Captain: “You sure this Luda’s characteristics are identical in all respects to the one in our books?”
“Yessir. But I can check again…checking right now, sir…”
The red light kept coming, and Judd kept watching, until eventually ELINT returned.
“Sir, now that we look more closely, that radar signature is a bit different. There’s a degree of fuzziness on the PRF. It’s either off-line, or they’ve modified. But I’m still certain it’s the land-based one we know about.”
The captain kept checking through the glass, watching for the red light, when suddenly, to his horror, it turned to green and red, which meant he was now seeing both running lights. The Chinese warship was, incredibly, steaming straight toward him in the pitch dark, from about 1,000 yards, on the calm ocean.
“Captain-Sonar. Contact has reduced speed. He now has turns for twelve knots. Active short-range sonar transmissions on the bearing. Transmission interval fifteen hundred yards.”
Judd Crocker knew what the damned thing looked like. And he knew that the 3,500-tonner, with its sharp, rising steel bow, could put Seawolf on the bottom if it was determined to ram. He had no idea how the Luda knew they were there, but he knew how quickly he had to move…he had roughly 60 seconds to get deep to avoid collision.
“THIS GUY’S CLOSE ABOARD,” he snapped to Linus. “HEADING STRAIGHT TOWARD…WE’RE GOING DEEP…TEN DOWN!! ALL AHEAD TWO-THIRDS TWO HUNDRED FEET…CHECK ALL MASTS RIGHT DOWN…RIG FOR COUNTERATTACK.”
The American submarine, now angling fast through the water, 10 degrees down from the horizontal, her mammoth turbines accelerating, was 100 feet below the surface in 30 seconds, 150 feet in 45 seconds.
“TWO HUNDRED FEET, SIR…”
“Captain-Sonar. We passed through a layer at ninety feet, sir, his old sonar will be virtually useless beyond a thousand yards…”
But Sonar’s words were almost drowned out by the outrageous roar of twin screws overhead, as the Luda came thundering past, right above, and started to fade astern. A few tightly held breaths were released.
But Judd Crocker’s main concern was the dreaded click-and-bang of a depth-charge attack. Naturally he kept these fears to himself.
But now the sonar room had detected a change, and Lieutenant Frank called: “She’s turning, sir…the Luda’s turning…I think she may be coming back. Transmission interval still fifteen hundred yards, sweeping. Not in contact.”
“Hope you’re right, Kyle. I’m staying deep and quiet…what’s your prediction for her sonar range in these conditions?”
“Captain-Sonar…range prediction above layer seventeen hundred plus yards to first surface reflection. Below layer twelve hundred at optimum evasion depth…that is one-forty feet.”
“Captain, aye. Make your depth one-forty.”
Seawolf slipped quietly up and away, the engineers deep in the ship watching the computer screens, the planesmen holding her level, steady at 140 feet below the surface. Sonar heard the sound of the Luda’s obsolete sonar gradually grow fainter as the Americans continued their stealthy way east, riding the deep waters on Lt. Commander Mike Schultz’s 90,000-horsepower turbines. Seawolf could go nearly twice as fast underwater as the 30-year-old Luda could on the surface, but not in these shallow waters.
Twenty minutes later, die Luda’s transmissions had faded away completely to the southeast. Forty minutes later, Judd risked coming above the layer to hear better. But there was nothing. And once more Seawolf was prowling in lonely waters. For the first time the captain had a moment to gather his thoughts, and he asked Kyle Frank, Linus Clarke, Andy Warren, Shawn Pearson, and Cy Rothstein to come into the control room.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “something real strange just happened. I am getting a distinct impression that someone out there doesn’t like us!”
“Funny you should mention that, sir…”
“Yeah, I was just thinking the same…”
The tone was light. But the subject was deadly serious…how did that damned Luda find them, miles from anywhere at periscope depth, in the middle of the night? Not using any of its own sensors? Why had it changed direction so suddenly, while the captain was looking through the periscope, watching the starboard green running light turn to green and red? Who the hell had vectored it onto the precise correct course to ram them?
They all knew the Luda’s sonar was hopeless at 25 knots, even in a calm sea in the layer. There was no way she could have navigated herself onto Seawolf.
“No, sir. She was being vectored from outside her own ops room. Someone must have picked up our mast in this flat water…must have been from the shore…” Cy Rothstein looked concerned.
“It has to do with the curve of the earth,” said Frank. “No one can operate shore radar from a range of more than twenty-two miles.”
“We can.”
“Yes, but no one else has technology even approaching that.”
“They didn’t used to have. But the Chinese plainly have it now,” said the CO.
“How far?”
“I don’t know exactly,” said Shawn, the navigation officer. “But I think the nearest of the islands outside Zhoujiang Ku would be around forty miles north of here, and that’s where they must have been scanning from.”
“Then I am drawn to the conclusion that the Chinese have stolen our most advanced radar secrets as well as everything else,” said the captain.
“Jesus Christ. It would be just our luck to have them use it personally against us.”
“Hey…forty miles…that’s one hell of a way for shore radar…they into some satellite hookup or what?”
“Who knows? But we’re gonna have to be damned careful, that’s for sure.”
“I’m too young to die,” said Shawn, his voice rising to a little girl’s squeak. “And I hate the Chinese, and I can’t find my way home.”
Judd Crocker laughed as always at his young navigator, but a shadow quickly crossed his face when he spoke. “We have to face it, there is a certain Chinaman in that damned Navy who is determined to get us. He’s been trying to do it for three days.
“He’s twice mobilized half the fleet trying to blow us apart with charges and mortars, he’s had Navy fliers circling around trying to hit us with torpedoes from the air, he’s had sonobuoys in the water, and a half hour ago he ordered one of his elderly destroyers to run flat out through the night and try to sink us by ramming.
“Gentlemen, we have to take this fucker seriously or he’s going to whip our asses…and we have to remember that every time we raise the periscope anywhere near the shore, he’s gonna be watching. Remember, a half hour ago, he wasn’t guessing…he knew where we were, and as far I’m concerned, that’s a first.”
Again the C-in-C could not sleep. He’d been walking alone on the beach, staring out to sea, his thoughts cascading through the deep waters. Where was the American submarine? What kind of a devil was driving it, and how did he manage to evade capture, and why did he not just leave? Admiral Zhang was completely bewildered. That man has somehow avoided contact with an entire battle fleet, destroyers, frigates, fast attack craft, ASW helicopters, and aircraft. He’s dodged depth charges, depth bombs, sonobuoys, and mortars. And last night, he showed up again, not so far off Guangzhou. We actually had his mast on the radar, but we never got near him.