by James Philip
Lord Franks held her gaze a while longer.
The woman he knew as Rachel Piotrowska would no more meekly surrender herself to the Americans than the Soviets.
Every time she had left the protection of the Embassy since the Hyannis Port debacle he had wondered if he would see her again. If the CIA or any of the other murky ‘intelligence’ agencies operating beneath the skin of the Land of the Free had had the gumption, the nerve or the capacity to secretly ‘disappear her’ into one or other of its secret dungeons they would surely have seized the opportunity.
Sending her to America had been a huge gamble but then her chief, Dick White, Lord Franks and his inner circle in Philadelphia had needed somebody who could reach, and speak to the people he and Sir Patrick Dean could not be seen to be doing business with.
The Kennedy Administration had been disintegrating since the spring and that disintegration had accelerated at an alarming rate in recent weeks. Now more than ever Rachel could not, would not permit herself to fall into the wrong hands.
She would kill herself first.
Chapter 52
Friday 3rd July 1964
Map Room, US Navy HQ, Camden, New Jersey
Jagged tridents of lightning stabbed down into the city as dusk fell across the Delaware River and a great, twenty mile wide thunder storm exploded over Philadelphia. When it struck the downpour was of tropical Monsoon proportions; within a few minutes gutters and drains were overflowing, the runoff from tall buildings was like a thousand mini-Niagaras, cars began to stall in two to three foot deep surface flash flooding in the dips in the streets, and sections of the metropolis’s telephone network and electrical grid began to fail. Transformers suddenly surrounded by surging flood water exploded, the police, fire brigade, ambulance service, everything was suddenly overwhelmed. For over forty minutes the temporary capital of the United States of America was assailed by the elements, and then the rain eased, ceased entirely as the storm rumbled west, its ferocity slowly waning the farther it moved inland.
The Navy Headquarters had lost power for nearly seven minutes at the height of the storm before eventually, emergency diesel generators had kicked in. Lights had glowed gloomily, the air conditioning of the lower levels had gone off line and the communications desk had gone dead.
But then the bad news had started coming in again.
Admiral David McDonald tried not to fret too visibly while he waited for the link to the USS Independence at Malta to be re-established.
The latest reports from the Gulf lay before him on his desk like malignant, smoking accusations. He hated himself for thinking the thoughts he was thinking. One day soon he would surely be sitting before a combined Congressional Committee of the House of Representatives having to justify his part in the greatest humiliation ever suffered by American arms.
What was he going to say?
The truth?
Maybe we military men were all weak. Maybe we should have stood up and pounded the table...I was part of it and I'm sort of ashamed of myself too. At times I wonder, ‘why did I go along with this stuff?’
The Kitty Hawk was gone...
The Brits had used nukes and Kamikaze tactics with Canberra bombers at low level and V-Bombers dive bombing Carrier Division Seven from altitude. The whole thing had been one insane suicide mission!
Kitty Hawk had taken hits from British torpedo bombers, and from ten and six ton Grand Slam and Tallboy munitions, at least one V-Bomber had crashed into her deck amidships in a vertical supersonic dive...
A Canberra bomber had flown into the side of the cruiser Boston at six hundred knots; and the fifteen thousand ton cruiser had sunk in minutes.
The Albany (CG-10), another cruiser was on fire and in a sinking condition.
The destroyers Dewey (CLG-14) and John Paul Jones (DD-932) were both dead in the water.
Every major surface unit of Carrier Division Seven was either sunk, drifting without power or fighting fires and flooding with dead and wounded onboard.
Thousands of US Navy seamen and aviators had died.
Thousands...
And nobody knew if the British would attack again.
Without Kitty Hawk’s combat air patrol over southern Iraq sending in the B-52s of the 319th Bomb Wing would be suicide if the British still had any kind of operational air defense grid. Even the RAF’s old-fashioned Bloodhound surface-to-air missiles would wreak havoc on a formation of B-52s; and if they still had fighters in the region...nobody was going to forget what had happened to the Bloody 100th over Malta back in December.
A message pad was placed before the Chief of Naval Operations.
The Albany (CG-10) had been abandoned.
The British fleet oiler Wave Master was hove to recovering survivors from the water.
HMS Monkton, a four hundred ton coastal minesweeper was in the area under a flag of truce assisting in ‘recovery operations’.
A new report came in.
The Dewey (DLG-14) had sunk...
The commanding officer of the USS Halsey (DLG-23) had taken command of the surviving units of Carrier Division Seven. His ship had suffered severe splinter damage disabling its forward Talos launchers and temporarily reducing its speed to fifteen knots. There were only three dead and eleven wounded onboard the Halsey.
“We have Admiral Clarey back on the horn, sir!”
McDonald snatched up the handset.
“Take this off the speaker,” he requested tersely. He took a deep breath. “What is your situation Bernard?”
It helped a little that McDonald and Clarey had worked closely together after the Battle of Washington, and met several times before the latter assumed command of the Sixth Fleet. The men liked and respected each other and had enjoyed nothing but the most cordial and collegiate of professional relations. However, that was cold comfort in the present circumstances.
The scrambled radio link, boosted and redirected via possibly as many as four or five relays around the globe had been passed through an ultra-modern digital filter in an attempt to clean it up. Nevertheless, it was still like two deaf men shouting at each other from the opposite end of a tunnel.
“Air Marshall French has arrived onboard Independence to negotiate the peaceful internment of Sixth Fleet, David!”
“Have there been any incidents?”
“Negative. MPs have been sent to all ships to keep the peace.”
“What does ‘internment mean’?”
“Air Marshall French is requesting to speak with you directly, David!”
“Put him on, Bernard!”
“This is Dan French,” the Englishman announced, his tone a little apologetic, “for my sins C-in-C all British and Commonwealth Forces in the Med.”
“You are speaking to David McDonald, Chief of Naval Operations, United States Navy.”
“I am sorry we speak for the first time on such a sad day, Admiral McDonald.”
“I feel the same way about this, Air Marshall.” The Chief of Naval Operations went on, his throat constricting: “I wish to avoid further violence. I am authorized to inform you that Sixth Fleet is operating under orders signed by the President mandating it stand down from operations until further notice. However, I must know your interpretation of the term ‘internment’ in this context, sir?”
“Ah, now we’re getting into the legal niceties of the thing,” the British Commander-in-Chief retorted, again with no little regret. “I am commanded by my government that in this instance ‘internment’ means ‘arrest’ in the most unambiguous sense of that word. I am directed to arrest, intern and take as prize all enemy ships in the Mediterranean. Forgive me, Admiral McDonald, if I am blunt about this,” he added, ever more sadly, “but our two countries are at war and if any man, on any US ship in my area of command resists arrest, internment and the taking as prize of his ship that ship will be attacked and sunk immediately and without compunction. I understand that Admiral Clarey feels himself unable to order the surrender of his ships to my officers. I completely u
nderstand his position and respect it. That said, I must re-iterate that any attempt at sabotage prior to the surrender of a vessel will be regarded as a war crime and those responsible subject to summary punishment. Moreover, if all vessels are not immediately surrendered my orders oblige me to start sinking them within the next few minutes. Please take me at my word, sir.”
McDonald stared into space.
Bernard Clarey came back on the link.
“What are my orders, sir?”
“Does French mean what he says?”
“Yes. He has his orders, sir.”
Carrier Division Seven and the Sixth Fleet represented better than two-thirds of the entire operational capability of the US Navy. Kitty Hawk and Carrier Division Seven were gone, decimated. The Sixth Fleet was held hostage and any time now the British were about to start shooting hostages.
The Chief of Naval Operations knew it was his right to duck this pass; to send the decision and the responsibility for it up the line to Curtis LeMay as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, or directly to the President.
But there was no time for that.
Too many good men had already died and he had had...enough.
The World was racing towards a new nuclear war and somebody, somewhere, had to take their foot off the accelerator.
It might as well be him.
“Turn the speakers on so everybody can hear this!” McDonald ordered, his voice ringing with command.
He hesitated, got the signal confirming that everything he said was being broadcast.
“Admiral Clarey,” he said, finding a strength he thought he did not have, “this is David McDonald, Chief of Naval Operations. I hereby order you to surrender all the ships and men under your command to the responsible authorities on Malta, Gibraltar and elsewhere in the Mediterranean theatre of operations. Please acknowledge this order and confirm that you understand it.”
There was a pause of several seconds.
Bernard Clarey was choking on the words he needed to say.
“Affirmative, sir. I acknowledge receipt of the order and confirm that I will execute it to the best of my ability in the interests of avoiding further bloodshed.” He collected his wits. “This is the saddest day of my life, David.” Another hesitation. “God save America...”
Chapter 53
Friday 3rd July 1964
Peace Valley Reservoir, Pennsylvania
Galen Cheney had led his small band of followers out of the forest on foot to where in a barn behind a gas station on Highway 206 Dwight Christie was hand-cuffed to a bench in one of two, truly ancient, school buses. Both vehicles were Blue Birds built in Fort Valley, Georgia. The yellow paint on the buses was flaking, chipped, peeling off and the rust underneath had eaten through the bodywork in countless places. The former FBI man was astonished when both Blue Birds’ engines eventually fired up, one on only the third attempt.
Predictably, Galen Cheney had not thought allowing him to ‘warn’ the resistance - even to pass on the information that Cheney had no plans to attempt to assassinate Dr King or anyone else in the vicinity of City Hall tomorrow afternoon - was a very good idea. The thing that surprised Christie was that having come to that decision the mad sonofabitch had not yet put a bullet in his brain.
The two busses had driven north west up Highway 206, picked up the 295 outside Trenton and headed north, then followed the Delaware Expressway south east to cross the river at Scudder Falls before heading west on twisting country side roads, eventually parking up in woods on the eastern side of a long narrow lake.
“Where are we?” Christie had asked when Dan, the military looking man who had ‘captured’ him in the Wharton Forest released his cuffs and pushed him ahead of him out of the bus.
“Peace Valley,” the other man said. “Galen said for me to watch you all the time. Any funny stuff and you get a bullet in the knee.”
Okay, a man liked to know where he stood...
“I’m on your side, you know,” Christie complained mildly.
“Maybe. Maybe not. Galen told me what you did to your FBI buddies back in Berkeley.”
Christie had counted eleven men – including Dan whose surname he had learned was ‘Weaver’ – of whom only three; Galen Cheney, his son Isaac and Dan, had actually spoken to him in the time he had been held at the Atsion Lake camp. Two of the other eight were kids, younger than Isaac, under twenty. At least three of the remaining ‘nuts’, anybody who signed up for anything Galen Cheney was involved in was a certified ‘nut job’ in Christie’s book – were older, ex-military men like Dan Weaver, each in their late twenties or early thirties.
“You were in the Solomon Islands in the Second War?” Christie asked his minder.
This drew no response.
“My brother was killed on ‘the Canal’,” he went on.
“A lot of good Joes were killed on those fucking islands,” Dan Weaver growled. “Galen said you were back home all the time?”
“I spent most of forty-three, four and five investigating crooked contractors gouging the War Department,” Christie responded quickly. “But nobody wanted to know about that. That’s why I decided to do something about it.”
“Work for the fucking Commies?”
That was predictable; most religious nuts tended to believe socialism and original sin were the same thing.
“My brothers died so that war profiteers and congressmen could get rich. I’m no fucking Red!” Actually, Dwight Christie had never considered himself remotely ‘un-American’ either. “Hell, it wasn’t so long ago that Galen was going after the same assholes I was going after!”
Weaver halted, looked to the sky in the east.
“Storm coming this way,” he observed with the quiet sagacity of a country boy chewing a straw.
The plan was to swing a canvass awning between the two busses and light a fire to cook an evening meal. Christie had noticed ‘the brethren’ were sticklers for three square meals a day and he was curious to discover how they would cope without their women cooking, fetching and carrying for them.
The answer was: dismally.
Everything that had been unloaded from the busses was inundated when the great thunder storm swept across the green Pennsylvania countryside, and most of ‘the gang’ were soaking wet by the time Galen ordered everybody back into the Blue Birds.
There would be no ‘proper’ meal tonight.
Biscuits, brackish water, a mouthful or two of hard, stale bread and a hungry night before the morrow’s great work; whatever that work was. Around Christie the other’s cleaned their weapons by candle light while Galen Cheney sat alone in the other bus, presumably communing with his God.
Each man had a couple of Second War pineapple-type grenades and either an M-1 carbine or an M-16. There were only three of these latter modern assault rifles. Isaac Cheney had two rifles, one a long barreled Mauser, the other a modified, probably very old .303-caliber Martini-Enfield. This second rifle had been a favorite sniper’s weapon right through the First War because of its accuracy and lightning fast firing mechanism. Galen Cheney had his .44 Magnum and of all things, a Second War vintage Tommy Gun.
Soon after it was fully dark Christie was hand-cuffed again to a bench seat while the whole ‘gang’ trooped obediently into Galen Cheney’s command bus.
Christie half-expected them to start singing hymns or psalms, instead they talked awhile among themselves, the lights went out and he was left alone in the darkness wishing he had taken a leak before the bastards had chained him to the seat again.
Chapter 54
Saturday 4th July 1964
The Philadelphia White House
The Secretary of Defense had sent his Personal Military Assistant, General William Westmoreland to ‘brief’ Lyndon Johnson at his official Walnut Street apartment at two in the morning. Until then the Vice President had been completely locked out of the loop; playing the same guessing games everybody else – and the rest of the Administration – was playing.
Walter Cronkite had broken the news of the sinking of the British light carrier HMS Centaur in the Persian Gulf yesterday evening. He had signed off with the words: ‘May God be with us. Ted Sorenson, the President’s spokesman has assured the nation that quote; the President is in control. We all pray that he is right...’
Putting Sorenson in front of the microphones and cameras had been a bad idea. That was not what Ted was good at. The fact that he had been rolled out to take the flak was indicative of the monumental scale of the crisis.
Johnson had got straight on the phone and started trying to piece together what was really going on in the Gulf and then he had started hearing the sort of rumors that were so bad that they almost certainly had to be true.
“The President is unwell, sir,” Westmoreland had said straight away. “We need you at the White House, sir.”
‘Westy’ Westmoreland was of the new generation of senior officers who was as much a corporate executive in uniform as a hard ass in the Patton or Vinegar Joe Stilwell model. Unlike so many of his peers he was a natural communicator and got on well with practically everybody, even when he was telling them exactly what they did not want to hear.
‘We have lost control of events in the Persian Gulf,’ he told Johnson the moment the limousine door had shut and the car, convoyed by several black Lincolns full of Secret Servicemen and escorted by two Jeeps mounting 50-caliber machine guns headed south for City Hall and South Broad Street.
‘We have?’ Johnson queried.
‘Yes, sir. It was assumed that attacking the British carrier group covering operations in the Abadan Sector would leave the British with no alternative but to step back and accept a State Department brokered armistice in southern Iraq, and on the Abadan front.’
Lyndon Johnson had not said another word on the short journey as Westmoreland reported the loss of the USS Kitty Hawke and the ‘gutting’ of global US Naval power in the Persian Gulf, and the Mediterranean.
There was pandemonium on the steps of the White House as the Vice president’s cavalcade drew up. There was an M-60 tank blocking the carriageway, two M113 armored personnel carriers drawn up at the foot of the steps, flashing police blue lamps and ambulance reds. There was the stench of raw panic in the air as Johnson clambered out of his vehicle.