Around the corner and up another ladder took them to the bridge level, emerging on a partially enclosed passageway leading to the bridge's starboard wing.
An officer — his cap and jacket identified him as such — stood on the wing, staring at them in gape-mouthed astonishment. Schiff double-tapped again, but the man was already moving, lunging through the door to the bridge, shrieking warning in a high-pitched singsong.
The door to the bridge slammed, clanking as it was dogged shut. Vandenberg slapped a breaching charge over the hinges, yanked the pull ring on the detonator, and stepped back. There was a sharp crack, then a clang as the heavy door blew partway open.
Morton leaned around the opening and tossed a flash-crash into the bridge compartment as Vandenberg kicked the partially opened watertight door aside. An instant later the darkened bridge lit up like a strobe flash as a deafening crack echoed from steel bulkheads. Morton and Schiff together each loosed a pair of three-round bursts into the compartment as someone inside screamed. Schiff rolled through the opening, followed by Vandenberg; Morton followed close behind, triggering his H&K again, to catch a Chinese sailor in the act of raising his assault rifle to his shoulder. Several more bursts and two men still on their feet went down.
"Hammerhead," Morton said into his mike. "Bridge clear."
The huge, front windscreens enclosing the bridge had been shattered from the earlier exchange of gunfire, and wind and a light, misty rain streamed through the openings. Six bodies lay strewn about on the deck, and the ship's wheel slowly turned on its own. The lights were out, but the scene was painted in sharp luminescence in the SEALs' night vision goggles.
Vandenberg ran aft to the door leading to the freighter's radio room. The door was locked, but the SEAL's shotgun, referred to with wry humor as a "Masterkey," boomed in the smoky, enclosed compartment, shattering the lock. Schiff and Morton rolled through the open door together, catching a Chinese radio officer hunched over the radio. He looked up at them with wide eyes as his hand closed on a pistol holstered at his hip. Schiff took the man down with three rounds to his center of mass.
Vandenberg looked at the radio. "You think he got a call out?"
"Doesn't matter now," Morton said. "Make sure no one else does." Vandenberg's shotgun thundered again, smashing the radio's console.
"Sir!" Schiff called from the starboard side of the bridge. "Look at this!"
Morton joined the other SEAL, looking out the shattered doorway onto the exposed right wing of the bridge. Spray cascaded from the surface of the ocean less than fifty yards off to starboard, where something huge, a night-black whale with a low, squared-off dorsal fin, emerged in an explosion of foam, wind-whipped spindrift, and crashing waves.
His first thought was that the Pittsburgh was surfacing… in stark and utter betrayal of her orders to avoid possible detection by the enemy.
But he immediately abandoned that idea as he got a clearer view of the sub. The sail was all wrong, too long and not nearly tall enough. Though size was always tough to gauge without known referents, the sub wasn't nearly big enough to be a Los Angeles-class boat by at least a quarter. Other details — the shape of the hull, with a sharply-angled platform rising to a flat deck above the rounded hull, and the lack of diving planes mounted on the sail, the lack of an LA-boat's characteristic gray-mottled camouflage on the periscope masts — all added up to one incontrovertible fact.
That was not the Pittsburgh surfacing off the Kuei Mei's starboard beam. It wasn't even American. Morton's knowledge of the submarine classes of other navies was less than expert, but he thought the boat had the look of a Russian sub.
He was pretty sure it was their export diesel boat—
a Kilo.
What the hell was a Kilo doing way out here? There was no way to judge the nationality. If it was a Kilo, it might be Russian, or it could belong to China, India, or any of several other nations.
But then, the fact that it was trailing the Kuei Mei so closely suggested it was probably one of the new Chinese Kilos, accompanying the freighter as escort. If so, the SEAL op had just encountered one hell of an unexpected twist.
In the spray and rain-lashed darkness, Morton could just make out several shapes appearing in the Kilo's weather cockpit, atop and at the front of the sail, just beneath the periscope array. A loud-hailer squealed, and then he heard a staccato burst of Chinese, calling across the water.
That settled the nationality question, at least.
And it answered the question of what had become of the Pittsburgh as well. The American sub must have dropped below periscope depth in order to stalk the Kilo or to avoid being spotted herself.
A searchlight blazed from the Kilo's cockpit, illuminating the Kuei Mei's bridge. More orders were barked in Chinese over a loud-hailer, followed a moment later by a burst of automatic gunfire. A bustle of activity on the sub's forward deck suggested that they were getting a boat ready to send a boarding party across.
There were damned few options open to the SEALs now. They could wait and face capture by the crew of the Chinese submarine. They could fight back, and trigger the international incident they'd been ordered to avoid at all costs. They could try to steer clear of the Chinese boarding party… but that could only be carried out for so long.
They could also pray that the Pittsburgh returned quickly to radio contact, so the question could be boosted upstairs.
Morton snorted at that idea. The bureaucrats were safely stateside, warm and dry, not here. He would decide how to pull his boys out of the fire.
Deciding, he raced across the bridge to the helm station, where the ship's wheel was slowly turning free above the body of the freighter's helmsman. The engine room telegraph was marked off in Chinese characters, but it was easy enough to guess that pulling the red-handled lever all the way back, then shoving it full forward, was the cue to go to full steam ahead. At the same time, he grabbed the ship's wheel and spun it hard to the right. They might be able to avoid a gun battle if he could distract the Chinese submarine for a moment…by ramming her.
But the Kuei Mei was sluggish and handled slowly, especially wallowing in these heavy seas. Her best speed was twelve knots, about the same as a Kilo on the surface, but the Kilo was far nimbler and more responsive to the helm. Morton's ramming attempt would work only if he could catch the skipper of the Chinese sub off guard.
The sub driver was good, though, or at least alert. As the freighter clumsily swung to starboard, so did the Chinese submarine, dancing easily out of the Kuei Mei's reach.
"Conn, Sonar! Change of aspect, on Sierra One-two! He's turning hard to starboard!"
Which meant the other sub was suddenly cutting across the Pittsburgh's path.
"Estimated range to Sierra One-two!"
"Estimate… two hundred yards, sir!"
"Diving Officer! Emergency dive! Down bubble, twenty degrees! Helm, come hard right rudder!" The deck tilted down, sharply, then slanted to starboard as the Pittsburgh dropped into a sharp, plunging turn. The Kilo's turning radius was tighter than the Pittsburgh's; her shorter hull made for more maneuverability. At six knots, the Pittsburgh might slow in time, but she stood a better chance of turning away from the other sub and trying to drop beneath her. If he cut speed, he would lose maneuverability. So many decisions to be made in so short a time…