“Sounds like I’ll be a Guinea Pig.”
“You’ll be safe, provided you follow my plan. It’s orchestrated to optimize the tactical assets of your submarine and the skill of your team.”
“The whole gang is back?”
“I had to hire new junior operators after making millionaires out of their predecessors, but all the senior ones have returned because they are addicted.”
“The Taiwanese team? Same arrangement as last time?”
“Of course. Support of your crew, and an executive officer who reports to you but who is formally in command.”
“It’s not Sean Wu? He had talent.”
Renard felt the melancholy of a lost comrade.
“Sadly, our former colleague perished leading the Hai Lang into a noble but fateful one-for-one exchange with a Chinese Kilo-class submarine.”
“That’s not—”
“International news. No, nor will it be until this campaign is decided. Your executive officer will be a youngster who is capable but inexperienced. The remaining experienced men are patrolling aboard the Sea Tiger or Sea Dragon, but the best are entombed inside the Hai Lang.”
“I see why you need me,” Jake said. “I’m ready. How do I get to Pengjia and my submarine?”
Renard cleared his throat.
“Via aircraft.”
“What sort of aircraft? That air space is contested, if I’m reading the colors on that chart right.”
“An aircraft from which, with the assistance of a tandem professional, you will jump at high altitude and glide via parachute to reach the islet.”
“Shit. Fine. I’ve jumped before. Then what?”
“And then you will prove to me once again,” Renard said, “that you are indeed charmed.”
CHAPTER 5
Dao Chan barked in Mandarin at his executive officer, Lieutenant Huang Gao.
“Get below! Get below!”
“What?”
Chan pointed at the horizon where he had seen the gun muzzle flash. He watched in horror as he beheld another brilliant burst. A third flash caught his eye, and he cringed as the ocean erupted over his shoulder.
He slapped the shoulder of his executive officer as he brushed by. Terrified eyes stared at him through a mask.
“You’ve scuttled the ship?” Chan asked.
He nodded at the fishing vessel that had brought his crew to the abandoned Romeo-class submarine.
“Yes, captain. It’s flooding.”
“Take us to full speed and dive. Warm up a salvo and open the outer doors. I will close the hatch behind me.”
Gao disappeared into the Romeo, and the sea exploded twice again. Droplets pelted Chan’s back.
He pressed binoculars against his eyes and stared in the darkness. A silhouette became recognizable, and its cannon fired again.
As water rushed over the bow of the deck submerging below Chan’s feet, a projectile whistled over his head. The sea erupted again.
He squeezed his cheeks into his mask and tasted forced air fed from the canister at his chest. He raced down the manhole and closed its hatch. The ocean popped and rumbled as a round exploded outside the hull.
As he steadied himself on the downward sloping deck, the executive officer met him. The fear in his voice came through the speaker of his forced air ensemble.
“We are accelerating through eight knots, sir.”
“The weapons?” Chan asked.
“Three minutes remaining on warm up.”
The next three cannon rounds shook the deck plates, but Chan’s pulse slowed as the Romeo plummeted below danger.
“Level us out at forty meters,” he said.
“Done, sir,” Gao said.
“Is the ship secure?”
“Say again, sir?”
“Secure?” Chan asked. “I sent armed men into this ship first for a reason.”
“Initial sweep is negative, sir. The detailed search is underway.”
“Good. Where is the commanding officer?”
Gao pointed at the body of the North Korean vessel’s former captain.
“Dead, sir.”
“That explains why we have no warmed up weapons,” Chan said. “Come here.”
Chan stepped over a corpse to the shoulder of a sailor at a sonar console. His executive officer joined him.
“Do you have the hostile vessel on the bow array?”
“Only the transient noise of their cannon fire, sir,” Gao said.
“Transmit active to attempt ranging,” Chan said. “In ninety seconds, I shoot down their bearing.”
“What if it’s not an antisubmarine vessel, sir?”
“It is,” Chan said. “Pohang-class corvette.”
“You could tell?”
“My best assessment under the circumstances.”
Chan glared at the sonar screen. It became fuzzy with the noise of the Romeo’s own movement.
“Wait,” Chan said. “Cease transmitting and slow to five knots. Pass the word for everyone to remain still.”
The sonar screen became muted until a loud trace fell upon it. The young sailor seated before Chan pressed ear muffs into his head, nodded, and pointed at the screen.
“That’s all I need,” Chan said.
“Active sonar emissions from the corvette?” Gao asked.
“Yes. Get a firing solution to that target’s active sonar. Box it in with a salvo, one torpedo lagging, one leading. I want to fire when the weapons are ready.”
Seconds passed, and another active emission rose on the sonar screen.
“They may have an active sonar return on us.”
“If they are steaming fast enough to matter, they may not,” Chan said. “Plus our torpedoes are bigger, faster, and will be closing on them head on while we run from theirs.”
“They may have called for help, sir, such as helicopters.”
“Fight this battle, Gao. Not the next one.”
A masked sailor uttered something at Gao that Chan could not hear, but he gleaned the meaning.
“Weapons ready!” Gao said.
“Shoot both tubes!” Chan said.
Pneumatic pressure screeched through pipes and echoed throughout the submarine. Chan glanced at the sonar screen and saw two lines diverging as his weapons bracketed the encroaching corvette.
“Full speed ahead, right ten-degrees rudder, dive to two hundred meters.”
North Korean sailor corpses rolled on the deck as men seated in front of control yokes maneuvered the ship. Two faint lines grew on the sonar display that Chan recognized as the corvette’s incoming weapons splashing into the water from deck-mounted tubes.
“They are too far away for a trailing shot. Their weapons will run out of fuel if we can maintain propulsion.”
“I pray you’re right, sir,” Gao said.
Chan watched the splashes on the sonar display disappear and give rise to the sound of torpedo blades.
“The shots appear accurate,” he said. “We need speed.”
“Passing twelve knots, sir. Twenty minutes of battery remaining.”
“This will be close,” Chan said.
He hadn’t expected mortal combat threatening him before he could assume command of his maverick submarine. He noted tension in his muscles but assured himself that he carried himself with confidence.
“Sir, the first group of men have only five minutes of air remaining.”
“If we surface to ventilate, we risk being run down and attacked by cannons.”
“If we don’t, men will die in five minutes, sir.”
“Pass the word to have the men find masks for the ship’s emergency air system.”
“You would have them switch masks in a cyanide atmosphere, sir?”
“If it comes down to that or suffocating, yes.”
Chan probed his mind for a new plan.