Red Shark

An angry Zemin pushed into the control room. He had to concoct a new plan, fast. At the chart table he sketched the situation as he understood it: The 688I was churning away from the point of attack and trying to get behind them. If Zemin turned the Kilo on her heel right now and pursued, he might just catch the 688I, even with its ten-knot speed advantage, by cutting inside her wide turning circle.

“Captain,” said a still shaken first officer. “Sir, if we press another attack, we may succeed this time.”

Zemin’s gaze lifted from the chart to the first officer; Zemin sensed he was inwardly seething at their failure to kill the American sub.

“We must act now, Captain,” said the first officer, his fist banging the chart. Then perhaps realizing he had been too forward, even disrespectful, he said, with a head bob, “What I mean, sir, is that I will see to it that your orders are carried out promptly and with precision so that an attack you order will succeed.”

“See that you do, Comrade First Officer. Now, here are my orders.”

Captain Park’s face hardened and his eyes narrowed. At first he didn’t want to believe what the Red Shark’s battle sensors and his own ears had heard: a torpedo explosion. The Chinese skipper had fired on the American submarine. The underwater detonation had rocked the Red Shark in her tracks and, in the bargain, had created a giant gas bubble that had helped screen her escape. Now, slowing but still tracking south southeast, Park heard tonals emanating from the 688I and the Kilo.

“Both targets bear zero-four-zero, Captain,” said the sonarman. “Range, eight thousand yards, opening out.”

Four miles away. Park listened, hoping to hear another torpedo in the water, but he heard only chugging screws.

“Maintain present course and speed,” Park ordered the first officer. “We’ll seek deeper water south, in the East China Sea.”

“Fire-control, are we still pending on tubes one and two?”

“Aye, Captain, still pending.”

“Very well.” Scott glanced at the compass repeater and ordered, “Left full rudder; come to new course two-five-zero.”

The helmsman brought the Reno around, then checked her swing, compensating for momentum that would have taken her on past but instead eased her onto the ordered course as neat as could be.

“Helm, All Stop.”

“Aye, sir, answering bells on All Stop.”

The Reno, her prop secured, slowed her headlong rush through the murky Yellow Sea. Scott estimated they could maintain steerage and depth for maybe only twenty minutes to a half hour, but enough time to reacquire both the Kilo and the Red Shark.

“On your toes, Sonar,” Scott said. “Report all contacts.”

Scott glanced at Kramer in Fire-control Alley, then started the wait.

Sonar interference created by water flowing along the Reno’s sides, over her planes and around her stilled prop blades, slowly ebbed.

“Conn, Sonar. Report one contact. Master One, the Kilo, bearing zero-eight-zero.”

“Conn, aye,” Scott said, “nothing on Master Two?”

“No, sir. Nothin’. Just the Kilo comin’ back at us.”

“Determined bastard,” Kramer said as he monitored the BSY-2’s dot-stacking fire-control procedure, which had been developed earlier from bearing data as the Kilo approached from the east southeast.

“Captain, he’s turned around, trying to cut in behind us,” Kramer said. “If he doesn’t change course, he’ll merge with our track roughly three thousand yards behind us, in… make it another five minutes.”