H.M.S. Unseen

by Patrick Robinson

  Ben’s plan was proceeding, as usual, with the inevitably of sunrise over the desert. This was not a drastic message, just one of several reports sent out on a daily basis. And it scored a bull’s-eye, ending up in the hands of Chuck Mitchell, an Arab-speaking American from Boston, who operated under deep cover in the main telegraph and fax office on the east side of Rashid Street.

  Chuck had two messages that evening. The first was from Kuwait, which quoted an inquiry about missile test-firing in the marshes, east of the Tigris. The second message was from the CIA man in Jordan, asking baldly: Anything on Iraqi missile tests in the marshes near Qal At Salih? It added that there had been an inquiry from HQ.

  The CIA man had heard nothing. But that did not mean nothing was happening. He contacted another CIA field man in Baghdad, Hussein Hakim, a recruit of some twelve years, and they arranged to meet at 2000 in a dingy coffeehouse in the poor south part of the city, both in Arab dress.

  Hakim was late because he thought, neurotically, that he might have a tail, but it turned out to be a false alarm. He finally found Chuck, who was also getting nervous, at 2045. They did not wish to spend long together, and the conversation was terse. Yes, the idea of a big missile-testing program somewhere new was serious. But no, neither of them could work on it specifically. Best just to keep their ears to the ground and hope the satellites could find something.

  Chuck Mitchell sent a signal back confirming he was on the case, requesting a better feel for urgency and/or need for confirmation. He was not optimistic, and his communication reached the desk of the CIA’s Middle East chief, Jeff Austin, shortly before lunch. He read it and ruminated on the endless problem of Iraq. If it was not one thing, it was another. That damned nation had practically caused a world war fifteen years ago, and since then there had been nothing but problems…possible nuclear weapons, possible chemical weapons, possible nerve gas being used on the Kurds again.

  Not to mention, of course, the vaporizing of the Thomas Jefferson in the high summer of 2002. This was also plainly the work of Baghdad, and it had hitherto gone unpunished. Now the Iraqis were testing, in secret apparently, new antiaircraft missiles down in the marshes. There were two big questions: Where did they get them? What did they plan to do with them?

  Jeff Austin’s antennae were up. And he hit the secure line to Admiral Morgan’s office. The two men talked for about ten minutes without reaching any major conclusions, save to keep a very careful watch on any activities by the Iraqi military in the marshes, and to be extra vigilant with the satellite cover in that area.

  “Fucking towelheads,” growled the admiral, as he replaced the telephone. “That’s all we need. The Marsh Arabs with a nuclear deterrent. Holy shit. How about the fucking Incas? What about the Eskimos?”

  What the admiral did not know was that the only missile of any significance that had been fired in the Middle East that year, was the big Grumble Rif in the Gulf of Iran a few days previously. But Commander Adnam had chosen his site well, way offshore, hundreds of miles from any city, and fairly close to the Iran/Iraq border. And it was all over in seventy seconds. There might have been the occasional amateur astronomer who thought he saw a flash in the sky. Possibly a group of tribesmen in the hills who thought it might be the end of the world. But no country had reported a downed plane, no one had seen a missile take off. No one had reported anything. Bar Adnam.

  Meanwhile back at the Bandar Abbas Naval Base, a team of engineers was working on the new weapons system for HMS Unseen. Commander Adnam intended the system should be fitted as a self-contained unit, possibly as high as the top of the fin, bolted into place in an airtight and waterproof “box” and connected just by wires to the fairly basic control system already installed in the submarine.

  It was cumbersome but ingenious, and Ben Adnam had already proved, to himself at least, that it would work to devastating effect. Inside the huge dry dock, the bolt holes were being drilled into the casing and into the stern end of the fin. By late August the missile system would be completely modified for its new and relatively simple task. Not even the Russians had the remotest clue as to what was happening in the dry dock. No one knew what the thick rubber cable connectors were for, as the engineers gunned them into place on the aft section of the deck.

  Commander Adnam and Admiral Badr were constant visitors, waiting for the day when the heavy-load-lifting apparatus would hoist the massive “extra fin” into place. That happened on September 14, and when it was completely fixed, five days later, they pumped the water level as high as possible and submerged Unseen to the bottom of the deep dock. The water still only covered the fin by about 8 feet, but it was enough to check over several hours that she was watertight at periscope depth. That was critical, as important as the test results at deeper depths, when the whole system would be pressurized inside.

  The seals held perfectly, not a drop of water entered the “box.” Then they deliberately overpressurized it internally, to two atmospheres. No bubbles emerged, and there was a smile on the face of Ben Adnam.

  The workshop was quieter. Only the electronics engineers were still working, calmly checking circuits as the system depressurized.

  That afternoon, as they walked into the dock, Commander Adnam said softly to Admiral Badr, “Soon, my friend, both your revenge and mine will be complete.”

  And he gazed with the utmost satisfaction at the submarine he had personally stolen from the Royal Navy, the submarine that would very soon launch an attack the like of which had never been seen in the entire history of naval warfare.

  He did not, however, linger for very long. He had been busy all day, and that night he wanted to pray, and to ask the forgiveness of his God.

  5

  January 16, 2006.

  Baku, the capital city of Azerbaijan.

  THE GOOD-BYES WERE CORDIAL, BUT NO MORE. THE six-man negotiating team from Russia had been noncommittal throughout. The Chinese were polite but remote. And the Iranians wore the complacent smiles of those who hold all the aces and three of the kings. Four visiting Arabian sheikhs, an Al-Sabah from Kuwait, a Salman from Saudi Arabia, Hamdan Al-Maktoum from Dubai, and a representative of the emir of Bahrain, had been, like the others, essentially disinterested in the outcome of the meeting.

  Bob Trueman, the six-foot-five-inch Texan leader of the United States delegation, had rarely attempted such an uphill struggle. At 384 pounds, with a tendency to sweat like a wild boar, he gravitated toward flat, even ground, both physically and mentally. Mountainous roads, without his Lincoln Continental, were not his thing. He even made his home in the great flatlands of the eastern shore of Maryland, where once he took his wife Anne for a walk, along the sprawling goose-hunting marshes. “’Bout thirty years ago, I think…before the boys were born anyway. Probably the last real exercise I ever took.”

  And Baku, this strange half-Muslim city that sits on the south shore of the great beak-shaped Apsheron Peninsula on the Caspian Sea, had proved to be a pinnacle too far for the mighty Bob Trueman. In his opinion there was no way the United States was going to win the mounting global struggle for the vast oil reserves surrounding the region.

  It was all too damned late. That was the trouble. The goddamned White House and Congress had fiddled while Central Asia had, in a sense, burned; right in front of their eyes. And, in Bob Trueman’s opinion, That damned President with the loose zipper ought never to have been elected…just sat there…that sonofabitch…attending to his personal problems while the rest of the industrialized Western world edged closer to the brink…and now look what’s happened.

  In Bob’s view, the entire idea of this three-day conference had been nothing less than a Sino-Iranian strategy to humiliate the U.S. The Russians, the Chinese, and the Iranians, thrown together now, as never before in the entire history of Asia and the Middle East, formed a lethal oil cartel that had effectively shut the West out of the second largest reserves on earth.

  “All we need now is for the Iranians to have another shot at
blockading the Gulf with their fucking Russian mines, and there could just as easily be a war,” he muttered. “A real shooting war. Because if we cannot tap into the Caspian reserves, and the Gulf gets closed, even for a month, the whole fucking place is going to grind to a halt…Japan…Europe…and the U.S.”

  But these were personal fears. And Bob’s mission in Baku was public. This huge, bearlike, but deceptively cunning American, smiled and shook the hand of his Russian host. And he wished a warm farewell to his old trusted friend Sheikh Hamdan, and to young Mohammed Al-Sabah. To the Iranians he was courteous, wishing profoundly that there was some way, somehow, that the U.S. could participate in the marketing of the Caspian oil. But as he knew only too well, the pipeline across Iran would be financed essentially by China. The only other pipeline was going to China. In brief, the Iranians had gone for the shutout, and they’d made it.

  The problem was, how to get back in. And now Bob Trueman faced the smiling head of the Iranian delegation, and the two men shook hands. They both knew there was a price the U.S. might have to pay, and they both knew it would be way too high—like finance a whole pipeline, in return for access to 20 percent of the crude oil. Only Bob Trueman knew that Congress might just have to bite the bullet on that one and pay up. The balance of oil supplies these days was just too delicately poised.

  He told the Iranian that he had greatly enjoyed his visit to the old Persian city of Baku, and that the mild winter climate had been more than agreeable. He thanked him for the tour of the historic Muslim part of the city, which dates back to the ninth century. And he remarked how impressed he had been at the smooth working of this, the largest cargo port on the Caspian Sea. “Just wish you guys could find a way for us to help out somehow,” he said.

  “Mr. Trueman, as you well know, in the years between 1996 and the new millennium we would have welcomed your help. But your administration chose not even to speak to us. I am sure you, of all people, must understand we had to turn elsewhere….”

  “I do understand…and I am sorry that old enmities should have lasted so long…I guess we just had a President who thought he was still trying to get the hostages free in Tehran, eighteen years later.”

  “We thought it showed a lack of foresight, Mr. Trueman. There were so many people in my country who wanted a partnership with the West…so many who wanted to join in the prosperity of the West. But you would never listen to the voices of reason that have always existed here in Persia. We’re not all Muslim Fundamentalists, you know.”

  “I do know that…and I just wish things could be different…but…well…you hold the aces. The best way out to market for that oil is straight across Iran to a Gulf port…and we coulda built that pipeline quicker and better than anyone.”

  “If, Mr. Trueman, you had condescended to speak to us.” The Iranian smiled. “By the way, when do you leave? I have much enjoyed talking with you.”

  “We got a U.S. Air Force plane taking us to London in two hours. Then we’re flying the Concorde home tomorrow morning…new service, nonstop London–New York, then on down to Washington. Probably takes that sucker about sixteen minutes to get there.”

  “It’s a beautiful aircraft, Mr. Trueman. I have always wished to fly on it one day myself.”

  “Mr. Montazeri, if you can come up with a way to bring my country into the marketing of the Caspian oil, I will have my government hire one of those babies, just for you, and fly you from Tehran to Washington to celebrate.”

  “I will continue to think about it,” replied the Iranian, laughing. “But the Chinese are very well entrenched now. As we both know, they invested billions and billions of dollars in acquiring the oil, helping us finance the pipeline….”

  “Guess so. And, of course, they need so much oil. What’s that statistic again? By the year 2012 they will require 97 percent of all the oil in the Gulf?”

  “So the economists say, Mr. Trueman. And since Beijing cannot have all of that, I suppose they will have to purchase it from somewhere else.”

  “I’m a little afraid they’ve already done that,” replied the American. “So far as I can see, the entire production of Kazakhstan is on its way to the east. And there’s not a thing we can do about it…thanks to the shrewd and farsighted way our last President helped to make them the second richest country in the world.”

  “No, Mr. Trueman. I do not believe there is.”

  Everyone was standing, making their farewells in the tall, ornate government conference room, and Bob Trueman’s men were beginning to move toward the massive bulk of their leader. His assistant, Steve Dimauro, the physical opposite of his boss, was whipcord slim, a former All-Star college baseball shortstop out of Vidalia, Georgia. Made it to the Yankees AAA in a big hurry, but lacked the patience, and maybe the size, for the final journey to the Bronx. Steve, with his degree in economics, quit in his third year as a pro and joined the oil giant ARCO, where Bob Trueman was already a towering hero, having masterminded the huge strike in the desert of southern Dubai back in 1980.

  Now, seven years later, the thirty-year-old Dimauro was one of ARCO’s young tigers, and his association with the formidable ex-VP Trueman, leader of all current Presidential missions to the Middle East, was powering him ever onward and upward in the corporate structure. ARCO was more than happy to lease him out for a year to gain priceless knowledge of the Russo-Sino-Iranian cartel, which today had so much influence in the running of the industrial world. When Steve returned he would do so as a vice president.

  Bob and Steve were accompanied by four United States Republican congressmen, Jim Adison (California), Edmund Walter (New Hampshire), Mark Bachus (Delaware) and Dan Baylor (Texas). En route to the airport they traveled in two separate limousines, one for the two ARCO men and the former oil professional Dan Baylor. The other for the other three congressmen.

  There was no particular hurry, but the driver was surprised at Bob Trueman’s instruction for a first stop at the new McDonald’s that had opened in downtown Baku. “Just wanna pop right in there for a coupla of Big Macs,” he said. “I often do that in the midafternoon, kinda stabilizes my weight, keeps it right where it is. At my age you don’t wanna start losing, suddenly. That ain’t real good for you.”

  “You mean between lunch and dinner?” inquired Congressman Baylor.

  “Right. You see I’m a guy with a big bulk,” said Bob seriously, but unnecessarily. “And given the pressure of my work, that bulk is under attack from my own body. That means in about eight hours I could be undergoing some weight loss. Now that wouldn’t affect a little guy like yourself,” he added, staring at the beefy six-foot Texan’s 225-pound frame. “But a big man’s gotta do what a big man’s gotta do. And right now, that’s weight maintenance. McDonald’s, driver.”

  Bob Trueman was still munching cheerfully as they arrived at the airport and boarded the Air Force jet for the six-hour flight to London that would get them in at 1900 local, in ample time for dinner, overnight at the Connaught Hotel, and breakfast with four American oil execs based in London. And on out to Heathrow for the 1100 departure of Concorde. By the time they boarded he was not only still chewing, but was also still grumbling about the shocking lack of foresight the West had demonstrated with regard to the Caspian oil.

  “Even back in 1997,” he was saying, “it was known that the Caspian reserves in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan added up to a vast field second only in capacity to the big one in Saudi Arabia. With the Chinese desperate to plug in to it, what does the West do? It does four things.

  “One, our President decides to do everything he possibly can to make the Chinese even richer…most favored nation, export anything they want to the U.S. Hand over key aeronautical technology to them, in return for our being allowed to export to them. Whatever makes them happy.

  “Two, he decides not to speak to the Iranians, thus denying us a partnership in the best oil route out of the Caspian area.

  “Three, the Americans decide to expand NATO east, but not to all
ow Russia in, thus driving China’s traditional enemy straight back into her arms, now as a friend and vital trading partner. Not to mention the head honcho in the Caspian oil. China’s new best friend is the precise spot we don’t want her.

  “Four, the Europeans, with a blinding flash of brilliance, decide to refuse membership in the European Community to the Turks, who, because of the Bosporus, own the only other way out for oil tankers from the Caspian.”

  He stared at his five-man audience. “Is there anyone here who can enlighten me as to where precisely we get these fuck-ups who are supposed to be looking after the interests of the West. Anyone? Please…?”

  There were just five grim smiles on that aircraft, as the bludgeoning words of the massive Texan struck home. The lethargic behavior of the Western powers had been close to blind neglect, as China, in partnership with Iran, and the Russian oil corporations, had placed a stranglehold on the Caspian oil. It was not as if there had been any secrets.

  There had been a huge public announcement when Iran had bought a 10 percent share, back in 1996. In 1997 there was another press announcement that China had wrapped up a deal with Kazakhstan for future exploration of the apparently endless oil fields in the western part of the country.

  The Chinese National Petroleum Company (CNPC), under this agreement immediately invested more than $4 billion in the “exploitation” of the Aktyubinsk field—principally for the construction of a pipeline to ship oil from western Kazakhstan to Turkmenistan, and potentially, farther on to Iran.”

  Earlier that same week China had signed another four-billion-dollar deal for the exploitation of the nearby Ozen field. “This arrangement,” Beijing suggested, “may even conclude with a new pipeline direct to China, because of our determination to find secure oil supplies to meet soaring domestic demand.”

  “Right there a three-year-old panda could’ve worked out what was happening,” grunted Bob Trueman. “And right in the middle of it we have an ever-aggressive Iran, not just threatening but actually telling everyone they plan to blockade the Gulf with mines, because the seaway belongs to them. So there we have it. The Gulf might close altogether, at least until we and the Western Allies can blow the bastard open again…and now we’re locked out of the other big world oil supply. Everyone in the industry could see it coming. And what did we do? Nothing. A great big zero. And now this. Fuck me.”