This, more than anything, revealed to Paul Bedford the gravity of the situation—Military Command in the Oval Office. It couldn’t be done any other way. He saw that.
“Will you require me to fulfill any duties during the transition period early this afternoon?” he asked simply. A general sigh of relief went through the room. The main hurdle had been passed.
“Better not,” said General Scannell. “We intend to ask just once for the President’s cooperation, then remove him from office. At which point we shall have an announcement prepared, to the effect that the President has suffered a serious nervous breakdown and has retired, with his family, temporarily, to Camp David. Of course he will be under ‘house arrest,’ without contact to the outside world whatsoever.
“Right then, we’ll have the Judge, appointed by the Supreme Court, to swear you into office in the White House.”
“And the great offices of State? Who will you be getting rid of?”
“Not really,” replied General Scannell. “Though that idiot Defense Secretary and the National Security Adviser will have to go immediately, before Arnold throttles them both. And you’ll probably want to appoint your own Chief of Staff. So that buffoon Hatchard will have to go.”
Paul Bedford said, softly, words he never expected to utter: “Correct. Romney and Schlemmer must go immediately. I’ll explain to Hatchard that with his boss gone, this is the end of his West Wing tenure.”
Scannell spoke for everyone in the room when he said, “Sir, everyone at this table is very grateful for your understanding. We cannot sit here and allow this clown in the Oval Office to stand and watch while our cities are destroyed. We cannot. And will not.”
“I understand,” said the Virginian. “And I, in turn, am grateful for your foresight, and your confidence in me. Especially Admiral Morgan, of whom, I should confess, I have long been terrified.”
“C’mon, Paul,” rasped Arnold. “You never even met me before today.”
“I assure you, Admiral, your reputation precedes you. And I look forward to working with you…er…I think.”
Everyone laughed, the kind of restrained laughter born of high tension and trepidation. But it would not be long now. And when the Vice President left the room to return to the White House, they all instinctively checked the time. Four minutes past ten, on Tuesday morning, September 29, 2009. It was at this moment that Adm. Arnold Morgan became the de facto leader of the United States of America.
1934 (Local), Same Day, Same Time
Bandar Abbas Navy HQ.
General Rashood and the Commander in Chief of the Iranian Navy, Adm. Mohammed Badr, were trying to decide whether another communication to Washington was necessary. Did the Americans think that the Hamas high command would not carry out their threat because world opinion would most likely turn against them?
In which case, someone needed to put the Pentagon right. Sometime on October 9, young Ben Badr would fire those two Scimitar SL-2s straight at the Cumbre Vieja, no ifs, ands, or buts.
Ravi was working on a draft, and he was nearly through with it. The wording was as follows…
To: The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, The Pentagon, Washington, D.C.:
There is nothing you can do to stop us now. We regret that you have ignored our instructions. You will still be under water when our brothers in Palestine rise again.
They agreed to transmit the letter sometime the following day, Wednesday, September 30.
1005, Tuesday, September 29
The Pentagon.
A minute after Paul Bedford left the office, General Scannell excused himself from the meeting and returned next door to his office. He picked up his private line to the White House and asked to be connected to the President.
“I’m sorry, General. The President is extremely tied up right now. Can I have him call you back?”
“No, you may not,” replied the General. “Put him on the line now.”
One minute later, the unmistakable voice of President McBride said quietly, “General, I am getting slightly tired of these unannounced interruptions during my working day. However, I understand the priority which your position in the Military grants you, and I am able to give you five minutes…”
“Thank you, Mr. President. You will doubtless have noticed that Hamas have carried out their threat, and that at around midnight they did indeed blow up another volcano?”
“Well, I have been told that there was an eruption of Montserrat, if that’s what you’re referring to, but so far as I can see, it erupts on a kind of monthly basis…”
“Not like it did last night, sir. Trust me. That was one of the biggest volcano blasts we’ve seen for years. Almost as damaging as Mount St. Helens—”
The president interrupted him impatiently. “Well, what do you want me to do about it? It was obviously in no relation to us. It took place 4,000 miles away from here, in a foreign country. I think I advised you when we last spoke on the subject that your theories were a complete waste of time, and there was absolutely no reason to place the Pentagon and the White House on a State of Alert—”
Now it was Scannell who broke in. He could see where this conversation was headed and he wasn’t about to waste his breath much longer.
“You did indeed, sir. But they did not threaten to attack us directly, only to show us what they could do, in the hope that we would change our minds and get out of the Middle East. I would say, for the second time in too short a time, they have shown us what they are capable of doing.”
“Well, I remain unconvinced. I think that the Mount St. Helens eruption gave some crank the idea to write threatening letters to the U.S. military and by some off chance, they managed to coincide a threat with a very volatile volcano that erupts on a regular basis somewhere down in the Caribbean.
“That is not reason to ask the President of the United States to activate an oceanwide search by the entire U.S. Navy at vast expense, to withdraw all of our forces from the Middle East at even greater expense, and then tell Israel they must evacuate their settlements in the Holy Land by next week.
“Can’t you see, General, that these are the actions of a hysteric? They are issues so great, almost impossible, and without any reasonable grounds—no President could possibly tackle them without becoming a laughingstock.”
“Sir, I must inform you for the final time that your military high command regards the threat from Hamas as serious. We think they can, and will, explode that volcano in the Canary Islands, which, not for the first time, will unleash a tidal wave. Only this one will flood our entire East Coast.
“I have not spoken to one volcanologist who disagrees with the theory. All these guys need to do is to hit the crater of the Cumbre Vieja with a big missile, probably nuclear, and it will happen. The ensuing landslide is a certainty. And nothing could then stop the tsunami from developing.”
“Please,” the President said scornfully. “Preserve me from Admirals, Generals, and scientists. Collectively you guys cause more unnecessary trouble than everyone else on this planet combined. You asked me a final question. I give you my final answer. I believe your theories are fairy tales. I have been proved right so far, and I have no doubt I will continue to be right.”
He was finished with the discussion, his mind clearly already occupied with other, most important, matters of state.
“As for the overwhelming actions you ask me to take, I must say again, No, General. I deny my permission to sweep the Atlantic for a nonexistent submarine at a cost of about a billion dollars an hour. I will not evacuate our armed forces from the Middle East. And neither will I call the Prime Minister of Israel and demand the creation of an instant independent Palestinian State. Do I make myself clear?”
“I’m afraid you do, sir. I’m afraid you do.”
General Scannell replaced his telephone and walked back into the conference room. “I have spoken to the President again. His position has not altered.”
Admiral Morgan looked grave but unsurprised.
“Then our plan for a transfer of power will have to be put into action. This day,” he said. “Gentlemen, I know we must prepare for an evacuation of these cities, but what we really need to do is to find and destroy that fucking submarine.”
“Arnold,” said Admiral Dickson, “do you have a preliminary plan for the Atlantic deployment? I mean this is a huge step involving possibly a hundred ships.”
“Alan, I have been giving this a great amount of thought. If this ship is carrying regular cruise missiles, top-of-the-line Russian-built, they have a range of 1,200 nautical miles. In my view, he stands well off, perhaps launching 500 miles, or maybe even 1,000 miles, from his target.
“So let’s assume a missile range of 1,000 nautical miles. Initially I suppose we’d have to use SSNs or TAFFs on an area search/patrol.”
Admiral Morgan, like all senior Naval officers, spoke to the entire room as if everyone habitually spoke in service jargon. It never occurred to him that not everyone knew an SSN was an attack submarine, or a TAFF was a towed-array frigate, or that the mysteries of the long, sensitive electronic listening device, trailing behind the ship, might not be clearly comprehended by every single person in Washington. Time was too short for explanations, though.
“And remember,” he added, “the TA will pick up nothing, unless Barracuda makes a mistake or goes unaccountably noisy, which I doubt. But we have to start somewhere. Something has to be done, since this is the most serious threat to the United States. EVER.
“Now, the Naval commanders at this table will know that the towed-arrays are highly variable. But working from just one at 10 knots, covering a circular area of 10 nautical miles radius…that’s 300 square miles per hour. We have a search area of 3 million square miles, which means that each towed-array unit needs 10,000 hours to sweep the area once. Fifty units would do it in eight days.
He looked around the room.
“We’ve got ten days, if we start tomorrow. And that massive sweep would not have covered the inshore areas, which are considerable, and extremely difficult. For that we need a fleet of helicopters with dipping sonars, covering all waters with depths of 15 fathoms, or deeper, to 50 fathoms.
“I suppose one might hope that active sonars might drive the SSN into deeper water, where the TAs have a better chance. But if you are only searching one given spot every eight days…Jesus Christ…the chances of success are negligible.”
He got up and turned to the navigational chart on the wall, indicating the vast body of water they were dealing with.
“And any success depends on us getting there before the Barracuda. If we do, and if we are certain of this, we could perhaps form an outer ring through which the fucking ’Cuda must pass. Total ring length would be 6,000 nautical miles (3.142 X diameter). Fifty TA units would cover 2,000 nautical miles. So to be effective, you’d need to be pretty damn sure from which direction the SSN was making his approach…I mean, a sector of less than 120 degrees.
“Gentlemen, not to put too fine a point on it, this is going to be difficult, with the chances of success in the 5 percent bracket at the most. Which, given the effort, is a depressing thought, to say the least. It means a huge deployment of ASW assets—and even if we had weeks and weeks to continue the search, the likelihood of actually tripping over this little bastard is remote in the extreme. I’m afraid we need to think this out much more carefully.”
He sat back down, the worried look on his face deepening.
“Obviously we have to get our warships out of port regardless, unless we want them all crushed or capsized by the tidal wave. But we can’t just send them charging out into the Atlantic into the possible teeth of a tsunami.
“I could stand the cost…you know, in fuel, food, and personnel…but not if I believe we have almost no chance of success. And the prospect of that massive Naval search actually gives me the creeps. Remember, we have not really picked up this damned Barracuda in months. Their CO is very good, and we know he’s in a very quiet boat. He could creep slowly underneath our frigates and never be detected. We’ve just got to think this out, gentlemen.”
“A rather pessimistic speech, Arnold,” said Admiral Morris, wryly. “Illuminating, but pessimistic. For Christ’s sake, don’t repeat it in front of the President this afternoon. He’ll think you’ve become some kind of a fellow liberal traveler.”
“George,” chuckled Arnold. “That day ever comes, I’ll step out of this room with my service revolver, and do the honorable thing, like an officer and a gentleman.”
9
1330 (Local), Tuesday, September 29
The Atlantic Ocean, 18.00N 53.00W.
THE BARRACUDA was making 15 knots through deep waters, east of the Puerto Rican Trench, 600 feet below the surface, with 2,500 fathoms under her keel. Shortly before first light that morning, they had come to periscope depth for a seven-second satellite check, and the signal awaiting them, more than 20,000 miles above the planet, confirmed their course and mission…A cruel sea for the songbirds…
Gen. Ravi Rashood, plotting and planning in faraway Bandar Abbas, did not consider the sin of self-congratulation to be among his faults but he did harbor one small vanity—he believed he composed one hell of a military signal…and a cruel sea for the songbirds was one of his finest, prearranged with Ben Badr. It was stuffed with hidden information. The Cruel Sea, the famous book by Nicholas Monsarrat, meant that the attack on Montserrat had been a total success, the mention of the songbirds referred to…“Onward! My brave boys to the Canary Islands.” Three words to explain that the sensational Scimitar missile attack on the Soufriere Hills had been accurate, devastating, and world-news-worthy. Three more to confirm the Barracuda’s next mission, and to seal the fate of the arrogant Satan who dominated the Middle East. Not to mention most of the world.
Admiral Ben Badr was ecstatic as he and his cohorts crept along towards the destiny Allah had awarded them. Everything was going according to plan.
The Barracuda was now 560 miles from Montserrat, steering zero-eight-three, in open water, approximately halfway between the burning Caribbean island and the relative safety of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.
Admiral Badr and his Chief of Boat, CPO Ali Zahedi, were down in the missile room sipping coffee and inspecting the arsenal they had left—ten Scimitar cruises, eight of them with conventional warheads, plus two Mark-2s, with their 200-kT nuclear warheads. Two hundred kilotons—the explosive equivalent of 200,000 tons of TNT. Ten conventional warheads (500 pounds each) pack a combined wallop of a couple of tons of TNT.
Ben ran his thumb over the sharp reinforced-steel nose cone of the nearest Mark-2, and he trailed his hand lightly, hesitantly, over the casing, as if stroking a dangerous lion. And he bowed to the golden lettering SCIMITAR SL-2—“It is the will of Allah,” he said softly, contemplating the coming thrust to the heart of the Cumbre Vieja.
1500, Tuesday, September 29
The White House.
President Charles McBride had agreed with undisguised irritation to a short meeting with Gen. Tim Scannell and the Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Alan Dickson. He agreed because he had no choice. Even his Chief of Staff Bill Hatchard had managed to shake his massive head when the President tried to evade seeing the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs…“Forget it, sir,” he had hissed from across the Oval Office. “You have to see him.”
In the following minutes, Big Bill pointed out that no President can avoid his CJC. “It’s simple, sir,” he said, unnecessarily, because if it had not been simple he would have had trouble with the concept himself. “If he has some really important information for you, and you refuse to see him, and the worst happens, he has it in his power to see you impeached. You have to see him, and that’s that.”
Charles McBride gave General Scannell and the Chief Executive of the United States Navy ten minutes at 3:05 P.M. They arrived five minutes early, in two staff cars because there were rather more of them than the President was expecting.
In the backseat of the first car sat the
CJC in company with Adm. Arnold Morgan. In the front passenger seat was Gen. Kenneth Clark, Commandant of the United States Marines.
In the second car was Admiral Dickson, with Adm. Frank Doran, Commander in Chief of the Atlantic Fleet, and Gen. Bart Boyce, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander. With the exception of Admiral Morgan, the rest were in uniform.
They came in through West Executive Avenue, parked in front of the steps leading up to the Diplomatic driveway and the “front” door to the West Wing. Then they strode in tight formation, accompanied by a detail of four Marine guards who had been awaiting their arrival.
They marched to the Marine Guard Station right on the West Wing door, where a tall, polished guardsman in full-dress uniform of red and blue with gold braid, snapped to attention and said crisply, “Good afternoon, sir.” The remark was addressed to General Clark, who smiled and nodded as the Marine pulled the brass handle to open the door.
Inside, the White House “greeter,” a six-foot-six-inch former Naval Petty Officer, plus one of the resident Secret Agents, were plainly ready for this onslaught of military power. The agent ventured to ask the CJC if he could help.
“Two things,” said General Scannell. “A U.S. Navy helicopter from Andrews will be landing on the lawn in less than ten minutes. Make sure the military office knows about it. Inform the main White House telephone executive next to the ops room over in the Old Executive Office Building, we are conducting an emergency exercise, strict security. No further calls for one half hour, incoming or outgoing, as of now.”
“Right away, sir,” said the agent, a former Army Captain himself. “Oh…er…Admiral Morgan, sir…Will you be requiring a visitor’s badge?”
“Sit down, Tommy, I’m busy.”
The agent, who had always held an almost hero-worshiping view of the former National Security Adviser, laughed despite himself. And he utilized the Admiral’s favorite phrase, one he had heard so many times during his five-year career in the West Wing.
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