After his coffee and snack finally arrived, the president took a moment to refuel before spending the next two hours browsing through dozens of pages of Chinese misdeeds and transgressions leading up to the present situation. China had long been challenging the US maritime presence in the Strait of Malacca, as well as the South China Sea.
Removing his reading glasses, Macklin decided it was time to give the Chinese leadership in Beijing something to consider, especially after they had provoked US Naval vessels on a number of occasions, including this most recent incident.
And then the bastards claimed we were violating their airspace.
Macklin rubbed his temples, feeling a headache coming, but that didn’t stop him from conceptualizing a plan that would be overt in some ways and covert in others. The president wanted the leadership in Beijing to become paranoid about their military standing in South and East Asia. Flexing their military and economic powers, the Chinese were in the initial process of restoring their supremacy in the Asian region.
President Macklin, in order to maintain the United States military preeminence in the Western Pacific, needed to send Beijing a strong, unequivocal message. If China continued to challenge America’s military position in the region, Beijing and her alliances in Southeast Asia would suffer great losses, both militarily and economically.
The president knew the risk factor, but the alternative would be more pokes and jabs from the Chinese. The time had arrived to paint a new picture for the combined civilian and military leadership in Beijing.
The time had arrived to “go downtown” on China.
A few hours later, Hartwell Prost, General Les Chalmers, and Admiral Denny Blevins assembled in the Situation Room for their scheduled session.
Reading glasses in hand, Macklin stepped in as everyone took their seats. “Gentlemen, I’ll come right to the point,” the president said firmly. “With Vinson floating in the strait, we’re in a very tenuous position, and I intend to take some major threats off the table.”
All eyes were riveted on Macklin as he continued his discourse. “I want to confront these threats before they emerge. Send a strong, tough message to those who might consider harming us in any way.”
Turning to Prost, Macklin asked, “Did you deliver the package?”
“Yes, sir. President Jiechi should have it by now.”
Macklin nodded. “Good. Unfortunately, though, I can’t wait for him to rein in his damn generals, Hart. If he can’t get his military under control, pretty soon he will not have a military to control.”
“What… what do you have in mind, sir?” Prost inquired.
The president smiled before explaining his plan.
“Bobby, i have not traveled across the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea, and gotten my ass chewed off by COMSUBPAC twice, just to miss him now,” Cmdr. Frank Kelly groaned to his XO.
“Gotta give that old Soviet Navy some credit, boss,” Lt. Cmdr. Robert Giannotti replied quietly. “They sure knew how to train their skippers.”
Kelly shook his head at the bizarre turn of events following the sinking of Morgenthau and the interrogation of the freighter crew by CIA contractors. That had prompted Commander, US Pacific Fleet (COMPACFLT) to order COMSUBPAC to order the Mighty Mo on a course directly to Vinson, where he had been lying in wait, engines off, for the ghost sub to make its move.
The commander cringed. The bastard had indeed made one, shooting three torpedoes at the carrier — a move that had telegraphed its position. But the nimbler Seahawk had beaten Missouri to the punch, firing three torpedoes in return and apparently damaging it. Now Kelly once more waited in complete silence, drifting at one hundred feet near its last known location.
“Training or not,” Giannotti added, “that Russian skipper has some balls trying to go after another carrier. I mean, he had to know we’re onto him, right?”
Kelly shrugged. He just wanted to finish this and give his brother — and everyone else who had lost relatives or friends aboard North Dakota—some sense of closure. And then get whatever ass he had left back to the Indian Ocean, where he didn’t have to worry about enemy subs.
“Conn, sonar,” Petty Office Second Class Marshon Chappelle said from the quiet sonar station, which Kelly had boosted by deploying a TB-33 towable sonar array two hundred feet from the stern to give them some rear coverage.
“Sonar, conn,” Kelly calmly replied. “Chappy, tell me some good news for a change.”
“Sorry, sir,” Chappelle reported as he stared at his waterfall display. “Not a thing — he has to be lying stationary on the bottom.”
“I think our boy’s right,” Kelly whispered to his XO. “Bastard’s on the bottom, playing possum, waiting for us to go away.”
“Could be,” Giannotti said. “That grinding sound that Chappy recorded had to be from battle damage. Unless… it was a ruse to throw us off. He may have used a decoy. The weird noise is certainly a new twist.”
Kelly crossed his arms, considered the possibility, and quickly discarded it. “I don’t think so, and neither do you.”
The large XO shrugged. “Why don’t we give him a few to see if our boy can detect him?”
Kelly gave him a rueful look. “If Chappy can’t find him, then he’s skipped town for deeper territory.”
“Maybe,” Giannotti admitted. “However, I think we wait for him to make the first move. He can’t stay here very long, and he knows it.”
“Then we better have everyone else leave the scene,” Kelly suggested. “If he thinks we’ve gone away, he might make a run for deeper water south of the strait.”
“Yup,” Giannotti replied with a confident grin. “I’ll contact Vinson and request that our ships clear this end of the strait.”
They had been drifting for nearly three hours, skimming the bottom of the strait, first at around nine knots, then slowing down to six as they approached the southern end of the strait.
Popov bolted upright. “Contact. Bearing zero-three-zero. Range one-four miles. It’s Vinson, sir. It’s heading north along with the rest of the convoy.”
“North?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Stay on them. What about the ships tracking us?”
“All heading north, sir.”
Sergeyev waited, counting the minutes, growing more confident, even allowing the possibility of escape to enter his mind again.
“Contacts fading, sir,” Popov reported. “Heading confirmed. North.”
Sergeyev nodded and said, “Set depth one thousand one hundred feet. No engine. No noise. Let’s continue drifting toward the nearest shipping lane.”
“One thousand one hundred, aye,” Anatoli Zhdanov replied.
The Type 212A had a maximum depth of more than 2,200 feet, but given the damage the ship had incurred, Sergeyev didn’t feel like testing it, settling for just half. It took another forty minutes before K-43 reached the desired depth, and once more Sergeyev looked at his sonarman.
“But we can’t reach the shipping lanes without propulsion,” added Zhdanov. “These currents can only take us so far, and we’ve already slowed down to less than four knots.”
Sergeyev silently cursed his predicament. His second in command was right. They needed propulsion to reach the shipping lanes, but he still wished he had more separation.