Ghost Force

by Patrick Robinson

  “I know this is not traditionally my instinct, but how about we do something subtle, something that will leave them scared and uncertain.”

  “You mean like some Mafia don, some sinister threat…the kind of thing gangsters pull?”

  “Yes.”

  “You mean tell ’em we’ll knock down the Presidential Palace if they don’t give us back our oil and gas?”

  “Not quite. But how about we tell them we are proposing to make it our business to have them vacate the Falkland Islands. And if they have not begun to evacuate by next week, they will surely feel the hot breath of Uncle Sam breathing down their necks. But we will tell them nothing.”

  “Okay. Then what?”

  “We do nothing publicly. We say nothing to anyone. But we very quietly move our Special Forces into the area. And we have the Navy SEALs link up with the British SAS, and we begin to exact a very serious revenge.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, the Argentinians have a reasonable Navy, don’t they? How about we sink a few warships, and maybe knock out a few aircraft. The Special Forces could do that without any trouble. And we admit to nothing. The Argentines may guess we’re at the bottom of it, but they’ll never know for sure. And they’ll never find a way to prove anything.”

  “Arnie, you think we could inflict so much damage on their military they’d throw up their hands?”

  “They might. But in any event, they’d never admit to their people what was happening to them. And we could certainly make it impossible for them to retain their army of occupation in the Falkland Islands. We could make it possible for the remnants of the Royal Navy to retake the territory, and in return to hand over the oil and gas to ExxonMobil and BP. And we sure as hell could throw the Argentinians out of South Georgia.”

  “I do see the merit of it all, Arnie. But do you think we could really keep the whole thing secret?”

  “We’d need two things to help us. We’d want the total cooperation and support of Admiral John Bergstrom, who’s in the final six months of his command as head of SPECWARCOM. And we’d need some silent support from Chile, as the Brits had in 1982. That would make a huge difference. Give us a forward base, way down there in South America.”

  “Do you see a lot of people dying?”

  “Not really, Mr. President. I see a lot of very expensive equipment getting trashed. And I see a very angry Argentina demanding to know what’s going on. And I see us saying we know nothing about it. It must be the Brits, and that’s just their tough luck. Shouldn’t have taken their islands in the first place.”

  “And how, great genius of my life, do you see it all ending?”

  “Mr. President, we make the Brits hand over the Falkland Islands to Argentina, peacefully over a period of two years. With cooperation and a certain amount of chivalry.

  “We make Argentina thrilled to get the hell out of this highly destructive row they’re having with us, or at least with someone. And we make the Brits delighted to get out of the goddamned islands, and somehow save face. That way everyone’s happy, or at least happier.

  “Of course, part of our price is the restoration of the oil and gas to their rightful owners, ExxonMobil and BP. But we make the Argentinians signatories on the contract for fifty years, and then cut them in for a decent royalty, which begins twenty-four months from restoration. That way we’ve got the oil companies off your back, Argentina has a piece of the pie, and everyone can go back to work.”

  “The weakest part of the equation, Arnie, is the Brits, who basically get little from it.”

  “True. But they get oil money for two years. And compared to the very obvious mess they’re in right now, that will be fine. And they will quietly claim ultimate victory, in what the press will call the Secret War. Which will suit us very well.

  “And British Petroleum will have its oil and gas back. We’ll probably throw in a few further sweeteners that Argentina will have to agree to. But they’ll agree to anything, just so long as they can see the time two years from now when the Islas Malvinas formally become a sovereign territory of Argentina…without endless grief from us and the United Nations.”

  “Very neat, but I’m going to throw one final monkey wrench into the works before we send for John Bergstrom. What about Russia? What about that damned submarine that you think whacked the Ark Royal ?”

  “Russia will slink quietly away if Argentina does not end up owning the oil free and clear. You can trust me on that. It’s what they came for.”

  “And the goddamned nuclear submarine?”

  “Well, Mr. President. Since no one ever announces the loss of a nuclear ship that has hit the bottom of a vast, open ocean two miles deep…I actually thought we might sink that.”

  The President came about as close as he had ever done to shooting a hot jet of Lapsang Souchong down his nose. He groped for his handkerchief, and looked up with a conspiratorial grin.

  “Why, yes, Arnie. What a remarkably good idea. That was a very wicked thing it did, killing a thousand men. I think there should be a price for that. Do we tell the Brits?”

  “Absolutely not. We tell no one. Ever. And if anyone inquires, we deny it. Just so long as the comrades suspect we know and disapprove of their goddamned antics. ’Specially that lying sonofabitch who runs their Navy.”

  MIDNIGHT (LOCAL), SAME DAY

  LONDON

  Like most of the Western world’s newspapers, the British press has few, if any, morals. As in the USA, all of their newspapers and almost all of their television channels are thoroughly commercial operations, unconcerned with the public or national good, only with the sale of their product. And, generally speaking, the best way to take care of that is to frighten the living daylights out of the population whenever possible. Fear sells, right?

  The only operation in the British media that is not, formally, a profit-seeking corporation is the BBC. But that is a fat, government-funded monolith stuffed with executives and journalists earning absurd salaries for what they really are, and running up mighty annual expense accounts.

  Between them they represent an even more self-interested commercially minded block than those outside the Corporation, and like all government employees they don’t have the problem of their parent operation losing money.

  When a big story breaks, the BBC often leads the way and cheerfully wades into the fray, embarrassing the government, humiliating the nation, or the military, as it thinks fit.

  The day the Falkland Islands fell, Britain’s media collectively went bananas. Headlines unknown for decades leapt into the minds of the editors. Words like Defeat , Humiliation , Catastrophe , and Disaster crowded onto front pages and newscasts, all mixed in with Royal Navy , warships , and surrender .

  And through it all, the press smelled an even bigger story—had the fleet put to sea inadequately armed, because of government cuts to the armed services?

  The top brass of the Ministry of Defense and indeed the Army and Navy were of course sworn to silence. But an issue as topical as this could scarcely be held in check. It seemed that all through that early evening in England, every retired officer in either service was quite prepared to bring up the matter of the retired Harrier FA2 fighter jets.

  The BBC’s first words in their 10:00 p.m. newscast were: “Was this the war that should never have been fought?”

  The early editions of the Sunday newspapers, traditionally on sale in London’s Leicester Square at 1
0:30 p.m., were absolutely lethal to the Prime Minister and his Cabinet.

  The Sunday Times splashed over eight columns on its front page:

  ROYAL NAVY BLAMES THE GOVERNMENT

  FOR DISASTER IN THE SOUTH ATLANTIC

  Falkland Islands fall to Argentina—

  British warships “defenseless”

  The source, or sources, for this scything statement of fact was in truth a succession of off-the-record conversations with a half dozen retired Admirals and Captains, three of whom had commanded ships in the first Falklands conflict.

  Like everyone in a senior position in the Navy, they knew of the reductions in the Senior Service, the cuts to the fleet, the closures of dockyards, the lateness in the arrival of the new aircraft carriers, and above all the four-year gap in the production of a top-class guided-missile fighter jet to fly from the carrier’s decks.

  And every last one of those sources had instantly said the same thing… You can’t fight a state-of-the-art war at sea facing any threat against aircraft or missiles without fixed-wing air defense aircraft armed with a state-of-the-art medium-range air-to-air missiles system. Hit the archer, not the arrow.

  Great Britain had gone to war 8,000 miles from home without the proper kit—and the British media sensed blood, and they were going to ride this “story” to the bitter end.

  ROYAL NAVY SURRENDERS FALKLANDS

  Can’t shoot, can’t fight,

  Government Cuts Blamed

  —Sunday Mirror

  Falkland Islands fall in two-hour massacre at sea

  ARGENTINA WIPES OUT “ DEFENSELESS ” NAVY

  —Sunday Telegraph

  ARK ROYAL SUNK —

  ROYAL NAVY

  SURRENDERS

  FALKLANDS

  —News of the World

  (This narrow headline ran alongside a huge picture of the British aircraft carrier in her death throes.)

  The newspapers devoted pages and pages to interviews with Whitehall Press Officers, and were currently engaged in a relentless, ghoulish search for photographs of the dead. By midnight reporters were besieging naval towns like Portsmouth and Devonport, trying to contact families whose sons and husbands may have gone down with the Ark Royal .

  By first light the press would have done its work, sowing the seeds of doubt and suspicion in the minds of the British people. Was this government as bad as many people think? Was it just a self-seeking bunch of incompetents, concerned only with their own jobs, and careless of their duty to the armed services?

  That’s what it looked like as dawn broke over London. And, prophetically, an enormous black rain cloud hovered over Westminster and the Houses of Parliament. At least that’s how it seemed. But inside the debating chamber, that cloud seemed to hang over the Prime Minister alone.

  He had taken his seat on the government front bench as, high above, Big Ben chimed midnight. He arrived, predictably in this Parliament, to thunderous roars from the Tory benches of, “Resign!! Resign!! Resign!!”

  And, at the invitation of the Speaker, he had begun the proceedings with a frequently interrupted speech, in which he had endeavored to explain away the obviously shattering defeat of the Royal Navy in the South Atlantic.

  The fact was, no one was listening. The scale of the nightmare, the reverberations of the consequences, were too great for any British government. And, with the aid of the media, the loss of those little islands four hundred miles off the coast of Argentina was rapidly being compared in the minds of MPs to the end of all life as they knew it.

  When finally the PM did sit down, the Tory leader of the opposition stood up and demanded, “Well, I’m sure the House would like to join me in thanking you profusely for shedding a glaring light on the obvious…now perhaps you would tell the House what you plan to do about the recapture of the islands and the rebuilding of our armed forces?”

  Another storm of derisive cheering broke out, and the Prime Minister’s Secretary of Defense, Peter Caulfield, climbed to his feet and revealed that in the opinion of his Ministry, it was far too early to make any such announcements, but that the Cabinet would be considering all of the facts later in the morning.

  It may have been too early to ascertain the precise moment-to-moment ebb and flow of the short sea battle. It was not, however, too early to discuss the ramifications of the defeat and the surrender.

  And the debate was now open to the floor. The first Member of Parliament on his feet was the Tory Alan Knell, who represented Portsmouth, and stated flatly, “The Right Honorable gentleman was warned a thousand times about the dangers of rendering the Royal Navy impotent by scrapping the Sea Harriers. Indeed he was warned by me on many occasions.

  “Now his folly has been exposed, can there be any reason why the Right Honorable gentleman should not immediately offer his resignation to his party and to the House?”

  Before Alan Knell had regained his seat on the green leather back benches, the Tory side had once more erupted with howls of “ Resign!! Resign!! Resign!!”

  The Speaker stepped in and demanded “Order!!…Order!! ” And now the Tory MP for Barrow-in-Furness, the Prime Minister’s old nemesis on issues of defense cuts, Richard Cawley, was on his feet, to remind the House of the many warnings he had personally issued about the sheer scale of slashes in the Navy and military budgets.

  “I personally warned the Right Honorable gentleman about the loss of the Harriers—and what the lack of a beyond-visual-range fighter jet would mean. I told him over and over that without that look-down shoot-down Blue Vixen radar in the Harriers the Navy was in shocking trouble.

  “And now there are twelve hundred and fifty of this country’s finest men dead in the South Atlantic. And the blame can be laid at no other door than the one that opens into number ten, Downing Street, his home and that of his benighted government…”

  The cheer from the Tory benches ripped into the great vaulted ceiling of the House. And again the Speaker stood up and demanded Order from the Members.

  And so it went on. And five more times the echoing chimes of Big Ben tolled out the hour. Until eventually the Members staggered out into the morning air, the opposition congratulating themselves on a debate well won. Government ministers were wondering whether indeed their leader would have to resign in clear and obvious disgrace.

  Throughout the night, they had been watching the glaring newspaper headlines, reading reports from the twenty-four-hour television news programs. The drift against the Prime Minister was becoming very plain. The outrage of the Admirals and Generals was apparent on every page of every newspaper.

  The headline on the leader column of the Tory Daily Mail was darkly amusing, parodying one of Churchill’s most moving wartime speeches. It quoted the Tory party chairman, the droll and urbane Lord Ashampstead…

  IF THIS PARLIAMENT SHOULD LAST

  FOR ANOTHER WEEK ( GOD FORBID ),

  MEN WILL STILL SAY , “ THIS

  WAS THEIR DARKEST HOUR ”

  In the dying moments of the debate, the Tories had pushed for a vote of no confidence in the PM. And this would take place later in the afternoon, after everyone had taken a couple of hours’ sleep. The PM did not enjoy a huge majority in the House, and many people thought it might well be his last day in office, since traditionally a Prime Minister who loses such a vote is oblig
ed to resign.

  The fallout from those Argentine bombs had rippled a long way north in a very short time. And as the weary British Members of Parliament walked outside into the reality of the dawn, few of them risked a glance at the eight-foot-high statue of Sir Winston, glowering down with withering gaze from his granite plynth right opposite the outer wall of the chamber.

  The gloomy heart of London could scarcely have differed more from the joyous heart of Buenos Aires at exactly that same time, midnight in the city on the wide estuary of the River Plate.

  There were almost a half million people crammed into the Plaza de Mayo—eight different tango bands were trying to play in harmony with each other, the entire Boca Juniors soccer team, a symbol of national obsession and sometimes of unity, was assembled on a stage erected in the middle of the celebrating throng.

  The President was on the balcony of the palace waving to the crowd in company with Admiral Moreno and General Kampf, whom he announced as the great architects of the Argentinian victory in the islands.

  To the north side of the square stood the grand edifice of the Catedral Metropolitana, which houses the tomb of Argentina’s thus far greatest warrior hero, General Jose de San Martin, one of the early-nineteenth-century liberators of South America from Spanish rule.

  It was as if the great man had suddenly risen up to lead them once more in their joy, as the enormous bells of the cathedral chimed out the midnight hour. And the rising anthem of the victors once more rang out over the square—in part a lament for brave men lost, and yet a ferocious roar of triumph, tuneful and rhythmic in its unanimous delivery… M-a-a-a-l-v-i-n-a-s!!…M-a-a-a-l-v-i-n-a-s!!…M-a-a-a-l-v-i-n-a-s!!

  CHAPTER

  NINE

  1500 (LOCAL), SUNDAY, APRIL 17

  NORTH OF THE SAN CARLOS SETTLEMENT

  EAST FALKLAND

  Under the cover of a cold mountain fog, Captain Douglas Jarvis and his seven troopers had moved almost six miles south of the western slopes of Fanning Head. As this Sunday afternoon grew increasingly gloomy, they found themselves north of the San Carlos River, which snakes across the rough, rock-hewn plain between the Usborne and Simon ranges.