Starboard side forward in the central cluster of command workstations, the Aegis systems manager methodically ran the Cunningham’s primary radar through a repetitive series of readiness checks. The mighty SPY-2A emitter arrays that belted the destroyer’s superstructure were powered down while running in stealth mode, but the receptors were active, stealth and intelligence divisions both accessing them for data input on the local signals environment.
The systems operator had just initiated a frequency-scan sequence into the system when he hesitated. He had had a test display dialed up on one of his repeaters and, just for a second, a series of faint ghost targets seemed to dance across the screen. The radar specialist frowned. That sure as hell was not supposed to happen when they were not radiating.
He started to troubleshoot.
It didn’t occur to him that, for that instant, the operating frequencies of the Cunningham’s radar receiver had exactly matched that of the Red Chinese Fin Curve transmitter. If it had, the operator would have paid considerably more attention.
He was aware of the phenomenon of UAF reflection: the receiving of a return produced by someone else’s radar wave.
They were thirty-five minutes into the run.
“Raven’s Roost. This is the bridge. How is it coming, Chris?”
“The mine charting is going good,” came the cautious reply, “but the Elint scan hasn’t developed too much. We’re still working it.”
“Let’s not take all night about it, Lieutenant. We can’t hang around out here forever.”
Rain sheeted across the bridge windscreen now. Multiple windshield wipers slashed at it futilely, while along the inside curve, blowers rumbled, struggling to keep the humidity haze at bay. The bridge air-conditioning was losing the fight against the sauna bath exterior environment.
Moving around to the bridge-wing door again, Amanda popped the latch and slid back the pocket panel. Inhaling deeply, she strove for one real breath amid the growing oppression.
Out in the night, the Five Fifteen boat of the Red Chinese hydrofoil squadron rocked deeply at its mooring. Her skipper peered over the side and frowned. That had almost felt like a wake effect. For a long minute he peered out into the rainswept darkness, then shrugged the thought away.
Lieutenant (j.g.) Charles Foster appeared at the entrance of Raven’s Roost. “Hey, Lieutenant, you want to come over to Sonar Alley for a second? We might have something for you.”
“Right with you.” Christine Rendino hurriedly followed the junior officer.
Sonar Alley was one of the four subsystem bays that angled off the Combat Information Center. It was located port side forward, diagonally across from the Intelligence center.
“Okay, Chuck, give me a thrill. Whatcha got?”
The sonarman adjusted his glasses in a quick nervous gesture.
With brush haircut and a perennial air of boyish earnestness, Foster was a submariner doing a tour in the surface forces as part of the branch officer exchange program. Currently, he held sway over the Duke’s extensive ASW suite.
“We’re not exactly sure, ma’am,” he replied. “We’ve started picking up a group of sound contacts on the passive arrays. Multiple sources somewhere up the river, sounds like it might be a convoy forming up. You asked to be notified if we detected anything unusual, and I was wondering if this would count.”
“Could be. Let’s give it a listen.”
They crowded in around one of the systems operators. Unjacking their headsets from their belt interphone units, they plugged into the console’s audio access points. Silently, they listened for a moment.
“Hear ‘?”
“Yeah.” Christine nodded. “How would you call it?”
“Several single and twin medium-speed screws. Maybe minesweeps or some other kind of small auxiliary. But there are three or four big, slow-turning wheels in there too.”
“Do you have a blade count yet? Plant noises?”
Foster shook his head. “Not so far. The contact is ducting weird, a lot of fading and distortion. I think these guys might be coming down that smaller river that leads directly into Shanghai. What d’you call it, the Huangpu? I think we’ll get a cleaner listen at them when they actually get out into the main Yangtze estuary.”
“Okay, Chuck. Fa’ sure, keep working it.”
“Think we might have something here?”
“We’ll see.”
On the Five Nineteen boat Bosun Hoong looked out from beneath the scrap of tarpaulin he had been using for a storm shelter. “Looks like the raindragon is passing, Lieutenant.”
On the Cunningham’s bridge, a mental load-bearing relay within Amanda Garrett’s subconscious tripped: It’s time to go. Now! Get out of here!
She keyed her interphone mike. “Raven’s Roost, this is the bridge. Chris, I need a sitrep. Are you onto anything positive yet?”
“Nothing to write home about, Boss Ma’am,” the reluctant reply came back. “I’d like to push it a little longer if we could.”
“Negative. I’m not going to keep the ship at risk for a dry hole. We’re sheering off.”
Amanda glanced over her shoulder at Vince Arkady’s dark outline behind the helm stations. “Officer of the Deck, we’ll be opening the range from the coast. Stand by to come left.”
“Very good, Captain. Helm and lee helm stations, stand by to alter heading.”
Amanda turned back to the navigational display, selecting a departure course on the glowing coastal chart. She had formed the order in her mind and was about to issue it when Christine Rendino’s voice crackled over the interphone.
“Captain! Hold it! We’ve got something here!”
The rain was easing, fading back into a hazy drizzle again.
Lieutenant Zhou Shan looked up sharply. Bosun as well. He had heard it too. Now that the hissing beat of the rain on the wave crests had passed, a new sound had become audible on the deck of the Five Nineteen boat: the unmistakable whispering whine of a gas turbine power plant.
“Stay with me, Captain,” Christine pleaded into her mike as she dashed across the confined internal space of the CIC to Sonar Alley.
“Okay, Foster, what’s going down?”
The sonar boss looked up from his panels, excitement and concern vying for control of his expression. “That group of sound contacts have exited out into the estuary. Their signature has clarified and we have a blade count! We’ve got three big targets up there, each running on a single, large, seven-bladed screw!”
“Are you sure!”
“Positive! We’re still running‘ through the data annex for a positive hull ID, but they just tacked on some extra speed, and I swear to God, I heard a series of reactor flow valves pop!”
“Ahhh, Foster. I love you and I want to have your children!”
Christine tilted the stunned j. g.‘s face up and planted an enthusiastic kiss full on his lips, then she was gone, scrambling back out into the central CIC space.
“Captain, I need permission to drop EMCON!”
“What!”
“For one second! I need to use the SPY-2A arrays to conduct a single, full-power sweep upriver. That’s all. The odds are that any Red monitoring station will record it as just a transitory glitch of some kind. Captain, I don’t have time to explain, but this is what we came here for!”
There was a moment’s hesitation. The other members of the CIC team, drawn in by Christine’s exclamation, waited with her for the reply.
Then it came. “Very well.”
Amanda’s voice shifted from the interphone to the overhead loudspeakers.