There was no indication that the Vietnamese base was aware of the approaching torpedoes. The helicopter appeared to be about to take off. Its rotors were running. He could see no other activity at all.
After a time — he would not let himself look at the clock again — he became aware of a soft, rhythmic chanting in the control room. "Sab'a … Sitta … "
Counting. The officers and men in the control room were counting down the seconds. He locked glances with Commander Hsing, who shrugged and looked away.
"Khamsa … "
"Arba'a … "
Their voices were becoming louder now, the chant more insistent. Khalili appeared to be leading it, standing near the weapons board next to Jamal, beating off the time with one clenched fist.
"Talaata … "
"Itneen … "
"Waahid … "
The countdown reached one… and nothing happened. The faces of a dozen men were turned toward his, questioning. Had something gone wrong? Had they missed?…
Seven hundred meters away, the first of the two torpedoes, running slightly slower than expected, reached the target. The weapon was a 533-mm naval torpedo based on the old Soviet 53-VA design, built in China, purchased by Pakistan. It was twenty-one feet long, twenty-one inches thick, and carried a warhead weighing 1,250 pounds.
Skimming at thirty knots just above the shallow, sandy bottom, it passed within ten feet of one of the massive steel and concrete pylons supporting the Vietnamese naval base overhead. The electromagnetic exploder detected the steel supports above and to the sides, and detonated.
On board the Shuhadaa, half a mile away, ul Haq was watching the MI-8 helo lifting off from the heliport. Then with startling suddenness, a towering, mountain-sized geyser of water, white foam and black mud spewed skyward high above the very top of the main building. Over half a ton of high explosives erupted in a savage blast that all but engulfed the base in spray. The shock wave, magnified by the shallow sea bottom, rolled across the Shuhadaa with a thunderous roar a second later.
The second torpedo detonated to the left of the first, beneath the base side of the heliport, close by the causeway. The hovering MI-8, caught by the blast, lurched sideways, its main rotors slamming into the crumpling steel of the deck. Stores of aviation gasoline on the platform itself erupted in a secondary explosion, sending an immense black and orange fireball roiling into the sky. The helicopter, fragmenting in midair, struck the heliport pad and then tumbled into the water.
Around him, the submarine's crew screamed and shouted at the sound of the double explosion, some dancing up and down, some hugging one another, some chanting, "Allah akbar! Allah akbar! Allah akbar! … "
God is great….
Through the periscope, ul Haq watched the fire spread as burning gasoline spilled into the ocean, fed, he guessed, by ruptured pipes. The helipad was engulfed in flames. The main building still stood, but at least two of its support pylons had buckled, and the entire structure was now tilted sharply to the left, perilously balanced above waves and flame. Ul Haq considered sending a third torpedo… but a moment later, gravity completed the work of the first two. One by one, struts and supports, strained beyond engineering limits, gave way, and with a ponderous shudder, the base facility collapsed, the sound of the destruction rumbling and creaking and booming through the submarine's bulkheads. In seconds, all that ul Haq could see was the right side of the building, canted sharply at a forty-five degree angle above the sea and all but lost in the smoke.
How many were on that thing? he wondered. Chinese intelligence reported as many as a hundred or a hundred fifty at any given time. Most would still be alive… and facing now the unenviable choice between burning alive in the wreckage or jumping into the shark-infested water fifty miles from the nearest other speck of land. A few might manage to launch rafts or lifeboats, but the toll in human life would be high.
"Stations!" he barked into the microphone, trying to be heard above the raucous cheering. "All hands to stations!"
Slowly, the cheering subsided. Commander Hsing took a turn at the periscope, stepping back a moment later with a satisfied nod.
Noor Khalili asked for a look as well. The former Taliban warrior looked at ul Haq with a gap-toothed grin. "Victory, Captain! It reminds me of the World Trade Center!"
Hardly that, ul Haq thought, but the comparison was disquieting. Jihad warriors around the globe still thought of the suicide attacks on the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City as a splendid, spectacular, and God-given victory in the holy war against the hated American infidels and the West. Somehow, none seemed to make the connection that if there'd been no 9-11, as the Americans called the attack, there would have been no invasion of Afghanistan, no eradication of the Taliban regime, no second war in Iraq, no wholesale, worldwide hunt for members of al Qaeda and other jihadist groups. War against the West this might be, but, so far, the armies of Allah had been getting the worst of it by far.
Violence always beg at violence. Attack invited retribution. These waters would soon be swarming with the agents of retribution — Vietnamese and, in all likelihood, Americans as well.
Those sentiments, he knew, might be less than ardently martial for a leader of the Maktum, but they reflected something of his own ambivalence. He believed passionately in striking at the hated West by any means possible, yes… but did not believe the Maktum could hope to match the U.S. Navy, blow for blow. Speedboats were cheaper than submarines, and required the sacrifice of fewer men willing to die for the cause.
Ignoring Khalili's joy, he picked up the microphone. "Our target has been destroyed."
The cheering began again. "Silence! Silence on all decks!" He waited until the shouts of "God is great" died away once more. "Helm, bring us left to three-five-zero degrees. Maneuvering, ahead one quarter." Replacing the microphone, he looked at Commander Hsing. "I trust this satisfies the letter of our contract?"
"It does, Captain. Most satisfactory."
"Then it is time for us to seek other prey."
"Damn it, Ginger, Katie," an angry George Schiffer said. "I wish you girls wouldn't do that. I've told you about it before!"
He stood on the yacht's forward deck, braced against the sailboat's gentle list as it cut through glass-calm water, hands firmly planted on hips as he stood above the two basking women. Ginger Tompkins and Kate Milford rolled over on their beach towels, both gloriously, exuberantly naked.
"Why, Mr. Schiffer," Ginger said in a mock-innocent voice. "Whatever do you mean?"
"You… you know damned well what I mean," Schiffer said. He tried to speak firmly, but the sudden double display of full-frontal nudity, one blond, the other redhead, made him falter and take a step back. "I mean you girls running around the boat like… like that!"
"But Mr. Schiffer," Kate said, running her hand down the taut front of her body from breasts to thigh in a lascivious stretch, "we're not running around. We're just laying here sunning ourselves! You wouldn't want us to show the clients tan lines now, would you?"