“We caught him sending an encrypted classified message. We found the SatPhone in his safe. What’s circumstantial about that?”
“All we know is that the message was on his computer. We don’t know how it got there, or whether he sent it. As for the SatPhone, that’s incriminating, but no one has actually proved that he owns the thing or that he used it for any purpose.”
“Look, Mr. Korchek, you sound more like a lawyer than an investigator.”
“Iam a lawyer, pal. Don’t presume to tell me how to do my job.”
At this, Morse’s eyes widened and his chin tilted upward.
Korchek recognized the look. It was the same look the military intelligence twits always wore when they had just lost a round with him.
Korchek was enjoying himself. Being a civilian, he made it a point not to take shit from officers, especially officers like this asshole Morse. Korchek was a Chicago cop before going to law school and being recruited by the FBI. He seized on the cryptology job when it came along because he loved messing with computers, and, besides, it got him out of the grunt work regular agents had to do.
Korchek said, “It isn’t an airtight case. Maybe Parsons is your guy, maybe not.”
“Parsons fits all the profiles,” said Morse.
“What do you mean by that?” said Admiral Fletcher, watching the exchange from the end of the conference table.
Morse tossed a thick manila file folder onto the table. “This is his background file. Top of his NROTC class at Michigan. Ditto at the Navy postgrad school in Monterey. BS in electrical engineering, master’s in industrial management. Served two previous shipboard tours as comm officer—one aboard theSouth Carolina, then a WestPac cruise on theLincoln . Here’s an interesting part: He put in a long tour—four and a half years—at NATO Forces South Command in Naples as a liaison officer. Had top-secret clearance and, according to this report, had contacts with foreign military counterparts all over southern Europe.”
“Is that when you think he was compromised?” Fletcher asked.
“Nothing turned up in any of the security checks they ran on him—except one glaring susceptibility. He’s subject to blackmail.”
“Because of . . . ?”
“His sexual orientation.”
Fletcher nodded. “He’s gay, you mean?”
“It came to light back when he was at grad school. Seems he’s always had a companion. Several, actually.”
Fletcher shook his head. “How did he get a top-secret clearance? I thought homosexuals were considered a security risk.”
“Not in the new military. There was a legal challenge to that one back in the last administration, and the Defense Department backed off. You can’t yank someone’s clearance for that specific reason.”
Fletcher looked at Morse, then at Korchek. “That makes a pretty good case that Commander Parsons is our spy.”
“I’m certain of it,” said Morse.
Korchek lowered his feet to the floor. He spat his toothpick on the deck and left the room.
“Babcock?” said Boyce.
He sat at the small conference table in the air wing office, gnawing on a cigar. Claire had finished telling her story. “You mean that’s what this circus in Yemen is all about? Whitney Babcock and Yemen’s oil?”
“That was Vince Maloney’s take on it. The same oil reservoir that Saudi Arabia is tapping apparently extends somewhere past Yemen’s border, wherever that is. He said that no one has ever officially determined the border.”
“But you’re saying that someone will? Like Al-Fasr, if he takes over the country?”
“Not if. When. It’s supposed to happen very soon.”
“And it’s supposed to happen with the collusion of . . .” He left the sentence unfinished.
She nodded.
He removed the cigar and stared at the bulkhead for a moment. “I’m not saying that I believe it—not yet—but if it’s true, it means our battle group is being used not to fight a terrorist, but to accommodate the sonofabitch.”
“Worse than that,” said Maxwell. “It means we’re letting him keep our marines in Yemen just so he can have a bargaining chip.”
Boyce thought for a second. “Claire, we have to get this guy Maloney out here and report this to—”
“Too late.”
“He won’t talk?”
“He was killed by a car bomb.” As Boyce listened in amazement, she told him about the Toyota and the killers in the street.
“Holy shit.” He shook his head. “You nearly went with him.”
She nodded.
“You know, Claire, without your guy to give us testimony, all we have is conjecture, nothing more.”
Maxwell spoke up for the first time. “We can pass it to Admiral Fletcher.”
Boyce snorted. “You mean Babcock’s lapdog.”
“Maybe he doesn’t know the real story about Babcock.”
“There’s no limit to what Fletcher doesn’t know.”
“He’s still a naval officer. He’s the guy who’s supposed to be our boss.”
“He’s supposed to be a lot of things that he’s not.” Boyce couldn’t contain the disgust in his voice. “Just what do you think Fletcher’s going to do?”
Maxwell shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s possible that the man has a tiny speck of integrity left in him.”
“I doubt it. But what the hell, I’ve been wrong about everything else in this operation.” He picked up the phone on the yeoman’s desk. He punched a number, listened for a moment, then said, “This is Captain Boyce. I need to speak with Admiral Fletcher.”
Manilov hated moving at this slow speed. Even though they were ninety meters deep, theMourmetz was swaying like an unsteady barge.
He stood behind the two technicians—Borodin, the sonar operator, and Keretzky, the combat information computer specialist. By the heavy acoustic mass in the sonarman’s screen, Manilov knew he was seeing the passive return of the aircraft carrier. Cruising between theMourmetz and theReagan were two escort vessels. Frigates or destroyers? He couldn’t tell. Beyond the carrier he saw the shape of another heavy ship. A supply ship? A cruiser?
Again Manilov wished that he had a full arsenal. With wake-homing torpedoes or, even better, the new video-guided weapons, he could steer the warhead around the interfering ships, select his target, punch the hull of the big carrier at any place or depth he chose.
Not today. Not with his complement of torpedoes. But even though the SET-16s were old, they possessed the same advantage as the aging submarine—stealth. For the first portion of their journey, the SET-16 emitted no signal, gave no clue to its presence. Even its low-noise propulsion system was difficult to detect, especially at its initial running depth of a hundred meters. Not until the torpedo was within a thousand meters of the target would Manilov activate its active sonar homing system.
He had another reason to like the SET-16. He had fired dozens of them in training, and by now he understood each foible of the torpedo. As with every primitive weapon, the trick was to get close. Very close.
They were eight kilometers from theReagan . Close enough for a shot. He didn’t want to rush and miss. A torpedo meandering through the midst of a battle group only meant quick and certain death for the submarine.
All these years he had waited. Another twenty minutes didn’t matter. TheReagan was coming to them.
No one in the submarine’s control room was speaking. Borodin and Keretzky were hunched intently over their consoles, filtering and refining their data. Popov, the former dissident and newly promoted executive officer, was supervising the planesman, monitoring the boat’s progress.
Manilov felt a surge of pride. It was just as he had always imagined actual undersea warfare. They were creeping into the heart of the enemy’s fleet. The danger was more real and immediate than any submariner had faced since World War II.
The doubts of yesterday had evaporated, as if the dead Ilychin had taken the crew’s fears with him. The men wer
e ready for whatever happened. True Russians. They had assigned their lives and fortunes to fate.
The minutes ticked by. Everything depended on theReagan ’s adhering to the original point of intended movement, which they had received, via Al-Fasr, over twelve hours ago. Since then theMourmetz had been unable to extend its antenna to receive or transmit any new information.
Manilov was concerned. What if the weather had caused a change? What if a new operating plan had been ordered? What if—
Remain focused,he ordered himself.No more what-ifs.
He could see by the MVU-110 display that the largest acoustic mass—it had to be theReagan —was still coming toward them. It meant that the ship’s point of intended movement had not changed, at least not yet.
Ten minutes.
He had delayed the last and most critical decision of the mission. He could fire torpedoes from this depth, ninety meters down, aiming on theReagan ’s passive sonar return and using the MVU-110 to calculate the firing solution. At a close enough range, the kill probability was acceptable.
Or he could be more certain. He could ascend to periscope depth, obtain a positive visual bearing and range on his target—and raise the kill probability by several percent.
He would also raise to a hundred percent the chances that they would be located.
Manilov turned away from the console for a moment and massaged his temples with his fingertips. He didn’t need to calculate the odds again. During the first few minutes after the sub hunters obtained a track on his periscope, their initial search area would be tiny. But if they were denied a precise starting point, the area to be searched swelled exponentially. With each passing minute, the submarine’s radius of movement expanded.
Safety or certainty? It was the submariner’s dilemma.
Manilov’s dream of destiny was thundering in his Russian soul like an ancient refrain. How long had he waited for this moment? Had he come this close so that he could take the safe course? Miss the target, then run like a fox fleeing from hounds?
Five minutes. TheReagan ’s course was unchanged. The acoustic mass was still coming toward them.
“Ascend to thirty meters,” he ordered in a quiet voice.
Every pair of eyes in the control room swung toward him.
“Ascend?” asked Popov.
“You heard correctly,” said Manilov. “Thirty meters. When we’re stabilized in firing range, we rise to periscope depth.”
Popov was staring at him. So were Borodin and Keretzky. They understood the decision he had just made. Manilov looked at each of them, a gentle smile on his face. They could refuse to follow his orders and there was nothing he could do about it. After this moment, nothing else mattered.
Seconds ticked past. A silence as heavy as the grave hung over the control room.
“Aye, Captain,” answered Popov, breaking the spell. “Ascend to thirty meters.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
TARGETREAGAN
Gulf of Aden
0920, Thursday, 20 June
“Range?”
“Six thousand meters, Captain. No change.”
Manilov peered at the console and nodded. The waiting was over. It was as close as theReagan would come on its present course, passing them broadside, then opening the distance again as it cruised to the southwest.
“Ready tubes one, two, three, four.”
“Tubes one, two, three, four loaded and ready.”
Theoretically, two torpedoes were enough. If he could get two into the hull of theReagan, he had a chance to sink her. He would fire a salvo of four, fanning them to account for any evasive maneuvering the giant ship might attempt. The remaining two tubes—theMourmetz had six available—he would save for defense while the fast-loader replenished the first four tubes.
TheMourmetz ’s survival depended on the magnitude of surprise. If they detected his periscope on their radar—and he was certain they would—he might fend off incoming destroyers with his remaining torpedoes. Antiship missiles would be better, but those were left behind in Vladivostok.
Without doubt, aircraft would come after them too. For that he had a solution. “Igla batteries on standby,” he ordered.
“Aye, sir. Already done.”
The Igla SA-N-10 was a short-range, heat-seeking anti-aircraft missile that could be launched from beneath the surface. With only three of the missiles on theMourmetz, Manilov knew he couldn’t wage a sea-air battle with the sub-hunting aircraft. But the enemy wouldn’t know how few he had. When they saw one of the vicious little killer missiles bursting from the sea, it might hold the helicopters and S-3 Vikings at bay long enough for theMourmetz to break out of the search envelope.
Manilov felt the eyes of his crewmen on him. He saw no rancor, no hostility, just determination and faith. For this tiny speck in time, the lives of Yevgeny Manilov and his fellow submariners were intertwined.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “I’d like you to know it has been a privilege to serve with you. Remember that we are Russians. We will fight with honor.”
“Aye, aye, Captain,” said the executive officer. Each man in the control room nodded in agreement.
“Ascend to periscope depth.”
Petty Officer Third Class Wanda Rainey, the nineteen-year-old radar operator in theArkansas ’s Combat Information Center, was the first to see it. Fresh from the Navy’s “A” school, she had arrived on the Aegis cruiser two months ago.
“Contact, bearing 290, range seven thousand yards,” Rainey called out.
The watch supervisor, Lt. Cmdr. Walt Finney, walked over and stood behind her. “Track?”
“Track 2672,” she said, reading the number that appeared on her screen.
“Link it to flag ops on theReagan, ” said Finney.
“I was just about to—Whoops.” She peered intently at the console. “It’s gone.”
Finney leaned closer, also peering into the display. “Damn!”
“Just like the one the other day. Four sweeps, then nothing. No course, no speed.”
Finney shook his head. “Here we go again. We spend the rest of the day chasing another damn ghost—a whale or some piece of floating junk.”
“Do you still want me to link it over to flag ops?”
“Wait a sec.” He continued to watch the screen, just in case the contact reappeared. Like most antisubmarine warfare officers, he knew you could get yourself branded as a hipshot if you were too quick to jump on spurious targets, sending ships and airplanes running off after shadows. With experience and a cool head, you evaluated these things. You made a judgment call before you called in the hounds.
Half a minute later, he was still evaluating when the sonar operator called out, “Sonar contact, screws in the water, bearing 310, range—” The operator’s voice went up an octave. “Oh, man! It’s a . . . it’s a torpedo! Range five thousand yards. No . . . make thattwo torpedoes!”
As he called out the contacts, his voice rising in pitch, he punched a mushroom-shaped button that sent an alert to the combat information rooms of every vessel in the battle group.
Finney ran to the sonar console. “What the fuck is going on?”
“Three torpedoes!” yelled the sonarman. “No, goddammit, we got four now! Four torpedoes in the water, Mr. Finney. Looks like two hundred down, bearing 305, four thousand yards inbound.”
Finney felt the hair stand up on his arms and neck. He knew the information on the sonar screen was being repeated on a similar screen in flag plot in theReagan .
This is a drill,he thought. It had to be some kind of stupid damned exercise to see if all this gee-whiz shit really worked. No one had fired a real torpedo at an American ship for over fifty years.
“Bearings 300, 290, 280, range three thousand to five thousand yards,” called out the sonarman. “All tracking onReagan. ”
Finney could see it now on the screen. The computer-enhanced display made the sonar returns look like pulsing yellow worms. They were in trail, diverging in about a five-d
egree spread.
All moving at forty knots toward USSRonald Reagan.
Finney turned to the tactical display, checking the disposition of the battle group. TheReagan was nestled in the middle of the formation like a mother hen surrounded by her chicks. On her starboard beam were the two screening destroyers,O’Hara andRoyal . On the far side, cruising off the carrier’s port beam, was the ammunition shipBaywater . Two miles in trail was Finney’s own ship, the Aegis cruiserArkansas.
The torpedoes were on a path that would take them between the lead destroyer, USSRoyal, and the trailing vessel, USSO’Hara. Every ship in the battle group was maneuvering now, responding to the torpedo alerts.
“The decoys are deploying,” reported the sonar operator. He pressed his finger against the display, leaving an oily print. Finney could see the sonar echoes of the decoys as they spilled into the wake of each warship.
This is no goddamn drill,he thought. With morbid fascination he stared at the pulses on the display. Real ships, real torpedoes. It didn’t make sense. Who the hell would be firing torpedoes?
Reaganwas in a hard turn to starboard. BothO’Hara andRoyal were making their own tight turns to starboard inside the massive ship’s radius. On the screen the decoys were casting a large acoustic clutter behind each ship.
The torpedoes were ignoring the decoys.
“Two thousand yards and closing,” called out the sonar operator.
Rear Adm. Langhorne Fletcher kept his eyes riveted on Claire. As she told him what she had heard in San‘a, his eyes steadily narrowed. The features of his lean face seemed to harden.
The four of them—Fletcher and Claire, Boyce and Maxwell—sat at the small table in the admiral’s stateroom, directly below the flag bridge.
“Ms. Phillips, you’re quite sure that your contact, Mr.—”
“Maloney.”
“You’re sure he mentioned Mr. Babcock by name?”
“Yes, sir. Several times.”
“And you are certain that he—”
Fletcher stopped. A drink skittered across the glass table. The ship was leaning hard to the port side.
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