Piranha

“What do we do if they sink him?” Rosen asked.

“I guess we take notes,” said Dog. “Delaford, how good are Exocets against submarines?”

“I’d say next to useless, unless something keeps the sub on the surface for an extended period. You saw what happened the other day,” said the Navy commander. “The helicopters are what they’d really want out here, but we’re too far from the carrier group for them to operate comfortably. It’s just not in their normal doctrine.”

“Then why did they blow it the other day?” Dog asked.

“Well, they probably had the planes in the air, just like now, and decided to take their best shot. My guess now is they were pla

“Hey, I have a question,” said Rosen. “Why didn’t the Chinese submarine take out the Indian sub the other day?”

“Assuming it didn’t,” said Delaford, “since we don’t really know what happened under the water, my bet is that it was returning from the Indian Ocean and had fired all of its torpedoes earlier. Three ships sank out there last week.”

“So why didn’t the Indian sub fire at the Chinese?” asked Dog.

“Again, we’re assuming they didn’t,” said Delaford. “We don’t know what happened under the water later. But given that, my guess is the sub wasn’t a big enough target. They’d want the carrier. Or their orders didn’t call for firing on a combat vessel unless they were specifically attacked. They hadn’t fired on one.”

“Still haven’t,” said Dog.

“Right.”

“Our Orion ASW plane is twenty minutes away,” said Rosen. “Tomcats are reporting they have Sukhois on their scopes at long range.”

“Quite a party,” said Delaford.

“Lay it out for them,” Dog said. before Rosen finished, however, the Sukhois had changed course to return to their carrier.

Iowa directed the Navy sub hunter to the spot were they’d had the tentative contact. Twenty minutes later, Shark Ears reported a contact.

There was only one problem—it was a Russian sub.

“They know this guy,” Delaford reported. “It’s a Victor III. May just be keeping tabs on things, or not.”

“Nothing else?” Dog asked.

“Nothing yet.”

Aboard Shiva in the South China Sea

1630

Kali was the goddess of destruction, Shiva’s wife, the embodiment of the idea that true life begins only with death.

It was an apt name for a weapon, and a perfect name for the missiles in Shiva’s forward tubes.

Admiral Balin looked again at the chart where their position had been plotted. Balin studied the map carefully; his target should lay just within the range of his weapons, though he still needed fresh coordinates to fire.

The Vikrant and her escorts would be twenty-four hours away. It was time.

Varja remained with the radio man, translating the coordinates received by the ELF. ELF—extremely-low-frequency—transmissions were, by technical necessity, brief, but this one did not need to contain much information—simply a set of coordinates and a time. With those few numbers, the device could be launched. Once fired, the weapon was on its own, relying first on its stored data to take it to the target area, then using its low-probability-of-intercept radar to take it the rest of the way. As their earlier tests had shown, as long as the target ship was within five miles when the radar activated, it would be hit.

“Precisely as the earlier coordinates predicted,” said Varja finally. “It is a good day, Admiral.”

Balin watched the crewman mark the map, then nodded.

“Launch in three minutes,” said Captain Varja, passing the word to the weapons controllers and the men in the torpedo room.

Aboard Iowa

1645

“Sharks Ears reporting possible contact,” said Rosen.

He gave Dog a set of coordinates almost due north, taking them rougly parallel to the Chinese carrier task force about forty miles away. And Australian container ship was plying the seas about ten miles ahead of them, going roughly in the direction of the carriers, though undoubtedly it would steer well clear as it approached.

As Iowa changed direction and waited for an update, another set of Sukhois came over to check them out. Unlike the earlier pilots, there jocks were cowboys, clicking on their gun radars at long range. The Tomcats riding shotgun for the Navy patrol plane further south didn’t particularly appreciate the gesture, though they maintained good discipline, staying in their escort pattern. They could afford to, knowing they could splash the Su-33’s in maybe ten seconds flat if that was what they decided to do; the Chinese planes were well within reach of their long-legged Phoenix missiles.

“Contact—I have—a launch—two launches,” said Rosen suddenly. “Shit—tracking—we have a cruise missile—two cruise missiles, breaking the surface. Fifty miles, bearing on nine-zero, exactly nine-zero.”