The SEALs used small flashlights to check their equipment, then double-check a buddy. With that done, half of them crawled into the Humvees to get out of the soft breeze that had sprung up with sundown. Most of their cammies had dried out, but inside they were still damp. They were used to it. Better than walking around all day in a wet suit. Here the water was like a bathtub.
Murdock used the SATCOM and called the Chief. The radioman brought in the captain.
“Nothing so far on the scanners, Murdock. Been talking to some friends about that transponder idea. We’ve narrowed down the possible kilohertz bands to ten. It should be in that range. We’re in the process of getting a towed array ready to put in the water. It will be a relatively narrow band, but we can do it at the same time we’re working the sweep for the metal below. Once we get it functioning, we’ll send on a band for fifteen seconds. If no response, we’ll shift to the next band. Slow and painful, but it could produce results. Oh, you might have heard a chopper drop in on us a few minutes ago. We have a package for you with complete SCUBA gear and filled air tanks for four.”
“Good. If we get lucky and find the bomb, the tanks are for deep dives to hook on some cables. I assume you can winch up the prize if we find it?”
“No trouble, Commander. Easy. First we find it. Hear that sub is still headed this way.”
“True. We’ll swim with it if it gets inside the bay.”
They signed off and Murdock tried to relax. He had never tried to attack an active submarine before. Any charge big enough to do damage to the sub would also cause serious damage to any SEAL in the water close to it. The concussion would be devastating. But how could they signal the men to get their heads out of the water if one of them planted a bomb on the sub and pushed the timer? He had no idea.
Murdock frowned and looked to the west. He heard something. Then it came through, the whup, whup of a big helicopter. That would be the sub-hunter choppers. Maybe the same kind they had seen before that killed the mini-sub. How many? Two? He kept listening. Lam came over and pointed to the west, and Murdock nodded.
“If they do come in, hope it’s near the point up here,” Lam said. “Make it a hell of a lot more convenient.”
For ten minutes the sound of the helicopters faded in and out. Then it came stronger. The SATCOM, which Murdock had left set up to receive on TAC Two, came to life.
“Hey, Murdock. Looks like you’re going to have company. We can’t get a good enough fix on this one to fire. We tried one shot but had no results. It’s definitely heading into the shallows there around the point of the bay. Maybe a quarter of a mile or so south of you. Our cap says turn it over to you. Good luck. We’re low on juice and going back to Home Base.”
“Roger that, Sunnyside. You say they were maybe a quarter of a mile off the point when they enter the bay?”
“Just a guess. The sub was heading back toward us last hit. I’d figure no more than a quarter or maybe a half mile off the point southwest. You’ve got the con, Murdock.”
Murdock closed down the set and yelled at his men. “On your feet, ladies, we’re going for a swim, and we don’t want to be late for the party.”
18
A quarter of a mile into the bay, the SEALs slowed their surface crawl and looked around. The Chief was on the far end of her grid pattern and turning for another sweep across the target area. Murdock had been wondering why the subchaser helicopters didn’t come right into the bay. There was no thermal layer there for the Chinese to hide under. Be simple to pinpoint it and blow it out of the water with a homing torpedo.
Then he remembered the Chief motoring away through the same waters, and realized the torpedo might just as well home in on the minesweeper. One of them had to give way to the other, and the admiral must have decided to let the Chief have first crack at finding the bomb.
Murdock put into operation a new system. He had the fourteen SEALs ten yards apart and each one held onto a length of one-eighth-inch line. That way they could stay together and stay in communication with each other. If any of the men saw the sub working toward them, they would give two sharp pulls on the rope. The signal would be passed from one man to the next. Three sharp pulls meant to surface at once, the chance of a deadly concussion being imminent.
The SEALs formed a 140-yard screen across the bay. Murdock anchored one end and DeWitt the other. Murdock and the men had talked about the mission. Chances were the sub would stay near the surface to keep away from the deadly bottom.
“He’ll just keep his conning tower under the water,” Murdock said. “My guess. That means we’ll stay at our fifteen feet and cruise. I hope that he knows that the bomb went into this northern section of the bay, so he’ll come in here.”
Now they prowled their turf and waited to see what happened. It could turn out to be a fool’s mission. There was a good chance they would never see the Chinese sub. If they did find it, could they keep up with it? How fast would it move in quarters like this? Five knots? Seven? Could his men catch it and hold on somewhere and hope for a chance to plant some bombs on it? The whole bucket of questions kept churning around in Murdock’s mind.
Every five minutes Murdock broke the surface and took a good look around. He didn’t want the sub to surface and put out a diving party to go after the damn bomb. He’d been up three times now, and had not seen anything except the Chief working its business on the close-in grid around the suspect spot.
No submarine.
Good and bad.
The SEALs swam along at fifteen feet at half their usual speed. There was no rush. They worked out to what Murdock figured was three hundred yards from the suspected drop spot for the bomb. He gave three quick jerks on the line and surfaced. In quick succession the rest of the SEALs came up. He swam down the line, telling them it had been a test and had worked. Next time it would be for real. But that was only if they found the sub and planted some charges.
Murdock had DeWitt lead out the line heading back the way they had come. Murdock picked up his Tail-end Charlie rope and kept watching the water toward the sea. In the dark, visibility was no more than six feet. If they did come on the sub, it might be felt and heard in the water before they actually saw it.
Four times they made the run. Each time at the end they would surface, confer, bitch, and go back for another look. The fifth time, Murdock told them to stay on the surface with a nice steady sidestroke.
Twice they came close to the Chief, but they didn’t get in its way. If it was still moving, that meant they hadn’t found anything. If they did, the captain had said they would stop and work the area with all the power they had. So far it had been moving.
Lam had been in the line right behind Murdock. Now he swam up beside his commander. He had his face mask off and his wet suit hat thrown back off his head. He had one ear in the water and waved at Murdock. He came up and shouted at his chief.
“Something down there wasn’t there before,” Lam said. “I can hear some fucker down there just purring away.”
Murdock pulled his cap off and poked his head underwater. He came up a minute later, grinning.
“Oh, yeah, but where?”
Lam pointed seaward. “Heard something last three or four minutes, Skip. Sure as hell is sounding louder. I think we got ourselves some undersea craft heading our way.”
Murdock gave two sharp pulls on the rope, then three more. SEALs began popping to the surface.