The Steel Wind’s torpedoes had been procured through an astonishingly complex chain of false fronts, weaving through six countries on three continents. The CIA and Office of Naval Intelligence would ultimately devote more than two years to unraveling the twisted trail of evidence. Even then, the investigators would never uncover proof that the German company had knowingly sold advanced armaments to North Korea in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1718.
None of these details mattered to the torpedo closing in on USS Bowie. And no one aboard the destroyer had the slightest interest in the provenance of the weapon that was coming to kill them.
The supercav was still accelerating when the arming section of the warhead detected the magnetic signature of the target vessel. Approximately two seconds later, the signal strength crossed the minimum threshold required to trigger the detonation sequence.
A relay in the arming section should have tripped, providing electrical power to the detonator circuits. Damaged by concussion from the second Sea Bat attack, the relay armature was jammed in the open position. The intended explosion did not occur, but the result was nearly as bad.
Even without its warhead, the supercavitating weapon was three tons of underwater missile moving at 192 knots.
The torpedo impacted the stern ten feet left of centerline and just above the keel. The weapon’s conical nose acted as a force localizer, providing a degree of penetration that the German designers had never intended.
It tore through the reinforced steel hull like a rocket-powered wrecking ball, shattering welds, mangling I-beams, cracking support structures, and buckling deck plates as it went. Behind this moving locus of chaos came the sea, rushing in through the ruptured hull in an unstoppable torrent.
The engineering compartment known as Aft Steering took the brunt of the initial destruction. Housing the immense hydraulic motors that turned the ship’s twin rudders, the compartment was crewed during battle stations. Two enlisted engineers were standing by to take local control of the rudders in the event of a steering failure.
The first engineer was torn apart by shrapnel when the hostile torpedo came bursting through the hull. The second engineer died an instant later, as the inrushing wall of water slammed her into the forward bulkhead with enough force to cave in the side of her head.
Inertia not yet expended, the enemy weapon lanced through into the next compartment, Shaft Alley, trailing more devastation and flooding in its wake.
If the screws had still been turning, the mechanical stresses imparted by 105,000 horsepower per shaft would have magnified the damage several times over. With both propeller shafts stopped, the metallic juggernaut severed electrical cables, shattered piping, and damaged everything in its path, but it did not tear the aft end of the ship apart.
Forward of Shaft Alley was Main Engine Room Number Two, containing a pair of the ship’s gas turbine generators and the electric motor for the port shaft.
Reduced now to a mangled core of burning scrap, the remains of the supercav weapon plowed into the engine room where it struck the isolation enclosure for a Rolls Royce RR4500 turbine. Fragments penetrated the walls of the enclosure, pulverizing the generator and setting fire to fuel that spewed from cracked pipes.
An engineer on the lower level was caught in the expanding fireball. Three others ran for the nearest ladders and began trying to climb faster than the floodwaters.
The broken piping continued to gush fuel, and the flaming oil slick spread itself across the surface of the rising water.
Electrical junction boxes shorted out and power to the engine room failed. The cavernous compartment was plunged into darkness. Battery-powered emergency lanterns tripped on, throwing circles of illumination in the smoke-filled gloom.
When they reached the upper level, the evacuating sailors dogged the watertight door behind themselves. The senior engineer on watch, Gas Turbine System Technician — Mechanical First Class Craig Wagner, broke the plastic seals on the activation handles for both of the main space fire suppression systems.
“Get to a phone and call CCS!” he said to the nearest sailor. “Report a class bravo fire and major flooding in MER 2. Tell ‘em that I’m dumping foam and PEAT!”
The junior engineer ran for a telephone, and Wagner twisted the activation handles.
The first system sprayed hundreds of gallons of high-expansion foam from sprinkler nozzles all over the engine room, blanketing the fuel slick under a layer of suppressant chemical bubbles.
The second handle triggered the new PEAT system (Propelled Extinguishing Agent Technologies), lighting off powdered aerosol dispensers in the overhead of the compartment — pumping out clouds of micron-sized fire retardant particles.
When the status lamps for both systems showed that they had been properly actuated, Wagner nodded toward the remaining engineer. “Let’s get to Repair 2 and report in.”
Both sailors took off up the passageway at a trot.
A blue circular icon appeared on the CDRT screen near the current cross-fix for Gremlin Zero-One. It was the water entry point symbol for the Bowie’s Anvil.
The Sonar Supervisor’s voice came over the net. “USWE — Sonar, we have weapon startup.”
Ensign Moore thumbed his mike button. “USWE, aye. Let me know if it acquires.”
The deck was listing aft and to port, the angle becoming increasingly noticeable as tons of seawater poured in through the gaping holes in the hull.
It was all going wrong. The propulsion plant was out; the ship might be sinking; and some of the crew — he didn’t even know how many — were dead. All because of his stupid idea.
The Sea Bat plan had seemed so ingenious. Such an innovative way to go after the North Korean sub.
Now they were seeing the result of his cleverness.
He watched the blue friendly torpedo symbol close in on Gremlin Zero-One. Any second now, the sub would shift into hyper drive and leave his too-slow weapon behind.
The Sonar Supervisor’s voice came over the tactical net again. “USWE — Sonar. Weapon has…”
His report chopped off in mid sentence as the power tripped off line in CIC.
The CDRT screen went dark, along with the displays of every radar console and operator station.
USS Bowie was now blind, as well as crippled.
“Sonar has torpedo hydrophone effects off the port bow!”
Hwa didn’t hesitate. He stabbed at the transmit button on his communications panel. “Emergency Mode Alpha! Execute!” Then, he jerked the hydraulic control ring to the left, and the periscope began to retract.
Emergency Mode Alpha was the order for immediate transition to supercavitation mode. There was no time to wait for full retraction of the periscope. He would have to risk the consequences of potentially losing it.
There were the two usual heavy thumps as the Chief Engineer hit the solenoid switches for the huge electrically powered dump valves. Next would come the rumble of seawater being rammed into the reactor vessel, where it would flash to steam for the rocket thruster and the capillary bow vents.
But the familiar sound didn’t come. Instead, the heavy thumps were repeated as the Chief Engineer cycled the solenoid switches a second time. And then a third.
The report that came next was no surprise. “Comrade Captain! The solenoids are operating, but the dump valves will not open!”
“Find a way to open them!” Hwa shouted. “Do it now, or we are all dead!”
He wiped his bleeding nose against his sleeve: a crudity he had not allowed himself since childhood. That thought brought back something else from his youth: the memory of a puzzling phrase once spoken by his father’s father. A tiger brought down by crickets.
As a boy, Hwa Yong-mu had never understood the reference. How could a fearsome beast like the tiger be brought down by insects?
The phrase was no longer a mystery to him. The Steel Wind, built to outrun every antisubmarine weapon in the arsenals of the fatherland’s enemies, was being killed — one tiny insect bite at a time.
He grasped the periscope’s control ring, cancelled the retract signal, and reversed it to re-extend the scope. If he couldn’t accelerate to supercavitation speed, at least he could continue the fight.
He returned his face to the light shroud and peered through the scope. The American destroyer was down by the stern and listing to port, but stubbornly afloat. He would change that. It might be too late to save his own vessel, but he would take his enemy to the grave with him.
“Weapons Officer, ready tube two! Prepare for a snap shot!”
“Comrade Captain, the outer door of tube two will not close! We cannot open the inner door to load the tube!”
“Of course you can’t,” Hwa said to himself. “I should have expected as much.”
The American torpedo was now close enough to be heard through the hull. The high-pitched howl of its screws grew louder and more shrill, like the buzzing of an angry insect.
And that was fitting, Hwa supposed. One last cricket, come to bring the final sting of defeat.