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0520 Saturday, August 3.
THE L. MENDEL RIVERS WENT AS DEEP AS SHE DARED through the dark waters above the undulating, sandy seabed of the Strait of Hormuz. She ran at around eighty feet below the surface, making twenty knots toward the vast depths of the Gulf of Arabia. Nine exhausted Navy SEALS slept, as the big U.S. submarine headed south, away from the chaos they had caused in the Iranian Naval base.
Lieutenant Bennett sat in a small office with Commander Banford, working on the preliminary report of the operation in the port of Bandar Abbas. The commander sent his first half-page coded signal on the satellite direct to COMSUBPAC just before dawn.
“030530AUG02. 56.9E, 26.5N. Course one-three-five. Vengeance Bravo. Objectives achieved. No Blue casualties or damage. SEAL Leader reports Kilo in dry dock well into major overhaul, unlikely to have been operational during month of July.”
The signal traveled quickly to Pearl Harbor, then via CINCPAC to SPECWARCOM in Coronado, finally to the office of the CNO in the Pentagon where it was 1945 the previous evening, Friday, August 2. Lieutenant Commander Jay Bamberg was at his desk awaiting the message, wishing he were starting the weekend at home with his young family.
When a duty officer brought the communication in, Jay punched the air with a grim feeling of joy. The departing junior lieutenant grinned. “Way to go! Right, sir?”
“Way to go, Lieutenant.”
Jay Bamberg called the CNO at home, and then Arnold Morgan in his office in Fort Meade. His first call had brought something approaching glee to Admiral Dunsmore, but Admiral Morgan had just snapped, “Yeah, thanks, Jay. I already gottit.”
Lieutenant Commander Bamberg found this sufficiently puzzling to ask, “How so fast, sir?”
“Heard from the Mossad in Tel Aviv thirty minutes ago something had exploded in Bandar Abbas Navy Base, and what did I know about it? Told ’em I hadn’t left my desk since lunchtime, heh, heh, heh!”
“Did they know much, sir?”
“Nah, very little. ’Cept the Iranians probably had a weaker Navy now than they had before midnight. I guessed the rest. But thanks for calling, Jay, I’m glad they’re all safe.”
“Yessir. Good night, sir.” But the admiral was long gone, as usual.
By the time Lieutenant Commander Bamberg had replaced the receiver on the secure line to Fort Meade, Admiral Morgan was on his way to his car. He had a supper date at the Israeli embassy with General Gavron, a meeting to which he looked forward with great anticipation. When the Israeli officer had called asking if the American admiral would care to join him, he had insinuated he had an interesting conversation in store.
Morgan had resolved to hang around until 2000 awaiting official confirmation of the SEALS’ activities, then he would split for the embassy. The call thirty minutes previously had told him two things. One, he need not hang around beyond 2000, and two, the goddamned Mossad was about four times quicker off the mark than anyone else, on almost any incident, anywhere in the world. Jesus, it was 0230 in the morning for them.
He hit the highway at his usual high speed, and his mind was racing over that signal Bamberg had read out…the last sentence…the bit about the Kilo in the floating dock being in the middle of a major overhaul: “…unlikely to have been operational during month of July.”
The words kept turning over in his mind. That meant he and Baldridge had been right all along. The Iranians had not used an inventory submarine from Bandar Abbas to hit the Jefferson. They must have used a fourth submarine. Worse yet, that fourth submarine must be still out there. Waiting. Watching. Perhaps to strike again.
The more Arnold Morgan pondered the issue, the more certain he became that the underwater boat he sought was the lost Kilo from the Black Sea. The one from which the drowned Russian sailor had fallen, the one his own guys had heard in the Gibraltar Strait in the early morning of May 5, the one Lieutenant Joe Farrell had seen heading north up the Arabian Sea on June 28.
The one where all of the dates fit.
The one which that nitwit Rankov would not discuss.
Arnold Morgan, his adrenaline rising, glanced at the speedometer, which was hovering at around 104 mph. “Fuck it,” he said, slowing down to 85. “If David Gavron has found this Benjamin Adnam, a lot of questions are going to get answered real fast. If he hasn’t found him, we’re going to have to twist the arm of the President of Russia. Hard.”
Guards waved him through the gates of the Israeli embassy and directed him to a parking place. They then escorted him into the embassy, and up to a small dining room on the second floor where General Gavron was waiting. The two men exchanged greetings and the host offered the American admiral a glass of Israeli wine from the southern town of Richon-le-Zion, where Baron Edmond de Rothschild established the great vineyards at the end of the nineteenth century.
Since he was there for at least a couple of hours, Admiral Morgan did not rush into an interrogation with quite the anxiety he felt. Instead he chatted amiably about Israel and her ambitions and the question of where the Palestinians were ultimately going to live. They dined like true Sabras, beginning with Israeli eggplant salad made with tahini and then progressing to shashlik of spiced lamb with crispy, fried mallawah bread.
Arnold Morgan found himself feeling increasingly cheerful at this sudden break in his traditional working diet of coffee and roast beef sandwiches. He was enjoying a plate of baklava when he broached the subject he was here to discuss…Benjamin Adnam. He took a deep sip of wine—poured by the general from their second bottle, a sweet white wine the Israelis use principally for ceremonial occasions. Then the admiral said, very softly for him, “Well, David, did you find him?”
The Israeli general smiled and tilted his head to one side. “Not quite yet, Admiral, but we are a lot wiser than we were last time we met. Would you like me to tell you what my Intelligence officers have been doing?”
Morgan grinned. “David,” he said, “I’m going to sit right here, with this great glass of wine, and let you entertain me.”
“Very well. On the day I contacted them to relay your message about your government’s anxiety, our agents confirmed they had gone through Commander Adnam’s apartment and personal property. To their surprise, he had taken nothing. All of his documents, passport, Navy papers, educational records, etc., were still in his desk. Which made them think again, he had either been murdered or run off.
“The following day, after my call, they launched a huge search throughout the country. Found nothing. We then sent half a dozen agents to the village where his parents had lived. Found nothing there either. But nearby, we did discover a friend of the family, who had no recollection of the family having a son born in around 1960.
“They had known the Adnams quite well, and were apparently very upset when the family disappeared after the village was bombed during the 1973 war. But they knew nothing of any Ben Adnam being away at school in England between 1976 and 1978, when he was apparently between sixteen and eighteen.
“After that, of course, we already know he returned from Sutton Valence school in Kent, and immediately joined the Navy. Never went home, because there was neither home nor parents to go to. And that’s where he stayed. In the Navy.”
“You mean no one really knows where he came from, nor, now, where the hell he’s gone?”
“You have just stated the case perfectly, Arnold.”
“Hmmm. I guess he just filled in his details on the forms, probably while he was in England, and the Israeli Navy was happy to accept this well-educated Sabra from well-to-do farming parents, recommended personally by an eminent English headmaster….”
“And by a very senior military attaché from the Israeli embassy in London…who we now discover also had a boy at Sutton Valence school at the time.”
“Christ! You can see how these things happen, eh?”
“All too well, Admiral. To make matters worse there are no death certificates whatsoever regarding the Adnam family. The village was bomb
ed. They may have been killed. Or they may have just left, returning, as you say, to wherever they came from.
“Anyway both they and their ‘son’ have vanished, without trace…and we are keenly aware that all three may have been spies, the parents ‘in place’ on behalf of another nation. The young Adnam, perhaps an eighteen-year-old Fundamentalist fanatic, being seconded to their care on a deep, long-term basis. The kind of thing to which my own organization is somewhat partial. Which brings me to part two.”
“What happened to Commander Adnam? I hope,” said Arnold Morgan.
“Well, Admiral, once we found his documents it was pretty obvious he had left Israel in possession of a completely different identity. We practically ransacked our own airport records for two days. Nothing. So how did he leave? Well, our agents felt he had made his way by bus or taxi from East Jerusalem, as far as the Allenby Bridge. That’s the only one which crosses the river into Jordan. Then it becomes the King Hussein Bridge. Right there, at the bridge, he had to get out of his taxi, or bus, in order to pick up Jordanian transportation, we think one of those JETT mini-buses.
“Now, I expect you know, there are all kinds of restrictions at the bridge. So he must have had a Jordanian passport. But he also had a visa and a permit to cross the bridge. Remember, you cannot get Arab documents in Israel, nor indeed at the bridge. So someone was looking after him extremely well.
“However, we do conduct a very stringent search at the bridge of anyone leaving Israel and traveling into Jordan. For instance, it’s illegal to carry a camera with any film in it whatsoever, and once you have left, you may not return. No one can obtain an Israeli visa in any Arab country, except Egypt.
“And here, right at the Allenby Bridge, our luck turned. Certain people are pulled aside by our customs agents and searched very carefully. And in that area we do have a surveillance camera. So we commandeered all of that film for the three days following Commander Adnam’s disappearing trick. We took it to Haifa and called in every Navy officer we could find who knew him in any way. We actually flew men in from the fleet exercise in the Med—where he should have been.
“We got him on the first reel of film from the first morning, November 25, the time frame up in the corner said 0924. He was in Arab dress, and our camera caught him answering questions in the customs office. Four different men picked him out. Separately. Three of them were submarine officers. No doubt. Commander Adnam left Israel as an Arab. I brought you a picture of him, not very good quality. But here he is….”
General Gavron leaned forward and passed a sheet of fax paper over to the American. They had blown up the photograph and then faxed it. Details were smudgy. But, wearing the Arab headdress, Commander Adnam looked more like a trader in some local Casbah than an Israeli submarine commander. Nonetheless, Benjamin Adnam it was. And the picture showed a dark, rather elegant and refined face with hard, deep-set eyes. Admiral Morgan thought he could have been Iranian, Iraqi, Jordanian, Syrian, even Egyptian. The question now changed slightly…who the hell was this guy?
Morgan’s mind whirred. He better get that photograph copied and faxed to Admiral MacLean for a 100 percent identification. He tried not to sound anxious. And he said with exaggerated calm, “What happened then, David? Did the trail go cold?”
“Certainly not. We have several very good agents in Jordan and four days ago they traced him. That first morning, very, very quickly he found his way to the Queen Alia Airport, and almost immediately boarded a Royal Jordanian Airlines flight to Cairo. Paid for his ticket in Jordanian dinars. God knows where he got cash.
“He was traveling on a Jordanian passport when he left, and he used it to clear customs in Cairo. Our agents did pull that record up. Then, because we do not think he is Egyptian, we checked out every major hotel in the area. But found nothing. He was not registered anywhere.”
“Did you try the Mena House, out by the Pyramids?”
“Of course. And they actually knew him. But said they had not seen him for two years. One of our agents talked to the manager, who was uncertain where he came from. He had certainly been there under his own name.
“Our agents then searched through every record the Egyptian authorities would provide. In the end they decided he never left Cairo International Airport, stayed there and flew on. That night, we came up with only one ‘Adnam’ who had left Egypt on an international flight. He paid in cash, Egyptian currency, and bought a ticket to Istanbul. I regret to say he was a Russian. Old Soviet passport. Visa for frequent entry into Turkey. Not much help, eh?”
Arnold Morgan could not believe his ears. “Do the Egyptians have a surveillance camera which may have photographed the passengers for that flight?”
“They say they do, but it wasn’t working. Anyway our agents considered the trail cold. They do not think the Russian was Commander Adnam.”
“Well, if he didn’t leave the airport, where the hell did he go? Your guys think he got a job as a customs officer?”
General Gavron laughed. “No, we think he just picked up a new passport and documents from his masters, and took off. Could be under any name, and now in any country.”
“Well, why not the Russian?”
“Our guys just don’t think it feasible. We do not think Ben was Russian. Nor do we think he was Turkish. We think he was an Arab, and we’ve done a lot of research. Why do you think he might have been Russian?”
“David, I don’t think he was Russian either. But I do think he might have been going there. And since he seems able to conjure up documents and currency anyplace he travels, why not this guy on the Soviet passport?”
David Gavron ignored the question. And came back with one of his own. “Why do you think he may have been going to Russia?”
“Because, David, we think the submarine that hit the Jefferson was a Soviet-built Kilo, a diesel electric-powered patrol boat, which Adnam and his masters either bought, rented, or stole, right out of the moribund Black Sea Fleet. I say the Black Sea Fleet because there’s no place else they could have gotten one. Also I’ve checked where every working diesel submarine in the world was on that night. They’re all accounted for—even yours! Except for one, and that’s Russian.”
“I see. We will continue to do everything we can to assist you. As a nation we do not like sneak attacks, and my people are extremely upset about the aircraft carrier. Even more upset that you even considered blaming us.”
“David, in our position you have to suspect everyone.”
General Gavron looked thoughtful as Morgan sipped his silky-sweet wine. The silence between the two men grew, until, finally, General Gavron broke it. “We have an accurate date,” he said. “If that Russian in Cairo airport was Commander Adnam, then he arrived in Istanbul late at night on November 25. If he was using his real name when he left Cairo, I would think he was still using it when he left Istanbul. We should run some checks on the passenger lists—airlines, maybe even ships, out of the city, the following morning.
“We have three or four good men in place in Istanbul. I suggest my organization gets a search started…then if we get nowhere in, say, three days…maybe your government could persuade the Turks to cooperate.”
“Good call, David. Right now we don’t want to be seen stirring up anything more than we must.”
“Very restrained, Admiral…for a man who has, in the last few hours, destroyed the underwater Navy of the Ayatollah of Iran.”
“Now, hang on, General. I told your colleagues I never left my desk. Anyway, how do you guys know what we did or didn’t do?”
“I know that only three or four nations could have done it so smoothly. Not us, we’d have caused an international uproar and bombed the place to bits. The British could have. Possibly the Russians. But you have the capacity to achieve that kind of excellence any time you want. The issue is motive. Who wanted to damage Iran? Not us, particularly. Not the British. Not the Russians. Nice job, Admiral. As a nation, we are delighted.”
Arnold Morgan just smil
ed at the suave Israeli officer. And he guessed, privately, as he had done a couple of times before, that he was indeed looking at the next head of the Mossad.
The following morning, August 3, twenty-six days after the disaster, the Saturday papers were still blazing with the story of the lost aircraft carrier but neither the Washington Post nor the New York Times carried even a paragraph about an accident in the Iranian Naval base at Bandar Abbas.
Admiral Morgan, Admiral Schnider, Lieutenant Commander Bill Baldridge, and Admiral Dunsmore were gathered in the office of General Josh Paul in readiness for a meeting with the President in the White House at 1100. Admiral Morgan briefed them fully on his dealings with General Gavron. But the subject was now more finely focused.
Scott Dunsmore believed the President would broadcast to the nation this evening at 2100, announcing unprecedented compensation for the families of the men who died in the carrier. Saturday night was most unusual for this kind of activity, but the CNO believed the White House press office had approved it for maximum impact.
The two Service Chiefs were afraid the President would assume that with the bombing of the Iranian Navy base American revenge was complete and that no further action should be taken, pending the arrival of hard evidence. However, Admiral Morgan’s now rigid belief that the rogue submarine was still out there was uppermost in all of their minds.
General Paul detailed his CNO to deal with it, to persuade the President that the United States hunt for the nation which had sunk the Jefferson must continue at all costs. “If necessary,” he said, “get Arnold to read him a modest riot act about the implications of the same thing happening to another of our warships.”
They left the Pentagon in two staff cars and met the President, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the President’s security adviser, and his press officer in the Situation Room, one floor below the Oval Office.
The President greeted them warmly. “I’ll say one thing,” he said. “You guys sure know how to take an instruction literally. Dare I ask what happened in Bandar Abbas, beyond this Navy signal which Bob here gave me this morning?”
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