Hands grabbed ul Haq's arm with a fearful intensity. "What's that?" Khalili's voice screamed close by his ear. "What's happening?"
The PLAN officer, Hsing was there, part of the tangle of bodies. "It is the martyrdom you wished for," Hsing said quietly.
"Yes," ul Haq added. "Welcome to paradise…."
The titan's hand closed and Shuhadaa Muqaddaseen imploded.
"I'm getting breakup noises, Captain," Queensly told him over the headset. "I think he's going down fast. He must be almost past his crush depth by—"
A dull, faint pop sounded through the bulkhead.
"Okay," Queensly added. "Kill confirmed. Sierra One-zero-four has imploded."
The sea bottom here lay deep — almost three thousand feet. For some reason, Garrett thought about the crossing-the-line ceremony of a couple of weeks ago, of the COB as King Neptune, and Chief Kurzweil as Davy Jones. Gods of the Abyss…
Garrett had done some research a few months ago, curious about the origin of the ancient sailor's patron, Davy Jones. What he'd learned had surprised him.
Two thousand years and more ago, one source said, the Celts of northern Europe and the British Isles had worshiped a god of springs and water they called Dewi … a name derived from the Indo-European deu, which simply meant god. For the Welsh, at least according to the article he'd read, Dewi was the ancient Lord of the Abyss… and so popular that when Christianity came to those realms, he was reborn as St. David, the patron saint of Wales. And from Saint David, possibly, came Davy Jones, patron of sailors and fishermen and all who risked their lives on — or under — the sea.
Dewi — Lord of the Abyss — at times implacably cruel, at times demanding sacrifice.
This day, the ancient sea king had claimed another sixty souls.
"Mr. Falk," he said. "Take us to periscope depth, if you please."
Captain Jian leaned against the side of the sail's weather bridge, drinking in the glorious luxury of the sea air. The tropical summer sun, high in the sky, blazed hot, but the breeze was cool and fresh. After hours locked up beneath the surface with the nauseating stink of diesel fumes imperfectly venting through the snorkel, followed by that hour of deep, stark terror as they'd dueled with the American submarine, emerging into the open air and sunlight was a kind of rebirth.
We're alive….
Yinbi was not alone on the surface. On the northern horizon, the yacht Al Qahir wallowed in the gentle swell. Binoculars showed the American flag flying from the jackstaff, and heavily armed men in black vests on her deck. American naval commandos, no doubt. Zaki and his bid to spread terror from the sea were finished.
And finished, too, was the insanity of Operation Yangshandian. "Ocean Lightning" indeed. But the lightning had struck the wrong target.
Beijing had aligned itself with the wrong allies.
By surfacing and switching to diesel power, Jian had demonstrated his desire to end the deadly conflict below. Yinbi, pursued relentlessly by that damnable Yankee drone or whatever it had been, would not have had a chance if he'd stayed submerged and tried to slug it out. Moments after surfacing, his sonar officer had reported sounds of another battle raging in the depths… a battle ending abruptly with an explosion, followed moments later by the unmistakable sounds of a submarine hull being crushed by the relentless pressure of the deep.
Which contestant had won? Which had died? Jian had his own suspicions, based on what he'd learned about the American commander, simply by having faced him in battle twice. He might never know for sure.
"Captain! Radar! We have multiple airborne contacts approaching from the northeast! Range five kilometers!"
"Very well."
The advance guard of the American fleet, then.
If the American submarine had won the battle, as Jian expected he had, the enemy captain might very well have Yinbi in his sights already. Certainly, if Yinbi submerged now, Jian risked sending exactly the wrong message to that other commander, and Yinbi and all on board would swiftly follow that other submarine into the unrelenting abyss.
Members of al Qaeda and Maktum might welcome martyrdom. Jian, however, was a career naval officer of the naval arm of the People's Liberation Army. As an officer, he followed orders even when he disagreed with them, but he did not needlessly squander the precious assets of his vessel or of his crew. To do so was criminal foolishness.
And so, Yinbi remained on the surface, red flag of the People's Republic flying proudly from the mast abaft the periscope array.
What was the identity of the submarine just sunk? Jian believed it must have been the Maktum sub — the Shuhadaa Muqaddaseen—but there should have been other PLAN submarines in the region. It could have been another Chinese boat.
But he doubted that. He'd had no confirmation that other Chinese subs were in the region, had begun to believe, in fact, that he'd been hung out to dry, as the American idiom had it. Besides, none of his brother officers would have so intemperately attacked an American submarine. He'd attempted it two days ago only because he'd recognized at that time a perfect tactical opportunity, and a means to achieve the mission's goal. To simply charge into a battle between the Yinbi and an alerted American attack submarine was to plead for an early martyrdom.
He wondered if his superiors in Beijing would see it that way… for his family's sake, if not for his.
Minutes later, the first of the aircraft came into view, low on the horizon… great, gray bug shapes approaching with the clatter of turning rotors. Seahawks, the Americans called them — multirole helicopters arriving as the vanguard of the U.S. fleet. Through his binoculars, he saw the men on board the Al Qahir waving.
Yinbi continued motoring along the surface at a placid ten knots, heading east. His first thought had been to return to Small Dragon Island, his original destination, but this display of American air and naval power was making him reconsider. The Americans must know the part the base at Small Dragon had played in this affair, must know, or at least have guessed. It might be best to proceed with great caution, until he saw how this was going to play out.
One of the helicopters flew low across Yinbi's bow, so close he could see the helmeted and black-goggled heads of pilot and copilot in the cockpit as they looked him over. He recognized the aircraft's configuration from his recognition training — an SH-60B Sea-hawk in its primary role as an ASW helicopter. Slung beneath its gray bulk to either side were a pair of Mark 46 antisubmarine torpedoes — smaller and shorter-ranged than the big submarine-borne AD-CAPs, but deadly nonetheless. The Seahawk banked, circling the Yinbi now, making no demands or overtly hostile moves, but maintaining a disquieting presence nonetheless.
If the Americans tried to board or force Yinbi's surrender, he would fight. If they did not… all he could do was wait and watch.
"Radio room!" he said over the intercom. "Raise Small Dragon Island. Report that we have been forced to surface, and that we are in visual contact with elements of the American carrier battlegroup."