They had been travelling underwater for over thirty hours now, and Sherman’s last report was that they had managed to pass through both the East China Sea and the Yellow Sea without detection. There had been three occasions when they had passed so close to enemy ships that Sherman had ordered the engines cut completely, but in the end they had not been spotted, and had carried on their way.
The journey into the heart of Chinese territorial waters was perilous, but Cole knew that the Virginia-class attack submarine was the most technologically sophisticated ship ever to set sail under the sea. It was the first submarine ever purpose-designed for multi-mission near-land operations.
Its high-yield steel hull, able to withstand colossal pressures, was covered in a seamless, rubber-like substance to reduce the escape of internal noise; and in contrast to a conventional bladed propeller, its propulsion system was designed as a duct-shielded pump-jet unit that reduced cavitation noise to enable quieter operation.
Sherman had captained the Texas for eighteen months now, after two tours on an LA-class attack sub, and confirmed that this ship was a real move forward over its predecessor. He had supreme confidence in her ability to avoid Chinese detection, and Cole was encouraged to share the man’s confidence.
He had been very impressed with the way that the Texas had managed to avoid the Chinese submarine that had acquired it on the surface during Force One’s nighttime entry, and it lent great credence to the technical statistics; once it had submerged and gone silent, the enemy craft simply hadn’t known were the Texas had gone. It had become invisible.
There was some worry that reports might go back about a US sub operating in the area, and that Wu might begin to suspect some sort of operation was underway, but Cole didn’t think it would matter. Wu would surely know that the US Navy would be probing the perimeter of China’s defenses, testing for future action. The Texas was outside of China’s territorial waters, and it would just be seen as the expected border patrolling that came with the ongoing situation. Wu would probably be more suspicious if there were no such sightings.
The work Sherman and his team had done in the early days of this conflict had also helped, of course; by probing the Chinese defenses around the USS Ford, they had already pinpointed the location of many of the PLA navy’s vessels, and therefore knew exactly where to avoid.
The snaking, serpentine route Sherman had led them on had perhaps not been the quickest from point to point, but Cole was convinced it had been the safest. The fact that they were still alive helped confirm it.
But now they were entering the Bohai Sea, a body of water that was almost entirely encircled by the Chinese coastline. There was only a narrow channel which led from the Yellow Sea to the Bohai Sea, little more than one hundred kilometers across — and over half of that was obstructed by small islands, leaving a true channel of less than forty kilometers in width.
Added to the complications was the fact that the Bohai Sea led to the all-important port town of Tianjin, which in turn serviced Beijing. In essence, all goods travelling by sea for use by Beijing’s population of twelve million citizens, passed through the Bohai Sea — which made it one of the busiest seaways on the planet.
But when Cole had developed his plan, he had known that this was the case; in fact, he was hoping that the sheer density of marine traffic in the area would help the Texas to remain undiscovered. The major problem would be coming too close to the surface in the shallower areas and being hit by a container vessel — that would really mess up their day.
Captain Sherman seemed to know what he was doing though, and he in turn had absolute faith in his crew, which Cole took to be a very good sign.
And while that crew had been doing its job, Cole had been doing his — hard at work with Navarone and the other members of his team, going through the upcoming operation play by play.
The Force One team had not interacted with the SDV release team from Pearl to any large extent, preferring to remain as covert and as anonymous as possible, although Cole had liaised with the officer in charge to discuss timings.
The operation was so secretive and compartmented that SDVT-1 wouldn’t even know where they were when they helped unload the mini-submarine from the Texas. They would swim out in full SCUBA gear, ensure the SDV left the DDS safely, disengage it from its platform and then seal the DDS back up before returning back inside, all the while completely unware of which sea they were operating in.
Cole wasn’t concerned about the SEAL team — they were consummate professionals, and could be relied upon to do their jobs exactly as they were supposed to. Unloading the SDV wasn’t without risks, but was for a large part a purely technical exercise. The real dangers would start once the SDV was underway.
The insertion into the Forbidden City would be complicated, and success would depend heavily upon the correct information getting to them; the ministers were being constantly moved, and Liu Yingchau, Force One’s contact in Beijing, had been tasked with getting an up-to-date location for them.
But it would be the extraction which would be the hardest part of Navarone’s job — the Central Politburo of the Communist Party of China was the group which had been interned, and which Force One was expected to rescue, a group which traditionally consisted of twenty-five people; twenty-two now that Tsang Feng was dead and two other members had defected to Wu’s military regime.
Which meant that Navarone and his four teammates would have to somehow get nearly two dozen middle-aged politicians out of one of the most secure capital cities in the world, and then out of a country which was on a war footing with its neighbors.
Cole had come up with a plan to achieve this, and Navarone and the rest of the group had added suggestions and refinements which made it even better, but it remained an extremely complex task. Some might even have labelled it impossible.
Contingency planning allowed for things going wrong; if twenty-two was too many, then just the six remaining members of the Politburo Standing Committee would be rescued. This group represented the top leadership of the Communist Party, and would be the kernel for the government in exile which Abrams had covertly agreed to set up in Washington.
Of course, things could go even worse than this, but Cole decided not to dwell on things he couldn’t directly control. A large part of the operation’s success would depend on Liu’s getting everything into place in time, and Cole prayed that this would be the case.
Cole reclined onto his bunk, eyes closing, body relaxing. They would be in the Bohai Sea within the next six hours, and he didn’t know when he’d get another chance to rest. If he’d learned anything over the years, it was to rest while you got the chance. He knew the others would be doing the same.
The success of his own mission — to assassinate General Wu — was also not going to be entirely under his control. To get as close as he needed to the man necessitated several other variables all coming together as desired, and for that he was at the mercy of the CIA.
The US embassy in Beijing was still functioning — Wu wanted the status quo to remain as much as possible — and that meant that the CIA liaison officers were still available.
Before leaving the United States, Cole had been in touch with them and — with presidential authority — told them what he needed.