“That’s it!” Arkady’s voice rang over the circuit. “The Nationalists are launching!”
“Move out!” Amanda commanded. “All engines ahead full!”
The twin contrarotating propellers at the head of each propulsor pod spun, the water humping up and boiling along the Duke’s stern quarters In seconds, a rising bow wave was building under the destroyer’s stem as she surged ahead.
Out to sea and to the south, a massive mushroom of orange flame sprouted and rose into the sky, the thunder of its growth arriving a few heartbeats later. Raked by a missile salvo, the little Jianghu-class frigate that had been screening the Communist formation disintegrated, the explosion of her own magazines enhancing the destruction. The lead ship of the Red destroyer column had taken a hit as well, sending flames licking along her aft deck and the gun barrels of her stern turret angling crookedly into the sky.
However, the little Taiwanese-built Hsiung Feng (Male Bee) antiship missile had failed to pierce life-deep through the Luda’s thicker skin. Now the wounded warship, along with its undamaged partner, were lashing back at their attackers. Main-battery rifles belched gouts of hellfire and autocannon mounts hosed tracers across the surface of the sea.
With their missile cells empty, the Nationalist fast attack craft would now be going defensive, hugging the shallows and scurrying away to the south. They wouldn’t be a problem, Amanda acknowledged, but the surviving Red ships would likely soon be. They would probably reverse course and head back to the north, this way. And the Duke’s reduced radar cross section might just about match that of a fleeing Hai Do. She glanced at the iron log and silently willed it to climb faster. Twenty-one knots. Twenty-two. Twenty three. The Cunningham cleared the mouth of the inlet, gaining speed with every rev of her screws. Another stab of Amanda’s finger called up a navigational readout, and she studied the fall-away of the sea floor from beneath the keel.
“Helm, come left to zero four five.”
“Helm answering to zero four five, ma’am!”
“Mr. Mckelsie, are we being painted yet?”
“Negative. No scans on this bearing!”
Twenty-five. Twenty six. Twenty seven.
“Captain, aircraft contact off the stern, bearing one eight zero degrees.”
On the low-light monitors, Retainer Zero One could be seen rapidly overhauling the ship. Churning along a meager ten feet off the deck, her rotor wash flattened the spray of the wake crests. Tonight, Arkady couldn’t be concerned with niceties such as wind direction and proper angle of approach. Swinging slightly wide, the helo porpoised upward, her landing gear extending. Each maneuver flowed into the next as she weaved back in over the destroyer’s helipad, Arkady’s sure hand steadying her through the superstructure and stack turbulence. Then Zero One was home, touching down delicately in the center of the hangar bay elevator.
Amanda watched as the rotors spun down and the pad crew moved in to secure the aircraft. The helicopter’s canopies swung open and the shadowy form in the forward cock pit lifted and clasped his hands in his familiar proclamation of victory, a gesture aimed directly at the monitor camera and at her. She turned back to the iron log. Thirty-six knots. Thirty seven. That was it, then. No Luda ever built could overtake them now not even if they had the devil himself and the ghost of Chairman Mao tending the fire rooms.
To the south, the gunfire had ended. Only two light flares remained, the flames that outlined the damaged Communist destroyer and the burning oil slick that marked the grave of the frigate.
A quick check of the emission displays showed that all radars in the area had been shut down again. Nobody back there was looking for a fight anymore. A twin surge of elation and relief flooded through Amanda. Foxed you all you bastards! Catch me if you can!
She stepped back out onto the starboard bridge wing. Out here, away from the vision systems, the night was the night again. The faint, hazy glow of the Milky Way arced overhead, sharing the sky with uncountable stars. Astern, the dark silhouette of the Chinese coast was already losing form.
She stripped off her life jacket and helmet and let them drop to the deck, and savored the cooling gale generated by her ship’s passage. Just for a moment, she wondered how crew discipline would be affected if the Captain let out a whoop of sheer joy.
Amanda looked over her shoulder, from the captain’s chair, as Christine and Arkady filed onto the bridge. Coming up to her side, Arkady said formally, “Captain, I wish to apologize for being unable to meet my appointed time. An unexpected encounter with Communist forces mandated a course deviation to maintain mission security.”
Amanda nodded. “All’s well that ends well Lieutenant. We all had some unexpected encounters tonight. How did the deployment go?”
“Spike’s in the ground,” Christine reported from her left. “It was on target and is working.”
“That’ll be it for the insertion missions, then, at least until something busts or gets discovered. We’ll rendezvous and replenish with the Task Force tomorrow afternoon and then head north to Shanghai to start the next download sweep of the coastal monitors.”
“Good enough,” the Intel replied. “Begging your pardon, Boss Ma’am, but when can I get clearance to transmit a message? We saw some stuff out there that I really need to pass up the line.”
“Well, we’re clear of the Chinese twelve mile limit now. I was planning to stand down out of stealth mode in about another half hour. The radio room is already prepping a sighting report on that shoot-up we witnessed inshore tonight. You could tack your stuff onto that if you like.”
“That’ll work. I’ll do it.”
Amanda looked back and forth between her two officers. “Now, how did it go out there?”
Arkady gave a curt shrug “A couple of detours, pretty much your basic piece of cake.”
“Yeah,” Christine agreed. “A romantic night out under the stars with a handsome aviator. You ought to try it sometime, Skipper.”
There was a humorous edge in her friend’s voice, but before Amanda could remark on it, Christine was gone, heading away aft. Arkady stayed on. Leaning against the side of the captain’s chair in a carefully orchestrated posture of nonchalance, he gazed out of the bridge windscreen. After a couple of minutes Amanda inquired again, this time keeping her voice pitched so that only he could hear.
“Now, how did it go?”
“Oh, good for about a level two set of the shakes. But only a level two.”
“It was about the same here.”
She slipped her hand off the armrest of her chair, letting it drop down between them. Shielded by the shadows and by the positioning of their bodies, their fingers touched and they clasped hands tightly in the early morning darkness.
12
Lucena Sagada was left handed. It was a useful trait in that she and Van Lynden could share the same legal pad set in the center of the U S delegation’s table. Now, although her face was impassive, her Parker ballpoint danced impatiently across the yellow facing sheet.
“I understand the preference for the oblique approach within Asian diplomacy, but couldn’t someone at least give us a hint about what they want!”
The Secretary of State let the corner of his mouth quirk up, and he replied with the Bic softpoint he was using.
“For the moment the primary players all have exactly what they want.”
A test pattern Vice Premier Chang of the People’s Republic had been the first up to the dais that morning. Now, half an hour later, he continued to speak, his voice pitched low, almost hesitant at times. His words, carried through the translator’s earphones, carried all of the old hard-line phraseology “the People’s struggle,” “capitalist aggression,” “Western imperialism.” However, his rambling narrative beyond a generalized condemnation of the wrongs being done to Communist China, seemed to have no goal, no real objective. That had been the standard for the first two days of the talks.