“It doesn’t make any sense,” Carlton muttered to himself. He observed the cut diamonds in his hand, holding them to the light. They glowed. “The diamonds were definitely here.”
“They’re not here anymore, sir.”
Carlton paced, then turned to Pulaski and Pink. “Rossiya’s last contact before she sank was with the Nevsky. The team from the Nevsky transferred from the Rossiya to the Pushkin, then sank the Nevsky and Rossiya. There weren’t any sonar contacts near the Pushkin while we were chasing her. So where the hell are the diamonds?”
“They could have tossed them over the side so we wouldn’t get them,” proposed Pink. “They could just retrieve them later.”
“No way. They wouldn’t have gone through all of this just to dump their ticket to power. They’ve got to get the diamonds to Waterboer.”
“They could have marked the area with a sonobuoy for retrieval later,” Pulaski suggested. “Or with some other form of marker.”
“No. They couldn’t risk anyone else seeing it.”
Back aboard the Seawolf, Carlton gazed at Pink. “So what is it you want to check, exactly?”
“For one thing, if they did sink the diamonds, we can interdict access to the swath of ocean between here and the Rossiya’s resting place. The destroyer coming to pick up the Pushkin’s crew should be able to do that when it gets here. Until then, the Seawolf’s passive sonar will monitor that area. Can we do that, Captain?” Pink turned to Hendricks, who nodded affirmatively.
“Fine.” Carlton’s tone made it clear that he thought the plan was anything but fine. Something didn’t sit right with him.
“That’s assuming they did throw the diamonds overboard. But what was it you had to come back here to check?”
“From my limited understanding of submarines—please correct me if I’m wrong, Captain—the only way the Pushkin could have tossed the diamonds overboard is either by surfacing or by jettisoning the diamonds through the torpedo tubes.”
“Affirmative.”
“But our sonar didn’t detect any such noise, did it?”
“No. But come look at this.”
Ears led them to the Busy Two sonar room and pointed at the screen. “Right here.” He stopped the fast-forward replay of the passive sonar search during the Seawolf’s chase of the Pushkin and pointed to the left of the screen. The vertical white line that had been there a second before disappeared. He continued in fast forward mode. The white line reappeared several seconds later. “Looks like Ivan went dead for about ten minutes.”
“Went dead, yes. But still no torpedo tube or surfacing sounds. It probably went dead just to listen,” Hendricks said.
“To listen?” Carlton asked.
“When submarines move fast, they generate a lot of noise,” answered Hendricks. “So it’s hard for the sub to hear other subs with its passive sonar. Every once in a while, a sub moving fast stops its screw and listens for sonar contacts to see if it’s being followed. Sometimes it clears its baffles by circling 360 degrees. This white line shows the sonar signature generated by the Pushkin.”
Ears turned toward Hendricks. “I don’t think she went dead to listen, sir.” He grabbed a sonar printout. “I studied the SOSUS scan. See this?” He pointed to a short faint line that disappeared, reappeared, then disappeared for good. “Even though it’s pretty far away from the nearest SOSUS detector, it looks like ballast noise.”
“But ballast noise would be in this frequency over here, wouldn’t it?” Hendricks pointed to the other side of the page.
“You’re right, sir. But my theory is that this SOSUS buoy’s brain was damaged by a storm or a biological or something. The contact is in the wrong frequency, but it’s an identical signature to ballast noise. I’m convinced it’s ballast noise, sir.”
“I’ve learned not to disagree with your instinct, Ears. But that’s still not hard evidence.”
“How about this, sir? It matches up perfectly with the time periods.” He reversed the Busy Two display, moved it forward slowly. “Contact lost here.” He pointed to the page. “Surfacing ballast signature here.” Back to the Busy Two. “Contact reacquired here.” Back to the page. “Submersion ballast signature here. See? No sonar evidence whatsoever of torpedo tube doors opening or flooding or jettisoning.”
Hendricks sucked in air as he evaluated the fact. He remained silent for a minute, squinting at the Busy Two display. “Okay, Ears. You win. Good work, son.”
He stood up straight, led Carlton and Pink back to the control room, pausing to grab a coffee mug emblazoned with the Seawolf’s insignia: a snarling wolf with a shark’s tail.
“So the Pushkin surfaced and threw the diamonds overboard here.” Carlton pointed to the position on a plotting table map where the Pushkin had surfaced. “All we need to do is search that area with everything we’ve got.” He straightened.
“The Martin Luther King, Jr. will initiate those procedures,” responded Hendricks.
“But what if the Pushkin didn’t sink the diamonds?” Carlton wondered.
“What do you mean? They’re not in the sub and we know it didn’t fire them through its tubes.”
“They’re not in the sub, but according to Ears, the sub did surface. What if it transferred the diamonds off the sub to a boat?”
“No.” Hendricks pointed to the sonar report. “That’s the whole problem. Sonar shows no boats or subs anywhere in the Pushkin’s path since it met up with the Nevsky. The only sonar contact in the vicinity was a group of whales 100 miles to the south of Pushkin’s path. I don’t want to brag, but our sonar is the best on the planet. If there was a sub or a surface vessel, we would have heard it.”
“What about an aircraft?”
“Impossible. We’ve been through that argument before. We’re 700 miles away from land. A helicopter could travel a couple of hundred miles, 300 tops. Definitely not 700. And that’s only one way.”
“What about a float plane?” Asked Carlton, undeterred.
“Sonar would have picked it up. If not our own, then SOSUS. I agree with Pink. They must have dropped the diamonds over the side. There’s no other logical explanation. ”
“They were picked up by air.” Carlton asserted.
Hendricks rolled his eyes, exasperated. “I thought we buried that theory twice already.” Obviously irritated, he started to rise, sat back down. “Look. Ears told us there was no sonar contact with a float plane. The Pushkin was always too far from land for a helicopter to do the job.”
“I understand all that, Captain. But it’s also the only explanation. Remember, once you’ve eliminated the impossible, whatever’s left is possible, no matter how strange. And we’ve only eliminated float planes and helicopters as possible air-based transport. Those are only two types of aircraft.”
“What are you suggesting? A hot air balloon?”
“A Harrier.”
“A Harrier?”
Carlton motioned with his palm. “Vertical take off and land—”
“I’m familiar with Harriers, Carlton. A Harrier couldn’t have done the job. They can hover. But do you know how small a Harrier is? Where would they put the diamonds? Their range is only about 2,500 miles. Wherever they came from would have to be pretty close to fly in, hover, and fly back. And there were no reports of unidentified Harriers in the area.”
“One Harrier couldn’t have done it.” Carlton paused. “But a group of Harriers could have.”
“They could have refueled mid-air,” Pink said. “That would double their range to 5,000 miles.”
“Even if several Harriers came in and hovered or landed. And even if they were able to refuel in mid-air, how would the crew have gotten that many diamonds aboard?”
“Pods,” Carlton said in a muted voice. “The Harriers could have come in unarmed then fitted with pods.”
Hendricks continued to shake his head. “I’ve never heard of Harriers being fitted with pods while hovering. Still, assuming that it could be done, where would the
Pushkin have kept the pods? The Pushkin is an attack sub. Every single item on board has to be brought through the hatches, including the torpedoes. I don’t know if you’ve ever observed torpedoes being loaded into a submarine, but it takes hours, steady seas, special equipment. Even if they could have gotten the pods on board, they’d be too big for the torpedo room, even the tubes.”
“When we entered the Pushkin, the Chief mentioned something about the—what did he call them? The missile tubes?”
“The VLS tubes?”
“That’s it. They were empty, right?”
“If that’s what the Chief said, that’s what it is.”
“So it’s possible, isn’t it?”
“Let me get this straight,” Hendricks held up his hands. “You want me to believe that a decommissioned Russian attack sub operated by Russian nationalists made contact with a Russian patrol boat, sank it, submerged, resurfaced, transferred millions of carats of diamonds in pods from the VLS tubes onto multiple hovering Harrier fighters that refueled in mid-air, and submerged again—all without the Ronald Reagan carrier battle group running exercises in the GIUK gap being aware of either Harrier jets or an airborne tanker?”
“That’s about it, yeah.” Carlton nodded.
“Well, I think you’re nuts. There is no—”A loud chime interrupted him.
“Wathne, Captain. Sorry to bother you, sir, but VLF orders us to pick up a ULF transmission.”
“Very well, XO. Go to scope depth, pick it up, then take us back down to 500. The weather’s bad enough as it is.”
60 CARDINAL
Institute for Works of Religion
aka The Vatican Bank
Vatican City State
10:05 A.M.
“My God.” Hundreds of millions. The head of the Order. Its Father General, Cardinal Altiplano, had stolen hundreds of millions of dollars. From universities and hospitals and missions. For over ten years. “How could I have let it happen?”
“You did not know, Eminence.”
“Of course I didn’t know, but I should have known. I should have known. Can you imagine the proportions of this scandal? It’s...it’s gigantic. It will make the Banco Ambrosiano scandal look like Ferragosto.” The cardinal referred to the Feast of the Assumption of Mary in August, which in Italy was a national holiday. “Santa Maria! Just look at this horror!” He pointed to the reams of financial documents uncovered in the deceased Father General Altiplano’s private files.
“We must have faith, Eminence.”
“Faith. Yes.” He exhaled deeply. ”But so much money. So much money. Taken from children, the poor, the elderly, and the sick. And for what? For Altiplano’s ambition to become pope. Can you imagine what will happen when this nightmare is discovered?”
“If it is discovered, Eminence. If.”
“But it will. And technically it was in our care. It will be discovered missing. Five hundred million dollars. May God have mercy on our souls.”
“But the money has not disappeared, Eminence. It has only been...transformed. From intangible to tangible assets.”
“That is easy to say. Here. In private. The Church already has such severe financial problems. What if the Banco Napolitana Lucchese fails? Declares bankruptcy? Its assets. Its loans. Its books and vaults. They will be scrutinized. It will cause a scandal. An enormous scandal. The Lord detests scandal, Lucca.”
“Eminence. From the evidence we have, only Altiplano’s most trusted agents made the purchases in Angola. Small purchases only. None over $50,000. Angola was in a state of civil war, everything confused and crazed, Eminence. There are no records.”
“Lucca, Lucca. My trusted friend. God bless your silver tongue, but I am afraid that for all of the authority I wield as a prince of the Church, I am still only a simple peasant priest. I am terrified of scandal. Particularly such an enormous scandal as this. Not for me or you. We did nothing wrong. But I am afraid for the Church.”
“The Church has regularly faced scandal for two thousand years. The devil tempts. Sometimes he succeeds. We must remember that evil and the jaws of death will never prevail over the Holy Church.”
“In the end, yes. But what about now? How will the world react? Hundreds of years of hospitals and universities curing the sick and educating those hungry for knowledge, now in question. In doubt. Only an enormous amount of faith can overcome such a storm.”
“Let us pray for faith, then, Eminence.”
The prince of the Church, cardinal priest in the title of Saint Matthew, president of the Instituto per le Opere di Religione (IOR), and former peasant priest, together with his secretary, a monsignor, kneeled on the polished inlaid hardwood floor before a seventeenth-century rosewood and silver crucifix that hung on the fleur de lis silk brocade wall. They performed the sign of the cross with reverence.
“In nomine Patris et Filius et Spiritu Sanctus,” the cardinal recited solemnly.
“Amen,” responded the monsignor.
“Oremus,” the cardinal announced, then bowed his head. “Pater noster,” he began. Our Father.
The monsignor joined him. “Qui est in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum...” Who art in heaven. Hallowed be thy name.
61 CARRIERS
HMS Invincible
Royal Navy Nuclear Aircraft Carrier
Norwegian Sea
501 miles south of Longyerben, Spitzbergen
6:02 P.M.
Royal Navy Lieutenant Sandra Walters had called out three times to the missing Royal Air Force (RAF) Hercules air tanker—nicknamed ‘Bernice’ by the RAF—and the three RAF Sea Harriers that had just refueled from her in mid-air. Without response. But Lieutenant Walters was tenacious. She would try until she received an answer.
“Bernice. This is Invincible. Come in Bernice,” she repeated.
It had disappeared from her radar screen immediately after refueling the three Harriers on a training mission. The Harriers had departed the Keflavik NATO Air Base in Iceland and were supposed to refuel in mid-air, then return to Iceland. Not only did Bernice disappear from the radar screen shortly after the Harriers had refueled, but the Harriers themselves had also disappeared. And Lieutenant Walters’ counterpart in Iceland couldn’t locate any of them either.
“We have lost you from radar. Come in.” She quickly switched frequencies. “Major Leyland. Lieutenants Carruthers and Fox. This is Invincible. Come in. Have lost you from radar. Come in, over.” She repeated the entreaties a fourth time before summoning her CO, Commander Todd Shollen.
“Sir, Bernice disappeared from our screens. So did the three Sea Harrier trainers en route from Keflavik. They just disappeared, sir. No radio contact. No mayday signal. No SAR beacon. Keflavik doesn’t have anything either, sir.”
Shollen saw the confusion in her eyes. Walters was not a novice. If Bernice and the three Sea Harriers were in the air, she would have spotted them on the screen or raised them by radio. Shollen picked up the handset. An airplane as large and slow as a Hercules tanker doesn’t just disappear from radar. Neither do training Harriers led by an experienced pilot such as Major Leyland. It couldn’t be an electronic glitch. The Invincible’s radar was fully operational. All of the other birds in range continued to register as green blips. Shollen winced, hoping for the best, sensing the worst. But regulations were regulations, and he followed them to the letter. ”Keep trying.” He punched the button marked AWCINC—Air Wing Commander-in-Chief.
“Hennessey.” The voice made it clear that the interruption had better be important.
“Communications, sir. Commander Shollen.” He paused. “Sir, we have a situation.”
Within ten seconds, the wail of the Search and Rescue (SAR) siren sounded above the flight deck. Two minutes later, a pair of Sea Harriers outfitted with special SAR equipment accelerated down and up the carrier’s special ramps reserved for Harriers and rocketed on full afterburners toward the last reported position of the four missing aircraft.
Nearly one thousand miles to the south of HMS
Invincible, the USN Ronald Reagan carrier battle group (CVBG), designated CVBG-12, was steaming north to conduct joint NATO exercises with the HMS Invincible, the French Navy’s newest carrier, Charles de Gaulle, and their support vessels during the following week.
The carrier battle group is the most persuasive tool of American foreign policy. While most people consider it merely as a group of warships, in reality it is a flexible, mobile, and sovereign American platform able to project a variety of offensive air and sea weapons systems on simultaneous, multiple and nearly indefinite missions in faraway regions. As such, carrier battle groups not only keep foreign threats far from America’s borders, but can also impose total military control over particular coastal regions.
Whereas most modern navies, such as those of Great Britain and France, maintained two aircraft carrier groups, the U.S. Navy maintained twelve carrier battle groups — eleven on active patrol at any given time with one in drydock for maintenance—out of its total 350 surface ships and 75 submarines. As such, the United States Navy wielded a power unimagined by most civilians and feared by her enemies.
Centered around the post-Nimitz-class USS Ronald Reagan, the $20 billion, one-month-old replacement of the USS Kitty Hawk, CVBG-12 was composed of two Ticonderoga-class Aegis-guided missile cruisers, one Arleigh Burke-class Aegis destroyer, one Spruance-class destroyer, two Oliver Hazard Perry-class guided-missile frigates, one Sacramento-class combat support vessel, one Los Angeles-class attack submarine, and Commander Hendricks’ Seawolf-class attack submarine; a total of eight surface vessels and two submarines.
USN CVBG-12 Commander-in-Chief Rear Admiral Jack Yorbis was sipping a mug of coffee from the Reagan’s state-of-the-art bridge as he spoke to Royal Navy Admiral Hennessey.
Patrick Carlton 01 - The Diamond Conspiracy Page 39