Jackpot.
Or something close to it. Maybe fifty chips filled the tray. Lutz didn’t bother counting them. It amounted to slightly less than he had already stuffed into the machine. What the hell, that was Vegas.
He rose and removed the chips, stuffing them into each side pocket of his sport coat. He took one last swipe of the tray with his hand, then made his way down to the big bar at the far end where a woman country singer was just cranking up.
Not until he had settled onto a stool and was into his next drink did he allow himself to think about the chip. The micro-chip that he had smuggled from the laboratory. The one he had enclosed between the two halves of a casino dollar chip.
He was relaxed now. The booze was kicking in, and the drop was done. Lutz felt like laughing out loud.
Actually, it was very funny. A joke that he would never share. To think that the secrets of Groom Lake made their way, via his intestinal tract, to the tray of a slot machine where they were retrieved by a courier.
And delivered to China.
The adrenaline rush from the drop was beginning to kick in. He felt excited, exhilarated, and, as usual, horny. It was time for the next phase of the evening.
He looked around, then caught the eye of the blonde in the leather skirt sitting down the bar. He knew her. She was a hooker, but a very special one. She smiled at him, and Lutz nodded a greeting. He picked up his drink and moved down the bar.
“Do we search for survivors, Captain?” asked Lt. Yao-ming, the officer of the deck.
Commander Lei Fu-Sheng peered through the darkness toward the eastern horizon. Fifteen kilometers away, it was still glowing orange where the Han Yang had exploded.
“No. Let her destroyer escort sweep the area.” In truth, he doubted that they would find anyone alive. When the Han Yang took the torpedo amidships, a secondary explosion — it had to be an ordnance magazine — had split the frigate apart like a firecracker in a shoebox.
Lei wanted this submarine. The Chinese boat commander was proving himself to be extraordinarily bold. Immediately after killing the Han Yang, he had turned and targeted Lei’s own frigate, the Kai Yang. Lei had been forced to go to flank speed, deploy his decoys, and emit maximum acoustical jamming.
He steered a course that would take them, he hoped, directly over the killer sub.
“Sonar contact again, Captain. Zero-four-zero, five thousand meters, contact fading. It’s definitely a Kilo.”
Lei nodded. Even with the obsolete sonar equipment that had been delivered with the former U.S. Navy Knox-class frigate, the sonar man could distinguish that unique seven-blade propeller signature.
A Kilo class. Which explained why the contact was fading again. The newer indigenous Ming class boats were also quiet, and they carried greater firepower, including a battery of anti-ship and land-attack missiles. But for pure murderous undetectability, nothing could touch a Kilo. The PLA navy possessed at least four of them.
One was out there now, trying to kill them.
As if responding to Lei’s thoughts, the sonar man yelled, “Torpedo in the water!” His voice had risen an octave. “Forty-five hundred meters, tracking two-two-zero.”
Damn, thought Lei. The Kilo skipper was trigger happy. He was shooting for score.
Lei leaned over the green-lighted repeater display at his console. He could see the torpedo, a wiggly yellow symbol, moving at about forty knots.
Targeting the Kai Yang.
But the Kilo skipper had given away his big advantage. The Kai Yang’s combat information computer could calculate a new fix on the submarine based on the launch point of the torpedo.
“Decoys, noisemakers,” said Lei. “Now! Get the NIXIE deployed.” NIXIE was a noise-making device that streamed a hundred yards behind the frigate. It made noises intended to attract the torpedo.
“Decoys are out, Captain. NIXIE is streaming. Acoustic jamming has commenced.”
“Hard to port, two-eight-zero degrees. Flank speed.”
The wiggly yellow symbol was tracking straight toward them. Lei guessed that the torpedo would not go to active tracking — using its own guidance sonar — until it had closed to within two-thousand meters.
That suited his purposes. “Do you have a lock on the Kilo?”
“Yes, sir, bearing zero-three-zero, 4500 meters.”
Lei peered into his display. “Is this firing solution still valid?”
The fire control officer looked up in surprise. “Yes, sir, but the enemy torpedo—”
“Come starboard, three-five-zero degrees.” That would give them a good sixty degrees from the incoming torpedo. Still within the firing solution envelope.
As the bow swung back toward the enemy sub, Lei gave the command, “Fire tubes one and two.”
“Aye, sir.” The officer turned to his console and punched the keys, one after the other. “Tubes one and two, fire.”
Two dull whumps, a second apart, rumbled up through the steel decks. The Mark 46 torpedoes were out of their tubes, beginning their own private search for the killer submarine.
“Incoming, now zero-three-five, one thousand yards.” The sonarman’s voice rose to a new level. “Active homing. The torpedo is homing.”
Lei watched the yellow symbol on his display begin a curving pursuit path toward its quarry.
“Hard starboard, zero-three-zero,” he commanded. He saw the face of the helmsman blanch as he received the order. They were turning into the approaching torpedo.
Lei studied the advancing yellow symbol in the display. Everything depended on his skill — and the Kai Yang’s agility. Despite her age and obsolescence, the Kai Yang was a nimble warship. She could slice through the water with almost the same agility as the destroyer escorts.
For the next ten seconds, no one on the bridge of the Kai Yang breathed. The frigate was heeling hard to port, still in a maximum-rate turn. Lei steadied himself with one hand on the brass hand rail, leaning against the tilt of the deck.
It was all a matter of timing now, making the incoming torpedo overshoot its pursuit curve. The torpedo was racing toward the Kai Yang at over forty knots, turning, matching the arcing course of the frigate, coming closer…
It missed the stern of the Kai Yang by twenty meters. Lei tensed himself, waiting for the proximity detonation.
No detonation.
A cheer went up on the bridge. Lei took a deep breath, then returned his attention to his pair of Mark 46 torpedoes. They were running in trail, both arcing to the right, picking up the bearing of the Kilo’s last contact.
Lei tried to put himself in the shoes of the Kilo skipper. What would you do? What would you be thinking? The Kilo captain would know that his torpedo had missed. Perhaps he expected it and was prepared to fire another. Or else he knew he had overplayed his hand by taking a shot at a frigate. Would he go silent?
Lei knew. This sub commander was a risk-taker. He’ll shoot again if he gets the chance. Don’t give it to him.
“Command active guidance. Snake search mode.”
“Aye, Captain.” The fire control officer initiated the torpedoes’ active sonar guidance systems.
In snake search mode, the torpedoes would follow a serpentine course, probing the sea with their own active sonars. Lei knew he was activating the torpedoes’ on-board seeking units dangerously early. It meant that the Mark 46s became autonomous predators in search of a target—any target, friend or foe.