And China would receive a fleet of the deadliest warships known to man, and a free hand at last with her old enemies across the Taiwan Strait.
1
Lieutenant John Calhoun Morton, "Jack" to his friends, turned the hatch release and pushed, easing the round hatch of the forward escape trunk up and out. With MM2 Theodore Hanson close behind, he pulled himself through the narrow opening and into the ocean. Pale light spilled up through the hatchway from the caged battle lantern in the escape trunk but was almost immediately swallowed by the inky blackness of the water. The target was still distant enough that they could risk showing the light.
By that wan glow, he could just make out the vast, shadowy bulk of the USS Pittsburgh, a Los Angeles-class submarine, hull number SSN-720, hovering in the midnight-black water beneath his gently kicking, flippered feet.
The other SEALs of First Platoon were already working in the near-total darkness, unshipping the pair of Combat Rubber Raider Crafts from the temporary deck housing aft of the conning tower and inflating them from the attached CO2 cylinders. The Pittsburgh's conning tower — her "sail" in submariner's parlance — rose like a black, knife-edged cliff above the SEAL platoon. Then Hanson closed the deck hatch, cutting off the thin mist of light from below.
The team had practiced this maneuver in total darkness many times, however, and in moments, the inflatable CRRCs were unfolding, rising rapidly to the surface as the fourteen men of First Platoon followed them up. Morton broke the surface, spitting his re-breather mouthpiece from between his teeth and pushing his mask back on his head. There was more light here than there'd been below, but not by much. The night was black and the sky overcast, with a strong wind slicing across the surface in a fine, ice-cold spray that cut his exposed skin like a knife. Without their wet suits, the water, at forty-six degrees, would have leeched the heat from their bodies in minutes, and the SEALs would have lost consciousness to hypothermia.
Seven men piled into each inflatable boat…a close fit for large men and their gear. TM1 Cyzynski unpacked the small outboard motor from its case, screwed it down on the stern engine mount, and connected the waterproof battery. Morton, meanwhile, pulled out his Motorola headset and slipped it on, holding the needle mike close to his ice-cold lips. "Whalesong, Hammerhead. Radio check. Over."
Pittsburgh's periscope array rose like heavy, upright pipes from the water a few yards away, almost invisible in the darkness with their mottled pattern of light and dark gray camouflage paint. A special radio antenna mounted to the radar mast would provide communications for the team… so long as the Pittsburgh was able to remain at periscope depth. They needed that radar perched well above the wave crests to home them in on their target.
"Hammerhead, Whalesong" was the reply, barely heard above the keening wind and hissing spray. "Check okay." There was a pause. "Objective now bearing three-five-zero, range eight-three-five."
"Objective bearing three-five-zero, range eight-three-five," Morton repeated. "I copy. Hammerhead out."
"Good luck, Hammerhead. We'll keep a light on in the window for you."
His wrist compass showed them the correct direction, a little west of due north. When his second-in-command, Lieutenant j.g. Brad Conyers, had completed his communications check from the other CRRC, they fired up their engines and began easing away from the towering masts of the submerged Pittsburgh.
They moved against a heavy swell, and the wind battled them across the crown of every cresting wave. Lightning flared on the western horizon, briefly lighting the clouds in a stuttering white flash; a squall line was approaching. In part, the oncoming storm had dictated the decision to go with the op now, rather than waiting for a more propitious moment or a better angle of approach. The ocean swell preceding the storm, however, was going to make the approach a bit hairier than usual.
Eight hundred yards… eight football fields…but the objective was completely invisible in the dark and sleeting spray. If they maintained their heading, however, and a steady speed of five knots, despite the best efforts of the wind to slow them…
"Hammerhead, Whalesong."
"Whalesong, Hammerhead. Go ahead."
"Hammerhead, be advised target is changing heading to one-eight-zero at twelve knots. Recommend you come to new heading… make it three-one-zero to intercept."
"Coming to new heading three-one-zero. Copy."
Morton could just make out the second ISB to port, with Lieutenant Conyers at the tiller. He switched to the tactical channel. "Hammer Two, this is One. You copy that, Two-IC?"
"One, Two, I copy. Coming over now."
Together, the two inflatable boats nosed to the left, coming onto the new heading that, according to the plot board in Pittsburgh's CIC, would let them still intercept the target. A course change. Damn… did they suspect? Morton wondered. Had they picked up a radar pulse… or the encrypted, low-wattage comm signal and been warned off?
Minute followed bone-chilling minute with no new change of course from the target. Apparently, they were altering course in an attempt to stay ahead of the weather, which was growing steadily worse.
"Contact!" RM1 Schiff called back from the bow of the rubber duck. He was holding a portable radar gun, a smaller, waterproofed combat version of the device used by state troopers to catch speeders. "He's dead ahead!"
An instant later, as the CRRC crested the next wave, the objective emerged from the darkness… a ghost ship, blacker than the surrounding night, with only running lights and a red glow from her bridge to reveal her shape through the mist.
"Whalesong, Hammerhead. We have visual, repeat visual… dead ahead, range fifty yards. Request permission to execute Plan Victor."
"Roger that, Hammerhead." There was a lengthy pause, filled with static. "You are go for Victor. Execute, I say again, execute."
As they motored silently closer, the hull of the target ship loomed huge above them. She was an aging freighter, rust-streaked and battered, with a deadweight tonnage of 4,700 tons, a length at the waterline of ninety-nine meters, and a beam of thirteen. She had the look of a small oiler, with bridge and superstructure well aft and two mast-slung cranes forward. She was the Kuei Mei out of Shanghai, and her destination was the port of Los Angeles.
The freighter was plowing steadily south now, at a speed of eight knots. From Morton's low-to-the-water vantage point, it looked as though she'd changed course to better take the heavy following seas on her quarter. It didn't appear that any alarm had been given. No one was visible on deck and there didn't seem to be any excitement or haste. The two rubber raiders shifted their angle of approach slightly to stay ahead of the target vessel; at best, the raiders could manage eighteen knots, but the seas were heavy enough to slow that best considerably, and there was a real danger that the Kuei Mei would cruise serenely by, just out of reach.
On this line of approach, the target's port side was visible. The plan of battle called for Morton's boat to take the target from the starboard side, while Conyers's team hit it from port. Morton spent several minutes carefully studying the freighter's movement, trying to judge whether the slower CRRC could cut under the target's stern to reach her starboard side…or whether it would be better to have both teams assault from port. Morton tended to be conservative, unwilling to push the all too fragile combat asset of luck, but it looked to him as though there would be plenty of room and time to spare.