On the adjoining periscope pedestal, Lee responded to the tense atmosphere with an outburst of positive energy. As the Lijiang settled in at a depth of sixty-seven meters and the driving officer primed the emergency blow valves, the vessel’s commanding officer shared his inner thoughts with his fellow shipmates.
“Only the weak fear death, comrades. It is all part of the Way of the Warrior, and as such, it must be respected and revered. So momentarily close your eyes and breathe deeply with me. Fill your lungs with the life-giving essence, banish thoughts of defeat to the deserts of doubt, and focus your mind’s eye on that brightest of suns known as the Tao!”
Lee shut his eyes, squared back his shoulders, and began a series of deep, even breaths. From the compartment’s shadows, Guan could clearly recognize the same absent expression that he had first seen on Lee’s face while he was meditating back in his cabin. Guan wondered if any of his fellow shipmates found their captain’s behavior to be strange, and he turned to the nearby navigator. Remarkably enough, this very individual was wrapped up in the same weird trance that possessed Lee Shao-chi! Several others of the control-room crew had also closed their eyes, their deep full breaths seemingly synchronized.
“For the sake of the motherland, blow emergency ballast!” Lee exclaimed.
The roar of venting seawater rose to an almost deafening crescendo, the Lijiang hurtled upward out of the black depths, and Guan found himself tightly shutting his own eyes. When they finally made contact with the ice, this time the concussion was followed by a horrible crack, as if the entire hull had been ripped open.
The morning broke dull and gray, as Admiral Liu Huangtzu awoke from yet another restless night’s slumber. No matter how hard he tried, sleep escaped him, and he found himself tossing and turning, his mind racing with endless worry.
Sleep was usually never a problem for the veteran mariner while at sea.
In fact, the fresh ocean air and constant throbbing of the ship’s engines had previously been most conducive to a sound night’s rest. Yet this wasn’t the case on his current patrol — a week had gone by with hardly a dream to remember.
Liu couldn’t blame his insomnia on his present means of transport. His flagship, the Zhanjiang, had provided a comfortable, inviting home for the past two weeks. The weather had also cooperated, with only two days of rough seas so far experienced. Most of the time, Liu was barely aware of the seas on which they traveled, so smooth was their transit. Such was the case on this particular morning, as he shuffled around his spacious stateroom completing his daily routine, with the deck hardly rocking.
He could tell by the change in pitch of the background engine noise that the throttles had been recently cut back. This was in preparation for their upcoming return to Tsingtao. They should be in the coastal transit channel by now, and Liu made the final adjustments to his white formal uniform before heading outdoors to check this fact.
A chilling gust of cold air greeted him as he walked out onto his cabin’s exterior veranda. The railed observation terrace was situated directly on top of the destroyer’s bridge and offered a spectacular view of both the ship’s bow and the seas beyond.
The overcast skies were as gray as his worried thoughts. Liu walked over to the forward rail and allowed his glance to wander. As he expected, the low, rugged hills of Shandong Province could be seen to port.
Several small fishing junks were visible working the waters between the Zhanjiang and shore, and Liu presumed that they were home ported at nearby Jiaonan. Without the assistance of binoculars, he was able to view the motley collection of ram shackled structures that made up this small village. Jiaonan was situated at the base of Shandong’s coastal foothills, and sighting it indicated that their final destination was rapidly approaching.
Liu had mixed feelings about returning to Tsingtao. Though it would be good to get back to fleet headquarters, he sincerely enjoyed his time spent at sea. It reminded him of the vibrant days of youth, and he knew that future seagoing opportunities would be extremely rare.
While casting his forlorn glance to starboard, as they passed tiny Lingshan Island, Liu pondered the cause of his mental unrest. It had been more than seventy hours since the Lijiang had contacted them. The submarine had already missed one of the pre scheduled radio transmissions and they would soon miss the second twelve-hour window.
This was a most disturbing turn of events for a mission that, until now, had gone off splendidly.
Their charade in the Spratlys was a complete success. They had easily removed Capt. Shen Fei and his gang of dissidents, and the entire world subsequently bought the story that the Lijiang had sunk. Even the foolhardy Filipinos had unknowingly assisted them when they boldly announced that it could have been one of their depth rockets that was the cause of the Lijiang’s demise.
Of course, Liu knew that this was a complete lie. Three long days ago, the Lijiang was alive and well, their position update putting them in the far-off Chukchi Sea.
But had the legendary Captain Lee been able to make good their submerged crossing of the frozen Arctic Ocean?
His greatest fear was that the submarine had collided with an inverted ice ridge. Then there was always the possibility that an unexpected mechanical problem had caused a loss of power, and unable to surface because of the ice pack above, the Lijiang was currently entombed in a frozen grave.
Liu tried to remind himself that these were worst-case scenarios only, that there could be any number of other causes behind the Lijiang’s failure to communicate with them. He had personally written the sub’s operational orders, and had made certain to allow for a wide variety of possible communications glitches.
The first of these concerned the frozen medium in which they traveled.
There was no telling what the ice conditions would be like once they completed their circumnavigation of the North Pole. The position of the pack ice was constantly changing and chances were good that as the Lijiang reached the northern reaches of the Greenland Sea, they might have found themselves unable to surface safely.
Yet another possible cause of the delay were the solar storms that were presently ravaging the earth’s atmosphere. One of the most active periods of sunspot activity in recent memory, the electromagnetic storms were playing havoc with all manner of communications worldwide.
Only the night before, the Zhanjiang had experienced problems reaching Shanghai by radio. And now the Lijiang was that much closer to the North Pole where the electromagnetic interference was even greater.
As Liu peered over his destroyer’s heavily armed bow, he knew that there was one more plausible factor that could be responsible for the delayed radio broadcast. The cold depths of the Arctic Ocean were home to a variety of warships other than the Lijiang. Russian, Canadian, and American icebreakers regularly patrolled its icy surface.
Because of geographical constraints, the Arctic Ocean was also the place Russian submarines called home. Their mammoth Typhoon-and Delta-class submarines were designed with the ice pack in mind. They were based in nearby Murmansk, a short, submerged transit to the protective shelter of the polar cap. Here they could safely loiter and await the doomsday orders that would direct them to smash through the ice and launch their arsenals of nuclear tipped, ballistic missiles.
This northern bastion was also protected by a fleet of sophisticated, nuclear-powered attack subs. Codenamed Akula, Sierra, and Alfa, these extremely capable submarines were incorporated with the latest in weapons-control systems and sound-silencing technology. This advanced design made them more than a match for the American, British, and French attack subs that also patrolled these frozen seas.