Ghost Force

by Patrick Robinson

  “And we do hear outbursts from politicians, that we should again try to negotiate a treaty with the British, which would ultimately make the islands ours. But nothing definite…no, nothing definite at all.”

  The table fell silent. Admiral Moreno signaled for more coffee, and since Gregor Komoyedov was plainly enjoying the sweet little pastries, he signaled for a few more of those as well.

  And the sugar intake further galvanized the man from Moscow. “Gentlemen,” he said, “do you have any idea what recent London governments have done to the British military? They have decimated their regiment system, the one that has terrified their opponents for about three hundred years. They have cut down on the numbers of armored vehicles, tanks, and artillery. Much of their equipment, including combat clothing, is out of date. Even their small arms are suspect.

  “The Royal Navy has been beaten down, their fleet reduced to a pale shadow of that which faced down Hitler on the high seas. It would be fair to say the Royal Navy High Command is almost heartbroken at what has befallen it.

  “A series of incompetent politicians has progressively castrated the military in Great Britain. And we watch them very carefully. They do not have one single operational interceptor in their fleet, or their Air Force. They are unable to put a survivable Carrier Battle Group together, not even to face a Third World Air Force.

  “When we heard—perhaps wrongly—that there was talk here of a new offensive against the Malvinas, we were absolutely certain about one thing…if the Argentinians attempt it, they will achieve it. But perhaps I have, as they say, jumped the gun.”

  “You study these matters,” said General Kampf. “You think our military, our Navy, and our Air Force have the capability to capture the Falkland Islands?”

  “Yes, we do, with one or two gaps.”

  “Such as?” asked Admiral Moreno.

  “We think your Achilles’ heel may be the lack of a top-class attack submarine that could range in close to the Royal Navy’s carrier, running deep and quiet, perhaps revealing her position to your very fine fighter pilots.”

  “You may be right about that,” replied Oscar Moreno. “But remember, our Achilles’ heel last time was the range of our aircraft. We could not refuel them sufficiently to get them round the back, to the east of Woodward’s Battle Group. Therefore he could concentrate his defenses to the west. I think this time we may have the range…but I cannot be absolutely certain. Failing to hit the Royal Navy carrier could still cost us a new war.”

  “Not if you had just a modicum of underwater assistance from Mother Russia.” Gregor smiled. “That would seal your overwhelming victory. Very probably on the first day of the war.”

  And with that, Gregor Komoyedov stood up and wished them all good-bye, in classic Russian, “Da svidaniya.” Adding, quietly, “Just a few things to ponder, gentlemen. If you would like to talk further I suggest Moscow. Perhaps your C-in-C would like to arrange something with our Ambassador here in Buenos Aires.

  “Just mention the code word… Viper K-157. ” He stepped toward the cafe door and added, flamboyantly, his arms spread wide apart, “Viva Las Malvinas!! ”

  And the instant, rousing cheers of his fellow cafe patrons echoed unmistakably in the ears of the wily Gregor Komoyedov as he stepped outside, summoned his waiting taxi, and rode twenty-four miles to Ezeiza Airport and an Aeroflot flight. Big European Airbus. Private. Not one other passenger. Direct to Sheremetyevo-2, the sprawling international airport that lies twenty miles to the northwest of Moscow.

  CHAPTER

  THREE

  0900, MONDAY, OCTOBER 18

  THE KREMLIN

  MOSCOW

  General Eduardo Kampf and Admiral Oscar Moreno had spent a comfortable night in the sumptuous private apartment of the President of Russia, right here in the Senate Building.

  Their journey from Buenos Aires had been conducted with such precision—private aircraft, government cars, darkened windows, no uniforms—it would be reasonable to surmise that absolutely no one knew the two top Argentinian commanders were in Moscow, save for those who were supposed to know.

  General Kampf was commander of Argentina’s Five Corps, headquartered at Bahia Blanca, close to the naval base at Puerto Belgrano, 280 miles southwest of Buenos Aires. General Moreno was Commander in Chief Fleet, a position once held by the hawkish Argentinian patriot Admiral Jorge Anaya, the man who had taken his nation to war in the Falkland Islands twenty-eight years ago.

  For the past week, both men had been cloistered in the Casa Rosada, the Presidential Palace on the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires. Each morning in company with the President of Argentina, plus the most trusted Ministers, the officers had taken coffee out on the great columned balcony, before which a one-million-strong crowd had once stood and roared, M-a-a-l-v-i-n-a-s!! M-a-a-l-v-i-n-a-s!! when news of the Argentinian troops landing on the Falklands had finally broken in the spring of 1982.

  Today, once more consumed with the thrill of potential conquest, General Kampf and Admiral Moreno sat in front of the President of Russia and his ever-faithful Navy Chief, Admiral Vitaly Rankov, in the grandeur of the enormous rotunda.

  Both Argentinians had served in the 1982 war against the British: Kampf as a young Lieutenant hopelessly trying to defend the garrison at Goose Green in the face of the rampaging, slightly desperate Second Battalion Parachute Regiment; Moreno as a Lieutenant on board one of the old ex-U.S. destroyers trying to protect the doomed General Belgrano . Both men had wept at the Argentina surrender on June 14, just ten weeks after the war had begun.

  But now, cradled here in the immense stronghold of Russian military power, things were looking sweetly different. And the huge wintry sun struggling into the gray skies high above the onion domes of St. Basil’s Cathedral cast a sense of righteousness upon them all.

  Of course the Malvinas are yours…what rights do the British have to them…? Who do they think they are? And the oil? That huge field probably begins under mainland Argentina.

  And here was the towering figure of this confident veteran Russian Admiral, laughing loudly at what he called the wreckage of the Royal Navy… “Destroyed, willfully, by its own government! Ha ha ha! Gentlemen, there is no way you can lose this battle.

  “Firstly, I doubt the British could raise a battle fleet. Secondly, they hardly have an air strike force to put in an aircraft carrier. And thirdly, if they can find a few tired old Harrier jet fighters, with a little help from us, you’ll sink the carrier. And the Harriers will all run out of fuel and fall into the sea. Checkmate. Ha ha ha! Poor bastards.”

  Even the President laughed, and he was taking this entire conversation very seriously. “Vitaly,” he said, “I want you to explain to our guests exactly why we can make such a difference to the Argentinian strategy if, and only if, the British elect to sail once more for the South Atlantic and fight to recapture their islands.”

  “Las Malvinas are not,” interjected Admiral Moreno, “their islands. They are ours.”

  “Of course,” replied the President, smiling. “Thoughtless of me. I meant, should they wish to try once more to capture Las Malvinas.”

  “General Kampf,” said Vitaly, “as a senior military commander of land troops, you of course understand better than any of us, no one would dream of putting ashore an army several thousand strong on a fortified island, as the Malvinas will most certainly be, without proper air cover. Correct?”

  “Absolutely not, Admiral,” replied General Kampf. “That would be suicide. The tro
ops would be strafed to pieces with no reasonable prospect of hitting back. Every man on the beach would be at the mercy of enemy air attack, and there’d be no British supply lines. The men would be cut off from their ammunition, food, shelter, and hospitals. For them to fight on would be impossible. I doubt any land force commander would attempt anything so crazy.”

  “And would the British High Command be aware of this?”

  “Of course. They’d never do it. Neither would anyone.”

  “So,” exclaimed Vitaly, “you have a short sharp war, with only one single objective. Take out the Royal Navy carrier. Then they have no air defense for the men they intend to land on the beaches.”

  “Correct. No carrier. No landing. The Malvinas are ours.”

  Admiral Rankov stood up, walked around the table, and shook the hand of the Commander of the Argentine land forces. “General…how the Americans say? We sing from the same hymn sheet!”

  “But, I think these facts finally dawned on the Argentinians last time and they were unable to hit the carrier.” The President had covered this conversation before, and he knew the answers. He was just feeding Admiral Rankov the lines he wanted repeated.

  “Oh, this time it will be very different,” replied the Russian Admiral. “You see, sir,” he said, turning to his ultimate boss, “fighter aircraft are like motorbikes with wings. They go very fast and run out of fuel in less than ninety minutes. We do have extra tanker refueling now, but a run of way more than one thousand miles from the air base at Rio Grande is still very, very difficult. Not much time to waste searching vast, empty seas for a wandering aircraft carrier.

  “Only just time for a fast one-shot strike on a known target, turn around and try to make it home on what’s left in the tank. Last time, the Argentine Air Force pilots were often unaware of the damn carrier’s location, and that Royal Navy Admiral was amazingly smart keeping it out of the way.

  “The trouble was, Argentina had no effective submarine that could creep around, locate the carrier, and silently stay with it. They still don’t have a ship good enough to do that. But we do.

  “The Russian submarine can send a satellite communication to our friends in the Argentine air control rooms that will put their fighter jets bang on target with accurate readings. Either that, or slam a wire-guided torpedo straight into the hull of the carrier. Whichever’s easiest. The Royal Navy carrier will be history on the first day. The British these days simply don’t have the muscle to stop it.”

  “You hit it underwater? Or we hit it from the air?” asked General Kampf.

  “Oh, probably from the air,” said Vitaly. “But possibly from underwater. Our submarine would need to close to perhaps seven thousand yards to get a hit, and the British destroyers and ASW frigates would probably find us and make life very hot. A couple of active homing torpedoes make a very great…er…hullabaloo in the water.

  “But your Air Force can launch an armada, and the Royal Navy may hit some of them, but they won’t hit them all. Most definitely not. Your guys will get bombs and missiles into that fleet, the carrier will explode, tons of jet fuel, many sailors will burn or drown. But that’s war. That’s defeat. And the British forces will have no alternative but to go home to England, while you throw a victory party in Port Stanley.

  “I come, bring Red Army choir, and good Russian vodka. Celebrate for both our great countries. Ha ha ha! Then we both make huge profits, hah? Make stupid Americans pay top dollar for beautiful Argentina oil. Siberian traitors go fuck themselves. Ha ha ha!”

  The Russian President looked sharply across at Rankov, as if warning him of the danger of that last statement. But it was clear the Argentina military men had neither noticed nor understood. And just then the door opened and the ebullient figure of Gregor Komoyedov came exuberantly through the rotunda’s enormous wooden doors.

  “My friends!” he cried. “How are my friends from the confiteria ? So good to see you again. We partners yet? Or do I come back later?”

  He bounded over to Admiral Moreno and gave him a mighty Russian bear hug and a kiss on both cheeks. Then he did the same to Eduardo Kampf. Then he stood back with a great beaming smile.

  “Well,” he said, repeating the question, “we partners, eh?”

  The President looked very slightly perplexed, as if Gregor might be slightly rushing his fences.

  But both General Kampf and Admiral Moreno stepped forward, and they took each one of the three Russians by the hand.

  “Oh, yes,” said Admiral Moreno. “We are most definitely partners.”

  “Pastries!” yelled Gregor. “Someone bring the sweetest, most lovely pastries for my friends from the southern oceans. And coffee. And vodka. The finest vodka!”

  And the boss of all the Russians, smiling broadly, stood up and walked to the door to arrange the delivery, doubling up as the Kremlin butler, for the first and only time of his entire Presidency. He could have kissed Gregor Komoyedov, that old Moscow smoothie.

  Back in Buenos Aires, at the highest level of government, nothing was quite as innocent as General Kampf and Admiral Moreno had made out to the Russians. What…us? Reinvade the Falklands? Hadn’t really thought about it…not really one of our priorities…Argentine government has said nothing. And would you be interested if we could help? Well…er…that’s interesting. But we’re quite unprepared for anything like that.

  As Admiral Morgan might have put it, Bullshit. They’d thought about it, all right. In fact there was a group of Argentinian military officers who had thought of hardly anything else for a quarter of a century. They’d seethed over the sheer humiliation of the war in the South Atlantic in 1982, of 15,000 Argentinian troops and commandoes surrendering to a couple of hundred British paratroopers. They’d seethed all right. And not one of them had ever forgotten or forgiven their imperious, victorious former friends from Great Britain.

  And curiously, the Florida Garden confiteria was the known headquarters of the renegades, right there on Cordoba Avenue in Buenos Aires, the very place where the Russian Trade Minister Gregor Komoyedov had charmed the jackboots off the two Argentinian officers. Well, metaphorically, he had.

  The wide, bright cafe, with its bubbling fresh ground coffees, superb sweet pastries, and loud piped tango music was the meeting point of the civilian informants and the military top brass—the ones who really cared about their missing islands. They called themselves the Malvinistas .

  The British, of course, with a rush of good intentions after Margaret Thatcher’s great triumph, maintained for some years a tri-Service force, with a joint headquarters, under the rotational command of a two-star officer. This remotest of garrisons of the British armed forces was meant to be a stern deterrent to the Argentinians not to try anything rash in the foreseeable future, and also to provide reassurance to the Falkland Islanders that Aunt Maggie’s boys would come charging back at the drop of a tin hat.

  For a start they built a new airfield, at Mount Pleasant, thirty-five miles west of the tiny capital city of Stanley, located at latitude 51.49.22 South, 58.25.50 West. It was laid out on high ground, at an elevation of 242 feet, with two runways, one 8,500 feet in length, over one and a half miles of flat blacktop. They also built a fine military complex, for their shore-based troops—with a gym, swimming pool, shops, messes, and club facilities. They even built a church.

  But, as relations with Argentina began to improve, the threat of a renewed attack on the islands lessened. And Great Britain’s government saw an opportunity for severe cuts in the military presence. They began to make significant force reductions, and as the years p
assed they cut back the little garrison in the Falklands, to the bone.

  With pressures mounting for British military presence in parts of Africa, the Balkans, Afghanistan, and the Middle East, the Falklands very nearly slipped out of the equation altogether.

  In Whitehall, the “mandarins” who run the Civil Service would cheerfully have closed the entire thing down, but for the moral requirement to reassure the Falkland Islanders that Great Britain really did have an enduring interest in their future.

  The other brake on outright British detachment from the islands and their inhabitants was the impressive structure of the Falkland Islands Memorial Chapel, at Pangbourne Nautical College, due north of Portsmouth Dockyard in the English County of Berkshire.

  This church was built as the ultimate symbol of British naval and military skill, and courage, in a modern war. It stands as a reminder of the sacrifices made in the South Atlantic, and inside its portals, on two high granite walls, the name and rank of every man who died in the battle is carved into the stone—250 of them.

  Even the most self-seeking political economist could scarcely recommend cutting all military ties with the islands, thus sending a message to every one of those families that it had all been in vain. The British didn’t really mean it, or any longer need it. They all died for nothing. Names carved in granite for a cause made of gossamer.

  And so, the garrison remained. Because the government reluctantly accepted it had to remain. They cut it back to near useless operational capabilities. And soon it was regarded, by all of those who served there, as the Forgotten Force, stranded in the South Atlantic for months at a time, vulnerable to an attack by just about anyone with a couple of spare missiles.