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  The remaining Akula, with its own towed array, had shown that he could be a quiet adversary. Naval intelligence still had not learned much about that sensor capability, so Mack decided to play it safe. He elected to follow the same plan he had used successfully earlier, steering the torpedoes off target so they would be attacking from bearings other than Cheyenne’s location.

  “Make tubes one and two ready in all respects, including opening the outer doors, fire-control, torpedo room, aye.”

  After the torpedo room reported completing the ordered evolution with the torpedo tubes, the executive officer informed Mack, “Captain, tubes one and two are ready in all respects. Both outer doors are open.”

  “Very well, fire control,” answered the captain.

  The Akula was tracking to the southwest. Cheyenne was closing the range, intending to intercept with a fire-control solution before the Akula could reach detection range on Cheyenne.

  The Akula continued drawing left as Cheyenne closed. It, too, was otherwise quiet, with no contact on the spherical or conformal arrays. Because of this, the BSY-1 operators had to rely on the readings from the TB-23, assisted by Mack’s course changes, to make the solution possible for the fire-control party. When both they and the fire-control coordinator were satisfied with the TMA (target motion analysis) solution on Master 127, the Russian Akula II SSN, the captain ordered, “Firing point procedures, Master 127.”

  The combat systems officer at the weapons control console reported the target course as 200, speed four, and range 27,250 yards.

  “Sonar, conn, stand by.”

  “Conn, sonar, standing by.”

  “Match sonar bearings and shoot, tubes one and two.”

  “Match sonar bearings and shoot, tubes one and two, aye.”

  “Tubes one and two fired electrically,” reported the combat systems officer.

  “Conn, sonar, units from tubes one and two running hot, straight, and normal,” came the report from the sonar supervisor as the two torpedoes executed their wire clearance maneuvers and accelerated to slow speed for the long inbound run.

  “Very well, sonar,” responded the captain. “Take charge and steer the weapons. Unit one off course ten degrees to the right and unit two off course forty-five degrees to the left.” When the torpedoes were close enough for passive acquisition, they would be steered back in the opposite direction.

  “Time to turn the units?” asked the captain.

  “Twenty minutes for unit one, captain,” answered the combat systems officer. “Seventeen minutes for unit two.”

  The torpedoes were turned on cue. One was leading the target while the other was slightly lagging.

  “Time to acquisition?” Mack asked.

  “Ten minutes for unit two, Captain,” the combat systems officer replied. “Twelve minutes for unit one.”

  Exactly on schedule, the combat systems officer reported, “Unit two has acquired.” Two minutes later he added, “Unit one has acquired.” This time both torpedoes had acquired their original target. There were no more Russian submarines left out there.

  “Cut the wires, shut the outer doors, and reload tubes one and two,” ordered the captain.

  “Conn, sonar, we have two torpedoes in the water, bearing 205 and drawing right!” the sonar supervisor called out. The Russian captain had launched his snap shots, but not at the bearings of the incoming torpedoes. He was wilier than the other Akula captains, and had read the report of Cheyenne’s earlier tactic, which had been sent by the Akula that got away and made it to the Paracels. Guessing correctly that the captain of Cheyenne would try it again, he had launched on a bearing halfway between the oncoming torpedoes.

  Mack’s ploy hadn’t worked. The Russian torpedoes were headed for Cheyenne.

  “Right full rudder, all ahead flank,” Mack ordered. “Do not cavitate. Make your depth one thousand feet.” He wasn’t sure if the Akula had detected Cheyenne on its towed array or if the Russian captain had guessed at Mack’s earlier tactic. If the Akula had heard them, it knew Cheyenne’s location, but if its captain had just made a lucky guess, then Mack didn’t want to reveal Cheyenne to its sonar. Not unless the inbound torpedoes acquired Cheyenne and he had to. Having been deep beneath the second layer, Cheyenne was at flank speed in less than a minute, on course due east, and at one thousand feet. Mack was keeping the torpedoes at the edge of his port baffles so sonar could continue to relay bearing information.

  A short while later, the sonar supervisor reported that the torpedoes were speeding up and drawing right faster. At the same time, the WLR-9, Cheyenne’s acoustic intercept receiver, started chirping at the frequency of the incoming torpedoes.

  “Conn, sonar, explosions coming from our baffles!”

  That was the sound of Cheyenne’s two torpedoes exploding. Unfortunately, because the explosions occurred in her baffles, the sonar operators could not determine what effect — if any — they’d had on the Akula.

  But Mack couldn’t worry about that at the moment. The enemy torpedoes were still out there, and closing fast, and they were his top priority. Mack released two gas generators, noisemakers, and brought Cheyenne hard right again, circling to the south to open the datum of the gas generators.

  Cheyenne’s high-speed maneuvers created an additional knuckle that helped draw the attention of the Russian torpedoes, which attacked nothing but the boiling water column. Confused by the noisemakers, they could not acquire Cheyenne, but merely headed off into the sea.

  When it was time for the Russian torpedo end of run and the torpedoes could no longer be heard, Mack turned to the west and slowed Cheyenne to search for the Akula. There was no contact on any of the arrays, and no reverberations from Cheyenne’s torpedoes exploding.

  The Akula had vanished — though whether it had been destroyed or had merely gone back into hiding could not be determined with any degree of certainty. Mack took Cheyenne back toward Taiwan for reload, maneuvering her slowly and cautiously, but he could not gain any more contact on the third Akula.

  Following the Navy’s standard procedures, Mack’s patrol report would list this last Akula as being sunk. Mack only hoped he was right.

  14. Hornets’ Nest

  Cheyenne arrived safely back at Tsoying Naval Base, once again mooring alongside McKee. Before heading over for his next war patrol briefing, Captain Mackey requested a full loadout of Mk 48 ADCAP torpedoes. He ordered Cheyenne’s combat systems officer to ensure that the remaining Harpoon was off-loaded and its stow refilled with an Mk 48.

  Mack’s first clue that this briefing, like the last, would have political overtones was when the McKee captain notified him that the briefing would once again be held at the naval base headquarters rather than on board McKee. Mack didn’t mind the politics; he just hoped that this didn’t mean he’d have to deal with another Typhoon this time out.

  The first thing Mack noticed when he entered the conference room on the second floor was the same CTF 74 staff members who had conducted the electronic security sweep of the room before Cheyenne’s last patrol. They had already completed their task and were leaving as Mack and his officers arrived.

  There was no sign of the Chinese leader, but the briefing officer said that President Jiang would be along before the end of the briefing. Without waiting for Jiang, the briefing officer launched into the background for Cheyenne’s next mission.

  As Jiang had pointed out at the last meeting, much of China was enthusiastic in its support and appreciation of Cheyenne’s successes — much of China, that is, but not all of it. One group in particular that was unhappy about Cheyenne’s effectiveness against the Chinese submarines was the so-called Petroleum Faction. This group of engineers had developed the oil fields in Manchuria, and they had a personal interest in this war. Their leader, General Yu Quili, had taken charge of a squadron of Akula II SSNs and had made it his mission to deal with Cheyenne.

  “What’s a general know about submarines?” Mack asked.

  That was the wro
ng question, though, as the briefing officer was quick to point out. It wasn’t what General Yu Quili knew that mattered. The leader of the Petroleum Faction had been a major player in this war from the onset. Not only had he assisted in Premier Li Peng’s coup, but his group was also the source of funds for the purchases of Russian submarines and Russian crews.

  Besides, Mack realized as he listened to the briefing officer, General Yu wasn’t going to be driving any of the submarines. But as a leader since the days of Chairman Mao Tse-tung, he undoubtedly would be effective in motivating and inspiring the officers and the crews.

  What Mack really wanted to know about, though, wasn’t General Yu and his petroleum faction, or even his Akulas. What Mack wanted to know about was what it would take to win this war.

  “Back when we went up against those seven Akulas,” he said, “I was told that killing four of them would stop the Russians from providing more SSNs to China. Cheyenne killed six of the seven, and yet Russia continued to provide submarines to China — not only Alfas, Kilos, and Akulas, but that Typhoon as well. Where are they all coming from? When will this end?”

  The briefing officer answered frankly, perhaps because CTF 74 was at breakfast with President Jiang. “You are right, Captain Mackey,” he said. “To be honest, the intelligence community has not done too well lately. However, the CIA and naval intelligence have determined that the Russian Far East Shipyard, Komsomolsk on the Amur River, really did not go commercial like they had originally thought. Instead, it has been working three shifts a day in building submarines for export to China. Plus, China has been training new submarine crews, actually old Chinese diesel boat personnel, in the Kola Peninsula area.”

  That was not good news. Not only did it mean that Cheyenne would have more enemy submarines to watch out for, but it also meant that Li Peng was committed to this war. Cheyenne’s past successes notwithstanding, it was going to take a tremendous effort to bring this conflict to an end.

  Mack didn’t have time to mull that over much before the briefing officer started explaining Cheyenne’s next assignment. In preparation for eventually moving President Jiang from Taiwan to mainland China, Cheyenne would have to ensure that the waters around Taiwan were sanitized of General Yu’s SSNs.

  That didn’t sound so bad, but then the briefing officer went on to the details. Much of China was behind President Jiang — and that included most of its navy. Because of this, Mack’s superiors were presuming that Yu’s SSNs were the only remaining hostile Chinese submarines in the area, which meant that any other submarines Cheyenne detected were off limits for attacks. Unless, of course, Cheyenne was attacked first.

  Mack didn’t like that at all. These attack constraints were like those he had received during his transit from Ballast Point to Pearl Harbor, when Cheyenne had encountered the out-of-area Han and had to wait until she was fired upon. But Mack didn’t have the chance to object before the CTF 74 admiral arrived with President Jiang and his heavies.

  “Good morning, Mack,” the admiral said. “I presume you are aware of ’our’ problem, General Yu.”

  Mack nodded, but didn’t say anything.

  “Captain Mackey,” the Chinese president said, “we do have some good news to offer. Yu and Li Peng have had a falling-out over the general’s actions. Li Peng has renounced Yu’s authority and has ordered him arrested. In addition, Li and I are once again communicating with each other — cautiously, I might add — but we are closer to negotiations.

  Mack nodded again, but remained silent.

  “You are a hero, Captain,” President Jiang went on, “but watch your 180. I must leave now, for the roach coach is on the pier with its gedunks.”

  Mack blinked at that, caught off guard by Jiang’s use of U.S. Navy and submarine lingo. The president laughed, obviously pleased with Mack’s reaction, then shook his hand and left the conference room, escorted by his heavies.

  Mack wanted to get under way before dark, so once President Jiang had left the CTF 74 admiral told the briefing officer to finish what had not been covered.

  According to naval intelligence, General Yu had been supplying the diesel fuel to several of the Romeo, Ming, and Kilo submarine bases — and he’d been supplying it for free. This had naturally won some converts for Yu, which meant that Mack could not discount the possibility of diesel submarines present in the area. Nevertheless, the briefing officer emphasized, CINCPACFLT’s orders were that Captain Mackey would have to bide his time, ensuring that any submarine contacts he planned to attack were the Akulas unless fired upon by any other class.

  So far, Mack had not been pleased with the nature of this briefing, and he had been even less pleased with the information he had gained. And it was about to get even worse.

  In addition to the Akulas and the diesels, the briefing officer said as he neared the end of his presentation, there was a new wrinkle as well. At least one Hainan class attack craft fitted out as a mine layer was active in comms last week, paired with an old Romeo at Zhanjiang Naval Base, the headquarters of the Chinese South Sea Fleet. The old Romeo — which was the Chinese-built version, six feet longer and with eight torpedo tubes — was rumored to be outfitted with twenty-eight mines instead of fourteen torpedoes. To make matters worse, a Pothead radar, probably the Hainan, and a “Snoop Plate” radar, maybe the Romeo, had been tracking up the coast from Mandarin Bay. They had turned to the east near Hong Kong before being lost two days ago.

  Mack was glad when the briefing came to an end. He’d had enough bad news for one day. Unfortunately, there was more to come.

  When he got back to Cheyenne, Mack learned from the combat systems officer that, against Mack’s expressed instructions, McKee was still restricting Cheyenne’s torpedo loads. It didn’t help to learn that McKee was doing this for all the right reasons. Bremerton, a pre-VLS boat, and Columbia, a 6881 like Cheyenne, also had to be supplied. The arrival of Portsmouth and Pasadena in two weeks from the Atlantic Fleet would only serve to add to the strain.

  Politics again, Mack thought. The shift in the traditional “60–40 split” of submarines, 60 percent for COM-SUBLANT and 40 percent for COMSUBPAC, had obviously preceded the equivalent transfer of torpedoes to PACFLT. Now only twenty Mk 48 ADCAP were on board Cheyenne, and some might have to be used for long distance off-board minefield sensing before Mack would decide to use MIDAS, the short-range under-ice and mine-detection sonar mounted on the sail.

  Although its frequency was nearly twenty times that of the BSY-1 spherical active array, it was still detectable by the enemy. Mack wished even more that he had that FORMIDABOD sensor capability. R and D or not, the United States had shown during Desert Storm that the playing field of war was a better checkout of newly emerging systems than simulated targets and ranges. And its frequency, which was more than five times that of MIDAS, was not detectable by other than its own transducers.

  All of which meant that Cheyenne would have to contend with quiet diesels and mines while attacking the quiet Akulas, and she’d have to do it with a shortage of torpedoes.

  Shaking his head, Mack ordered Cheyenne to get under way before anything else could go wrong.

  * * *

  Cheyenne submerged to periscope depth at the fifty fathom curve and then altered her course to the south. In this direction the shallow waters of the Formosa Strait quickly gave way to the depths of the South China Sea. Within a few miles, the ledge would fall off to nearly 1,300 fathoms.

  “Captain, officer of the deck. Sonar reports the sound of chains dead ahead of us. I can’t see any mooring buoys, but with this sea state three, they could be bobbing up and down, hard to see.”

  Mack acknowledged the report and quickly left his stateroom, making a beeline for the sonar room. Putting on his own headset, which he had insisted be available for him whenever he wanted, Mack heard the sounds sonar had reported. But they were not the clunking noise of mooring buoys. They were clinking noises that he had heard once before in the Mediterranean, as the sonar officer d
uring his first submarine assignment on a 637, when Egypt’s Romeo submarines had laid mines in the Gulf of Sidra.

  “Officer of the deck, come around to the west and get the combat systems officer and executive officer to the conn,” Mack called from the sonar room.

  A few minutes later, Mack explained to the officers gathered at the conn that they were up against moored mines. If it had not been for the sea state causing the mines to move up and down and the chain links to rattle against themselves, Cheyenne would have been close to being history. He also knew that Cheyenne could probably skirt the minefield using MIDAS, but that would not help other sea travelers, including the other 688s on their way to help. Instead, they would have to try to take out the mines with off-board sensors.

  To do this, the warhead grain burn would not be inerted, allowing the torpedo to be command-detonated in the minefield — assuming that the torpedo didn’t merely set off the mines with its screw noise. If everything worked as planned, and the torpedo detonated in the proper position, the sympathetic concussions should set off a number of mines.

  Mack did not want to expend more than two Mk 48s. That would leave eighteen for Cheyenne’s Taiwan-area sanitization duties. To eliminate the minefield with only two torpedoes, Cheyenne would have to rely on the high frequency of the torpedo’s transducer, nearly twice that of MIDAS, to paint the scene well enough to ensure that the minefield was plotted prior to their attempting the kills.

  Cheyenne didn’t need to man battle stations for this evolution. The mines couldn’t shoot back. Besides, Mack would stay at least five thousand yards away, standing back at a comfortable distance, far beyond the mine detection and destruction capability.

  The combat systems officer alerted the TMOW (torpe-doman of the watch) of the plan to swim out tube three and then tube four if necessary. At the same time, Mack informed the crew over the 1MC of what would be happening. They would be able to hear the Mk 48 Otto fuel engines spinning up, which one could pick up through the hull while the torpedoes were still close, and Mack didn’t want them to be alarmed and wonder what was going on. He also wanted to alert the personnel sleeping in the torpedo room, who would have to get up and move their portable skid bunks so that the tubes could be reloaded.