Kilo Class (15 page)

The Paramount Ruler looked up, drew deeply on his cigarette, smiled, and said, “Thank you, Zhang. You are as my own son, and I admire your unflinching loyalty and your great care in this matter. But I wonder if perhaps my great friend Yibo Yunsheng from the Eastern Fleet would honor an old man, whose fighting days are over, and explain to me the mystery of vanishing submarines, and why such events apparently have no bearing on vanishing anything else?”

Admiral Yibo, a former commanding officer of China’s eight-thousand-ton strategic missile nuclear submarine
Xia
, the old Type-092, rose to his feet and bowed formally. “You do me honor, sir,” he said. “And I may not be able to add to your great wisdom, but the problem with submarines always arises from the simple fact that you cannot communicate easily with them when they are underwater. You cannot see them and you cannot talk to them.

“Therefore everyone is entirely dependent upon their communicating, and in this case they were in touch with us through the Russian Northern Fleet Comms Center, which set up a satellite link back to our Southern Fleet Command Center. The arrangement was that they would access the satellite every forty-eight hours, when they came up to periscope depth to recharge their batteries.

“Let us assume the most likely scenario. They came to periscope depth at 0405 and passed us their message, time, position, speed, and course. The Americans were waiting and sunk both Kilos by simultaneously using two controlled torpedoes a half hour later, when the submarines were both still running their diesel engines and could be tracked.

“The following night, we naturally receive no communication. And if the Kilos had been running at, say, eight knots, we must assume they are now perhaps a hundred and eighty miles southwest of their last known position and are having a radio mast problem, or experiencing some other trouble. The following day we are plotting them three hundred and sixty miles beyond the point where they were hit, but we do not know their precise course. This means there is now an area of some sixty-five thousand square miles in which they
could
be.

“But the ocean is two miles deep. And now another day has passed and our search area is even bigger, and even if someone were to tell us exactly where the boats were, what could we do? Send down a diver. Of course not. And for what? Everyone is dead. The submarine is not only wrecked, it’s beyond the grasp of
our
Navy. Not even the mighty USA could do that much about it.

“Sir, it is my most depressing duty to tell you there is nothing we can do about a lost submarine that far from home. Which is why we may not wish to admit losing one. We are dealing here, sir, with the most brutal, underhanded form of warfare. No one admits what they did. No one admits what has happened to them. In submarines that has always been the way. You will know, sir, in your great learning, that we cannot ever announce that our two new Kilo Class boats were hit and destroyed by the imperial forces of the United States.”

“Thank you, Admiral Yibo. I am indebted to you for your wise counsel. Comrades, the hour grows late, and I am tired and must retire for the night. I think we should have a talk with the Russians tomorrow. Perhaps they may know more. Let me leave that to you, and perhaps we should reconvene here later in the morning, say at 1100, and decide what, if anything, we ought to do.”

He rose wearily to his feet and was escorted out into the corridor by two secretaries. The Political Commissar followed them out, as did the Party General Secretary and the Chief of Staff. The Naval officers made no move to leave. Admiral Zhang picked up the telephone and called the Southern Fleet Headquarters, hoping that something had been heard from the missing submarines. The answer was as it had been for three days now. Nothing.

At the age of fifty-six, Admiral Zhang Yushu was probably the best Navy Commander in Chief China had ever had. He was a big man, six feet tall, with a swarthy, rounded face that looked somewhat Western. He wore his thick dark hair longer than is customary in the Chinese political and military establishment, and glared at the world from behind heavy, horn-rimmed glasses. He was the son of a freighter captain from the great southeastern seaport of Xiamen, and had been born on the ship, during times of terrible poverty just after World War II. At the age of twelve, he could have stripped the ship’s engine and put it back together. He knew how to navigate the South China Sea, and at fifteen had been capable of commanding any one of the medium-size freighters that plied the busy coastline to the west of the Formosa Strait.

He won a place at Xiamen University and gained the best possible marine engineering degree. He took two additional courses in the study of nuclear physics, and at twenty-two joined the Navy, where his rise to prominence was swift and sure. At the age of thirty-nine he was commanding officer of the new Shanghai-built Luda Class guided-missile destroyer
Nanjing
. At forty-four, he was appointed Commander of the East Sea Fleet, and four years later became Chief of the Naval Staff. The Great Reformer, the late Deng Xiaoping, who at that time was still holding on to his last active chairmanship, that of the Military Affairs Commission, promoted him to Commander in Chief of the People’s Liberation Army-Navy, because he believed that Admiral Zhang was the man to mastermind the modernization of the Chinese Navy.

Deng made the appointment because of one conversation he had with the young Admiral, who told him, “When I was a very little boy, my father was the best freighter captain in Xiamen. He worked harder than anyone, and he was cleverer than anyone, but our ship was old and it continually went wrong. My father was probably the only man on the whole waterfront who could have kept it going, but the struggle was impossible because we were poor, and people with better, faster, and more reliable freighters took the best of the trade, especially in transporting fruit and vegetables. In maritime matters, sir, there is no substitute for the best equipment. I would rather have ten top-class modern submarines than a hundred out-of-date ones. Give me ten brand-new guided missile destroyers, fifty modern frigates, and a new aircraft carrier, and I’ll keep this country safe from attack from the sea for half a century.”

Deng loved it. Here was a modern man who could see beyond the horizon. He knew the elderly High Command of the People’s Liberation Army would not like what they heard, since most of them still believed that huge numbers of half-trained men — 2.2 million soldiers — and a vast, near-obsolete fleet of aging warships was preferable. Deng, however, knew instinctively that Admiral Zhang was his man.

The decision to equip the Chinese Navy with the ten Russian-built Kilos had in the end been Zhang’s, and it was he who urged the Navy paymasters to buy the sixty-seven-thousand-ton aircraft carrier
Admiral Gudenko
, still unfinished in the Ukraine yard of Nikolayev. And now his plans were in ruins, his strategies for the twenty-first century in chaos, and he faced the reproving stares of the elderly Vice Admirals Pheng Lu Dong, seventy-one, and Zhi-Heng Tan, sixty-eight, with a mixture of anger and inhibition.

In his soul, he knew that he was being blamed for all of this. The older generation believed that China had no further need to expand its borders, save for some future opportunity to bring Taiwan back into the fold. They had all the territory they would ever need, and they basically had no natural enemy since the demise of the Soviet empire. The worst that could ever happen would be border skirmishes of little significance in the north. Now the purchase of three billion dollars’ worth of submarines from Moscow was sucking them into a war with the United States of America. At least that’s how it looked to Pheng Lu Dong and Zhi-Heng Tan.

Admiral Zhang, his friend the Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Sang Ye, and the South Sea Fleet Commander, Vice Admiral Zu Jicai, viewed the matter differently. All three felt that this was a terrible affront to the honor of China and a momentous loss of face in front of the world community. China had the largest Army in the world and the third largest Navy, in numbers if not in capability, and all three believed they should carry out some ferocious retribution against the United States.

Admiral Sang Ye was prepared to finance and organize a terrorist attack on the American mainland. Something similar to the Oklahoma bombing. “There are 1.6 million Chinese people living in the United States,” he said. “I am sure we could arrange for twenty of them to carry out a bombing in New York or Washington. When it is done we can send a one word message: KILOS. Our honor would be saved.”

None of the three suggested taking a shot at a US Navy warship. But Admiral Zhang said, as he had so many times before, “We must get the rest of the Kilos. Only by doing so can we ever hope to dominate the Taiwan Strait. Those submarines could allow us to carry out a Naval blockade of Taiwan. I am just afraid our political masters will not have the will for this, and that the entire order will be canceled. We will be forever powerless. It is the Kilo submarine which really bothers the USA, and they know we can send their big aircraft carriers away for good, if we can just get ten Kilos in service.”

“We do have three in our possession right now,” said Admiral Pheng. “Would it not be possible for us to build the rest ourselves, perhaps under license from Russia? It happens quite often in the West.”

“It happens, Admiral,” replied Zhang. “But it does not often work. Submarines are capricious creatures unless they are perfectly constructed. They have millions of working parts. If one of them is not correctly fitted the whole is flawed and you end up with a boat that is not right and will never be right. Almost every Third World nation that has made submarines under license has had trouble from them. The Middle East is a scrap yard of ambitious nations that thought they could run a submarine force, but never got to sea, never mind underwater. I am afraid that to own and run efficient inshore submarines, you have to get them from Great Britain, Russia, France, Holland, Sweden, or Germany. The USA does not make them anymore.”

“Then perhaps we should not bother with them and build destroyers and frigates instead,” ventured Admiral Pheng. “They are very much less expensive and can be very effective.”

“Admiral, you have been a friend to me for all of my time in the Navy, and I am honored to have been taught by you,” replied Zhang. “But I have made a study for years of the American capability, and you must believe me when I tell you that if the United States Navy turned a couple of Carrier Battle Groups loose on us in the South China Sea, they could annihilate our entire southern Navy in less than a day. The only way to combat them would be to hit and destroy their carrier, and the only way to do that is with a submarine capable of deploying a torpedo containing a nuclear warhead. All other subjects are irrelevant.”

His voice softened a little when he added, “In the end, we are talking about Taiwan and repossession of the island. Just by having a Kilo fleet, we are deterring anyone, including America, from interfering. In the end you will find we are merely upping the ante. If we can get those Kilos, there will be no war. Because no one else will like their chances.”

“I must bow, then, to the great wisdom of the Navy’s young master,” said Admiral Pheng, smiling. “As ever you have my loyal support.”

Admiral Zhang also smiled. But he found it difficult. He rose to his feet and announced that he was retiring for the night. “Walk with me, Jicai,” he said to the South Sea Fleet Commander. “I’m staying in Naval quarters tonight, and we’ll take my car. We need to be back here in six hours, and in my view the entire future of the Navy is in the balance.”

Five Navy staff cars awaited them at the side entrance in Chang’an Avenue. It was 0400, and the snow had stopped, but the ground was covered and the temperature was twelve degrees below freezing. The wind was raw. Admire Zhang and Vice Admiral Zu boarded the first Mercedes-Benz limousine. The others bowed as they left. And the wide tires of the German-built automobile made a soft, creaking sound on the fresh snow as they drove slowly away from the white expanse of Tiananmen Square.

At 1100 the following morning, the Paramount Ruler, smoking fiercely, walked unsteadily into the conference room on the second floor of the Great Hall of the People. Parliament had been suspended for the day while he and the General Secretary of the Party attended the meeting with their senior military command. No other members of the ruling Politburo were aware of what had happened. And they never would. Each man in the private conference room had been sworn to absolute secrecy.

They now deferred to the Paramount Ruler, who wished them all good morning. He then asked for the recommendation of his Commander in Chief, Admiral Zhang Yushu, who rose to his feet and confirmed that he would be honored to report.

“I do not think there should be anyone in doubt that our submarines were hit and destroyed by the United States Navy,” Zhang began. “There is no point speaking to them about this because they will simply deny all knowledge of it, and act as if they are shocked that such an outrage should have occurred.

“I have been in personal contact with the Russians this morning, who have arrived at the same conclusion. Apparently they were given an ultimatum by the United States less than a month ago to suspend delivery of our order for the Kilos. They did not, however, think that even as barbarous and self-interested a country as the USA would dare to pull off something like this. Nonetheless, we now know differently.

“The Russians are as upset and angry as we are, and later today we will be working out an escort plan to ensure the safe arrival of the remaining five Kilos…”

“If,” interrupted Vice Admiral Yang Zhenying, the Political Commissar of the Navy, “we decide to proceed with the remainder of the order. I believe we did have to pay for the two missing Kilos before they were allowed to clear the Murman coast.”

“Yes, that is partially so,” said Admiral Zhang. “I am afraid no one receives credit in Russia. Not even us.”

“Well, we may think that six hundred million dollars is a very high price to pay for nothing, though it is not as bad as one and a half billion would be if you lost the other five,” replied Admiral Yang.