Patrick Robinson
U.S.S. Seawolf
U.S.S. Seawolf is respectfully dedicated to the men of the U.S. Navy SEALs, the fighting troops who always operate in harm’s way, and among whom valor is a common virtue.
CAST OF PRINCIPAL
CHARACTERS
SENIOR COMMAND
The President of the United States (Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Armed Forces)
Vice Admiral Arnold Morgan (National Security Adviser)
General Tim Scannell (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff)
General Cale Carter (U.S. Air Force Chief)
Harcourt Travis (Secretary of State)
Rear Admiral George R. Morris (Director, National Security Agency)
U.S. NAVY SENIOR COMMAND
Admiral Joseph Mulligan (Chief of Naval Operations)
Rear Admiral John Bergstrom (Commander, Special War Command [SPECWARCOM])
Admiral Archie Cameron (Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Fleet [CINCPAC])
Rear Admiral Freddie Curran (Commander, Submarine Force, Pacific Fleet [COMSUBPAC])
USS SEAWOLF
Captain Judd Crocker (Commanding Officer)
Lt. Commander Linus Clarke (Executive Officer)
Lt. Commander Cy Rothstein (Combat Systems Officer)
Lt. Commander Mike Schulz (Engineering Officer)
Lt. Commander Rich Thompson (Marine Engineering Officer)
Lt. Kyle Frank (Sonar Officer)
Lt. Shawn Pearson (Navigation Officer)
Lt. Andy Warren (Officer of the Deck)
Master Chief Petty Officer Brad Stockton (Chief of Boat)
Petty Officer Chase Utley (electronics)
Petty Officer Third Class Jason Colson (Captain’s Writer)
Petty Officer Third Class Andy Cannizaro
Seaman Engineer Tony Fontana
Seaman Recruit Kirk Sarloos (torpedoes)
U.S. NAVY PERSONNEL
Commander Tom Wheaton (Commanding Officer, USS Greenville)
Captain Chuck Freeburg (Commanding Officer, USS Vella Gulf)
Lt. Commander Joe Farrell (Hornet bomber pilot)
U.S. NAVY SEALS
Colonel Frank Hart (Senior SEAL Staff Officer, Mission Controller, USS Ronald Reagan)
Lt. Commander Rick Hunter (Assault Mission Leader)
Lt. Commander Russell “Rusty” Bennett (Team Leader Recon, Evacuation Beach, and Assault Team A)
Chief Petty Officer John McCarthy (2 I/C Assault Team A)
Lt. Dan Conway (Leader Assault Team B)
Lt. Paul Merloni (2 I/C Assault Team B)
Lt. Commander Olaf Davidson (Leader, Forward Landing Beach Group, and Assault Team C)
Lt. Ray Schaefer (2 I/C Assault Team C)
Lt. Bobby Allensworth (personal bodyguard to Lt. Commander Hunter)
Petty Officer Catfish Jones
Petty Officer Rocky Lamb
SEAL Riff “Rattlesnake” Davies
SEAL Buster Townsend (command radio operator)
Chief Petty Officer Steve Whipple (satchel bombs and machine gunner)
BRITISH SAS PERSONNEL
Colonel Mike Andrews (Commander, Bradbury Lines)
Sergeant Fred Jones (Seconded SEAL Assault Team A)
Corporal Syd Thomas (Seconded SEAL Assault Team A)
Sergeant Charlie Murphy (Seconded SEAL Assault Team A)
CIA COMMAND AND FIELD OPERATIVES
Jake Raeburn (Head of Far Eastern Desk)
Rick White (California Bank, Hong Kong)
Honghai Shan (Chinese International Travel Service)
Quinlei Dong (Canton Naval Base)
Quinlei Zhao (Pearl River trader)
Kexiong Gao (Pearl River trader)
PEOPLE’S LIBERATION ARMY/NAVY
Admiral Zhang Yushu (Commander-in-Chief)
Vice Admiral Sang Ye (Chief of Naval Staff)
Admiral Zu Jicai (Commander, Southern Fleet)
Admiral Yibo Yunsheng (Commander, Eastern Fleet)
Colonel Lee Peng (Commanding Officer, Xiangtan)
Commander Li Zemin (Security Chief, Canton Naval Base)
WHITE HOUSE STAFF
Kathy O’Brien (private secretary to Admiral Morgan)
COURT MARTIAL ATTORNEYS
Lt. Commander Edward Kirk (for the Pentagon)
Counsellor Philip Myerscough (for Lt. Commander Clarke)
Counsellor Art Mangone (for Captain Crocker)
PROLOGUE
Since first light, they had been observing the blue-water Fleet of the People’s Liberation Army/Navy moving menacingly back and forth in a classic “racetrack” pattern, 50 miles offshore. Twenty-two warships in total, including the new 80,000-ton aircraft carrier from Russia, so new it did not yet have a name.
The Taiwanese had nervously tracked the destroyers of mainland China: the Luhus, the old Ludas and the new Luhai; they’d logged the surface-to-surface missiles unleashed in short fireballs by the Jiangwei frigates, just as they had done three times before in the previous 18 months.
They had watched the fleet move ever nearer, then finally cross the unseen dividing line down the middle of the Strait of Taiwan and continue into Taiwanese territorial waters. Instantly the supervisors signaled Tsoying, their main naval base, and the automatic alert to the U.S. Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor flashed onto the satellite.
Two hundred miles east of Taiwan, the American admiral on the giant U.S. Nimitz-class aircraft carrier John C. Stennis signaled his warships west. And the massively armed, 12-strong guided-missile fleet out of San Diego glowered, then turned their bows arrogantly back toward their friends on the independent island, which now felt the hot breath of the Chinese dragon.
But at 1357 on that clear, cool April day in the Taiwan Strait, every alert there had ever been in the tracking stations of Taiwan faded into obsolescence. Mainland China suddenly fired a big, short-range land-attack cruise missile straight at the capital city of Taipei.
The military tracking radars in Taiwan’s coastal station west of Hsinchu picked it up 45 miles out, hurtling in over the Strait at 600 mph, low-level, no higher than 200 feet, on a varying course around zero-eight-zero, right out of Fujian Province. At first they thought it was an aircraft overflying the Chinese fleet, but it was too fast and too low, making 10 miles every minute.
There was no time to shoot it down, and decoys were useless against the kind of preprogammed inertial navigation system used in a Russian-designed M-11 cruise, which this most certainly was. The military barely had time to assess the danger before the missile came screaming in over the coastline, plainly visible to any local citizen who happened to look upward.
At the time there was heavy traffic all along the Taipei West Coast Freeway, and one military truck driver spotted it, couldn’t believe his eyes, and drove straight into a tourist bus, ramming it right through the central guardrail into the path of oncoming traffic and causing a 59-vehicle pileup in which 14 people were killed.
Simultaneously, the emergency radio procedures desperately urged people to remain in their homes, if possible below ground, in the face of imminent missile attack. No one knew whether the cruise carried a nuclear-tipped warhead, but the danger of radiation was uppermost in the minds of the authorities.
Everyone in air traffic control at CKS International Airport, four miles from the traffic pileup, watched the missile streak across Taiwanese airspace, both onscreen and from the big viewing windows. It seemed to make a slight course adjustment and then rocketed across the city of Taoyuan. It was still making 600 mph and maintaining height as it cleared the railroad terminal, passing dead overhead the new McDonald’s off Fuhsing Road.