“Right now more than a third of the entire Chinese military budget is going into Navy research, development and production. They’ve finally managed to get four Russian-built Kilo-class submarines, despite my best efforts. They have this brand-new Xia-class SSBN, they have a production line of new Song-class SSKs, two new six-thousand-ton Luhai-class destroyers, they have a land-attack cruise missile program, they’re aiming for two big aircraft carrier battle groups inside the next eight years — one for the Indian Ocean, one for the Pacific.
“And how about this Burma bullshit? The Chinese have piled nearly two billion dollars’ worth of military hardware into that country, updating all the Burmese naval bases, which they of course will be utilizing. That adds up to a permanent Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean. Christ, Joe! These guys are on the move, I’m telling you. And I’m not proposing we make moves to stop ’em. Not yet, anyway. But I do seriously want to know if the little pricks can hit L.A. with a ballistic missile fired from the South China Sea. Is that too much to ask, for Christ’s sake?”
The President’s National Security Adviser faced the U.S. Navy Chief, and for the first time the two men were silent. Admiral Mulligan took a deep swig of coffee. Admiral Morgan drew deeply on his cigar, and then he spoke again, with equal care.
“Joe, China supports twenty-two percent of the world’s population on only seven percent of its arable land. Because of their grotesque mismanagement of their farming areas, they’re losing millions of acres a year. In the next fifteen years their population is going to one and a half billion, and sometime in the next five years they’re gonna have an annual shortfall of two hundred and eighty-five million tons of grain, which is a lot of cookies.”
“Yeah, I know the feeling…we’re a bit short in here as well.”
Admiral Morgan grinned but ignored him. “Joe, we’re looking at a nation that sooner or later is going to have to raise a gigantic sum of money every year to buy grain and rice to feed its people. Either that, or they’re gonna steal it. Or at least frighten someone into selling it to ’em cheap. And remember, they already require nearly six million barrels of oil a day. That’s more than us, for Christ’s sake. In my view they are a very grave danger, and we have to get a grip on the situation.”
“Arnie, I agree. But are you proposing a new offensive of some kind?”
“No. But I’m proposing that we put the old one on a real fast track. Every day I’m getting reports that their Dong Feng-31 missile has been fitted with a nuclear warhead based on the designs stolen from the Los Alamos laboratories in New Mexico. Every report I get says they’ve done it, and that their new warhead is based on our ultra-compact W-88—which you know packs a punch ten times heavier than the goddamned bomb that hit Hiroshima — and the fucker’s only three feet long. If the Chinese really have stolen the technology to manufacture that warhead, they could fit it into a missile in about ten minutes.
“And we both know they could deploy it in a submarine, ’specially a brand-new one, tailor-made for it. My guys think the DF-31 might have a range of five thousand miles, which would not get it across the Pacific, but launched from a submarine they could get it damned near anywhere.”
“Well, we sure as hell can’t measure it, since we don’t know where they keep it, so we’re not gonna find out its fuel capacity in a big hurry.”
“No, Joe. But we could measure the submarine.”
This time Admiral Mulligan stood up. And he walked over to the window and said slowly, “Arnie, we had a similar conversation at the end of last year, and I told you then that there is only one submarine in our fleet I’d risk going into Chinese waters to undertake such a mission. And that’s Seawolf. She’s fast, she’s quiet, and she could make a getaway if she was detected…just as long as the water’s not too shallow. She could, if necessary, also obliterate any enemy, but I know we don’t wanna do that.
“I promised you before Christmas that I’d put this thing into action just as soon as Seawolf came out of overhaul and finished her trials. But since then we have another real problem — you know, it turned out the Chinese got ahold of the new sub detection technology from the Lawrence Livermore lab. That little prick Yung Lee, or whatever his fucking name was, stole it.
“According to the Livermore guys, it was just about the last word in that kind of technology — low-angle polarimetric and interferometric satellite radars to pick up very small pattern changes in the ocean’s surface. The system works straight through clouds and will pick up the subtlest changes caused by a submarine’s propeller. The Livermore guys say it will even identify the type of propeller.”
“Shit. Did we throw that little Hung Ling guy in the slammer?”
“I think so…but anyway, I’m real reluctant to send the best submarine in the U.S. Navy deep inside Chinese territorial waters, because now I know they might find it, and then wipe it out, with all hands. Jesus, any submarine’s nearly powerless if it gets detected in shallow waters with enemy surface warships in the area. And you can believe me, if the goddamned Chinks caught our top submarine prowling around their trial areas deep in the northern part of the Yellow Sea, shit, they’d become enemy real fast.”
“Joe, I know the risks. Where’s Seawolf right now?”
“She’s at Pearl. On forty-eight hours’ notice to head west, for the Yellow Sea…and I sure hate to send ’em.”
“Joe, so do I. But they gotta go.”
Admiral Mulligan was on the phone to an old friend, Sam Langer, the recently retired chief nuclear systems engineer at General Dynamics, the corporation that had built Seawolf and carried out her major overhaul at the Electric Boat Yards in Groton, Connecticut.
“Sam, just a small point — you remember we talked about a little device to be fitted onto Seawolf’s emergency coolant system, about a year ago?”
“Sure I do, Joe — small adjustment to the isolating valve on the ‘cold leg’?”
“Yup, that’s the one. I remember we talked about it, just couldn’t remember whether you did it.”
“Well, it was supposed to be, er, nonpublic, wasn’t it?”
“Correct. That’s why it doesn’t figure in the plans and billing. Anyway, did you do it?”
“Yup, sure did.”
“Remind me.”
“It was nothing, really. Just a small adjustment to that valve. In the event of an electrical failure or a reactor scram, that valve will just drift open — and I guess that will deactivate the emergency cooling system. But it will give no indication of having done so.”
“Would it kick in automatically? If, say, we had an unforeseen reactor scram or something?”
“Christ, no, Joe. The captain and his nuclear engineer would have to set it correctly. I believe the whole idea was in case the submarine should fall into enemy hands?”
“Yes, it was, Sam. Yes it was. Did you tell anyone about it?”
“Well, the guys who fitted it knew. Although they didn’t know what it was for. And I took the captain over it very carefully, just a few months ago. When he came down to see the ship. Judd Crocker, right? He and his engineer, tall blond guy, Schulz, I think his name was.”
“So Captain Crocker is thoroughly aware of it?”