H.M.S. Unseen

by Patrick Robinson

  The White House.

  Arnold Morgan gazed at the communication from the Icelandic listening station, which George Morris had faxed over from Fort Meade. The admiral looked at the time the American surveillance team had picked up the transient contact: 1245. Jesus! Twenty minutes ago. Not bad. He walked over to his big, sloping, chart desk, upon which the light was permanently on, and checked the position.

  He took his calipers and made some measurements, muttering to himself constantly. “Something out there on 20 West, way south opposite the west of Ireland…could he be out there? And if he is, what the hell’s he doing? It’s seventeen days now since Starstriker went down…but this signal is telling me the guys at Keflavik think they may just have detected a diesel-electric, and that bastard’s in one.

  “Let’s see…uh-huh, he could be in that position very easily. But why’s he in such a goddamned hurry? What’s he doing running his boat at a speed like that for eleven whole minutes? He must know we might get onto him. Beats the hell outta me, but he must think it’s worth it.

  “He’s too far north to be after another supersonic airliner. And there’s not many warships out there. It really beats the hell out of me. But what do I know? Not much, except he got two supersonics, and he might be after a third. That’s not much, but it’s a whole lot more than some of these other assholes around here know.”

  He buzzed Kathy, and asked her if there was anything he could reasonably offer her to acquire a cup of coffee. “I’m up for anything, dinner tonight, marriage, undying love…whatever pleases you. BLACK WITH BUCKSHOT, DINGBATS!”

  Kathy shook her head, fixed him some coffee, and walked into his office. And there she found her boss and future husband, hunched over a map of the North Atlantic, pressing the buttons of a small calculator. “He coulda gotten there…no doubt…and since George couldn’t find a trace of another diesel-electric boat within hundreds of miles…and since even the Brits haven’t the first idea who it might be…I guess that’s gotta be him, right?”

  “Right,” said Kathy. “Here, drink this. Shall I presume you are still searching for your phantom Arab submariner?”

  “I’m not sure I haven’t found the sonofabitch,” he growled. “At least a very sharp young man in Iceland may have found him.”

  “Iceland!” said Kathy. “I thought he was an Arab, not an Eskimo.”

  Admiral Morgan smiled. “No. They just caught a noise they thought might be a submarine up there. Pretty vague but plausible for the man I seek. He gives away nothing, if he can help it. And he ain’t given us much this time either.”

  By 0820, he had finished his coffee and was preparing to attend a meeting in Bob MacPherson’s office, when the phone rang. It was Admiral Morris again from Fort Meade.

  “Arnold? George. Air Force Three’s down in the Atlantic. No survivors. It was hit by a missile. The pilot saw it, and he had time to broadcast it. I got a recording. Last known position 53 North, 20 West. I’m sticking right here.”

  Admiral Morgan felt the blood draining from his face. His mouth went dry, and there was a tremble deep within him. He could find no words. He just stood in the middle of the room, in total shock. Kathy O’Brien came back through the door, and she thought he was having a heart attack. “My God! Arnold, what’s the matter? Here, come and sit down.”

  The admiral walked to his desk and sat down with his head in his hands. “Just please tell me if you’re ill,” she said. “Shall I get a doctor?”

  “No. No. I’m okay. But I just heard Air Force Three has been hit by a guided missile, right where I’m guessing Adnam is, on the chart. The Boeing’s down in the North Atlantic. No survivors.”

  “Holy Mary, Mother of God,” said the Irish redhead. “Please tell me this is a joke. Was Martin on board?”

  “The whole team was on board. Al Jaxtimer had time to broadcast. He saw the missile that killed everyone.”

  Just then the admiral’s private line to the Oval Office lit up red, the signal for the national security advisor to report to the President immediately. Arnold Morgan pulled on his jacket, grabbed the chart he had been working on, and walked swiftly to the private office of the Chief Executive.

  The great man was alone, pacing the room, his face, like the admiral’s, displayed only numb shock and sadness. However, he had not summoned his senior security advisor to join him in grief. And Admiral Morgan knew that. Before the door was closed, he heard the President say, “Well, Arnold, that’s that. You were right. That theory of yours has panned out. There’s someone out there shooting down airliners. I don’t think any reasonable person could arrive at any other conclusion.”

  “Nossir. And they have to be doing it from a submarine. And there’s only one submarine that could be doing it, and that’s the missing one from the Royal Navy. As you know, sir, in my opinion there’s also only one man who could be doing it. And he’s not as dead as we thought.”

  The admiral laid out his Navy chart on the table. And he pointed at longitude 20 West. “Twenty minutes before Air Force Three was hit, sir, right down here, our listening station in Iceland picked him up on SOSUS. They couldn’t be accurate about position, and the boat was too far away to put up engine lines. But they thought it worth reporting as a possible submarine running through the water, I should think quite fast, for eleven minutes only. It had to be him, sir….”

  Just then, one of the private phones rang, and the president picked it up. Then he handed it to the admiral. “It’s for you.”

  “Morgan. Hi, George…yup…yup…what was it?…merchant ship…Jesus Christ! We’re gonna have trouble keeping this one quiet.”

  He replaced the receiver, and said, “This is developing into an even bigger horror story. A British merchant ship in the area, running 20 miles due south of the datum, reported in on the air-sea rescue band, that they saw the smoke trails from two missiles, one of which seemed to have exploded right above the water. Then they saw a much longer trail going very high…. Then they thought they saw fire and wreckage falling toward the water. They’re heading into the area right now. That means the Irish and Brits know something diabolical has happened.”

  “They’re right, too. It has. But you and I alone, Arnold, cannot have the luxury of grief. Not right now. We have to get this into line. And we have to stop this sonofabitch. I mean…. Jesus…he can’t just park himself in the middle of the Atlantic and keep firing missiles at passenger jets.”

  “Yes he can, sir. He can in that submarine. It’s just like the Russian Kilo. If he stays deep and slow, we might not find him in a year. Not if he can find a way to refuel without us catching him…which he obviously has done, several times already. If he can find his way to relatively shallow inshore waters, which is what that submarine was designed for, we might never find him. The ocean’s just too fucking big, and that boat is too damned stealthy.”

  “Arnold, there has to be a way.”

  “Sir, whether there’s a way or not, we sure as hell have to try. I was about to call Joe Mulligan and give him the new search datum. I’m assuming the Royal Navy is sending in a couple of ships to try and locate whatever floating wreckage there may be. I’m afraid we’re running out of deep-submergence submarines. At this rate we need a new one every couple of weeks. Do you have to broadcast, sir?”

  “I’m not certain. But I guess so. Tonight.”

  “Well, sir, I better go and establish who knows what, and who has already said what to whom. Will we reconvene in, say, one hour.”

  “Yes. Come right back here…make it ten o’clock. Give me a little time to chat with Dick Stafford and Harcourt. Jesus, this is unbelievable.”

  The admiral’s inquiries seemed to be overtaken by a new development every five minutes. But he noted the hard, salient facts down in his log in the manner of an ex–nuclear submarine commander.

  261304(GMT)FEB06. 53N, 20W app. Air Force Three hit by guided missile fired from sea level. Destroyed. Plainly no survivors.

  Oceanic Control, Shannon,
has tape of Colonel Jaxtimer’s voice confirming missile sighting. Tape removed by station chief in accordance with international airline agreements. Now held securely, pending arrival of U.S. ambassador from Dublin and U.S. naval attaché from London.

  Shannon alerted all air-sea rescue networks to crash. They estimate it took place 470 miles due west of Galway.

  The Irish and British press found out that Air Force Three was down at approximately 1330GMT. U.S. press picked up news flashes 1340 (GMT), 0840 (EST).

  Gander ATC not involved. AF3 had not yet checked in.

  One Irish operator, and one supervisor heard Colonel Jaxtimer’s last words. Both men reputedly senior, and reliable, and bound by classified-information rules inherent in their job. Nonetheless, they know, and they are not under our control.

  British merchant ship saw two missile smoke trails. Broadcast this information on air-sea rescue networks. May have been heard by several ships, but we have not located any ships in the area. British captain bound for Cardiff docks, South Wales.

  MOD, Whitehall, unhopeful of cast-iron secrecy even if no one else did hear merchantman’s broadcast. But the captain will be met in Cardiff by MI5 agents, plus reps from U.S. Embassy, London. The captain was ex–Royal Navy, former surface ship lieutenant, which is hopeful.

  Assessment of chances of keeping the missile attack secret—not high. We must plan for it to leak out inside a week.

  Assessment press angle when they find out—they’ll go for terrorism since we are not at war.

  At which point the admiral closed his book, and called Admiral Mulligan for the third time in forty-five minutes.

  “Hi, Arnold. We got two L.A.-Class boats up that way, both attached to the John C Stennis CVBG. They’ve been heading north up the Atlantic for a few days now, but they’re within twelve hours of the datum. I put the whole group on high alert. But we have no idea which way the submarine will run…north, south, east, or west.”

  “I know. It’s a fucking frustration, right?”

  “Yeah. That, and the fact that in twelve hours, even if he’s only making 5 knots, deep and quiet, he’s still going to be somewhere in a circle radius of 60 miles, or, somewhere in the middle of 10,000 square miles. If he makes a fast run for it, which I don’t think he’ll do because of SOSUS, you could very quickly double that.”

  “Why do you think they heard him, Joe, just before he fired?”

  “I’d say he wasn’t happy with his position off track, and with the Boeing charging in toward him, he had to make his adjustment very fast. He took the risk, ran the boat flat out to get into the best firing position, and they caught him. But then he went slow again. And they never heard him again.”

  “You know the problem with this bastard, Joe? He’s a perfectionist in a submarine. Hardly ever takes a chance, never makes a mistake. I must say I’m filled with foreboding about this…but we have to catch him, Joe. I’m just afraid he’ll strike again before we do.”

  8

  THE DEATH OF MARTIN BECKMAN WAS A STAGGERING blow to the morale of the Western world. The United States was stunned, coast to coast, and it was the kind of public grief hitherto reserved for John F. Kennedy, and his brother Robert, and for Martin Luther King, Jr. For men whose vision had given great swaths of the populace a reason for hope, and optimism. No Vice President in the entire history of the nation had ever come close, in death, to causing such a widespread outpouring of mass despair. In London, the former New Jersey senator had touched a chord of high, unselfish principle and reasoned promise, just as the Kennedy brothers, and the Reverend King did, most every time they spoke publicly.

  Late Sunday afternoon, in churches of every denomination, all over the country, services were concluded with renderings of John Lennon’s everlasting song. And all through that night, thousands and thousands of ordinary American people would keep a candlelit peace vigil outside the White House. By six o’clock the vast crowd was already massed all the way back to the Washington Monument. Huddled together in coats, parkas, scarves, gloves, and fur hats, they crowded the icy acres of West Potomac Park, along the Reflecting Pool, right to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. And each time the bells of nearby St. John’s Church behind the White House tolled out the hour, a thunderous chorus of the dead Vice President’s beloved anthem lifted up through the black winter skies of the American capital…. “ALL WE ARE SA-A-YING is GIVE PEACE A CHANCE.”

  Martin Beckman had touched the soul of a nation. Those people, gathered on that freezing evening, believed that somewhere out there, perhaps on the mystic foothills of heaven’s Mount Olympus, the Great Champion of Peace still stood tall. And they believed that his voice would never be silenced, just as the voice of the Reverend King had never died away. They believed the memory of Martin Beckman would always remind the most powerful nations of an iron-clad world, to listen to his plea…for the plight of the Third World poor, in the name of God, to the plain, heartrending face of stark, human misery.

  Perhaps in death, the Vice President’s avowed cause would grow even greater. But back in the Oval Office, where the President, his national security advisor, Bob MacPherson, and Admirals Dunsmore and Mulligan, wracked their collective brains, the talk was not of peace. It involved the massed resources of the United States Armed Forces taking up secret battle stations against the great underwater terrorist from a distant desert.

  It was Secretary of State Harcourt Travis who would now bring the voice of the cold-blooded detective to the meeting. Apprised that evening, once again, of the suspicions of Admirals Morgan and Mulligan, this time he did not dissent, but he did suggest an organized short list of suspects be produced, just to demonstrate, if necessary, that things were not being run in a haphazard way.

  Admiral Morgan’s face betrayed a hint of irritation as he replied, “I got it right here, Harcourt. Been updating it every four hours for three weeks. I’ll read it to you and give you a copy. Sometimes I forget that politicians spend at least a third of their time covering their asses. In my game you don’t always have time for that.”

  “If this situation should somehow get out of hand, you might be grateful to me,” replied the Secretary of State, smiling thinly.

  The national security advisor grinned back, no more warmly. “Goddamned bureaucrat,” he muttered. “Now pay attention. There are four nations that have submarines out there, which we cannot locate at present, and have not located during the entire period of the three crashes.

  “One. A French strategic missile boat, 14,500-ton Le Temeraire, commissioned in 1999, based in Brest. She’s probably on patrol in the Bay of Biscay, but we discount her as a suspect. We’d have picked her up if she’d been in the middle of the Atlantic.

  “Two. The Royal Navy has a Trident SSBN out there somewhere, HMS Vengeance. She’s bigger, 16,000 tons, also commissioned in 1999. If we ask the Brits where she is, they’ll tell us, but I don’t think that’s necessary in the light of our close association with them in this matter.

  “Three. The Russians have two that we cannot locate. The first is TK-17. That’s one of those 21,000-ton Typhoons out of the Northern fleet, Litsa Guba. She was damaged by fire in 1994, but they repaired her. She’s a strategic missile boat. Most unlikely, but possible, although I’m damned sure we’da got her if she’d been in the area. The other is a Delta IV, K-18, 13,500 tons, out of Saida Guba, again the Northern fleet. We’ll probably pick her up in the next few days. She’s another strategic missile boat, and no more likely to have avoided detection than the Typhoon. But I am planning to touch base with Moscow tomorrow, just to check.

  “Four. China also has one missing, her newest, 093. She’s a medium-sized 6,500-ton cruise missile attack boat commissioned in 2003. Received a new missile system up in Huladao back in 1998. But she’s based on the other side of the world. I suppose this is a possibility, but highly unlikely. That Chinese boat is way behind Western technology, and would be even less likely than the Russian Delta to avoid SOSUS. And I doubt the Chinese would wa
nna operate so close to us and so far from home. Remember, in the past two or three years, they have lost…er…some of their…er…top guys.”

  Admiral Morgan then paused, and he peered over the half spectacles he used for reading. He was peering at the United States Secretary of State. “The other possibility, Mr. Travis,” he said, elaborately, “is called HMS Unseen. And for me, she’s fucking well named.”

  “Thank you, Arnold. Just checking,” he replied, brightly, still smiling.

  The President then asked the critical question. “How long do you think we have, to locate and destroy this fucking submarine before the world starts to speculate, then finds out about it? ”

  “Not long, sir,” Admirals Morgan and Mulligan answered in unison. And the national security advisor added, “In my view probably less than two weeks. I think the media will stick to their theory that there’s a ‘Bermuda Triangle’ out on the edge of space…until it finally sinks in that Air Force Three was downed from a much lower altitude, in a very different place. Then they’re going to try and connect all three crashes in some other way…all with big U.S. interests. No other nation harmed, except the Brits, who are considered by our enemies anyway to be the fifty-first state. All the flights were easy to locate by departure times etc….

  “Then there’s going to be one tiny whisper out of somewhere that Concorde’s pilot tried to shout ‘MISSILE.’ Then there’ll be a tiny leak of the last call from Air Force Three. Then there’ll be a barrage of inquiries demanding to know if there was anywhere the missile could have been fired from. Then the captain of that merchant ship will sell his story to a tabloid and the headline will read: ‘WERE ALL THREE AIRCRAFT SHOT DOWN BY MISSILES?’ Then one of the defense correspondent guys will actually wonder whether it could have been launched from a disappearing submarine.

  “At which point we would have to run the risk of looking very, very foolish if we dismiss that as a possibility. That’s a worst-case scenario, but we want to be ready.”