“Excuse me.” He bounded up into the control room.
“Sir,” said Benson, “we have a subsurface contact. Range fifteen miles heading our way from the west.”
“Type?”
“I’m still refining, Sir.”
“Ok.” Benson returned to his undersea world with it’s gloops, bubbles, groans and clicks.
Five minutes later Benson looked up. “I’ve got him Sir. It’s a PLAN Shang class, probably a type 093G. I ran it through the library and it said, Shang 92 % 093G 75 %.
There are entries from the USS Chosin Reservoir on patrol in the South China Sea, she tracked one three months ago.”
“Good old Maccy Slade,” smiled Nathan, “good to see one of our sister ships doing her thing.”
The USS Stonewall Jackson’s reputation as a fighting boat had prompted her sister ships to be named after battles. USS Chosin Reservoir, in the Korean War and USS 73 Easting, in the first Gulf war.
Benson listened to the Chinese SSN for further minutes.
“Sir, we’ve had an aspect change, it’s turned to the southeast. Permission to express my opinion?”
“Yes, always, go ahead.”
“Sir, I think he’s running in after the cargo ships. That Mother is going to trail them, just like we are.” Nathan considered the comments. It didn’t seem likely.
After some twenty minutes.
“I said so Sir, he’s taken up station two miles ahead, just to our starboard. He’s following them.”
“All stop. Give them some room.” He let them separate, so as not to be too close. The People’s Liberation Army Navy SSN was now in between the Jackson and the cargo vessels.
“XO, Kaminski, War committee, now.”
The three of them sat around the Wardroom table.
“So, we have company. That PLAN SSN isn’t there by coincidence. What do you think?”
“How the hell do the Chinese know about the North Korean nukes on board?” said the XO.
“How the hell do we know?” said Nikki, “they probably know the same way we know, intel, spies. The Chinese must have spies in the DPRK.”
“They may be closer than that,” said Nathan, “they may have supplied parts or expertise. We know they’re hand in glove with the North Koreans in that area.”
“It’ll complicate matters if they’re still around and we have to sink the two of them,” said Larry.
“I know why they’re there,” said Nikki with a smirk.
“Go on.”
“They’re the escort.” She looked at the two of them. “The DPRK hasn’t anything that can reach Iran without refuelling. The Shang can. If we’re ordered to sink the ships, we’ll have an SSN to deal with.” Larry groaned and put his head in the palm of his hand.
“Why the fucking PLAN? They always make it complicated.”
“I agree with the both of you,” said Nathan, “it does get complicated, why are they riding shotgun? It suggests that they’re more than interested. They do have ties with Iran too. Also, they’ve more than one Shang boat, we could see others showing up. We can speculate as to why, but the thing we must do is let COMSUBPAC and DOD know what’s happened, let them worry about it.” Nathan returned to the control room.
“Get ready to stream the comms buoy.
Come to seven zero feet. Speed five knots.”
“Five at seven zero feet Aye.”
“Lieutenant Commander Lemineux send this message.”
Nathan transferred the message to the Communications Officer.
PRIORITY RED
R 2713555Z JUL 86 ZY10
STONEWALL JACKSON
CIA-OPS// ID C796TF722//
TO CIA OPS LANGLEY//COMSUBPAC//N18//
NAVAL INTEL OPS/04
MSGID/STONEWALL JACKSON 479/ ACTUAL//
MSG BEGINS:/7
NOW IN NORTHERN EAST CHINA SEA. PLAN SHANG CLASS SSN IS FOLLOWING THE TWO VESSELS. WE BELIEVE IT’S THE ESCORT. ORDERS?
MSG END//
“Message sent Sir.”
“Ok, Benson, I want you to keep a damn fine ear out for any other SSN’s. If you want to drift the boat, you have my permission to call for all stop.”
“Yes Sir. If there’s something out there, Lucy and I will hear it.”
He walked to the Navigation Officer’s station.
“Nikki where’s our track take us?”
“As I thought, east of Taiwan. We should be fifty miles off Keelung City, northeast Taiwan, in.” She calculated. “Thirty hours. Then It’ll be the South China Sea, around Singapore and up the Strait of Malacca.”
“Ok Lieutenant. It’s going to be a long slow cruise to Iran.” Nathan got the XO to come over to the Conn.
“Larry, we’ll have to come to periscope depth to recharge the batteries from time to time. Work out a schedule but allow us some wriggle time.”
“Will do Sir.”
Nathan looked around the control room, he’d a good team. They were in for a boring cruise. But one followed by who knows? He admitted he hadn’t expected the Chinese SSN. It was at the stage where he needed to get some rack time. Nathan went aft to his cabin.
THE CHINESE SUBMARINER saluted. “Captain Sir. We have a message from PLAN HQ Zhanjiang.”
Captain Huang of the SSN Long March 08 took the paper slip and read it. He frowned, this was odd. The Luzon star and the Pacific sealift? The two cargo ships would need to pass near here, and they were escorted by the Long March 09. Very odd, but orders are orders.
“All stop, make your depth one hundred meters. We will await the arrival of other vessels. Sonar, they should be more than fifty hours away, if you have anything to do on the sonar maintenance? Do it now, be ready.”
“Yes Sir, I’ll contact the Engineering section.”
Huang opened his log and wrote up his new orders. What the devil did they want with watching two cargo ships? Something was going on, but he couldn’t ask Zhanjiang. They’d just tell him to follow orders and if he couldn’t, somebody who could would replace him. He shrugged and carried on with his log entry.
“I FEEL LIKE MA GRANNY.” Tosser sat at the street side café, “this head scarf thing, it’s a pain.”
Tosser had several curls of blond hair protruding out from under her headscarf.
“You’ll live,” said Silk Purse. A waiter turned up with two coffees.
“Thanks.”
A few minutes later a dark haired young man arrived and sat at their table.
“Josh, nice of you to join us. This is Tosser, my assistant.”
“Good afternoon Miss.”
“Right Josh, where is she?” asked Silk Purse.
“A source tells me she’s still in Bandar Abbas.” Silk Purse pulled out and opened a map of the city. He pointed to a street on the eastern side of the city.
“There, the Rannediff jail.”
“Are you sure?”
“Sure, is a big word. It’s very likely my source tells me.”
“Do you know the layout?”
“Come on. I told you more than you’ll get from others.”
Josh laughed.
“They don’t allow visitors.” He stopped himself.
“But Josh, I can see a but.” Silk Purse smiled.
“It has been known for them to allow visits from relatives. Apparently, it’s from the Koran, or some such crap.
But neither of you look like relatives. She’s of Indian or Pakistani descent.”
“That’s true,” said Silk Purse with a pained expression.
“What about adoption?” asked Tosser.
“She’s a little older than me. One of us could have been adopted. We’d be sisters then.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” said Josh carefully.
“But they might?” pressed Tosser. He shrugged.
“They might.”
“We have to try. Can you get me into Bandar Abbas?”
“Hold on Tosser,” said Silk Purse.
“I might, I might. Do you have a British passport with you? They’ll know she’s British it would add to your credibility.”