To destroy the three Kilos traveling under heavy Russian escort…well, as far as George could see, you’d be talking about a US Navy Task Group stalking three brand-new Russian submarines, plus another couple of ex-Soviet hunter-killers, not to mention several frigates…“Jesus Christ!” he muttered. “This is beginning to sound like the Battle of Midway. We can’t do anything like that. I guess it’s Arnold’s problem.”
The Admiral walked over to his desk. It was 0515. His duty was clear. Admiral Morgan had insisted he be informed the instant there was any development with the Kilos currently under construction. He picked up the telephone and dialed Admiral Morgan’s home number in Montpelier. The ex-Intelligence chief had been awake for fifteen minutes and picked up the phone immediately, answering in the refined manner that had endeared him to so many high-ranking politicians and officers.
“Morgan. Speak.”
“Good morning, Admiral. George Morris. Sorry about the time.”
“If I was, or ever had been, worried about the goddamned time, George,” growled Morgan, “the world would doubtless be a more dangerous place. Shoot.”
“Your three friends, Admiral. I have some pictures I know you’ll want to see right away. Your place or mine.”
“I’ll be with you in fifteen,” snapped Morgan, and he slammed down the phone, leaving Admiral Morris standing awkwardly in a roomful of people, with the phone still to his ear.
The Admiral did what many other people had done in similar situations with his irascible predecessor, who rarely if ever hung around for telephonic etiquette once he had heard what he wanted to hear and hung up.
“Yes, okay then, Admiral,” he said, speaking into the dead phone. “See you then. ’Bye.”
By which time Arnold Morgan was burning rubber on his own driveway, driving himself from home directly to Fort Meade. He arrived at the National Security Agency in near-record time. His steely presence galvanized the night staff into action, and a two-man escort accompanied him to Admiral Morris’s office, where the resident Director had already ordered coffee for them both. “Black with buckshot” for the Big Man, which at least alerted the entire building as to the forthcoming arrival of their former boss. George Morris vacated his desk for Arnold Morgan, who now sat quietly studying the picture taken from space. “Yup,” he said. “Yup, George. You got it. These babies are on their way, real soon.”
Admiral Morris explained his fears about a serious confrontation in the Atlantic, with a small flotilla of American ships effectively doing battle with the Russians.
Morgan waited. He did not wish to betray the fact that his plans had been in place for several weeks. Nor did he wish to tell anyone about them. “Don’t worry about the details, George,” Morgan said. “I’ve had this in hand since the day we found out the Russians had put the Chinese right at the front of the Kilo build-stream.”
He turned and stared at the Fort Meade Director and said grimly, “I want to thank you and your team for your vigilance in this matter. Right now there’s no need for you to know more. Just keep me posted every inch of the way.”
Then he lightened, just a shade. “George, old buddy, as you well know, we each have to sit in our own chairs in this game. You in yours and I in mine.” The fact that Arnold Morgan was actually sitting in George’s chair at George’s desk, at that precise moment, was regarded by both men as irrelevant.
The bells of the watch tolled for 0800 on the Director’s maritime clock as the Admiral left Fort Meade. He decided not to stop at home but to press on for the White House. He arrived at 0930, turned the engine off, and told someone to take care of his car, and to tell Charlie, his chauffeur, to call him on the telephone.
He arrived at his office in the West Wing just as the chauffeur was put through from the garage. “Charlie,” he said, “go get my car from wherever the hell it’s parked, and get it back to my home in Montpelier. Then return here with the office car and be on parade by 1230. I could be moving in a lot of directions.”
“Yessir. But sir, how do I get back here from your house in Montpelier?”
“Charlie.” Admiral Morgan spoke kindly and patiently. “Right now I’m tackling two or three very minor matters at once — I’m trying to ensure the northwestern area of the Pacific stays safe and secure for world shipping; I’m trying to retain our dominance over the Taiwan Strait; and I may have to kick a few Chinese butts…Just get my car down here, now!
“Charlie…Charlie…I know your problems are many… BUT WOULD YOU JUST GET MY FUCKING CAR TO MONTPELIER? AND THEN GET YOUR ASS BACK HERE ON THE DOUBLE, BEARING IN MIND THAT I DO NOT GIVE A FLYING FUCK IF YOU NEED TO HIRE THE SPACE SHUTTLE IN ORDER TO ACHIEVE IT.”
Charlie was about to drop the phone in terror when the Admiral softened again. “Try your best, Charlie,” he said as he hung up the phone. “It is only because of these immense problems that men such as yourself are hired.”
He replaced the phone, grinning at a new degree of wit that he found himself increasingly utilizing. Life at the White House was smoothing away the rougher edges of his choleric personality. Nearly.
He picked up the phone again and asked the operator to connect him to the Director’s office at Fort Meade. He was told that Admiral Morris had left for the Pentagon and would not be back before lunch. He could be located with Admiral Joe Mulligan. Not wanting to alert the entire Navy about the developing Kilo situation, Arnold Morgan elected not to interrupt the meeting in the office of the CNO, even though the Admiral himself would not have hesitated to interrupt a conversation between God and the Pope if he believed that it fell within the military interests of his beloved United States.
He glanced at his watch. It was now 0945, which meant it was 0645 in California. No good. Admiral John Bergstrom would not yet be at his desk. “Lazy prick,” snarled Morgan impatiently. “Have to give him another hour.”
He gazed at his map, absentmindedly picking up a jade-handled magnifying glass. He found himself looking closely at the waters of Russia’s enormous Lake Onega, the 120-mile stretch through which the Kilos would have to travel on their way to the Belomorski Canal. He had asked Fort Meade to run through their records, through all of their recorded photographic evidence, to try to find a pattern in the outlandish inland waterway journeys of the Russian submarines.
“There must be something,” he murmured. “Someplace where they stop, refuel, or change guard…someplace where they might be vulnerable.” He stared at the map, noted the position of the island of Kizhi, and then considered the largest port on the lake, Petrozavodsk. Arnold knew the name meant Peter’s Factory. He also knew that Peter the Great had converted the entire place into a cannon foundry, ransacking the town and nearby areas of all of their metal in order to melt it down for artillery hardware in the early eighteenth century.
The result was, of course, that Peter had forced the Swedes into submission in the Great Northern War of 1700–1712. “If I can just get this situation in order, I’ll give ’em some more scrap metal to fuck around with,” he growled. “I just need someone to get some kind of pattern on those submarine internal delivery voyages.”
It was hard to decide whom he was more irritated with — Admiral Morris, Admiral Bergstrom, or “the goddamned Soviets.” On reflection he decided it was probably a dead heat — with Charlie the chauffeur right in there behind ’em.
He informed a secretary that he was deeply depressed by the current absence of coffee. When it finally arrived, he slurped it in solitude, leaning back from his desk, trying to ensure his own thoughts, so that the immediate future of the Kilos would be the product of solid, well-reasoned military logic.
“You have to start with one fact,” he declared to himself. “These three little bastards ain’t never gonna get to the South China Sea. Not to that ocean, nor to any other.
“And that gives us three military options, and only three…Option (A): we arrange an air strike and blow them to pieces, right there in the shipyard where the satellites have been watchin
g their progress for almost two years. This would of course instantly start World War III.
“Or, we could go to Option (B). Wait for the Russians to load them, and then obliterate the barges and their cargo with a missile strike. This would also detonate World War III.
“Option (C) is even simpler. Another air strike to blow up a section of the 125-mile-long Belomorski Canal, which would end the northern journey of the submarines, and for that matter the northern journeys of everyone else. You might need a nuclear device for this, but you might not, if you could launch a big enough bomb or missile. Either way, here comes World War III — which essentially renders options A, B, and C out of the question. Therefore, it remains as I have thought from the beginning. It’s gotta be Special Forces. And it’s not gonna be easy.”
He returned to the table and looked at the canal. “The trick is,” he said to himself, “to confuse the life out of the goddamned Russians. Maybe get ’em to blame someone else. We are going to have to get stealthy. Our big problem is technology and organization. I just wonder what the hell time Bergstrom elects to get out of the sack. And what time Morris intends to terminate his banquet at the Pentagon.”
He was suddenly preoccupied with Admiral Bergstrom. The head of SPECWARCOM had endured a late night and would not be at his desk before 0800, which was 1100 Morgan time. And Morris? The President’s NSA had underestimated him.
As soon as he arrived at the CNO’s outer office, George Morris had called Fort Meade and told them to give Admiral Morgan the latest update on the submarine journeys. Lieutenant John Harrison was now on the line to the White House, being put through to the office of the National Security Adviser.
“Morgan. Speak.”
“Er, Admiral…Lieutenant Harrison, Fort Meade. The line’s secure. I’m calling for Admiral Morris, who thought you would like to be updated on our search for a journey pattern on the Russian boats.”
“He was right. Shoot.”
“Sir. Well, as you know, we’ve gone back around twenty-five years, studying all of the submarine journeys out of Gorky up to the White Sea. Naturally we do not have data on them all, but we have a lot, around fifty…and there is just one thing we think stands out — they all seem to stop at a certain point on Lake Onega, right up in the way north, on the left, beyond Petrozavodsk. It was difficult to find a reason, but in the end we came up with something very simple. Each time they stopped, there was a buildup of traffic astern of the barges. We think they pulled over to free up the north waterway, take a break, and get some sleep. Our notes suggest they stopped at around 2100, then set off again at around 0500.”
“Interesting. And very helpful, Lieutenant. I’m grateful. Have you finished writing it up?”
“Almost, sir. Say one hour from now.”
“Okay, Lieutenant. I’ll send an officer down to collect it, usual high security…manacled briefcase…Mark the envelope for limited distribution — Top Secret, US Eyes Only.
“My own White House chauffeur will drive him…Charlie…tall, gray-haired guy around fifty. He ain’t that swift of thought, so call him by name or he might get bewildered.”
The Lieutenant laughed. But he had no time to start wondering why such an apparently minor point should have earned the dreaded Admiral Morgan’s gratitude because the phone was dropped back on its hook with a resounding clunk, and young John Harrison was holding a dead phone to his ear just as his boss had earlier in the day.
Arnold Morgan poured himself more coffee and instructed a secretary to locate a detailed map of Lake Onega. It was almost 1100 and he also told her to get Admiral Bergstrom on the line. As it happened, he wasn’t in yet, but the call came bouncing back from US Navy SEAL headquarters by 0815 Pacific Daylight Time.
By then, the Admiral had commandeered a finely detailed map of the lake, and he gruffly asked Bergstrom if he wanted him, Morgan, to do all of his work while the SEAL boss slumbered in the West Coast sun, or whether he was proposing to pull his act together.
“If you had been on the receiving end of my luck last night, Arnie, you would not begrudge me my few moments of pleasure,” Admiral Bergstrom told him.
Admiral Morgan chuckled. “How are you, John?” he said. “Sorry I’ve been out of touch, but I wanted to wait until I had something definite to tell you, and now I have.”
“Are we looking at a basic plan similar to what we discussed?”
“Exactly that. We should meet soonest.”
“You want me to come to Washington, or will you come out here?”
“The latter. Two days from now. As you know the Chief’s coming to LA for the day. I can get a ride — they’ll drop me off in San Diego.”
“Jesus. You sure you can use that aircraft like a taxi?”
“No problem. I’ll be in San Diego around 0900. Get someone to meet me, John. I’ll need a lift back to the airport around 1600—we want to be home by midnight if possible.”
“Right. I’ll start to get this revved up. What’s our priority?”
“Timing and recce.”
“Okay. You want me to alert the guys. You know they’re all in place?”
“Yeah. We better get three of ’em moving within three days. Right after you and I finish.”
“Okay, Arnie. I’ll start it up. Look forward to seeing you before 1000 day after tomorrow.”
Air Force One touched down at San Diego’s Lindbergh Field at precisely 0900 and headed for the seclusion of an outer runway. The airway steps were down for exactly forty-five seconds, and Admiral Morgan was out and gone, ensconced in the backseat of a US Navy staff car. By the time he reached the airport freeway exit, Air Force One was off the ground and heading north for LA.
The Navy driver swung onto the Pacific Highway heading south, and the road began to climb the spectacular curved bridge that crosses San Diego Bay on towering concrete stilts, like a mammoth centipede, 140 feet above the water. From its high point, the bridge curves steeply down to the island of Coronado, headquarters of the US Navy SEALs. Surrounded by heavy-duty wire, and patrolled by armed devils disguised as men, the SEAL base is not a place that invites intruders.
SPECWARCOM is the acronym for the US Navy’s Special Warfare Command. Its Commander, Rear Admiral John Bergstrom, was the latest in a line of outstanding officers who had served in its ranks, after having trained as a Navy SEAL. Often working undercover, usually in life-or-death situations, SEALs are the equivalent of the British SAS or the Royal Navy’s Special Boat Service — they are highly trained killers, experts with explosives who possess a thorough knowledge of dozens of weapons, systems, and demolition techniques. Though they operate behind enemy lines, SEALs do not, normally, expect to die. In the words of General Patton they expect “the other poor dumb bastard” to take care of that part.
It’s more difficult to become a SEAL than to graduate from Harvard Law School. A brutal indoctrination course awaits those who make it through SEAL training — BUD/S (Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL), also known as “The Grinder.” To survive, a man must be a paragon of physical, intellectual, and emotional strength: aside from speed and a natural agility in the water, he also needs a first-class memory.
The BUD/S course is designed to eliminate anyone who may be suspect either mentally or physically. It comprises days of running along the five-mile-long beaches that guard San Diego Bay. Recruits are periodically driven into the freezing ocean by instructors, then made to roll in the sand, and forced to continue running up and down the dunes, ignoring the agonizing pain of the sand inside their wet shorts. “Keep moving, son…I’m probably saving your life.”
As the course moves on, exhausted men drop out, and the instructors drive those who remain harder. During “Hell Week” men on the verge of collapse are again driven one more time through an underwater tunnel, one more time out onto the dunes, into the ocean, and one more mile home. Half of the men who enter “Hell Week” never make it through. The instructors seek only those who are shattered but still defiant — those who think
they have nothing more to give but still, in desperation, find more. That’s a US Navy SEAL.
The United States runs six teams of SEALs. Teams Two, Four, and Eight of Little Creek, Virginia, and Teams One, Three, and Five from Coronado. Admiral John Bergstrom, a veteran of Team Two, was the overlord of all SEALs. From his office in Coronado he over-saw every SEAL operation worldwide.
Each SEAL team comprises 225 men, of which 160 are active members of the attack platoons. Twenty-five people, including technicians and electronics experts, work as support and logistics staff. Forty more are directly involved in training, command, and control. The SEAL strike squadrons require enormous backup. These are valuable men, with a code of their own; in their short but valiant history they have never left a colleague on the battlefield. Neither wounded nor dead, not even in Vietnam.
Admiral Arnold Morgan was shown into the office of Admiral John Bergstrom shortly before 1000. The two men greeted each other warmly. They were old friends, who had a lot of respect for each other. They were both tough and ruthless in the execution of their duties, and fiercely protective of the men who served them.
Whereas Arnold Morgan had allowed his career to destroy his two marriages, John Bergstrom had suffered the agony of watching his wife of thirty years die of cancer only twenty-four months ago. Alone now in his official base residence, Admiral Bergstrom was considered a major asset by innumerable West Coast hostesses. Like all SEALs, he carried a mystique about him. He stood six foot two and still had retained the hard, athletic physique of a platoon commander. His sleek, dark hair had not yet grayed, despite his fifty-seven years. He had big hands and gray, sad eyes. It would not be true to say he laughed a lot, but he chuckled, the deep, amused chuckle of a man who had operated in the face of danger, and who now regarded all the rest of it as, essentially, kid’s stuff.
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