Warshot (The Hunter Killer Series Book 6) by Don Keith (top ten ebook reader TXT) 📗

of getting any backup from “Big Navy” with them all wrapped up around Taiwan. That left Glass with the problem of how to put these limited assets to work to head off whatever the Chinese intended to do.

But what were their intentions? Most everyone really in the know was certain they did not want war. That the attack on the Taiwanese island, the sudden scrambling of their submarine fleet, and the smoke and noise they were making around Tonga and Niue were clearly an attempt to distract the world’s attention from something else.

It had to be the gold. Intel from some new and super-reliable source confirmed they knew about the find. It also made sense that whoever controlled that amount of glittery stuff had a stranglehold on the world’s economy. But knowing where it was and managing to pull it up from over six miles down were two different things. Mining at depths like that would take some very specialized heavy equipment. The Chinese were certainly resourceful and might just have such equipment, but they still needed to get it out there and put it to use without anybody taking notice. Even if their buddies on Tonga did claim that shaft of seawater as their rightful territory.

That would explain the need for distraction.

Rex Smith, the head guy from the research ship Deep Ocean Explorer, had given Glass the Geological Oceanography for Dummies tutorial. Between all the discussions of fumaroles, plate tectonics, and acidic precipitates, the one thing that Glass took from the lesson was that getting enough of that gold to make it worthwhile was going to be damned hard and could take a long time.

The other thing that Smith had shared with Glass was the exact location of the gold. If the Chinese were headed there—and from what Weiss had told him, it appeared they likely were—then that was where he would send the Canberra to patrol. And considering how desperately somebody high up in the Chinese military and government wanted that gold, it would probably be smart to vector the Cheyenne over there to snoop around, keeping an eye out for the PLAN diesel boats.

At his orders, the Canberra completed refueling from the Puller and quickly topped off their groceries before heading right back out to sea. Almost as an after-thought, Colonel Readly and a platoon of his Marines went along for the ride, equipped with one of his TOW missile units and a couple of heavy machine guns. That would give the little ship a bit more firepower.

Glass watched as the vessel pulled away and plowed out toward deep water. He thought again of his expectations when he first reported to his new position in Pearl. Sure, it was a tough gig. But he would learn and grow with the job. Get back in shape. Grab some beach time. Run a tight unit while relying on what he knew was a good staff. He figured the stress and hard decisions he would have to make could not be that much greater than what he experienced regularly as a submarine skipper.

Now, watching the phosphorescence playing in the wake of the Canberra as she, her crew, and the Marines headed off on a dangerous mission to which Glass had assigned them, he had to wonder just how naïve he could have been.

Ψ

Out there where Canberra was bound, in some of the deepest water on planet Earth, the Tonga Plate was once again shoved hard from below. Under the inexorable pressure of rock and magma, the mass of rock shifted several more meters.

This time, the grinding movement registered a relatively mild four-point-zero at the seismometer in Wellington, New Zealand. Given the dozens of tremors the world felt every day, this one did not cause any stirring of interest, only a minor entry in a database. But more importantly, this time the disturbance could be triangulated to an exact location on the globe: sixteen degrees, twenty-six minutes south latitude and one-hundred-seventy-four degrees, fifty-four minutes east longitude. But still, no instruments were capable of seeing the magma being squeezed up through the cracks. Molten rock that had begun to build a sizeable cone on the ocean floor.

Should this activity continue at the same rate for only a few hundred years, there would be a brand-new island in the South Pacific, centered on this very spot.

A brand-new island for the world’s nations to claim and fight over.

25

The Changcheng Shiba, one of Yon Hun Glo’s submarines, arrived in its newly assigned patrol area off the entrance to Pago Pago Harbor on the southeast side of the island of American Samoa. Once on-station, she came to periscope depth in order to watch for any interesting activity in the tropical harbor. Normally, they could expect to find the place to be little more than a quiet backwater, with only the occasional yacht sailing into or out of the harbor. The US Navy did have a presence there, but there was typically little of importance going on in this place, either. The high point of island activity was when the tuna fleet pulled in to dump their fishy load at the giant StarKist cannery on the north side of the harbor. Definitely nothing worth the submarine’s attention, but, by order, Shiba was bound to take a look.

But this time, the PLAN submarine’s first glimpse of the harbor showed things were quite different now. The giant, gray hulk of the Chesty Puller was plainly visible, anchored in the middle of the harbor. And the Portland was moored a few hundred yards further in. Yon Hun Glo had given the Shiba’s commander very explicit orders should he discover such warships this close to Tonga. First, he was to report any American naval vessels of this size that he might observe at anchor or leaving the harbor. Then, should it appear that any departing vessels might be headed toward the Tonga Trench area, he was to assume they were hostile, and he was to attack and sink