Nimitz Class

by Patrick Robinson

  Meantime Admiral MacLean and Lieutenant Commander Jeremy Shaw would make the treacherous north-south transit under almost identical circumstances to those likely undertaken by Commander Adnam. The biggest danger would be, as it had been for him, that they might crash and drown in the dark, fast-flowing, narrow waters.

  It was also decided that Lieutenant Commander Baldridge should enter Russia the same way the Mossad thought Adnam had. A regular British Airways flight to Istanbul, and then by ship up the Black Sea to Odessa and Sevastopol.

  It was possible to fly direct from London to Kiev, the Ukrainian city which lies 450 miles to the north of the Crimean Peninsula. But travel from there to Sevastopol was difficult, because the great, secretive Russian Navy port had been virtually a closed city for so long. Old securities, endless delays, irregular transportation, few flights, except military, made it a traveler’s nightmare. Better for Bill to arrive quietly by boat, with the correct papers, and be met by Admiral Rankov’s staff.

  Bill stayed overnight at a hotel on the edge of London airport and made the flight to Istanbul the following morning, arriving in the ancient capital of the old Ottoman empire at six in the evening. The traffic was heavy as his taxi made its way through the old Sultanahmet area of the city to his hotel, which was situated in an old mansion block between the Blue Mosque and the waters of the Sea of Marmara.

  He debated calling Laura at Inveraray Court, which now seemed about a million miles away, but decided against it in case her mother answered.

  The telephone in his room was ringing loudly as Baldridge entered his room. “Well, it’s not Laura,” he thought glumly. “She has no idea where I am.” He was right. It was not Laura. It was Major Ted Lynch of the CIA, who was in Istanbul and wanted to come over right away. There were things to discuss, he said.

  Bill liked the beefy ex-Ranger officer, and was delighted he was in the city, particularly since Major Lynch was the kind of guy who would know precisely what and where to eat and drink. He told the CIA man to come right over to the hotel on Amiral Tafdil Sokak.

  Big Ted showed up within fifteen minutes, kept his cab waiting outside, and summoned Bill to the lobby. They shook hands and Bill was hustled into the taxi, which made a U-turn and swung back west, weaving through the crowded streets toward Kumkapi, the packed waterfront area of Istanbul, with literally dozens of excellent fish restaurants sprawled along the shore.

  On hot August nights, the place gave the appearance of an immense street party, and the haunting beat of Middle Eastern music filled the air. The smell of a million spices mingled with the aromas of grilled fish, hot, frying peppers, and night-black Turkish coffee.

  Bill noted the throngs of handsome couples: suave men and beautiful, expensively dressed women. Cabs hooted endlessly as they deposited their fares outside packed restaurants.

  Ted Lynch had booked a table on an outside terrace, and ordered drinks as they were seated, two glasses of the ferociously strong aniseed raki, which he, like the Turks, would cut with water, half-and-half.

  Bill still sucked in his breath as he took his first sip of the diluted Turkish firewater. “Christ!” he said. “You could start up the Concorde with this stuff.”

  The CIA man chuckled and said, “I thought we’d sit here and chat for an hour or so, and then eat at around nine o’clock. The waiter will be here in a minute and I’ll order us some Turkish meze, and then some fish, which is wonderful here. I expect you know, Turkey is supposed to have the French cuisine of the East.”

  “Not the kind of regular intelligence they throw around in Kansas,” said Bill, grinning. “Nor, since you mention it, in Maryland. But I’m with you—let’s jump right into the old meze—what the hell is it, by the way?”

  “Big selection of hors d’oeuvres—things like borek, kabak dolmasi, patlican tava, and yaprak dolmasi. You’re gonna love it.”

  “You got me,” said Bill. “Bring on the belly dancers. I’m going native for the night.” And he took a true sportsman’s swig of his raki, which almost pulverized his gullet.

  Ted Lynch laughed. He was suddenly serious and said, “Bill, I don’t actually give a rat’s ass whether we knocked over the Ayatollah’s submarines or not last Saturday. I haven’t asked, but like everyone else I’ve guessed. Those Kilos were a goddamned nuisance at best, and a serious threat to the security of the Gulf at worst. So screw ’em.

  “But I’m obliged to say, the more I conduct this investigation, the less I think Iran did it.”

  “You don’t?”

  “Uh-uh. There’s not a whisper, anywhere. Zepeda’s back in there again this week, heading for Tehran on a train, right now as we sit here. He left Istanbul last night, crossed into Iran at the border station, Razi. Then ran on down into Tabriz and then Tehran. He speaks Arabic, which gets him by, and he has so many contacts.

  “But he says there is not a hint that the Ayatollahs had anything whatsoever to do with loss of the Jefferson. There is also not a hint of money being moved. If they’re covering something up, they’re doing a hell of a job. Jeff says he would be amazed if they were involved.”

  “Well, Ted, I guess we have to listen to that.”

  “We certainly do. And there’s something else.”

  “Yeah?”

  “From two quite separate sources, Jeff and I did hear a whisper.”

  “You did? Who?”

  “Iraq.”

  “Jesus. Nothing firm, I guess?”

  “No, but you don’t get anything firm in the Middle East. You get a lot of shrugs, smiles, nudges, and head-shaking. It’s a place of innuendo, and from those innuendoes you have to try to surmise correctly.

  “Mine was from a member of the Syrian secret service operating out of Cairo. A man I have known for years. He had already said to me, ‘Well, Ted, I did hear several months ago that Iraq was considering purchasing a submarine from the Russians. It would make a big difference to them to have a weapon like that.’

  “Then, on a separate occasion, sitting in a café in a very seedy part of the city, the same very well-informed man told me, ‘They are not as ignorant about the military structure of the Middle East as you think. Iraq’s biggest enemy is Israel, and their knowledge of the Israeli Navy’s habits and capabilities has always been uncanny. I’ve often wondered if they had a man deep in there.’

  “In Arabia, that’s a huge hint. And one week later Zepeda picked up a tip that a very large sum of money had been taken in cash, millions of dollars, from one of the Iraqi bank accounts in Geneva. Nothing more. But together those suggestions add up to about three hundred times more than we have picked up on Iran.”

  “Will we firm any of it up?”

  “I’ve been working with the local guy from the Mossad on it. He’s one of their top men. Works in combination with General Gavron. They are right on top of the Iraqi money situation. God knows how. Last time I heard from him he thought he would have something in about two weeks.”

  “What do you think will happen if we nail Iraq for the Jefferson?”

  “I shudder to think. The President is perfectly capable of a preemptive military strike on Baghdad. He’s like Reagan. He would not hesitate if he thought that damnable country had killed six thousand Americans.”

  “You’re right. He’d do it.”

  “And, Bill, there was just one other thing I haven’t mentioned to anyone. My Israeli buddy here says the Mossad tapped into a very mysterious international phone conversation in Geneva during March. It was between Switzerland and Cairo, and involved ten million dollars. They spoke in Arabic and the phone belonged to the guy who handles Iraqi money in Switzerland. The Mossad eavesdroppers’ main observation was that both parties came from the same town.”

  “Is that significant?”

  “It is when it’s Tikrit, the birthplace of Saddam Hussein, and most of his government.”

  12

  0730 Friday, August 9.

  BILL BALDRIDGE DEEPLY REGRETTED HAVING STAYED out half the night in Istanb
ul with the CIA man from Washington. He leaned over the rail of the northbound ship and wished, fervently, that he had never laid eyes on a bottle of raki. His head throbbed, he felt repulsively ill, and there was a mild tremble deep within his body. He had been leaning on the rail for almost two hours, and the gentle rhythm of the teal-blue waters of the Black Sea was causing his condition to worsen.

  There were two questions banging around in his aching mind: What was he going to find in Sevastopol to prove Benjamin Adnam had been there? And, was Benjamin Adnam really an Iraqi who had been working for years, undercover, in the Israeli Navy?

  They were big questions. And he wished he felt better able to cope with them. Ted Lynch was still waiting for a report from the Mossad on the wire-tapped Geneva conversation. But by now Bill felt certain there must be some evidence in the Russian submarine port to suggest that someone, somehow, had been paid a huge amount of money.

  He hoped Admiral Rankov would be cooperative. And he hoped he would get into Russia as easily as Admiral Morgan had predicted. Twenty-four hours later, very early on the still-dark Saturday morning of August 10, his faith in Arnold Morgan was confirmed. He was met by a young Russian Navy officer, Lieutenant Yuri Sapronov, who spoke excellent English and marched him through Odessa’s dimly lit customs and immigration rooms without missing a beat. He carried the American’s suitcase, but not the briefcase, which contained the phone scrambler, and he explained they were immediately boarding a Navy vessel which would run them across the water to Sevastopol in under six hours. They would arrive by 1300.

  The ship turned out to be Russia’s fastest attack patrol craft, a Babochka Type 1141, with an anti-submarine capability. Lieutenant Sapronov said the boat was capable of forty-five knots and was making the crossing from Odessa to its home port of Sevastopol. Admiral Rankov had personally instructed Sapronov to pick up Lieutenant Commander Baldridge.

  Recovered from the excesses of Thursday night, Bill enjoyed the journey, chatting for much of the way with the young lieutenant, who turned out to be a native of the Crimean coast, from the easterly dockyard city of Feodosiya, where the Babochka was originally built.

  “Everyone here worried about the missing Kilo,” Lieutenant Sapronov had admitted. “Admiral Rankov has been yelling and bellowing about it for two weeks. And he’s a very big guy to yell that loud. He’s my boss. I’m his Flag Lieutenant. At the moment we are in just a temporary office, thin walls. The whole fucking place shakes whenever anyone even mentions that Kilo. He can’t understand how a submarine can just disappear. Tell you the truth, neither can I.

  “Each day I look after his signals and letters back to Moscow. He’s very concerned that Americans think we are lying. Last week he sent a long communiqué to Moscow to Admiral Zubko—he’s the C-in-C, and Deputy Minister of Defense. He said Americans suspicious the Kilo had something to do with that aircraft carrier which blew up in the Gulf. He said it was essential we help Americans all we can. Zubko faxed back right away he agreed with everything. I guess that’s why you’re here.”

  Bill reckoned that was all a bit too fluent not to have been rehearsed. But Admiral Morgan had said he could trust Rankov and he was certain the Russians were ready to help any way they could. “Sure is a mystery,” he told the lieutenant. “Have you guys been following up on the families of the crew?”

  “Oh, sure we have. We’ve had people visiting them, even watching some of their homes. Guys from the old KGB. But no one has found a sign of anything. No money around, no one looks as if they have been bribed. Everything seems desperately sad but essentially normal. Admiral Rankov gets crosser every day. I heard him yelling down the phone to someone yesterday.”

  At this point Lieutenant Sapronov did a deep imitation of a fairytale giant’s voice, and continued: “‘There’s nothing fucking normal about this. Nothing!! Do you hear me?’ I guess the guy on the other end nearly had a heart attack. But we still didn’t get anything new.”

  Bill laughed. He liked Russians, as almost everyone does who meets them. They are usually very frank and open, with a good sense of fun, and an unfailing irreverence about authority, once they get loosened up. He and the lieutenant enjoyed a good breakfast of kolbasa, the smoked sausage native to the Ukraine, with scrambled eggs, toasted lavash bread, and Russian coffee, which Bill thought was not a whole lot different from that at Chock Full o’Nuts.

  Afterward they sat on deck in the morning sun, sipped vody Lagidze, the cold Russian mineral water mixed with various syrups, and watched the fast-approaching coastline of the Crimean Peninsula. Right after 1230, the Babochka cut its engines for the run into the short bay of Sevastopol, and Bill was on the jetty before 1300. Admiral Vitaly Rankov was there to greet him. The towering exSoviet international oarsman, whose eyes were as gray as the Baltic Sea, and whose handshake resembled that of a mechanical digger, was an imposing figure.

  “Welcome, Lieutenant Commander,” he rumbled in a deep bass voice, which Bill thought would probably have done justice to the role of Sparafucile in Rigoletto. “I know you are one of Admiral Morgan’s staff. I know Arnold well, and I do not envy you. He is a terrible man!” Admiral Rankov joked as they walked along the dockside. They came to a group of newly built offices that resembled those on a New York construction site. Admiral Rankov and his staff occupied about six of the wooden structures during the weeks he was working with the High Command of the Black Sea Fleet. Every step he took in his office made the place shudder, every door he closed threatened to bring down the ceiling. Bill thought the floor might give way altogether when he banged his huge fist on the desk for emphasis. This was a man, he thought, who belonged in the vast, vaulted stone halls of the Kremlin, where Admiral Morgan felt he would most assuredly end up.

  “Right, Lieutenant Commander,” he said, once he had attended to his more urgent messages. “I instructed Yuri to give you a little background on our progress, but if there is anything you particularly want to know, please feel free to ask me. By the way, we still have no hard evidence about the fate of the Kilo.”

  “Well, sir,” said Bill, “I think the main purpose of my visit is to try and discover whether any suspicious-looking character from the Middle East was seen around here at all. You see, we think someone bribed your captain with a huge sum of money. Someone must have seen him.”

  “Yes,” replied Rankov. “Arnold Morgan told me what you have worked out, and I’m just beginning to think you may be right. What other explanation can there be? We can’t find the wreck. The drowned sailor who was a member of that ship’s company? Found off the coast of Greece? The Kilo must have got out. But it’s still very difficult for us to find out how. This place is crawling with people from the Middle East. The Iranians have a fucking office here!”

  “How about the Iraqis?”

  “No office. But they’re not strangers. They want to buy two or three Kilos, but right now they have no money to spare, and we’re giving no credit to anyone, however good their credit might be. Right now it’s—how you say it?—cash on the drum.”

  “Barrel,” said Bill.

  “Right. Cash on the barrel. The Iraqis have been arms customers of ours for a long time, as you know. But if they can’t pay, we can’t supply. Things here are very bad financially. And we just don’t have the backup to go around giving away submarines for which we might get paid, sometime. Also you Americans have things wrapped up pretty tight now. We’d rather be your friends, and we don’t much want to do anything which will endanger that friendship.”

  “No submarines for a mad dog like Iraq?”

  “Lieutenant Commander, I have to be straight. If anyone comes in here waving a billion dollars for submarines, we will supply. We don’t care if they’re Chinese, Arabs, Persians, or even Eskimos.”

  “We have noticed that,” said Bill, grimly.

  “You don’t know what it’s like to have your backs to the wall over money,” said Rankov. “For a big nation like ours, it’s a dreadful thing. And it’s been happening here
for almost the whole of the twentieth century. And it’s still happening now we’re in the twenty-first.”

  “Yes, I suppose so. But would you have noticed a stranger who looked like he came from an Arab nation hanging around here at the time, early April?”

  “Well, I certainly would not, because I was not here at the time. But I do not think anyone else would either. There are just too many people who would fit that description. Anyway, I do not think your man would just have been hanging around. He could not have got in through the gates, not without being brought in by a Russian official or at least a serving officer.

  “Quite honestly, I’m inclined to agree with Arnold Morgan. I think his rendezvous was arranged. And he bought the captain with a massive amount of money, and then that captain fooled the crew into going on a secret exercise on behalf of the Russian Navy. Nothing else fits.”

  “Who was the captain?”

  “A very well-respected Russian officer. A native Ukrainian, as so many of our submarine commanders are. Captain Georgy Kokoshin. He’s very experienced without being brilliant. Man of about forty-two. Married to a much younger woman, Natalya. They have two young children, six and eight, both boys. The family lives on the edge of the city in one of those new high-rises. We’ve been checking there on and off for over three months now. Ever since the submarine was reported lost. But everything seems normal. Mrs. Kokoshin was very, very upset over the death of her husband.”

  “When did you last check?”

  “I believe I had a report in on Tuesday morning. The children were at school as usual.”

  “No new cars, new clothes, nothing extravagant?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Did you search their apartment? Ransack it from top to bottom?”

  “No. We did not. Captain Kokoshin was a senior Russian commanding officer, presumed dead. He was very popular, and no one wanted to treat his widow as a criminal. In some respects we are in a similar position to yourselves. You do not wish to admit your carrier was hit by an enemy. We do not wish to admit we have mislaid a submarine and its crew. If we start harassing the wives of the officers, word will get around that something is wrong.”