“Okay, Admiral, what else have you done that I don’t know about?”
Brannon rubbed his chin. “Well, sir, I put two of our attack submarines on every Soviet missile submarine at sea. I gave them orders to bird dog the Soviet submarines and harass them in any way they could.
“That’s brought some results. Every one of the Soviet ballistic missile subs, there are ten of them at sea, sir, every one of them has been screaming to their bases, asking to know why we’re bird dogging them, asking if the world political situation has changed, which is another way of asking if a war has started. Moscow has been telling them to cool it, that no war has started.” He looked across the table at Representative Wendell.
“I think the Russians have read the message. They know that they’ll lose every missile submarine they have at sea the minute they open their missile hatches to fire.”
The President nodded and turned to Wendell. “Walter, give me your opinion of what the public reaction would have been if the Admiral had come to me and told me what had happened and what he wanted to do and I had bypassed the Congress and told him to go ahead and then made it public?”
Wendell moved his lower jaw back and forth, seating his dentures firmly. “The Congress would have been sore-assed, Mr. President. But not so much they wouldn’t sit there and take it because every damned voter in this country would be hollerin’ that we should have been doing this ever since the Roosians made their move to take over half of Europe after the war. No doubt about it, sir.”
“You’ve put me in a bad bind, Admiral,” the President said. “Admiral Benson told me that his aide, Wilson, let the KGB know that the whole mess could be cleared up if Brezhnev would call me and apologize. He hasn’t called.”
“I know, sir.” Brannon said.
“Mr. President,” Wendell said. “We ain’t in the same political party but I think you know that you can depend on me to help you out when things get a little dark brown around the edges. Why don’t we just sort of wait around a bit more and see what the Roosians do? Give ‘em until tomorrow morning and if they don’t do nothin’ by then you could mebbe get on the hot line yourself and tell ol’ Brezhnev that you know what’s happened and you sure as hell don’t want no nuclear war and he’d better not want one either. Sound reasonable to you, sir?’
“Maybe,” the President said. He looked at Mike Brannon. “What’s your reasoning on what the Soviets will do next?”
“I don’t honestly know,” Brannon said. “The last word I had from Bob Wilson was that the Politburo is in a crisis situation — a fight between the hardliners and the faction that wants to maintain the status quo, detente, sir. The Israeli intelligence people are on top of the situation in Moscow. They’ve apparently got agents deep inside the Kremlin. Israeli intelligence has been feeding information to the KGB about our intentions to retaliate with all we have in the hope this would give the softliners some ammunition to use, sir.”
“That’s what Mr. Wilson told me before you arrived,” the President said. He leaned back from the table. “If the hardliners win there’d a hell of a risk of a nuclear war. If the concept you mentioned earlier happens, if they call me and tell me they’ve fired at our missile bases, I will not surrender! I’ll fight!”
“I think they know that, sir,” Brannon said softly.
“Mmm,” the President said through closed lips. “But if the softliners win then we’ve got to clear up this mess. Make an announcement that we’ve lost a submarine and we don’t know how we lost it. And we’ve got to do something about the crews of those two submarines that sank the Russian submarine.”
“That can be handled, sir,” Brannon said quietly. “That’s my job.”
“I know you can swear the officers to secrecy and make it stick,” the President replied, “but I know from my own experience in the Marine Corps during World War II that you can’t keep things of importance from the troops. They probably know they sank a Russian submarine.”
“I would guess they do, sir,” Brannon answered. “We can order them to never say a word about it but some of them will talk. Sometime or other some of them will talk.”
“I don’t think that will do any harm.” Moise Goldman spoke for the first time since he had sat down at the table. “It will make a little flurry in the press but there’s no way anyone can prove anything and it’ll die down after a few days. I think that overseas the story will be believed and that won’t hurt our foreign policy, sir; we’ve got too many of our allies saying that we’re too soft on the Soviet Union, because of Vietnam. A story like this gets out and it won’t hurt us.”
“You might be right,” the President said. He turned his head toward Representative Wendell. “You have anything else, any other thoughts, Walter?”
“Only that if you’re thinkin’ about making a call to Brezhnev that you got to remember there’s a seven hour time difference. That Wilson fellow said that he had word that the Politburo is goin’ to meet at four tomorrow afternoon. That’s nine in the mornin’, our time, Mr. President.”
“Thank you for reminding me,” President Milligan said.
Riding back to the Pentagon in Goldman’s car, Mike Brannon turned to the President’s Chief of Staff.
“Did you see the look that Captain Steel gave Wendell when he said that I had hit the Russians in the balls?”
“He just lost his war, Admiral,” Goldman answered. “The Congressman was his ace in the hole for riding you out of the Navy. Now, as far as he knows, you’re still in the driver’s seat and he’s sucking wind. Might be interesting to see what he does. I’ll keep you posted if I hear anything.”
Admiral Brannon’s Chief Yeoman stopped him as he walked toward his office door. “Captain Steel is in your office, sir.
“Very well, Chief,” Brannon said. He walked into his office and saw Captain Steel standing by the window. The lean Captain turned and laid a sheet of paper on Brannon’s desk.
“My request for retirement, Admiral,” Captain Steel said. “Effective as soon as I can carry out the request the President made of me. Sir.”
Mike Brannon read the paper and then twisted it into a ball and tossed it in the wastebasket.
“Request denied, Captain,” he said. “The Navy needs you. I need you. Get the hell out of my office. I’ve got work to do.”
CHAPTER 21
Far out in the mid-Atlantic a Soviet Golf Command and Control submarine nosed cautiously to the surface and extended its massive communications array above its Conning Tower. In the Radio Room of the communications submarine an operator began to tap out a long signal to the Soviet ballistic missile submarines in the Atlantic. When he had finished his transmission he turned on his receiver and listened for the acknowledgments.
“All ships acknowledge, sir,” he said to the Radio Officer who stood beside him.
“Good,” the Radio Officer said. He went out of the radio room and found the submarine’s Commanding Officer drinking tea in the ship’s tiny galley. The Commanding Officer looked at his wrist watch.
“It’s zero three hundred,” he said. “We’ve got almost two hours until dawn. Tell the Watch Officer we’ll dive fifteen minutes before false dawn. How’s the weather topside?”
“Clear night, Comrade Captain. Lots of stars. No moon. No wind. Sea is calm.”
The ship’s Captain nodded. “Pass the word to those people still awake that they can go up on deck for fifteen minutes at a time. Five men in each party. No smoking.”
Aboard the Orca, 400 miles off the East Coast of the United States, Captain Dick Reinauer studied a chart on the work table in the ship’s Control Room.
“There’s going to be hell to pay,” he muttered to his XO. “If we don’t find that son of a bitchin’ Russian submarine old Iron Mike is going to have me for breakfast. Of all the damned times to get a glitch in the sonar gear!”
“Maybe Devilfish is still with him,” Eckert volunteered. “He sure went to high speed and went down damned deep before the gli
tch happened. Devilfish should have been able to stay in contact.” Both men looked toward the loudspeaker on the port bulkhead as it rasped.
“Sonar report for the Officer of the Deck and the Captain. Sonar gear is now in full operation and we have contact with the target. Target has apparently reversed course and is coming toward us at high speed. Target depth is seven zero zero repeat seven hundred feet. Range is three zero, repeat thirty miles, sir.
Captain Reinauer reached for the telephone and dialed the Sonar Room.
“I want a full report on the glitch,” he said into the telephone. “And I want a footprint confirmation that we’re on the same target. I don’t want to begin following some damned electronic dummy that bastard might have fired to fool us.”
“We can confirm this is the same target, Captain,” the voice on the loudspeaker said. “We’re tracking a Soviet Yankee One Class ballistic missile submarine, sir. He’s making the same screw noise pattern and one of his circulating water pumps has got a bad bearing. We confirm same target, sir.”
“Very well,” Reinauer said. He turned to Eckert. “What the hell is he doing on a reverse course? He told us yesterday evening that he was ordered home. Now he’s coming back toward us. Why?”
“We know he got off a long message when he was surfaced,” Eckert said. He looked at the twenty-four hour clock on the bulkhead. “We’re due to surface in an hour for radio traffic. Maybe we’ll find out what the hell is going on.”
Reinauer nodded, studying the chart in front of him. “Let’s start a war problem on him. I want to run outboard of him and stay out in front of him. We’ll assume Devilfish is inboard and near him. Tell Communications to stand by for satellite transmission ten minutes before we go up. I want to go up and down as fast as we can. We lose too much time on the surface so work out the problem to stay well ahead of him, at least twenty thousand yards. By the time we go up and down we should still have some lead on him and then we’ll close on him and start staying close to the bastard.” He thanked the watch messenger for a cup of coffee and a fresh doughnut.
“I want the torpedo room on full alert, XO. If we hear that bastard opening his missile hatches we nail the son of a bitch!”
Sophia Blovin walked into Igor Shevenko’s office with a sealed envelope in her hand. She put it on the desk.
“This is a message the Navy sent,” she said. “One of Comrade Simonov’s men delivered it just now.”
Shevenko put a blunt thumb under the flap of the envelope and ripped it open. He read the message and Sophia saw his face harden.
“The bastard!” Shevenko muttered.
“Who?”
“Zurahv, that’s who!” he said. He tapped the message. “He’s ordered all ballistic missile submarines to stand by for an order to fire their missiles at Alpha Targets at fifteen hundred hours and thirty minutes, Greenwich Time.”
“Alpha Targets are what?” Sophia Blovin inquired.
“Military targets. Hardened missile sites in the United States.” Shevenko picked up a ball-point pen and began to make notes on a piece of paper.
“Fifteen thirty hours Greenwich Time, that’s five-thirty in the afternoon, our time. Today. An hour and a half after the Politburo meeting begins. If he wins the vote this afternoon he can do as he pleases. If he loses the vote . . .” He paused.
“If he loses then he’s going to start a war anyway, is that it?” she asked.
Shevenko nodded. With the pen he drew a recognizable sketch of an atomic explosion. “And that is how it will end!”
“Unless you and Comrade Plotovsky can stop it,” she said softly. “I do not want to die now, not since I’ve found you.”
“Nor do I,” Shevenko said. “Get me through to Dr. Saul in Israel. I want a clear line, no taping. As fast as you can. If he’s not near a phone tell whoever answers that it is of utmost importance that he communicate with me at once.” Sophia Blovin nodded and left the office. She came back in five minutes.
“He is not in his office. They said they can reach him and have him return the call within the half hour.”
He nodded and dialed a number on his telephone. He listened to the phone ring at the other end, feeling the sweat gathering in his armpits. The ringing stopped.
“Comrade Plotovsky, please,” he said, crossing two fingers of his left hand as he said it, hoping that the old man would be in his office. He relaxed slightly as he heard the raspy voice on the line.
“Shevenko, Comrade. I must see you at once, sir. Yes, very important. Do I have your permission to have an overseas call placed to your private line? Good. I will be there in twenty minutes.”
He put the phone back in its cradle and turned to Sophia Blovin. “Get back to the person you talked to in Israel. Give them Comrade Plotovsky’s private line number. Tell them whose number it is, they know of him. Have Dr. Saul call me at that number thirty minutes from now. If he can’t do that let me know at once.” He got out of his chair and went to the coat tree and put on his coat and hat. His grin was lopsided as he looked at Sophia Blovin.
“I never thought I would be getting into bed with the Jews to save my good Russian ass,” he said.
“You are a big enough man to do that, but Comrade Plotovsky?”
“He doesn’t hate Jews,” Shevenko said as he buttoned his coat. “He had a team of dynamiters during the Revolution. That was over fifty years ago. All of them were Jews. They blew up a lot of the Tsar’s troops. Now we’ll see if we can blow up Admiral Zurahv with the help of the Jews.”
“What are you going to ask the Israelis to do?” she half whispered. He stopped at the door and looked at her.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I just don’t know.”
Isser Bernstein put down the telephone and ran his hand over his bald head. He read the notes he had made during his talk with Shevenko and carefully rewrote the notes, fleshing out his self-taught shorthand. His aide came into his office in response to his buzzer.
“Get me Mr. Wilson of the CIA at once, please,” he said. He looked at his wrist watch. “It’s ten-thirty here. Seven hours time difference, three-thirty in the morning there. He should be at home. If he is not, get me Admiral Benson. If he isn’t home get me Admiral Brannon.”
“Bob Wilson better be home in his own bed,” Naomi said primly. She left the room and Isser heard her talking to the operator on the Mossad switchboard. He settled back in his chair and waited, looking at his watch from time to time. The light on his telephone console suddenly began to blink and he picked up the receiver and heard Bob Wilson’s sleepy voice.
“Dr. Saul here,” Isser boomed out. “Wake up. You have a notepad and pen near your bed? Ah, always prepared, are you? Take this down carefully.
“The Soviet Union will launch ballistic missiles from submarines at fifteen thirty hours Greenwich time. Repeat fifteen hundred hours plus thirty minutes Greenwich time. Targets will be hardened missile sites in the United States.
“The attack will be launched ninety repeat ninety minutes after the Politburo goes into emergency session to resolve the differences between the hard and softliners.”
Bob Wilson sat on the edge of his bed, fully awake, the hair on the back of his neck raising. He looked at his notes and took a deep breath to calm himself and then carefully read back what Isser Bernstein had said to him.
“Source?” he said into the mouthpiece.
“Shevenko. He tried to reach me. I was out. His aide called back and gave Naomi instructions I should call him at once. He was not in his office. He was in the office of Leonid Plotovsky of the Politburo. Plotovsky has been the leader of the softliners in the Politburo.”
“Credence?” Wilson said.
“I believe Shevenko is telling the truth, Bob. He wouldn’t dare lie from that old man’s office. Plotovsky would have him hung up by, how do you say it, by his balls. Yes. I would appreciate you calling me back as soon as you have information of what action your side will take.” He listened a moment, swiveling back a
nd forth in his chair.
“For what it is worth, my old friend, and I give you this because I owe you so much: If the attack is launched you may tell your President that Israel will attack the Arab states within minutes after the first missiles leave Russia. We are not going to sit here and be taken by madmen like Nasser and Qaddaffi as if we were rabbits in a pen. Make sure your President knows that.” He put the telephone back on its cradle. He buzzed for Naomi.
“Get me the Prime Minister, please,” he said. Naomi came back into his office in two minutes.
“Her schedule for today reads like she is to attend a meeting of the Knesset, sir. That’s going on now. It’s a closed meeting, the subject matter is the Egyptian aggressions.”
“Hm,” Isser said. “Phone the Chief of Security at the Knesset. Tell him I have to talk to the Prime Minister at once. Tell him the conversation must be conducted over a safe phone.” Naomi left and Isser Bernstein sat, drumming his fingers on his desk top. The telephone rang.
In Washington a sleepy Vice Admiral Mike Brannon was jolted wide awake by the call from Rear Admiral Mike Benson. He dressed as swiftly as he could as his wife made him a cup of strong coffee. He gulped the hot black liquid down and pulled on a heavy overcoat. He stopped at the door and kissed Gloria Brannon and held her close. He heard the single, muted sound of the automobile horn outside and he suddenly hugged her more tightly and kissed her again and trotted down the front steps to the car.
Torpedo! (The Silent War Book 3) Page 21