As the frigate turned toward him, Pacino could see that the ship’s two 37-mm gun mounts were turning, one to starboard, one to port. For a moment he wondered if a Javelin cruise missile could be shot down by anti-aircraft fire if the target was alerted. As if in answer, both 37-mm guns began firing at either side of the frigate, the bright orange flashes reaching out from the muzzles even though to Pacino’s eyes there was nothing to shoot at.
Aboard the frigate Nantong Commander Chin Chiwei raised his binoculars to his eyes, searching the dark horizon for any traces of an incoming cruise missile, but could see nothing but the sea lit by the reflections of the moonlight from the waves. Ahead, two smoking missile-exhaust plumes pointed to a spot in the ocean where the launching submarine had been only minutes before. First, thought Chin, he would down the cruise missiles and after that the firing submarine would be history.
The intercom from the combat-control center blared as his weapons officer reported:
“COMMANDER CHIN, INCOMING MISSILES BEARING ZERO NINE FIVE AND TWO SEVEN THREE, BOTH SUBSONIC, BOTH AT LOW ALTITUDE. FIRECONTROL RADARS ARE LOCKED ON AND THE 37S ARE ENABLED IN AUTOMATIC.”
Chin acknowledged, calmly waiting for the missiles to fly into view. He trained his binoculars to the bearings called out by combat and found them as dark as before. Then in a sudden burst of sound the 37-mm gun immediately below the bridge began to fire, the reports from the gun barrel rattling the plate glass of the bridge’s windows, the 180-rounds-per-minute firing rate making the sound a sustained roar. Chin watched down the bearing line, telling himself that any second the cruise missiles would be arriving, and that even if he couldn’t yet see them the firecontrol radars did … Javelin Unit Six sped in toward the Jianghu class frigate at six hundred knots, altitude thirty-five feet.
The waves flashed in under the fuselage, the target still invisible up ahead. The missile’s radar-seeker felt out ahead of the unit, searching over the surface of the water for the shape of the frigate’s hull. After a few moments the seeker saw the shape forming up ahead, the boxy bridge, the pointed bow, the tall central mast and the funnel aft, with the box of the hangar for the Dauphin helicopter and the flat helo-deck aft.
The target was confirmed. The Javelin armed the warhead and aimed at the vessel’s hull just below the bridge.
The first 37-mm bullets hit the nose cone of the missile like a spray of a shotgun’s buckshot, stinging and ripping open the skin of the nose section, knocking out the seeker-radar, then paralyzing the arming mechanism. This particular buckshot consisted of rapidly fired bullets, each weighing over a half-pound, three of them coming in per second. The missile drove on toward the target, blinded by the rain of bullets, until it took a round in its air intake duct that shot through the compressor, which lost four blades and disintegrated, rupturing the airframe and spilling jet fuel out the hole. Another bullet lodged in the navigation unit, another in the targeting computer, several in the warhead. As the missile lost thrust, its engine seized, it fell down toward the water, its fuel beginning to ignite.
Two hundred yards from the target the missile hit the water and exploded, its fuel and high-explosive warhead detonating in an impotent flash, to be swallowed and forgotten by the sea.
It happened so fast Pacino could hardly believe his eyes. The Javelin missile flying in at the frigate from the east exploded, crashed into the water, the splash from the detonation rising high in the moonlit sky. A moment later the second cruise missile detonated, its fireball bigger and brighter and perhaps closer to the frigate, but no more harmful to the P.L.A vessel. As he watched, a wave began at the frigate’s bow while it accelerated and turned toward him. He also caught sight of a helicopter being rolled out onto the helo deck aft as he pulled his eye away from the eyepiece, snapped down his eyepatch and lowered the periscope.
He now calculated the angle between the frigate and the Tampa, wondering if he dared risk it. No matter how he positioned the ship in the next few seconds the angle was too slim. But he had to take the risk, now that his Javelins had failed.
“Snapshot tube seven,” he called to the firecontrol team, ordering a quick-reaction torpedo shot.
“Direct contact mode, active low-speed snake, shallow surface transit, run-to-enable zero, ASH and ACR disabled.
Get the outer door open, now!”
Feyley worked the panel.
“Sir, tube seven set at shallow direct-contact, active snake at low speed, enabled at zero yards, ASH and ACR disabled.”
“Bearing and bearing-rate matched,” Keebes said.
“Range eleven hundred yards and closing.”
“Door’s open, sir,” Feyley said.
“Shoot,” Pacino ordered.
“Fire.” Feyley pulled the trigger on the horizontal panel of the console.
The tube fired, barking as it ejected the torpedo, the air in the ship compressing in a shock wave from the highpressure air ram venting inboard.
“Tube seven fired electrically, sir, and we’re active.”
The pinging of the torpedo could be heard outside the skin of the ship, the sound fading as the torpedo drove away to the northwest down the bearing line of the frigate.
“Lookaround number-two scope,” Pacino called, raising the periscope and lifting his eyepatch. The scope was trained to the bearing of the frigate as it came out of the well.
He put the crosshairs of the scope on the frigate, now approaching at flank speed directly toward him, the hull of the Tampa a mile behind it but on almost the same bearing line. He realized that if he missed, not only would Tampa take the torpedo hit, but Seawolf would be rammed and sunk by the frigate.
As the frigate plowed toward him, its knife-sharp bow looming bigger each second, he wondered what Admiral Donchez would say if he heard that both submarines had been lost.
“COMMANDER, STILL NO SONAR CONTACT, BUT THE WOK WON RADAR IS GETTING A DETECT OFF THE SUBMARINE’S PERISCOPE, BEARING ONE TWO FOUR.”
“Steer one two four. Fighter Tse,” Commander Chin ordered the helmsman. Up ahead he thought he could see the reflection of the moon off something in the water, perhaps from a periscope lens.
“What’s the status of the helicopter?” he asked the Deck Officer.
“He’s on deck now, sir, and should be starting his engines any minute.”
“Tell him to hurry.” Chin clicked the intercom button.
“Are the Whitehead torpedoes armed?”
“ARMED AND READY, COMMANDER, STILL NO SONAR CONTACT.”
“Standby.”
Chin raised his binoculars to look at the bearing to the periscope, and when at first he didn’t see it he dropped the glasses and searched with his naked eyes until he saw the periscope silhouetted in the moon’s reflection on the bay’s waves.
“Got him now,” he mumbled to himself. An instant later the fo’c’sle of his frigate disintegrated in a blooming fireball while the deck jumped up two meters, the explosion throwing him against the aft bulkhead of the wheelhouse and cracking open his skull.
The ship’s forward momentum, without her bow section, drove her into the water of the bay, the water soon flooding the bridge after the bow of the ship exploded. As the Nantong sank. Commander Chin Chi-wei sputtered, coughing and inhaling water as the wheelhouse filled with water. For a few moments he swam in circles, his lungs filled with water, then lost consciousness in the blackness of the bay.
Moments later the hull of his ship hit the bottom of the bay and rolled over, burying the bridge in the silt.