He sat at Renard’s right — the traditional chair of the executive officer — between the two Frenchmen in the wardroom. Claude LaFontaine, Renard’s pick as engineering officer, sat beside him.
Jake washed down a piece of bread with an extra cup of coffee and noted that the pot traveled no further than Renard and LaFontaine. The Taiwanese officers drank tea.
“Hey Sean,” Jake said. “Did you drink coffee at UCLA?”
“That stuff’s nasty,” Wu said.
“You must not have had a real academic load, then.”
Wu laughed, but Ye, seated opposite Jake, gave the young officer a stern look.
Renard lowered his coffee cup, reached for his gold-plated Zippo lighter and a Marlboro, and lit up.
“I know you must discipline your men, Commander Ye,” he said. “They are yours and will remain yours after my team and I depart.”
Renard blew a cloud of smoke that billowed into the overhead and crept into the ventilation system.
“But if he’s confident enough to laugh before battle, then let him laugh,” Renard said. “If he’s nervous and wishes to laugh, then let him laugh. I say let them behave naturally until the moment arrives. I’ve watched your men. They are well-trained and focused. Each will do his duty in the face of battle.”
Ye nodded and glanced at a wall clock.
“It is time,” he said.
Renard twisted his arm to expose his Rolex.
“Less than an hour,” he said. “Let’s secure morning meal and let the men putter about for bit. Battle stations in say, thirty minutes?”
Ye nodded.
“So be it,” Renard said. “Good luck to us all.”
Jake wore a cotton jumpsuit that reminded him of an American submarine uniform. He attached a wireless communication set to his web belt and slid a speaker and microphone piece over his ear.
He turned to Renard who sat behind the periscopes. Renard puffed on a cigarette and carried himself with confidence. He appeared invulnerable.
Jake had yet to share his optimism.
“Go on, man,” Renard said. “Take control. I christen thee the tactical coordinator.”
Jake leaned forward.
“Shit, Pierre, I don’t know this submarine well.”
Renard’s face became hard.
“You are supremely qualified to do what you must.”
“I hope so.”
“You fear you are not qualified because you are Admiral Rickover’s bastard son. The father of your nuclear navy trusted no machine, and he demanded that every nuclear-trained sailor know far too much about his equipment.”
Renard waved his hand at the periscope’s hydraulic control valves above him.
“If you don’t know the algorithms behind each fire control program or don’t know the innards of every valve,” he said, “you are not inept. Rickover’s navy would have you believe otherwise, but in fact, the best tacticians pick and choose what they wish to know. True genius is an uncluttered mind armed with only relevant knowledge.”
“I noticed that most of the stuff you sent to me to study was at a functional level. You didn’t send me many design documents,” Jake said.
“Precisely.”
Jake started to believe.
“And you know far more than the Taiwanese,” Renard said. “They’ve never had this technology at their disposal. Their other submarines don’t even have towed array sonar systems or conformal arrays worth using.”
“But this is more advanced stuff than I’m used to.”
“Is it?” Renard asked. “I think not. The processing and human interface is advanced. The acoustic arrays may be more sensitive, but the theory and the employment of the data you know better than most.”
“What about the hole-in-ocean sensor?”
“It is new technology,” Renard said. “You read about it on the aircraft, didn’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“Then you know it well enough, and I submit that you know how to use the data better than anyone.”
Jake found Renard’s confidence contagious.
“Man your station,” Renard said. “We’ll get through this day, mon ami.”
Renard’s confidence surprised him. All his past episodes of combat had been accidents — plans gone wrong. This, his first time choosing to enter battle, felt like the culmination of every step he had taken in his life.
A career as a submarine commander, a strategic advisor, an arms broker, and a tactical planner had led him to this point — a point he believed would find its way into the annals of history. This was his day to dedicate every shred of his existence to swaying the tide of a war in the favor of a democracy. Today was his destiny.
Even with a wife and child, even with mortal fear lurking somewhere deep inside, and even with the lives of dozens of men at stake, he searched within himself for a shred of doubt but found none.
He watched his protégé prance behind the row of men seated at the Subtics monitors. Jake stopped, appeared to listen to his headset, and then leaned over Commander Ye’s shoulder. He and Ye exchanged words, and the American looked up.
“Ship’s rigged for ultra-quiet,” Jake said.
“Very well,” Renard said.
He looked at his Rolex. Eight o’clock in the morning.
Time to become the hunter, he thought.
Less than a minute later, Antoine Remy raised his finger in the air. Like a tiger, Jake pounced and huddled over him.
“The helicopters are pinging,” Jake said. “We’re analyzing their range on the wide aperture array, but it looks like they’re right on time where they need to be.”
Renard glanced at a monitor as seven blue triangles appeared. Thirty miles from the Hai Lang, they spanned a line twenty nautical miles long.
“We have the frigate now,” Jake said. “The Kang Ding is pinging.”
Near the middle helicopter, a blue square appeared on Renard’s screen. A speed-leader from the square — an estimate of the Kang Ding’s speed — pointed toward the central inverted triangle that represented the Hai Lang.
According to his plan, Renard expected the Kang Ding to sweep zigzag lines in the ocean with an average speed of eight knots. Within the three and a half hours it would take the frigate and the helicopters to reach the Hai Lang, he hoped they would roust a target.
He watched a second blue square appear on his monitor in front of the one representing the Kang Ding.
“We can’t hear it,” Jake said, “but I thought I’d track the Tai Ping, too, as long as we know it’s there.”
Renard had cut long, slow lines back and forth across his waiting point. The helicopter, frigate, and silent stealth patrol craft task force had swept eight miles west during the first hour.
A triangle disappeared and reappeared ten minutes later as one helicopter withdrew its dipping sonar and was replaced by a refueled aircraft. The relieved helicopter headed toward the frigate to refuel, return, and relieve the next in the line. A taxing workload on the flight crew, Renard knew, but worth the effort.
Renard heard the day’s first enthusiastic report.
“Helicopter five is range-gating,” Jake said. “Shortened ping cycles. It’s got something!”
“Our aspect in helicopter five’s direction?”
“Optimal,” Jake said. “We’re broadside enough for all sensors. If that helicopter rousts him, we’ll hear it.”
“The frigate,” Remy said. “It has stopped pinging.”
“Per plan,” Renard said. “The helicopter has informed the group of its discovery, and the frigate has gone quiet so that the Tai Ping can identify the contact. The helicopter next to number five should also attempt a passive search. Active return only finds but does not classify an enemy. They must now listen.”