So, the emergency blow and a max speed order might get them off the sandbar … then again, it might just dig them deeper into the sand. And if that happened the only alternative would be to get the rescue sub to surface, throw them a line and get towed off the bar. Odds were that the two operations would take so long that the Chinese would recapture them… They could, he supposed, abandon ship and get aboard the rescue sub, but that would take even longer than being towed off the bar. Which meant that either the emergency blow worked or it was back to Xingang for everyone aboard Tampa. Vaughn took a deep breath and spoke into his lip mike.
“Emergency blow! Hit the levers!” Almost immediately a violent foam of bubbles boiled up around the bow and stern, the air from the ballast tanks blowing out as the emergency blow system engaged.
“All ahead flank!” Vaughn ordered into the radio.
The deck of the ship began to tremble as the water aft of the rudder erupted into foam and the screw began to spin at maximum RPM. The ship eased up off the sandbar, just slightly, in reaction to the emergency blow in the ballast tanks. Then in a sudden surge the port list came off the ship and the submarine accelerated forward, the waves protesting and boiling up at the bow as the ship plowed into the channel.
The ship drove ahead, the bow wave building up over the sonar dome, the piers of the P.L.A fading behind. Vaughn ordered the rudder left and right, following the course of the channel until the ship was five miles away from Xingang and into deeper water.
Vaughn looked at the water of the bay around him, allowing himself a moment of satisfaction. They might not be home free yet, but at least, it seemed, they were on the way home.
Leader Tien Tse-Min fumed at the commander of the Huchuan-class fast-attack torpedo boat. The twenty two-meter-long patrol craft was a hydrofoil boat capable of going sixty clicks armed with two type-53 torpedoes and two twin 14.5-mm guns. Its commander was a short, slight southerner, probably from Shanghai or one of the cities in rebellion, Tien thought.
“Start your engines and get out on the water now.
We have to get that American sub. Can’t you see it?
Two torpedoes and we’ll blow it apart. We must keep it from escaping.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” Commander Soo Chi Meng said, realizing what he was about to say might well determine whether he lived through the night.
“The diesels are not in good shape. Two were being worked on at the time of the missile attack on the destroyers. The third was bounced around by the shock. My engineering technician says it has wiped its bearings.”
Tien glared at the commander.
“Show me. I will start the diesels myself.” Tien, of course, was bluffing.
He had no idea how to start a diesel engine.
“I’m sorry, sir, but I’m afraid I can’t let you do that.
It could be dangerous, it could explode and wound you.”
“Commander, I am ordering you to start the motors on this boat and go after that submarine. Do I need to get you on the radio to Chairman Yang?”
“Sir, you must believe me — the engines are not working.” Soo felt sweat drip down his forehead. If the senior officer actually boarded his ship and checked the engines he would find the engine room spotless. As for starting a diesel engine, there was not much to it. The officer would only need to find the red button on the control panel marked START and push it. Ten seconds after one of the diesels roared to idling speed, the officer would shoot him. But he felt it was worth the risk, after seeing what the invisible submarine had done to the frigate that had chased it, the entire bow of the supposedly invincible frigate blowing up, sending the sub-killing ship to the bottom in less than a minute, not to mention how it had managed to down two massive Hind helicopters and sink the pier side destroyers too. Somewhere out there that rescue submarine lurked, waiting to sink any ship that threatened the captive submarine.
For a moment Tien simply stared into Commander Soo’s eyes, trying to look into the man’s mind and see if he were telling the truth. Off in the distance of the bay water the formerly captive submarine kicked up a spray of water from its tail and surged ahead, obviously free of the sandbar it had been stuck on, and began sailing off into the distance. Tien felt like grabbing the patrol boat commander’s face and smashing it, but he realized it was too late. The patrol boat would probably be sunk just like the Nantong. As he watched, the submarine’s hull shrank into the distance until, even in bright moonlight, he could no longer see it. Commander Soo continued to stand in front of him.
Finally Tien turned away, walking down the pier to a P.L.A command vehicle he had commandeered from the armored force, got in, stared at Soo one more time, and drove off.
Soo’s sense of relief was what any condemned man might feel at the news of an unexpected reprieve.
An hour later at Hangu navy base Tien was linked into a UHF secure voice circuit to Fleet Commander Chu Hsueh-Fan at Lushun. Chu had been asleep and was annoyed to be awakened. Tien’s report on what had happened made him wish he were still asleep and this was only a nightmare.
Tien waited for the jet that Chu had sent for him, a vertical takeoff jet that would take him to the aircraft carrier Shaoguan, Fleet Commander Chu’s ship.
He might have lost the American submarine out of Xingang, but there was no way that sub would get out of the Go Hai Bay alive, not through the tight channel at the Lushun/Penglai Gap. The northern fleet at Lushun was a formidable force, enough to kill the submarines, not the P.L.A Navy skeleton force that had been tied up at Xingang.
There would be two destroyed subs by the time he returned to Beijing, Tien told himself. If not, he might as well never go back to Beijing at all.
A half hour after leaving the harbor of Xingang, Vaughn had managed to get the control room operational — at least, the equipment was operational. The crew were still in shock from their captivity. Vaughn scanned the horizon with his binoculars. The night sky had grown overcast with the approach of a storm. That could only help, lowering visibility for the forces that would inevitably begin searching for them. Vaughn called into his VHF radio down to the control room:
“Control Bridge. Morris, where are you?”
“I’VE GOT YOU, OVER.” Morris’ voice was calm.
“What’s going on there? We need to submerge ASAP.”
“I KNOW. LENNOX IS READY TO TAKE THE CONN. I’VE GOT SEALS ON THE HELM AND planes AND I’LL BE ON THE BALLAST PANEL.”
SEALs driving the submarine out? Vaughn had to find out what had happened to the men held up forward — he’d heard they were all like zombies. It would be a hell of a transit without a competent crew. But before he could take on that, he had to get the submarine down. He pulled all the clamshells up except the one on the starboard side of the bridge. He had rigged the bridge for dive, with the exception of latching up the final clamshell and shutting the upper hatch to the bridge-access tunnel. Baron von Brandt’s body had been lowered down the tunnel and was in the frozen stores room. Vaughn called Lennox to the radio and passed on his course and speed and approximate position, then handed over the conn. After a last look at the surface he closed the clamshell, ducked into the bridge-access trunk and shut the hatch above him.
He came down the ladder two rungs at a time and dropped to the deck of the upper level passageway, shutting the lower hatch and spinning the operating wheel to engage the dogs. He stepped into the control room.
“Last man down, hatch secured, Chief of the Watch uh, Commander Morris,” he said once he’d dropped to the deck of the control room.