Nimitz Class (1997)

by Patrick Robinson

  In his haste to see who had signed it, he turned the page, dropped the file, and managed to knock everything onto the floor. He shoved back the chair and stuck his head under the big table, as Andrew Waites arrived.

  “What the hell are you doing down there?” he asked. “Trying to tunnel your way out?”

  “No. I just knocked all the stuff over. Got kinda over excited. But I think I have something.”

  Bill stood up and reopened the critical file. He carefully turned to the last page. The signature was clear. Commander Iain MacLean. “Holy shit!” said Bill Baldridge. “I think we might have him.”

  They sat down together to read the full report. “This man was quite outstanding in every respect. He might have been even better if he had listened more carefully to my refinements. He was, however, a maverick by nature, and when I told him anything he was always trying to improve it before testing it.

  “A perfectly remarkable mind…with the best memory of the periscope picture I ever met, never mind taught…iron nerves in the face of the oncoming frigates…icy sense of command under pressure…strange preoccupation with self-preservation…but a natural-born streak of daring….

  “If I had to name one officer with whom I had to stand shoulder-to-shoulder in any submarine warfare situation it would be without question this lieutenant commander.”

  Bill gazed anew at the signature. It was identical to three others—the handwriting unmistakably that of Commander MacLean.

  He turned back to the opening page, unclipped his covering sheet, and tried to stay calm while he read through the personal details, hoping to discover a Muslim fundamentalist. But the officer was an Israeli, and a Jew.

  “Fuck,” Baldridge muttered to himself.

  And yet a sixth sense was telling Bill Baldridge that he had found his man. This brilliant Israeli submarine officer, who had passed the course in 1988, must now be around forty-two years old. Lieutenant Commander Adnam was his name—Benjamin Adnam.

  He and Lieutenant Waites glanced through the final report, another Saudi, who was not in the same league. “No natural instincts for warfare,” the Teacher had written.

  “Hey, we gotta go. I’ll take the main file, and we’ll ask the admiral if you can have a copy of the bits you want to take. I’ll tell him I checked ’em through with you.”

  They hurried back up to FOSM’s offices. Bill recounted his findings to Captain Greenwood, who sent him directly to the admiral.

  The great man listened carefully, and gave permission to copy the document and allowed the American to take it with him. “It’s a bit irregular,” he said. “But when our closest Naval allies have taken the body-blow you chaps have…we’ll usually bend a few rules to help out…now let’s go and have some lunch…celebrate a satisfactory morning’s work. Mr. Adnam, eh? Clever little bugger, by the sound of it.”

  The admiral and his Flag Lieutenant accompanied Bill down the stairs, and into the large officers’ mess hall. The communal tables sat twelve people, and admirals mingled freely with captains, commanders, lieutenants, and lieutenant commanders. The Navy is more democratic than other services—possibly because when the bugle sounds the call of battle, senior officers do not send anyone anywhere. They all go together.

  Bill Baldridge sat next to the admiral with Andrew on his other side. Bill thoroughly enjoyed chatting with fellow officers from the Royal Navy, reveling in their wit and laughter, as they fought their way through gigantic portions of fried cod and chips. After lunch he asked Admiral Elliott if he could see Commander MacLean. “He’s retired now,” the admiral replied. “I relieved him in this job. Admiral MacLean lives in Scotland, quite near Faslane. But yes, certainly you may…might as well take the three-forty British Airways flight up to Glasgow. I’ll have someone meet you. Andrew’ll fix up your ticket. All we ask in return is that you keep us informed.”

  “Thank you, sir. I am certain we will stay in close cooperation. I really appreciate all your help.”

  Bill Baldridge collected his file, and a return ticket to Glasgow, which had appeared somewhat miraculously. He then said good-bye to his new friends, and the Navy driver got him to the airport with a half hour to spare. And once more the American was escorted to a double seat, with no neighbor, for the eighty-minute flight to the great shipbuilding city on the Clyde.

  They touched down at Glasgow airport a little after five o’clock. The weather was much cooler, and a Royal Navy driver was again there to meet him. The man behind the wheel, Able Seaman Reginald White, turned out to be a submarine rating known to his friends as Knocker, whose home was in east London. The journey was slow, through rush-hour traffic and out across the River Clyde onto the busy A82 highway up to the Highlands. Road signs pointed to a place called Dumbarton, and quite suddenly the busy, urban character of the A82 gave way to an entirely different landscape. Where, just a few miles previously, the banks of the Clyde had been lined with shipyards, and the river itself an obvious, but rather deserted, commercial estuary, there was now a vast, glorious expanse of lonely water.

  Out to his left Bill could see the Clyde become wider. To his right were low mountains which he guessed were likely to get a lot higher. He also sensed the car turning north. Quite suddenly, it seemed, the clouds vanished and he was surprised the sun was still so high.

  “What’s the big white building on the far shore?” he asked Knocker. “The one right at the edge of the land.”

  “That’s the Cloch Lighthouse, sir,” the man answered. “It’s over at Gourock. A landmark for submariners returning to base. Just past there we make a long starboard turn toward Helensburgh—in a few minutes I’ll show you our markers at the Rhu Narrows. Faslane’s about four miles up from the entrance.”

  They sped through a little town, still hugging the shore, and Bill could see now how narrow the entrance to the great submarine loch really was. There were several channel markers and navigational buoys around, but without the chart, Bill could make little of them. As a place to bring home a damned great submarine, he considered it would present a bit of a challenge.

  “Christ!” said Bill. “That is narrow. You come through here at any time of the day?”

  “Yes, sir,” he said. “It’s a lot easier now. They widened it quite a bit for Trident—that’s a really big bastard—ever seen one?”

  “Uh-huh,” said Bill. “Matter of fact I’ve been on one of our own. You’re right. It’s a big bastard. Where’s Faslane from here?”

  “Further up on the right, sir. You’ll see the ’ole complex over this next ’ill.”

  Bill kept gazing at the peat-dark stretch of water. He was thinking how strangely deep it must be. And in his mind he envisioned one of the Royal Navy’s diesel-electrics sliding through here with just her periscope showing above the surface. “Too narrow,” he thought. “Can’t be more than about four hundred yards across.”

  Staring through it was the dark-skinned, anonymous yet cruel face of Lieutenant Commander Benjamin Adnam. “You’d want to be very good indeed to command a submarine in these waters,” he said slowly.

  “Yessir, very good. They don’t have anyone ’ere who’s not very good. At least, not in command of a submarine, thank Christ! And the best ’ere are the best there is. Trust me.”

  “I believe you,” said Bill Baldridge, staring again at the dark waters of the Rhu Narrows. For a while he just stared in silence. And then he said, absentmindedly, “I wonder what he looks like.”

  “Who? Admiral MacLean?” said Knocker cheerfully, continuing before his passenger could gather his thoughts. “He’d frighten the bloody life outta you. He was the toughest Teacher who ever served ’ere. Everyone knows that. He failed more Perishers than anyone had ever done before. They fail one in five anyway. They say ole MacLean failed about one in two.

  “For some that would mean he wasn’t nothing more than an ole bastard. But they say he was the best submariner there’s ever been.”

  By now they could see the submarine base up ahead
. It seemed to nestle down on the foreshore beneath the mountains. To the lay-man it might have looked like a sprawling factory complex. To a submariner it was unmistakable as a Navy base. Behind, to the north was a rugged Scottish mountain, the highest they had seen, jutting up into the clear blue sky, a summery green in the late sun of a July day.

  “That’s called ‘The Cobbler,’” said Knocker helpfully. “Our main landmark comin’ home. You can see it for a long way, but you get used to the shape of it, as you turn up into the Gareloch. It’s got snow on its peak for about five months of the year. Must be bloody cold up there even in summer.”

  Bill looked up at this great natural backdrop to Europe’s most sinister submarine base. It seemed to get bigger by the minute. But then suddenly they were at a guarded gateway. There was a small painted sign to the left: “ROYAL NAVY SUBMARINE BASE.FASLANE.” And then, underneath, “UNAUTHORIZED PERSONS NOT ADMITTED.”

  Bill thought it might just as easily have said “UNAUTHORIZED PER-SONS WILL BE SHOT,” judging by the vigilance of the armed MOD Police guards. They must have known this was a staff car, and they must have recognized Knocker. But they treated him as a perfect stranger. One asked politely for his pass, and then handed it back with another document, for Lieutenant Commander Baldridge. Only then did the second guard step away from the front of the car.

  Knocker drove through. “Bloody guards everywhere,” he said. And he added, “I dunno who the ’ell would wanna break in here. Load of ole cobblers, really.” Bill assumed this was a mark of general deference to Faslane’s private mountain.

  They pulled into a parking place outside one of the low buildings above the waterfront. Bill could see a huge nuclear submarine at the jetty, and another much smaller one about a hundred yards further along the quayside. He was still surprised by the height of the sun, and even more surprised by the sudden, damp chill in the air. Knocker led the way into the reception area and told the duty guard he was in possession of Lieutenant Commander Baldridge from America, who was here to see Admiral Sir Iain MacLean. He then told Bill that it had been nice meeting him, and he would leave his suitcase with the guard as he understood he would not be required further.

  Bill shrugged, followed a guard down a short corridor into what he guessed was a private room for senior officers. Around the walls were some excellent marine paintings and on two long tables were scale models, under glass, of Royal Navy submarines. The furniture was comfortable, like a men’s club—leather armchairs, polished side tables, and a leather and brass fender seat around a large fireplace, in which a big, rather garish electric fire glowed falsely at him.

  To the left of the fireplace was another deep leather armchair with a slightly higher back than the others, the kind of stately chair in which one might expect to find Admiral Lord Nelson himself. Instead, there sat the unmistakable figure of Vice Admiral Sir Iain MacLean, wearing a dark gray Savile Row suit, sipping China tea, and reading the Financial Times.

  “Lieutenant Commander Baldridge, sir,” said the guard. The admiral peeped over the top of his half-spectacles, and stood up slowly. He was a tall man, all of six feet two inches, with pale blue eyes, and the kind of lined face which tends to settle upon those who have spent a lifetime at sea. His expression was one of mild amusement, and his handshake rock solid. Bill put him at around sixty. “Good afternoon, Mr. Baldridge,” he said. “I understand you are interested in one of my Perishers.”

  Bill smiled his most disarming Midwestern grin. “Hello, Admiral,” he said. “It’s kind of you to come and meet me.”

  “No question of kindness,” he replied, a bit brusquely. “I was ordered here. On what I suspect was the highest possible authority. Thought I’d done with all that. Now, sit down and let me get you a cup of tea, and I’ll outline what you might describe as my game plan.”

  Bill sat, sipped his tea, and enjoyed the slightly perfumed taste of the Lapsang Suchong. Civilized. Relaxed. He was beginning to admire some aspects of the British way of life.

  “Right,” said Admiral MacLean. “Now it will be inconvenient for me to stay at the base for long. My daughter and her children are coming from Edinburgh for dinner tonight, so I propose that we finish our tea and drive over to my house in Inveraray. As the crow flies it’s only about seventeen miles, but we have to go right round the lochs, which will make it thirty-five miles.

  “It’s not a bad road. We’ll make it in just over an hour. We can go straight up the west bank of Loch Lomond, which you might find interesting. The sun does not set here until about 10 P.M. and it stays light for at least another hour. You can stay at the house for a couple of nights. And I thought we’d pop over to the base tomorrow and I’ll show you around.”

  “Sounds good to me,” said Bill. “In fact that all sounds great.”

  “Good. Well, it’s almost six-thirty. We may as well shove off.”

  The admiral drove a nearly new, dark green Range Rover. In the backseat were a huge bag of golf clubs and three fishing rods. Behind the backseat, a metal grill prevented three large, exuberant, barking Labradors from crashing forward to proclaim their idolization of their master. “Fergus! Samson! Muffin! SHUT UP!” commanded the admiral.

  They swung south, turned left in the middle of Helensburgh, ran for four miles back to the A82, and immediately headed north. Off to their right was the spectacular Loch Lomond, the largest lake in Great Britain, twenty-four miles long from Ardlui in the north to Balloch Castle. The admiral pointed out the big island in the middle of the five-mile-wide southern reach of the loch. “That’s Inch Murrin,” he said. “There’s a big ruined castle right in the middle of it—the Duchess of Albany retired there back in the fifteenth century after King James I slaughtered her entire family. I always thought he was the most frightful shit, you know.”

  Bill Baldridge remarked that Loch Lomond, with its sensational backdrop of rolling mountains—like the coast of Maine off Camden—was just about the most beautiful stretch of water he had ever seen.

  In the south, the giant loch is dotted with picturesque wooded islands, one of them, Inch Cailleach, the site of the ancient burial grounds of the ferocious MacGregor clan, whose most famous son was Rob Roy, the fabled Robin Hood of Scotland. Admiral MacLean kept his guest amused with local history as they headed on up the loch. It was not until they reached the narrow northern waters, within the three-thousand-foot shadow of the great mountain of Ben Lomond, that the Scottish officer broached the subject of his finest Perisher.

  “It’s Adnam you’re interested in, isn’t it?” he said. “I was not told why, but I was asked by FOSM to give you total cooperation. What do you want to know? And, if it’s not too awkward a question, why?”

  “Well, sir, we think it is just possible that the Thomas Jefferson was taken out by a foreign power.”

  “Yes, that was a thought that had crossed my mind. And you think Adnam may have been responsible?”

  “I think we must assume someone was, since there was no other way to hit the carrier apart from a nuclear-tipped torpedo from a submarine.”

  “Yes. I see that. But why Adnam?”

  “Who are our enemies around the Arabian Gulf? The list is small. Iran. Iraq. Libya. Maybe Syria. A couple of rather shaky factions in Egypt and Pakistan. Not really Russia anymore, nor even China. You would then have to say that Libya and Syria simply would not have had the right skills. Nor would Egypt, nor Pakistan. Which leaves Iran and Iraq.”

  “And what’s that got to do with Adnam?”

  “I was rather hoping you might elaborate on that for us,” said Baldridge.

  “That’s an easy one.”

  “It is?”

  “Yes. You’ve left out one of your prime suspects.”

  “We have? Who?”

  “Israel.”

  “Israel! Christ, we finance ’em, don’t we?”

  “Gratitude, Bill, is like beauty, usually in the eye of the beholder. There is a very strong right-wing faction in that country—its most extreme b
ranch took out the Prime Minister seven years ago. They have never forgiven the Americans for allowing Saddam Hussein to bombard them with those Scud missiles during the Gulf War.

  “America, remember, made a promise to Israel. Bush told them that if they would not retaliate for the Scuds, he would take care of Saddam once and for all. Well, I know that in the end the Americans decided, perhaps wisely, to leave Saddam alone. But there are some very angry people in Israel. People who believe, fervently, that no enemy should be allowed to attack Israel in any way whatsoever without paying the most terrible price.

  “These are people who believe, like Margaret Thatcher, that at the very least, Saddam’s military equipment should have been either confiscated or destroyed, and that his bloody Army should have been made to surrender in complete humiliation. Well, President Bush funked it. Saddam actually claimed victory…no amount of American financial cooperation is ever going to erase those events from a true Israeli’s mind.”

  “Well, I know that, sir. But what possible mileage could there be for them in wiping out a U.S. carrier?”