The story begins with a United States Navy submarine, the USS Seawolf (SSN-21), on a mission to spy on the new Chinese nuclear missile submarine. The mission is successful until the submarine's second-in-command, the president's son Linus Clark makes a fatal error, and the submarine collides with a sonar array from a Chinese ship that is searching for them. The crew is imprisoned and tortured while the Chinese begin to strip the captured submarine for its secrets.
No telling if Linus is based on Hunter.