Ghost Force

by Patrick Robinson

  He wandered outside, absentmindedly inspecting his daffodil beds. In his hand he carried a recent message from Jimmy Ramshawe informing him that the two Russian submarines, Gepard and Cougar , had been sighted in the Murmansk area in the past two or three days.

  “I wonder,” he murmured, turning back toward the house, “whether our old friend, the elusive Mr. Viper, was in attendance when the Royal Navy carrier was sunk. I’d sure as hell like to ask Vitaly Rankov, but there’s no point seeking the truth from a lying Soviet bastard, right?”

  Thoughtfully he answered his own question, “Right, no point at all,” and continued walking back to the house, his mind once more in the dark cold depths of the South Atlantic, where he guessed Viper K-157 would now be running slowly north, away from the datum, her work done.

  No sooner was he back inside than the telephone rang in his study. He checked the call identity and recognized the private number of Lt. Commander Ramshawe.

  “Hi, Jimmy, told you it wouldn’t take long.”

  “You sure did. Two hours flat. Game, set, and match. Everyone back in the bloody pavilion.”

  Arnie chuckled. “I got a few thoughts for you to work on. First, thanks for the information on the Gepard and the Cougar . That leaves Viper K-157 , right? The only nuclear submarine that could possibly have been in the South Atlantic, right? And twice picked up on her way there—once by our guys in Ireland, and again by the Royal Navy CO east of the Falkland Islands coupla days ago, correct?”

  “That’s what we have, Arnie. You hear anything more?”

  “Only from my own highly suspicious mind, kid. That aircraft carrier went down awful quick. Fifteen minutes. And eyewitnesses are saying the fires started about six minutes after she began to list.

  “The fires didn’t sink her. What sank her was a damned big hole below the waterline. Nothing else puts a warship on the bottom that fast. And it must have been a very big hole…sounds to me like something broke her back. And there’s only one thing coulda done that…a wire-guided torpedo from a submarine. And I’d guess she was hit by more than one.”

  “We got a report of huge fires,” said Jimmy. “Spread fast. Started below the island.”

  “Fires don’t sink warships,” said Arnold. “They burn ’em. And if they burn ’em for long enough they’ll probably reach the bomb and missile areas, which will blow the ship in half. But that usually takes hours and hours. This baby was on the bottom in fifteen minutes. That’s not a fire, that’s a hole.”

  “So who fired the torpedo, Sherlock?”

  “I’d guess Comrade Moriartovich, sneaky little sonofabitchovich. Straight out of the tubes of the Akula-class hunter-killer Viper , which had been watching, for several days, waiting for that fog to clear…just lurking, silent and villainous. That’s who.”

  “I didn’t realize you spoke fluent Russian,” said Jimmy. “But I’m with you. That bastard just slammed a couple of big ones straight into the Royal Navy’s Ark Royal .”

  “Well, the Argentinians could not have done it, kid. They don’t have a good enough submarine for that. But someone did, and someone did it for them. And if you want to know who, just watch to see who gets the biggest oil contract in the world in the next few months. The one less than a dozen miles from the airport on East Falkland.”

  “Excuse me, sir. A matter of protocol. I believe they just became the Islas Malvinas.”

  “But perhaps, young James, only temporarily.”

  “How do you mean? The Brits have turned it up, right?”

  “Yes. But we are still left with a very clear situation. Those islands have been British since 1833, everyone who lives on them is British. They have been a legal protectorate of Great Britain for darn near two hundred years. Argentina has been griping and moaning about it for a long time, but Argentina has never owned the islands. Spain did, and the Brits threw ’em out a long time ago.

  “So what happens? Argentina suddenly decides to grab ’em, lands a military force, blows up the British defenses, kills a hundred troops and takes over. They kick out the legal oil companies, two of the biggest, most respected corporations on earth, both of whom have paid fortunes to be there, and then marches them out at gunpoint.

  “Then they effectively say, you want us out, come try it. At which point they blast and kill another thousand or more troops and accept a surrender. That worked fine in the nineteenth century. Doesn’t work now. There’s the UN and Christ knows whom else to answer to.

  “It would be as if Paul Bedford and I decided we’d very much like to own Monaco, went over there in a couple of warships, kicked Prince Whatsisname in the ass, and took his fucking principality. Accepting the surrender of that poncey Palace Guard that prances around in fancy dress. It’d probably take us about an hour and a half. And no one could do a thing about it.

  “But, Jimmy, you just can’t pull that pre-nineteenth-century shit anymore. Not in the modern world. And I gotta talk to the President later this afternoon. And ExxonMobil are fucking furious. They want their goddamned oil and gas back, and I don’t blame them. And they wanna know whether the God Almighty United States is going to just stand around while some fucking lunatic in a poncho rampages around all over their goddamned possessions.

  “And the President is not going to like it. And a thousand fucking disaffected sonsobitches are going to be asking him what he plans to do about it. And he’s not going to know, and frankly neither do I. That’s why I’m going to talk to him later. But someone’s sure as hell going to need to do something. We simply cannot condone it.”

  Jimmy Ramshawe was very thoughtful, and there was a momentary silence between the senior world Intelligence maestro and one of the sharpest young minds in the National Security Agency.

  Eventually, it was Jimmy who spoke. “Arnie,” he said, “I forgot to tell you why I called. You scanned through the Business Section in the Times today?”

  “Not yet.”

  “There was an item there I thought was significant. One of the biggest international agricultural deals in recent years…”

  “If you tell me it’s Argentina and Russia I’ll probably stand on my head…”

  “Upside down, sir. You got it first time. Beef cattle. Millions of ’em.”

  “You know what that is, Jimmy? That’s the start of a new cooperation between those two countries. And it’s going to end with oil and gas in the Falklands and South Georgia…if, that is, the Argentinians are permitted to get away with what they have done.”

  “You decided what to advise the President yet?”

  “No. Because I want to hear what the British Ambassador has to say this afternoon. I’ve met him a couple of times, and he’s coming in to the White House. Just the three of us. A lot will depend on what he says.

  “And then of course we’ve got the complication of the goddamned United Nations. They’ve got a meeting of the Security Council tonight. I think the Chairman’s from someplace west of the Blue Nile…probably dressed in a bedspread…Mgumboo Nkurruption or someone…so that’s gotta be real significant.”

  Jimmy burst out laughing. Arnold Morgan’s opinion of African dictators who lived liked pashas in impoverished countries, which collected millions of dollars of foreign aid every year—well, that opinion was on the withering side of discourteous.

  “I suppose you never considered the Diplomatic Service, did you?” asked Jimmy.

  “Not t
his week, kid. Keep me posted.” Crash. Down phone.

  Three hours later Admiral Morgan drove himself to the White House, where Sir Patrick Jardine, Great Britain’s Ambassador to the United States, was already in the Oval Office chatting with the President.

  Sir Patrick was a tall, somewhat gaunt figure, wearing an immaculately tailored Savile Row suit. A scion of the great Hong Kong financial empire, he was a career diplomat despite having inherited 4,000 acres of prime farmland in Norfolk.

  The fifty-six-year-old diplomat had only one customer, and that was one of the biggest brewers in England. Sir Patrick was what the Brits refer to as a Barley Baron, with his large swath of relatively rare, flinty land that grows malting barley, the prime ingredient for beer. Whichever way the market fluctuated, it kept Sir Patrick very handily in Savile Row suits at $3,000 a pop.

  In his youth, he had trained to be a barrister, passed his exams, and then quit. “I simply can’t imagine spending the rest of my life defending scruffy, spotty, mostly guilty young thugs who should probably be locked up on sight,” he had told his father.

  “Yes, I do see that’s rather disagreeable,” said Jardine Senior. “I think you better go and work in the Foreign Office. Won’t make you rich, but you’ll have a pleasant enough time, unless you get mixed up in some bloody war.”

  Anyway, thirty years later, the dread of the late Sir Arthur Jardine had come full circle. His son was not taking cover under the bed while gunfire rained plaster and furniture down on him in some besieged British embassy. But he was right in the thick of it, and, for the moment, he was Great Britain’s last frontier in the struggle to persuade the USA to remove the Argentine Army from the Falkland Isles.

  Sir Patrick, however, realized there was only one reason he was currently sitting in this chair, facing the President of the United States. And that was the stolen oil and gas that belonged to ExxonMobil.

  He stood up to greet Admiral Morgan, who made his usual entry, without knocking, and held out his hand to the Ambassador. “Patrick,” he said, “I’m afraid we meet again in rather trying circumstances.”

  President Bedford was clearly very concerned by the entire issue of the South Atlantic, and its myriad of ramifications.

  “Arnie,” he said, “I’ve been talking to the Ambassador for twenty minutes and I must say we have so far clarified nothing. But I think you’ll be interested in the position the Brits are taking…Sir Patrick, why don’t you outline the situation for Admiral Morgan?”

  “Of course, and I’ll be as quick as I can,” replied the Barley Baron. “I’m sure you know the history. The Falklands have been British since 1833. Argentina has always wanted them, went to war for them in 1982, has been negotiating for them ever since, and a couple of months ago seized them by military force.”

  “Yup,” said Arnold, nodding. “A regular coup d’etat, no bullshit.”

  “Well, you probably also know we went through the usual channels of protest, and the United Nations practically ordered the Argentinians to vacate the islands. However, a Security Council motion to censure them and even expel them from the United Nations was vetoed by Russia. So it didn’t go through.

  “Buenos Aires refused to discuss the matter with anyone, save to announce the Malvinas had always been theirs and that was an end to it.”

  “So Great Britain understandably decided to take matters into their own hands as they did in 1982?” said Arnold. “And drive the Argentinians off with military force.”

  “Not quite,” said Sir Patrick. “Under very firm advice from the Foreign Office, my government made no threat to the Argentinians. We did not announce the formation of a Battle Group, even though Parliament had voted for such an action. We just got ready and set sail.

  “Our fleet arrived in the area. In international waters, at least a hundred miles off the east coast of the Falkland Islands. We launched no attack, we opened fire on no one. But at first light, flying from both the mainland and the islands, Argentina launched an unprovoked airborne assault on our ships, and very nearly wiped us out. You might say it was their second great crime of the year 2011.”

  “I suppose they’ll say the presence of the Royal Navy Fleet was in itself a major provocation and indeed a threat to their own troops,” suggested Arnold Morgan.

  “I suppose they may,” replied Sir Patrick. “However, we were not in Argentinian waters, and despite their act of banditry in February, those islands belong to the Crown. They are packed with British institutions and people.

  “Argentina had no right to have an army occupying the territory. No right at all. Under any law, local, national, or international, their occupation was illegal. And the fact that the Royal Navy attempted to defend itself against a very sustained attack is highly irrelevant. This was not a formal war. It was one country whose possessions had been ravaged by another, contrary to every known international charter and treaty of the last hundred years.”

  “Yes, I see that,” replied Admiral Morgan. “But I suppose there was also the issue of the twenty-seven hundred troops that landed on Lafonia.”

  “Well, that ought not to be an issue. We are surely entitled to land anyone we wish on our own islands.”

  Arnold grinned. “Yes, I suppose you are.”

  And the President interjected, “Yes, but the Args are so damned convinced of the righteousness of their claim, it makes things very difficult. And of course the pure damned geography of the place is kinda on their side. Almost like China owned Nantucket.”

  Sir Patrick smiled. “Mr. President, I sometimes think people do not understand how very British the Falklands are, aside from the fact the natives are to a man British citizens, mostly living in harmony around a damned great Church of England cathedral in Stanley.

  “There’s Departments of Mineral Resources, Fisheries, Treasury. There’s an Attorney General, an immigration officer, a Chief Executive, a Customs office, government offices. There’s a Chamber of Commerce, a Development Corporation, a Met Office. There’s even a Falkland Islands Company with offices in Stanley and Hertfordshire, England. It’s all connected to London.”

  “But not, on this occasion, protected by London,” said Arnold wryly.

  The President ordered tea, Lapsang Souchong from China, which was both his own and the Ambassador’s favorite. Paul Bedford made a habit of checking out all visiting Ambassadors’ preferences, just in case Colombian coffee or something sparked an unexpected suicide attempt by an appalled Ecuadorian diplomat.

  Sir Patrick informed the Americans that Great Britain would return to the United Nations and once more request some strong, decisive action, which Arnold Morgan remarked had never been their strong suit.

  But what Sir Patrick really wanted was for the USA to make a stand, to growl that the actions of Argentina had been nothing short of international piracy, and if Buenos Aires did not come to heel forthwith, Uncle Sam would surely make life very, very difficult for them. The Rule of Law must surely, in the end, in a civilized world, take precedence.

  Just before the Ambassador left, Admiral Morgan reminded him that it was sometimes necessary to take draconian measures to uphold that Rule of Law. And that he for one was not averse to implementing them if required.

  Sir Patrick, as he walked from the Oval Office, said he took great comfort in that closing statement from the Admiral. And he hoped to hear favorably from them in the next few days. Admiral Morgan decided, in this instance at least, not to raise the possibility of the Ark Royal having been sunk by the Russians.

  But when Sir Patrick left, the President and his most trusted friend had much to discuss. Because d
eep in their hearts both men realized that regardless of Argentinian passion, the South Americans had nonetheless committed acts of international mayhem.

  “Ask yourself, Paul,” said Arnold. “How would it be if everyone rampaged around like that? If France suddenly turned its power on Morocco and told Marrakesh, we’ve always owned your country . What if the Brits did it to Jamaica? If we did it to Japan? If Portugal did it to the eastern part of Brazil? There’s no difference. What Argentina did was wrong. And all their pious territorial claims are still wrong, and still unlawful.

  “For us, this is one giant pain in the ass. But it’s still wrong. And we still have to face the goddamned oil corporation. And, of course, there’s still the Russian connection…another vicious act of international barbarism that may have killed more than a thousand people.”

  President Bedford frowned. “Can we take this step by step? I’ll ask the questions, you give the answers, okay?”

  “Fine.”

  “Right. Are you proposing we come straight out and say publicly we do not approve of this in any way? And Argentina must retreat behind her lawful borders?”

  “I think we come straight out and say it. But not publicly. I think we send a private communique to the President of Argentina. It must be signed by your good self, saying exactly that, and citing it as the formal opinion of the Pentagon chiefs. Because that’s gonna wake ’em up for sure.”

  “Okay, Arnie. So they either don’t answer or they tell us to mind our own business. What then?”

  “Well, I guess we have to be prepared to give them an ultimatum…”

  “Like what? Nuke Buenos Aires? Because I got a feeling that’s what it’s likely to take to get ’em to change their minds.”

  “So have I. And no, not that. No nukes.”

  “Well, what?”