SSN

    This bothered him in part because of its implications for the Chinese armed forces as a whole. More important, however, like most of the officers in the navy, he had heard rumors of American submarines wreaking havoc on the Chinese forces in this area. If those rumors were true, without many SSNs or SSKs of his own, his surface group was a large, heavily armed, sitting duck.

    On board Cheyenne, Mack and his officers and crew were doing everything they could to substantiate those rumors-and maybe add a few new ones.

    Four hundred feet below the surface, Cheyenne picked up her next sonar contact.

    "Conn, sonar," the sonar supervisor reported, "we're getting a sonar contact, sounds like a Chinese merchant ship. It's heading toward Swallow Reef."

    Mack thought the situation over quickly and decided to ignore the merchant vessel. Cheyenne had a mission to perform, and he didn't want to be delayed by taking out a noncombatant. He also didn't want to alert the Chinese task group that Cheyenne was heading their way.

    Mack went to the conn. "Proceed at full speed, course 316," he ordered the OOD. "Let the merchant go."

    The OOD acknowledged his captain's order.

    Slowly the Chinese merchant vessel steamed out of sonar range as Cheyenne continued on her way, not knowing that it had been a target and was saved by the graciousness of Captain Mack Mackey.

    Eighty-five miles southwest of the Spratlys, Cheyenne turned and headed northwest to bypass the Chinese-occupied Spratlys. Naval intelligence had reported a high probability of mines in the area, and Mack had opted to avoid the risk.

    The Chinese task group was still being tracked by the U.S. satellites. In addition, the carriers Independence and Nimitz-which were currently sailing in the Pacific- were monitoring radio traffic and electronic signals for any indications of the Chinese fleet's plans.

    Cheyenne continued the "sprint-and-drift" technique during her long transit, but she also periodically went to periscope depth to communicate via SSIXS and to obtain better information on the position of the Chinese fleet. She also received a refinement of her orders-a refinement that Mack approved of, even though it carried an element of risk.

    Cheyenne was scheduled to arrive on station a full day ahead of the Chinese task group. Within twelve hours, Chinese helicopters would come within range of Cheyenne's position, dropping lines of sonobuoys all around them. Cheyenne would have to stay like this, deep and silent, until the task group came within fifty miles of her position. Depending upon Mack's assessment at the time, his SSN was then supposed to proceed to shallow depth and launch her Harpoon aniiship missiles. If there were more targets than Harpoons, Cheyenne was instructed to attack the remaining ships with her Tomahawk antiship missiles (TASM).

    The TASM was a longer range missile than the Harpoon, and it carried a warhead with nearly twice the explosive. The Harpoon, on the other hand, was smaller and about fifty knots faster and thus much harder to destroy. The alternative was for Cheyenne to use only her Tomahawks and attack the Chinese task group from more than 250 miles away. But that would require external targeting information from either a U.S. aircraft or a satellite.

    That would be safer for Cheyenne, at least initially, but with only six Tomahawks on board, Cheyenne had no chance to destroy the entire task group from such a distance. Mack would then have to decide between allowing at least two Chinese ships to get away, or waiting for those ships to close to within Harpoon range before he could attack them.

    Mack didn't want to do that. In the long run, it put Cheyenne more at risk. Launching the Tomahawks would give away their genera! bearing, and every helicopter and surface ship in the area would be coming after Cheyenne.

    No, Mack liked the other plan better. He'd wait until he could release a large number of missiles all at the same time. Cheyenne would then dive deep and head back to the Sulu Sea and the waiting submarine tender McKee in order to rearm and resupply for another mission.

    Mack had the OOD slow and come shallow enough for the floating wire to copy.

    "Conn, radio, we're receiving important traffic on the floating wire. It seems there may be some submarines operating at our planned launch point. The reports indicate that they might even be Alfas."

    "Maintain your present course and speed," Mack said totheOOD.

    "Maintain my present course and speed, aye, sir," the OOD replied.

    Cheyenne was making ten knots at 247 feet, close to the point of inception of cavitation. Mack made his best selection of speed versus depth for continuous broadcast copying.

    The American frigate Ingraham (FFG-61) was nearly five hundred miles from Independence, and she was alone. She had been ordered to an area north of the Spratiy Islands so that her two SH-60B Seahawk helicopters could help Cheyenne's target missiles. Her captain was pleased with neither her mission nor the reasoning behind it.