“Cool. What about anti-air missiles?”
“Splintering rounds from railguns and a point defense laser backed by a phased array tracking system.”
“Air-independent propulsion?”
“Six MESMA systems of the Scorpène design.”
“Six? No shit?”
“The Goliath needs to sustain transport speeds underwater while carrying a Scorpène vessel as its cargo. You understand the power needs of such a requirement.”
“Heck, yeah, I do. This ship sounds awesome. No wonder Terry likes it.”
“He’s already in surfaced transit to our clients with the Specter aboard the Goliath. It’s costing me an arm and a leg in fuel, but he’s making thirty-two knots. He’s covered half the distance from Taiwan and will arrive at Donghae in eighteen hours.”
Jake opened up a new browser and started shopping for a first-class ticket from Detroit to Seoul.
“Who’s his crew on the Goliath?” he asked.
“He recruited a young but skilled officer from an Anzac class frigate to be his executive officer. Apparently, talented sailors can be lured from the Australian Navy by money as easily as French sailors.”
“Are you sure the guy can handle being inside the Goliath underwater for long stretches?”
“He was instrumental in shaking down the ship during trials. He kept his composure during submerged operations, at least outwardly. The rest of the crew is made of many submarine veterans, and I’m sure he felt adequate peer pressure to remain calm.”
“How big is the crew?”
“The ship is quite automated. Only twenty-six men, which Terry found quickly. His network with his former shipmates is impressive.”
“Will you send me the technical specs for the Goliath?”
“Of course. You won’t be aboard it, but you’ll need to know its capabilities.”
Renard drew from his Marlboro and exhaled smoke.
“I imagine you want to know how I found this opportunity.”
“I figured it was Her Majesty, the Queen of the CIA.”
“More or less,” Renard said. “She’s pulling the strings and assuredly using this crisis to increase her political clout, but she deemed herself far too important to call me personally. She had an underling connect me with the South Korean admiral in charge of the recovery.”
“Don’t take it too hard. You know better than anyone how people use people — underlings as you call them — to build images of self-importance and power.”
“True, but she’s still a bitch.”
“A useful bitch. She connects us to the people who need us.”
“Indeed. And those people need you in a briefing room in Donghae in twenty hours. I’ll forward you the details of your travel requirements, a summary of the mission, and technical specifications.”
“I’m looking online now, but I don’t see a flight that can get me there that fast.”
“I’m sending a private jet that will take off in two hours and take you to Los Angeles. You can catch a flight from there. I’ve saved you the trouble and already purchased your ticket.”
“How long is the mission?”
“A week, plus travel time. If you can’t succeed in that time frame, then the South Koreans will take matters into their own hands and risk open hostilities to recover their countrymen.”
Being called to save lives without killing excited Jake.
“Okay. Sounds like a good mission. I’m on my way.”
“Bon voyage, my friend.”
Jake stood, left his office, and walked into the living room. Linda looked at him with concern.
“You’re leaving, aren’t you?”
“Just for a week and a half or so.”
“When do you leave?”
“I have about an hour.”
“An hour? Can’t Pierre ever give you more warning?”
“No. He has to react to opportunities.”
“Are you scared?”
“No.”
“You’re never scared. You always think you’re invincible. But I’m terrified that one day your luck’s going to run out.”
“Don’t talk like that, honey. I’d never take a risk that I thought would separate me from you.”
He sat on the couch and hugged her. She squirmed, and he let her go.
“Pierre’s plans are foolproof, honey.”
She rose from the couch and walked away.
“Where are you going?”
“I don’t share your optimism,” she said. “I’m going upstairs to pray.”
CHAPTER 4
Lieutenant Commander Dong-suk Kye suppressed the mocking voice in his head that reminded him about his ship’s quarter-century technology disadvantage. His nation had commissioned his Taechong class patrol boat before his birth.
But it was fast, and Kye believed he could inspire his crew to overcome its technical shortcomings.
Sea spray pelted his cheeks as Taechong Nineteen sliced the waves. He turned and ducked through a door into his ship’s bridge.
“All stop,” he said.
The helmsman repeated and carried out his order, and the undulations of the deck plates subsided.
“Prepare to deploy the sonar suite,” he said.
His officer of the deck, an ensign, barked back.
“The sonar suite is ready, sir. Speed is above the maximum of eight knots for sonar deployment.”
“Very well,” Kye said. “Report when speed decays to eight knots.”
“Do you want a backing bell, sir?”
“No. Continue coasting.”
Kye knew that South Korea’s frontline submarines could remain silent while hearing his loud ship from great distances, and he refused to facilitate their efforts by reversing his propellers and churning water. Though a young man, he valued patience, and he waited for his ship to slow before extending its sonar system into the flowing water.
“Speed is eight knots, sir.”
“Lower the sonar suite.”
The clunk of a hydraulic servomotor signaled the extension of Taechong Nineteen’s hydrophones into the sea. Kye wondered if a South Korean submarine circled underneath his keel, waiting to crack it.
“Prepare to transmit active, half power, three hundred and sixty-degree search, twenty-degree wide beams. Transmit.”
Shrill high-frequency chirps echoed from the water, through the gunship’s hull, and into his bones. He had announced his presence to all nearby naval vessels, yielding a temporary advantage to any submerged foe.
If his risk of filling the ocean with sound merited a silent torpedo under his keel, his first warning would be the deck plates shattering his shins. But he waited with confidence, checking his fear and trusting fate to give him time to listen for acoustic waves bouncing off his enemy’s hull.
And he expected an enemy.
The revered admiral who had sunk the South Korean warship Cheonan in 2010 had been abducted, and evidence suggested an amphibious operation. Spies kept tally of which South Korean warships deployed and returned, and a Type 214 submarine, the Kim, remained at large.
Why the assailing vessel stayed at sea remained a mystery. Some in Kye’s admiralty suspected a trap for the armada sent to hunt it. Others considered it a justified prize gifted by a quirk of fate. Kye understood it as his opportunity to enforce justice.
His orders made no stipulation about bringing the admiral home alive. Kye’s gunboat, and the hundreds of other ships and aircraft that sought the assailant, were to thwart the adversary’s effort to use the admiral for mockery — at all costs, including the loss of members of the hunting party or the admiral’s demise.