Attack of the Seawolf

Tien waved at Sai, who stopped the blade but did not release Tarkowski’s penis.

Tien wheeled over the TelePrompTer and the camera.

He rolled the camera. Just behind it Murphy could see the guard, the bayonet, the table, and Tarkowski’s penis. Above the camera, Tarkowski’s face had turned gray. Murphy tried to concentrate on the TelePrompTer. He began:

“My name is Commander Sean Murphy, United States Navy. I am the captain of the U.S. Navy nuclear-powered attack submarine Tampa …”

The statement went on for minute after minute, into what seemed like hours to Murphy. Through it all he tried to read and ignore the meaning of the words, but even with Tien’s flat face looking on, with Tarkowski still standing at the table. Murphy heard the words and wanted to throw up. He continued on, thinking that somehow Tien would pay, but also knowing the thought was a vain one. Finally the statement was finished.

Tien stopped the camera.

“Commander, I thank you for being a reasonable man. Fighter Sai, release Mr.

Tarkowski.”

The guard released his hold on Tarkowski, underwear and coveralls still around his ankles.

“Let me help you, Tarkowski,” Tien said, bending and gently lifting Tarkowski’s underwear up and pulling his coveralls up over his shoulders. He zipped up the poopy suit and turned around to look at Murphy.

The guard rolled out the camera and video equipment.

For a moment Tien just looked at Murphy, then, his eyes still on Murphy’s face, he picked up a phone and spoke some orders into it.

Immediately the fans wound down, the air conditioning stopped, the lights flickered. The Circuit One announcing system again broadcast Lube Oil Vaughn’s voice to the ship, the voice empty of hope.

“REACTOR SCRAM,” the voice said.

Tien turned to the guard: “Turn on the pier floodlights and prepare the buses. Get the prisoners offloaded immediately. I want these buses out of here in ten minutes.”

Murphy began to protest.

Tien ignored him as he produced a pistol and put the barrel into Tarkowski’s right nostril. After a moment’s pause, he pulled the trigger, filling the small stateroom with a crashing report. Tarkowski’s head blew apart, the back of his skull flying back against the far bulkhead. Slowly, he sank to the deck, his knees buckling.

Tien’s pistol was still upraised at the place where Tarkowski’s face had been a moment before. Finally he holstered the pistol and disappeared into the passageway, leaving Murphy alone in his room with the corpse of Greg Tarkowski.

CHAPTER 18 SUNDAY, 12 MAY 1835 GREENWICH MEAN TIME

GO HAD BAY POINT HOTEL, XLNGANG HARBOR

USS SEAWOLF

0235 BEIJING TIME

“Conn, Sonar,” Chief Jeb’s Tennessee accent drawled, “Transients from Friendly One. The Tampa is shutting down her engine room

“What do you make of that, Captain?” Keebes asked from the deck near the attack center.

Pacino shrugged.

“Lookaround number-two scope,” he called as the periscope pole came out of the well, the optic control module clunking to a halt as it cleared the well sill. Pacino snapped the grips down, pushed up his eyepatch and put his eye to the scope trained to the bearing of the P.L.A piers.

He had expected to have to peer into the dim light, but the brilliance of the pier floodlights burned his retina. When his eyes adjusted he could see the floodlit pier and the dark shapes of the superstructures of the warships tied up pier side Between Target Three and Four the buses were lit up inside. Both buses visible in the line of sight between the Udaloy and the Jianghu had drivers waiting inside them. Pier guards wandered on the narrow strip of concrete visible between the ships, rifles at the ready as if they were expecting something. The decks of the Udaloy, between Tampa and the pier, were lit up.

There could be only one thing going on with the pier activity and the engine room shutdown, Pacino decided.

The Chinese were moving the Tampa’s crew to a POW camp.

The divers had been locked out for almost forty minutes.

With fifteen minutes to get to the P.L.A pier, that had given them less than half an hour to set up the explosive charges on the surface ships. And Morris had predicted between a half-hour and an hour to lay the charges. He had also promised to keep an eye on the pier for any off load of the crew. Were his VHF walkie talkies up and waiting for him to communicate?

“Radio, Captain,” Pacino barked into his lip mike, “patch in the VHP freak to the SEAL team to the conn and line up the transmission on the Type-20.”

“Conn, Radio, aye … Captain, you’re patched in.

Type-20’s ready to transmit.” The periscope antenna was not usually a transmission device, but the radiomen had wired in the SEALs’ walkie-talkie VHF frequencies into the antenna and rigged it for transmission, thereby avoiding Pacino having to raise the huge Bigmouth antenna for transmitting.

Pacino pulled a coiled-cord microphone from a console hanging on the aft stainless steel conn handrail, punched a toggle switch on the console, spoke into the mike: