by Tom Clancy
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.
“What the fuck is going on?”
“Sir, we had a launch transient dead aft—Sonar, conn, what else do you have?”
“Nothing, sir, nothing after the transient. That was a launch-transient, HP air into the water, but ... sounded a little funny, sir. I show nothing in the water.”
“Right full rudder!” the OOD ordered, ignoring the Captain. He hadn’t been relieved yet, and conning the boat was his responsibility. “Make your depth one hundred feet. Five-inch room, launch a decoy now-now-now!”
“Right full rudder, aye. Sir, my rudder is right full, no course given. Speed twenty knots and accelerating,” helmsman said.
“Very well. Come to course zero-one-zero.”
“Aye, coming to new course zero-one-zero!”
“Who’s in this area?” the CO asked in a relaxed voice, though he didn’t feel relaxed.
“Maine’s around here somewhere,” the navigator answered.
“Harry Ricks.” That asshole, he didn’t say. It would have been bad for discipline. “Sonar, talk to me!”
“Conn, Sonar, there is nothing in the water. If there was a torpedo, I’d have it, sir.”
“Nav, drop speed to one-third.”
“Aye, all ahead one-third.”
“I think we scared the piss out of him,” Ricks observed, hovering over the sonar display. Seconds after the simulated launch, the 688 on the scope had floored his power plant, and now there was also the gurgling sound of a decoy.
“Just backed off on the power, sir, blade count is coming down.”
“Yeah, he knows there’s nothing after him, now. We’ll give him a call on the Gertrude.”
“That dumbass! Doesn’t he know that there may be an Akula around here?” the Commanding Officer of USS Omaha growled.
“We don’t show him, sir, just a bunch of fishing boats.”
“Okay. Secure from general quarters. We’ll let Maine have her little laugh.” He grimaced. “My fault. We should have been trolling along at ten instead of fifteen knots. Make it so.”
“Aye, sir. Where to?”
“The boomer ought to have a feel for what’s north of here. Go southeast.”
“Right.”
“Nice reaction, Nav. We might have evaded the fish. Lessons?”
“You said it, sir. We were going too fast.”
“Learn from your Captain’s mistake, Mr. Auburn.”
“Always, sir.”
The skipper punched the younger man’s shoulder on the way out.
Thirty-six thousand yards away, the Admiral Lunin was drifting at three knots just over the thermocline layer, her towed-array sonar drooping under it.
“Well?” her Captain asked.
“We have this burst of noise at one-three-zero,” the sonar officer said, pointing to the display, “and nothing else. Fifteen seconds later, we have another burst of noise here ... ahead of the first. The signature appears to be an American Los Angeles class going to full power, then slowing and disappearing off our screens.”
“An exercise, Yevgeniy ... the first transient was an American missile submarine ... an Ohio-class. What do you think of that?” Captain First Rank Valentin Borissovich Dubinin asked.
“No one has ever detected an Ohio in deep water....”
“For all things there is a first time.”
“And now?”
“We will hover and wait. The Ohio is quieter than a sleeping whale, but at least we know now that there is one in the area. We will not chase after it. Very foolish of the Americans to make noise in this way. I’ve never seen that happen before.”
“The game has changed, Captain,” the sonar officer observed. It had changed quite a lot. He didn’t have to say “Comrade Captain” anymore.
“Indeed it has, Yevgeniy. Now it is a true game. No one need get hurt, and we can test our skills as in the Olympics.”
“Critique?”
“I would have closed a little before shooting, sir,” the weapons officer said. “Even money he might have evaded that one.”
“Agreed, but we were only trying to shake him up,” Ricks said comfortably.
Then what was the purpose of that exercise? Dutch Claggett wondered. Oh, of course, to show how aggressive you are.
“I guess we accomplished that,” the XO said to support his captain. There were grins all around the control room. Boomers and fast-attack subs often played games, mostly pre-planned. As usual, the Ohio had won this one, too. They’d known that Omaha was around, of course, and that she was looking for a Russian Akula that the P-3s had lost off the Aleutians a few days before. But the Russian Shark-class sub was nowhere to be heard.
“OOD, take her south. We went and made a datum with that launch transient. We’ll clear datum back down where Omaha was.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Well done, people.” Ricks walked back to his cabin.
“New course?”
“South,” Dubinin said. “He’ll clear datum by going into the area already swept by the Los Angeles. We’ll maintain position just over the layer, leave our ‘tail’ under it, and try to reacquire.” There wasn’t much chance, the Captain knew, but fortune still favored the bold. Or something like that. The submarine was due to go back to port in another week, and supposedly the new sonar array she was due to receive during her scheduled overhaul was a major improvement over the current one. He’d been here south of Alaska for three weeks. The submarine he’d detected, USS Maine or USS Nevada, if his intelligence reports were correct, would finish this patrol, refit, conduct another, refit again, then yet another patrol in February, which coincided with his deployment schedule after his overhaul. So the next time he was back, he’d be up against the same captain, and this one had made a mistake. After the refit, Admiral Lunin would be quieter, and would have better sonar, and Dubinin was starting to wonder when he’d be able to play his game against the Americans.... Wouldn’t it be nice, he thought. All the time he’d spent to get here, the wonderful years learning his trade in Northern Fleet under Marko Ramius. What a pity, for such a brilliant officer to have died in an accident. But duty at sea was dangerous, always had been, always would be. Marko had got his crew off before scuttling.... Dubinin shook his head. Today he might have gotten an assist from the Americans. Might? Would have, just as an American ship would get one from a Soviet. The changes in his country and the world made Dubinin feel much better about his job. It had always been a demanding game of skill, but its deadly purpose had changed. Oh, yes, the American missile submarines still had their rockets pointed at his country, and Soviet rockets were pointed at America, but perhaps they would be gone soon. Until they were, he’d continue to do his job, and it seemed ironic indeed that just as the Soviet Navy was on the threshold of becoming competitive—the Akula class was roughly equal with an early Los Angeles class in a mechanical sense—the need for it was diminishing. Like a friendly game of cards, perhaps? he asked himself. Not a bad simile....
“Speed, Captain?”
Dubinin considered that. “Assume a range of twenty nautical miles and a target speed of five knots. We’ll do seven knots, I think. That
way we can remain very quiet and perhaps still catch him ... every two hours we’ll turn to maximize the capacity of the sonar.... Yes, that is the plan.” Next time, Yevgeniy, we’ll have two new officer sonar operators to back you up, Dubinin reminded himself. The drawdown of the Soviet submarine force had released a lot of young officers who were now getting specialist training. The submarine’s complement of officers would double, and even more than the new equipment, that would make a difference in his abilities to hunt.
“We blew it,” Bunker said. “I blew it. I gave the President bad advice.”
“You’re not the only one,” Ryan admitted as he stretched. “But was that scenario realistic—I mean, really realistic?”
It turned out that the whole thing had been a ploy by a hard-pressed Soviet leader trying to get control over his military, and doing so by making it look as though some renegades had taken action.
“Not likely, but possible.”
“All things are possible,” Jack observed. “What do you suppose their war games say about us?”
Bunker laughed. “Nothing good, I’m sure.”
At the end, America had had to accept the loss of its cruiser, USS Valley Forge, in return for the Charlie-class submarine that USS Kidd’s helicopter had found and sunk. That was not regarded as an even trade, rather like losing a rook to the other fellow’s knight. Soviet forces had gone on alert in Eastern Germany, and the weaker NATO forces had been unsure of their ability to deal with them. As a result, the Soviets had won a concession on the troop-pullback schedule. Ryan thought the whole scenario contrived, but they often were, and the point in any case was to see how to manage an unlikely crisis. Here they had done badly, moving too rapidly in nonessential areas, and too slowly in the ones that mattered, but which had not been recognized in time.
The lesson, as always, was: Don’t make mistakes. That was something known by any first-grader, of course, and all men made mistakes, but the difference between a first-grader and a senior official was that official mistakes carried far more weight. That fact was an entirely different lesson, and one often not learned.
14
REVELATION
“So what have you found?”
“He’s a most interesting man,” Goodley replied. “He’s done some things at CIA that are hardly believable.”
“I know about the submarine business, and the defection of the KGB head. What else?” Liz Elliot asked.
“He’s rather well liked in the international intelligence community, like Sir Basil Charleston over in England—well, it’s easy to see why they like him—but the same is true in the NATO countries, especially in France. Ryan stumbled across something that enabled the DGSE to bag a bunch of Action Directe people,” Goodley explained. He was somewhat uncomfortable with his role of designated informer.
The National Security Advisor didn’t like to be kept waiting, but there was no sense in pressing the young scholar, was there? Her face took on a wry smile. “Am I to assume that you have started admiring the man?”
“He’s done fine work, but he’s made his mistakes, too. His estimate on the fall of East Germany and the progress of reunification was way off.” He had not managed to learn that everyone else was, as well. Goodley himself had guessed almost exactly right on this issue up at the Kennedy School, and the paper he’d published in an obscure journal was something else that had earned him attention at the White House. The White House Fellow stopped again.
“And ... ?” Elliot prodded.
“And there are some troubling aspects in his personal life.”
Finally! “And those are?”
“Ryan was investigated by the SEC for possible insider-stock trading before he entered CIA employ. It seems there was a computer-software company about to get a Navy contract. Ryan found out about it before anyone else and made a real killing. The SEC found out—the reason is that the company executives themselves were also investigated—and examined Ryan’s records. He got off on a technicality.”
“Explain,” Liz ordered.
“In order to cover their own backsides, the company officials arranged to have something published in a defense trade paper, just a little filler item, not even two column inches, but it was enough to show that the information upon which they and Ryan operated was technically in the public domain. That made it legal. What’s more interesting is what Ryan did with the money after attention was called to it. He cut it out of his brokerage account—that’s in a blind-trust arrangement now with four different money-managers.” Goodley stopped. “You know what Ryan’s worth now?”
“No, what is it?”
“Over fifteen million dollars. He’s by far the richest guy at the Agency. His holdings are somewhat undervalued. I’d say he’s worth closer to twenty myself, but he’s been using the same accounting method since before he joined CIA, and you can’t critique him there. How you figure net worth is kind of metaphysical, isn’t it? Accountants have different ways of doing things. Anyway, what he did with that windfall: he split it off to a separate account. Then a short while ago it all moved out into an educational trust fund.”
“His kids?”
“No,” Goodley answered. “The beneficiaries—no, let me back up. He used part of the money to set up a convenience store—a 7-Eleven—for a widow and her children. The rest of the money is set aside in T-Bills and a few blue-chip stocks to educate her children.”
“Who is she?”
“Her name is Carol Zimmer. Laotian by birth, she’s the widow of an Air Force sergeant who got killed in a training accident. Ryan has been looking after the family. He even signed out of his office to attend the birth of the newest child—a girl, by the way. Ryan visits the family periodically,” Goodley concluded.
“I see.” She didn’t, but that is what one says. “Any professional connection?”
“Not really. Mrs. Zimmer, as I said, was Laotian. Her father was one of those tribal chieftains that CIA supported against the North Vietnamese. The whole group was wiped out. I haven’t discovered how she managed to escape. She married an Air Force sergeant and came to America. He died in an accident somewhere, rather recently. There is nothing in Ryan’s file to show any previous connection to the family at all. The Laos connection is possible—to CIA, I mean—but Ryan wasn’t in government employ then, he was an undergrad in college. There’s nothing in the file to show a connection of any kind. Just one day, a few months before the last presidential election, he set up this trust fund, and ever since he visits them on the average of once a week. Oh, there was one other thing.”
“What’s that?”
“I cross-referenced this from another file. There was some trouble at the 7-Eleven, some local punks were bothering the Zimmer family. Ryan’s principal bodyguard is a CIA officer named Clark. He used to be a field officer, and now is a protective guy. I wasn’t able to get his file,” Goodley explained. “Anyway, this Clark guy evidently assaulted a couple of gang kids. Sent one to the hospital. I checked a newspaper clipping. It was in the news, a little item—concerned citizen sort of thing. Clark and another CIA guy—the paper identified them as federal employees, no CIA connection—were supposedly accosted by four street toughs. This Clark guy must be a piece of work. The gang leader had his knee broken and was hospitalized. One other was just knocked unconscious, and the rest just stood there and wet their pants. The local cops treated it as a gang problem—well, a former gang problem. No formal charges were pressed.”
“What else do you know about this Clark?”
“I’ve seen him a few times. Big guy, late forties, quiet, actually seems kind of shy. But he moves—you know what he moves like? I took karate courses once. The instructor was a former Green Beret, Vietnam veteran, all that stuff. Like that. He moves like an athlete, fluid, economical, but it’s his eyes. They’re always moving around. He looks at you sideways and decides if you’re a threat or not a threat....” Goodley paused. At that moment he realized what Clark really was. Whatever else he was, Be
n Goodley was no fool. “That is one dangerous guy.”
“What?” Liz Elliot didn’t know what he was talking about.
“Excuse me. I learned that from the karate teacher up at Cambridge. The really dangerous ones don’t seem dangerous. You just sort of lose track of them in the room. My teacher, he was mugged on the subway station right there by Harvard. I mean, they tried to mug him. He left three kids bleeding on the bricks. They thought he was just a janitor or something—he’s an African-American, about fifty now, I guess. Looks like a janitor or something the way he dresses, not dangerous at all. That’s what Clark is like, just like my old sensei.... Interesting,” Goodley said. “Well, he’s a SPO, and they’re supposed to be good at their job.
“I speculate that Ryan found out that some punks were bothering Mrs. Zimmer, and had his bodyguard straighten things out. The Anne Arundel County police thought it was just fine.”
“Conclusions?”
“Ryan has done some very good work, but he’s blown some big ones, too. Fundamentally, he’s a creature of the past. He’s still a Cold War guy. He’s got problems with the Administration, like a few days ago when you didn’t attend the CAMELOT game. He doesn’t think you take your jobs seriously, thinks that not playing those war games is irresponsible.”
“He said that?”
“Almost a direct quote, I was in the room with Cabot when he came in and bitched.”
Elliot shook her head. “That’s a Cold Warrior talking. If the President does his job right, and if I do my job right, there won’t be any crises to manage. That’s the whole point, isn’t it?”
“And so far, you guys seem to be doing all right,” Goodley observed.
The National Security Advisor ignored the remark, looking at her notes.
The walls were in place, and weather-sealed with plastic sheeting. The air-conditioning system was already running, removing both humidity and dust from the air. Fromm was at work with the machine-tool tables. Table was too pedestrian a term. They were designed to hold several tons each, and had screw jacks on each sturdy leg. The German was leveling each machine with the aid of spirit-levels built into the frames.
