Kramer appraised Scott’s haggard looks, the fresh dressing on his hand, the bruises and scrapes on his face. What he saw underscored the seriousness of their mission. “Captain, every man aboard knows what we have to do and how important it is that we find the Red Shark. Our families are at home and, well, it’s personal now.”
It was personal, Scott thought, personal for himself, Kramer, the officers and enlisted men aboard the Reno; for Radford, Ellsworth, the president, and the thousands of Americans who would die if the attack succeeded; for the millions who would survive and whose lives would be changed forever; for the cities that would be left in smoking ruins after nuclear attacks by terrorists.
He thought about Tracy, hopefully safe in Tokyo, surprised yet not surprised that he cared and felt a sharp pang of guilt. The bond they’d re-formed in the short time they’d been together in Tokyo was tenuous yet real, even though he’d forgotten all about her in the rush to save Fumiko and break open the terrorist plot. He could have called Tracy from Yokosuka, told her to wait for him, but why should she? Now it was too late for him to do or say anything that would change her mind.
“Captain, excuse me.” It was the Reno’s plot-control coordinator, Lieutenant Rodriguez. “Request a nav fix.”
The Reno had steamed west of the Ryukyu Trench and was now speeding over a region of deep ocean bottom faults and uplifts. In another hour they would cross over into the wide continental shelf, a relatively featureless and flat abyssal plain under the East China Sea. Ocean bottom contour position plotting, which relied on feature-matching for its accuracy, was at a disadvantage over smooth surfaces. A nav fix from global positioning satellites would update the Reno’s inertial navigation system and thereafter provide extremely accurate plotting data that would prove essential if and when the Reno made contact with the Red Shark.
“Let’s take a look,” Scott said.
He and the two officers moved to one of the two plotting tables aft of the watch station. The quartermaster of the watch had taped tracing paper over the navigation chart and on it had penciled in the Reno’s track. The quartermaster pointed to a dot that represented the Reno’s current position on the track.
“Sir, if we can get a fix now, we won’t have to take time to update later if things get hot. Plus with our RDT we don’t have to slow down or come to PD.”
Scott noted their depth on the digital display: 620 feet. He turned to Kramer and said, “Can we piggyback our nav updates with high-data rate capture from SRO and Yokosuka?”
“No, sir, can’t do both simultaneously. We have to reconfigure for each capture. Only takes a few minutes to make the switch.”
“We’re due for an SVTC conference in less than an hour. By then we’ll be crossing the continental shelf. From seven hundred fathoms to less than a hundred,” Scott snapped his fingers, “just like that.” He pointed to the line of demarcation on the chart where the ocean’s depth changed from 4,200 feet to less than 600. “And it’ll only get shallower the closer we get to the China coast.” He pushed away from the plotting table. “Permission granted to update. When you’re finished, break out charts of the coast south of Shanghai. Let’s see if we can figure out where the Red Shark might be hiding.”
Radford looked frightful on the split SVTC transmission from Washington. Exhausted and drawn, he chain-smoked as he spoke. “A few hours ago we intercepted a message to Admiral Chou at North Sea Fleet Headquarters transmitted from what we are pretty sure is a PLAN submarine on patrol in an area south of Dingdao. To summarize, the message indicated that the unit had made and then lost contact with a DPRK submarine. The PLAN message states that they are in the process of making an end around to hunt for this submarine near Rizhao.”
“Has to be the Red Shark,” said Scott, glancing at Kramer, who had joined him for the broadcast conference in the control room. Kramer nodded agreement. “Seems to confirm, General, that the NKs have a 213 on the loose,” Scott added.
“Indeed, except that we’ve been over our archived material and can’t find a thing that points to its existence. No satellite material or electronic intercepts. I just don’t see how we missed it.” Radford was still distressed over SRO’s having been surprised by the existence of the advanced North Korean boat.
“Anything new on satellite?” Scott said, pressing on, thinking that Radford could rake his fingers through the dead coals looking for clues later; right now he had a live sub to find.
“Yes, Ms. Kida can fill you in on that. By the way, she’s working for us now.”
She appeared on the other half of the monitor looking tired but alert. The brightness Scott liked to see had returned to her eyes, and the bruise on her face had been covered up by skillful application of makeup. “Greetings, Captain Scott. And to your crew.”
“Thank you. I’m pleased to see you looking fit again.”
“The U.S. Navy’s taking good care of me.”
“Your family, they were unharmed?”
“Yes.” She lowered her eyes. “But Higashi-san was considered part of our family. His death has hit my parents very hard.”
“I’m sorry, Fumiko. Very sorry. Please tell your father.”
At length she looked up and said, “I will.” She cleared her throat. “We have updated satellite imagery, which, after analysis, we believe shows the North Korean sub. We’ll have another update in eight hours. For now the coordinates you see on the monitor are the latest we have, and they jibe with the position of the PLAN sub at the time of its contact transmission to North Sea Fleet Headquarters. As you can see from the heat bloom — and it’s very faint — the DPRK sub has indeed moved south to Rizhao.”
“Yes, I see it — barely. We’ll adjust our search protocol accordingly.”
Kramer was busy roughing out courses and search patterns based on the information Fumiko had just provided. He leaned into Rodriguez, who was standing at the portside plotting table, and filled him in.
“General, anything from the Philippines?” asked Scott.
“The president has spoken to Santos. He’s offered full cooperation and is assembling a special-ops contingent of Filipino Special Forces for insertion along with our people. Colonel Jefferson is with a recon unit that lifted out of Guam an hour ago. We’ve narrowed the search for the terrorists to an abandoned port facility in Santa Cruz, south of Davao City.”
“What are the Japanese saying about Tokugawa?”
“They’re still reporting Tokugawa was murdered and nothing more. The DG, as you might expect, has threatened to go to the prime minister with all of this, but I told him that if he did, things would turn ugly fast, especially over what happened to Ms. Kida and the cover-up by Kubota.”
“Have the North Koreans said anything?” asked Scott.
“Not a word. Ambassador Cummings is meeting with their UN representative later today and will tell him to his face that we know about Red Shark and the weapons and the base in the Philippines. Ms. Kida, do you have anything to add?”
“General, just a thought, that if Captain Scott can find the Red Shark, perhaps he can force her captain to surrender.”
“What do you think about that, Scott?” asked Radford.
“If we can find her we’ll likely have only one chance to nail her. Sorry, Fumiko, but I’m not planning to negotiate with her skipper.”
“Very well,” Radford said. “We’ll update you if something breaks, say at the UN.”