“Tube six is ready!” Henri said.
“Shoot tube six!” Jake said.
“Tube six, normal launch,” Henri said.
“Very well,” Jake said. “Reload tubes five and six with Exocets. All ahead two-thirds, come left to course one-two-zero.”
The ship rolled with hushed men absorbing the gravity of their actions. Next to Jake, Flores broke the quiet with a whisper.
“If we hit, will we hear it?” he asked.
“I’m honestly not sure,” Jake said. “I’ve never attacked anything from so far away. Time will tell.”
He glanced at the clock on the navigation table and did the math in his head, assuming ten miles per minute of missile travel.
“We’ll know in about three and a half minutes,” he said. “If we don’t hear anything, I’ll ask for an assessment report from fleet headquarters. I’m sure somebody is watching.”
“Steady course one-two-zero,” Henri said.
“Very well, Henri. Take us down to fifty meters.”
The deck dipped and steadied.
“What if you miss, Jake?” Flores asked.
“The point is to convince the Chinese that the Malaysians attacked them. My attack was credible enough to demonstrate that.”
“But you could turn around and—”
“Shut up.”
Jake waited for his blood pressure to drop.
“Go hang out with Remy and put on a sonar head set,” he said. “You might become one of the few people to hear a live missile attack happening.”
As Flores moved towards the sonar expert, Jake stepped up to the conn and sat on the foldout chair. He watched the toad-like head of Antoine Remy, headphones covering its ears, curl into its owner’s chest as it absorbed the ocean’s sounds.
Unlike his discovery of quiet submarines that rose into his mind, intermingled with memories and hallucinations before blossoming into audible reality, the Luzhou’s fate struck Remy in an instant. He yanked his left earmuff to his neck and turned to Jake.
“Probable explosion from the bearing of the Luzhou,” he said. “It’s faint, but it has the characteristics of an explosion above the waterline. It was probably one of our Exocets.”
Jake stood.
“Just one explosion? Listen for the other missile.”
Half a minute passed, and Remy shook his head.
“That’s fine. One missile is enough,” Jake said.
“No sound of keel rupture or sinking,” Remy said. “I might not be able to hear it from this distance, though.”
Sensing he’d killed again, Jake swallowed.
“I’m sure it’s a hit,” he said. “Your best guess is as good as truth to me. This phase of the mission is accomplished.”
CHAPTER 6
Qiang Wong stormed past the secretary and tensed his shoulder to bust open the door.
“It’s open, commander,” the secretary said. “The admiral has been expecting you.”
The salutation calmed Commander Wong, and a quick sideways glance at the secretary, a young lieutenant who rose to his feet behind his desk, helped him regain his composure.
“I called him when I saw you down the passageway,” the secretary said. “Go right in. He understands your situation.”
“No one understands,” Wong said.
As he passed through the doorway, hardwood yielded to carpet and the odor of stuffy, sterilized privilege. The admiral sat behind a mahogany desk with underlings seated around it. Token oil paintings framed in cherry wood lined the walls, ordered in an evolutionary chronology of the People’s Liberation Army-Navy’s surface combatants.
He tucked his cap underneath his arm as he stopped in the room’s center and came to attention. Waiting for an invitation to relax, he grew perturbed.
“Remain at attention, commander,” the admiral said. “Remember your military bearing. Remain silent until spoken to.”
Wong clenched his jaw.
“I’ve authorized the creation of a task force to prosecute the submarine that attacked the Luzhou,” the admiral said. “You and the Chengdu will be a part of it. You will have your opportunity to avenge your brother.”
Wong’s younger brother had died commanding the corvette that an Exocet missile had turned into a burning wreck. The missile had struck aft of the bridge, killing all in proximity.
“Thank you, sir.”
“But remember that this is not your personal mission of retribution,” the admiral said. “Your destroyer will be part of a warranted military retaliation. You will be part of a team, not a lone player nor the team leader. Captain Zhang will command the task force from the Jinggang Shan. He will give the orders, and you will follow them.”
“I understand, sir.”
“Do you? Your demeanor tells me otherwise.”
“My brother is dead, sir.”
“So are twenty-one other men.”
“But none of their families have an obligation of vengeance. I command a vessel capable of retaliation. I have the right and responsibility to take action.”
Wong considered the background politics. His father, a ranking member in the communist party, had exchanged favors to assure that he and his brother gained command of naval vessels. He considered his brother’s death an opportunity to show strength in a decisive act of retaliation, adding momentum to his career aspirations. He saw no harm in turning his grief into gain.
Knowing that a call from his father would guarantee his involvement in the task force, Wong silenced himself and let the admiral muddle through the illusion of choice.
“I need to know that I can trust you to see through your anger,” the admiral said.
“I can.”
“You can, or you will?”
“I will, sir.”
“You may not be able to deliver the death blow yourself. You may have to allow someone else to launch the fateful weapon of retaliation. Windows of opportunity for striking submarines open and close too fast to guarantee that the shot can be yours.”
“As long as I am part of the task force, I will carry out my duties as the task force commander sees fit, sir.”
“So be it. Make your ship ready to get underway. The mission briefing is in one hour.”
Twelve hours later, Wong stood on the Chengdu’s bridge, the setting sun casting an expansive black form onto the waves. The sleek shadow invoked childhood wonderment from pictures of American Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, and he prided himself in commanding a vessel of lesser but comparable lethality.
Near the center of the transiting task force, Wong’s ship sliced the ocean with restrained ease, withholding its propulsion prowess to let its posse keep pace. The amphibious transport dock, Jinggang Shan, bounced in the swells eight nautical miles away, squeezing every joule of energy from its combined diesel and gas turbine plant to propel its twenty thousand tons at twenty-four knots.
The massive Jinggang Shan served multiple purposes. It housed the group’s commander, Captain Zhang, who ordered the ships on a southeasterly course away from fleet headquarters in Zhanjiang. The dock also allowed amphibious landings of troops with armored vehicles on any of the Spratly landmasses or on mainland Malaysian shores, if Beijing desired to threaten or exercise escalation.
For Wong, land attacks and escalation meant nothing. He valued the dock for one reason — its helicopters.
Submarines feared helicopters. Helicopters — five times faster than the speediest submarine, invincible against undersea attacks, unstoppable with their dipping sonar systems and air-dropped torpedoes. An anti-submarine helicopter needed to only overcome its victim’s stealth, and like kryptonite, an aging airframe could subdue the most sophisticated naval asset.