First Salvo

by Charles D. Taylor

  Nelson rolled his eyes humorously. Then he sat up straight, his face serious. “We going to make it in time, Dave? I’d hate to have the world blow while we’re at forty thousand feet.” There was no doubt in his mind, after the time he and Dave Pratt had spent together in Newport at the Naval War College, that it was Pratt who had gotten him Hancock.

  Carleton’s head bobbed up and down as he spoke. “No higher a personage than Bernie Ryng guarantees that we’ll all make it. He’s even cabled the Kremlin to slow down a bit so that we can be in position in time.”

  A knock on the door announced a Navy chief in immaculately tailored whites, pushing a cart loaded with glasses, ice, and bottles of liquor. Right behind came the very nervous waiter who had just been relieved of the cart. Coming to a halt before Admiral Pratt, Chief Petty Officer Henry Cobb removed a bottle of scotch, tossing it onto an empty chair. “I don’t know what the others are having, but this ought to do me until lunch.” The waiter gaped in amazement as the enlisted man walked up to the Admiral, throwing his arms around the taller man’s neck. “David, my friend, how’s the world been treating you?” The waiter had worked in Washington long enough to know that he’d never see that again—not to an admiral in uniform. There was no way he could have known that Cobb was really a civilian.

  “Hank Cobb,” Pratt answered. “Why was I ever so lucky to end up on the same carrier that you’re heading for? I thought my final days were going to be easier.” Pratt had specifically recommended Cobb for the most dangerous, and probably impossible job only because no other man could possibly pull it off. But until this morning, he had no idea how Cobb was operating or how he planned to travel. A Navy chief was as good a cover as any.

  The chief grinned at the admiral. “I read your orders in the Navy Times, called a buddy well placed in Norfolk, and asked if he’d cut me some orders to the Kennedy—just to protect you from yourself.” The waiter exited the room quietly, deciding not to wait for the signature on the bill or his tip.

  Henry Cobb would continue to turn up when he was least expected. That was the type of man he was. Years back, he had been part of Navy Intelligence, but it simply didn’t work. Hank was too sophisticated for it. But even that wasn’t quite the word Pratt really wanted when he tried to explain Henry to the president. Afterward, Hank had been transferred to Delta Group, and that had been a failure too. The group had been a force of men, while Cobb was much too independent—a one-man force.

  Then the CIA heard about him and a deal was made. Overnight he was a civilian. Since Cobb was a linguist and Russian was his specialty, he had appealed to the CIA. And he was a man who could appear in just about any location at any time, getting there totally on his own, with no help from the desk, and pass himself off as a native. He was so successful in some of his more unsavory works, in fact, that he was discharged from the CIA. It would not do to have a man like Cobb traced back to them. And he liked that.

  The idea of being an independent operative appealed to him. Though there were rumors that Cobb was for hire to anyone who could pay the price, Dave Pratt knew this to be absolutely false. In his own way, Cobb was a true patriot—as long as he could work on his own terms.

  Henry Cobb was what one might call nondescript. Perhaps that was the reason no other organization had an exact picture of him. He was of medium height and build. His hair was short and brown, eyes brown, complexion medium, and there were no distinguishing features that would cause someone to remember his face. Only the other four men in the room would believe what Henry was going to do.

  Cobb picked up Ryng’s copy of Morskoi Sbornik and flipped the pages. “Hey, did you know this supply ship just left Murmansk and—”

  “Believe me, Hank, I know.”

  Wendell Nelson was filling the glasses with ice. “Let’s get into it, men. We may have to wait another four years to do this again. Say, Dave, you’ve been around this town for a few weeks. What’s the word on the torpedo that hit the ferry yesterday? I don’t believe a word I read in the papers.”

  “Don’t ever,” remarked Ryng sarcastically.

  “He’s pretty much right, Nellie. They interrogated that fisherman for quite a while. He was no dummy. He’d seen those things before and could give a pretty good description. It wasn’t anything we ever produced. It was a plant, and a damn good one. Like you say about the papers, they’ve already performed the roll of judge and jury and they’ve hanged New London without a trial. The only thing we haven’t doped out is how the Russians managed to get it that close without anyone noticing anything unusual. They figure it might have been towed in by a fishing boat and dropped right where that poor guy fouled it in his gear.”

  “But whatever the answer,” Carleton said, “their plan’s working like it’s supposed to—to turn the public against the Navy. Can’t say I blame them, with that many dead from the ferry—not to mention all the noise the papers are making about those two Senators, Hodges and Hall, who were off on the ferry on that boondoggle. With the great stories I’ve heard about those two, I can imagine what they might have done if that ferry ever made it to the island. What a way to go,” he laughed.

  “And,” Ryng added, “the thing was timed precisely right. Washington’s about to start stamping and shouting about Soviet terrorism and aggression and our own papers are going to be raising hell about our torpedoing the Block Island ferry.” He shook his head in disgust. “Perfect timing by the Russians while the American public hasn’t the vaguest idea what’s going on. Am I right?” He turned to Pratt.

  The older man nodded in assent, absentmindedly sipping at the drink Nellie had handed him. “The president wanted to keep the Block Island thing under wraps.”

  Carleton eased his feet back onto the coffee table. “I know what Nellie and I are going to do for you, Dave. We’re going to drive ships through knotholes. We’re going to dodge missiles like the Lone Ranger. Then we’re going to deal out justice to the Russian fleet. But what are these other two clowns going to do while we’re in the middle of it?”

  Pratt smiled. “I suppose you could say they’ll both do what they do best. You see, I came into this through the back door. I’ll tell you right now I wasn’t waiting in line. As a matter of fact, there was no line.” He eased back into one of the large, soft chairs and related how he’d been picked out by the president because of the work he’d done at the War College. “Nellie can tell you. We did a lot of the work together. I got the credit because I’m an admiral and he’s junior to me. Ostensibly, I’m in command of the carrier battle group you all know about, but I also got to stick my nose in everything else too because of those strategy papers.”

  Each man was aware of the work Pratt was explaining. With the exception of Cobb, they all followed each other’s comings and goings pretty closely. It pleased them that one of their own had been recognized, especially a good guy like Dave Pratt.

  “The problem in the North Atlantic is supposed to be a Navy problem. When the subs come out, sink ’em. But there’s a first step—the Reds have to get their subs through the barrier we’ve set up.” They were also aware of the minefield strung across the GIUK gap that could be activated only by the Soviet attack subs as they passed through. “Something’s going on up north, way up in Spitzbergen. We haven’t the vaguest idea what, but it has to have something to do with neutralizing our barrier. I suggested to the president that there was one man who could do the job quietly up there.” He nodded toward Ryng. “It’s a job for a SEAL team because it involves more than just snooping. Bernie and his boys can normally handle themselves in a good firefight, and that’s what I told the man in the White House when he asked how to take the problem one step farther.”

  Tom Carleton shook his head, puffing out his chubby cheeks before exhaling. “It’s not for me.” He wagged a finger at Cobb. “And him?”

  “Henry is going into the wine business.” Pratt waited for a reaction, but the others outwaited him. “Russian wine. He has acquired a special taste for sweet des
sert wines, the type from vineyards in the Crimea. It seems that the wine maker there just dabbles in the business as a hobby. His main job is head of the Strategic Rocket Forces of the Soviet Union.”

  Ryng whistled. “Assassination?”

  Cobb looked up, expressionless. “A straight assassination would be too easy.”

  “There’s a simple theory in Washington right now. I don’t know which group developed it—and I’m not saying it’s wrong—but the president is convinced that this next war, if we have to have it, must be the last. Now wait a minute,” Pratt added quickly. “Part of the theory is not that we’ll never have to fight again. Instead, the idea is both to keep ourselves from escalating this into a nuclear thing and also to do something that will permanently stop the posturing with nuclear missiles. If I could ever classify something as a ‘mission impossible,’ this is it. Our friend Henry Cobb is going to waltz right in and snatch the head of the Strategic Rocket Forces from under the Russians’ own noses. What do you think of that?”

  “I’d say a snatch like that is impossible,” Nellie remarked blandly.

  Carleton looked over at him and nodded in agreement. “Me, too.”

  “The president says it is, too. But he asked me what the next step would be if we stopped the subs up north, and if we held our own in the Med. I told him frankly that the Russian doctrine calls for nuclear weapons. First, they’ll call our bluff, then they’ll threaten, and then they’ll use them to show they mean business.” Cobb said nothing.

  “Who came up with this brilliant idea?” Ryng asked sarcastically. Then he added, “Been nice knowing you, Hank.”

  “I have no idea. The day after we talked about the nuclear threat, he asked me if I thought grabbing this guy—Keradin his name is—would stop them long enough to think. I said that it might be a better idea to take him out. The president looked at me, you know, over the tops of his glasses, and said that was his feeling precisely. But the others arguing that morning thought that murdering the guy would make them so mad they’d just blast away.” Pratt stopped for a moment and scratched the back of his neck. “But the more we talked about it, the better the idea of kidnapping sounded. You know,” he leaned forward, “it might just put them off guard long enough to make them think. But first we’d have to neutralize them up north and in the Med.” He got up and shrugged. “Anyway, the president was looking for the best man for the job.” Pratt pointed at Cobb. “He’d heard Hank’s name before, so I reinforced what he already knew.”

  “It’s still impossible,” Carleton said softly.

  “Well,” Cobb clapped his hands, “we’ll never know until we try it, will we?”

  There was no point, Pratt realized, in going over any more details of why Cobb would make this attempt. Dave Pratt had agreed because some of the studies justifying the idea stemmed from his own—that the organization controlling the Soviet ICBM arsenal might be weakened to the point of indecision if their commander was neutralized. Pratt had once emphasized three goals concerning the Strategic Rocket Forces: create confusion and vacillation within a system that relied upon one man; determine primary Soviet targets before they could make their initial launch, thereby instilling the threat of complete failure; and create disaffection within the Soviet high command based on the premise that their strategic system might have been compromised. Even if the kidnapping was near inconceivable, it was in Cobb’s hands now.

  For the next two hours, the conversation often returned to the days along the Mekong. Pratt had been a lieutenant commander in charge of the riverboat squadron; Carleton, just promoted to lieutenant, was his executive officer. Nelson and Ryng were both young ensigns, and Henry Cobb had been a petty officer in charge of one of the boats.

  One of their final operations brought them closer to each other than ever. It was a raid deep into VC territory. Nelson and Ryng each led a division of boats; Pratt and Carleton directed the operation by helicopter. Ryng, his boat sunk in one of the early firefights, was pulled from the muddy water by Nelson. The boats continued upriver into a second, heavier action. This time the helo was shot down, crashing in the water near the river’s edge. Carleton was thrown free of the wreckage as it hit the water. Hank Cobb, disregarding heavy fire from shore, leaped into the water, diving into the sinking wreckage to pull out Pratt.

  The depleted squadron was attacked two more times as it retreated downriver. The final firefight sank Nelson’s boat. The five men, injured now, were the only ones to survive. Somehow each helped the other through a week in the jungle. When Pratt could go no farther, Cobb and Nelson continued ahead and located a friendly village. Two days later they were rescued.

  There was only one other event, a tragic one, that had united them even more. Henry Cobb had fallen in love with a Vietnamese girl. Unfortunately, they would later learn, she had once worked for the Viet Cong. She tried to escape them when she married Cobb. When the VC tortured her to death for falling in love with an American, they took turns caring for Cobb until he got hold of himself. Then, when they were sure he was once again himself, Ryng had gone with Cobb to where the girl’s VC cell was located. The Saigon police counted twenty-two bodies the next day. After that, those in the group never mentioned her again, and Cobb never again, to their knowledge, became involved with a woman. It was his way.

  At two p.m. the tray of sandwiches Pratt had ordered beforehand appeared. Half an hour later, Admiral Pratt called for his car to take four of them out to Andrews to catch their flight to Europe. Ryng would travel separately with his own team.

  They shook hands on the steps near the front entrance of the hotel, knowing it might be years before they found themselves in the same town again. Admiral Pratt’s car arrived, then went to wait discreetly at the corner, a hundred feet from the hotel’s front door. The driver, a young sailor immaculate in fresh whites, stood patiently beside the vehicle.

  Ryng was the only one who saw a delivery truck change lanes too quickly. It was then hit from the rear and knocked toward Pratt’s car. The best Ryng could tell, the driver of the delivery truck probably stepped on the gas rather than the brake. It hit the Navy vehicle with tremendous force.

  The explosion that followed was incredible, the thunderclap literally knocking the wind out of Ryng as he sprawled backward. Carleton landed heavily on top of him. Out of the corner of his eye, Ryng saw the automobile burst upward in sections. The bomb must have been directly underneath it. The gas tanks on both vehicles blew, spewing flames in all directions.

  The carnage spread across K Street. Bodies and parts of bodies littered the street and sidewalks, some cloaked in burning gasoline. For a hundred feet in every direction people had been knocked off their feet. The glass was blown out of every building within his sight. And as Ryng knew would happen, the deathly silence that follows such a blast was pierced by the hysterical screams of the injured and the pitter-patter of small, gruesome objects falling around them like raindrops.

  In a moment, Ryng and Carleton were on their feet, ahead of Pratt and the other two. None had been close enough to be hurt by the blast.

  As Hank Cobb approached the scene, he simply nodded, never looking to either side as he strolled nearer. The bomb was a big, sloppy one. The word must have gotten out that Admiral Pratt was the boss. More than likely it was set for a time when Pratt would be well on his way to Andrews. Instead, it reacted to the impact of the delivery van. Cobb looked at the bodies sprawled all over K Street. Time to get on with my own work, he thought. I’d better get my ass out of here before anyone else gets hurt.

  D MINUS 3

  While Pratt was en route to Naples, the Turkish offensive reached a stalemate. Counterattacks by the Greek air force in the western half of Turkey offset further strikes against Greek military bases. The sinking of two Turkish troop transports off Cape Sounion countered an invasion force assumed to be headed for Piraeus.

  While the public was distracted by the Greco-Turkish war, the activation of twenty-two reserve divisions in the western
sector of the Soviet Union neared completion, with fourteen of those already in transit to the west. Though these reserves remained approximately fifty percent short of combat supplies, control of truck and rail systems was assumed by the military, confirming an earlier CIA release that most, if not all, of the Warsaw Pact nations had been placed under martial law.

  The movement of shock divisions toward the west continued, following a north-south orientation directed primarily for the Federal Republic of Germany via Poland, East Germany, and Czechoslovakia. In concert, there was also a push south from Hungary, Rumania, and Bulgaria toward the Mediterranean. Moscow confirmed major exercises in these areas, claiming they were previously announced, ostensibly to test her satellite countries under such an emergency. The UN Security Council requested permission to send observers, but were answered with silence from Moscow.

  Though subject to UN censure as a result of the previous day’s Security Council ruling, Soviet vessels in the Sea of Japan continued to harass U.S. naval units, and at least one Japanese destroyer reported damage under similar circumstances.

  While it was rare that the Soviet Navy would have more than one-third of their offensive units at sea at a given time, more than sixty percent of their Pacific Fleet conducted exercises in the Sea of Japan, extending the length of the Japanese islands. Similar exercises were also conducted by their Baltic Fleet within the confines of that sea. In the Northern Fleet, satellite reconnaissance showed that all but two submarines were under way. Since eighty to ninety percent of Soviet submarines were normally in port at any given time, this confirmed that not only did the Russians plan to reinforce the Fifth Escadra in the Mediterranean, but they likely were massing to cut off the vital supply routes to Europe.

  Based on U.S. satellite recon the previous day, the Norwegian government now officially requested assistance from the United States to investigate the silence from their territory of Svalbard. Timing on the part of American intelligence had been critical, for if Norway had remained silent, the U.S. would have had to request permission to insert its SEAL team. Satellite photos revealed 1) little normal activity around the Norwegian settlement of Longyearbyen; 2) increased activity by Aeroflot at the Longyearbyen airport; 3) the supply ship with unknown deck cargo tracked from Murmansk was photographed anchored off Barentsburg, the major Soviet settlement on Spitzbergen.