The Astute was commanded by Captain Simon Compton, and the Ambush by Commander Robert Hacking, both men experts in navigation and weaponry.
The surface Battle Group pushed on down the English Channel toward the Atlantic, through the now driving rain and plainly worsening weather. It was not yet storm force, but up ahead to the southwest the skies were darker, and the clouds seemed lower, and the warships seemed to brace for the rough seas before them.
Admiral Holbrook had planned to visit the ships one by one and address the crews, but he elected to wait until the weather improved before making a succession of windswept helicopter landings on the flight decks of his various escorts.
They were in open water now, and the waves were beginning to break over the bows of the frigates, but the forecast was pretty good, and the Admiral reckoned they'd be clear of the stormy conditions within twelve hours.
With the coast of England finally slipping away behind them, the little fleet suffered its first equipment problem. Captain Yates's destroyer, the Daring, developed a minor rattle in her gearbox, which was disconcerting though not life-threatening.
The Daring's engineering team thought it was minor, and they elected to keep going until they reached calmer waters, where they were certain they could conduct the repair. All of the ships carried some spare parts for the routine running of a warship in rough seas at moderate to high speeds. The engineers would not, however, wish to cope with anything much worse while so far from a dockyard.
One day later, on Saturday morning, March 19, they steamed out of the rain and gloom into much calmer waters and blue skies that would, with luck, hold fair for the thousand-mile run down to the Azores, which rise up from the seabed only just short of the thirty-degree line of longitude, the halfway point across the North Atlantic.
Admiral Holbrook decided to visit the Dauntless and the Daring in the morning, and then fly back to the Iron Duke and the Richmond in the afternoon. And to each of those four groups of highly apprehensive sailors he delivered the same somewhat brutal message:
"Gentlemen, there's no point beating about the bush. We are going to war, and it is likely that some of us may not be returning. I expect to lose ships, and people. And I am obliged to remind you that for several years now you have been paid by the Royal Navy to prepare for events such as this.
"I realize this is all something of a shock, but I am afraid you are all now required to front up, and earn it, perhaps the hard way. You may not have realized it before, but this is what you joined the Navy for.
"To fight one day a battle on behalf of your country. Royal Navy seamen have long had a phrase for it—you shouldn't have joined if you can't take a joke.
"With regard to our enemy, the Args have two twenty-six-year-old diesel electric submarines, both somewhat tired and slow. We ought to detect them far away, and deal with them accordingly. They also have an even older, even slower submarine that one of their commanders ran aground in the River Plate at the end of last year. I do not regard the Argentinians as a major subsurface threat."
This raised a tentative laugh, but Admiral Holbrook's words had already had a sobering effect. "Their surface fleet is more of a problem," he said, but added, more encouragingly, "although I expect our SSNs to have dealt with it before we get there.
"I refer to their four German-built destroyers, all of them equipped with Aerospatiale MM 40 Exocet surface-to-surface missiles, which is not good news.
"They have another couple of elderly destroyers, one of them a British-built Type-42 with Exocets. The other one, Santisima Trinidad, is probably out of commission.
"They have nine frigates, mostly carrying an Exocet missile system. Two of them only ten years old. We must be on our guard at all times, absolutely on top of our game. And if we stay at our best we'll defeat them."
Admiral Holbrook saw no point in dwelling upon the awful discrepancy in the air war, Argentina with perhaps two hundred fighter-bombers, God knows how many Super-Etendards, all land-based, against the Royal Navy's twenty-one GR9s with no radar, unable to find each other in bad visibility, never mind the enemy. All of them bobbing about in the South Atlantic with no second deck, should the Ark Royal be damaged.
And each day the Admiral flew to address a different ship's company, and to confer with his Captains. And they continued to make passage south, mostly in good weather, covering hundreds of miles every twenty-four hours.
The aircrews continued to work up their attack force, with takeoffs and landings being conducted all day and into the evening. They were rarely interrupted, except, on several occasions, by Russian Long-Range Maritime Patrol Craft, known locally as Bears. Every time they visited, they just flew along the horizon watching the British ships, and every time they came, the Task Force Commander hoped to hell they were not talking to the Argentinians.
However, they never came south of the Spanish coast, and eventually the Bears vanished altogether. Nonetheless, the deep frown on Admiral Holbrook's brow never eased as he and Captain Reader discussed the appalling task that lay ahead of them, both men understanding this could be the last battle a Royal Navy Fleet would ever fight.
231440MAR11 50.47N 15.00W
NORTH ATLANTIC
SPEED 7, DEPTH 500, COURSE 195
Captain Vanislav had thus far conducted his long voyage with exemplary caution. He had run Viper K-157 swiftly for two days down the Norwegian coast, then cut his speed dramatically as he angled more westerly out into the Norwegian Sea, and delicately over the SOSUS wires of the United States Navy.
They'd crept down through the GIUK Gap, making only seven knots as they moved over the Iceland — Faeroe Rise in only 850 feet of water, straight along the ten-degree westerly line of longitude. They had pressed on over the Iceland Basin, where the Atlantic suddenly shelves down to a depth of nearly two miles.
And then they had run on five hundred miles southwest, now down the fifteen-degree line of longitude until they approached the Porcupine Abyssal Plain 120 miles west of the Irish trough. And right here they ran into one of those deep-ocean phenomena, a school of whales out in front, showing up on the sonar like an oncoming Battle Group.
In fact, no one was concerned, since such events are fairly commonplace in the deep waters of the North Atlantic. And the whales swerved away. Almost simultaneously, however, something else, much more serious took place. One of Viper's "indicator buoys" broke loose and made the most frightful racket on the hull for two minutes until its mooring wire broke.
They were directly over a deepwater SOSUS wire, and two operators in the secret U.S. Navy listening station on the craggy coast of County Kerry in southwest Ireland detected them instantly. Huddled over their screens deep in the cliff side of the Iveragh Peninsula, south of Dingle Bay, the Americans picked up the signal from a distance of more than two hundred miles.
Almost immediately, with the loose buoy transmitting on the international submarine distress frequency, Viper's comms room sent in a short-burst 1.5-second transmission to a satellite just to let home base know right away they had not in fact sunk.
The Americans heard all three bursts of noise.
Sounds like a submarine in trouble, sir. It's plainly Russian. Nothing else correlates. I'm checking, it's a Russian nuclear — probability area small.
Degree of certainty on that?
Eighty percent, sir. Still checking. She runs at the northern line of a ten-mile-by-ten-mile square. But right now the contact's disappeared.
Keep watching…
Everyone knew, of course, the Russians were perfectly entitled to be running a Navy submarine down the middle of the Atlantic south of the GIUK Gap. Just as the Americans or the British were.
But this particular submarine had not been detected for several hundred miles as it crossed that unseen line in the North Atlantic. Which suggested it did not want to be detected. Had it been making an aboveboard voyage at probably twenty knots, the Americans would have picked it up a dozen times.
But it ha
d been moving very slowly, and remained undetected except for the very minor two-minute uproar when the buoy broke loose, and it all suddenly popped up on the U.S. Navy screens in Ireland.
Then, as suddenly as it appeared, it vanished. Which again suggested it had no intention of being located. Indeed, it suggested, strongly, that its commanding officer was operating clandestinely, on a mission that was plainly classified.
Of course everyone in the U.S. listening station knew there were several possibilities. The Russian ship could easily have been on a training run, or testing new equipment on a long-distance voyage. Maybe the U.S. operators had picked her up at the end of the training run, and located her as she made her turn. But if so, why was she not making proper speed north, when everyone could locate her?
The U.S. Navy Lt. Commander did not like it. Any of it. And he put an immediate signal on the satellite to Fort Meade:
231610MAR11 Southwest Ireland facility picked up a two-minute transient contact on a quiet submarine. Data suggests Russian heading south. Abrupt stop. Nothing on friendly networks correlates. Fifty-square-mile maximum area. Still checking longitude 15, 200 miles off west coast Ireland.
The Navy's Atlantic desk in the National Surveillance Office drafted a request to Moscow to clarify the matter. But no reply was forthcoming. And none of the Americans, of course, understood the depth of the fury within Admiral Vitaly Rankov, who paced his office in the Kremlin and spent fifteen minutes roundly cursing the errant carelessness of Viper's crew.
Thirty-six hours later, on the morning of March 25, Lt. Commander Jimmy Ramshawe set a half hour aside to scroll through the pages on the NSA's Internet system. Twenty minutes later he was staring at the message from County Kerry. And the fifth line stopped him dead, because it contained the word submarine—and the teaching of Arnold Morgan cascaded into his mind:
Ramshawe, my boy, when you see the word submarine, think only one thing…sneaking conniving little sonsobitches, hear me? When you see the words Russian submarine, take that to the tenth power, and throw in the words devious, furtive, shifty, underhanded, and villainous. Because they are always up to no good.
He logged in to his Classified Intelligence CD-ROM and accessed the section on Russia. He hit the keys and ran through the classes of submarines that might be on the loose. Most likely, he thought, were the Akula-class boats, and there were ten of them, with three laid up. Four of the old Akula Is were confirmed in the Pacific Fleet, which left three, all in the Northern Fleet either in the base at Ara Guba or operational in the Barents Sea to the north of Murmansk. These were the newest, the improved Akula IIs—Gepard, commissioned in 2001, Cougar, commissioned in 2005, and Viper, commissioned in 1996.
"Well," muttered Jimmy, "our operator in Ireland reckoned it was a Russian nuclear, so it probably was. Still, I wonder what the little sonofabitch was doing heading south down the Atlantic."
The word Atlantic of course triggered in his mind the thought of the Royal Navy Task Force heading for the Falklands. And he immediately checked its whereabouts…800 miles north of Ascension…that's bloody miles from the Russian submarine, damn nearly 3,000. Can't see a connection there…
He called his boss, the Director, Admiral George Morris, whose antennae rose instantly. "Come along and see me, James," he said. "And bring hard copy of that signal from Ireland, will you?"
Three minutes later they were both standing in front of a large wall computer screen, staring at a map of the Atlantic, straight at the area where the Russian ship had been detected.
"Strange place to be suddenly heard, then just as suddenly disappear," mused the Director. "He obviously did not want to be located — and when he was, it was a pure accident."
"Can't tell if the bugger turned around or kept on going," said Jimmy.
"No," replied the Admiral. "No one can tell that. And no one's heard a squeak from the damn thing since? Guess we just have to wait 'til he makes another mistake. Because it sure as hell was a mistake. That was one creepy little sonofabitch, and he did not wish to be detected…let me know if Moscow offers an explanation."
"You want to touch base with the Big Man, sir?"
"Jimmy, I'm real tied up this afternoon. But maybe you could have a quick word with him — you know how he is about submarines…"
"Okay, Chief. I'll give him a call."
Twenty minutes later Admiral Morgan, in a cheerful mood, answered the phone in Chevy Chase. "Don't tell me," he said, "the Russian secret police just committed murder in Buckingham Palace."
Jimmy chuckled. "Not quite, sir. But I just received a signal from our listening station in southwest Ireland, where they think they picked up a Russian nuclear submarine running south a couple of days ago."
"What submarine?" snapped the Admiral, all traces of bonhomie suddenly absent.
"Well, the most likely was one of their Akula-class boats. Not the Akula Is, which are in the Pacific. But one of three operational Akula IIs, much newer, all based in the Northern Fleet — either Gepard, Cougar, or Viper…"
"Are they accounted for?"
"Not really. Just before I called we located Gepard on an exercise sixty miles north of Murmansk, and we have a record of Cougar in workup after a refit just outside Ara Guba ten days ago. Nothing on Viper. But they have those big covered docks up there, so I guess it could have been either of 'em."
"Where did the guys in Ireland detect the ship?"
"Coupla hundred miles west of County Kerry. In deep water…they heard a lot of clattering, then there was an international distress signal. Then they picked up a satellite signal, short burst in Russian. Surveillance say it confirmed they were not sinking. Then it went quiet. I checked with the station, they record no other ships within a hundred miles."
"Wonder what the hell scared her?"
"Can't help. I talked to the operator. He said they picked something up right out of the blue. From nowhere. And it vanished just as sharply. Never came back."
"Hmmmmmm," said Arnold. "Sneaky little sonofabitch, right?"
"Yessir."
"Tell you what, Jimmy. It's eleven thirty — you want to come over for lunch? I'm fooling with a theory that just might fit right into this. But it's so goddamned outlandish I'm kinda nervous about mentioning it. It's not something I want you to act on, it's something I want you to have in your mind…in the back of your mind, right? Just for that moment when something pops out at you, when some tiny bit of data seems to shed some light."
"Okay, I'll just tell Admiral Morris. I'll be there by twelve thirty, and I gotta be back by sixteen hundred."
"Don't get excited. You'll be back before then. This isn't a goddamned banquet, it's a quick sandwich and a cup of coffee. Don't be late…" Bang. Down phone. The Admiral, even in retirement, still didn't have time for "good-bye." Not even for the young naval officer he treated like a son.
Jimmy's elderly, but perfectly tuned, black Jaguar, top down, came squealing into the Admiral's drive three minutes before 12:30, nearly mowing down a couple of Secret Service agents in the process.
"Christ, sir, you'll kill someone in that damned thing," one of them observed. "Hopefully, not me."
"Don't you worry about me, Jerry," called Jimmy, "I've got eyes like a bloody dingo, and reactions to match."
"What the hell's a dingo?"
"Australian prairie dog, a right little killer, stealthy, like me."
"Stealthy! You're about as stealthy as a train crash," replied the agent, laughing. "Go straight in. The Admiral's waiting."
Inside the house, sitting quietly by the log fire in his book-lined study, was the most feared Military Intelligence expert in the world. A man whose high office had once caused world leaders to shudder, and who, even now, was capable of causing great consternation among governments not entirely in step with the United States.
Admiral Morgan looked up from the editorial page of the New York Times with a scowl on his face. "The sad and lamentable left," he growled. "Still fighting for the same tired old
causes, years out of date, discredited, long dismissed. But only in the biggest newspaper in the entire goddamned country…hi, young Ramshawe, siddown."
"Morning, Admiral," said Jimmy, brightly.
"Morning! Morning!" snapped the old tyrant of the West Wing. "Right now we're nearly a half hour into the afternoon watch. Eight bells before this coffee arrived — want some?"
"Thank you, sir," said Jimmy. "I mean Arnie. It's just damn near impossible to believe you've retired."
"Don't you start off — you sound like Kathy."
"It's just that everyone senses you're still in charge. George Morris says that's what the President thinks."
"Well, I'll have to whip him into line next week," said the Admiral, "because we're taking a short vacation in Scotland, kinda make up for my heavily interrupted rest on a Caribbean beach last month."
Jimmy poured himself a cup of coffee from the heated glass pot on the sideboard, automatically freshened Arnold's cup, and fired out a couple of "bullets" from the blue plastic container that held the sweeteners.
The Admiral flicked them into his steaming coffee, told Jimmy to shove another log on the fire, and to pay attention. He would of course have told the President of the United States, or Russia, or China, to do precisely the same thing. It was part of his charm.
"Now listen, Jimmy, with the exception of George, I don't want you to repeat this conversation to anyone. I have mentioned it to the President, who was having his lunch at the time and damn nearly choked on it. And I'm going to tell you, because I know you will store the information and be watchful for correlating facts."
"Right, sir. I'm listening."
"Okay. I want to mention the biggest thing that's happened in the last few months, which was of course the murder of the Siberian politician in the White House. Never solved, and followed up a few weeks later by what we suspect, but cannot prove, was some kind of a massacre by the Russian secret service of all the big players in the Siberian oil industry. No bodies, damn shaky explanation, no one really believes the Kremlin, right?"
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