“Lost?” Shang Jiang asked, incredulously. “When?”
“Four minutes ago, just after it surfaced.”
“That’s impossible.” Shang Jiang raised his binoculars and examined the submarine. Less than half a mile away, and on the surface, he could make out the full shape of its dark conning tower and bow, where the white ripples of a bow wave broke into a nearby coral reef. “I can see the submarine with my own damned eyes.”
“Our own radar crew report still seeing something out there… but whatever it is, it’s much smaller than an attack submarine.”
Shang Jiang met his eye. “Like what?”
“I don’t know. Maybe a small boat or something.”
“What does sonar say?”
The first officer said, “There’s definitely something out there. It could be a submarine, but their waterfall monitors are painting a very different picture to what we’re seeing.”
Shang Jiang frowned. “Like what?”
“More of a sphere shape.”
“Really?”
The first officer shrugged. “It’s what they’re saying, sir.”
Shang Jiang’s lips curled upward in the slightest of grins. “It’s a holographic projector.”
“Excuse me, sir?” the first officer asked. “I’m not sure I follow.”
“The American submarine. It’s nothing more than a clever ruse. A magic trick. The thing’s just a sphere, projecting the image of a submarine.”
Both men stared at the submarine through binoculars. It certainly looked real, as it approached a small crescent-shaped atoll which formed a navigational dead end.
The submarine slowed to a complete stop.
“Full stop,” Shang Jiang ordered. Then, addressing his first officer, he said, “Now let’s see where they go.”
By the time the helmsman brought the Feng Jian to a full stop, the aircraft carrier had closed the distance between the two vessels to just 250 feet. The aircraft carrier now settled in a narrow channel west of the submarine. The passage out of the labyrinth involved a hairpin turn to the right up ahead, followed by multiple small turns, that inevitably allowed them to return to the main channel.
Shang Jiang stared at the submarine.
The coral atoll was just becoming visible on the outgoing tide. Across the bank, about two hundred feet to the north, a second channel ran parallel to the main channel. The channel was small and shallow, making it almost unnavigable by the submarine — definitely with an aircraft carrier — and impossible to reach from the submarine’s current position.
The admiral made a weighted sigh. The childish game was about to reach its conclusion, and he just prayed that whoever commanded the submarine — or whatever it was — didn’t decide to throw a violent tantrum because of the inevitable outcome.
A moment later, the submarine rotated on its axis in a counter-clockwise direction. It wasn’t unusual for submarines to have a series of bow and stern thrusters to allow for such a maneuver. The submarine stopped with its bow facing the aircraft carrier.
Recognizing that it would be impossible to pass the Feng Jian in the narrow channel, the submarine turned due north. Its bow aimed directly at a coral reef that was only just now becoming visible on the outgoing tide.
Shang Jiang’s eyes narrowed.
What are you thinking?
Angry white water erupted from the submarine’s stern, as it powered ahead at full speed.
The submarine reached the coral reef and appeared to hover directly over it, crossing more than 200 feet of the atoll, before sinking into the water of the smaller channel that ran parallel to the main one which the aircraft carrier was using. The submarine moved fast. Much faster than a conventional submarine could possibly maneuver. It traveled more than half a mile in no more than a few minutes.
Coming to a complete stop on a second channel, this one ran in a north-southerly direction and was much too shallow for either vessel to navigate. The submarine was now stopped perpendicular to the Feng Jian.
Shang Jiang stared at the menacing bow of the submarine.
The admiral stared at it with incredulity. “The damned thing’s a fake. Nothing more than a holographic reflection. A trick done by mirrors!”
“It would appear so, sir,” the first officer replied.
Shang Jiang swallowed hard.
Because out of the bow of the submarine, the water lit up with the white froth, as something raced toward them.
“Torpedo!” The admiral shouted. “Evasive maneuvers!”
But it was too late. The mammoth Feng Jian was too large to maneuver in the tight confines of the labyrinth. There was no time to build up speed.
The torpedo struck the Feng Jian amidships, tearing a thirty-foot hole into her hull. The 85,000-ton aircraft carrier sank quickly, coming to rest in the shallow water, as though she’d merely run aground.
Chapter Twenty-One
The Maria Helena arrived the next morning. It took two days to make the repairs to the Buckholtz and pump out the massive amount of internal seawater. The water was pumped out to the bow, where it naturally cut a hole in the sand and muddy debris which still held the bow onto the island. It would all help with the ultimate goal, culminating at midnight on the third night, at the highest tide, when the Maria Helena, along with two tugboats would attempt to pull the Buckholtz free of Neuwerk Island.
From the aft deck of the Maria Helena, Sam stared up at the behemoth stern of the Buckholtz, where a single hawser rope — sixteen inches thick — split into three separate lines, where it was tethered to two tugboats and the Maria Helena. He gripped a single radio, from which he planned to coordinate the impossible. And it did seem impossible to think that the three little boats could do anything to affect any type of change on the large container ship.
In fact, it was impossible for the three little ships to pull the larger one free of the island. The Buckholtz was simply too heavy. Instead, Sam had decided to change the equation a little into his favor. To do this, he left the first two bays of the Buckholtz flooded and shifted the entire load of maneuverable ballast from the bow and amidships into the stern. In doing so, the heavy stern of the Buckholtz sank into the deeper waters, while its bow naturally wanted to lift.
Sam spoke into his microphone, “All right, let’s gently take up the tension on the hawser.”
The three pilots slowly motored forward, until the thick rope straightened as it became taut. Sam studied the angles. Everything was lining up perfectly. He checked his wristwatch. It read 00:05. They had just reached high tide.
“All right, on my mark, I want a gradual increase to full power.”
Sam waited. His eyes swept the midnight scene, scanning each individual rope, and boat for any sign of chafing or incorrect angles.
He swallowed. It was now or never. “Let’s go gentlemen.”
Sam listened as a combined 140,000 horsepower worth of diesel engines increased their RPM, straining to extract every single newton of torque out of each propeller, as their blades cut through the seawater.
The sound was deafening.
The sea turned white with the backwash of multiple propellers. The aft end of the Maria Helena fishtailed as she dug so deep into the water that for an instant Sam feared she was going to pull herself under.
He gritted his teeth. “Full power!”