — he hated a plan that stumbled. Now the element of surprise was gone, risking his men even more, unless he could get aboard the Tampa while the crews of the surface ships and the guards were still confused over the damage from the missiles.
He gathered with the second and third platoons under the Tampa’s huge spiral-bladed screw and checked his watch. Bart would be assembling the first platoon at Tampa’s bow. He pulled the platoon leaders close. One shone his hooded light on Morris while Morris gave the hand signals that relayed his orders for the platoon assignments, adding that he and Lennox would go into the forward compartment with the second platoon. He looked at Lennox, who seemed under control, but his eyes were just a fraction too wide, betraying his fear. Hell, Morris thought, if Lennox were to check my eyes he’d see the same thing.