Michael DiMercurio
Piranha: Firing Point
For my beloved wife, Patti, The one true love of my life. Patti, although I am the Captain of my soul, You are the Navigator. I love you.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book is written in remembrance of and reverence for Dolores Quigley, who left this world far too soon, and yet who continues to live among us. Her influence and love are felt and received gratefully every single day. Warmest thanks to Richard J. Quigley, Jr., who is a warm and strong father figure to every soul he touches, and he touches many, including me. Thanks also to Kathy Quigley, who has treated me like one of the family. To Rich and Patty Quigley, Terry Quigley, Tom and Deb Quigley, Chris Quigley, Liz and Jeff Brown, and Brian Quigley, I thank you for making me your brother. Thanks again to the great Nancy Wallitsch, who was a friend when I needed one, a drill sergeant when I needed one, a nurse when I needed one, and a damned good attorney. Deepest thanks to Chris Allgeier, who believed and took action. Thanks to Paul Weiss, who made a huge difference and carried me when I was immobile. Thanks to Craig Relyea, the first reader and an enlightened critic, and to Mike Matlosz, who lended great support. Thanks to Patricia and Dee DiMercurio, Mom and Dad, who kept the porch light on and never gave up hope. Eternal thanks to Matthew and Maria DiMercurio, who have given me love, understanding, and wisdom far beyond their years. And to the late Don Fine, who — whether he knows it or not — made me tough and gave me courage.
EPIGRAPH
“A nuclear submarine fleet is the future of the armed forces. The number of tanks and guns will be reduced as well as the infantry, but a modem Navy is a totally different thing.”
“It is becoming increasingly clear that the next substantial U.S. naval expedition abroad — the next Desert Storm — may well face an enemy with submarines in its order of battle.”
“The location where we will engage the enemy must not become known to them. If it is not known, then the positions they must prepare to defend will be numerous … [and] the forces we will engage will be few.”
“Ex Scientia — Tridens.” (from knowledge — sea power)
“Gentlemen, one thing I’ve learned at sea is that the procedure manuals are written by people who have never been on the business end of a torpedo with the plant crashing around them, with the captain shouting for power, where a second’s delay can mean death. The meaning of being an officer in our navy is knowing more than those operation manuals, knowing how to play when you’re hurt, when the ship is going down and you need to keep shooting anyway. That’s really it, isn’t it, men? The ability to play hurt. That’s the only way we’ll ever win a war. And in fact, that’s the only way you can live your lives. Do that for me, guys. Learn to play hurt.”
“I still have one torpedo and two main engines.”
PROLOGUE
The last engine died as the plunging aircraft tilted into a steep dead-stick turn, the crosswind shaking the wings, the view ahead filled only with deep blue ocean. The waves grew alarmingly close, coming impossibly fast toward the windshield. A moment later the plane smashed violently into the water.
The pilot was hurled into his seat’s five-point harness, fighting the wheel and the rudder pedals, until the massive four-engine seaplane glided to a halt and began rolling in the gentle swells of the East China Sea. The pilot glanced one last time at the panel and nodded at the copilot. Shrugging off the harness, he moved aft through the flight-deck door and into the large aft cabin. Looking up at him were two dozen pair of eyes, some steely cold, some excited, a few bored, but none anxious.
The pilot turned to the starboard side of the cabin, where a crowded deck-to-overhead console was set against the bulkhead to the cockpit. A small, intense man sat in the console, the panels and keypads and trackballs encircling him. One of the panels graphically depicted the aircraft on the surface, a door opening in the underhull. a ball on a cable lowering into the sea, a set of numbers rolling up as the ball sank into the depths of the ocean. A panel next to the graphic display filled with dots swimming in a darker field, until the dots coalesced into a bright spot moving slowly across the screen.
“She’ll pass close in ten minutes. Commander Chu, five hundred meters east. She’s slow, at fifteen clicks. That puts mount-up time now, deploy time in two minutes, with three minutes of contingency time. It’s tight, but we can do it.”
Commander Chu Hua-Feng stepped to the center of the cabin and looked at the men. Each of them was clad in unmarked black coveralls, their belts holding machine pistols, grenades, and daggers.
“Attention, fighters,” he said, his voice deep, projecting without effort. Thin but muscular, Chu stood one hundred eighty centimeters, taller in his rubber-soled boots, towering over the crew. He was in his mid-thirties, which was odd in the Red Chinese PLA Navy, where senior officers were inevitably gray-haired. He carried himself with the air of unquestioned authority, as if he had been the oldest brother, used to command since infancy. The unblinking eyes of the twenty-four men stared at him.
“We mount up in thirty seconds,” Chu continued. “Rendezvous with the target Korean submarine will be in twelve minutes. Each of you has been training for this moment for the past year. The practice runs are over now. This is it, our operational test.”
Chu paused, narrowing his eyes to a glare. “The doubting eyes of the Admiralty are on us. They have said it can’t be done, that no one can sneak up and steal a nuclear submarine, under way and steaming deep beneath the surface. But when this mission is over, and we prove it can be done, the result will change the map of China. And every one of you knows what that will mean.”
Chu paused again, scanning the faces. His own face crinkled into unlikely laugh lines around his eyes and across his nose. “Very well, men. Good luck to all of you. Mister First, are you ready?”
Lieutenant Commander Lo Sun stood up from the sonar console, stripping off the headset, and nodded.
“Ready, Commander.”
“Excellent. Platoon, mount up!”
Immediately the men stood and filed quickly aft in the gently rocking cabin to the aft bulkhead hatch. One after another the men ducked into the hatchway, until the compartment was empty except for Chu. He looked forward into the cabin, and saw the copilot in the door of the flight deck. Chu flipped him a salute, glanced around the big plane one last time, and entered the opening, shutting the cabin hatch behind him.
Inside the cramped red-lit interior of the submersible, he made his way past the men to the control console forward. The control couch was a contoured pad allowing the pilot to lie on his stomach with his head, shoulders, and arms protruding into a high-pressure plastic view port bubble. This was completely black, as if it had been painted over. Chu strapped on his earpiece and boom mike, tested the circuit, and gave a crisp order to the seaplane copilot. Immediately bright light flashed into the cockpit as the bomb-bay-style doors opened in the belly of the seaplane, admitting the October afternoon light.