The Art of War: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

which was made submerged except for the rendezvous at the prearranged place and time. Our sonar functioned as it should. We had our best sonarmen in the submarine force on board for the voyage. No, sir. We were not followed.”
    “Rear Admiral Sua, have any of your boats ever been followed while at sea?”
    “The conventional diesel-electric boats have, sir. But none of our nuclear-powered boats have, to the best of my knowledge.” Wisely, the sub admiral used the caveat. He continued, “We even surfaced a boat in the middle of an American carrier task force conducting flight operations, to their consternation. The incident was reported worldwide. The Americans were completely surprised, shocked and embarrassed by our capabilities. They lost much face.”
    The question-and-answer session went on for another twenty minutes, then the officers were sent to an outer office. Admiral Wu wanted some time alone to mull his choices.
    He got out of his chair, went to a window and lit a cigarette.
    That Sua had mentioned the Americans losing face was interesting. Sua couldn’t prove a negative, of course, but the fact that the Americans were grossly embarrassed had impressed him, convinced him that what he wanted to believe was indeed true. Never would he have willingly suffered such a humiliation. So he offered it as proof, which, of course, it was not.
    Wu well knew the ingrained inability of Orientals to admit mistakes or embarrass their superiors, to lose face. Some of them would defer to erroneous decisions made by their superiors even if it cost them their lives. This cultural attitude was so ingrained that huge mistakes in the Chinese military acquisition process cost untold billions of yuan and long delays. Wu had fought this cultural foible his entire career, trying to get ships, submarines, missiles, aircraft and, finally, China’s sole aircraft carrier designed, built and operational. At times he thought the shipyards, engineers and naval officers would rather build it wrong and pretend it worked than admit a mistake.
    Zeng’s and Sua’s careers were in submarines. Nuke subs were the future. If they were already vulnerable to American submarines … well, in a shooting war they wouldn’t last long.
    Zhang—he had been entrusted with a great mission. Would he admit a mistake or an unforeseen glitch? Probably not.
    Ultimately, Admiral Wu decided, how the Americans got interested in Ocean Holiday didn’t matter. Today. What mattered was whether they knew her mission.
    The Beijing politicians wanted the fish in the Yellow, East and South China Seas, and the Gulf of Tonkin and, someday, the Philippine Sea. The latest surveys suggested that huge oil and natural gas deposits could be there. Using stolen American technology, the locked-up petroleum could perhaps be captured in huge, economical quantities. In the years ahead an assured source of petroleum at a reasonable cost would be vital to fuel China’s growing industries. Imports cost great wads of foreign currency and were subject to the vagaries of Middle Eastern politics, which in turn were driven by religious feuds and racial dreams. China’s politicians also wanted to take over Taiwan, a goal that was popular with the Chinese masses. The politicians used the media to stoke the fire, to feed Chinese nationalism and justify military expenditures; and indeed, they would get Taiwan sooner or later. But first, the Yellow and China Seas. To intimidate the other nations around this basin, Korea, Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam, China needed a navy that looked impressive. Not a navy that could win World War III, but a navy that could cow the neighbors. And the United States, whose navy ruled this ocean.
    As Wu analyzed the problem, it really didn’t matter if U.S. submarines had a technological edge on Chinese submarines. What mattered was that Chinese ships and submarines were better than those of any of China’s neighbors who might be inclined to fight for their