“Okay. Down all masts. Conn-XO…make your speed twenty knots…steer zero-three-four…fathometer, report the depth…. Navigator-XO…report to me immediately.”
The submarine surged forward, and everyone who was awake heard the distinct change in the rhythm of the ship. Lieutenant Pearson came hustling through the doorway, holding a chart. “Right here, sir,” he said. “We’re in two hundred feet of water, and we can go at least six miles on this course without even thinking about it.”
“Thanks, Shawn….” But he was cut off from further communication by the sudden appearance in the control room of Captain Reid, wearing his pajama trousers, shoes, socks and a Navy sweater.
“XO, might I ask where precisely you are taking this ship when our orders are perfectly clear to remain on station?”
“Sir, right now we are on a rescue mission. The ASDV just radioed in. The SEAL team leader, Lt. Commander Schaeffer, has been killed, and another of the twelve is badly wounded. They called to request we come in and meet them. They are afraid the second SEAL might also die. We’re going in six miles to a probable depth of one hundred fifty feet. If I have to, we’ll continue on the surface until we find them.”
“Lieutenant Commander Headley, you do of course realize that your orders are directly countermanding both mine and those of the flag?”
“Sir. There are ample provisions in Navy regulations to provide for emergency actions in order to save life. Especially one of our own.”
“XO. DO NOT REMIND ME OF THE NAVY’S REGULATIONS. I KNOW A GREAT DEAL ABOUT THEM. AND THE ONE I SUGGEST YOU CONSIDER IS THE ONE THAT GIVES THE COMMANDING OFFICER ABSOLUTE POWER ON HIS OWN SHIP.”
“I am well acquainted with that one, sir.”
“Then, for the second time in as many days, I am ordering you to turn this ship around and return to our correct waiting position at 26.36N 56.49E.”
“Sir,” interrupted Commander Bennett, “as you are well aware, I outrank Lieutenant Commander Headley and it was at my request he agreed to go on a rescue mission, possibly to save the life of one of my most valuable men.”
“Then I must remind you, sir, that you have no rights whatsoever on this ship. And I will not have this interference. What exactly is this? Some kind of damned conspiracy? Well, you’ve picked the wrong man to make a fool of…waiting until I’m asleep and then flagrantly disobeying my orders.”
“Sir, may I just—” But Rusty was cut off in midsentence.
“N-O-O-O. YOU MAY NOT. TWENTY-SIX THIRTY-SIX NORTH, SIR. FIFTY-SIX FORTY-NINE EAST, SIR. THAT’S OUR CORRECT POSITION. AND THAT’S WHERE WE’RE GOING. YOU CANNOT RUN A NAVY FOR A GUY WHO’S PROBABLY CUT HIS GODDAMNED FINGER…RETURN TO OUR DESIGNATED POSITION. AND THAT’S AN ORDER, XO!”
Midnight. Wednesday, May 16.
Office of the National Security Adviser.
The White House. Washington, D.C.
Admiral Morgan had been alone for two hours, since Admiral Dixon had returned to the Pentagon. Both men knew the SEAL team had gone into Iran and that the attack on the refinery was scheduled for the small hours of Thursday morning, an eight-and-a-half-hour time difference from Washington.
Both men knew it had already happened from several different sources: the satellites, the CIA, the embassy in Tehran, the Brits via Oman on the other side of the strait and a very sketchy item on CNN. The flight-deck crew and almost everyone else on board USS Constellation had seen the fireball from 20 miles offshore. The U.S. Navy knew comprehensibly, from Diego Garcia to Pearl Harbor, from Coronado to Norfolk, Virginia, that a 12-man team of SEALs had just destroyed the world’s biggest and newest Middle Eastern oil refinery.
What no one knew was the fate of the SEALs, and Admiral Morgan paced his office awaiting some news. In his mind he guessed they’d be back in the Shark by around 0800 their time.
As far as he could tell, that was a half hour ago, and so far he’d heard NOTHING. What the hell’s going on? That was Admiral Morgan’s question. He’d kept Kathy on duty, watching her e-mail screen, sitting by the phone, ever ready to bring in the message that everyone was safe. It was a curious trait in his character, since he was now, at least according to his job description, a political adviser. But he was not a political adviser in the place that counted. In his heart, he was still a Navy commanding officer. And that did not permit him to leave the bridge until he knew absolutely that the men were home unscathed.
So why is no one telling me they’re safe? Maybe they aren’t safe? And if not, why not? Again, what the hell’s going on? “KATHY!”
The door opened, and Ms. O’Brien came through it, still quite incredibly glamorous despite the late hour. “I do wish you wouldn’t yell like that,” she said. “It’s so…so…well, uncool.”
“Who the hell else would hear me in this goddamned graveyard?” he rasped.
“Only everyone.”
“Like who? You think they could hear me in the Oval Office, if the President’s still working?”
“My darling, they could hear you in the Rose Garden.”
“Oh, of course. I forgot we got that midnight pruning crew in there, snipping away until breakfast.”
“Arnold, I am merely suggesting that it might be unnecessary for you to sound like a drill sergeant, in the White House, in the middle of the night. And, by the way, sarcasm does not become you.”
“Yes it does. It becomes me better than anyone I ever met. And anyhow, where the hell’re my SEALs? Answer that, Miss Decibels 2007.”
Before she could answer, with something suitably pithy, the phone rang at her desk outside the main office. Secure line. She walked quickly out through the doorway, and instantly put the call through to the Admiral.
“Yup. Morgan. Speak.”
“Arnie, it’s Alan Dixon. Good news and bad news, I am afraid. The SEALs wiped out the refinery, but only ten of them got back.”
“Are they inside the Shark right now?”
“They are. But they lost the team leader, Lieutenant Commander Ray Schaeffer. And they lost one of the new guys, young Charlie Mitchell.”
Admiral Morgan was stone silent for at least a half minute while he composed himself. “They didn’t die in the fire, did they?”
“No. There was some kind of battle inside the refinery. The Chinese had a military guard patrol, which we were just not expecting. With attack dogs. The guys were cornered, but they took out all five guards and both dogs, blew up their jeep and then the entire oil plant. Apparently the guards managed to get a couple of bursts out of their old Kalashnikovs. Hit Ray and Charlie at less than twenty feet, point-blank range. They never had a chance.”
“They didn’t leave our guys behind, did they? Not in that godforsaken country?”
“No. They did not. They brought the body of Ray Schaeffer out. At the time Charlie Mitchell was still alive, but he died in the ASDV about fifteen minutes before they got back to the submarine. It was a long journey at only six knots, and they couldn’t save him.”
“Thanks, Alan. Let’s talk in the morning.”
“Good night, sir.”
Arnold stood up from his desk, and he walked to the window. He stared out into the darkness, and before him he saw the half-lit refinery, and he imagined the SEALs, out there alone, trapped in a firefight, and he imagined the gallantry of the young Americans, the terror, the air alive with bullets, Lt. Commander Schaeffer, the leader, charging forward trying to save his men. Ray Schaeffer. Goddamnit. He went into Russia for me. He went into China for me. And he’s gone into Iran for me. And now he’s dead.
Admiral Morgan heard Kathy return to the office. But he just stood with his back to her, staring out into the pitch-black of the White House garden, because he could not bear for her to see him this upset.
“I’ve ordered us some coffee,” she said. “How many did they lose?”
“Two.”
“I guessed from your voice it was bad.”
And she saw him wipe the moisture from his eyes with his shirtsleeve before he tur
ned to face her. And she noticed his voice was tight when he said, “Please make sure that both Admiral Dixon and I attend the funeral in Marblehead for Lieutenant Commander Ray Schaeffer.”
“What about the President?”
“I don’t think so. He wouldn’t understand.”
“He’d understand the death of a Navy officer, wouldn’t he?”
“Possibly. But he’d never understand the courage. The duty. The honor. The mind of such a man.”
“Well, I’m sure the people of Marblehead would like to see the Lieutenant Commander given the honor of the President attending his funeral,” replied Kathy. “Couldn’t you explain it to him?”
“That, I am afraid, would be like trying to teach a pig to speak. You would succeed only in irritating the pig…. I’m afraid the simple truth of a military officer prepared to lay down his life for his country will forever remain a mystery to men like President Clarke. Because they do not do it for money. It’s not for glory either. Most of them find it impossible even to talk about it. And it’s not for power. It’s for something else. Something very private, to people like Lieutenant Commander Schaeffer. And believe me, there aren’t many of them. And I guess you can see how upset it makes me when we lose one.”
“Yes. Yes I can. I’ve never seen you like this before.”
“Guess not many people have. They think of me as some kind of civilian SEAL in a gray suit…but inside I’m like everyone else. So are the SEALs. They get scared, they feel pain, and they bleed from their wounds. Sometimes I guess I bleed for them.”
“Yes, my darling. Don’t you.”
The coffee arrived, and Kathy poured it. The Admiral sat at his desk saying nothing. But suddenly he stood up, and told her, “I’m not paid to sit around worrying about yesterday. I’m paid to start figuring out tomorrow…in my game, you gotta keep going forward or the bastards will trample you to death.”
He came and put his arms around her, but she could still see the sorrow in his face, as he privately mourned the dead SEALs. And she did not think it possible that anyone had ever loved anyone more than she loved Arnold Morgan.
0900. Thursday, May 17.
Southern Fleet Command HQ.
Zhanjiang, South China.
News of the total destruction of the Chinese refinery hit Beijing at around 0800 local time. By 0900 the world’s media had put something together on the lines of “yet another diabolical oil fire in the Strait of Hormuz—this time a massive refinery.” The world’s oil markets were about to go collectively berserk for the second time in a month.
Admiral Zhang believed, correctly as it happened, that the price per barrel might go right back to $85, off its weeklong low of $65, when the major trading market in Tokyo opened.
Surprisingly he remained calm. “Well, Jicai,” he said to his friend, “I suppose we might have expected something like this.”
“You mean you believe someone did this to us, that it was not just an accident in a big refinery?”
“Jicai, the Pentagon just blew up China’s most important oil refinery in revenge for the minefield we helped to create in the Strait of Hormuz.”
“You mean they bombed it, or hit it with a guided missile? Surely not—they would not dare instigate such an act of war so publicly.”
“Jicai, it is entirely possible that no one will ever know what happened to our installation in the Strait of Hormuz. It is also possible that the world’s media will never even consider that such an act could have been perpetrated by the oh-so-high-and-mighty United States. But I shall always know differently.”
“Do the media sense there may be something sinister? Are they linking the other fires?”
“Not so far. But of course they are not tuned in to our involvement in the minefield yet. Though I am quite certain the Americana military knows. That’s why they just blew the refinery.”
“Do we hit back?”
“We cannot. There’s nothing for us to hit in the immediate area of the refinery. Anyway, it would not be in our interest to do so. The Americans would then start to destroy our entire Navy, and I am afraid we could not stop them. I’m rather of the opinion that our days in the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Iran are over. For the moment, anyway. The Americans are in charge there now.”
“This is so unlike you, Yushu. So accepting of such terrible events.”
“Well, I did remind you I was half expecting something of this kind to happen. And now I should remind you, the essence of all war throughout our long history has been attrition. We can afford losses, both physically and emotionally. The rule is that we never take our eye off the main objective. And that grows ever nearer. We must let the oil fires burn, and later this morning we will have our own light in the sky.”
Admirals Zu Jicai and Zhang Yushu were now joined by the recently appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Southern Fleet, Vice Admiral Yang Linzhong, a short, stocky ex—frigate captain from Canton.
“Gentlemen,” he said, entering his own office, and bowing his head. “I have just been visiting our sonics laboratory, and they are ready to demonstrate for you their work over the past six months. I think you will be impressed.”
The two senior Admirals in the entire Chinese armed forces rose, and followed Yang out to a waiting Navy staff car, which drove them immediately a distance of less than a mile to domain of Lt. Commander Guangjin Chen, the PLAN’s Mr. Underwater, their great mastermind of deep-sea listening countermeasures.
His rank of Lt. Commander was honorary. Mr. Guangjin was essentially a scientist, more at home in a white laboratory coat than a naval uniform. In fact no one had ever seen him in a uniform, even though it was rumored he was the highest-paid officer in the Chinese Navy, below the rank of rear admiral.
His kingdom was underwater, in the strange, eerie caverns of the oceans. He marched to the orders of the tides, he listened to the evidence of the echoes and he acted on the lingering ping of the sonic pulses. Much of his work had been in the field of decoys, disguising, hiding the beat of the engines of the warships, seeking always to confuse and deceive the enemy.
What very few people knew, however, was that Guangjin Chen had masterminded a private project of such brilliant deception it almost took Admiral Zhang’s breath away. He had heard about it only a year ago while he was still Commander-in-Chief of the Navy. And he had heard about it just by chance. And great was his fury when he found out that Mr. Guangjin had offered the idea to the Navy for development 10 years previously, four years before he even joined the Senior Service. Guangjin had been turned down flat, probably because he was just a civilian.
In any event, Admiral Zhang knew brilliance when he heard it, even if it might not work. And last August he had summoned Mr. Guangjin to his home for dinner, and there he conducted an interrogation, to the great glee of the scientist.
Like all scientists, the lean and earnest Guangjin adored talking about his work, especially a project he had believed to be long dead. And he shyly admitted to the great Chinese Admiral that he had continued working on the project, just at his home, these past several years.
And the night proved to be magical. They had sat outside Admiral Zhang’s beautiful summer house on the island of Gulangyu, just across the Lujiang Channel from the South China seaport and Navy base of Xiamen.
The air was warm, a light southwest wind drifting across the great estuary of the Nine Dragon River, and Guangjin in company with the Zhangs sipped fragrant tea out on the stone patio beneath the curved red roof. The scientist was on his feet answering questions and pointing with a cane at the stone squares upon which he walked.
“But where’s the carrier now?”
“Right here, sir. In this stone square.”
“But where’s our Kilo?”
“Right here, sir, in the middle of this paler stone square.”
“Is it transmitting?”
“Nossir. Not yet.”
“Well, when will it?”
When I tell it to do so.”
“But how will you know when?”
“I’ll be watching all the time.”
“But how?”
“Via the satellites, sir. It’s very easy to track a large ship in the open ocean. You can hardly miss it.”
“How long is the transmission?”
“Oh, just a few seconds. Long enough to be heard.”
“Then what?”
“Well, if the U.S. Admiral has a modicum of sense, he’ll bear away and make a more northerly course.”
“I suppose he will.”
“And he’ll keep going until I frighten him again.”
The Admiral remembered just shaking his head in amazement, and he had said, “Chen, I am deeply impressed. And I want you to continue your work on this as a priority. Move it to a secure area in your working block, and perfect it. Essentially you will answer only to Admiral Zu, or myself. I regard it as our personal mission, and I’m going to code-name it right away, in memory of this evening. From now on, it’s Operation Paving Stone.”
The Shark Mutiny (2001) Page 25
