Big John steamed on, now making just 12 knots since Admiral Daylan Holt had cleared the flight wings to begin operations at 1500. And the deck once more came alive to the howl of the jets and the surge of the deck crews, as the fighter-bombers screamed into the bright skies above the deep Pacific Ocean.
The course of the carrier now became erratic, certainly on the distant Chinese chart in Zhangjiang, because the JFK had to keep changing course to east-southeast, into the wind, for the landings and takeoffs. But her basic northern track up to the ops area remained steady.
She crossed Admiral Zhang’s outer line of approach at 1900. And the busy flying evening wore on in the great waterborne fortress of Big John. The Admiral’s ops room was receiving no reports of foreign warships anywhere in the area. Nothing from either of the two nuclear submarines riding shotgun out there off his port and starboard bows. Not a thing from the S-3B Viking ASW aircraft ranging out in front, dropping sonobuoys into the water, seeking any foreign submarine that might be lurking in these deep waters.
Behind this fast, powerful, deep-field ASW screen the rest of CV-67’s Battle Group, two destroyers and five frigates, moved safely through seas that had been “swept” by possibly the world’s sharpest ears.
At the current low speed, with a lot of course adjustments, Big John and her men were about eight hours short of their op area. Though Lt. Commander Guangjin did not need them to be in it, just heading up that way. And at 2200 he activated, via the satellites, the Chinese decoy station B-5.
Floating in the water, identifiable only by its ultrathin aerial wire, B-5 was just about invisible at 50 feet. It made one short, sharp transmission from approximately 100 miles northwest of the carrier, and three of the sonobuoys dropped by the Viking picked it up instantly at range 15 miles and under.
Lieutenant (jg) Brain Wright had the signals on the aircraft screen instantly, and he assessed a rough position of a patrolling submarine at 21.20N 122.21E. The engine lines fed into the Viking’s onboard computer and moments later Brain Wright was contemplating the presence of a possible Russian-built Kilo-Class diesel-electric, in the water 100 miles from Big John. He guessed the submarine had just made a “dynamic start” of her engines, probably to charge her batteries. Everyone connected, in any way, with a big carrier is wary of a diesel-electric underwater boat because of its stealth at lows speed.
And Lt. Wright punched in his signal to the Admiral’s ops room “…Dynamic start possible kilo Class position 21.20N 122.21E. Transient contact…attempting to localize.”
The Viking, heading north, banked back hard to the east in search of the “intruder,” sweeping the sea with radar, looking for submarine that did not exist. It was just a brilliantly invented transmitter with a slim aerial wire jutting three feet out of the water, almost invisible by day, totally invisible by night. It was being activated at will by Lt. Commander Guangjin Chen 600 miles away in Zhanjiang: activated to transmit the uniquely chilling engine lines of the Kilo-Class Type 636.
Admiral Daylan Holt received the signal from comms at 2220 and instantly ordered a course change.
“Come right as soon as you can to Zero-three-Zero…cancel all flying.”
The JFK quickly retrieved two more fighter aircraft and then slewed slowly around in the water, settling thirty degrees east of north. It took the ship a full 15 minutes to make those maneuvers, and five minutes later, the Viking picked up a new transmission from one of the sonobuoys.
Again it was transient. To the sonar operator thundering though the dark skies above the Pacific it looked like a dynamic stop. He could see just a little curl at the base of the tiny bright “paint” near the bottom of his screen. It looked no nearer than the first contact, and he recorded it in essentially the same spot, suggesting in his signal to the flag that it was almost certainly the same contact they had located 20 minutes previously.
And there the minor drama seemed to end. Nothing more was heard from anyone. Flying continued unabated, Big John continued her zigzagging course for the landings and takeoffs and another 45 miles of water slipped beneath her keel.
But out over that pitch-black water, at 0145 in the morning, another Viking picked up another transient contact off two sonobuoys. And again they judged it to be a Kilo, but no one was certain whether or not it was the same one, because its position was roughly 50 miles northeast of the last one. Which meant it must have been making over 10 knots: unlikely because the American sonar would have picked it up.
For the second time that night a big U.S. Navy Viking banked around again to the east and again never caught a glimmer of anything. At least, not for a half hour, when a different buoy picked up what appeared to be a dynamic start. Neither of the two U.S. submarines, both deploying towed arrays, picked up anything. And the signal from the Viking to the flag was similar to the others…“Transient contact. Kilo-Class 636. Possibly same as Datum One. Rough position 21.53N 122.45E. Attempting to localize. Prosecuting.”
Guangjin Chen’s C-4 was proving as elusive as B-5. And now both of these devilish decoys, being instructed from the satellites, remained silent. And the entire U.S. Navy could have set off in pursuit and they would have found precisely nothing.
Nonetheless Admiral Holt was obliged to move his carrier farther east from his northern course, because a Kilo is simply too dangerous a ship to risk going close to, and anyway, easy to sidestep.
And once more the ocean world beyond Taiwan’s east coast went more or less silent. Big John steamed on approximately toward her ops area, but her present course would carry her right past the triangle, past the point to the east, unless she could turn in. But that seemed very doubtful at present, since there appeared to be at least one and possibly two Chinese submarines somewhere off her port beam, patrolling where Big John wanted to be. And the U.S. submarines were picking up nothing on the towed arrays.
Then, at 0545, the patrolling Viking tracker picked up the signal again, and this time it was appreciably closer to the carrier. In fact, it was still C-4 transmitting but the JFK was only 75 miles from the decoy now, instead of 100.
Admiral Holt did not like it. And he edged east again away from his op area. He simply could not go in there, if there should be one or more Chinese Kilos awaiting him. Particularly since everyone in the Navy now knew the SEALs had just banged out a $10 billion Sino investment down in the Strait of Hormuz.
The Admiral pressed on North for another 30 miles, and at 0804 on Monday morning, May 21, Guangjin Chen hit the computer buttons to activate C-3. A new field of U.S. sonobuoys picked up the transmission immediately, and the patrolling Viking’s signal to the flag caused major consternation. They assessed that this was an entirely different Kilo, and it was waiting bang in the center of CV-67’s op area.
Admiral Holt had the distinct feeling he was being pushed around by the Chinese Navy, and he was beginning to sense a feeling of rising frustration. Right now he had only one option, to make a swing right around the northeast end of the triangle and try to move in sometime in the next few days when the Kilos had tired of this game of cat and mouse. Nonetheless he could not take any risks, and he ordered a course change to the northeast, with his submarines moving out to his west, and the Viking pilots scanning the ocean with ever more vigilance.