They had to slow, both to reduce their own noise and improve the performance of their sensors, but that came at a price in time. Swinging wide around Taiwan, then having to slow to tactical speeds, had added too much distance. Skipping Ningbo in favor of a second attack at Shanghai put him almost back on schedule.
He’d come up the eastern side of Taiwan as fast as he’d dared. From there the Chinese coast was dead ahead almost due north. There had been no sign of naval forces since the encounter with the active sonobuoy, but that changed as he neared Santiao Chiao, on the northeast coast of Taiwan. There were more Taiwanese warships, arranged in an east-west line abreast, banging away with active sonar as they steamed back and forth almost randomly. Jain lost time tracking their movements until he’d determined they actually were random, and then more time going still farther east to avoid the search group.
Jain and his officers had debated and speculated on the possible reasons for Taiwan’s actions. Dhankhar’s concern about a spy could explain why a Chinese diesel boat had been lurking outside Hong Kong, but not why what seemed like Taiwan’s entire navy was on the lookout for submarines.
Everyone in Chakra’s wardroom agreed that Taiwan would not cooperate with Communist China without some compelling reason. Had China shared the spy’s information with their newly independent cousins? Would that have been enough? Did the sinking of the Chinese diesel boat have anything to do with the activity off Taiwan’s coast? Nothing made sense, and that worried Jain. What was he missing? A submarine on patrol has no friends, but it usually knows who its enemies are.
Crossing the East China Sea was a trial in patience. Lines of active sonobuoys thirty, even forty miles long lay across his path, forcing more detours, and more questions.
Typically, a patrol aircraft might carry a hundred sonobuoys, but most were passive. Usually a patrol plane would lay out a barrier of passive sonobuoys. The buoys were silent, listening only, and a passing submarine could not hear a plane unless it flew very low. It had the endurance to watch and listen for six or eight hours, and some sonobuoys could last even longer, for as much as a day, allowing a relief plane to pick up the barrier without losing a step.
If a sonobuoy heard a submarine, the aircraft would usually lay a tighter localization pattern to confirm the submarine’s presence and find out its course and speed. Armed with this information, the sub hunter would then drop an active buoy that marked their target’s actual position. The active pinging would alert the submarine, of course, but by then it would be too late. The submarine would likely be exposed and located and, on the next pass, the patrol plane would drop a homing torpedo. Jain was sure that only luck had allowed them to escape from the encounter earlier.
Patrol planes practiced their craft constantly. Practicing against their own navy’s subs while they practiced evading the planes, or tracking an unfriendly nation’s boat, they could perform the entire process, except for dropping the torpedo. Jain had practiced against Indian Navy aircraft in exercises, and he’d dodged Chinese patrol planes during the recent war.
But he’d never heard of laying a barrier of active buoys of that size. Had the Chinese given up on hearing Chakra with passive buoys? True, she was quiet, but the schoolbook answer was to place the buoys closer together. This new tactic made no sense, and went into the bucket he’d created with all the other puzzles.
An active buoy might detect Chakra at one mile, but she could hear them five or even ten miles away. He would of course turn away from the barrier, but then he had to figure out which end was closer, and then go miles off course to get past it.
Over the twenty-plus hours it took Chakra to cross the East China Sea, her captain had watched the clock closely, and watched their earliest arrival time slip farther and farther behind. He’d regained most of the lost time by deciding to skip Ningbo, but didn’t know if he could do that again. In his stateroom, where Rakash insisted he sleep, he studied the target folders, comparing different combinations of targets, not for their effect on the Chinese economy, but to see how quickly he could launch the rest of his torpedoes without getting his boat killed in the process.
The clock, positioned right next to his head, now loomed over him. He wasn’t worried about the timers, already set and running inside the torpedoes. He could order the Russians to reset them to any time he liked. But he’d rejected that choice earlier. Not only was one weapon already ticking away at the bottom of Victoria Harbor, but the troops waiting at the front lines couldn’t wait forever. He and Dhankhar had together confirmed the detonation time. Everything else flowed from that.
The panel next to his head buzzed. “CAPTAIN TO CENTRAL POST.” This time he was still awake, and was there in moments. “Time to the next turn?” he queried, walking up to the navigation plot.
Rakash didn’t even look at the clock. “Twenty-three minutes.”
“The Russians?” Jain asked.
“Still making checks forward. They haven’t reported any problems. Should I call them?” Jain thought about it, then shook his head no. There were two torpedoes to check this time. Orlav had even managed to get Kirichenko to help.
“We can wait a little longer. I don’t like jogging a man’s elbow when he’s working with nuclear warheads. What about the surface traffic?”
Rakash sighed, but reported, “The wall of fishing boats has hardly shifted, but you were right; they’re thinning out, so the planned turn point looks good.” Chakra had to actually go north, beyond the clustered fishing boats and their presumed fishing banks.
Jain stepped over to the door to the sonar space. “Sonar, do you hold anything that sounds like a warship?”
Patil, the senior sonarman, said, “Yes, sir. Several active sonars, SJD-7 medium-frequency sets off to the north, but nothing close by that could be a warship. Lots of small diesels and single-props moving at low speed.” He then shrugged apologetically. “There’s too much traffic in the main channel to tell anything.” He pointed to the display, which showed a broad, fuzzy band on those bearings.
“I’m not worried about the channel. It’s too shallow for subs, and warships in the channel can’t maneuver. And their sonar will be even more confused by the shipping than ours is. Watch the seaward exits closely.”
Patil nodded. “Watch the port exits. Aye, aye sir.”
“If there aren’t any warships here right now, we’re lucky, but they could come roaring out of the harbor at any moment—” Jain made a face. “—and probably will.”
Orlav and Kirichenko were waiting next to the nav plot when Jain stepped out of the sonar space.
Kirichenko leaned against a nearby bulkhead and remained silent, but Orlav reported, “Both torpedoes and all the firing circuits have been checked. No faults.”
“And since we have two torpedoes this time, what have you done to reduce the chance of pressing the wrong button?” joked Jain, but only slightly.
Orlav confirmed, “Are you still planning to attack the deep-water terminal first, then Shanghai International?”
Jain nodded solemnly. “Yes. That’s the plan.”
“Then tube one has the weapon programmed for a straight-in approach. It will bury itself in the shoals near the Yangshan container terminal. The other weapon, in tube two, is programmed for a five-mile run, a turn to starboard to three four zero, and then straight up the Yangtze to the harbor. The enable switches for tube two are tagged open, and won’t be closed until after the torpedo in tube one is fired.”
“Very well,” Jain said approvingly.