The SEALs trained endlessly for just this sort of operation. The Taiwanese commandos had actual operational experience on the mainland. It should be possible for the two to work together to slip into the PRC, sabotage the launchers, and get out again before the PLA even knew they were there.
The getting in, however, was the tough part. Right now, the Strait of Formosa was heavily patrolled and swept by search and weapons radar. Infiltrating a large commando strike force into Mainland China was not going to be easy.
And as for getting them out again afterward…
"Okay," Morton said, "I give up. How do you put operators ashore on the mainland, then, if you can't use submersibles?"
"Small boats, most often," Tse replied. "Sometimes we use HAHO or HALO parachute drops from aircraft. And sometimes we go in aboard larger ships which call at major ports, like Hong Kong or Shanghai. Our men slip over the side as the freighter moves into Communist waters."
"I see." None of those methods was going to work well for this op. HAHO assaults — High-Altitude/ High-Opening parachute drops that allowed the infiltrators to maneuver steerable chutes for twenty miles or more — and HALO assaults — High-Altitude/Low Opening drops that required the infiltrators to free-fall to within a thousand feet or less of the ground before opening their chutes — required exceptional levels of training to keep the operations team together. Making that kind of insertion without practicing with the Nationalist forces first was guaranteed to scatter them all across the mainland in hopeless and ineffectual confusion.
Besides, the PRC was going to be real touchy about aircraft entering their airspace right now, and it might be difficult to get within twenty miles of the objective.
By boat? Possible… but, again, the Mainland Chinese were going to be nervous about everything from freighters to traditional fishing junks to high-speed cigarette boats. The waters of the Formosa Strait had to be one of the most heavily radar-blanketed regions in the world right now. A sparrow wouldn't make it through that hundred-mile stretch of water without a challenge.
They would need to try another approach.
"So how else can we get over there?" he asked Tse. "It sounds to me like every avenue is blocked."
"Not quite all," Tse replied.
"You're not thinking of packaging us up and mailing us to the mainland, are you?"
Tse looked puzzled, then brightened as he realized Morton was making a joke. "Ah! No. We will use helocast."
Morton's eyes widened. Helocast — having frogmen jump out of helicopters as they skimmed the wave tops — would work within a mile or so of an enemy coast, but they would have to get within swimming range. SEALs were good, as were their Nationalist counterparts, but even they couldn't carry out an op ashore after a twenty-mile submerged swim to get through Chinese territorial waters.
"If we can't get an aircraft or a boat close enough to the mainland to do any good," he said, "what makes you think the Communists will let us come right up to their coastline in helicopters?"
"Simple, Commander Morton," Tse said with a smile. "We will be operating out of our territory, at Kinmen."
Garrett stood just inside the doorway leading to the Seawolf's control room. Chief Toynbee stood next to him, watching three other sonar techs sitting at the boards, ears encased in headsets. On the screens before them cascades of light—"waterfalls," in sonar parlance — made the sounds filling the surrounding water visible.
"We've been picking up good solid contacts all day," Toynbee said. "It's finding the needles in the proverbial haystacks that's problematical. This is one of the busiest international shipping channels on the planet, after all."
"Conn, Sonar. New contact, designated Sierra Five-four," ST3 Queensly reported. "Bearing zero-seven-one, estimated range ten thousand."
"See?" Toynbee said. "That's fifty-three separate individual sonar contacts since this cruise began."
"I'd have thought most of that international shipping would have cleared out to the Formosa Strait by now," Garrett said. "With Chinese missiles flying overhead, this can't be the healthiest piece of aquatic real estate in the world."
"Sierra Five-four tentatively identified as another trawler," ST2 Juarez said. "I've got drag sounds from the nets. He's making revs for twelve knots."
"Most of them have cleared out, as of two days ago," Toynbee told Morton. "What's left are local junks, fishing trawlers, coastal traffic, most of 'em under a thousand tons. Their livelihood is the sea — this sea. They're sure as hell not going to pack up and leave just because Beijing and Taipei are shooting at each other again."
"The real trick is finding the Kilos in all that clutter," ST1 Roger Grossman said, leaning back in his seat and looking up at the two khaki-clad men in the doorway. "Junks and trawlers are noisy. Against that kind of background, Kilos are damned near invisible."
"Wait a sec!" Queensly said, leaning forward and pressing his headset tightly against his ears. "I've got something, guys."
For a moment all three techs strained against their equipment, trying to drag order out of chaos. "I just hear the trawler, Sierra Five-four," Grossman said with a frustrated shake of his head.
"No," Queensly insisted. "Behind the trawler. Listen hard… "
"Let me hear," Garrett said.
Toynbee jacked in an extra set of headphones and handed them to Garrett. He set them over his ears and listened.
He could hear the gentle, background whoosh of moving water… the noisy hammering of an ancient diesel engine. That would be the trawler. He could also make out a kind of muffled clattering, hissing noise, the sound of a heavy seine net moving through the water.
And just beneath and behind those covering sounds…
"He's right," Garrett said. "He's snorkeling."
"I'm calling it," Queensly said excitedly. "Conn, Sonar! New contact, designated Sierra Five-five. Bearing zero-seven-three, estimated range twelve thousand, speed twelve knots. Probable diesel submarine running submerged on snorkel."
"Sonar, Conn!" Lawless's voice snapped back over the intercom. "Verify that last!"
As Queensly repeated his call, Garrett focused on the soft, almost smothered sounds all but lost in the sea ahead. Diesel engines needed air — and lots of it — to run. Running them while submerged swiftly poisoned a submarine's air supply with carbon monoxide. The alternative was to run the sub on its batteries when it was submerged, surfacing periodically when the batteries ran low in order to recharge them off the diesels.
Surfacing, however, was the next best thing to a death sentence for any submarine in this modern era of ASW — antisubmarine warfare. German submariners had solved the problem, at least partially: hook the diesels to a rigid hose — the "snorkel" — and run it to the surface just abaft of the periscope array. The sub could then cruise along at periscope depth with only its snorkel above water, recharging its batteries while remaining hidden.
Snorkels did not render a submarine invisible, however, nor did they keep it silent. Diesel motors were noisy all by themselves, and snorkels used rather noisy pumps to draw in fresh air from the surface and to expel exhaust fumes. They also made noise dragging through the interface between air and water, and the snorkel could be spotted by day by sharp-eyed surface observers, and any time by radar.
From the sound of things, this sub was trying to mask the sounds made by its own engine and the wake of its snorkel by snuggling in close to an even noisier fishing trawler. It was a good strategy, but not a fool-proof one. Garrett could just barely hear the thud-thud-thud of a diesel engine, and the duller thump of air pumps, all but masked by the louder pounding of the surface ship.