Below Chu, in the view port, the sea lapped steadily against the doors of the bay. Chu glanced up at an overhead console and pulled an orange T-handle, releasing the submersible Red Dagger from the seaplane. Chu’s stomach flipped as the vessel tumbled from the plane’s bay. The waves rose to meet the view port, then splashed over the plastic bubble. As the ten-meter-long ship sank into the water, the view showed only deep blue, becoming darker as the heads-up display indicated the depth of the submersible. Within a minute the view port was again black, the waves and the seaplane now a hundred meters overhead.
The submarine loomed ahead in the powerful spotlights, long and cylindrical and fat and black. The escape hatch was his landing target. The submersible’s computer took over on automatic control, guiding them down to the hatch, attempting to match the submarine’s speed and bring down their airlock skirt precisely over the hatch ring.
According to the intelligence brief from Mai Sheng, his PLA intelligence contact, the sub was the Korean vessel Dae Gu, a Los Angeles 6881-class submarine, formerly the USS Louisville, sold to Korea four years ago under an American program allowing U.S. allies to purchase older nuclear-powered attack submarines as long as Americans were allowed to monitor and control the nuclear material of the reactor core. The intel brief had described the escape hatch location where Chu was to make his landing. The airlock led below to the sparsely occupied engine room of the huge vessel.
With a gentle thud the submersible Red Dagger touched down on the deck of the target submarine. Chu flooded a ballast tank, making the submersible heavier by a few tons. That would keep it fast to the submarine’s deck. A quiet hiss sounded as the airlock at the underhull was pumped down, creating an air seal between the submersible and submarine hatches.
The docking was complete. Chu powered down the submersible, leaving only minimal power on for the interior lights and the computer. Chu pulled himself off the control couch, his muscles aching from the cramped position, and moved aft out of the cockpit. Lo Sun operated the hatch panel. Large steel dogs rotated, and the lower hatch slowly retracted into the submersible hull. Below, bathed in the hot spotlight circle, the black hatch of the submarine was revealed. There was not much to it, only a circular groove cut in the black non-skid paint of the hull, the metal still wet from the seawater.
Chu pulled a T-wrench from the tool bag on the bulkhead.
In the center of the hatch below was a small hole with a square metal peg recessed into it. Submarine hatches had been manufactured to ISO standards for the last few decades; that way a sunken submarine could be rescued by any foreign ship happening by. Sub escape hatches could be operated by anyone with a standard salvage tool kit. Chu bent over and spun the T-wrench clockwise until he heard and felt a metallic clunk. He looked up at Lo.
“Set time minus one. Platoon, don equipment.”
Chu shrugged into a harness with a dual scuba-type air bottle. Grabbing a gas mask hanging from the hose to the bottles’ regulator, he hung it around his neck.
Then he belted on two automatic pistols and a bandolier of grenades. Finally, he fitted his earpiece and boom microphone, looked up at his men, and saw that they were ready.
“Mr. Lo, set time zero when I pull up the hatch. There’ll be an indication in their control room as soon as we open it. I want the ship taken within two minutes. Insert on my mark. Five, four, three, two, one, now!”
Chu plunged his fingers into a recessed groove and pulled up the hatch. Despite its mass, it was mounted on a counterbalanced spring and came up easily. Chu latched it in the open position, found the ladder down into the escape trunk, and noiselessly slid down the rails into the dark chamber. Switching on a battle lantern to see, he bent low to spin the central chrome wheel of the lower hatch. He pulled it up and latched it. The hatch opened into the brightness of the engine room below.
The sound of whining turbines came up from the hatch, accompanied by a cloud of heavy steam.
Chu slid down the second ladder. As his boots hit the deck of the engine room, he raised his AK-80 automatic pistol in his right hand, the long silencer screwed in. He stepped away from the ladderway as his men came down behind him, their boots quiet on the rungs. Chu walked silently aft past the motor control center to the nuclear control space. He looked in the narrow side door. The men inside were deeply involved in a conversation, the Korean syllables melodic in the space.
Chu snapped off three rounds per man, efficiently dropping the nearest at the throttle, the next two at a long console. The officer standing behind the three men looked over in confusion. His expression became a death mask as two bullets silently ripped into his chest. He sank to the floor slowly, his eyes shutting as his face clunked onto the deck.
After Chu waved one of his men into the room, he continued aft, dropping his spent clip and reloading without looking down. The noise grew to a shrieking roar of steam. He saw a figure between the two large turbines.
Chu fired and hit the man in the bicep. The man, an older officer, lunged in an attempt to hide, but Chu raced in and squeezed off another four rounds into the man’s chest. Blood began to run on the deckplates of the catwalk between the turbines as Chu continued aft.
He found another watchstander aft of the reduction gear and killed him, then ducked down a ladder to the middle level. There’d be one down here too. It took less than sixty seconds to find the man, standing between two turbines with a clipboard, checking a gauge. Suddenly he clutched his chest, blood spurting over his palm. Too late he looked up to see Chu, then sprawled onto the deck.
By the time Chu returned from the lower level, he found his platoon gathered at the opening to a ladder.
Lo Sun motioned them to the port side, where he’d located the duct leading to the fan room forward of the reactor compartment, where the air was redistributed throughout the ship. Chu gave the signal, and the men strapped on their gas masks. They checked the seals and valves in their regulators. Chu put his face into his own mask, testing the coppery, dry air. Then he fired four shots, shattering the mesh covering the duct. He took a grenade from his belt, pulled the pin, and hurled it into the duct, waiting to hear it explode. There was no loud report, only a dull thud as the hydrogen cyanide canister burst apart. The deadly gas would now be sucked to the fan room.
The door to the control room was open. As Chu hurried in and looked around, the dead men registered first.
They seemed to be everywhere. Considering how choked the room was with equipment, he was surprised that the American technology required so many individuals to run the ship. On his right was a ship-control station, where two men were slumped over airplane-style control yokes. One of his men pulled a Korean helmsman up from his seat, tossing him into the forward passageway, then taking the control yoke himself. Others did likewise, until the passageway was piled with bodies and the men of the Red Dagger platoon occupied every control station. Chu stepped up onto the periscope stand and checked the room. The two men at the ship-control consoles were maintaining depth at what the numerals said 550. That must be feet rather than meters, he thought, recalling the depth of the submersible and the fact that the deck had never taken a down angle during their assault. The speed indicator read 15, which would mean knots instead of meters per second.