“Glad to see you’re mellowing some, Arnold,” observed the CNO with a grin.
“I cannot see one thing to be mellow about,” said Admiral Morgan. “Neither can I see how the hell this one got through the net. But I’m going to find out and there’s gonna be big fallout in my old department by next week. Christ! This’ll be China’s third Kilo. It better be their goddamned last.”
Joe Mulligan shifted in his chair. “You know, Arnold,” he said, “I just wonder whether you’re not getting overexcited about these Kilos. I mean, are they really so important? It’s a medium-size, kinda slow, kinda basic ex-Soviet design with a limited endurance. If I knew where they were, I could probably wipe out three of ’em in as many minutes.”
“CNO,” said Admiral Morgan formally, “you could probably wipe out ten of them, if you knew precisely where they were. But remember, they are diesel-electrics, not nuclears, and at under five knots they are silent. And we expect them to be working close to their base, in what are extremely difficult, shallow waters, where our antisubmarine capability is least.”
“Well, Boomer here had a successful run-in with one of ’em, didn’t he?”
The Captain of Columbia looked up. “Only once with a Kilo, and I’d have to say that boat was dead quiet at less than seven knots. We only picked him up originally because he was snorkeling in deep open water. So at least we had an accurate position and fire-control solution on him. But when he stopped his diesels, and went silent on his electric motor, he was impossible to hold except on active.
“We had picked up fairly clear engine lines passive at about twelve miles, but once he stopped running his diesels the real problem started. Fortunately we were ready for that. But if he is not going to be decent enough to run those engines, the problem never even begins. And we are in all kinds of trouble.”
“Exactly,” growled Admiral Morgan. “They are bastards to find if they are going slowly, and out there in the China seas, they can go as slowly as they like. They’ll only need to recharge their batteries every three or four days, and we’ll never get a handle on them.
“All the way up that Chinese coast — South China Sea, Taiwan Strait, East China Sea, right up to the Yellow Sea — the place is nothing but naval bases. They have ’em everywhere. From Haikou and Zhanjiang in the south right up through Canton and Shantou. Then we got the East Sea Fleet with an expanding base at Xiamen — dead opposite Taiwan — another one at Ping Tan, which is less than a hundred miles across the strait from Taipei. And then they got bases at all stops north to Shanghai, and the big submarine shipyards at Huludao, which is damn nearly in Manchuria.”
Admiral Morgan paused, gathering his thoughts, assuming as always that everyone else knew as much as he did about the world’s navies. Then he spoke.
“If the Chinese get those Kilos in place, they will cause havoc if they want to. It will be impossible to protect our interests in Taiwan because we’ll be living in fear of losing another big carrier. And I don’t think anyone would be able to deal with that.”
“She does pack a bit of a punch, too. We know that,” mused Admiral Mulligan.
“Well, we know it can deliver a torpedo sophisticated enough to carry a nuclear warhead. And that’s pretty damn dangerous,” answered Morgan. “Chinese technology can actually provide that. I don’t know if they’d use such weapons, but could we ever be sure? Their other, conventional-headed torpedoes are quite bad enough to send our carriers home. I guess we could hit two or three of them in retribution if they did hit us, but Jesus! That’d be a bit fucking late in my view. The fact remains the Kilo can literally vanish if it’s being handled by a top man. And as we know, it can pack a terrific wallop.”
“And the Russians have been improving them all the time, I guess,” said Mulligan.
“Yes. Even for export. This sonofabitch is their big chance to keep making big bucks, and they want to please their clients. What’s more, just to make your day, I also read somewhere they have a couple of improvement programs in place. The new Type 877EKM has significantly better weapons systems—two tubes that can now fire wire-guided torpedoes…. advanced, new torpedoes, which the goddamned Russians are quite likely to supply.
“And I guess I told you the new Type 636 Kilo has an automated combat information system. Allows them to place simultaneous fire on two targets. They have never been able to do that before. And the fucking thing is even quieter now, if that were possible.”
“Beautiful. Just what we need in the Strait of Taiwan. But maybe it’s not really such a surprise, Arnie. That’s what they have worked on for all of their submarines these past few years. Somehow they’ve found the money, and they now have a few good nuclear boats that are supposed to be quieter than ours. I expect they developed the Kilo improvements at the same time. Basically, the clients of Moscow are tin-pot nations who either hate us or don’t much like us. Or, in the case of the Chinese, want to be as powerful as we are.
“Whatever the Russians say, they have built the Kilo to please those clients, like Iran, Libya, and a variety of not-too-competent operators. The Chinese order represents a major change in policy by the Russians and gives us a serious problem. It seems we are not going to be able to persuade them not to fulfill the China order. Nor are we going to persuade the Chinese to back off. Those last seven diesel-electrics will get to Shanghai, and then to Xiamen, right on the Taiwan Strait. Whether we like it or not.”
The room was very still for all of a half minute. Then Vice Admiral Arnold Morgan spoke. Slowly.
“No, Joe. No they’re not,” he said.
And the tone was not menacing. It was uttered as a simple statement of opinion. Boomer Dunning felt a chill run right through him. Now he knew for certain precisely why he was in this particular room. He betrayed no emotion. But he glanced up at the CNO, who remained expressionless. Boomer thought he noticed the smallest perception of a nod.
“I speak in this way because I believe we are never going to persuade the Russians to give up that order. They’ve got too much riding on it. Not just cash.”
“How d’you mean exactly?” asked Admiral Mulligan.
“Well, right here we have another development, Joe. You remember that Russian aircraft carrier the Admiral Kuznetzov?”
“Sure. It’s their main surface ship in the north, isn’t it? Not so big as a Nimitz, nor even a JFK or an Enterprise Class of ours. But still big, close to a thousand feet long I thought?”
“You thought right. She’s big, she’s dangerous, and the Russians had decided to build a whole class of them. However when the entire house of cards caved in round about 1993, and they simply could not afford to continue such grandiose plans, they found themselves stuck with a couple of fucking great carriers, both half-finished, in a shipyard in the Ukraine they no longer even owned. By this time they were just about bust. Terrible things happened — like the town threatened to cut off the power supply to the shipyard. No one was getting paid, and naturally the new carriers were more or less abandoned.”
“Jesus. Yeah, I remember. Remind me, what were they called?”
“There was the Varyag, which I think they got rid of locally, and there was the Admiral Gudenko. And she’s still sitting right there at the Chernomorsky Shipyard in Nikolayev while the governments of Russia and the new Ukraine argue about who owns her, and who’s going to pay for her completion. The answers to both questions are the same: no one. Which has been a major blow to the local shipbuilding industry. People ended up almost starving in that town.”