"We just encouraged them to think the obvious, Chief."
But he was pleased by Toynbee's praise. Seawolf had made a mad and noisy dash at thirty knots straight toward the noisy wreckage of the first Kilo — and toward the channel between Kinmen and Liehyu just beyond.
The enemy might expect to lose the 'Wolf momentarily in the noise from Master Four-one. They would look at their charts and see the channel just beyond, an apparent escape route for the trapped American sub. At least two of the hunters were moving into the channel, trying to track the fleeing Seawolf, unaware that the American had gone death-silent and changed course, creeping off to the east.
Too bad all of the Chinese boats hadn't come to the same conclusion, he thought. The ghost, Sierra One-eight-seven, was still hanging back, a good twenty miles to the south. He might be waiting to see if the American had really gone through the strait. He might be hanging back to keep an overview of the whole situation.
Or he could have continued creeping forward at dead slow, maintaining silence just as Seawolf was, in order to close the range.
That thought deflated Garrett's pleasure a bit. He felt the tension building again, like a cold, clammy giant's grip on throat and heart and gut. His head throbbed beneath the bandages he wore. The stress of the moment was gnawing at him, and he could feel the fluttering beginnings of an anxiety attack. Shit, he was no better than poor Neimeyer, scared half to death, broken by stress, by battle tension, by the sheer responsibility of his command.
These men were looking to him to get them out of this mess. And here he was, playing it by ear and relying on sheer, cussed luck.
Fuck that! He didn't have time right now, didn't have the luxury of being human.
He walked over to the helm station, where Dougherty stood just behind and between the two enlisted ratings manning helm and planes. The planesman had precious little to do in such shallow water, but he sat bolt upright, hands gripping the control yoke, eyes riveted to the plane angle indicators. The helmsman sat to his right, gripping the steering yoke, his eyes on the heading indicator.
"Steady as we go," Garrett said, and hoped the order was enough. For all of them.
"What the hell is going on over there?" Morton asked aloud. He was on the Runcible's bridge, a pair of binoculars raised to his eyes as he studied the islands and surface ships across perhaps eight miles of sea.
Zhu stood at his side, also watching through binoculars. "Helicopters," he said. "ASW warfare, yes?"
"That's what I'm thinking."
The Runcible was cruising slowly south, rounding the gently curving coastline of Xiamen Island and passing between that island and the twin ROC islands of Kin-men and Liehyu to the east. The shipping lanes south from the port of Xiamen lay somewhere a few miles ahead and farther around the island itself, to the west.
Sounds like express trains warbled overhead — artillery shells on the way from Xiamen to Kinmen. Nothing, Morton thought, like an afternoon cruise through no-man's land.
From here, the northern end of the strait between the two ROC islands was just visible. There were several surface ships in the area, including a big Luda-class destroyer and several patrol boats of various sizes and descriptions. Two helicopters — from here they looked like American Kaman SH-2Fs but with PRC markings — circled above the strait between Kinmen and Liehyu like hungry buzzards.
A thuttering roar sounded from astern. The two men peered up through the bridge windshield, watching as a large Zhi 8—a licensed copy of the French Frelon heavy helicopter — rotored low overhead. Very low. The pilot, evidently, was trying to keep below the arc of artillery shells passing overhead on their way to Kinmen.
"The American submarine," Zhu said. "Perhaps enemy find."
Morton didn't reply. If the American sub that was supposed to pick them up was over there…
As he watched, something dropped from the belly of one of the Kamans, and Morton recognized the sawed-off cylindrical shape of an ASW torpedo. They were hunting a submarine over there. Morton felt a hard, cold lump growing in his throat.
Their chances out here alone were not good. For the moment, no one was paying any attention to them, a solitary patrol boat cruising off the coast of Xiamen Island. If they approached the ROC islands, though, they were sure to be given a thorough look-over by the Chinese forces of both sides of the battle. Hell, it wasn't like they could just cruise into the port of Kinmen and tie up at the dock, even if they could make radio contact with the defenders on the island and make themselves believed.
For a long moment he watched the smoke crawling up against the sky. A geysering fountain of water erupted from the sea. A hit!
If the American sub was sunk, the only alternative Morton could think of was to round Liehyu and make for Taiwan, a hundred-and-something miles across the Strait of Formosa.
Waters no doubt patrolled by trigger-happy PRC warships that would be suspicious of a lone coastal patrol craft…as well as by ROC and American forces that would be just as suspicious and just as eager at the trigger.
His pirate ruse was beginning to look like a singularly bad idea.
"We're here, Captain," Simms said, pointing at the red wax marker line drawn on the chart. "Three miles southwest of Liehyu Island. Xiamen Island is here, about eight miles northwest. The shipping channel is here…ten more miles." He shook his head. "We don't know the SEALs could have made it out there, though."
"I intend to find out, Mr. Simms. We're not leaving our people behind."
"No, sir. But how the hell are we supposed to find them?"
"Captain?" Toynbee stood at his elbow. "Whatcha got, Chief?"
"We're not sure, sir. Something is going on over in the channel between the two ROC islands. We've picked up pulses from dipping sonar… and an underwater explosion."
"An explosion! A mine?"
Toynbee shook his head. "Queenie thinks it was a small torpedo, sir. Probably a 400mm ASW fish dropped from a helo."
"The devil you say!"
"Confusion to the enemy," Toynbee said, grinning his crooked grin.
The old naval toast was appropriate here. Unless Garrett was mistaken, the Chinese surface vessels near Kinmen had picked up one of those Kilos moving north through the channel and attacked it.
"That gives us a chance, gentlemen," he said.
"My God, that gives us a chance," Morton said, watching the spectacle unfold through his binoculars.
Several long minutes had passed since the explosion of a helo-dropped ASW torpedo on an underwater target. Morton had been about to give up the vigil when he'd seen a long, low, dark gray rectangle breach the surface. From here he could make out the periscope mast. Several surface ships were moving in close alongside now.
One submarine conning tower looked frustratingly like another, especially when there wasn't anything else visible to allow a guess at length and height. But that conning tower looked odd… and hauntingly familiar, considerably longer than it was high.
He studied the scene a moment longer, warm hope growing. "Yes!" he announced. "The sons of bitches scored an own goal!"
"Sir," Logan said. The 2IC didn't have binoculars and could only see a confusion of smoke and tiny, distance-blurred shapes on the horizon.