The Chinese had also nearly closed the gap with the electronics and sonar systems that the U.S. Navy used. The Xian’s computers ran noise-filtering and noise-recognition software that made the Xian’s sonar operators, for the first time, competitive with those on American submarines. And the Xian’s satellite link meant that it could get regular updates on ships far outside its sonar range. The combination meant that the Xian could avoid the submarines and frigates that formed the outer cordon of American battle groups and get within torpedo range of the big prizes, the destroyers and cruisers and carriers that were the heart of the United States fleet.
And at that point the Xian had an even more unpleasant surprise for the American navy.
INSIDE THE XIAN, Tong read over the order one final time and tucked it into his pocket. “Retract the buoy,” he murmured to his communications officer. Then, to his operations officer, “Any change in the target’s direction?”
“No, sir. Still one-eighty at twenty knots”—directly south, toward the Xian, which was cruising north—“at fifteen knots. Range now seventy kilometers”—about forty miles.
“Take us to sixty meters”—two hundred feet, in the middle of the thermocline.
“Yes, sir.” The ops officer tapped the touch screen in front of him a few times and the Xian began to ascend, so gracefully that Tong could hardly feel it rise.
“Set us on combat status.”
“Yes, sir.” The officer tapped his screen three more times. All over the submarine, LCD panels turned from a steady green to a flashing yellow, warning the Xian’s crew that an attack might be imminent and that silence — always important on a submarine — was more crucial than ever.
“And ready the Typhoons for launch.”
Tong felt the surprise in the room as he spoke. The ops officer paused, only for a second, before he answered.
“The Typhoons. Yes, sir.”
The control room was nearly silent now. On his control monitor Tong saw the Xian slowly rise toward the surface: 150 meters… 140… 130… The officers and crew moved precisely, no wasted motion, not even wasted breath, yet the anticipation in the cramped room was palpable. These men all knew now what they were about to do. And they were ready.
TWENTY MINUTES LATER TONG’S MONITOR briefly flashed red, alerting him that they were now twenty kilometers — about twelve miles — from the target, within range of the Typhoons. The Xian carried two of them, Chinese versions of the Russian VA-111 Shkval.
Though they were called torpedoes, Shkvals were basically short-range cruise missiles that targeted ships, and the Russians had never been able to make them work properly. They often outran their guidance systems and badly missed their targets. They also had an unnerving habit of swinging back on the subs that launched them. When the Kursk, a Russian nuclear sub, sank in the Barents Sea in 2000, there were rumors, never proven, that a malfunctioning Shkval had caused the accident. For whatever reason, after the Kursk went down, the Russians stopped trying to build Shkvals.
Despite those problems, China’s admirals had seen the Shkval’s potential as they searched for a weapon that might overcome the American fleet. At a secret lab outside Shanghai, their naval scientists had spent five years redesigning the missile’s guidance systems and engine. And they’d succeeded. In tests off Hong Kong in the last two years, the Typhoon had proven capable of successful launches from as far as twenty-five kilometers out — about fifteen miles.
But those targets were obsolete oil tankers, not American destroyers with the most advanced counter-torpedo systems in the world. No one in the Chinese navy really knew how the Typhoon would perform in combat.
They were about to find out, Tong thought.
“Reduce speed to ten knots,” he said.
“Yes, sir.”
“Do we have final visual confirmation?”
The operations officer tapped his screen again, and there it was, a recon photo straight from the satellite overhead, time-stamped 12:55, the big gray boat cutting sturdily through the waves, the photograph’s resolution good enough to reveal the big “73” painted in white on its side.
The DDG-73. The USS Decatur.
Tong admired the precision with which his commanders had calculated this mission. Despite all China’s progress, America still thought that China was a poor backward nation unworthy of respect. The Decatur had killed twenty-two Chinese, and the United States had not even apologized.
Today China would have its revenge. The Xian would fire one Typhoon, enough to cripple the destroyer but not sink it. An eye for an eye, as the Americans said. And the Americans would learn what they should have already known, that they needed to treat the People’s Republic as an equal.
“Reduce speed to three knots.” The Typhoons had one great weakness. They could be launched only when the Xian was nearly stopped. But since the Decatur had no idea that the Xian was in the vicinity, the submarine’s speed hardly mattered.
“Yes, sir.” The Xian slowed perceptibly.
“Prepare to dive to two hundred meters on my command.” Hit or miss, Tong didn’t plan to hang around once he launched. The Americans would expect him to flee west, to the Chinese coast. Instead he planned to take the Xian southeast, into the open ocean, and depend on the sub’s ability to stay silent.
The combat center was hushed now, every man looking at Lieutenant Han, the sub’s weapons control officer. Tong nodded to Han. “Fire.”
“Away,” Han said quietly.
The Xian shifted slightly as the Typhoon left its hull. Tong heard — or maybe just felt — the hum as the underwater missile accelerated away. A couple of his men gave each other tentative thumbs-up signals, but Tong didn’t even smile. “Now dive,” he said. They would have time later to savor what they’d done. If they survived.
TWO HUNDRED FEET ABOVE THE XIAN, and ten miles north, Captain Henry Williams sat in the Decatur‘s combat information center. He was glad to be well off the coast, out of range of Chinese captains who might want to avenge the previous week’s accident by trying to ram his ship.
The Navy had finished its preliminary inquiry into the crash. As Williams had expected, it had found he’d done nothing wrong. Still, the days since the accident had been difficult. Willams couldn’t understand why a bunch of college students had thought that playing games with an American destroyer would be a good idea.
So now the Decatur was cruising loops in the East China Sea, and Williams was splitting his time between his ship and the Reagan, where he’d met three times with the Navy’s internal investigators. He’d even lost the pretty L.A. Times reporter, Jackie, who’d gotten bored after a couple days sailing laps and headed back to the Reagan. Probably for the best, Williams thought glumly. Neither he nor his men believed they had caused the accident, but killing twenty-two civilians didn’t do wonders for morale. Even in the combat center, his officers seemed to be moving at three-quarters speed. Maybe he ought to call a meeting, make sure his men knew they’d done nothing wrong.