She switched him through to the Admiral, who commiserated briefly about the ship, and then asked him, “Bob, do you have any reason to think the Global Bronco might have run into some form of Naval hardware down there…a mine or a torpedo or something?”
“Well, every tanker man worries about the strait, but it’s always been safe on the Omani side…We didn’t hardly get a warning from the ship…apparently, according to the Royal Navy, our operator just had time to call ‘MAYDAY!’ twice, before the line went dead.”
“So whatever happened happened pretty damned quickly,” replied the Admiral.
“Yessir. I do believe so.”
“Any idea what might have caused the explosion?”
“Not really, Admiral. We do have some kind of an eyewitness report from a Liberian-registered crude-oil tanker about two miles ahead of the Bronco. Just said the for’ard holding dome definitely blew first. Then they saw the one next to it go up as well.”
“I guess that would confirm the possibility of a mine…all ships hit them bow first. A torpedo would have been much more likely to come in amidships.”
“Yessir. But I really don’t think we ran into a minefield. On the other hand, it’s hard for me to think of one reason why the almost-brand-new gas-holding tank, way up for’ard, two hundred yards away from hot machinery, or even people, should suddenly have ruptured and exploded.”
“That’s really my main question, Bob. How could it have ruptured, then blown up?”
“No reason I can think of, sir. ’Cept sabotage. But I can’t imagine anyone wanting to blow up the ship they were in. Suicide sabotage’s pretty rare.”
Arnold Morgan persisted. “What causes natural gas to ignite?”
“Well, it’s gotta be a flame or a spark of some kind. It’s the gas, flashing off from the liquid that burns. Beats the hell out of me, a) how that gas started to leak, and b) what blew it.”
“Well, keep your ear to the ground, willya, Bob? Anything shakes loose, lemme know right away. Just call the number here, and they’ll find me.”
“Glad to, sir. Nice talking to you.” The last words were somewhat lost because the Admiral had already rung off. Bob Heseltine was not yet aware of the National Security Adviser’s habit of never saying “good-bye” to anyone, just banging down the phone. He even did it to the President. These days, especially to the President.
“KATHY!” he yelled. “GET FORT MEADE ON THE LINE.”
Admiral David Borden jumped to it, front and center, as he prepared to take his first call from the Big Man.
“Admiral?”
“Morning, David. Got that job under tight control?”
“Trying to, sir.”
“Good. Start off by telling me all you know about that tanker just went sky-high in Hormuz.”
“Well, sir. I only just received a preliminary report.”
“You did? Well it’s zero-eight-four-five now, and the tanker blew at right after zero-three-three-zero. What are you using for comms, satellites or pigeons?”
Admiral Borden gulped. “Sir, I only just got here.”
“You mean you’re not only operating some kind of Dark Ages communication system, you’re also late for work.”
It had been awhile since anyone had addressed David Borden in quite such a manner, but he knew Arnold Morgan’s fearsome reputation. He also knew that his bite was a lot worse than his bark. And this conversation was headed south, in a significant way.
“Sir, will you give me a half hour to get right on this?”
“Yes. But please remember the following: Anytime there’s an explosion as big as this one right in the middle of the Strait of Hormuz, or indeed anywhere near the Strait of Hormuz, you better get on it real quick. Right here we have a major incident involving a U.S. freighter being destroyed, forty miles from Bandar Abbas. We got goddamned Iranian missile ships circling her. We may have a fucking minefield out there.
“Admiral Borden, I don’t actually give a flying fuck what you’ve been doing. I don’t care if you have to turn up in your office in a goddamned nightshirt and jockstrap at three A.M. But when something goes off bang anywhere near the Ayatollahs, I want Fort Meade on it like a starving wolf chasing a pork chop. Do you hear me, Admiral?”
“Absolutely, sir.”
“Then get your ass in gear, sailor. And get your best men moving. And don’t bother chasing the ship owner. I dealt with him while you were still eating your fucking cornflakes.” CRASH. Down phone.
Admiral Borden was visibly shaken, as many an occupant of Fort Meade had been before him. He actually debated putting in a written complaint to the President about the “unforgivably disrespectful” manner in which he had been treated by the National Security Adviser.
He went as far as to call his old friend in the White House, Harcourt Travis, the Secretary of State, who laughed and told him, “That would be, I am afraid, a suicide note. Arnold Morgan would probably have both you and the President out of here in an hour. Arnie’s the Big Man on Campus right now. Don’t even think of taking him on.”
Admiral Borden retreated, but in his mind he was planning to play this whole incident right down, which he believed would exact him a quiet, dignified revenge: that of military intellect over a blowhard.
As plans went, that one was dead moderate. If David Borden did but know it, career-threatening moderate.
At that moment there was a knock on the Director’s door. He called to enter, and was not especially pleased to see the frowning face of Lieutenant Ramshawe.
“Morning, sir. I got in here soon as I could when I heard about the tanker, but it didn’t get on the news till 0500 so I guess I was a bit late. Anyhow, my conclusions are that we really do need to examine the possibility of a Chinese-backed Iranian minefield right out there in the strait.”
“But I believe the tanker exploded off the coast of Oman, miles and miles from Iranian waters.”
“I know that, sir. But there’s still got to be a suspicion. We know the Chinese ordered a ton of mines from Moscow, and we know they could easily have brought them to Iran. We also know they were groping about in the strait with four warships, and possibly three submarines, all mine layers, at least one night, and possibly more. We simply cannot dismiss the issue.”
“The Omanis appear to have done so. There’s not a word from them to cast any suspicion on the Iranians whatsoever.”
“That’s because they don’t know their ass from their elbow.”
“Very possibly. Nonetheless in the absence of one shred of proof, one floating mine, one whisper of skul-duggery from any of our people in Beijing or Tehran…Jimmy, I cannot instigate anything without being in possession of at least some evidence.”
“But I have some evidence. First of all, the bloody mines, maybe several hundred, were delivered under top-secret circumstances, and have essentially disappeared. Then we had a fairly large flotilla of ships sail from Chinese bases, direct to Iran. Then we have these night exercises, during which they could easily have laid a minefield out there in the strait.
“Then we have a very strange situation. You know, and I know, you can lay a minefield and not activate it electronically till you’re good and ready. Now, the Chinks bugger off toward the Bay of Bengal, leaving behind two mine layers, the frigates Kangding and Zigong. And what are the first ships to be seen after the bang? Those two frigates, out there in the strait, flying the Iranian flag. In my view they were out there activating just some of the mines.
“But here’s what’s really important…Remember a couple of weeks ago we picked up pictures of the Iranian missiles being established way down the coast, twenty-nine miles south of Kuhestak?…Well, I marked the point hard on my big chart of Hormuz. The Global Bronco went up in a near-dead-straight line from there, about twenty-four miles west sou’west.”
“Jimmy, you can make a dead straight line from any one point to any other. You need three to show evidence of a straight line.”
“Well, sir, at least the
proximity of the missiles must be significant.”
“Not necessarily so, Jimmy. I am afraid that all the ‘evidence’ is very circumstantial. By which I mean we know nothing. The mines China ordered may well still be in Zhanjiang. Their trip to Iran may easily have been to sell the two frigates. Global Bronco was carrying eighty thousand tons of the world’s most volatile petrochemical. Anything could have set it off. I would be sympathetic if you could locate for me one indisputable fact. Leave it for now, Jimmy. Until we get hard evidence.”
The Lieutenant stood up, and he looked Admiral Borden square in the eye. “I just have a damned weird feeling that when the next evidence turns up, we’re not gonna love it.”
Admiral Borden shook his head, and called back Arnold Morgan. “Sir,” he said, “I simply do not have one single piece of Intelligence that points to anything but a bad accident on that tanker, which caused it to explode.”
“I do not doubt that, Admiral. The issue is whether you should be raising heaven and hell to find some.”
“Sir, sometimes there is simply nothing to find.”
“The fact that you can’t find it does not mean it doesn’t exist.” Arnold Morgan was beginning to dislike the Acting Director at Fort Meade, and that was bad news for the Acting Director. But Admiral Morgan was receiving a distinct impression that David Borden did not want to find anything.
“If I were you, David, I would be damned careful about taking a negative view, because if you delay us, put us behind the eight ball, I shall be forced to HAVE YOUR ASS, RIGHT?” Click. Down phone.
“KATHY!”
The door opened once again. And Ms. O’Brien entered, smiling sweetly. Too sweetly. “Would it make you any happier, my darling,” she said, “if I went out and bought a ship’s Klaxon so I could signal back to you? I expect people would get used to it…‘KAAAAA-THEEEEE!…BAHAA…BAHAAA….’ Two blasts for positive, one for negative, three for panic…”
The Admiral burst into laughter, despite his rising irritation at the attitude of David Borden.
“Kathy, upon whom the sun rises and sets for me, I wanna let you into a deep and, thus far, unspoken secret. Right here I suspect I’m dealing with a total asshole in the chair of the good George Morris at the NSA.”
“Oh, how very depressing.”
“Possibly more than you know. Book us a table at the restaurant in Georgetown tonight, will you? Between you, and Monsieur Pierre, and my old friend Billy Beychevelle, perhaps you can raise my spirits.”
“Why, sir…,” she replied, putting on a southern accent even more firmly than her own far-lost Alabama drawl, “ah sure would be deeply honored to bring y’all raaht back into the world of good cheer and fahn manners.”
Arnold watched her strut out, shook his head, smiling, and turned CNN back on.
Meanwhile, back at his desk in Fort Meade, Jimmy Ramshawe, surrounded by ocean charts, was glaring at the one that mapped the Bassein River on the Bengal Bay coast of Burma, or, as it is now known, Myanmar.
“Crazy bastards,” he muttered. “Like changing the bloody name of Australia to Michelob.”
He picked up the telephone and called the embassy, trying to catch Jane before she left for Georgetown. He just made it.
“Just a quick question,” he said. “Can I meet you at home tonight instead of in the bar?”
“You mean my home?”
“Right.”
“Okay. What time?”
“Six. I got a little project you might want to help me with.”
“No worries. I’ll be waiting.”
The day passed without further drama, or knowledge as to what happened to the Global Bronco. The great tower of fire alongside the ship raged on into the heavens until the evaporating gas had burned off, and when it finally died it left the starboard side of the Bronco shimmering white hot. The huge tanker was wallowing in the water, bow down, the waves now washing right up to the still-intact Tank Two, which sat full of liquid gas, poised between the devil of the melting aft quarter of the ship and the ripped-metal destruction in the deep blue sea up for’ard.
CNN, and the rest of the media, could elaborate no further. Bob Heseltine had called Admiral Morgan to inform him that Texas Global was sending its own investigators immediately to Dubai. He also mentioned he had been in conference with his technical advisers all day and no one could come up with one single reason how the for’ard tank could possibly have exploded, short of being blown apart by a mine or a torpedo.
When Arnold replaced the receiver, he was so thoughtful, so concerned, he had actually found time to say good-bye to the helpful Texan on the wire from Travis Street, Houston
.
Lieutenant Ramshawe spent the day studying satellite photographs and charts of the strait. He also talked to the CIA’s Middle East desk, searching for any clue as to whether Iran might have decided to lock the rest of the world out of the almost-landlocked sea they regarded, historically, as their own.
Satellite photographs showed the two Chinese warships, Hangzhou and Shantou, now moored alongside, in China’s new Burmese Naval dockyard on Haing Gyi Island, which sits north of a wide six-mile shoal, surrounded almost entirely by sea marshes, but with a short easterly coastline facing a surprisingly deep trench with varying low-water depths of well over 40 feet.
In a massive building program in recent years, China had converted a stretch of this two-mile coastline into a concrete haven for its warships far from home. The island was strategically perfect, on the eastern coast of the Bay of Bengal, at the mouth of the 12-mile-wide estuary of the Bassein River. It was equipped with long jetties and standard shipyard equipment, cranes, loading facilities, refueling pumps, 16 big concrete holding tanks, and sprawling lines of ships’ stores. It was the first fully equipped overseas Naval base China had possessed for more than 500 years, 7,500 sea miles from Shanghai.
Jimmy Ramshawe did not like it. The two Chinese warships, even in a long-range satellite photograph, looked a lot too comfortable at the Burmese jetties, just around the coast from a foreign ocean. “Like someone parking a couple of Iraqi frigates outside the Opera House by Sydney Harbor Bridge,” he muttered. “Seriously out of place…I just wish I bloody knew what the Orientals were at—maybe I’ll get my last name changed to Rickshawe and get in there as a spy and find out.”
Tickled by his own groan-inspiring humor, the Lieutenant made out a brief report, detailing the information that the Chinese frigate and destroyer were now refueling for the journey home. He made a note that the three Kilos were not in residence in Burma and presumed they had taken a more southerly route to avoid the Malacca Strait, through which they would have been forced to travel on the surface. “It looks rather as if they do not wish to be seen,” he wrote. “For reasons unspecified. For good measure he added the words “as yet.”
He then returned to his big chart of the Hormuz Strait, published by the U.S. Navy and likely to be extremely accurate. He took a long ruler and drew a line from the new Iranian missile position at 26.23N 57.05E. The line was precisely 14 inches long. The chart’s scale was one inch: 125,000. So he divided 125,000 by 36 to give him yards, then that number by 1,760 to give him miles. The calculator told him that on this chart one inch equaled 1.97 miles. Which meant the tanker had exploded in 360 feet of water, 27.58 miles from the missiles, right along his straight line at 26.18N 56.38E.
He noted that from the point of the explosion the water stayed very deep west toward the Omani coast. Heading east it began to shelve up steadily all the way back along his line, growing a regular 30 or 40 feet shallower every few miles. Absentmindedly he muttered to himself, “If there really is a minefield out there, I’d say they used those Kilos to lay ’em in the deep water over on the Omani side and the surface ships where it gets shallower…. I wonder.”
His shift ended officially at 1600, but he’d been in the office since before 0600, and he was still there at 1700, wrestling with his decision. It was a drastic step, he knew, and may very easily cost
him his career. But he was going for it.
Jimmy Ramshawe folded up his chart and took it with him when he left his desk. A minute later he was aiming the Jaguar toward the highway that would take him to the Australian Embassy on Massachusetts Avenue
. The traffic was “the usual bloody awful,” and he drove in through the gates just before 6 P.M. Jane Peacock and her mother were chatting in the parking lot, and they killed a few minutes discussing the spectacular spring weather, blossoms and associated flora, before Jane and Jimmy headed back into the embassy, to the ambassador’s private quarters.
She ordered tea, and then sat down next to him on a large sofa and told him to spill the beans. “Come on, Jimmy, what’s happening?”
“Well, it’s like this…I am planning to speak to the President’s National Security Adviser, Admiral Arnold Morgan.”
The Shark Mutiny (2001) Page 7
