by Tom Clancy
It was just his commanding officer he couldn’t stand.
How the hell did Captain Harry Ricks ever make it this far? he asked himself for the twentieth time this week. The man was brilliant. He could have designed a submarine reactor system on the back of an envelope, or maybe even in his head during a rare daydream. He knew things about submarine design that Electric Boat’s shipwrights had never even thought about. He could discuss the ins and outs of periscope design with the Navy’s chief optics expert, and knew more about satellite-navigation aids than NASA or TRW or whoever the hell was running that program. Surely he knew more about the guidance packages on their Trident-II D-5 sea-launched ballistic missiles than anyone this side of Lockheed’s Missile Systems Division. Over dinner two weeks earlier, he’d recited a whole page from the maintenance manual. From a technical point of view, Ricks might have been the most thoroughly prepared officer in the United States Navy.
Harry Ricks was the quintessential product of the Nuclear Navy. As an engineer he was unequaled. The technical aspects of his job were almost instinctive to him. Claggett was good, and knew it; he also knew that he’d never be as good as Harry Ricks.
It’s just that he doesn’t know dick about submarining or submariners, Claggett reflected bleakly. It was incredible, but true, that Ricks had little feeling for seamanship and none at all for sailors.
“Sir,” Claggett said slowly, “this is a very good chief. He’s young, but he’s sharp.”
“He can’t keep control of his people,” Ricks replied.
“Captain, I don’t know what you mean by that.”
“His training methods aren’t what they’re supposed to be.”
“He is a little unconventional, but he has cut six seconds off the average reload time. The fish are all fully functional, even the one that came over from the beach bad. The compartment is completely squared away. What more can we ask of the man?”
“I don’t ask. I direct. I order. I expect things to be done my way, the right way. And they will be done that way,” Ricks observed in a dangerously quiet voice.
It made no sense at all to cross the skipper on issues like this, especially when he posed them in this way, but Claggett’s job as executive officer was to stand between the crew and the captain, especially when the captain was wrong.
“Sir, I must respectfully disagree. I think we look at results, and the results here are just about perfect. A good chief is one who stretches the envelope, and this one hasn’t stretched it very far. If you slap him down, it will have a negative effect on him and his department.”
“X, I expect support from all my officers, and especially from you.”
Claggett sat straight up in his chair as though from a blow. He managed to speak calmly. “Captain, you have my support and my loyalty. It is not my job to be a robot. I’m supposed to offer alternatives. At least,” he added, “that’s what they told me at PXO School.” Claggett regretted the last sentence even before it was spoken, but somehow it had come out anyway. The CO’s cabin was quite small, and immediately got smaller still.
That was a very foolish thing to say, Lieutenant Commander Walter Martin Claggett, Ricks thought with a blank look.
“Next, the reactor drills,” Ricks said.
“Another one? So soon?” For Christ’s sake, the last one was friggin’ PERFECT. Almost perfect, Claggett corrected himself. The kids might have saved ten or fifteen seconds somewhere. The
Executive Officer didn’t know where that might have been, though.
“Proficiency means every day, X.”
“Indeed it does, sir, but they are proficient. I mean, the ORSE we ran right before Captain Rosselli left missed setting the squadron record by a whisker, and the last drill we ran beat that!”
“No matter how good drill results are, always demand better. That way you always get better. Next ORSE, I want the squadron record, X.”
He wants the Navy record, the world record, maybe even a certificate from God, Claggett thought. More than that, he wants it on his record.
The growler phone on the bulkhead rattled. Ricks lifted it.
“Commanding Officer ... yes, on the way.” He hung up. “Sonar contact.”
Claggett was out the door in two seconds, the Captain right behind him.
“What is it?” Claggett asked first. As executive officer, he was also the approach officer for tactical engagements.
“Took me a couple minutes to recognize it,” the leading sonarman reported. “Real fluky contact. I think it’s a 688, bearing about one-nine-five. Direct-path contact, sir.”
“Playback,” Ricks ordered. The sonarman took over another screen—his had grease-pencil marks on it and he didn’t want to remove those yet—and ran the display back a few minutes.
“See here, Cap’n? Real fluky... right about here it started firming up. That’s when I called in.”
The Captain stabbed his finger on the screen. “You should have had it there, petty officer. That’s two minutes wasted. Pay closer attention next time.”
“Aye aye, Cap’n.” What else could a twenty-three-year-old sonarman second-class say? Ricks left the sonar room. Claggett followed, patting the sonar operator on the shoulder as he went.
Goddamn it, Captain!
“Course two-seven-zero, speed five, depth five hundred even. We’re under the layer,” the Officer of the Deck reported. “Holding contact Sierra-Eleven at bearing one-nine-five, broad on the port beam. Fire-control tracking party is manned. We have fish in tubes one, three, and four. Tube two is empty for service. Doors closed, tubes dry.”
“Tell me about Sierra-Eleven,” Ricks ordered.
“Direct-path contact. He’s below the layer, range unknown.”
“Environmental conditions?”
“Flat calm on the roof, a moderate layer at about one hundred feet. We have good isothermal water around us. Sonar conditions are excellent.”
“First read on Sierra-Eleven is over ten thousand yards.” It was Ensign Shaw on the tracking party.
“Conn, Sonar, we evaluate contact Sierra-Eleven as a definite 688-class, US fast-attack. I can guestimate speed at about fourteen-fifteen knots, sir.”
“Whoa!” Claggett observed to Ricks. “We picked up a Los Angeles at 10-K plus! That’s gonna piss somebody off ...”
“Sonar, conn, I want data, not guesses,” Ricks said.
“Cap’n, he did well to pick that contact out of the background,” Claggett said very quietly. Summer in the Gulf of Alaska meant fishing boats and baleen whales, both in large numbers, making noise and cluttering up sonar displays. “That’s one hell of a good sonarman in there.”
“We pay him to be good, X. We don’t award medals for doing an adequate job. I want a playback later to see if there might have been a sniff earlier that he missed.”
Anybody can find something on playback, Claggett thought to himself.
“Conn, Sonar, I’m getting a very faint blade-count ... seems to indicate fourteen knots, plus or minus one, sir.”
“Very well. That’s better, Sonar.”
“Uh, Captain ... may be a little closer than ten thousand ... not much, but a little. Track is firming up ... best estimate now nine-five hundred yards, course roughly three-zero-five,” Shaw reported next, waiting for the sky to fall.
“So he’s not over ten thousand yards off now?”
“No, sir, looks like nine-five hundred.”
“Let me know when you change your mind again,” Ricks replied. “Drop speed to four knots.”
“Reduce speed four knots, aye,” the OOD acknowledged.
“Let him get ahead of us?” Claggett asked.
“Yep.” The Captain nodded.
“We have a firing solution,” the weapons officer said. The XO checked his watch. It didn’t get much better than this.
“Very well. Glad to hear it,” Ricks replied.
“Speed is now four knots.”
“Okay, we have him. Sierra-Eleven is at bearing two-
zero-one, range nine-one hundred yards, course three-zero-zero, speed fifteen.”
“Dead meat,” Claggett said. Of course he’s making it easy by going that fast.
“True enough. This will look good on the patrol report.”
“That’s tricky,” Ryan observed. “I don’t like the way this is going.”
“Neither do I,” Bunker agreed. “I recommend weapons release to the TR battle group.”
“I agree, and will so advise the President.” Ryan placed the call. Under the rules for this game, the President was supposed to be on Air Force One, somewhere over the Pacific, returning from an unspecified country on the Pacific Rim. The President’s decision-making role was being played by a committee elsewhere in the Pentagon. Jack made his recommendation and waited for the reply.
“Only in self-defense, Dennis.”
“Bullshit,” Bunker said quietly. “He listens to me.”
Jack grinned. “I agree, but not this time. No offensive action, you may act only to defend the ships in the group.”
The SecDef turned to the action officer: “Forward that to Theodore Roosevelt. Tell them I expect full combat air patrols. Anything over two hundred miles I want reported to me. Under two hundred, the battle-group commander is free to act at discretion. For submarines, the bubble radius is fifty—five-zero—miles. Inside that, prosecute to kill.”
“That’s creative,” Jack said.
“We have that attack on Valley Forge. ”The best estimate at the moment was that it had been a surprise missile attack from a Soviet submarine. It appeared that some units of the Russian fleet were acting independently, or at least under orders not emanating from Moscow. Then things got worse.
“HOTLINE message. There has just been a ground-force attack on a Strategic Rocket Regiment ... SS-18 base in Central Asia.”
“Launch all the ready bombers right now! Jack, tell the President that I just gave the order.”
“Comm-link failure,” the wall speaker said. “Radio contact with Air Force One has been interrupted.”
“Tell me more!” Jack demanded.
“That’s all we have, sir.”
“Where’s the Vice President now?” Ryan asked.
“He’s aboard Kneecap Alternate, six hundred miles south of Bermuda. Kneecap Prime is four hundred miles ahead of Air Force One, preparing to land in Alaska for the transfer.”
“Close enough to Russia that an intercept is possible ... but not likely ... have to be a one-way mission,” Bunker thought aloud. “Unless they strayed over a Soviet warship with SAMs. ... Vice President is temporarily in charge.”
“Sir, I—”
“That’s my call to make, Jack. The President is either out of the loop or has had his comm links compromised. SecDef says that the Vice President is in charge until the comm links are reestablished and validated by code-word authentication. Forces are now at DEFCON-ONE on my authority.”
One thing about Dennis Bunker, Ryan thought, the man never stopped being a fighter jock. He makes decisions and sticks to them. He was usually right, too, as he was here.
Ryan’s file was a thick one. Almost five inches, Goodley saw in the privacy of his seventh-floor cubbyhole. Half an inch of that was background and security-clearance forms. The academic record was fairly impressive, especially his doctoral work in history at Georgetown University. Georgetown wasn’t Harvard, of course, but it was a fairly respectable institution, Goodley told himself. His first Agency job had been as part of Admiral James Greer’s Junior Varsity program, and his first report, “Agents and Agencies,” had dealt with terrorism. Odd coincidence, Goodley thought, given what had happened later.
The documents on Ryan’s encounter in London occupied thirty double-space pages, mainly police-report summaries and a few news photos. Goodley started making notes. Cowboy, he wrote first of all. Running into things like that. The academic shook his head. Twenty minutes later, he read over the executive summary of Ryan’s second CIA report, the one which confidently predicted that the terrorists would probably never operate in America—delivered days before the attack on his family.
Guessed wrong there, didn’t you, Ryan? Goodley chuckled to himself. As bright as they said he was, he made mistakes like everyone else....
He’d made a few while working in England, too. He hadn’t predicted Chernenko’s succession of Andropov, though he had predicted Narmonov was the coming man well in advance of nearly everyone, except Kantrowitz up at Princeton, who’d been the first to see star quality in Andrey Il’ych. Goodley reminded himself that he’d been an undergraduate then, bedding that girl at Wellesley, Debra Frost ... wonder what ever happened to her ... ?
“Son of a bitch ...” Ben whispered a few minutes later. “Son of a bitch. ”
Red October, a Soviet ballistic missile submarine ... defected. Ryan was one of the first to suspect it.... Ryan, an analyst at London Station had ... run the operation at sea! Killed a Russian sailor. That was the cowboy part again. Couldn’t just arrest the guy, had to shoot him down like something in a movie....
Goddamn! A Russian ballistic-missile defected ... and they kept it quiet ... oh, the boat was later sunk in deep water.
Back to London after that for a few more months before rotating home to be Greer’s special assistant and heir-apparent. Some interesting work with the arms-control people....
That can’t be right. The KGB Chairman was killed in a plane crash....
Goodley was taking furious notes now. Liz Elliot could not have known any of this, could she?
You’re not looking for good stuff about Ryan, the White House Fellow reminded himself. Elliot had never really said that, of course, but she had made herself clear in a way that he’d understood ... or thought he’d understood, Goodley corrected himself. He suddenly realized just how dangerous a game this might be.
Ryan kills people. He’d shot and killed at least three. You didn’t get that from talking to the man. Life wasn’t a Western. People didn’t carry revolvers with notches cut in the handles. Goodley didn’t feel a chill over his skin, but he did remind himself that Ryan was someone to be regarded warily. He’d never before met someone who had killed other men, and was not foolish enough to regard such people as heroic or somehow more than other men, but it was something to keep in mind, wasn’t it?
There were blank spots around the time of James Greer’s death, he noted ... wasn’t that the time when all that stuff was happening down in Colombia? He made some notes. Ryan had been acting DDI then, but just after Fowler took over, Judge Arthur Moore and Robert Ritter had retired to make way for the new presidential administration, and Ryan had been confirmed by the Senate as Deputy Director of Central Intelligence. So much for his work record. Goodley closed that portion and opened up the personal and financial side....
“Bad call ...” Ryan said. Twenty minutes too late.
“I think you’re right.”
“Too late. What did we do wrong?”
“I’m not sure,” Bunker replied. “Tell the TR group to disengage and pull back, maybe?”
Ryan stared at the map on the far wall. “Maybe, but we’ve backed Andrey Il’ych into a corner ... we have to let him out.”
“How? How do we do that without cornering ourselves?”
“I think there was a problem with this scenario ... not sure what, though....”
“Let’s rattle his cage hard,” Ricks thought aloud.
“Like how, Cap’n?” Claggett asked.
“Status on Tube Two?”
“Empty, it was down for maintenance inspection,” the weapons officer replied.
“Is it okay?”
“Yes, sir, completed the inspection half an hour before we got the contact.”
“Okay ...” Ricks grinned. “I want a water slug out of tube two. Let’s give him a real launch transient to wake him up!”
Damn! Claggett thought. It was almost something Mancuso or Rosselli would have done. Almost ... “Sir, that’s kind of a noisy way to do it
. We can shake him up enough with a ‘Tango’ call on the Gertrude.”
“Weps, we have a solution on Sierra-Eleven?” Mancuso wants aggressive skippers, well, I’ll show him aggressive—
“Yes, sir!” the weapons officer snapped back at once.
“Firing Point Procedures. Prepare to fire a water slug on Tube Two.”
“Sir, I confirm torpedo tube two is empty. Weapons in tubes one, three, and four are secure.” A call was made to the torpedo room to reconfirm what the electronic displays announced. In the torpedo room, the chief made a look through the small glass port to make certain that they wouldn’t be launching anything.
“Tube Two is empty by visual inspection. High-pressure air is online,” the chief called over the communications circuit. “We are ready to shoot.”
“Open outer door.”
“Open outer door, aye. Outer door is open.”
“Weps?”
“Locked in.”
“Match generated bearings and ... SHOOT!”
The weapons officer pushed the proper button. USS Maine shuddered with the sudden pulse of high-pressure air out of the torpedo tube and into the sea.
Aboard USS Omaha, six thousand yards away, a sonarman had been trying for the past few minutes to decide if the trace on his screen was something other than clutter when a dot appeared on the screen.
“Conn, Sonar, transient, transient. Mechanical Transient bearing zero-eight-eight, dead aft!”
“What the hell?” the Officer of the Deck said. He was the boat’s navigator, in the third week of duty in the new post. “What’s back there?”
“Transient, transient—launch transient bearing zero-eight-eight! I say again, LAUNCH TRANSIENT DEAD AFT!”
“All ahead flank!” the suddenly pale Lieutenant said a touch too loudly. “Battle stations! Stand by the five-inch room.” He lifted the command phone for the Captain, but the general alarm was already sounding, and the Commanding Officer ran barefoot into the attack center, his coveralls still open.