The Shark Mutiny

by Patrick Robinson

  Lieutenant Commander Headley doubted his ability to solve all of the puzzle. But he was determined to take a look around that cabin of Reid’s, and he waited until the CO came into the control room. After formally handing over the ship to the OOD, he said, “Oh, sir. Those insertion plans. I just had a couple of details to fill in…you’re busy now, but I’ll put ’em on the table in your cabin if you like…then you can take a look when you have a bit of time.”

  “Thank you, XO. That will be fine.”

  Dan Headley headed once more down to the CO’s room, and pushed open the door. The desk light was already on, and the little portrait of Admiral Pierre de Villeneuve stared out across the small room. Dan put the plans on the desk and kept a ballpoint pen in his hand in case he was disturbed. There was a small bookshelf to the left of the Captain’s chair, and Dan leaned over to inspect the half dozen volumes it contained.

  There was a travelogue about the south of France, a biography of de Villeneuve, and an account of the Battle of the Chesapeake. A book called The Stress of Battle and Trauma stood next to the Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea. There was also something called Edgar Cayce on Reincarnation, by Noel Langley. Dan picked this one up and glanced at the blank sheets inside the jacket. In pencil there were the following words: Another life, another battle, so many mistakes in Bucentaure. I must never repeat them now that I have another chance. June 1980. DKR.

  Dan Headley frowned. He could not risk hanging around for long. Quickly he skipped through the pages of the volume on reincarnation, and then pulled out the Oxford companion. On instinct he flicked through alphabetically to page 883, which gave an account of de Villeneuve’s highest/lowest moment: Trafalgar. And he ran his finger over the the French Fleet’s line of battle…here it is…“Bucentaure, the flagship…struck its colors”…Fuck me! This crazy prick I work for thinks he’s the reincarnation of de Villeneuve, one of the worst battle commanders in Naval history.

  Dan Headley put the books back. He still had no clues to the identity of the mysterious Chinese Captain Li Chin. Nor indeed to “Gregory.” He glanced down to the writing pad on Commander Reid’s desk and could see only a small sketch of a submarine. Beside it was the name Lt. Commander Schaeffer. And through the name were two hard diagonal lines forming a cross, as if to eliminate the name of the late SEAL Team Leader.

  Dan shook his head, and left, in a hurry. Do I give a shit who he thinks he is? Does it matter? A lot of people believe in reincarnation, right? I just don’t know how seriously people take this stuff. And it would be a lot better if he thought he was General MacArthur, or Admiral Nimitz, even Admiral Nelson. But de Villeneuve? Jesus. He’s even got his picture on the wall, and the guy was a catastrophe. Do we have a real problem here?

  The XO made his way up to the wardroom, poured himself some coffee and sat alone in a corner seat, thinking. What do I really know about the CO? Have I actually seen him make decisions of really momentously bad judgment?

  Dan thought some more, and decided that he had twice seen him make decisions that went absolutely by the book. Rigid. Unswerving adherence to the rules and regulations. The kind of adherence submarine commanders consistently ignored. The nature of the underwater beast means you have to be flexible. And everyone knew it. Holding hard to the rule book was okay on a peacetime surface ship. But it was often not okay on a combat submarine.

  Do we have a problem here? Yes. I think we do. Because Commander Reid twice deliberately made an operation LESS successful when we plainly needed to make a change in our orders. He caused unnecessary battery-running time in the ASDV for the insertion into Iran. And he may have cost us the life of one of Rusty Bennett’s best combat SEALs. He certainly refused to save that life. Two decisions. Two mistakes. Both important. We got a problem.

  Lieutenant Commander Headley had no member of the crew in whom he could confide. It was simply unthinkable for a senior U.S. Navy executive officer to mention to a colleague, who must, by definition, be of a lower rank, that he, the Exec, considered their commanding officer had lost his marbles.

  He also thought it was not anything he could bother Ricky with, since the SEAL commander was trying to prepare his team for the big push into the Chinese Navy base. Oh, by the way, the officer in overall command of your only escape route is probably insane. “Holy shit,” breathed Dan Headley.

  He contemplated the prospect of dinner. But he wasn’t hungry, and he walked back to the area of the wardroom aft of the dining room table, where they kept a small library for officers and in fact for anyone of the crew who requested a book on a particular subject. Shark, like most U.S. Navy submarines, was a literary democracy.

  Dan had no idea what he was looking for. What writings might shed light on a commanding officer who once, certainly in 1980, had believed he was the reincarnation of someone else? And anyway, did it matter? Dan himself had once read that General George Patton had believed himself to have been a major-league warrior in another life. And wasn’t there some story that the General claimed to have known the precise spot where Caesar had pitched his tent when he arrived in Langes, France, to assume his first command?

  Maybe it’s not that bad, he thought. Not that bad at all. However, I wouldn’t give a shit if Reid thought he was Alexander the Great, or even Napoleon, but DE VILLENEUVE! I mean, Christ, that’s beyond belief for a Navy officer.

  I used to be the the world’s worst battle commander, and from now on, I’m playing it dead safe, right by the book. And that’s what I think we’ve got right here. Except this fucking nutter might be in cahoots with the Chinese.

  The XO scanned the bookshelves until he reached the section on psychology, a complicated subject for men who command warships, and an increasing concern in the modern Navy. He stopped at a volume entitled Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

  “I suppose it’s possible this character has adopted the kind of symptoms he believes de Villeneuve may have developed after Admiral Nelson took out twenty of his Fleet at Trafalgar. The most decisive sea battle ever fought. Maybe Commander Reid feels he is supposed to suffer the French Admiral’s pain for him.” Steady, Headley, you’re getting crazier than he is.

  He opened the book and paused at one of the earliest sections of the textbook formula—The Effects of Having Survived a Frightening Traumatic Event. The subhead read, “Armed Combat, Shell Shock, Battle Fatigue.” It was fully 20 seconds before he realized the block of type had been pointed up with a yellow high-lighting pen.

  The next part was not highlighted, but it contained such lines as, “Reliving the painful memories, images and emotions, i.e., intense fear, horror, helplessness, as if it were happening. Recurring nightmares. Trying to erase the memories. Intense emotional stress in the face of events, present, future or even imagined, which may resemble any part of the traumatic event.”

  “Sudden emotional outbursts,” the author wrote, “anger, fear or panic, may occur, for no apparent reason, as the person tries to avoid thinking or talking about the trauma that haunts him.”

  What exactly is this? Some kind of damned conspiracy? Well, you’ve picked the wrong man to make a fool of…waiting until I’m asleep and then flagrantly disobeying my orders.

  These were the words of Commander Reid, uttered in temper, without logic, without concern, and without reason. Dan Headley pictured that scene in the control room last month, as the SEALs tried to fight their way back from their mission.

  Was it actually possible that their own CO, as he addressed them, was hearing not just the quiet hum of Shark’s turbines as she made her turn in the silence of the dark waters of the gulf? Was he actually hearing the crash and thunder of British cannon, as Nelson and Collingwood came in quite slowly, in a light quartering wind, hammering both the French and Spanish Fleets to a standstill? Two hundred years ago, the morning of October 21, 1805? Was that actually possible?

  Lieutenant Commander Headley shook his head, skimmed the rest of the chapter, but every few moments phrases jumped right out at him—a
voiding responsibility, isolation, symptoms increasing with age, guilt feelings for the deaths of others. “And through it all,” the author wrote, “the person may still appear a strong and capable leader. Only those who serve closely with such a man can see the sudden moments of utterly illogical behavior, so often anger, or an obdurate adherence to the rule book, all to camouflage self-doubt.” And for good measure, the author added that, in his view, real-life trauma was no different from imagined trauma in the mind of such a personality.

  Dan Headley liked it less now than he had 10 minutes ago. There was a final section on military officers who believed themselves to have been commanders in past centuries. But it was not written in a sinister way. Indeed the author believed the association with long past greatness may have given certain men inspiration, even knowledge, into the conduct of a battle.

  But Dan noted that the author did not go into any detail of a commanding officer who thought he had been a catastrophic, world-renowned failure in a past life, had committed suicide, and, in his own handwriting, believed he now had a chance to make amends by eliminating mistakes.

  One thing he knew for absolute certain: He needed Rick Hunter, and he needed him right now. And he did not even finish his coffee. Dan stood up and set off down to the SEALs’ locker room in search of his oldest friend. He knew the Commander was pretty good with the minds of fractious racehorses, and he hoped he could make the species jump, straight into the unbalanced psyche of a certain human being.

  He located him at a good time. It was almost 2100, and the SEAL boss had been briefing his team for hours, poring over the new pictures of the Chinese base. When Dan Headley had come wandering into the conference area, aft of the control room, Rick had stood up and said, “Okay, guys. That’s it. Go get food and rest. Lieutenant Commander Headley and I are about to solve the problem of the Belmont Stakes. Which horse stays one and a half miles? That’s the key. Because most modern racehorses won’t last out twelve furlongs in a horse box, never mind running. We come to any definitive conclusions, I’ll let you know who to bet.”

  “No mistakes now, sir. We don’t want any screwups, right?” called Lt. MacPherson.

  Commander Hunter and the XO thus returned quietly to the wardroom, and asked the steward to bring them some dinner…“Coupla steaks, green vegetables and salad,” said the SEAL.

  “You eating them both?” asked Dan. “Or may I have one?”

  “For your information, I no longer have the appetite I had at eighteen,” replied Rick. “’Specially when I’m confined to this ship. No fresh air, no exercise, no physical activity except the communal set of weights we’re all using to try to stay more or less ready to hit the Chinese.”

  “Okay, Ricky. But I came to find you on a matter of great concern.”

  “You did? What?”

  “Well, I am assuming that you know the details of the altercation that took place in the control room of this ship when Rusty Bennett and I tried to take her inshore to save the badly wounded SEAL?”

  “Doesn’t everyone know the details? Even the staff in Diego Garcia have no other subject to discuss.”

  “They’re probably correct, too. Because I think we have a major concern here.”

  “You mean he might make another foul-up like that?”

  “I mean, I think it’s inevitable he will make another foul-up like that.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I think that right here we are dealing with a dangerously flawed personality.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes. I do. That’s why I need to talk with you.” And for the next 20 minutes the XO shared with the SEAL team leader the evidence he had found that Commander Reid believed he was the reincarnation of the French Admiral Pierre de Villeneuve.

  “Well, everyone in the Navy knows about Trafalgar and the disastrous command of the French Fleet, Dan. We all learned it at Annapolis. “Wasn’t he some kind of a coward?…I forget the details.”

  “Ricky, this guy was terrified of Admiral Nelson. He spent most of 1805 trying to get away from him. Napoleon had him under threat of suspension if he didn’t get his act together. Right before the battle, he ducked back into the port of Cadiz, trying to hide. And when he finally came out, he literally froze with fear.

  “Nelson and Collingwood split the French line right near the flag. And the French ships took terrible broadsides from the Royal Navy. Admiral Nelson fell at 1315, and never really saw his sensational victory. De Villeneuve was merely taken prisoner after his ship surrendered.”

  Commander Rick Hunter nodded quietly. “And you mean our CO actually thinks he is de Villeneuve?”

  “Yup. That’s what he believes. I just showed you my note of what he wrote in the book…So many mistakes in Bucentaure…I must never repeat them now that I have another chance…”

  “Well, maybe he won’t,” replied Rick Hunter.

  “Shithead, you’re not hearing me. I am saying that in his mind this guy is suffering from the trauma of what happened out there off the coast of Portugal in 1805. He believes he is responsible. The stress of the battle is in his mind, and he is exhibiting classic symptoms of that kind of behavior. I’ve just been reading about it. Trust me, it fits.”

  “Okay. It fits. But he doesn’t do it all the time, does he?”

  “Course not. They never do. Just sometimes, when events seem to be getting too big, or out of hand, or there is clear-and-present danger. Or everyone is watching him, willing him to make a major decision. That’s when this kind of stress-damaged character can’t cope. Because in his mind he hears again the thunder of a past war, and he is consumed with self-pity, and it gives him a feeling of superiority because he knows no one else is going through what he’s going through. No one else understands the tragedy of a great Naval commander, which is why he feels free to shout and lay down the law in that self-righteous way.

  “That’s where it all came from, Rick. The words are like cast concrete in my mind…But, sir, we’re just trying to conduct a mission of mercy for our own injured people. And what did he reply? What exactly is this? Some kind of damned conspiracy…well, you’ve picked the wrong man to make a fool of…”

  “Hmmmmm,” said Rick Hunter. “And where we’re going, he may have to make a few more major decisions before we’re all a lot older.”

  “And that’s not all.”

  Rick Hunter looked at his old friend, questioningly. And Dan told him of the conversation he had overheard in Commander Reid’s cabin. He read over to him, verbatim, what he had written down about Gregory and Captain Li Chin.

  “That makes no sense, does it?” asked the SEAL.

  “Not to us, maybe, but it might for the CO.”

  “What are those names again? Gregory and Captain Li Chin?”

  “Yup. That’s exactly what I heard, or thought I heard.”

  “And you don’t think there was anyone in there with him?”

  “No. I do not. It’s just that I never heard of anyone with either of those two names.”

  “Well. Let’s try to piece them together. Say it all at once. How about Captain Gregory Leechin?”

  “That’s not right. He said LY chin.”

  “Okay. But you cannot be called Gregory Li Chin. Because that’s a very American name, coupled with a Chinese one. And that would be very unusual. Gregory is a long name, and it sounds very definite. It’s not like Ronnie or Tommy. You sometimes get Chinese people called that. I think you heard Gregory right, but I think you might have Li Chin wrong.”

  “I might have. But the CO did call him captain. I’m not wrong about that.”

  “Well, maybe he was talking to a guy who had trouble with the truth. Maybe he was Liar-chin….”

  “You know, Ricky, that sounds really familiar to me. Liarchin. Do we know someone called Liarchin? Captain Gregory Liarchin. Someone maybe famous. Liarchin. That’s got a real ring to it.”

  “You’re right. Who the hell was Captain Liarchin?”

  “Dunno. But
it sure does sound familiar. How about Gregory…how about Gri-Gory like eastern European…how about Captain Gri-GORY Liarchin?”

  “Tell you what…we need to hit the ship’s library, conduct a quick search through recent Navy records…there’s a good reference section.”

  “Someone down there will do it for us, I guess. I don’t want the CO to see us down there.”

  “Haven’t you got a buddy who’ll do it quietly?”

  “Yeah. The Navigator, Shawn Pearson, will get it done. I’m outta here, back in five minutes and don’t eat my fucking steak.”

  The XO was back in a few minutes. “Shawn’s going to have a look himself. I told him to fool with the spelling…Grigory Liarchin, or with a y, like Lyachin. Something foreign, right?”

  “You got it. There’s your steak, which, you will doubtless note, I did not eat.”

  The two officers settled into their dinner, trying not to speak too much about the submarine’s CO. Occasionally a new officer came through the door, but no one stayed more than a few minutes. There must have been urgent vibes being given off by the XO and the SEAL Chief, because no one seemed interested in engaging them in conversation.

  It was 25 minutes before Lt. Shawn Pearson came in bearing a sheet of paper. He handed it to Lt. Commander Dan Headley, who read the following four lines of type:

  “Captain Grigory Lyachin, commanding officer of Russia’s 14,000-ton nuclear submarine Kursk, which sank with all hands in the Barents Sea, 60 miles north of Severomorsk, on Monday, August 14, 2000.”

  Dan Headley whistled softly through his teeth. “Jesus Christ,” he breathed. And he silently handed the sheet of paper to Commander Hunter.

  “I knew that name was familiar.”

  “Sure was. But do you realize what this means, Rick? Our CO thought he was talking to Captain Grigory Lyachin. He thought he was in communication with a guy who’s been dead for almost seven years. I’m telling you. He was chatting away as we are now.”

  “If I’m reading this correctly, Danny, it’s a lot worse than that.”