SSN

    After the explosions, Mack turned to the south to head for the five hundred-fathom curve, where he could fully deploy the TB-23. He hoped that the rapid turnaround promised by the CTF 74 communicators had happened by now. The SSIXS buoy instructions were for moving haven changes to the south for both Cheyenne and Los Angeles.

    Los Angeles had received the instructions and had executed the turn as directed, not knowing that she was heading toward the Mao. The Sino-Russian sub was laying in wait thirty degrees to the left of her track, expecting the attacking Akulas to cause Cheyenne to turn away to the south.

    The Mao captain did not know that Los Angeles was in the area, so when the Mao gained sonar contact he assumed that it was Cheyenne and the notorious Captain Mackey. Within minutes, four Mao torpedoes were heading in a depth and azimuth spread at the target.

    Los Angeles got off a snap shot. Then she launched countermeasures, turned away toward deep water, and increased speed to flank en route to one thousand feet.

    The Mao captain had expected this. He had read the reports from the few surviving commanding officers who had tangled with Mack, and he felt he knew the American's tactics. Even before Los Angeles launched counter-measures, the Mao captain was swinging his submarine to starboard. As soon as his ship was in position, he launched four more torpedoes, leading the U.S. SSN perfectly.

    He had sprung his trap exactly as he'd hoped, and if the ship he had targeted had, indeed, been Cheyenne, Mack's ship would have been destroyed. As it was, the Mao captain's ambush became his own deathtrap.

    Cheyenne's sonars had picked up the first set of torpedo launches from the Mao. The noise from the second set finalized the range, bearing and course. Mack launched the two Mk 48s from tubes one and two, and followed them with the two from tubes three and four.

    The Mao captain was too busy listening in the direction of his own torpedoes and the frantically racing Los Angeles to notice that four Mk 48 ADCAPs were inbound toward his position.

    Cheyenne's first two torpedoes acquired the Mao just as the first two Chinese torpedoes struck Los Angeles. The Mao never heard Mack's weapons, as the remaining two Mk 48s acquired the hostile submarine at the same time Los Angeles was finally destroyed by the last four Mao torpedoes.

    The sound of the explosions-two, followed by four, followed by two, and then by two more-was incredible, and more than the Cheyenne sonar men could withstand. They all took off their headsets, turned down the speaker volume, and watched their sonar consoles illuminate.

    Mack kept all hands at battle stations and proceeded to take Cheyenne to test depth as a salute to their lost shipmates aboard Los Angeles. Submariners at sea around the world had done this same thing as soon as they had been informed that Thresher and Scorpion were lost at sea with ail hands aboard.

    Mack didn't have to say anything to the crew. They knew. The sound of the explosions through the hull told them at least one submarine had died out there. The down angle as Cheyenne headed for test depth told them who it had been.

    Only President Jiang and his two bodyguards didn't understand, and Mack was in no mood to tell them.

    The ocean was now quiet, except for the occasional "hull popping" as Cheyenne slowly descended, heading south toward the safety of deep water. Only when she had leveled out at test depth did Captain Mackey pick up the 1MC. He'd always thought holding memorial services for a lost crewman was the hardest job he'd ever face, but conducting memorial services for an entire ship was much harder.

    Then Cheyenne pitched slowly to a gentle up angle and her hull started popping again as Mack came shallower, turning back to the north to look for the last Akula. He wouldn't find it, though. The explosions of the other two Akulas had caused enough overpressure damage that the last Akula captain had been forced to emergency-surface and limp from the area.

    As Cheyenne approached the time for coming shallow near the shelf, sonar reported numerous merchant ship contacts, but still no submarine contacts. As usual, bio-logics hindered the search, and they could not gain any contact on an Akula as Cheyenne entered shallow water, heading west to deliver her precious cargo. Battle stations were secured and both towed arrays were housed at the one hundred-fathom curve.

    Mack had the feeling that Cheyenne had faced her last opponent and that they were out of trouble, but he didn't let his guard down. It was only a reeling, and he knew he still needed to be on the lookout for mines.