Just as the Hind cleared the deck the huge carrier, now inert scrap metal, began to capsize, its huge form rolling to port, the splash a phosphorescent burst of foam as the superstructure hit the water on the port side. Soon the entire superstructure vanished into the sea and the deck became vertical, exposing the flank of the ship’s hull. For a moment the hole in the hull revealed itself as the ship continued to roll, then stopped, the ship completely upside down, the bow deeper than the stern. After another minute, all that was left of the ship was her four huge brass screws, the blades waving mournfully toward the sky. Finally the stern went down, and the P.L.A Navy aircraft carrier Shaoguan vanished into the rain-swept water of the Go Hai Bay.
The pilot of the helicopter flew around the bubbling turbulence of water where the ship had once been, but finding no survivors outside the lifeboats and rafts, flew on to the west.
Tien Tse-Min looked out the window at the foam marking the spot where the aircraft carrier had been.
“Stupid fool. He should have listened to me. I tried to tell him the submarines would be coming out of the north passage, not the south…”
In the darkness Tien could not see Sun Yang’s eyes glaring at him.
Forty meters under the dark water of the Go Hai Bay, the strategy room of the Shaoguan was now upside-down and flooded with water. Fleet Commander Chu Hsueh-Fan was still conscious, still aware of the water around him. He had been a strong swimmer all his life, and even now he instinctively had held his breath. The room had toppled quickly, and he remembered taking his last deep breath as the windows shattered and admitted the flood of bay water, the water cold as it smashed him against the starboard bulkhead.
The room had rolled completely over, leaving the battle lantern on the floor instead of the ceiling, its weak light insistently illuminating Chu’s too real nightmare.
The ship had gone down so fast that the pressure rise had ruptured Chu’s eardrums. He held onto the hood of what had once been the radar repeater, which now hung from the ceiling. It was almost a welcome event when the crushing grip of sea pressure smashed his ribcage and he gave up his last air to the sea. The battle lantern failed, leaving darkness. Chu lost consciousness, and four minutes later was brain-dead. The corpse of the Shaoguan came to rest on the bottom of the deep passage of the Bohai Haixia Strait. One last explosion sounded from one of the boiler rooms, and then she remained quiet.
Michael Pacino shut his eyes in concentration as Jeb’s announcement came over his headset.
“Conn, Sonar, multiple aircraft overhead circling our position. If you put up the scope I think you’ll see about five of them. Most of the contacts are helicopters but I’ve got a definite jet in the mix. And that’s not all. The two destroyers are close now and slowing. I’m guessing they’re inside of their weapons range.”
“Jeb called it. Skipper,” Keebes said. “Firecontrol range to Target Fourteen is twenty-six thousand yards. He’s within SS-N-14 range.”
“What now. Captain?” Morris asked, an edge in his voice.
Pacino ignored him.
“Conn, Sonar, the aircraft overhead are backing off.”
“Say again?”
“The aircraft are flying away, they’re bugging out.”
“That’s good,” Morris said.
“No,” from Keebes, his face grim. “It means the Udaloy destroyer, Target Fourteen, has decided he’s the senior man and wants to fire the killing weapon. An SS-N-14 will be on the way any minute.”
Morris stepped close to Pacino, who was staring into space in deep thought. Morris tapped his shoulder.
“Pacino, what are you gonna do?”
Michael Pacino blinked and looked at Jack Morris for a long moment, his face blank and hard. When he spoke his tone was that of someone stating the obvious.
“We surrender.”
CHAPTER 31
Aircraft Commander HuaFeng’s radio headset crackled with the voice of the squadron commander:
“ALL UNITS, SQUADRON ONE LEADER, THIS IS TO ADVISE YOU THAT THE CARRIER HAS BEEN SUNK BY THE AMERICAN MISSILE. WATCH YOUR FUEL AND BE READY TO DIVERT TO LUSH UN OUT.”
Chu HuaFeng’s jaw muscles tightened as he listened to the flat tone of the squadron leader marking the sinking of the flagship, and very possibly the death of his father.
“What’s the status of the Type-12, Lo?”
“Armed and ready. We have a good estimated depth of the submarine.”
“Prepare to drop,” Chu said, jockeying the jet directly over the position of the submarine.
“ALL AIRCRAFT UNITS BOHAI HAIXIA STRAIT, THIS IS UDALOY DESTROYER ZUNYI APPROACHING ESTIMATED POSITION OF ENEMY SUBMARINE SUSPECTED OF FIRING MISSILE ON FLEET FLAGSHIP. WITHDRAW TO A SAFE POSITION NO CLOSER THAN THREE KILOMETERS FROM SUBMARINE POSITION. I SAY AGAIN, WITHDRAW TO A SAFE POSITION NO CLOSER THAN THREE CLICKS FROM THE SUBMARINE. WE HAVE IMMEDIATE SILEX MISSILE LAUNCH PENDING IN THREE ZERO SECONDS, COMMANDER DESTROYER ZUNYI, OUT.”
“You ready, Lo? Drop on my mark.”
“Chu, we’ve just been ordered out of here, you need to clear the area—”
“No. We’re dropping the Type-12.”
“Chu, the commander of the Zunyi obviously wants a piece of this action. Let him have it. After he fires his damned Silex we’ll come back and let this submarine have a real treat. Come on or we can be taken out by that Silex—”
“This guy down there may have killed my father. I don’t care about Silexes—”
“You’d better, he just launched the damned thing and it’s incoming — Chu, don’t be an idiot, get us out of here.”
Chu, hating it, knew Lo was right. He throttled up the cruise engine and flew the Yak away from the position of the submarine. As the jet flew outside the one-kilometer radius from the sub, the bright flame trail from the Silex missile illuminated the cockpit.
“Conn, Sonar, incoming missile—”
“All ahead flank!” Pacino shouted.
The helmsman rang up the flank order. The deck began to tremble with the power of Seawolf’s main engines as the turbines spun at maximum revolutions, accelerating the ship away from the missile launch position.
The crew held onto consoles and handholds, waiting for the detonation, except for Pacino, who looked from the firecontrol display to the chart to the sonar repeater. The wait for missile impact seemed to stretch on and on. Pacino looked over at Jack Morris.
Sweat had broken out on the SEAL’s forehead. This wasn’t his game, waiting instead of acting. The ship continued accelerating to 44.8 knots as the reactor plant reached one hundred percent power. Pacino looked back toward the firecontrol geographic display, calculating … With a missile average flight speed of Mach 1, firing range of thirteen nautical miles, the missile flight time would be a little over one minute.
With Seawolf’s average speed since he accelerated thirty knots, in the one minute of flight time he would have the ship a thousand yards from her position at launch. If sonar had only given him half the flight time’s warning, and if the commander of the Udaloy had fired at his future position instead of his actual position, the ship would perhaps only be two hundred or three hundred yards from the missile impact point, maybe less. In a worst case, only a hundred yards, three hundred feet.
Now, Pacino thought, would three hundred feet away from a rocket-launched depth charge be enough to save the ship?