H.M.S. Unseen

by Patrick Robinson

  Monday morning, March 6, found Ben Adnam still ensconced in the Rosslea Hall Hotel, still resting, but shaved and comfortable, operating under the name of Ben Arnold. His plan was to lie low for a month. He needed to find a quiet place, miles from anywhere, where he could rest, think, and walk, regaining his composure and fitness. Because just then, with his mind in a turmoil, he judged himself to be “no good to anyone.” He could not even go home. He had no home. There was not even an office he could call. Any phone call, any journey, was, for him, fraught with peril. All he needed was time to think, because he required, unlike other men, a completely new life. And that, he guessed, might be pretty hard to come by.

  Five months in a submarine had played havoc with his sense of well-being. He was anxious to get into shape and bought himself a new pair of training shoes, a track suit, sweatpants, and a guidebook to the Highlands. What he really needed was a guidebook to the universe, because the boundaries of this earth were extremely confining to an ex–Navy officer with Ben Adnam’s track record.

  He studied the guidebook all through his dinner in the hotel. And by 2200 he had drawn up a short list. Ben retired to his room at 2245, poured himself a glass of whiskey, and sat down to make a decision. Half an hour later, he made it. He would rent a car for cash from a local garage. And he would drive up to a little village named Strachur, on the Cowal Peninsula. And there he would check into Creggans Inn, right on the eastern shore of Loch Fyne. It was a place he had been to, long ago, and he remembered it well, with its awesome views across the lonely water. They had dined there on the night he had passed his Submarine Commanding Officers Course. So far as he could recall it was possibly the happiest night of his entire life.

  He was not experienced in matters of the heart, and every instinct he had told him there was no point ever going back. Nothing was ever the same, or could ever be the same. There were so many things he had never said, wished he had said, and would never say. And returning to the place where once they had been so content would make matters, probably, appreciably worse.

  She was gone. And she had been gone for several years—five at least since they had spoken. He knew she had married a wealthy Scottish landowner. They had seen each other twice since then. But surely a return to Creggans could do nothing except enhance his sadness and highlight the fact that life held little promise for him. The longer he was alone, the worse the depression became. Few people had ever compiled such a personal record as he had…rejected and betrayed by the only three employers he had ever had, all of whom had tried to assassinate him. He had no home, no future, no love, no relatives nor friends. And a past that would surely devour him in the end.

  Nonetheless, he picked up the telephone and booked himself into Creggans Inn for a month. He informed the receptionist that he was a South African, mainly because he always carried a South African passport, along with those of Iran and Turkey. For this journey he also had a four-year-old British passport, but had not, thus far, used it.

  He checked out of the Rosslea Hall Hotel when the garage brought his car, for which he gave them £300 in cash, the other £300 due when he returned it in a month. It was a six-year-old metallic blue Audi A8, with 70,000 miles on the odometer, but it ran well, and the garage mechanic had not even bothered to check his British license, which had been carefully forged for him in Egypt a few years previously, under the name Benjamin Arnold, like his Helensburgh bank account and two of his passports.

  It was a little over 30 miles around the lochs to Strachur, and Ben drove it slowly, especially the first part, running north up the east bank of the Gareloch, the dark familiar waters in which he had so often driven submarines. He ran through the Argyll Forest Park along the A83 much quicker, before slowing down again, dawdling along the bank of Loch Fyne, looking for the big white house on the far bank, where once, and once only, he had been a guest. That, too, he remembered as if it had been yesterday.

  He checked into the renowned warm and comfortable inn and sat by the fire in the bar. He had chicken sandwiches for lunch and sipped orange juice, while he read The Scotsman. And in the pages of that venerable journal, on a misty Monday morning, he found two items that took up a considerable amount of space.

  The first was on the front page, from which the unsmiling faces of two soldiers stared out. On the left was Lieutenant Christopher Larkman, and on the right was Corporal Tommy Lawson. The headline read:

  OFFICER AND CORPORAL MISSING

  IN ST. KILDA MYSTERY

  The story went on to detail the Army search that had been going on throughout the island all weekend. It quoted the officer in charge, Captain Peter Wimble, confessing that everyone was completely baffled by the disappearance of the two men with their Land Rover. “They did not have a boat,” he said. “Anyway, it’s more or less impossible to land on St. Kilda at this time of the year without a military landing craft. Which means they must be either on the island or in the ocean. And we now know they are not on the island. Which, I am afraid, leaves only the ocean. Though how, or why, or where, we cannot say.”

  The story concluded with the statement that the Army did not believe either of the two men could still be alive, but that the search would continue along the shore, beneath the cliffs, weather permitting.

  The second item, inside on page three, concerned a missing fishing boat, the Flower of Scotland. And the newspaper treated it as another mystery, that the harbormaster at Mallaig had lost contact with the boat in the small hours of last Thursday morning, March 2. This was not altogether unusual, since radio failures can occur anytime. But there was now concern for Captain Gregor Mackay and his crew, even though that very experienced master often fished deep, lonely waters out toward the Rockall Bank.

  The situation was regarded as sufficiently serious for a seaand-air search to be initiated, and the newspaper revealed, “the Royal Air Force were expected to send out two Nimrods at first light on Monday morning.”

  It was, however, the latter part of the story that interested Ben Adnam. According to the Harbormaster, the Zodiac tender from the Flower of Scotland was located on the outer edge of the Mallaig harbor on Friday morning. It was parked on a mooring used by a lobsterman with a small boat, and that lobsterman knew it had not been there when he had left the previous evening. Even more baffling, the lobsterman, Ewan MacInnes, who had spent all of his life in Mallaig, knew Gregor Mackay well and had seen him leave, two nights previously “with a foreign-looking laddie” on board. Ewan had watched them clear the harbor. The stranger was standing on the stern, he said, “right by the Zodiac.”

  Now, Ewan MacInnes was not, apparently, the world’s most reliable source. A cheerful, bearded man of fifty-five, he had a reputation as a hard drinker and a bit of a romancer. But the coast guard had grilled him, the police had grilled him, and the local newspaper reporter had grilled him. And, despite the assertion of a local landlady, that “Ewan had spent half the day in here drinking, before he sailed,” the lobsterman was adamant. No, the Zodiac had not been on his mooring when he left, “for the plain and obvious bloody reason that it was on the bloody stern of Gregor’s boat, where it always bloody well is.”

  Yes, said MacInnes, I saw it leave. And yes, the foreigner was standing next to it. And, “What’s more, I can tell you what he was wearing, a dark blue jacket, looked military, with a fur hat…”

  The Scotsman plainly believed the fishing boat was gone. On an inside feature page they ran a big speculation piece on “yet another disappearing trawler.” And they cited the ever-lurking menace to fisherman: Royal Navy submarines prowling beneath the surface. For the moment, the newspaper was prepared to disregard a different sort of menace, one which the Royal Navy also had to deal with. For now, the features department would concentrate on the age-old problem of an underwater warship hooking into a trawler’s net and dragging it down, stern first, to the bottom.

  They named all of the trawlers which had apparently suffered this fate in recent years. And they mentioned the Navy’s
reluctance ever to accept responsibility for these mishaps, unless the evidence was overwhelming. The problem was that no submarine can see the lines that hold the net, and there was a rule to deal with that…all trawler captains are supposed to station a man with an ax, on the stern, while the boat is running through the submarine roads around the Clyde estuary. If the net snags on a periscope or a mast, the drill is to sever the lines instantly and let the net go. The Navy, subject to an internal investigation, had long made it clear that they would bear the cost of new gear.

  Out at sea, in the open waters of the Atlantic Ocean, however, the issue was more complicated. A trawler could be dragged down by a submarine owned by either the Royal Navy, America, or Russia, and no one was ever much the wiser. It sometimes took a full week before anyone even realized the fishing boat was gone. And this was most certainly the case with the Flower of Scotland.

  The Scotsman had a “house list” of former Royal Navy commanders, retired but still Scottish residents, who were always good for a pithy quote. And on this occasion they took delight in quoting the former Polaris commanding officer Captain Reginald Smyth. “Oh, Christ,” he told the reporter, in his usual languid drawl. “Another one? Bloody bad luck, hmmmm? That’s the trouble with Scottish fisherman, they’re usually pissed (drunk). Couldn’t trust any of ’em to swing an ax straight—they’d probably chop their dicks off.”

  Pressed further by the reporter, Captain Smyth added: “Seriously, the chances of a submarine catching a fishing net are millions to one against. The ocean’s a very big place. But until those trawlermen understand thoroughly that it can happen, there’ll be accidents. If they want to avoid them, they must have an axman on the stern. The submarine cannot see them, and it cannot feel them if it snags the line. Only the trawler can tell something’s wrong…and they’ve got about five seconds to swing the ax. It’s damned rare, though. You can understand them not always bothering.”

  The captain got his photograph in the newspaper for that piece of intelligence. The italicized caption beneath it was a simple “quotation”: Drunken fisherman have themselves to blame. Three weeks later Reg Smyth received a mild rebuke from the Admiralty.

  Ben Adnam was contemplative. He finished his chicken sandwich and ordered a cup of coffee. And he gave due consideration to the conclusions that might arise from the evidence of Ewan MacInnes. If he is believed, he considered, then it will become obvious that someone got off the fishing boat and somehow found his way back to Mallaig. But that would be impossible given the gasoline situation. Which means, I suppose, that MacInnes cannot be believed. But a good detective would wonder. He might even wonder whether there might be a connection between the Zodiac and the missing soldiers. I hope not.

  Ben drank his coffee. Then he went up to his room and changed into his get-fit kit. He was next seen pounding along the A815 road along the loch, bound for the tiny village of St. Catherine’s, 4 miles away. Alas, he never made it. Ben gave out after 2 miles and was forced to lie down on his back on the wet grass to catch his breath. He walked back, feeling sick and sweating like a Japanese wrestler. Five months with no exercise can reduce anyone to middle age, even a man as fit as Ben Adnam once had been. And the realization of his condition made him doubly determined to get back into top shape.

  Every morning for a week, he arose at 0600, pulled on his running shoes and track suit, and pounded his way toward St. Catherine’s. Then he tried again in the afternoon. On the fifth day he made it. On the seventh, he made it there and back. By the end of the second week, he was running effortlessly to St. Catherine’s and back, twice a day, timing himself. He also took charge of his diet, eating only fresh fruit, and cereal for breakfast, grilled fish and salad for lunch, fillet steak or roast lamb, and green vegetables for dinner. Temporarily he cut out all dairy products, and drank just a half bottle of Bordeaux with his dinner.

  By Wednesday, March 29, one year to the day since he had stolen HMS Unseen, he felt that his body was back in shape. That day he abandoned the soft option of running along the A815, and instead took to the hills, running for miles in the mountainous foothills of Cruachnan Capull, which rises 1,700 feet above the loch, opposite the Duke of Fife’s Inverary Castle. For the first time in a year he felt, lean, hard-trained, and ready, if necessary, to kill to survive.

  And yet…something had happened to the mind of Benjamin Adnam. For the first time in his life he questioned the things he had done. For the first time he asked himself whether they were right? Was he really the obedient instrument of Allah, fighting for a holy cause? Or was he just the pawn of power-crazed earthly leaders, who answered to the same god as the citizens of the United States: the god of money and possessions?

  He believed in the triumph of Islam, and he believed in the cause of Fundamentalism. And yet…no man had ever done more than he, risked more than he, been more successful than he. And where had that put him? Nowhere. He was a total outcast throughout the Middle East. His massive contribution to the Jihad against the West had turned him into an Arab who was essentially stateless, with a price on his head in several countries. And the great Nation of Islam could, it appeared, offer him nothing. Not even loyalty. It could offer him only death, death by assassination, not death in battle, or in glory. Death in some back-street building at the hands of fourth-rate hired murderers. Was that a fit ending for Benjamin Adnam?

  For the first time the commander began to reflect on the crimes he had committed. He now asked himself, Were they crimes, those massive blows he had struck against The Great Satan? Not if they were executed on behalf of Allah for the greater understanding of his word. But how could he now think that? The rejection by Iraq and then by the most learned Ayatollahs of Iran must surely mean that Allah was displeased. Otherwise, his humble disciple Adnam must have received some reward, or recognition, or even an honorable death and the eternal peace of the life hereafter.

  But he had received nothing. Except treachery. And he had been responsible for the deaths of so many people, most of them entirely innocent. Thousands of American sailors and aircrew on the carrier, a packed Concorde airliner, Starstriker, the Vice President of the United States plus his entire staff. “My God, what have I really done?” The darkness came blood black for Ben Adnam on the night of March 29.

  For hour after hour, his dreams were interrupted by the searing crash of high explosive, and he awoke frequently, cradling his own head low against the pillow, sweating, trembling at the impact, haunted by his own most terrible actions against humanity. He was afraid to go to sleep, afraid even to close his eyes, because the images were too stark, too real. He could not look at the burning men in the ships he had smashed, and the engulfing red tide of his dreams was not the heavenly sunset of his aspirations. It was too dark for that. And the screams were too loud. Twice he awakened, fighting to break free of the plastic body bag that was dragging him endlessly to the bottom of the Atlantic, weighted down by a concrete block.

  He stood up, drank some water, and mopped his face with a towel. Sheer exhaustion drove him back to bed, to fitful sleep once more. But it did not last for more than a half hour. Before dawn broke over the peaceful waters of Loch Fyne, he had thrown himself violently to the side of the big double bed, gripping the sheet, trying with desperation to break free of the Army Land Rover as it plunged toward the water…gaining speed…down…down…down.

  At 0600 on March 30, the great terrorist Ben Adnam was breathless; he was shaking like a leaf; and he thought he might be losing his mind.

  While he lay quivering in his bed, on the eastern side of the loch, there was a flurry of activity on the western side, about a mile and a half to the north, in the wide sweeping front drive of the big white Georgian mansion owned by Rear Admiral Sir Iain MacLean.

  The admiral was making an early start, and he had five passengers to fit into his Range Rover: his trio of black Labradors, Fergus, Muffin, and Mr. Bumble, and his two granddaughters, Flora, age six, and Mary, age nine. The evacuation was not easy because t
he youngest of them, the eighteen-month-old Mr. Bumble, had made a rush for the loch pursued by Flora, who had fallen onto the wet grass and wrecked her trousers and coat, while ridiculous Mr. Bumble was doing a fair imitation of Mark Spitz in the freezing water.

  Lady MacLean arrived with towels, grabbed the dog from the shallows, carried him wriggling to the Range Rover, and threw him in the back with the others. Flora made her own way back, giggling and trying to restore her clothes, which was plainly impossible.

  Sir Iain said he had no time to wait, because the plane would probably be early into Glasgow from Chicago. He told Flora that only God knew what her mother would think of her, covered in mud, but that her stepfather would almost certainly laugh. Lt. Commander and Mrs. Bill Baldridge did, after all, live on a vast ranch in the state of Kansas, surrounded by grassland and the miles and miles of mud that goes with grazing pastures in winter.

  This was the first visit Bill and Laura had made to Scotland since first they had left together in the winter of 2004. Sir Iain had twice visited them in Kansas, but there had been terrible family scars caused by the brutal court battle that had taken place over the children.

  Laura MacLean, mother of two, had, at the age of thirty-four, left her banker husband, Douglas Anderson, for the American Naval officer to whom she was married. The MacLeans and the Andersons, lifelong friends, had banded together to make the girls wards of the court in Edinburgh, and absolute custody had been granted to their father.