It was becoming clear that they were on a long, 600-mile ride out into the Pacific, and that the officers of the submarine were fervently hoping the Xiangtan would give up and leave. The SEALs were of the opinion that they had fought quite enough battles for one weekend, and they would deeply appreciate getting back to the aircraft carrier without being caught in the middle of another one.
“Right now I’m overexploded,” said Paul Merloni.
Meanwhile, out in the Xiangtan, Colonel Lee was under-exploded, and the conundrum that faced him was growing more pressing by the hour. At this stage, 400 miles east of the hunting ground off Xiachuan Dao, they were driving through pitch-black, rainy seas in the small hours of Tuesday morning, July 18.
They were in the northern waters of the 200-mile-wide Luzon Strait, which separates the south coast of Taiwan from the Philippines. In an area strewn with shoals and tiny islands, they were in steeply shelving waters that were sometimes 4,000 feet deep, sometimes 6,000. Right now the lead American frigate, Kaufman, was heading for the Bashi Channel, which leads steadily through the shoals and out into some really bottomless water, three miles deep.
Shantou had already expressed concern about her fuel situation, and Colonel Lee realized that even the vast tanks of Xiangtan could not last forever, especially at these high speeds. Four hundred miles from now he would have to consider turning back. Even Admiral Zhang in his current state of mind must know he could not run fast for more than three or four days.
Also, if Shantou turned back, he would be in a very exposed position, in massively deep water. If the Americans decided to sink him way out here in these desolate acres of the Pacific, no one would ever really know what had happened. He and his crew could end up on the bottom, a mile deeper than the Titanic, and it had taken over a half century to find her.
It seemed to Colonel Lee that the sooner he made his move the better, because the farther they went the more the advantage swung toward the Americans. The trouble was that he could not work out quite what to do. Neither could any of the officers who sailed with him. The task presented by the plainly deranged Admiral Zhang was an order formed by a madman.
Here he was, hundreds of miles from either help or a Chinese base, surrounded by three American guided missile frigates and a monstrous American cruiser, and he was supposed to (a) find the damaged American submarine they were all protecting and (b) attack it, in the face of the superpower’s armed escort. Was this crazy, or what?
And how to conduct his attack? He could scarcely use depth charges, because the submarine was plainly right underneath the frigate Kaufman. Mortar charges were a kind of lunatic possibility, but the mortars carried by Xiangtan were only the old FQF 2500s, which had a range of 1,200 meters. Therefore, from his current position, astern of the Kaufman, which was making 27 knots, he would somehow have to come in a mile closer and throw the mortars forward straight over the American frigate, which would then watch them plop into the water out ahead.
At that point Lee and his crew probably would have about one minute to live, maximum, before the shuddering power of Vella Gulf’s big Harpoon guided missiles slammed them all into oblivion. Also, the chances of one of the mortar charges actually hitting Greenville, and exploding, were, by Colonel Lee’s reckoning, remote.
The gun was no good, because the submarine was still under the water. Helicopters were no good because the Americans would blow them out of the sky in about two minutes. Which left only torpedoes. If Colonel Lee was going to put Greenville on the bottom, he would have to launch two of their Yu-2 active/passive homing weapons, and he assessed the chances of success at only fifty-fifty. The torpedoes could not go in passive because of the noisemaker off the stern of Kaufman.
They would have to use active homing, and they still might not be fast enough. However, he could program them with a 50-foot ceiling, which meant they would not go for anything up to 50 feet below the surface. Right below that, they should find the USS Greenville.
And the chances of the Americans NOT knowing the torpedoes were on their way in? Zero, was Colonel Lee’s guess.
And so they all thundered on east, Shantou running out of fuel fast. By midafternoon her captain had made his decision, and he contacted Xiangtan to announce he would have to turn back. “I am, sir, reaching the point of no return. If I run for another hour at this speed I may not get back at all.”
Colonel Lee, now almost 700 miles away from the coast of his homeland, decided that he also must make his move. He informed Shantou he would run for another 100 miles and then he, too, would try to turn back, but he had a private mission to complete for Admiral Zhang before he did so. He could see no point in Shantou remaining on station to go down with him.
At 1630 the Americans saw the Chinese frigate turn away and began to head back toward the west. But they noted that Xiangtan kept right on coming, all on her own, matching them for speed. She was a big ship to be showing such singleminded hot pursuit, and the four American surface commanders wished as one that she would get the hell away, and go follow the goddamned frigate home for a nice bowl of rice.
Kaufman’s sonar room got on the underwater telephone and informed Tom Wheaton that one of the Chinese warships had turned back.
“The little one, I guess?”
“Aye, sir. The destroyer’s still there, coupla miles astern.”
The conversation was short, but Colonel Lee’s men picked it up and were grateful for it, since it confirmed that their quarry was still very much within striking range.
And now Colonel Lee ordered an increase in speed, winding Xiangtan up to 30 knots. And as he did so, Captain Freeburg began a wide swing way out to her port side, settling in a position eight miles off the Chinese beam, the precise range he would need for an accurate launch of his McDonnell Douglas Harpoon surface-to-surface missiles with their big, ship-killing 227-kilogram warheads. Those things fire high, right out of the big stern-mounted quad launchers, then tip over and lose height before leveling off and screaming in at wavetop height at almost 900 knots, active-radar homing, just about unstoppable. Someone fires those babies at you, you need sharp eyes, a life jacket and a prayer book. And while Chuck Freeburg had no intention of beginning anything, under his present orders, one false move and the Chinaman was history.
Kaufman had her eyes glued on the destroyer and noticed the increase in speed. They had an open line from the ops room direct to Vella Gulf, where Chuck Freeburg was preparing his Harpoon missiles for launch, if necessary.
It was 1645 when the Chinese commanding officer decided that at roughly a mile he was close enough.
Not that he knew precisely where Greenville was. Only the general area, under Kaufman. And even that was sheer guesswork. And to act on that guesswork amounted to his own death warrant.
All he could do was to fire his torpedoes into that area on the outside chance they would find Greenville.
“Left standard rudder…steer zero-eight-zero. STAND BY ONE AND TWO TUBES.”