Barracuda 945 (2003)

by Patrick Robinson

  In Washington, where the local time was exactly the same as that in Panama, Vice Admiral Morgan was still in his office talking to Kathy and on the line to the Pentagon and Fort Meade. Plainly, the Chinese had ignored his dire warnings, and he had informed both the President and the Secretary of State that the Chinese Ambassador was to be sent back to Beijing first thing in the morning.

  Lieutenant Commander Ramshawe had just called with firm photographic evidence the Barracuda had entered the Miraflores Locks shortly before half past three. The satellite picture showed it on its final approach along the narrow divided waterway on the Pacific side of the chambers. It was not under tow, yet, but its outline was the obvious shape of an old Russian Sierra I.

  "Any other photographs, Jimmy?" the Admiral asked.

  "Only one, sir. And it's a bloody awful print, taken just as it was getting dark, at the southern end of the Gatún Lake. It could very well be Old Razormouth, but there seems to be a much smaller ship right in front. Could be under tow, I suppose. But from this print, I don't think anyone could be sure. Funny thing is, I can't see one other ship anywhere along the entire length of the canal, in either direction. And it averages forty vessels a day."

  "Hmmmmm," said the Admiral. "I suppose the submarine couldn't have turned right around and headed back out into the Pacific?"

  "If she did, sir, she'd run right into the Roosevelt. And they've told the Chinese Navy to get stuffed. . . And they moved real close in several hours ago, to guard that entrance.

  "The water's much too shallow for the ole 'cuda to cross the Gulf of Panama anywhere except on the surface. And the bloody thing couldn't slide past, within a coupla hundred yards of a U.S. destroyer, without being seen or heard."

  "No. Guess not. Which leaves us to wonder where the hell it is. We got the satellites adjusted to photograph every inch of the canal?"

  "Yes, sir. And the fact is, the bloody thing has vanished— just like they scuttled her."

  "Not even the Chinese would dare to do that. Especially in an inland lake. They obviously would not sink her in the channel. And anyway, you can't scuttle nuclear boats, unless you want to become a pariah among the trading nations of the world. The pollution issue's enormous."

  "Yeah. I guess it is, sir. But it sure beats the hell out of me, the bastard's gone missing in the high canal. And I don't know where to start looking. . ."

  "Nor me, Jimmy. Nor me. But it's gotta be in there somewhere. Jesus Christ, this thing is 350 feet long. It's like losing the Washington Monument in the Potomac. But we've got no airpower in the region to mobilize and take a closer look. And we're locked out of the canal and our satellites are blind."

  He replaced the receiver and pondered the time, and whether to go home or stay. He went over the problem again with Kathy, who told him quietly, "That damn submarine has been missing for as long as I can remember. Wherever it is, it's always missing. . . And now it's missing in the Panama Canal. Sounds nuts to me."

  "But things are hard to find if they're under the water."

  "I know that. But this has got to be shallow water, right?"

  "Don't remind me."

  "Well, let me ask you this. If someone sinks a submarine in fairly shallow water, can it still be seen, detected by the satellites? I mean, if its reactor is still running . . . you know, infrared and all that."

  "It could if its reactor was still running. But if you want to plunk a damned great submarine on the bottom of a lake, you'd turn the reactor off, shove the rods home, flood it down with cold water, and just let it cool. In a few days the heat will be gone."

  "Then you couldn't see anything on the satellite photographs?"

  "Not if a concealment crew had done its work properly. Got it buried good and deep in the mud, and shut down everything, maybe applied some camouflage . .. Christ, you'd never find it. And in time it would disappear, keep sinking further, till it was gone."

  Admiral Morgan looked pensive. Then he said thoughtfully, "I got a bad feeling.... How are we ever gonna find that bastard?"

  Even as he spoke, a chartered Boeing 747 bearing the livery of Air China and bound for Damascus and Bandar Abbas was hurtling off the runway at Colón, cleaving its way into the night sky above the Panamanian coastline.

  It banked and headed east, toward the shifting sands of the Arabian Desert, and there were just three passengers in the first-class cabin upstairs. Only one refueling stop was scheduled: the Dakar airport, in Senegal, the first Atlantic landfall on the great rounded coastline of northwest Africa.

  As the American country singer Arlo Guthrie once poignantly observed: Halfway home, we'll be there by morning . . .

  13

  The Chinese Ambassador to the United States of America, in company with his two Deputies, three First Secretaries, and two other officials Admiral Morgan said were plain and obvious spies, flew out of Dulles International Airport at nine o'clock the following morning.

  Expelled from the country, they had been escorted to the airport by a detachment of twenty-four Marine Guards. A Boeing aircraft from Air China had flown down from New York to retrieve them in the face of threats by Admiral Morgan to throw "the whole fucking lot of them in jail" by noon, to await trial in the year 2013 for crimes against the United States involving the completely illegal closure of the Panama Canal.

  No member of either the Chinese Diplomatic Corps or the American Government even considered the possibility that the Admiral might not be serious.

  There was a somewhat arch communiqué from Beijing mentioning that the Chinese Government had "absolutely nothing" to do with the Panama Canal, or any of its operations. These expulsions of the lawfully appointed Chinese diplomats in Washington were a "clear breach" of the international code of diplomacy. Furthermore, the Beijing Government would be considering similar reprisals against American representatives in the People's Republic.

  Nonetheless, the Air China jet had arrived at Dulles Airport posthaste, and Beijing did not even attempt a dialogue with the White House. This was just as well, since Admiral Morgan had read their communiqué, scrunched it into a ball, and hurled it across the room straight into the bin.

  Kathy O'Brien appeared in the doorway, awaiting instructions on some form of reply to Beijing. Usually her appearance would brighten his spirits, but today he was not even smiling.

  "Get Tim Scannell and Alan Dickson in here right now," he said. "And George Morris, plus his sidekick Ramshawe. Harcourt's upstairs. Tell him thirty minutes, right here. And get a call into Admiral Bergstrom in Coronado."

  "I imagine you consider the time of six in the morning in California to be irrelevant," replied Kathy, sweetly.

  "Correct," he confirmed.

  Eight minutes later, at the precise time a U.S. Navy staff car squealed up the ramp and out of the Pentagon garage, the phone rang in Admiral Morgan's office and the crisp-sounding voice of the Emperor of all the U.S. Navy SEALs, Rear Adm. John Bergstrom, said curtly, " 'Morning, Admiral. Whaddya need?"

  "Hi, John. You outta bed?"

  "I'm in the factory. Been here for twenty minutes."

  "You must have sensed my feeling of urgency?"

  "Well, sir. I'm only guessing. But rumor has it we got a boatload of fucking Islamic terrorists trapped in the Panama Canal like rats in a cage."

  "You're well informed, as usual. And you're right. They're in there. In a submarine. Trouble is, the waterway is about forty miles wide, bolted and barred at both ends, with about seven billion places to hide under the surface for the next several years."

  "Not your average cage, eh? Guess you want my boys to go in and find 'em?"

  "I don't think we can do that. The Gatún Lake is so god-damned big, and the satellites aren't giving us much help. We'd want a force of about ten thousand guys with boats and heavy-duty sonar to have a prayer of locating the submarine. Plus, we can't get even one ship in there. The goddamned Chinese, as you know, have closed it."

  "You want to bomb it?" asked Admiral Bergstrom. "Or come
straight at it with ground-launched cruise missiles?" He was deadly serious, mindful always of the twin creeds of both the SAS and the SEALs: The majority of the world's problems can be solved with high-explosives.

  "I think in this case, John, bombs or missiles may be just too messy, cause too much havoc. Christ knows how many missiles we'd have to throw at it. Those damned canal locks are probably the most solid, concrete structures ever built anywhere in the world. Also, an attack like that would smack of the U.S. bullying a defenseless Central American State. And that way we'd have to admit everything about the Chinese connection. Most Americans have no idea we somehow allowed the Canal to be given to Red China."

  "Well, I guess you aren't planning to leave these Islamic bastards in there, are you?"

  "At this point, I have to assume they've escaped. That's why I'm pursuing this course of action. We are going to find the submarine and we are taking back the Panama Canal. And if we kick some Chinese ass in the process, that's fine with me."

  Admiral Bergstrom exhaled with a low whistle. "Lay it on me, sir," he said.

  "We're gonna blow up the locks on the Atlantic-side entrance."

  For a brief moment, the SEAL Chief was silent. Then he said quietly, "Did you not just say bombs were too messy?"

  "I did. At least the kind of bombs we dropped on Kosovo and Afghanistan and Saddam are too messy. Right here I'm talking subtlety. Because our objectives have rigid guidelines. Because if these nutcases want to hide the submarine permanently, they're gonna have to turn off the nuclear reactor and then submerge. That, of course, will leave our satellites' infrared just about blind to them.

  "And if they do that, they have to disembark the ship because it won't have any power; no air, no water, no refrigeration, no light, nothing. Except for a few days' emergency supplies. Therefore, they will almost certainly shut off the reactor, flood her down, and beat it, with Chinese help, to the nearest airstrip. I wouldn't be surprised if they were already out of there."

  "So you want to destroy one of the world's great international seaways in order to locate and examine the submerged hulk of an aging, Russian-built submarine from which the crew has vanished?"

  "It's more than that, John. China has set a dangerous precedent by essentially harboring a terrorist in the Canal. But I need proof the submarine is still in there. If we take out the Atlantic-side locks, the entire Gatún Lake is going to drain into the ocean. Millions and millions of tons of water. And that's going to leave that submarine high and dry. At least, high and wet. Somewhere.

  "And when we find that wreck, it will have someone's fingerprints all over it. Which will give us the right to kick the Chinese right out of the Canal Zone and retake the Canal unopposed.

  "Remember that entire structure is American, and we're still the only guys on earth who could rebuild it. And that way we'll keep for ourselves every one of the millions and millions of dollars it makes in toll charges every year. For a long time."

  "The Panamanians ain't going to like that."

  "The Panamanians can go stuff themselves. I'll teach those little bastards to tear up a contract they had with the United States and hand our goddamned property over to Red fucking China."

  "Well," said Admiral Bergstrom, "they did have the help of a U.S. President. When push came to shove, Clinton never tried to enforce any of our rights down there."

  "Don't remind me," said Arnold. "But that moment yesterday, when a U.S. warship was illegally denied access, was a moment both the Chinese and their half-assed Central American buddies will regret for many years to come."

  "Minor details, sir?"

  "Of course."

  "Who's blowing up the Canal? How? And when?"

  "Your boys, John. Your fabulous boys. The gates on the upper Gatún Locks, the ones that open into the lake itself. Forty-eight hours from now."

  Once more the veteran SEAL Chief exhaled with a whistle. "How big are the gates, sir?"

  "Oh, quite manageable, really. 'Bout seventy-seven feet high, sixty-five feet wide, seven feet thick. Not too hefty, eight hundred tons, of course, because they're steel, riveted over iron girders. But they are hollow."

  "Oh. Thank God for that," replied Admiral Bergstrom, a touch of irony in his voice. "I was afraid they might be heavy."

  Arnold Morgan chuckled. "John, I'm asking you to blow apart two of the heaviest gates ever built. But security is negligible. I don't anticipate a lot of opposition. And I forecast an unopposed landing."

  "By sea?"

  "No. Helicopters, off a carrier. The Dwight D. Eisenhower has been in overhaul, in Mayport, Florida. Right now she's in the Roosevelt Roads, east of Puerto Rico, on her way in. She's nearly twelve hundred miles nor'nor'west of Panama, thirty-six hours' steaming. She'll be in the area by tomorrow night."

  "What's with her?"

  "Usual battle group escorts . . . four frigates, coupla destroyers, the cruiser Shiloh, and two LA Class submarines. Ought to be enough to protect your precious SEALs."

  "Guess so. How do we get there?"

  "Fly to Pensacola, then directly to the carrier."

  "Could I just ask when you worked all this out, sir? The damn submarine didn't even get into the Canal until yesterday afternoon."

  "Mostly at around 0500 this morning. Alan Dickson and I have both been up all night. He'll be here in a few minutes."

  "Give him my best, willya? But I have one more question: If we blow the lakeward gates in the upper chamber, what happens if it just fills up the lock and the next gates hold. You want my guys to stay and hit them as well, or blow both sets at the same time?"

  "John, I have had three guys from the Army Corps of Engineers in here in the wee hours of this morning, and each one of them took about three minutes to make up his mind on one point. If the lakeward gates at the top are taken out suddenly, the force of the water crashing into the chamber will flatten the next gates. That chamber's a thousand feet long, one hundred ten feet wide and more than sixty feet high. You're talking around thirty thousand tons of water gathering speed and slamming into the second gates.

  "Remember, that chamber that stood on its end is taller than the Eiffel Tower. It would be like hitting the second gates with the Eiffel Tower! And it's gonna be traveling at maybe sixty miles an hour. The engineers say chances of the second gates holding are a lot less than zero."

  "Works for me," said Rear Admiral Bergstrom. "I'll be back on the line in two hours. Someone just told me there's all kinds of maps, charts, and diagrams arriving on E-mail. I imagine that's from you guys."

  "Correct, sailor. Hop to it, now, and lemme know the size of the detachment going in."

  "I'll be back soon as my guys assess the amount of explosive we need to blow the gates. The more TNT, the more manpower. That stuff's heavy, and we may have to carry it partway through the fucking jungle. Can't escape that, since we don't have any transport on the ground."

  "OK, John. Talk to you soon."

  Just then Kathy pushed open the door and announced the arrival of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Scannell, and the CNO Admiral Dickson. George Morris was about five minutes behind them in company with Lieutenant Commander Ramshawe, who carried a heavy armload of papers and charts.

  Harcourt Travis, whose office was located only about fifty yards away, was last to arrive, strolling into Arnold's office somewhat languidly, wondering how quickly the Great Man intended to declare war on someone and whether he was planning to allow the President of the United States of America in on the secret.

  "Maybe," rasped Arnold. "Just maybe. Though I never met a civilian yet who didn't get in the goddamned way when the military were about to move fast."

  "I never get in the goddamned way," said Harcourt, agreeably.

  "You know better," said Arnold. "In the end, I might even have you commissioned. Lieutenant Harcourt. Little precious. But I kinda like it."

  The Secretary of State smiled. "Seriously," he said. "We have to tell the Boss about this pretty soon."

>   "It's not a problem," said Admiral Morgan. "He's been ranting on about inaction for the past three weeks. In a coupla hours he's gonna get action."

  "I imagine so," said Harcourt. "This does not look like the kind of group that wants to write a letter or order a Congressional Study."

  Admiral Morgan slammed his office door shut, retreated behind his desk, and then yelled through the solid oak barricade to the outside world, "KATHY! COFFEE FOR SIX. . . HOT!"

  "Wouldn't that have been a tad easier if you'd placed the order when the door was still open?" asked Harcourt, mildly.