by Jeff Edwards
“Wait a minute,” the CNO said. “You’re saying they want to mix it up with us, but they’re counting on us to keep it from blowing up into a full-scale war?”
The secretary of state nodded. “That’s how I read it.”
National Security Advisor Gregory Brenthoven put both hands on the tabletop. “I can think of at least two possibilities that make more sense than that. How about this? Maybe those submarine commanders have gone rogue. They might be operating without authority from their government. Or maybe those Siraji crews that they’ve been training have seized control and hijacked the damned things!”
The president shook his head. “I don’t think so, Greg. If those subs are operating without orders from the German government, where are the apologies? Why isn’t Friedrik Shoernberg falling all over himself to kiss up to me? Where are the frantic phone calls denying involvement?”
Brenthoven looked surprised. “He hasn’t called you, sir?”
The president shook his head again. “Hell no. I had to call him.”
“What did he say?”
“He expressed sympathy for the families of our dead and wounded Sailors,” the president said.
“No apologies?”
“No apologies. In fact, the bastard half-implied that it was our fault.”
The CNO sat up. “Our fault? How in the hell does he figure that?”
“It’s a free ocean,” the president said. “From their angle, their subs were exercising their legal right to transit. Friedrik gave me a whole song and dance about it. By interfering with their passage and shoving a carrier up their noses, we provoked them into defending themselves.”
“That’s absolute bullshit,” the CNO snapped. “Our ships have United Nations authorization to board and search any vessel suspected of violating the arms embargo against Siraj. Those subs are prohibited military hardware. We were totally within our rights to try to stop their delivery.”
“That’s not how Chancellor Shoernberg sees it,” the president said. “It’s the position of the German government that our mandate to conduct maritime interception operations is only valid within the boundaries of the Arabian Gulf. Shoernberg claims we overstepped our authority when we went after his subs in the Arabian Sea.”
The national security advisor stared at the secretary of state. “Is that right?”
Whelkin whistled through her teeth and scribbled a rapid note on her legal pad. “That’s a tuffy. I’ll have to go back and look at the wording of the resolution. It’s possible that Chancellor Shoernberg is right. Technically, anyway.”
“Technically, my ass,” the CNO snapped. “You don’t shoot at your allies—your supposed allies—over a technicality. The whole self-defense argument is a crock anyway. The Kitty Hawk strike group was hit by a coordinated multi-axis attack. From what I’ve seen of the initial post-mission analysis, the whole thing was a carefully orchestrated attempt to disrupt the defensive formation around a United States aircraft carrier long enough to attack the carrier itself. A damned successful attempt at that.”
“Maybe the self-defense claim is Chancellor Shoernberg’s way of covering his ass,” Brenthoven said. “A whole pack of rogue submarines is pretty damned embarrassing. Could it be that the German government is stalling until they can think of the least damaging angle on this thing?”
The secretary of state shook her head. “Those submarines are not rogue. They are operating under orders.”
Brenthoven stared at her. “How can you possibly know that?”
“It’s not all that difficult to figure out,” Whelkin said. “An entire squadron of German Air Force jets showed up to escort them through the Straits of Gibraltar. Unless you’re suggesting that the Luftwaffe has gone rogue as well, I’d say that’s a pretty good indication that the German government is calling the plays.”
“Don’t forget those radar-decoy yachts in the southern Med,” the CNO said. “That was a calculated deception, carried out using boats that were leased by the German Navy.”
The president’s eyebrows went up. “Right. So, we scratch the rogue commander theory. What does that leave us? Can the Germans really be that determined to push us into a war?”
“Not a war, Mr. President,” Whelkin said. “A fight.”
Brenthoven rolled his eyes. “Are we back to playing semantics again? Planes, ships, torpedoes, missiles. Burnt bodies floating in the ocean. What difference does it make what you call it? Do you think the families of those dead Sailors care what word we use for it? Are they any less dead if we call it a fight instead of a war?”
“You misunderstand me,” the secretary of state said. “I’m not talking about the choice of words. I’m talking about the scope of the conflict.”
Brenthoven snorted. “What in the hell does that mean?”
The president raised a hand. “Keep your shirt on, Greg. I want to see where Liz is going.”
Whelkin turned her eyes to the president. “I think the German government is challenging us to single combat.”
The president frowned. “You mean like they did in the Middle Ages? Like jousting?”
“Pretty much, sir,” Whelkin said. “But in the Middle Ages, it was primarily used as a display of battle skills, or to decide points of honor.” She took a swallow of coffee and carefully wiped the lipstick off the rim of the cup before continuing. “In biblical times, the concept had much greater significance. When the leaders of opposing nations had disagreements, sometimes they would settle them by single combat. The toughest warrior from one country would do battle with the other country’s toughest warrior, often while the opposing armies looked on. The warrior who came out on top won the day for his side. It was a pretty good system. Disputes over land and resources could be resolved without the danger and expense of all-out war. Remember the Bible story about David and Goliath? That’s a classic example of single combat in its original form.”
The president’s eyebrows furrowed. “You think that’s what the Germans are trying to do here?”
“It fits, sir. They shot up a carrier strike group. That’s not the kind of thing we can let slide, right? We’ve got to take some sort of retaliatory action. We can’t risk letting the pocket Napoleons of the world think that they can attack our ships with impunity.”
“You’ve got that right,” the CNO said. “That’s why we’ve got to chase those bastards down and sink every goddamned one of them. If we don’t, it’s even money that somebody else will take a poke at one of our carriers next month, or next week.”
Secretary Whelkin looked around the room. “The Germans are not stupid. They know that we’re going to nail those subs. They knew it before they launched them.”
“It’s a hell of a risk on their part,” Brenthoven said.“How can they be certain that we wouldn’t go to war over this?”
“It’s not as much of a risk at it seems to be,” the secretary of state said. “The Germans know that we’ll avoid going to war if we possibly can. They also know that we can’t afford to let an attack on one of our carrier strike groups go unpunished. If you put the two ideas together, it’s predictable that we will try to destroy those submarines without much further military escalation.”
“Single combat,” the president said slowly. “The modern version—a handful of their subs against a handful of our ships and aircraft.”
“It still doesn’t make sense,” Brenthoven said. “Selling weapons to Siraj I can understand, even if I don’t agree with it. Germany needs a lot of oil fast, and—in exchange for breaking the weapons embargo—Siraj is giving it to them at a fraction of fair market value. That part I can see. But I cannot for the life of me see what the Germans stand to gain from attacking the Kitty Hawk.”
“That is the question,” the president said. “What do the Germans get out of this?”
“Turn the question around, Mr. President,” the secretary of state said. “What do we stand to lose from this?”
“We live and die by our image over there,” t
he CNO said. “What success we’ve had in keeping a lid on the Middle East is largely due to our military strength. As long as we appear to be invincible, no Middle Eastern leader will seriously attempt to challenge us. Oh, they’ll rant and rave on the six o’clock news and call us dirty names on the floor of the UN General Assembly, but they’ll avoid direct conflict. It’s not a perfect peace, God knows—some of those guys just can’t pass up the chance to shoot at their neighbors—but it allows commerce rather than chaos to be the dominant mode of operation in the Gulf States.”
“There’s your answer,” Secretary Whelkin said. “The Germans have already demonstrated that they can penetrate our carrier strike groups. Right now, their reputation is gaining ground and ours is losing. If we can’t prevent them from delivering those subs, they’re going to look even stronger, and we’re going to look weaker still.”
“A new Germany for the new century,” the president said. “Re-forged as a world power. Focused, independent, and not afraid to play rough with the big boys.”
“This whole thing has been a great showcase for their military hardware,” Whelkin said. “Four little submarines have managed to elude one carrier strike group and blow the hell out of a second one.”
“I can’t argue on that point,” Brenthoven said. “So far, they’ve succeeded in making us look like idiots. And we can’t afford to lose credibility in the region.”
“I agree,” the CNO said. “We can’t let even one of those subs get through to Siraj. A big chunk of our deterrence comes from our carriers. Not just the carriers themselves, but the perceptions associated with them. The American aircraft carrier is the embodiment of force projection. We’ve all seen it work when some pissant third-world dictator gets too big for his britches. A carrier shows up a few miles off his coastline, and suddenly he’s jumping through hoops to show how enlightened and cooperative he can be. Most of the time, we don’t have to fire a single shot. The aura of power reaches out from the carrier like an umbrella and practically blocks out the sun.
“We’ve got two carriers off the Chinese coast right now. Do you think the Chinese would be minding their P’s and Q’s if they thought they could hit our carriers with impunity?”
“An excellent point,” the president said. “And a vital point. I think Admiral Casey is correct. The credibility of our conventional deterrence is on the line here. If we screw this up, it could affect the balance of power in countries all over the planet.”
“Okay,” said Brenthoven, “we throw everything we’ve got at those subs.” He snapped his fingers three or four times. “I remember reading a proposal for eradicating the Iranian Kilo Class submarines. Something about catching them in the Straits of Hormuz and carpet-bombing the hell out of them with thousand-pound bombs. We could do that. The German subs will have to transit the straits to get into the Arabian Gulf. We can wait and nail them then.”
“I’m not sure how Iran would take that,” said the secretary of state. “The Straits of Hormuz are right off the Iranian coastline. If we were already at war with Iran, a scenario that your carpet-bombing proposal was apparently designed for—since it calls for attacking Iranian submarines—it wouldn’t be an issue. But we’re not at war with Iran, and we aren’t looking to start one. It might be a good idea to think twice before bombing the hell out of their coastal waters.”
“It’s the wrong kind of response, anyway,” the president said. “We’ve thrown two carrier strike groups at those subs already, and we’ve gotten our asses kicked. If we’re going to salvage our credibility, we need to beat them in a fair fight. They’ve got four submarines—we send four surface combatants to take them on. No carriers, no bombers, no land-based aircraft. Just our destroyers and frigates against their submarines.”
“Mr. President, you can’t be serious,” the CNO said. “The credibility of our national deterrence is at stake, and you’re asking me to fight with one hand tied behind my back?”
The president said, “I want you to look me in the eye and tell me that our Navy is good enough to go one-on-one with the Germans and come out on top. If you can’t say that with a straight face, we’ve got bigger problems than credibility.”
“We snatched the Kitty Hawk out of there pretty quickly, sir,” the CNO said. “I’m not sure if I can get four ships into a position to intercept. I know I’ve got three Middle East Force deployers on station—two destroyers and a frigate—but I may have to scrounge around to come up with a fourth unit on short notice. Unless you’ll let me substitute a submarine. I should be able to get the Topeka in position without too much trouble.”
The president shook his head. “No submarines. Those bastards have been lucky so far. If they managed to get a shot in on one of our subs, we could end up with nuclear contamination from one end of the Gulf to the other. Besides, the credibility of our sub force isn’t in question right now. We need to do this with surface combatants.” He looked at Whelkin. “Single combat.”
The national security advisor cleared his throat. “Isn’t that giving the Germans what they want?”
“We’ll give them what they want,” the president said. “We’ll stick it up their ass and break it off.”
“We might end up with only three ships,” the CNO said. “Against four submarines.”
“Then we do it with three ships,” the president said, “but we do it. And keep this in mind: if any of those submarines make it to Siraj, the Germans win this thing.”
Admiral Casey nodded slowly. “Understood, sir.”
The president stood up. “I have to go figure out what to tell the American people about this mess.”
The door opened and a young Navy lieutenant (junior grade) walked in, carrying a red and white striped folder. He scanned the room quickly and made his way toward the Chief of Naval Operations.
Every eye in the room followed the young officer as he walked. Under the color-coding system of the White House Signals Office, red and white stripes indicated highly classified material of utmost urgency.
The lieutenant (jg) stopped near the CNO, whispered briefly into his ear, and handed him the folder.
No one spoke. Admiral Casey opened the folder and read the single-page document inside. The CNO looked up. “Mr. President, our little mess just got a hell of a lot messier.”
The president lifted his papers from the table and straightened them. “Bad news never improves with age, Bob. What have you got?”
The CNO looked down at the folder again. “Sir, about twenty minutes ago, two squadrons of British Sea Harriers exchanged missile fire with a German frigate in the North Sea. The ship was the FGS Sachsen, the lead unit of the new Sachsen Class guided missile frigates, and pretty much the pride of the German fleet. As of this report, the Sachsen was burning but still afloat.”
The president rubbed the back of his neck. “Any word on who fired first?”
“The preliminary satellite data suggests it was the Brits, sir. And they don’t seem to be going out of their way to deny it.”
“They’re getting even for what happened to the York and the Chatham.”
“It certainly looks that way, Mr. President,” the CNO said. “Apparently we’re not the only ones worried about the credibility of their deterrence.”
CHAPTER 25
//SSSSSSSSSS//
//SECRET//
//FLASH//FLASH//FLASH//
//180504Z MAY//
FM COMUSNAVCENT//
TO USS TOWERS//
USS BENFOLD//
USS INGRAHAM//
INFO CTF FIVE ZERO//
SUBJ/USW TASKING/IMMEDIATE EXECUTE//
REF/A/RMG/CNO/150744Z MAY//
REF/B/RMG/CNO/180449Z MAY//
NARR/REF A IS CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS TACTICAL SUMMARY OF LIVE-FIRE HOSTILITIES BETWEEN UNITED KINGDOM ROYAL NAVY WARSHIPS AND FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY (LUFTWAFFE) AIRCRAFT APPROX 13MAY//
NARR/REF B IS CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS TACTICAL SUMMARY OF LIVE-FIRE HOSTILITIES BETWEEN USS KITTY HAWK BAT
TLE GROUP AND FOUR DEUTSCHE MARINE TYPE 212B DIESEL SUBMARINES EARLIER THIS MORNING.//
1. (CONF) AS OUTLINED IN REFS A AND B, GERMAN NAVAL UNITS HAVE ATTACKED BRITISH ROYAL NAVY AND U.S. NAVY ASSETS TWICE IN THE PAST FIVE DAYS. IN MOST RECENT ENGAGEMENT, TWO U.S. NAVY HELICOPTERS DESTROYED, USS KITTY HAWK SERIOUSLY DAMAGED. PERSONNEL CASUALTIES HIGH.
2. (CONF) CURRENT THREAT EVALUATION HOLDS ALL FOUR DEUTSCHE MARINE SUBS AS UNDAMAGED AND UNRESTRICTED IN ABILITY TO FIGHT OR EVADE.
3. (CONF) INTELLIGENCE SOURCES BELIEVE DM IS ATTEMPTING TO DELIVER SUBS TO SIRAJ IN VIOLATION OF STANDING UN RESOLUTIONS.
4. (SECR) USS TOWERS, USS BENFOLD, AND USS INGRAHAM ARE DIRECTED TO FORM A THREE-SHIP SEARCH ATTACK UNIT (SAU) AND PROCEED SOUTH AT MAXIMUM AVAILABLE SPEED. SUBJECT SUBMARINES ARE DECLARED HOSTILE. TOWERS, BENFOLD, AND INGRAHAM ARE DIRECTED TO ENGAGE AND DESTROY ALL DM SUBMARINES WITHIN COMMANDER U.S. NAVAL CENTRAL COMMAND S AREA OF RESPONSIBILITY.
5. (SECR) COMUSNAVCENT WILL MAKE ALL EFFORTS TO LOCATE AN ADDITIONAL SURFACE ASSET TO REINFORCE SAU. IN THE INTERIM, USS TOWERS IS DESIGNATED AS SAU COMMANDER.
6. (SECR) AT LEAST ONE DM SUBMARINE HAS SUCCESSFULLY ENGAGED AND DESTROYED CARRIER-BASED USW AIRCRAFT USING SUB-LAUNCHED SURFACE TO AIR MISSILES. TAKE ALL POSSIBLE PRECAUTIONS WHEN DEPLOYING AIRCRAFT IN THE VICINITY OF TARGET SUBS.
7. (SECR) ALL UNITS ARE ADVISED THAT DM SUBMARINES HAVE SHOWN EXCEPTIONAL TACTICAL SKILL AND CREATIVITY, HIGHLY PROFICIENT EXPLOITATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS, AND A PREDILECTION FOR DEPLOYING ELECTRONIC DECOYS. EXPECT COORDINATED, ZERO-NOTICE, MULTI-AXIS ATTACKS AND BE PREPARED TO DELIVER SAME TO DM SUBMARINES.
8. (UNCL) GOOD LUCK AND GOOD HUNTING! ADMIRAL ROGERS SENDS.
//180504Z JUN//
//FLASH//FLASH//FLASH//
//SECRET//
//SSSSSSSSSS//
USS TOWERS (DDG-103)
CENTRAL ARABIAN GULF
FRIDAY; 18 MAY
0911 hours (9:11 AM)
TIME ZONE +3 ‘CHARLIE’
There was a full-length mirror bolted to the bulkhead outside the wardroom. Across the top of the glass was a blue decal depicting the eagle-and anchor emblem of the U.S. Navy, followed by a short paragraph in white block lettering: