Authors: Patrick Robinson
“I DON’t CARE IF SHE’s GUARDED BY THE ENTIRE UNITED STATES NAVY,” raged the C-in-C. “I ORDERED HER TO BE SUNK AND MY ORDERS WERE NOT CARRIED OUT. DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT?”
“Yessir.”
“WELL, WHY WERE THEY NOT CARRIED OUT?”
“Because it was impossible, sir. We were only able to see her for less than a minute, and we were eight miles away.”
“AND WHERE IS THE SUBMARINE NOW?” he yelled.
“Under the water, sir. Following one of the frigates. I presume back to the American carrier.”
“PRESUME NOTHING!” roared Zhang. “NOTHING! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?”
“Yessir.”
And now the C-in-C spoke in more measured tones for the first time. “Colonel Lee. You are the most senior surface ship commanding officer in the Navy. Your record until today was exemplary. And because of that I am going to ignore your flagrant defiance of my orders. However, those orders still stand.
“Colonel Lee, you will continue to track the American submarine, and when she surfaces, as she surely must sometime, you will open fire and put her on the floor of the ocean for trespassing illegally in Chinese waters. IS THAT CLEAR?”
“Yessir.”
“Colonel Lee. YOU WILL FOLLOW THE AMERICAN SUBMARINE TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH IF YOU HAVE TO. BUT YOU WILL SINK HER.”
“Yessir.”
“And Colonel Lee, should the American frigates open fire on you in defense of their submarine, you will open fire on them, too. You outgun them, and you have excellent missiles and torpedoes. In case you had not noticed, that’s what your big destroyer is for.”
“Yessir.”
“TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH, COLONEL LEE.…NOW GO.”
And so
Xiangtan
fell in two miles astern of
Kaufman
, running at 12 knots. And there she would stay until she
saw her chance to carry out the orders of the Chinese C-in-C. They were orders that might amount to committing suicide. They were orders that might have been issued by Captain Queeg. But there was no longer any doubt in Colonel Lee’s mind about their validity.
Meanwhile, back in Zhanjiang, Admiral Zhang Yushu was almost beside himself. The first reports were coming in from Xiachuan Dao, and they were confirming every single one of his worst fears.
The jail had plainly come under heavy attack. Both helicopters had been destroyed. The patrol boat had been reduced to a hulk, and was sitting in shallow water on the jetty. The communications room had been obliterated. The guardroom had been leveled. The gates to the jail were blown off. The dormitory had been gutted, but with many civilian survivors, all of whom had been gassed. The entire Chinese guard force had been wiped out, at least six of them with their throats cut. And, needless to confirm, there was no sign of the American prisoners.
The team of Navy investigators who had now been on Xiachuan Dao for around an hour were quite shaken by the sheer brutality of the attack. And Admiral Zhang could hardly believe his ears as Admiral Zu Jicai read out the initial report from the island.
“But how many, Jicai?” the C-in-C kept repeating over and over. “How many were there? What kind of a force must it have taken to literally take out an entire armed garrison and free more than one hundred prisoners? How many were in that force? And where did they come from? How did they get there? How come we saw nothing?”
In his long career in the Navy of China, Zhang had never faced such a terrifying list of unanswered questions. He felt as though his Navy had been attacked by a phantom force, one that he could not see.
“There must have been two hundred of them, Jicai.”
“I don’t think so, sir. Because that would have meant more than three hundred of them escaping. And no one
could have done that without a very sizeable boat. And that’s what they did not have, otherwise we would have seen it.”
“Well, how did they get away?”
“In the absence of a ship that could get into the jetty, and in the absence of American helicopters, I would have to say in small boats, landing craft they ran right into the shallows.”
“But why did we not see them? On radar, on the overheads?”
“Because they came a long way inshore in those submarines, Yushu. And then broke cover and ran fast for the island, just the last two or three miles, I’d say. We easily could have missed them.”
“But I ask again, Jicai. How many were they? And what kind of men were they? Devils?”
“No, sir. Not devils. They were American Special Forces, which is considerably worse.”
“How do you know this, Jicai?”
“Because even from this initial report, it bears all of their hallmarks. Total destruction of everything that posed a threat, in particular the helicopters, the patrol boat and the communications room, from where there could be signals sent back to HQ. And of course the guards, particularly those in the towers and those patrolling the inside and outside perimeters of the jail. Classic Special Forces.”
“Jicai, I do of course respect your views, and I believe you may be right. Indeed, it is hard to arrive at any other conclusion. But how did the Americans find out they were on the island?”
“That I cannot answer. Because in our vast land they could have been transported anywhere. But we know to our cost how clever the Americans are. They wear very wide smiles, but they have a tiger’s teeth. And they are completely ruthless if they are sufficiently riled.”
“You think the capture of that submarine crew was sufficient to rile them so badly that they would undertake an operation like this?”
“Yushu, I’m not at all sure they did not blow up
Seawolf
in Canton. So my answer is, yes. They plainly were sufficiently riled to go to extreme lengths to get that crew back. And perhaps to even more extreme lengths to make certain we did not spend much time on their precious submarine.”
“But, Jicai, the sequence of events of the last twelve hours means that I shall almost certainly be asked to resign and court-martialed for gross incompetence.”
“That, Yushu, is the downside of high command. And it may happen. However, you have many friends in very high places, and most of them would be unwilling to force you to fall on your sword, particularly since the events were entirely unpredictable. And everyone knows you have taken all reasonable care to ensure that the operation to copy the submarine was conducted in strictest secrecy. I do not think they will allow you to be disgraced.
“Because in the end it was the Americans who stepped beyond the bounds of reasonable behavior. No one could have predicted they would have reacted with measures as desperate as this. Bombing, mayhem, murder, destruction…it’s not in their character, and I will forever wonder what prompted them to such extremities.
“I do not think you will be blamed. But I am afraid we have to alert our government about the current events. And that, I’m afraid, is a task you will have to mastermind, sending the ill tidings up through the chain of command.”
“Who do you imagine knows already?”
“Sir, I am certain news of the two disasters, the submarine and the jail, is no longer strictly private. However, I do think we have to ensure that the Chief of the Naval Staff, Admiral Sang Ye in Beijing, is informed. And probably at the same time the Chief of the PLA, Qiao Jiyung.
“In both those instances I am happy to make the contacts, since both catastrophes occurred in areas of my command. However, I think it would be politically pru
dent for you to personally talk to the political commissar, and then for you to speak formally to the general secretary of the Communist Party.”
“Since he also chairs the Military Affairs Commission, perhaps I should speak to him first?”
“I think not. The political commissar will not thank you for keeping him out, and he would appreciate some well-thought political views from us. At this moment, Yushu, you need friends.”
“Perhaps my weakness is always that I lack your prudence, Jicai?”
“Yushu, you took a major step when you elected to pick a very serious fight with the USA. I know you did it for the very best of reasons. So does everyone else. We all understand the significance of a great submarine fleet. But adventures like stealing an American SSN and its crew must always be carried out at great risk.
“You embarked on the adventure driven purely by your concern for your country and your concern to arm it against its enemies in the best possible way. However, that is only one part of your task. The other is always to ensure that we do not take on an opponent when the odds are stacked against us. And in this case, every one of your advisers and your very few superiors would have agreed with your actions. Indeed, most of them did agree.
“I repeat, no one could have predicted an American reaction of this unusual severity. And I say again, I do not understand it.”
“Also, remember the diplomatic exchanges, Jicai. There was no suggestion that the United States was even concerned. And all the while they must have been planning this ruthless reprisal. I could not have known.”
“No, Yushu. You could not have known.”
“And now my only wish is to save my career. And I may not be very good at that, since I have never had to think such thoughts before…”
“Then I must ask you again: Do you really want
Colonel Lee to pursue the American submarine to the ends of the earth and then sink it?”
“Jicai, I believe that changes the world for me. If at the end of it all we sink an American nuclear boat in revenge for what they have done, I can make out a good case for the courage and decisiveness of my Navy. I cannot end the mission with a whimper. We must save face and issue a warning, an international warning, that we will not be trifled with.”
“Ah, Yushu. ‘
Real power comes from the barrel of a gun
.’ The words of the great Mao, eh?”
“Exactly so.”
“Let us hope the Americans have not read them. For it would surely be even more shocking if they sank the
Xiangtan
.”
Back out on the ocean, the bizarre convoy began to swing to the east as
Kaufman
increased speed to stay above
Greenville
. The SSN was stepping up her speed two knots at a time, checking her sail constantly, for fear it might rip right off.
On the plus side, she was not leaking, although she sounded like a floating steel strip mill. On the minus side, the Chinese destroyer showed no signs whatsoever of giving up the chase. A little over a mile and a half behind, she now steamed along steadily, making an easy 16 knots through the water, just as
Greenville
was doing. She made no attempt to establish contact with either of the American frigates. She just stayed right where she was, watching, waiting, tracking.
In
Greenville
, Commander Wheaton, clattering along now at 17 knots, decided to go for another speed increase, since there appeared to be nothing wrong with either the reactor or the turbines.
“Make your speed nineteen,” he said. The battered submarine surged forward, and the only discernible result in the control room was an even greater racket coming from inside the shattered sail. But she kept going.
Up on the surface the American operators in the
frigates were unable to pick up any radio contact from the Chinese, but every time they looked back over the stern, there was
Xiangtan
running through the fading wake of the frigate
Kaufman
. The unnerving presence of the big Chinese destroyer seemed to increase as the day wore on, because they ran eastward for hour after hour, and nothing changed. Where
Kaufman
went,
Xiangtan
went, and by early afternoon the Americans were beginning to wonder if they should do something to discourage this strange game of follow the leader, particularly since the
Shantou
had now caught up and was steaming along 200 yards off
Xiangtan
’s starboard quarter.
Commander Carl Sharpe opened up his encrypted line to the Flag at midday, informing Admiral Barry that the destroyer from Zhanjiang, which had summarily opened fire on
Greenville
sometime before 0700 that morning, had now been tracking the submerged and damaged submarine for the best part of five hours. It was also in the company of a Chinese antisubmarine frigate.
He added that he had no idea what the plans of either Chinese captain were, but they had made no attempt to fire on either of the American frigates. “They seem, sir,” said Commander Sharpe, “to have an exclusive interest in the submarine, and a total disregard for our surface ships.”
Admiral Barry asked if the
Kaufman
’s CO had any recommendations. But the frigate captain said he could not come up with anything more constructive than perhaps firing a shot or two across the
Xiangtan
’s bows. But this seemed extravagant, and Admiral Barry told him just to proceed back toward the battle group, but to keep him posted, on the hour, as to the precise movements of the Chinese warship. “Remember, you are not authorized to shoot, Commander, except in self-defense. That’s straight from Washington. She’s a big ship, and we’d have to sink her to disable her, and I’m not sure Washington would be crazy about that.”
Commander Sharpe returned to the bridge and ordered
the helmsman to hold course and make their best speed back toward the carrier, which was of course only the best speed
Greenville
could make, rattling along underneath with virtually no sonar. However, Commander Wheaton had now wound her speed up to 27 knots and they were clattering along extremely smoothly, though you would never have known it, judging by the shrieks of tortured steel from the sail.
Two miles astern, still following with bland, impassive determination, were
Xiangtan
and
Shantou
, pitching through the rising ocean swell, as apparently innocent as a couple of tourist ferries, but with menace in their gun turrets.
The
Ronald Reagan
was now positioned eight hours away to the east, and for every one of those hours the Chinese warships kept a constant vigil on the American frigates and her unseen underwater colleague
Greenville
. Every hour Commander Wheaton checked in on the UWT to check if they still had company, and the answer was always the same: “They’re still there, two miles astern, same speed.”