Ghost Force

by Patrick Robinson

  “This better be fucking critical,” growled Arnold Morgan down the telephone, not caring one way or another who was on the end of the line.

  “It is, Arnie,” said Jimmy, all business. “That possible Russian submarine, the one we almost concluded was an Akula-class boat, Gepard, Cougar , or Viper , just showed up in the middle of the battle zone, forty-five miles off the eastern side of East Falkland. Royal Navy SSN picked it up on sonar, surfacing, couple of hours ago.”

  “Tell me you’re kidding.”

  “Nossir.”

  “Is George in yet?”

  “No, but he’ll be here in ten.”

  “I’m coming over right now.” Bang. Down phone.

  For some obscure reason, the Admiral’s flat refusal to utter the word good-bye , or even thanks for calling , always took Jimmy by surprise.

  He was not, however, as deeply startled as Mrs. Kathy Morgan, who very nearly fell out of bed when her husband actually bellowed at the top of his lungs, one hour before the sun rose over the Potomac, “Ch-a-a-a-a-rlie!!! Quarter deck ten minutes with the car!”

  “God Almighty,” she said. “Did you have to yell like that?”

  “Oh, don’t worry,” replied the Admiral. “Charlie’s used to it…gotta go.”

  Downstairs, Charlie did indeed hear the Admiral’s bellow. The people who lived three houses away probably heard the Admiral’s bellow.

  Fully dressed, in readiness for just such a call, the chauffeur rushed outside, pulled the car up to the door, engine running, and was waiting patiently when the Admiral came piling out into the dawn, nine minutes later, dressed immaculately in a dark gray suit, white shirt, Annapolis tie, and highly polished shoes. Since his days as a midshipman, he always shaved right before he went to bed, just in case there was an emergency. As this most definitely was.

  Forty minutes later, he was in Fort Meade, being escorted up to the Director’s office on the eighth floor. When he arrived, Jimmy and Admiral Morris were standing in front of the illuminated computer screen on the wall, staring down the 56.40W line of longitude.

  “George…Jimmy,” said Arnold, nodding curtly, heading straight for the big chair he once occupied, and shooting a laser glance at the coffeepot. “Two bullets, Lieutenant Commander, one calculator, and your full attention.” To Admiral Morris, “You got him under control, George?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Excellent. Date of the Akula detection off the coast of Ireland?”

  “March twenty-third, sir.”

  “Time?”

  “Sixteen ten, sir.”

  “Latitude?”

  “Fifty-one thirty north, sir.”

  “Date and time of detection in the South Atlantic?”

  “Today, sir. April eleventh, 0500.”

  “Latitude?”

  “Fifty-one fifty south, sir.”

  Arnold hit the calculator buttons. “Over six thousand miles running south,” he muttered. “You got an accurate mileage, Jimmy—taking in the distance west?”

  “Yessir. Seven thousand two hundred and eighty-two point nine five.”

  “Vague, Ramshawe, vague. Try to be more precise, would you?”

  “Yessir.” Lt. Commander Ramshawe was well up to this game.

  “Nineteen days, eh?” said Admiral Morgan, again hitting the buttons. “He must have been making an average of fifteen, sixteen knots all the way.”

  “Sixteen point four, sir. It was only eighteen and a half days.”

  “Shut up, James.”

  “Yessir.”

  Arnold chuckled and sipped his coffee. “I guess it’s gotta be the same boat. And it’s gotta be Russian since nothing else could possibly have been anywhere near. And there’s no point trying to call the Russians. Rankov would never return this call. He’d guess right away the Brits had picked up his fucking submarine.”

  “And anyway, we may not want to alert them we know something’s going on,” replied Admiral Morris.

  “No. I suppose not. Unless we want to try and frighten them off. I could get the President to make the call, and feign absolute fury, demanding the Akula be removed instantly from the Falklands battle zone.”

  “Yes. We could try that. But you know, Arnie, I’m not sure it would work. The Russian President would just say he had no knowledge of any submarine in the South Atlantic, and then Rankov would tell everyone to be even more careful. We may never see the damn thing again.”

  “But what if the damn thing took out the Royal Navy carrier?”

  “If that’s his plan, there’s not a whole lot we can do about it. Short of going down there and hunting it down.”

  “We don’t have time,” replied Arnold Morgan. “The Task Force arrives on Wednesday, and the Brits cannot afford to waste their own time. That’s a very weak fleet they have down there, and they’ve no replacements. If I were Holbrook I’d start firing as soon as I was in range before it all starts falling apart.”

  “It’s kinda frustrating, isn’t it?” said Admiral Morris. “We ought to have been able to stop this, but we can’t. We ought to be able to defend American oil interests, but somehow we can’t. And we ought to be able to sink this Russian intruder, but we can’t. It’s been that way right from the start.”

  “Nonetheless,” said Admiral Morgan, somewhat grandly, “I think in the end, like the Russians, we’re gonna be in this thing up to our fucking jockstraps.”

  0320, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 13

  100 MILES WEST OF EAST FALKLAND

  HMS Ark Royal steamed into the old Falkland Islands Total Exclusion Zone, which had served Admiral Woodward so wretchedly in 1982, with its absurd don’t shoot ’til they shoot doctrine.

  Today, however, there was no Total Exclusion Zone. The Royal Navy had informed the Prime Minister and his politicians they had so many disadvantages, they would shoot at anyone they damn pleased whenever they damn pleased, so get used to it.

  By this time, the Prime Minister was so nerve-wracked about his own career, he would have agreed to anything put forward by the men who were going to try to rescue his government.

  Mercifully, a thick blanket of fog covered the ocean, which at least provided some cover from air attack, but it also rendered all flying impossible. The GR9s, remember, can’t see.

  Admiral Holbrook and his staff knew there may be a Russian submarine in the area, and everyone was also worried about minor repairs that had to be carried out on at least three of the escorts before battle commenced. And with this in mind, they made course south, across the old TEZ straight for the Burdwood Bank.

  This is a large area of fairly shallow water on the edge of the South American continental shelf. It’s two hundred miles long, east to west, by about sixty miles wide, north to south. It sits one hundred miles south of East Falkland.

  On its southern side the bank slopes steeply down into waters two miles deep. To the north, around the islands, it’s only around 300 to 400 feet deep. But on the bank itself the seabed is only 150 feet from the surface, and no submarine can run across it at speed without leaving a considerable wake on the surface.

  Deep in the fog of the Burdwood Bank, Admiral Holbrook’s Task Force would conduct their repairs, refuel, and make ready for battle. Both the Royal Navy submarines were headed inshore to patrol the coast and, if possible, sink any Argentine warships, since none of them
had yet been seen by the Task Force.

  When the fog lifted, the Royal Navy would turn to the north, and come out fighting. In the broadest terms, they would immediately launch missiles at any Argentine warship that came within range. They would get the GR9s away in an attempt to slam the airfield and the harbor, and pray to God they could hit the incoming Argentine air attack. And hit it early.

  In the dark hours before that, the Ocean, Albion , and Largs Bay , which carried 2,700 troops, helicopters, light trucks, and ammunition, would already have headed north for the rough, craggy southeastern shores of East Falkland. There they would begin the amphibious assault, the drastically difficult task of landing a 10,000-strong army on the quiet, deserted beaches of Lafonia, as selected by Jim Perry and his team.

  But for two days and two nights the fog bank never moved; the winds were light, and sometimes it rained, but visibility was constantly poor. The CO of Viper had picked up distant sonar traces of warships in the area, and ascertained he himself may just have been detected.

  Nothing was definite, either way, but Captain Vanislav stayed in deep water, very slow and very quiet, waiting for the satellite signal that would tell him the time and day of Argentina’s aerial onslaught from Rio Grande and Mount Pleasant.

  When the Royal Navy ships moved, he was confident he would pick them up. Right now in the fog he could only wait twenty miles north of the Burdwood Bank, where he suspected they were. But he was not about to venture into those shallow waters, where he would most certainly be detected.

  Back in Washington there was no feedback whatsoever from Buenos Aires. President Bedford had carried out his threat and closed down the Argentine consulates all over the country. London also had no communique from Argentina, even after the Ambassador and all the diplomats had been expelled.

  At 1530 on Friday afternoon, April 15, with the repairs completed, the wind got up, and so did the sea. But the skies became clear, and the sun fought its way through the dank and rainy clouds of the South Atlantic.

  Admiral Holbrook, by now regretting the loss of the fog cover, placed the Ocean , Albion , and Largs Bay on immediate notice to begin their journey into the landing beaches on the coast of Lafonia. The two Type-45s, plus HMS Gloucester , were ordered to prepare to move forward at midnight to form the Task Force’s first picket line to the west of the fleet. This is the first line of defense, well up-threat from the main force, and one of the loneliest places in all the ocean.

  A clear and moonlit night followed the temporary departure of the fog, and at 1950 the assault force steamed away from the warships that would ultimately fight the battle. Captain John Farmer, on the bridge of the Ocean , had the Albion and the Largs Bay line astern as they moved north through the dark, making twenty knots in a long rising sea, a cold southwesterly gusting in off their port quarter.

  The guided-missile frigate Richmond , under the command of Captain David Neave, accompanied them, acting as goalkeeper out to the left, just in case they were spotted at first light and needed missile cover against incoming Argentinian Super-Etendards.

  The voyage itself was uneventful. The ships traveled with very few lights, and within four hours were within reach of the landing beaches, where Lt. Jim Perry and his men awaited them. The Ocean ’s comms room had been in contact for the previous half hour and details of the landing area were now with the amphibious commanders.

  By midnight the three ships were in position to unload their cargoes, while Captain Neave stood guard, facing westward in the ops room of the Richmond . The frigate, its missile radar on high alert, was steaming at only three knots in approximately six fathoms of water, in the middle of Low Bay, which is fourteen miles wide at its seaward end.

  At five minutes past midnight, the huge stern doors of the Largs Bay were lowered and the first of the landing craft, packed with Marines, began to float out. And one by one they made their way to the bay on the south shore of the desolate Lafonia Peninsula, where Jim Perry’s SBS men were waiting to signal them in through the shallows.

  Back on the Burdwood Bank, at precisely this time, the picket ships were lining up to leave on their four-hour journey to their lonely outpost. And none of their commanding officers were especially looking forward to the experience. They were, they knew, the chosen few, because in the Royal Navy, you’re not really grown-up until you have commanded a picket ship, out there on your own, not really covered by the weapons system of the rest of the force.

  In fact, with a Battle Group stretched as tightly as this one, you were principally covered by your fellow picket ships.

  By definition, the picket ship operates in solitary waters, and it’s always quiet, and it seems peaceful. But no one really enjoys it because, historically, the picket ships are the very first to get sunk by the enemy. The simple truth is, they are deliberately placed in harm’s way, a strategy of which the opposition is well aware.

  For the attacking force, the idea is to take one of the pickets out, thus punching a gaping hole in the defenses through which to drive a main attack.

  Both British Type-45 commanding officers knew this perfectly well. And it was an extremely thoughtful Captain Rowdy Yates who had HMS Daring under way first on that moonlit night, in the somber hours that would almost certainly herald the dawn of the second Battle for the Falkland Islands.

  He would continue to position his ship way out to the right, more than twenty miles up-threat from the aircraft carrier. HMS Gloucester , commanded by Captain Colin Day, would occupy waters a similar distance but far out to the left. Commander Norman Hall’s Dauntless would occupy the center.

  They made their way off the bank line astern, all three commanding officers on the bridge, staying busy, trying to fight to the back of their minds any fears inspired by the brutal reality of this particular Friday night. In all three of the ships, the long-range air-warning radars were already on high alert.

  Three decks below in the ops room, everyone was already at battle stations, dressed in full antiflash gear, the yellowish cotton head masks and gloves designed to prevent skin from instant burning from the sudden flash-fire explosion caused by an incoming bomb, shell, or missile.

  In grim contrast to the bright starlit night outside on the water, the ops room was a sinister place, a half-lit scene from a sci-fi movie, the amber lights from the computer consoles casting an eerie glow, the quiet watch keepers making terse comments into pencil-slim microphones, the keyboards chattering in the background.

  The Principal Warfare Officers, so highly trained, so utterly certain of their tasks, were always standing, moving, quietly watching everything and everyone. The supervisors were walking softly behind the young operators, checking, double-checking, ready with a word of encouragement.

  And every time the ship hit a wave, with that dull, majestic thump it always makes on the hull of a warship, many, many hearts beat just that fraction faster.

  No sooner had the three destroyers cleared the Burdwood Bank than Admiral Holbrook’s second line of defense was also under way. Two newer Type-42 destroyers, the Batch Threes, York and Edinburgh , had arrived in the middle of the foggy night on Thursday. And now they would continue their long-held defensive formation in the center of the second line, flanked by the frigates from the Fourth Duke-class squadron, Kent , Grafton , St. Albans , and Iron Duke , some five miles up-threat from the Ark Royal .

  Betwe
en the carrier and the frigates, Admiral Holbrook placed three ships from the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, principally to add confusion to the enemy radar. The Ark Royal would be positioned astern of these, accompanied by her goalkeeper, Westminster , the no-nonsense missile frigate commanded by the austere and able Commander Tom Betts.

  By some miracle, the Navy had completed the work on both the Lancaster and Marlborough in Portsmouth, and both of them arrived in one piece on Friday afternoon. They would operate around the coast to the north, specifically trying to get rid of any Argentine warships in the area and launch naval missile and shell attacks on any new Argentinian positions at that end of the island.

  The most impressive arrival of all, however, was that of P and O’s huge ocean cruise liner the Adelaide , which had been ordered to abandon her next journey to the Caribbean and get to Portsmouth for instant conversion into a troop carrier. She had arrived on Thursday, from out of the eastern Atlantic, bearing 7,000 troops, her decks shored up to stand the enormous weight of men, equipment, and ordnance. Her galleys were now filled with rather more basic fare than the rich gourmet de luxe to which her cooks and steward were accustomed.

  As colossally useful as she was, the Adelaide was a bit of a problem. She had totally inadequate damage-control and firefighting arrangements, and she was essentially, just as her sister ship the Canberra had been in 1982, in the words of Admiral Woodward, “a bloody great bonfire awaiting a light.”

  Admiral Holbrook intended to unload her massive cargo of men and materiel, hopefully into other ships, as soon as it was humanly possible to undertake such a formidable cross-decking operation.

  Meanwhile, the warships were on their way to the Admiral’s designated position four hundred miles east of Burdwood, well out of Argentinian air range. The Ark Royal brought up the rear with her goalkeeper, Westminster . Both ships were largely dependent on the accuracy of the new improved Seawolf missile system carried by the frigate. Commander Betts described it as “amply competent to knock any Argentine fighter-bomber clean out of the sky, just so long as the chaps are paying proper attention.” That was Betts. No nonsense.