Screams and shrieks erupted from forward and from inside the deckhouse. A naked woman emerged from the doorway and raced on bare feet for the aft railing. Morton reached out, grabbed her wrist, and took her feet out from under her with a sweep of his left foot, knocking her facedown to the deck. A naked man emerged from the deckhouse with an automatic pistol and was killed.
Morton signaled, and two SEALs plunged through the deckhouse door, heading for the engineering spaces below. Chen and two more SEALs from forward took the bridge.
In seconds the patrol craft was secure. Of twelve Chinese militiamen on board, nine were dead and three were prisoners, along with four terrified civilian women. No SEALs or Taiwanese commandos had been hurt.
"Yar, my captain!" Knowles said with a grin, brandishing his H&K. "We be pirates… and the ship be ours!"
"Let's get her under way, then," Morton replied. "Meadows! Valienti!"
The two SEAL snipes, both enginemen first class, stepped forward. "Sir!"
"Fire her up. Hauser, you and Jorghenson raise the anchor."
"Aye aye, Skipper!"
"Knowles, with me. The rest of you, secure the prisoners." He looked across the water toward Xiamen Island, then east, toward the low, shadowy shoreline on the horizon that was Kinmen, now darkened by a rising pall of smoke. "We have to find an American submarine out there, somewhere," he said, "and it would be nice to find her and get the hell out of here before the bad guys do."
21
"Conn, Sonar! We're passing Master Four-one to starboard."
"Thank you, Sonar. Stand by."
That the sonar shack had been able to pick up anything as Seawolf sped through the water at thirty knots was little short of astonishing… that, or the Chinese Kilo was very close aboard indeed and making a lot of noise where it rested on the shallow bottom.
The tension in the control room now was slowly rising to an unbearable pitch. At this speed Seawolf could easily ground in the rapidly shoaling water, broach to on the surface, or even slam headlong into the twisted wreckage of the sunken Kilo.
"Maneuvering!" Garrett called. "Slow revolutions! Do not, repeat, do not cavitate, but bring us down to steerage way."
"Slowing to steerage way, aye aye, sir."
"We're slowing, Skipper," Tollini announced after a moment, as the massive bulk of Seawolf dragged more and more slowly through the water. "Fifteen knots… twelve… "
"All hands, this is the captain. The bad guys just saw us sprint for the wreckage of that Kilo we plugged. Beyond that is the channel between Kinmen and Liehyu Islands. With a bit of luck, they'll think we're going through that channel. Let's not do anything to disabuse them of the idea. Maintain silence throughout the boat."
Steerage way was slow — a knot or two, just enough to maintain steering control of the Seawolf as she crept along the bottom. This was the moment when her silence truly was golden, rendering her acoustically as a hole in the otherwise noisy water.
"Helm, come left ninety degrees."
"Helm coming left nine-zero degrees to new heading, two-seven-eight degrees, aye, sir."
"You have the conn, Mr. Ward," Garrett said. "I'll be in the sonar shack."
"I have the conn, aye, sir."
Walking aft and port to the sonar room door, Garrett looked in. The tension there was, if anything, greater than on the control deck. The three sonar techs and Chief Toynbee were hunched over their glowing console screens, heads encased in earphones. The sonar officer, Neimeyer, stood by the sound spectrum analyzer, his eyes wide, sweat beading his face.
"Mr. Neimeyer," Garrett said quietly. "Have your people keep their ears sharp. You are our eyes now."
"S-Sir?" Neimeyer looked as though he hadn't understood. Garrett frowned. The young j.g. did not look good.
"Are you all right, son?"
"They're… they're out there, Captain, moving into attack position!"
The quaver in Neimeyer's voice told Garrett what he needed to know. The sonar officer was at the breaking point.
"Mr. Neimeyer, you're relieved. Chief Toynbee, take over as acting sonar officer."
Toynbee met Garrett's eyes. He looked both relieved and scared. "Aye aye, sir."
"What do you have?"
"Sierra One-eight-five is closing, sir. Redesignating now as Master Four-two. He's a diesel boat, making revolutions for eighteen knots, on a heading of zero-four-zero. Straight for us, Skipper."
"Keep on him, Chief."
"Captain?" Queensly said, touching his headset, eyes still closed.
"What is it, Queenie?" He'd heard the others calling the young ST "Queenie" and used the nickname now to help reduce the tension.
"I have a second contact, sir. Designate Sierra One-eight-six, bearing one-seven-eight, range twenty-seven thousand. And… "
"What is it?"
"I can't be sure, sir, but I think there's another contact behind the first. Very, very quiet, but I thought I was picking up some low-frequency tonals for a second there."
"Tonals from Sierra One-eight-six, maybe? Or a bottom echo?"
"No, sir. A second contact, farther away than the first." He shook his head. "It's gone now. But it might have been a third boat cavitating as he picked up speed."
Garrett frowned, picturing the tactical situation. One boat coming at them from the southwest, another from almost due south. He'd been expecting a third boat boxing them in to the east, but this new ghost contact was to the south, behind Sierra One-eight-six. Was it a third boat caught out of position, on its way to the east? Or might it be the hunter himself, the mastermind behind the Chinese attack boat deployment, following behind his hounds?
Neimeyer turned on Garrett, grasping his shirtfront with surprising strength. "They're closing on us!"
Garrett broke Neimeyer's grip with a twist and a straight-armed block. "Get hold of yourself, son!"
"Don't you understand?" His eyes were wild now. "Don't you understand
Garrett took a step back, cocking his fist for a blow to Neimeyer's jaw. Before he could swing, though, Chief Toynbee had dropped his headset, risen from his chair, and grabbed Neimeyer from behind. The young officer twisted, then screamed. Toynbee felled him with a single, brutally hard elbow smash at the base of the man's skull.
"COB!" Garrett snapped as Neimeyer slumped in Toynbee's arms. "Yessir."
"Get this man out of here. Get him to sickbay."
"Aye aye, sir." Dougherty took Neimeyer's limp form from Toynbee. "Upsy-daisy, sir. Here we go. Eisler! Snap to! Give me a hand!"
"Have the doc take a look at him."
"We'll take care of him, sir."
Garrett stepped aside as they dragged Neimeyer out of the sonar shack, then locked eyes with Toynbee. "Striking an officer, Chief?"
"It goes harder on officers who hit their men. Sir."
"I see." He grinned. "Well, it's a good thing no one hit anyone."
Toynbee nodded. "Yes, sir, it sure is! Thank you, sir."
"For what? Listen… we're going to be creeping along this new course very slowly for some time. We can't trail the towed array, but it should give you a chance to listen hard to port. Keep me updated."
"Aye aye, sir. That we will do!"
"Captain?"
"Yes, Queenie?" The young ST seemed oblivious to the small and violent drama that had just been played out a few feet away from him.