Payback wi-10, page 28
part #10 of WW III Series
The RS continued to burp air bubbles from its ballast tanks as it rose from the black ocean depths toward the faintly lit upper layers of the Sea of Japan’s international waters.
“Cut red light to white — it’s daylight upstairs.”
Upstairs, Freeman knew, was by now international waters, its rules penciled out meticulously by bureaucratic gnomes in Geneva, Zurich, and Berne, rules that every blue water navy promised to abide by. But for Aussie, Salvini, Choir, and the others, the reality of international relations in the deep blue oceans that covered three-quarters of the world, hiding the great mountain ranges of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and the deeps, such as the 28,000-foot-deep Marianas Trench to their south, could best be described as Saltwater Dodge where, like the Wild West’s infamous frontier town, the right of way belonged to the most powerful. The chaos was made worse by the stupid brown-water, that is, riverine and continental slope, “close-to-Mommy” navies, as Freeman called them, who, after the Cold War, when they had welcomed either the blue-water U.S. or Soviet navies to protect them, were now trying to move away from being mere local and regional powers to blue-water status overnight.
In a hurry, combatants in any navy who hadn’t thought their plans through could be dangerous, and that’s what Freeman was worried about now. If the junk’s skipper had thought this cat-and-mouse game through, he should have already left the area, because no matter how important it was for the Payback mission to be kept under wraps until it was over, until Freeman got the box back to McCain, Freeman knew, as the junk’s skipper should have realized, the U.S. Navy would never permit such a revolutionary vessel as the RS to fall into enemy hands, either damaged or captured. He knew that if Ray Lynch and the others in McCain’s Blue-Tile supersensitive Signals Exploitation Space closely monitoring the RS’s infil onto and now its exfil from Beach 5 thought for one second that the RS might be captured, its crew perhaps already depth-charged into insensibility and unwitting surrender, Admiral Crowley would act quickly. His entire carrier battle group of thirteen ships would unleash everything in their considerable arsenals to destroy the RS so utterly that it would be nothing more than carbon fiber.
“Sixty feet, periscope depth!” reported Eddie Mervyn.
“Scope depth,” acknowledged the general, adding in a hurried but nevertheless carefully measured and modulated voice, “Pilot has the con.” At this, Mervyn became OOD, officer of the deck, and instructed Gomez, “Up search scope. Closing the eye.”
“Up search scope. Closing the eye,” said Gomez, as Freeman watched his distorted bean-string image in the oil-polished sheen of the search scope’s column.
“Ten to one they’ve buggered off,” said Aussie.
No one would take the bet.
“Relay visual to screen,” Gomez informed Eddie.
“Relay to screen. Magnification?”
“One point five.”
“One point five. Very good.”
Everyone was watching the screen, the shutdown of the eye resulting in a momentarily blank screen before the search scope’s circle came online to show, they hoped, a magnified vista of the surrounding waters. Instead, all they saw were foam-riven gray walls of water crashing in on the scope, visually highlighting their vulnerability. Nothing but an angry sea.
“Reducing magnification,” said Eddie Mervyn. The never-ending walls seemed less intimidating but just as relentless. The important thing was that there was no sight of the junk or its two depth-charging rigid inflatable boats. Gomez cursed the malfunctioning sonar, which was unable to confirm their conclusion, based as it was on nothing more than their search scope’s digital pics of a heaving ocean. A ship, junk, or other vessel could easily be missed, as Freeman well knew.
Given the crazy change in vectors involved, one second the scope would be atop the crest of a huge wave, giving a 45-degree snapshot of the ocean for miles, the next all that would be seen was a solid wall of water, as trough replaced crest. But as yet, no junk was in sight. What made it worse for Freeman was that, as confident as he was that the junk had withdrawn, he was able to only partially concentrate on the intermittent views of the search scope. The reason: things weren’t right. The grip of his obsession about the sweet onions and the MANPADS had not been cast off by his frank acknowledgment of doubt to the crew. It was bad luck that the HAN sub showed up before the attack and the junk shortly after, but was it pure chance? The littoral waters were vigorously patrolled by the PLA and NKA navies. Or had someone somehow got a fix on their course? Someone at the beach who’d seen them racing off, at least the RS’s wake, and quickly extrapolated from the straight-line course? It was impossible to tell.
“Clear through 180 degrees,” Eddie Mervyn informed the team. “Beginning second 180 now.”
Freeman was sure that the scope’s 360-degree sweep would be clear as well, because his suspicion was growing. During the half-hour wait, he’d had time to chew over several other things that had also surprised him: the lack of any NKA beach patrol, which every member of the Payback team half expected to be there, near such a high-priority target, and there was only one tank. You used tanks in platoon sizes — maybe a pair, one covering the other, and more often three, but rarely only one tank. And how come there were no more armored vehicles, Chinese-made armored BTR-60 and BMP amphibious personnel carriers?
“All clear through 360,” came Eddie Mervyn’s assurance.
“Run CC check,” said Freeman.
“Running counterclockwise sweep,” confirmed Eddie. “Through 360.”
“Three-sixty” made Freeman think of another absentee. With the vital MANPAD storehouse relatively close to the DMZ, how come there’d been no Deng-type fast attack vehicles with the roof-mounted 360-degree-sweep 23mm chain gun and pintle-mounted 7.62mm up front? If he remembered correctly, the Deng 355 FAV had a 24-7 day-night-sighting sleeve above the chain gun. And a T-55 instead of the ChiCom 98 laser-guided missile tank. Or was his glass-half-empty mood feeding on itself? Maybe with the storm lashing the coast, Pyongyang had put out a “Defend the Fatherland” alert, which braced all their units along the 148-mile-long DMZ for an impending all-out U.S./South Korean breach of the line? And he knew that such an alert used up the NKA’s liquid gold, as Johnny Lee referred to the NKA’s expensive oil, which they’d received as payment from Middle-Eastern terrorists in return for MANPADs and other weapons.
And of course the boys in Blue Tile country on McCain had jammed every damn frequency the NKA had tried to use, and how long had the Payback team been ashore? Twenty-five, maybe twenty-six minutes maximum. It had seemed a lot longer to the team — always did when you were being shot at — and so what time did the NKA have to rush reinforcements to Beach 5 when for starters they were unable to talk to one another?
Ah, thought the general. He was Monday-morning quarterbacking, his mood understandably mordant because of the loss of Bone. The fact was, he reminded himself, that the storm was so ferocious it would have grounded any NKA antisub aircraft, and the seas were so high that any sonar echoes the NKA spy junk might have hoped for had probably been degraded by the storm-churned tumultuous sea.
“All clear on countersweep,” pronounced Eddie.
“Thank the Lord for that,” said Aussie.
“Amen,” said Sal.
“All right,” said the general. “What’s ETA for McCain?”
“Forty-three minutes at maximum underwater speed,” replied Gomez.
“Sir,” put in Mervyn, “with our sonar mikes shot, I’d rather plane it. It’ll be rough, but with more speed and maneuverability we’ll—”
“I agree,” said Freeman, his mood more upbeat. He looked at Choir Williams. “Sorry, Choir, but if we go faster we’ll get there quicker.”
“In twenty-five minutes,” added Eddie encouragingly. “Two-thirds max surface speed.”
Choir nodded.
“Op’s over, Choir,” said Aussie. “You can pop a Gravol.”
“I have.”
The general turned to Salvini. “Moment we’re aboard McCain, Sal, you can open the box, but not in this turbulence. Besides, as I said before, we can’t disturb anything that CIA forensic might be able to use.”
“Roger that,” said Salvini, trying to hide his impatience and annoyance. Yes, yes, he knew the old man was right, but “stone the crows,” as Aussie would say, hadn’t they earned the right to have a peek? All right, he told himself, he’d be a good little boy and wait till they reached McCain.
Eddie was already making the turn, the seats reversing in concert, with the RS’s wedge end becoming the bow once more. But Salvini couldn’t shake the conviction that the general, the cool legend of the Siberian taiga, was having an attack of nerves, delaying opening the box as long as possible, as if he was afraid there mightn’t be anything worthwhile inside after all. Sal didn’t say anything, but his eyes, looking down at the box, told Aussie what he was thinking.
“Tighten your harnesses!” ordered Eddie, who still had the con. “This mother’s gonna be an ass-busting ride, old buddies.”
When the RS surfaced in a blow of dense spray that struck them like a car wash’s opening deluge, all seven men were tight in their H-harness, their heads cushioned in the dense “memory foam” cranial cushions, with a broad foam head strap immobilizing each commando for the series of body-slamming hits that ensued as they raced at 50 mph through a confused chop made up of residual Force 9 surge and vicious crosscurrents. Maximum speed in this witches’ brew would have caused multiple contusions and even fractures, had they not been restrained. Even so, the general had a headache, brought on not by the severe juddering caused by the RS’s high speed but rather a question that was gnawing away at him after the nearly disastrous depth charging, namely, had somebody alerted the PLA navy about the Galaxy and its palletized cargo? Even if they didn’t know exactly what that cargo was?
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“We have the RS-XP on radar,” announced Blue Tile’s OOD.
“I see it,” said John Cuso, the white blip on Big Blue pulsating along a line over a hundred clicks east-northeast of Kosong.
“Man,” said one of the junior EWOs, his eyes fixed on the RS, “that thing’s doin’ fifty or I’m a duck.”
“You’re a duck,” said the OOD on the main console. “Data block says he’s clipping near sixty miles an hour.”
“Oh, that’s what I meant, sir. Fifty knots.”
“Yeah, right!”
The ripple of laughter that ran through the Signals Exploitation Space bespoke high morale, but captain of the boat and admiral of the carrier battle group Crowley didn’t join in. He was doing morning rounds and as usual there was much on his mind. He was purportedly in the short list of admirals for the next CNO, the United States Chief of Naval Operations worldwide, one of the most powerful offices and officers in Washington, and rumor had it that he and Admiral Jensen, COMSUBPAC-GRU 9 (Commander Submarine Pacific — Group 9) at Bangor, Washington State, were in a dead heat with COMSUB Atlantic. It was a matter of honor among carrier proponents that Crowley win out against the “pig-boat duo,” the latter’s derogatory name derived not from the reputed pig-style conditions of life aboard the old water-rationed, nonnuclear subs, where the only two men allowed to shower daily were the cook and the prop’s oiler. In fact, the term “pig boat,” as Freeman knew, originated from the scenes of the relatively small subs all gathered about a tanker and/or replenishment vessel like so many piglets around a sow.
“Old man has a few more wrinkles this morning,” Air Boss Ray Lynch quipped to John Cuso.
XOs made it a career-saving habit to be noncommittal about their bosses, and so the tall, slim officer said nothing.
“Well,” continued Ray Lynch, “he should be smiling. Scuttlebutt is that they found COMSUB Atlantic in flagrante delicto with a SIG skirt.” He meant a female signals officer.
“Really?” said Cuso disinterestedly.
“Yeah,” said Ray Lynch, not so tired from launching another Combat Air Patrol that he wasn’t up to more idle chitchat. Despite his general fatigue, his demeanor changed into a rather good imitation of a Brit naval officer of the kind he’d had to cooperate with during joint NATO fleet exercises: “No, not good at all, old boy. Waylaying young damsels on the high seas. My spies tell me his executive officer did knock before barging into COMSUB Atlantic’s stateroom with a ‘Most Urgent’ form—” Ray Lynch affected a slight mental lapse, finger on lips, brow furrowed. “—from the base at Bangor, Maine, but alas, said admiral was apparently all the way up channel and didn’t hear his exec because of huffing and puffing and attendant ‘ooh-ahs’ from said skirt.”
“Haven’t you got some planes to park?” Cuso asked wryly.
“Oh, all chained up in the hangar. Brown shirts down there are swearing like that Australian Black Ops guy — Stewart?”
“Lewis, Aussie Lewis,” said Cuso, glad to change the subject from gossip about the rivalry for the CNO, though secretly he welcomed the news if it was true. If Crowley got the CNO spot, Cuso, God willing, should be on the very short list to have his own command. Suddenly the ejection from the F-14 Tomcat that had almost killed him seemed as if it might have been a blessing in disguise. He’d always pooh-poohed his mother’s old Southern Baptist conviction, which she held to this day, that God listens to us but doesn’t answer prayers right away, that the answer comes in different guises. He still was an atheist, a paid-up member of the glass-always-half-empty society. But, John Cuso mused, if he got command of the “boat,” one of the greatest ships afloat, maybe he’d write a special thank-you letter to his mom.
“Heard about the MEU?” asked Lynch. MEU was the battle group’s Marine Expeditionary Unit.
“No,” said Cuso, straining to be polite but growing weary of Ray Lynch, who, he figured, was about the best air boss in Pacific Command’s six carriers but was definitely on the short list for CNG — chief naval gossip. John Cuso understood it. After the hair-raising business of landing 80-million-dollar planes on the roof for four hours, the need for relief, the temptation to talk about anything other than flight-deck ops, was too strong. “What about the MEU?” he asked dutifully.
“It’s throw-up central over there. Crew says you can see ’em hanging over Yorktown’s side. Looks—” Ray began to laugh. “—like it’s covered in flies.”
The Yorktown was the battle group’s Wasp-class LHD-26B, Landing Helicopter Dock ship, part of the U.S. Marines’ “Gator Navy,” so called because of the potent amphibian force the Marines had proved to be in the great and bloody amphibious landings from Guadalcanal to Saipan. It was a measure of the storm’s ferocity that even the 45,000-ton carrier that housed a 1,700-man battalion of Marines, 45 assorted choppers, several of the hybrid Ospreys, 2 F-35s, and 3 LCACs, or Hovercraft Landing Craft, was rolling and pitching enough in the storm to make so many Leathernecks ill. In fact, only 150 or so Marines had felt the urge to deposit their breakfasts into the Sea of Japan, but the crews in the battle group’s protective screen took perverse pleasure in seeing their indisputably tougher and, from the point of view of the women aboard McCain, aggressively politically incorrect Marines on the receiving end of things for a change.
“Serves ’em right,” chortled Ray Lynch. “Yorktown’s old man should be keeping her into the wind ’stead of beam-on, for cryin’ out loud.”
Cuso shrugged noncommittally. He’d seen a radar zoom shot of the Marines on the big blue screen. It told him why the skipper of the LHD Yorktown, the ship named, like all new LHDs, for an illustrious World War II forebear, was not heading into the wind. The skipper was probably giving the Marines, his men, and a few women, a taste of what it was like to be readying to go forth in a relatively light 160-ton hovercraft while taking the big Pacific swells broadside.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The RS was fourteen minutes from docking with the McCain, or, as Gomez was suggesting, given the rough weather, being picked up by the special girdle-equipped helo from the Yorktown. But already General Douglas Freeman had the sinking feeling of a man about to meet his Waterloo. Deep within the general’s psyche there arose the conviction that just as another military legend, Napoleon, had lost it all, albeit by the skin of his teeth, in what the victorious Wellington had called a “damn near run thing,” Douglas Freeman would lose it all. He felt that he’d been convinced, or rather had convinced himself, that he might be the victim of an Intelligence ruse that would heap humiliation on top of failure if there was nothing in the box after all. “After all” included the loss of Bone Brady, who’d committed himself to Freeman’s command largely on the basis of the general’s quick thinking and to-date successful derring-do. What had he, Freeman, always said? “L’audace, l’audace, toujours l’audace!” He had gone in with audacity, banking on surprise, and he’d succeeded in blowing the target to smithereens and grabbing what he had told the team would be the prize of a shoulder-fired launcher and missile. In short, he had convinced himself that, following Gomez’s suggestion, when he and the team reached the Yorktown and the world wasn’t the eye-juddering experience it was here as the RS planed the ocean swells like a Hummer on a corrugated speed-bump road, he would find nothing but a pile of rocks or dirt, the box’s only resemblance to that of a real MANPAD box being that the ingredients weighed the same. Clever bastards. No doubt their purpose was to achieve an enormous propaganda victory to accuse the U.S. of blatant aggression and the U.S.’s running-dog lackeys of Britain, Australia, and the like that there was no evidence whatsoever of North Korean involvement in terrorism.
