Chapter 23
Thirty miles away the mood aboard the Chinese icebreaker was positively joyous. Admiral Li had invited Gushan to his quarters. He had determined that they should now drink from the bottle of baijiu in celebration.
“We’ve struck the Americans a blow from which they will not recover,” he insisted.
Gushan was aware of what had been done, he’d been in the control room commanding the crew as it occurred. His own feelings on the matter were much darker. In his opinion the act was so positively reckless it might have been the first step on the road to war.
“Their ship is dead in the water,” Gushan said calmly. He would stick to the facts and keep his feelings hidden.
“If their ship is still afloat in the morning, it will be a great surprise to me,” the admiral said.
“And yet we’re not turning toward them,” Gushan noted. “Shouldn’t we go to their rescue? It would make us look innocent in the matter. And it would give us a chance to interrogate any survivors.”
“A waste of time,” the admiral insisted.
“Let me put it another way,” Gushan said. “If they go down and we don’t lend assistance from such a close proximity, it will appear more than suspicious.”
The admiral’s mood didn’t sour in the slightest. If anything, he seemed quite pleased to rebut Gushan’s suggestion. “Under normal circumstances you’d be right, Major. But the Americans—for reasons known only to themselves—have yet to send out a distress signal.”
This did surprise Gushan. “Perhaps they’re not wounded as badly as we suspect.”
“Four iron fish hitting the hull will sink any ship that size, no matter how well-trained their crew. I suspect they capsized before anyone could make a call.”
“We put three into their side,” Gushan corrected the admiral. “The fourth was used to destroy their sonar sled, to prevent them from resuming operations if they somehow escaped the attack. Had they gone to flank speed they would have escaped us.”
The admiral cocked his head as if surprised by this, then waved this off as if it were irrelevant.
“Three, four. It doesn’t matter. I’ve seen how these things tear the side out of a ship.
The Americans are finished one way or another.
And now that they’ve been removed from the equation, we’re free to search the rest of this path alone and undisturbed. ”
Only now did Gushan notice that Li had taken the bottle of baijiu from his cabin. A power play, perhaps meant to remind Gushan that the admiral could take what he wanted from anyone on the ship. Even his vaunted special operations officer.
Noticing Gushan’s gaze, the admiral offered an explanation of sorts. “I’m putting it to proper use,” he said. “Instead of consuming it in a state of dour anger.”
Gushan nodded without complaint. Admirals in the navy did not respond well to being questioned, especially when it came to their personal behavior. “It was always meant for celebrating a victory.”
“And so, we shall celebrate tonight,” the admiral said. He went to open the bottle, but was prevented from doing so by a knock at the door.
“Enter.”
An enlisted man from the communications unit came in. He handed over a coded dispatch, stood until dismissed, and then left without a word.
The admiral opened the communiqué and read it. His jaunty mood vanished. He placed the bottle down without touching the cork.
“Bad news?” Gushan asked.
With a scowl on his face, the admiral handed the message over. He wasn’t about to read it out like a secretary.
Gushan scanned the type, skipping the official banter and slowing down when he reached the pertinent parts. He chose to read it aloud.
“ ‘High command in possession of verified intelligence suggesting the American C-17 entered Troms? fjord at low altitude on the night of its disappearance. Depart current search area and enter the fjord. Be prepared to meet with possible conspirator. Otherwise, continue the operation clandestinely.’ ”
Gushan raised an eyebrow as he considered what this meant. He handed the communiqué back to the admiral. “It seems we’ve crippled the American ship for nothing.”
“Their interference was reason enough,” the admiral snapped, blunt and grim once again. “Who’s to say they wouldn’t have hounded us wherever we go next.”
“And their NATO allies, the Norwegians? Will they be so eager to let us search their fjord?”
The admiral was unfazed. “We’ll dock, take on copious amounts of fuel and supplies, and pay everyone handsomely.
I’ll suggest we’d like the opportunity to demonstrate our ice-breaking capabilities to their government.
That should give us ample freedom to move around. The rest will be done in secret.”
Gushan nodded. Money had a way of clearing most paths and the Chinese had plenty of it these days.
It was half the reason men like Admiral Li had become so bold, as if nothing could stop China’s ascendence or their own.
Hubris it was called, and it had brought great men down from time immemorial.
Gushan suspected it would soon bring the admiral low as well.
He seemed to have a backward combination of traits: brash when he should be cautious, fainthearted when the moment called for courage.
It wasn’t that the admiral was the wrong man for this job, Gushan thought, it was that he was the wrong man for any job.
And that would catch up with them both someday.