by Tom Clancy
“CIA reports a possible mutiny in the Soviet Union by Red Army units in Kazakhstan, and disturbances in two Navy bases there also,” the game narrator, a Navy commander, reported.
“Soviet units in the vicinity of Valley Forge?” Bunker asked.
“Possibly a submarine,” the naval officer answered.
“Flash Message,” the wall speaker announced. “USS Kidd reports that it has destroyed an inbound surface-to-surface missile with its Close-in Weapons System. Superficial damage to the ship, no casualties.”
Jack walked to the corner to pour himself a cup of coffee. He smiled as he did so. These games were fun, he admitted to himself. He really did enjoy them. They were also realistic. He'd been swept away from a normal day's routine, dumped in a stuffy room, given confused and fragmented information, and had no idea at all what the hell was supposed to be going on. That was reality. The old joke: How do crisis-managers resemble mushrooms? They're kept in the dark and fed horseshit.
“Sir, we have an incoming H OTLINE message…”
Okay, Ryan thought, it's that kind of game today. The Pentagon must have come up with the scenario. Let's see if it's still possible to blow the world up…
“More concrete?” Qati asked.
“Much more concrete,” Fromm answered. ”The machines each weigh several tons, and they must be totally stable. The room must be totally stable, and totally sealed. It must be clean like a hospital — no, much better than any hospital you have ever seen.“ Fromm looked down at his list. Not cleaner than a German hospital, of course. ”Next, electrical power. We'll need three large backup generators, and at least two UPSs—"
“What?” Qati asked.
“Un-interruptible power supplies,” Ghosn translated. “We'll keep one of the backup generators turning at all times, of course?”
“Correct,” Fromm answered. "Since this is a primitive operation, we'll try not to use more than one machine at a time. The real problem with electricity is ensuring a secure circuit. So, we take the line current through the UPSs to protect against spikes. The computer systems on the milling machines are highly sensitive.
“Next!” Fromm said. “Skilled operators.”
“That will be highly difficult,” Ghosn observed.
The German smiled, amazing everyone present. “Not so. It will be easier than you think.”
“Really?” Qati asked. Good news from this infidel?
“We'll need perhaps five highly trained men, but you have them in the region, I am sure.”
“Where? There is no machine shop in the region that—”
“Certainly there is. People here wear spectacles, do they not?”
“But—”
“Of course!” Ghosn said, rolling his eyes in amazement.
“The degree of precision, you see,” Fromm explained to Qati, “is no different from what is required for eyeglasses. The machines are very similar in design, just larger, and what we are attempting to do is simply to produce precise and predictable curves in a rigid material. Nuclear bombs are produced to exacting specifications. So are spectacles. Our desired object is larger, but the principle is the same, and with the proper machinery it is merely a matter of scale, not of substance. So: can you obtain skilled lens-makers?”
“I don't see why not,” Qati replied, hiding his annoyance.
“They must be highly skilled,” Fromm said, like a schoolmaster. “The best you can find, people with long experience, probably with training in Germany or England.”
“There will be a security problem,” Ghosn said quietly.
“Oh? Why is that?” Fromm asked, with a feigned bafflement that struck both of the others as the summit of arrogance.
“Quite so,” Qati agreed.
“Next, we need sturdy tables on which to mount the machines.”
Halfway point, Lieutenant Commander Walter Claggett told himself. In forty-five more days, USS Maine would surface outside Juan de Fuca Straits, link up with the tugboat, and follow Little Toot into Bangor, where she would then tie up and begin the hand-off process to the “Blue” crew for the next deterrence-patrol cycle. And not a moment too soon.
Walter Claggett — friends called him Dutch, a nickname that had originated at the Naval Academy for a reason he no longer remembered; Claggett was Black — was thirty-six years old, and it had been known to him before sailing that he was being “deep-dipped” for early selection to commander and had a chance for an early crack at a fast-attack boat. That was fine with him. His two attempts at marriage had both ended in failure, which was not uncommon for submariners — thankfully, there were no kids involved in either union — and the Navy was his life. He was just as happy to spend all of his time at sea, saving his carousing time for those not really brief intervals on the beach. To be at sea, to slide through black water in control of a majestic ship of war, that was the best of all things to Walter Claggett. The company of good men, respect truly earned in a most demanding profession, the acquired ability to know every time what the right thing to do was, the relaxed banter in the wardroom, the responsibility he had to counsel his men — Claggett relished every aspect of his career.
It was just his commanding officer he couldn't stand.
How the hell did Captain Hairy 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 a
dded, “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 flukey 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 flukey… 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.
God damn 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 is 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 IO-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 noises 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 this 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 battlegroup.”
“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 battlegroup 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.
“H OTLINE 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 codeword authentication. Forces are now at D EF C ON — O NE on my authority."
One thi
ng 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.”
