Attack of the Seawolf

In front of him was a table with a half-dozen large three-ring notebooks scattered on top of nautical charts of the Go Hai Bay. The interior of the new jet was cold, the air conditioning system improperly adjusted. The cool air had raised goosebumps on Pacino’s exposed arms. He scarcely noticed.

As promised. Admiral Donchez had provided the new khaki uniforms in Pacino’s size. Pacino had ransacked a steamer trunk full of old uniforms in the basement of the house, but the old garments still stank of the Devilfish. He had found the velvet display case holding his Navy Cross earned “in classified action under the polar icecap onboard the USS Devilfish.” He had tossed the case back to the bottom of the trunk in disgust … over one hundred and thirty men had died in the Devilfish incident, he had gotten a damned medal … He had salvaged his old submariner’s dolphin pin, the brass emblem solid and heavy in his hands, the scaly fish facing toward the center where an oldfashioned diesel boat plowed through the waves. The pin had once belonged to his father, “Patch” Pacino.

Donchez had given it to him years before when he had first qualified in submarines. After the Devilfish incident, the dolphins were practically all that he had left from his old submarine. Everything else had gone down with her to the bottom.

Donchez’s voice brought Pacino back from his thoughts.

“Mikey, this trip is the only chance I’ll have to brief you. After that you’re on your own. The first thing we’ve got to get through is the weapons load out

The base is standing by to load the Seawolf with weapons and it’ll take at least five, six hours to get that done. I don’t want the mission delayed to load weapons.

So let’s go over the mission, commit to the load out and I’ll radio the request to Yokosuka. When we’re done with that we’ll go over the capabilities of the Seawolf and brief you on the crew.”

“Fine,” Pacino said, his voice wooden, suddenly wondering if he was really up to taking over command of the world’s most advanced submarine and, within an hour, submerging it to sail into hostile waters to rescue another submarine.

“Okay, the mission first. Of course, you can tailor this to suit yourself. First you’ll get into the Go Hai as quietly as possible. At Point Hotel, off Tianjin’s Xingang harbor, you’ll come up to periscope depth and take a look at the situation. If nothing has changed since the last KH-17 fly over the plan goes forward. Seawolf will hover at periscope depth and put the three platoons of the SEAL team out the escape trunk. When the SEALs are locked out they’ll swim over to the Tampa, taking with them Kurt Lennox—” “Who’s he?”

“Murphy’s exec. He was on leave in Japan when Tampa got the word to insert into the Go Hai. He’s integral to the plan. He’ll be the one who will know the details of how we plan to get Tampa out, and he’ll coordinate your escape plan with Murphy. He’s also our insurance in case they’ve removed the officers and crew from the ship. In which case he’ll be the only one who will be able to drive the ship out — the SEAL team sure as hell won’t know the first thing about conning a nuke sub out of the bay. Then we at least get the ship back, and we’ll try to figure out something else to get the crew back.

“The SEAL team’s job will be to knock out the pier guards and get aboard the Tampa, overpower the Chinese inside and get the crew onstation for the underway, then lay topside to cut the lines to the Chinese ships. Here’s where you may need to improvise. Somehow the Chinese destroyers will need to be distracted so Tampa has time to warm up her engines and get underway.”

“Improvise?” Pacino said.

“Distract the destroyers? My ideas on distracting the Chinese will involve some large-bore weapons. Admiral. I hope you’re ready for that.”

“Up to you. Once Tampa is underway you’ll have to escort her out. I’m guessing she’ll still be able to start up, get underway and submerge. If she can’t, the backup plan is to get as many men out of the hull as possible and get them aboard Seawolf, then get out of there. I’m hoping that won’t be the case — the mission has almost zero chance of success if that happens, plus we’ll probably lose you and Seawolf too. I’m tempted to order you to get the hell out of there without Murphy and his crew if the Tampa is disabled. I won’t order you to do anything specific. You’ll be the guy up-close. You’ve got a free hand. Your only requirements are to get Tampa away from the Chinese with minimal loss of American lives and American equipment.”

“Okay, so let’s say Tampa gets down and I’m escorting her out. The Chinese will be waiting for us at the entrance to the bay …”