Beijing's involvement in the bloody gang warfare in America's streets seemed to have less to do with fomenting armed revolution than it did with seeking profit. The People's Republic had been publicly chastised and the incidents largely forgotten.
But the political landscape had been changing rapidly of late. In 1993, Islamic terrorists had detonated a bomb at the base of one of the World Trade Center towers in New York City, in the heart of the downtown financial district. The plan, apparently, had been to topple one of the 110-story towers into the other, causing untold devastation and loss of life.
Those in the know had been briefed on something even more disturbing, something withheld from the general public: Buried in the basement rubble of the blast, a second bomb had been discovered, a chemical device set to release a large amount of cyanide gas well after the first blast. Had that weapon been detonated as planned, hundreds of police, firefighters, and paramedics would have been killed… and the poison cloud might well have spread across lower Manhattan, gassing untold thousands of civilians to death.
Few civilians were aware of this as yet. The administration, apparently, wished to avoid panic or a violent anti-Moslem reaction. But terrorism had come to the heart of America with a new and horrifying urgency, awakening the country's defenders to the reality of a new and potent threat. America was under attack by enemies who could slip in and out almost at will, across unguarded borders, by airliner or ocean freighter.
Just because you're paranoid, Morton thought, repeating the old joke to himself, it doesn't mean the bastards aren't out to get you.
"Hammerhead Two, this is Hammerhead One," he called softly, engaging his mike. "Two, this is One. Do you copy?"
No response. Hammerhead Two was investigating the hold forward of the one Morton was in. "Whalesong, Hammerhead. Do you copy?" Again no reply. Likely, the massive steel bulkheads were interfering with the transmission. They'd expected as much. "Okay," he told the other SEALs. "Let's get back on deck and see if we can get a clear signal."
Their op orders required that they buck their discovery up the intel ladder, then wait to see what came back down.
He just hoped they wouldn't have to wait long. Each additional minute on board the freighter increased the chances of their discovery, and this was not a good place to be caught.
"Conn, Sonar!"
"Conn here. Go."
"Sir, we have a definite contact, Sierra One-two, bearing two-eight-four, range approximately six-zero-zero."
"On my way." Commander Garrett hurried across the bridge to the sonar shack, stepping into the narrow room. Chief Schuster was waiting for him with another printout. "Nailed the bastard," he said, grinning. "Course one-eight-zero, slipping along right behind the freighter." He pointed at the printout. "These sounds right here? They're from the freighter…and you can see where she cut back on her revs here, slowing down… and going to a stop. This over here… that's Sierra One-two. He's real, real quiet, but he cut back on his revs a moment ago and started cavitating."
Cavitation occurred when a ship's turning screw slowed too quickly, causing bubbles to collapse against the blades' surfaces — bubbles that popped and crackled with a distinctive signature easily intercepted by a sub's sonar. Turning the Pittsburgh parallel to the other vessel's southward course exposed the entire length of her trailing TB-23 streaming sonar array. That made Pittsburgh's underwater ears both more sensitive and more precise, allowing a rough guess at the target's range of about six hundred yards.
"Andrews," Garret said. "Any sign that he's heard us?"
"Can't tell, Skipper," Andrews said. "Target's not acting like it."
"Yeah," Schuster added. "The real question is, does he know yet that the target has visitors… and has he guessed that those visitors must have come from another sub in the area?"
"Best guess on class?"
"Definitely a delta-echo, sir," Andrews said, referring to a diesel-electric motor. "Sounds like a Kilo… or maybe doesn't sound is a better way to say it. I keep listening and… there's just nothing there. Dead, like."
"Something that quiet," Schuster added, "I'd have to go with a Kilo."
"Yeah. That's what I'm thinking," Garrett said, nodding. "Okay. Keep on him. I want to know if he so much as reaches back to scratch his ass."
"You've got it, Captain," the sonar chief replied.
Garrett stepped back out of the sonar shack and returned to his usual position beside the periscope platform. A Kilo, trailing a Chinese freighter. This was not good… not good at all.
The SEAL platoon out there might just find itself flat out of luck.
2
Garrett looked across the control room at Pittsburgh's weapons officer, Lieutenant Roger Yantis. "Weps, ready warshots, tubes One and Three. Do not, repeat, not flood the tubes."
"Ready warshots, tubes One and Three," Yantis repeated. "Do not flood the tubes, aye, sir."
"Maneuvering."
"Maneuvering, aye, sir."
"Down scope. Down bubble, ten degrees. Make depth one-two-zero feet."
"Down scope, aye, sir. Make depth one-two-zero feet, aye." The planesman pushed the aircraft-style control yoke forward, and Garrett felt the deck tilting beneath his feet.
They would be quieter completely submerged. When Pittsburgh's periscope and radio masts extended above the surface, the wake caused by the sub's movement and maneuvers could be picked up by a listening enemy. Unfortunately, this would put them out of touch with the SEALs until they could return to periscope depth.
After a moment the deck tipped back to a level plane. "Leveling off at one-two-zero feet, sir," Master Chief DePaul said.
"Helm, come about to port… a slow turn to one-eight-four degrees. I want to slip right into that bastard's baffles without him smelling us."
"Come about to port, make course one-eight-four degrees, aye, sir." The order was passed to the helmsman, the acknowledgment passed back up. "Slow turn to port, make course one-eight-four, aye aye, sir."
"Pass the word through the boat — no unnecessary noise. Let's see if we can outquiet a Kilo."
Which wasn't easy. The Russian-built submarine designated by NATO as "Kilo" was one of the quietest in the world. It didn't have the range, tonnage, or staying power of the bigger nuclear boats, but its diesel-electric engine let it travel in almost perfect silence, so long as it stayed below about five or six knots.
The Russians called the Kilo class Varshavyankas, and had made them one of the mainstays of their foreign trade program. Anyone with about $300 million could buy one, and in recent years customers had included Libya, Iran, India, and, most recently, the People's Republic of China.
While that "hole in the water" out there might be a neutral foreign sub practicing maneuvers on an unsuspecting freighter, Garrett had to assume that it was an escort, one of the new Chinese Kilos riding shotgun on the freighter and her cargo.