Attack of the Seawolf

As he had done in other SEAL operations, he let his bladder go, knowing that there was no time to “spring a leak” overboard yet there was no way he could let himself be distracted by a full bladder. As he went down the narrow ladder to the small sphere of Tampa’s escape hatch, and let go, he could almost hear Black Bart telling the others that Morris “got so scared he pissed his pants again.” In a way, he wouldn’t have been far off. Without fear Morris long ago would have been dead in the water.

CHAPTER 19 SUNDAY, 12 MAY 1855 GREENWICH MEAN TIME

GO HAD BAY, XLNGANG HARBOR

P.L.A NAVY PIER 1A, USS TAMPA

0255 BEIJING TIME

Chief von Brandt hauled the heavy sniper rifle in one arm and Commander Lennox in the other as he ran forward, dodging the piles of metal and shrapnel lying on the Tampa’s oily deck. Baron von Brandt was barely in his thirties, a short man with a deep tan and the round face of a mischievous schoolboy. Baron was also an electronics technician by training, but his value to the SEAL team, aside from his marksman’s skills, was his ability to fly any aircraft, including helicopters, jets, ultralights, and even supersonic interceptors or multi-engined transports. He had been given the assignment of gaining the high ground and setting up a sniper station. On a submarine, of course, the only high point was the bridge at the top of the sail, nicely cleared out by Morris’s first RPG shot. But there was no guarantee that the bridge had been permanently cleared of armed Chinese. The tunnel to the control room could admit any number of guards from the upper deck of the forward compartment to the bridge cockpit, which meant a guard might be waiting for them on the bridge. Lennox would have to cover him on this one, von Brandt thought. The sniper rifle was too long and bulky to be of much use in taking out a close-range guard, and von Brandt would need to keep the sub’s deck clear until Lennox was safe in the bridge.

Von Brandt noted in his peripheral vision that the blown-off superstructure of the Udaloy would allow a firing position from the pier to the deck of the submarine. So they would have to reach the cover of the bridge in a hurry. As they got to the seaward side of the sail von Brandt pushed Lennox in front of him to the rungs of the steel footholds welded to the flank of the sail, the ladder from the cylindrical deck to the bridge above. Lennox began to climb the sheer side of the tall fin, clumsily holding his MAC-10 while climbing.

“Keep your finger in the trigger guard,” Baron said into his lip mike, “and be ready to take out anyone in the cockpit!”

Lennox’s choked voice acknowledged as he reached the top of the ladder and trained his muzzle right and left. His large body then vanished over the side of the cockpit.

“Anything?” Baron asked as he climbed the rungs of the ladder.

“It’s clear,” Lennox said, voice steadier.

Von Brandt jumped over the lip of the sail and ducked into the cockpit. At this height the heat from the destroyer’s fires was intense. He peered into the shadows of the cockpit, looking for a hidden guard.

None.

“Shut the hatch,” von Brandt ordered, pointing to the hatch to the control room below. Lennox pulled up the grating under their feet and pushed the heavy hatch until it shut.

“I can’t dog it from above,” he said.

“The operator is only on the interior.”

“Leave it. We’ll know if we’re getting company.

You stay low and wait. The only time I want your head to come up over the edge of the sail is when we’re ready to go.”

Von Brandt peered out over the lip of the sail for ward, then to either side. The deck of the ship was deserted. All three platoons had vanished down the hatches of the ship. Slowly Brandt climbed to the top of the sail from the aft bulkhead of the cockpit, keeping low to the top of the structure where he could see clearly yet not be picked off from the deck. He pulled the covers off both ends of the sniper scope, unplugged the muzzle, checked the magazine and sighted in on the mooring lines amidships.

It took two full magazines to cut the ship’s mooring lines so that the ship was free, drifting in the oily slip.

“Hey, Commander,” von Brandt said as he climbed back down into the cockpit, “we’re underway. Shift colors and sound a long blast on the ship’s whistle.”

“Not funny. I need to look, need to see the current and the ship’s position. If I’m gonna drive this thing out of here I need to visualize the slip.”

“Okay, but make it quick. A snapshot.”