The Paramount Ruler understood the motives of Zhang Yushu, and his most senior trusted Admirals, and he raised no voice against them. For they were all men who treated China’s problems as their own. They were also men who would gladly have laid down their lives for the Great Republic. Such men were rare, and the Paramount Ruler would indulge their ambitions.
For the past two weeks, Admirals Zhang and Yibo had watched the signals being routed through Russia’s Pacific Fleet Communications Center in Vladivostok, via the satellite, on a direct link to Shanghai. Every twenty-four hours they heard confirmation that the two Kilos were making smooth and steady progress along the icy northern route across the top of Siberia.
The C in C agreed that if the Americans were laying a trap, they would have done so in the GIUK Gap in the North Atlantic, as they had probably done for K-4 and K-5. He also agreed that the men in the Pentagon must have been furious when they realized the cunning of the Russian plan to go east instead of west, and to protect the Kilos with such an impressive flotilla of Naval power.
Each day, while the Russians and Admiral Yibo had grown more enchanted with their own brilliance, a feeling of disquiet had begun to cast a shadow over the street kid from the Xiamen waterfront, who had made it to the very top of the Chinese Navy. It was true, Zhang admitted, that the Americans may have been outwitted on this one…and yet he understood the ruthlessness of the men in the Pentagon, as well as their determination and their no-holds-barred attitude to military power. Of course he did. He was one of them. From another culture, another place. But nonetheless one of them.
In his hand he held the latest signal, transmitted from the destroyer Admiral Chabanenko at 2130, two hours ago, from somewhere off the eastern coast of Siberia. He kept reading the words over…“052120SEPT. 60.40N 173.30E. Short transient contact picked up…three sweeps radar. Six miles off our port bow. No data for firm classification. Did not reappear. Possible US SSN. No subsequent attack. No reason for additional defensive measures. Acoustic barrier in place. US powerless, especially while we proceed in Russian waters.”
No more. No less. Admiral Zhang alone among the Chinese High Command did not like it. He could not determine where the US submarine might have come from. “We probably left one behind in the North Atlantic,” he murmured. “Then what might they have done?…The Panama Canal route is too far…maybe they sent one north from Pearl Harbor or even San Diego…but I’d be surprised. They would want their subversive actions kept quiet. Not broadcast all around the fleet. If there is a US nuclear tracking the Kilos, it’s got to be the best they have. Which means we had better be very careful…I don’t like the tone of that Russian captain — too complacent. When you’re dealing with Americans you don’t want to be complacent. Otherwise you might not live.”
He walked into the next office, where Admiral Yibo was working. He too had read the signal from the Admiral Chabanenko.
“Do you have any thoughts?” asked the C in C.
“I’ve been considering it. But it seems highly unlikely the Americans could have a nuclear boat tracking the Kilos down the coast of Siberia. Where would it have come from? Perhaps the West Coast?”
“I suppose it’s possible. But it’s a very long way.”
“Sir, if I was commanding the Admiral Chabanenko, I would be very careful indeed.”
“So would I, Yunsheng, my friend. So would I. Our Russian colleagues, however, seem to think the Americans would not dare to open fire on Russian surface ships in Russian waters. They also seem confident that the Americans can’t see or hear the Kilos.”
“Thus far, they have been right.”
“Yes. But I think they may not have faced the fact that an American submarine has only just arrived.”
“The Russians think their sound barrier is foolproof. They think that to get at the Kilos, the US nuclear boat will have to hit at least two of the escorts…which they are plainly not going to do. Too reckless, and too public.”
“The problem is, Yunsheng, it’s so difficult to understand how the American mind functions. We both have our pride, our sense of face, but we think differently. In two hundred years we have never really come to grips with American thinking.”
Yunsheng laughed. “Probably not, sir. Nonetheless if I were commanding that big Russian destroyer, I wouldn’t drop my guard for one split second.”
“Neither, my friend, would I. In fact if I caught one sniff of a US nuclear submarine, I would sink it without hesitation.”
“If you could, sir. If you could.”
“Yes, Yunsheng. If I could.”
061100SEPT. A hundred and thirty miles east of the Siberian coastline. Boomer Dunning, Mike Krause, Jerry Curran, and Dave Wingate stood huddled over charts. Navigation center USS Columbia.
“From the convoy’s last known in Ol’utorsky,” said the XO, “it’s close to a thousand miles down the Pacific side of the Kamchatka Peninsular. The convoy will get there by September 10, probably in the afternoon. SUBLANT believes we already lost the Typhoon, and I expect to lose the icebreaker and the replenishment ship, and probably a couple of the escorts when they reach Petropavlovsk sometime on September eighth.”
“Right,” said Boomer. “But lemme just say this. If I was in command I’d keep those four escorts in place until we reached the Shanghai Roads, somewhere west of Nagasaki in the East China Sea.”
“Yessir. That’s just because you know what you know. They don’t know what you know. They don’t even know we’re here.”
“Don’t they? I wouldn’t be surprised if they got a sniff when we took a quick look around back at Ol’utorsky.”
“Possibly, sir. But even if they were sharp enough to catch us onscreen, they still might not have been sharp enough to interpret the ‘paint’ as a marauding US nuclear submarine.”
“Maybe yes. Maybe no. But if someone had taken out five of my brand-new submarines, I’d open fire on a fucking lobster if it waggled its claws at me.”
Lieutenant Wingate laughed at the Captain’s choice of metaphor, as he usually did. But they all got the point: the Russians had to be on full battle alert. Unless they were crazy.
“Meanwhile we better familiarize ourselves with our patrol area.” Boomer had his dividers on the big navigation chart of the Kuril Islands, a sure sign that he meant business. “Okay,” he said, “right here we have the end of the Kamchatka Peninsula, which tapers off to Point Lopatka…couple hundred miles southwest of Petropavlovsk…these are pretty lonely waters. Then the islands, the Kurils, stretch in a near-straight line for eight hundred miles, right down to the big bay at the northeastern corner of Hokkaido, Japan’s north island.
“According to this chart, the islands have been occupied by the Soviet Union since 1945, heavily disputed of course by the Japanese, who claim the four nearest ones are owned by them. Which they would, wouldn’t they?
“Anyway, we don’t give a rat’s ass about that end of the chain. We’re concerned with this big bastard right up here in the north, by Point Lopatka. It’s called Paramushir Island. It’s about sixty-five miles long. The next one south is Onekotan, which is about a quarter the size. The bit we care about is the seaway that separates them. It’s about forty miles across, and it will be the first time since we’ve been on the case that the Russian convoy has crossed a wide stretch of sea in deep water without land off its starboard beam. At their speed of nine knots, they will take four and a half hours to make their way from the southern point of Paramushir to the northern headland of Onekotan. Sometime during those four and a half hours, I intend to sink both Kilos.”