BILL BALDRIDGE WAS STILL REHEARSING THE UNPRECEDENTED request he was about to make of the Royal Navy as the British Airways Boeing 747 banked over London and turned due west for Heath row. “Oh, good morning, Admiral, I was wondering whether you’d lend me a brand-new Upholder-Class diesel-electric submarine which we will probably wreck in the middle of Istanbul Harbor?”
No. Too harsh. Perhaps something a little more subtle. How about, “Good morning, Admiral, I wonder if you’d be decent enough to let us borrow one of your submarines for a few weeks. We’ll look after it. By the way, do you keep a salvage squad in Istanbul?”
His hope that Scott Dunsmore had prepared the way for him before he arrived at Northwood to make what was, by any standards, an outrageous request of the Royal Navy showed that Lieutenant Commander Baldridge had much to learn about the intricacies of inter-Navy politics. The American CNO and Britain’s First Sea Lord could almost operate by telepathy, each perfectly prepared to be edged into something he did not really want to do. Just so long as the favor was returned. Preferably in spades.
Baldridge arrived at Northwood just before 0900 in FOSM’s personal staff car, which had been sent to meet him. The territory was familiar to him now, and he greeted young Andrew Waites with cheerful informality.
“Morning, sir,” said the Flag Lieutenant. “Found that Perisher yet?”
“Not yet, but we’re moving on him.”
Bill was led immediately into the office of the Flag Officer Submarines (FOSM), and Vice Admiral Sir Peter Elliott stood immediately to greet him. “Lieutenant Commander, glad to see you again. Good flight?”
“Pretty painless,” he replied. “Everything been moving smoothly since I left?”
The British admiral chuckled at the junior officer’s jaunty manner and put it down to American spontaneity. “Well, no one in my flotilla has collided, run aground, burned, got lost, or mutinied lately, so I suppose we’re just about winning,” he replied.
Just then the door opened and Captain Dick Greenwood walked in, late but unflustered. “Morning, sir. Morning, Lieutenant Commander. I have those notes you wanted.”
“Barrow?”
“Yessir.”
“Very well. Now, if Andrew will bring us some coffee, we may as well get down to business. The subject is very complicated, and very important to the United States.”
He looked over at Bill and added, “I spoke to the First Sea Lord last night, who has had a long conversation with your CNO. In the broadest terms I understand you want to borrow one of our diesel-electric submarines, and transit the Bosporus underwater, which as we all know is illegal. Do I have the general gist of the exercise?”
Bill Baldridge was relieved not to be obliged to make the speech he had been rehearsing on the aircraft. He said simply, “Yessir, you do.”
“Then, since I am keenly aware of my own point of view, and that of the Royal Navy, why don’t you outline for me the point of view of the United States, with which I am not quite so familiar?”
“Certainly, sir. As you know we have now spent almost a month trying to find out what happened to the Thomas Jefferson. And every path we take is leading us to the same conclusion—that the carrier was hit by a torpedo fired from a non-nuclear submarine which belonged to one of the hostile Gulf nations.
“We do not think they used a submarine from their own inventory, but nonetheless the boat was a Russian Kilo. If our deductions are right, the sub must therefore have come out of the Black Sea, through the Bosporus. And the Turks say they saw nothing. We believe it came through under the surface.”
“Yes, that all adds up to me. But why do you now want to do the same thing? One of your television shows organized a contest?”
Bill laughed. “Not yet, sir. That’s probably next. No, the truth is our President is perfectly prepared to order a global hunt for the boat only if someone proves conclusively that it is possible to transit the Bosporus, north to south, underwater. The main trouble being that several dozen people have already told him it cannot be done. By anyone.”
“Yes, global hunts are apt to become obsessional,” said Admiral Elliott. “And once started they run away with money, and people, on a rather alarming scale. Your President is wise to be cautious.”
“Yessir. Almost all of his political advisers are urging him not to stray publicly from the ‘accident’ theory. And if we make the Bosporus journey, and there is any kind of a problem, he is going to stick to the only theory he has, and the only one he will ever admit.”
“Of course,” said the admiral. “Although that might turn out to be rather shortsighted if your Muslim enemy should strike again. The one good thing about losing an aircraft carrier was that it wasn’t two aircraft carriers.”
“Well, that’s the view of most of our senior Intelligence men, and the submariners, sir. But I guess you see the President’s point of view. In a way, we think he’s being reasonable given the circumstances. He’s just saying that if we want to conduct a massive search operation, costing probably a couple of billion dollars, he wants to know we are working on a premise which is at least possible.”
“Very Presidential,” replied the admiral. “Unless they hit again. Then he will be blamed, and slaughtered by his opponents for failing to take the grimmer advice of his senior military commanders.”
“Yessir,” replied the Kansan. “Guess that’s just about what will happen. And some of us think they might easily be preparing to strike again.”
“In these matters, Bill, as with legal contracts, you are never actually discussing what will happen. You must always be considering what could happen. However unlikely. In military matters, when you are dealing with a potential catastrophic loss of life, you must operate assuming the worst-case scenario. There is no other course. And in my experience, politicians have the utmost difficulty grasping that.”
At this point Captain Greenwood entered the conversation. “Can you tell me, Lieutenant Commander, why you are so sure it was a Russian Kilo?”
“I can, sir. We have checked the whereabouts of every other submarine in everyone’s Navy, including those from the Third World, which were either in refit, out of commission, or even sunk in the harbor in the cases of both Syria and Libya….”
“Sorry to interrupt,” said the admiral, looking up at Bill, with a half-smile, and one raised eyebrow, “but didn’t the Iranians have a similar problem a couple of days ago…?”
“I don’t really know about that,” replied the American.
“Of course not,” said the admiral, still wearing his half-smile…. “Do continue, won’t you?”
“Yessir. Well, having run all the checks we could, we came up with only one possibility. There was a Russian Kilo, which cleared Sevastopol in April, and was reported sunk in the Black Sea two weeks later. The Russians admit that they cannot find it after a long search, and they have reason to believe it may have escaped. Right now they are admitting it just vanished.”
“Well, I suppose it could have just sunk in an awkward place and they have not been able to find it. These things do happen,” said Captain Greenwood.
“Yessir. But if you were us, what would you believe?”
“I’d believe it might have attacked my carrier.”
“Yessir. It was the only submarine which could have. Which brings us right back to the President’s insistence that we prove the Bosporus underwater passage is possible.”
“Before you bring out the big guns, correct?” said Greenwood.
“I shouldn’t be surprised if there were a few senior officers in the Iranian Navy who consider that’s already happened,” said Admiral Elliott.
Lieutenant Commander Baldridge said nothing, noticed that the admiral still wore his knowing half-smile.
“It seems to me,” said Captain Greenwood, “that you are proposing something which is entirely unnecessary. Why risk a boat and her crew to establish such an outlandish possibility? Even if we were to do it, and were successful, it would merely tell us that a first-class boat, manned by the best possible crew, could exit the Black Sea underwater.
“You could decide that, quite reputably, in this room, and save a lot of trouble with an extremely dangerous mission. In any event I doubt the rewards. Not to mention the fact that it’s against international law, and we could lose the boat in about thirty different kinds of accident, possibly drowning several dozen sailors.”
“I did forget to mention, Bill,” said the admiral, “that Captain Greenwood is my personal devil’s advocate. I need one of those, because there are a lot of people who think I am only happy when I’m tackling something which could not, or should not, be done. Not true of course, but nevertheless a part of my reputation with which I have to live.”
“Absolutely, sir,” said Bill Baldridge. “But the answers to Captain Greenwood’s concerns are simple. The President of the United States has spoken. He wants this journey made, in order to justify to Congress and to the Senate why he is about to spend untold billions trying to find an enemy which may not exist.
“This is one of the best Presidents we’ve ever had. He’s a friend of the military and tries to understand the subject. He’s tough. He’s brilliantly clever, and always on our side. What he is trying to avoid is some smart-ass congressman second-guessing him about the Bosporus under the water, and a decision to spend billions of taxpayer dollars.”
“Yes,” said the admiral, thoughtfully. “I see. He needs proof of it.”
Captain Greenwood was beginning to look despondent as he saw the boss warming to the subject, and he spoke up again. “Why don’t you use a boat of your own?” he asked.
“That’s easy,” replied Baldridge. “We haven’t had one for twenty years.”
He referred to the old diesel-electrics which had been abandoned in a succession of defense cuts. U.S. strategists have long believed that America needed only big, powerful, long-range nuclear submarines as her operations were always across oceans.
“Matter of fact I thought there was a lot of sense in what the Americans did,” said Admiral Elliott. “They really do need their long-range SSNs, and they only require a stealthy inshore boat on the rarest of occasions.
“Politicians here in the U.K. think we can do the same but they are incorrect because we live in different geographical circumstances. We need to be able to operate right around the European coastline, with expert inshore submariners in command. Those little boats can be lethal to an enemy, which is why the Russians are still making and selling them. Dammit.
“Our own situation is not much short of absurd.”
“How do you mean, sir?” asked Baldridge.
“Well, in recent years we spent about 1 billion pounds on four Upholder Class submarines which are roughly the equivalent of a Russian Kilo. That included all the development costs, and they were going to get progressively cheaper.
“Then, from out of the blue, the politicians decided we did not need them, not even to keep under wraps for the day when we might. So in order to avoid any running costs whatsoever, however minor, they decided to sell ’em off cheaply to anyone who would buy. The Israelis already have one in operational service. The Brazilians are just starting workup. Followed by God knows who else.
“They are being sold for peanuts, and in the view of the Submarine Service this is a criminal waste of the taxpayers’ money, and it shows an almost criminal lack of military foresight by our government.
“Lieutenant Commander Baldridge, you come to me not as a bloody nuisance, which others might think. But as a particularly interesting opportunity.”
“Yessir. I understand. Because we now have a reason to get one of those babies up and running, carrying out an important joint operation between our two countries.”
“Precisely. And we all know this may be a major Naval emergency on a global scale. And the only way we can help our principal military ally is with our maligned little Upholder submarine, whose case we have been pleading, unsuccessfully, for a very long time.”
“Well, sir, for our part, there was only one nation we could possibly come to. Not just for help, but for discretion and loyalty.”
“Matter of fact, I wouldn’t mind going myself,” added the admiral predictably.
“Absolutely out of the question, sir,” said Captain Greenwood, interjecting swiftly. “You simply could not be out of touch for that long, and also there would be an uproar if there was an accident and anything happened to you. No one could ever reasonably explain what you were doing on such a dangerous mission.”
“Well, of course I wouldn’t much care then, would I?” replied the Flag Officer. “But I suppose you’re right. Still, the submarine would have to sail under British command.”
“We assumed a British commanding officer,” said Baldridge. “But my President requires me to be on board.”
“Right. That’s not a problem. The problem is the short notice. My U Class qualified COs are simply not up to it. And there’s no time to get them up to it. Whoever we appoint as captain will need a topman right at his elbow—a very experienced, conventional submariner.”
Captain Greenwood interjected. “What about Admiral MacLean, sir? If he can’t do it, then it can’t be done.”
“What a bloody good idea!” said the Flag Officer. “We might have to persuade him, though. He goes grouse-shooting for the last part of August. But I think he’d do it. The old boy has a strong sense of history—it just might appeal to him.”
“He’s not that old, sir. What would he be…fifty-six?”
“He’d definitely consider himself young enough to have a shot at becoming the first man ever to make the underwater passage through the Bosporus,” replied Admiral Elliott. “Or the second.”
“May I now assume you are leaning toward proceeding with this entire operation, sir? I mean the preliminary stages?”
“Well, Dick, I am looking at some very interesting possibilities. From our own point of view it is obviously very good—one in the eye for the government, for trying to give away our extremely valuable hulls for petty cash. If we succeed in the mission it might even persuade them to allow us to keep at least two of the Upholders in the fleet, ready for the day when we may need them.
“From the Turks’ point of view it will provide them with some very valuable new information, should we wish to share with them.
“And, in the long term, the Americans will be pleased to see the Turks increase security around the Bosporus. You never quite know when the Russian Navy might rise again.
“I’d say there was much to gain and little to lose—for everyone, especially us.”
“Well, sir,” said Captain Greenwood, “we could lose a brand-new submarine and maybe a lot of people.”
“Oh, I don’t know, Dick,” replied the Flag Officer. “I think we’d survive a ramming from one of those shallow-draft ferries. Might knock off a mast, maybe a fin. Expensive, but not terminal. And a lot of the chaps would get out. The water’s not that deep.”
“Sir, they would not survive a bad underwater collision in the dark with a wreck or a rock, nor would they survive colliding with one of those really big freighters which run through those waters.”
“True. But we’re going to lose the submarines anyway, even if we sit here and do nothing.”
“Actually, sir, it was the chaps I was more concerned about.”
“Yes, quite so, Captain, I see that. But I do not want to turn my back on an opportunity to retain possibly three of the Upholders for the Royal Navy. And without this mission, they’re history.”
“Yes. But also, sir, there is the question of Johnny Turk,” said Captain Greenwood. “Are we going to tell him?”
“I don’t think the President wants to tell him,” said Bill. “But since it’s your boat, you’d better decide. We would prefer to say nothing.”
“Let me remind you of one possible scenario,” said Captain Greenwood. “It’s the middle of the night. For whatever reason we are driven to the surface by either a collision, or by shallow water. Johnny Turk’s radar spots us. We go back to periscope depth and he comes out in a patrol boat, panics, and drops in a half-dozen depth charges which blow the submarine in half, causing most of the crew to drown. Should we not attempt to avoid that?”
“Yes, I think we should,” said Admiral Elliott. “We’re not at war with anyone, and we shouldn’t lay ourselves open to that kind of reprisal. Johnny Turk is not going to be too cheerful about this, mark my words. So we are going to have to find a way to retain the integrity of the mission, by telling him, but not telling him, if you see what I mean.
“And there I might be able to help.”
Captain Greenwood averted his eyes. He knew when his boss was going to play a major card. And this was it.
“A few years ago,” said his boss, “I had the happy privilege of being selected from a large group of non-applicants to escort an important visiting officer from Turkey on a sightseeing tour down the River Thames. It had all the makings of a total bloody disaster. He could not speak a word of English, and I could not speak a word of Turkish. I was told to settle for French, which I also hardly speak. Anyway, I stayed up all night with a couple of guidebooks until I was an expert on the historic sights up and down the river.
“The Turk and I made it through the day. Had a very good time, and after dinner at the club, I fixed him up with a hostess from the Stork Room. As I remember, Al, the proprietor, let him have one on the house. That Turk owes me, and that particular officer is now CNS of the Turkish Navy. How’s that?”
“Brilliant, sir,” said Baldridge. “Maybe we should send him a rain check for the Stork Room?”
“No good, I’m afraid. It closed several years ago. Too many freebies, I suppose.”
Captain Greenwood chuckled, and Bill Baldridge laughed out loud. But the Flag Officer was all business. “I propose the following. I’ll have a very quick word with my old Turkish buddy, in French. Bill here will head to Scotland immediately and talk to his new friend Admiral MacLean. I’ll speak to him first.
“Then Dick can get on to the dockyard in Barrow-in-Furness and find out the precise state of readiness of that boat which is being sold to the Brazilians, Unseen, isn’t it?”
“Andrew! Get the First Sea Lord on the line, will you. I’ll get this past the MoD. I believe the Prime Minister has been alerted. The politicos have no objection, and would wish to help our American friends if at all possible. Can’t have some half-assed tribesman blowing up the U.S. Navy, what?”
The admiral stood up and suggested Bill go next door and check if it would be okay to stay with the MacLeans again, and perhaps take a run down to Barrow tomorrow with Sir Iain, have a look at Unseen.
“We’ll send a Navy chopper in to meet your flight and get you over to Inveraray, if that’s okay with the MacLeans,” he said. “If not, you can camp overnight at the Faslane base, and meet Iain tomorrow. You’d better get on your way, and we’ll have a talk on the phone tonight, check that all the ends are coming together, as they surely will. Generally speaking we do not like disappointing the Pentagon. Especially when they’re paying, and we have something to gain.”
Bill Baldridge ran down the stairs and boarded the admiral’s staff car. The driver already knew the American was on his way to Scotland, and they left for Heath row immediately. It was raining in Northwood at midday and the traffic was awful on the M25. But they sped under the tunnel into the airport with time to spare for the Glasgow flight at 1440.
“Stores looking good. About another thousand gallons of fuel, Georgy. You’ll be on your way in a half hour.”
“You really not come, Ben?”
“I can’t come. I have to get off here and get on the oiler. And I have to get to our meeting point, because you cannot just unload fifty renegade Russian sailors and leave them in some South American village with a half million dollars apiece. I need to get us a boat. And we need to ferry these men away from the submarine two or three at a time, over a three-week time span. That’s what we agreed. Slowly, carefully, and safely, the way we’ve done everything.”
“But, Ben, what if I get to our place and you not come? You never show up? What then for me?”
“Georgy, you know where the final fueling point is. Nothing has gone wrong so far. And you have a Samsonite suitcase under your bunk, in which you have four million American dollars in cash.
“You also have the full documents for the bank account in Chile. You even have their fax confirming your right to operate the account and a letter of credit for a further 5 million from that bank. Your money is safe. The biggest problem you have is getting off the submarine without being seen. That’s what I’m now doing for you. I have to go.”
“Ben, I can’t let you go. The crew want you stay.”
“Georgy, you cannot leave this boat without me there to meet you with a launch.”
“I can beach it on one of those islands. Then I’ll share out the other money in the other case for the crew, and I’ll get away, in small life raft, through shallow water, with my case and documents.”
“Georgy. There are too many of you. And they’ll find the submarine within hours. We have to keep it hidden while we evacuate. I insist you stick to the plan.”
“If you go, Ben, I might be a dead man. With you here I think I survive.”
“If I stay, Georgy, we’ll both be dead men. You must do as I say.”
“Ben, if I have to, I’ll have you held here at gun point. The crew won’t let you get off. They told me that two days ago. As soon as I told them what we had really done. Some of them are pretty upset. Even if we didn’t hurt Russia.”
“Georgy, don’t be ridiculous. Bring to me the four senior members of your crew and let me speak to them. Let me explain the importance of the plan. My objective is that no one gets caught. You beach this thing on some island, we’ll all get caught. If the Americans are onto us, they’ll have everyone extradited to the U.S.A., and put to death for the mass murder of the crew of the Thomas Jefferson.”
“Okay, Ben, I get them. But they not change their minds. They want you on the journey. So do I. You stay.”
“Georgy, before you even consider brandishing a Kalashnikov at me, remember one thing. I was perfectly happy to die for my country on this mission. I still am.”
Bill Baldridge gazed down from the helicopter onto the shining waters of Loch Fyne. To the northeast of the MacLean house he could see the little town of Inveraray. From the air it was dominated by some kind of a castle, or at the very least a fine manor house, with four round towers, surrounded by great lawns and gardens, Inveraray Castle, home to the Dukes of Argyll.
The chopper came clattering down onto Sir Iain’s lawn, and Bill stepped out into a sunlit late afternoon in the west of Scotland. He carried his case to the door, and was greeted by Lady MacLean, who shook his hand warmly and announced that her husband had been held up in Edinburgh and would be back in a couple of hours.
They walked into the hall, where the faithful Angus wished Bill good afternoon, and took his case upstairs. Lady MacLean led the way into the drawing room overlooking the loch and told him they would have tea in a few minutes. They sat on opposite sofas and exchanged formal pleasantries, during which the Scottish admiral’s wife implored him to call her Annie. It took a while before she ventured, “I believe you are planning to take my retired husband on a little holiday to Turkey.”
“No one has told me yet whether he has agreed to come,” said Bill. “I was at the meeting when Admiral Elliott was informed that he could not go. Next thing I knew, they were planning to contact Admiral MacLean. They were supposed to have had a talk while I was on the plane.”
“Well, I believe they did talk. And I also believe they have the matter under consideration, and I think we all know what the outcome will be. Iain will take his place on that journey as the senior officer on board, and end up taking all of the responsibility, just as he has done all of his life.”
“Annie,” said Bill quietly, using her name for the first time, “do you not want him to go?”
“Of course not. I have been a Navy wife for almost the whole of my adult life. I’ve waited for him for years. Sometimes I’ve waited for him to come home for months at a time, when he was out in the Atlantic or in the Barents Sea, risking his life every moment of every day, hundreds of feet below the surface. Right in the Russians’ backyard. The weeks I was by myself, never hearing, always wondering.
“I think of the hours and hours I have spent in this house, in the night, wandering around, always alone, just praying for news of him. Any news. All through the Cold War, all through the Falklands War. Until last year, I finally got him back. And now this. Some kind of suicide mission in a submarine, in waters not much bigger than a wide ditch.”
Bill looked thoughtful. “I suppose, if you talk to him, he might decide not to do it. I have to be there myself, under orders.”
“But, Bill, you are so much younger, and I don’t believe you have a wife, do you?”
“No, ma’am, I do not. But I’ve got a stack of very close relatives back in Kansas, and we’ve just lost my brother Jack, who was really the head of the family. I guess my mother might feel the way you do.”
“Navy wives and mothers have a very lonely and worrying time. And it lasts for years. I suppose I am just a little bit shocked. I had believed it was over.”
“Well, at least no one’s going to shoot at us. We’re just going to make the trip. It’s only about sixteen miles. Won’t take more than about four hours, once we get set up. I don’t think you should worry. We’ll be fine. And if Sir Iain decides to come, we’ll be really fine. Because he believes it can be done. And he’s the best.”
“Oh, he will definitely be on that submarine,” said Lady MacLean. “Whatever I think or say. He’ll actually enjoy it. Because it will take him back to his happiest, most exciting days in command. Doing the things he believed only he could do.”
“A lot of people seem to think he was the best submarine commander the Navy ever had. Maybe this is part of his destiny. Do you believe in destiny, Annie?”
“Yes, Bill. After all of these years, I’m afraid that I do.”
Angus brought in the tea, and when he had gone, Baldridge and Lady MacLean sat and sipped in silence for a while. Finally Bill said, “How long does it take to drive to Edinburgh from here?”
“About an hour and a half to Glasgow, then another hour to Edinburgh if the traffic’s reasonable. It’s less than fifty miles between the two cities, straight along the M8.”
“Still, that’s five hours behind the wheel,” said Bill. “Guess you wouldn’t want to make it every day.”
“Oh no. It’s hardly commuting distance. Really it’s right across this narrow part of Scotland, west to east. Still, it’s not too bad for him today. He’s got Laura driving him.”
Bill looked up sharply, smiling to disguise the heartbeat of excitement he felt. They had not spoken since they parted on the lawn of this house three weeks previously.
He tried to slow the conversation down, and very nearly succeeded. “Oh, I had no idea I’d be meeting one of my chief informants again,” he said, grinning.
“And, I believe, one of your fellow opera enthusiasts,” replied Lady MacLean. But she betrayed no sense of knowing, nor sly insight, when she added, “My daughter liked you very much.”
“Does she have the little girls here—the ones I never met?”
“No, Bill. They’ve gone off with their father for a few days, up to his brother’s grouse-moor. The season starts next week, and everyone gets frightfully busy in the days leading up to the first shoot. Laura hates the ritual of it.”
“So she comes over here for a few days on this spectacular loch,” said Bill.
“Yes. Actually we’ve seen quite a bit of her just lately. She’s never really been content living in Edinburgh. And her husband’s charming. Of course she’s never got over that frightful Adnam boy. She told me you knew all about that.”
“Yes. She was amazingly helpful about him. If we get him, she’ll probably never know how important a part she played.”
“Do you really think he blew up your aircraft carrier?”
“When I was last here I thought he might have. Right now, I know he did.”
“Can I know how?”
“Not in any great detail, I’m afraid,” said the lieutenant commander. “But he was not Israeli. We think he was Iranian. But he could have been Libyan, or Syrian, or an Iraqi. His identity has baffled even the Mossad.”
“Iain thinks he could have been Iranian. Especially after Laura told him about that strange visit they made to the mosque in Cairo.”
Just then the telephone rang. Lady MacLean hurried away to answer it across the room. “Yes…yes…he is here…I’ll get him.” She beckoned to Bill and told him to take the call in the admiral’s study across the hall. “It’s probably top-secret,” she said, smiling. “It’s my husband’s old office.”
Bill found Lieutenant Waites on the line. “Hello, sir. Hold on a moment. I have Captain Greenwood for you.”
“Good afternoon, Bill.” The deep, somber voice of FOSM’s Chief of Staff was unmistakable. “Just a short progress report. First, we’ve been cleared politically. The mission is to proceed immediately. The boss ran Admiral MacLean to ground at some office in Edinburgh and Sir Iain’s coming. That’s all decided.
“The submarine we want, Unseen, is in Barrow, in a state of near-readiness for the sale to Brazil. We’ve canceled that for the moment, and the admiral has ordered a crew to be brought in. That will take a week. Then we will have a two-week workup period to familiarize everyone with the SSK. Barring accidents, Unseen will clear Barrow on August 25, and arrive in the area on about September 7. It’s 3,700 miles, and we’ll run at around 12 knots all the way.”
“How about the landowners?” asked Bill, avoiding naming the Turks on the telephone. “Are we spilling the beans?”
“No, we’re not. I believe the admiral is going to talk to their boss tonight in very guarded terms. He has already spoken to Admiral Dunsmore at the Pentagon, and, so far as I can tell, you are the only American on board. Admiral Elliott is naming the captain tomorrow. I expect it to be the former Upholder XO, Jeremy Shaw. He and his team have been training the Brazilians, so he’s well up to the job.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“Oh yes, two other things. Tomorrow we are sending the chopper over to take you and Sir Iain down to Barrow to get a look at the boat. And will you expect a call in a half hour or so from Admiral Morgan?”
“Okay, sir. I’ll be here, enjoying my little vacation in Scotland.”
“Not for long, I hear. Admiral Morgan said he was sending you to Russia on Thursday. You have to pick up a special visa at the embassy in London before you go.”
“Jesus,” said Bill. “There’s no peace, right?”
“Not if you want to catch your man. No, Bill, there’s not.”
A half hour later the lieutenant commander had just lowered himself into the steaming spare-room bathtub, along with the other half of the jar of blue crystals, when he heard a tap on the door.
“Sir, there’s a call for you. I’ve put it through to the phone by your bed.”
“Thanks, Angus, old buddy,” he said. “Be right there.”
Cursing the exquisite timing of Arnold Morgan, he wrapped himself in a towel, and picked up the telephone, warning immediately, “Admiral, this is not a secure line.”
“Okay, Bill. Gottit. I hear we’re all set. I spoke to Scott Dunsmore this morning and he says the President is definite. The minute he hears you’re through the slot, he’ll authorize a massive search for the Kilo. Meantime, I want you to get out to Sevastopol and spend a little time with Admiral Rankov.
“He’s as anxious as we are to locate his employees. But he’ll show you around, so you can get a feel for the area, and the families of the crew. Sorry to turn you into some kind of detective, but everyone is anxious not to expand the circle of people who actually know about this. So I guess you’re doing nearly everything.”
“What about my travel arrangements to Russia?”
“Admiral Elliott’s office is taking care of it all. You need to pick up tickets, visa, and cash in London before you go. I thought Thursday or Friday, after you’ve taken a look at the submarine. Anyway call the admiral’s Flag Lieutenant in Northwood. They got it covered.”
“Okay, Admiral. Will I come back to the States after Sevastopol?”
“I guess so. You’ll be through with Rankov by around August 13. You might just want to meet the guys working up the submarine after that. Then there may be something else over there for you.
“If not, you might as well come back, and we’ll go on playing detectives together. Anyway, you’ll be ready to go aboard on September 8, I understand with Admiral MacLean.”
“Guess so, sir.”
“Good. See you, Bill.” The line went dead.
Back in the hot, scented water, Bill Baldridge reviewed the situation. The fact was, the “search-and-destroy” operation was on hold pending the successful transit of the Bosporus. Thereafter the President would be relentless in the pursuit of Adnam. It was curious how certain he was that the Israeli officer had made that journey. Even more curious that Ben’s Teacher was now trying to follow him.
Downstairs he was just walking across the hall when he heard the tires of the Range Rover on the drive. He opened the front door and saw the admiral step out of the car, pursued by the omnipresent Fergus, Muffin, and Samson. God knows what those Labradors had been doing in Edinburgh.
He noticed the spring in the step of the admiral as he walked briskly toward him, smiling in greeting. He noticed too, the gentle wave of the driver through the windshield, as she gathered up her jacket and bag. “Hello, Bill. Delighted you’re here. Understand we’re going on a little jaunt together?”
Bill shook hands with the admiral, fought off the dogs as they leapt all over him. “Coupla days sailing off Istanbul, paid for by Uncle Sam, shouldn’t be so bad, sir?”
“Certainly not. I’m rather looking forward to it, tell you the truth.”
By now Laura was out of the car and walking over to join them. “My God, she’s beautiful,” thought Bill. And he grinned rakishly as she held out her hand. “Hello,” she said. “I didn’t expect to see my inquisitor so soon.”
Lady MacLean emerged through the front door. “Hello, darling,” she said. “Good journey?”
“Yes, fine, except when Daddy loosed off the dogs in the forest about an hour from here. That ridiculous Fergus wouldn’t come back. Found a rabbit or something. Cost us twenty minutes. I don’t know why we had to take them in the first place. They were sitting outside a lawyer’s office for two hours, and in the car for five, with only two breaks.”
“You know how your father is with those dogs. They go everywhere with him. Except London. And they behave like lunatics most of the time.”
In the distance Bill could see them right now. A boisterous black trio of running, barking, rolling, pushing energy, two of them having already rushed into the loch. “Don’t let those wet Labradors into the house,” Lady MacLean called out to her husband.
Laura took Bill by the arm. “Come on, Inquisitor, let’s have a drink. It’s almost half past seven.”
It was a good start to a long evening. Angus had cooked yet another Tay salmon, and the wines were identical. Admiral MacLean expounded more on the Bosporus and how he intended to guide Unseen safely through. Bill thought this was strictly for the benefit of his wife. It was eleven-thirty by the time dinner ended and the group retired to bed. The admiral and Bill were being collected at eight-thirty in the morning.
Strapped by the rigid propriety of their surroundings, the lieutenant commander and the admiral’s daughter retired to their separate rooms, forty feet and a thousand miles apart on the second floor. Bill himself wondered if he would ever see her again. In two days he would be gone, and he might not return. He could never telephone her here, and he sure as hell was not anxious to call her husband’s house in Edinburgh.
He knew he would have to wait, to find out if she would call him in the States. And where could such a course of action take her? Nowhere, except to Kansas. And he hardly knew her. Christ, he didn’t even know if they had any au pairs in Kansas.
The Royal Navy chopper arrived precisely on time. The lieutenant commander and the admiral strapped themselves in for the one-hour ride to the sprawling home of Vickers Shipbuilding and Engineering Ltd., the British corporation which had constructed all of the Royal Navy’s nuclear boats, from Polaris to Trident.
Most shipyards in northern Europe were situated in bleak, windswept areas, and this was no exception. The Vickers yard sat on the southernmost peninsula of Cumbria, on the northwest corner of Morecombe Bay, opposite the coast of Lancashire. Technically, it juts out into the Irish Sea, unprotected from the westerly rain and gales except by its own enormous buildings. Across the sound lay the flat, eight-mile-long sand spit of Walney Island, which contributed approximately nothing in the way of a weather lee.
A small welcoming party of Naval officers greeted the admiral and his guest, and almost immediately they were driven down to the Buccleuch Dock, home of the unwanted Upholders. The single-shafted Unseen was secured alongside. She was a jet-black 2,500-tonner, over 230 feet long, with an 8,000-mile range and a top underwater speed of 20 knots. A big Paxman diesel-engine/ generator combination powered up the giant submarine battery, which in turn powered a 6,500 hp GEC motor. She was scheduled to carry a complement of McDonnell Douglas sub-harpoon guided missiles, and twenty-one torpedoes, Marconi Spearfish. Unseen, silent at under five knots, was lethal to any enemy. The crew knew that the British Government was in the process of almost giving her away. They also knew that the Royal Navy was appalled. Just as appalled as back in 1981 when politicians elected to sell the only two operational aircraft carriers the Navy owned, which actually caused the Falklands War, since the Argentineans then believed Great Britain could not defend the islands against a major attack. They were wrong, but only by six months. The carriers were still in RN service.
Bill Baldridge could feel the resentment in the Royal Navy toward the government as he walked alongside the unused submarine. No one wanted her to be sold and by now all the senior officers knew that her potential savior was this visiting American lieutenant commander. Bill was being treated like a hero.
They boarded Unseen, and while Lieutenant Commander Baldridge was given a tour of the weapons area, Admiral MacLean spent two hours in the sonar room reviewing the Thompson Sintra Type systems and the passive ranging Paramax 2041. After lunch they took a tour of the yard, crossing the Michaelson Bridge. The bridge separated the Buccleuch and Devonshire Docks, which could be raised to allow ships to pass between the two. Beyond Devonshire stood the gigantic Trident building sheds. It was a cloudy day now, gray and gloomy along the water. To Iain MacLean it had always been a complete mystery why these stark backwater docks of the defense industry should each have been named after one of Britain’s greatest land owning dukes.
He showed Bill the narrow dredged channel which curved out of the inner basin and then swung right through the otherwise shallow waters of the bay past the twin headlands of Roa and Foulney islands and out into the buffeting chop of the Irish Sea, beyond Hilpsford Point. “Literally hundreds of new submarines have followed that route out to the Atlantic,” he said. “And in World War II, a hell of a lot of them never came back. This shipyard, and the men who work in it, represent the soul of the Royal Navy’s submarine service. Generations of skills, often taken too much for granted by various British governments.”
“I sure liked Unseen,” said Bill. “She had a great feel to her, sleek, quiet, and solid. I’m really looking forward to this.”
“So’m I,” replied the admiral. “She’s as quiet as any boat in the world, and she handles extremely well. We’ll be all right.”
At 1600 hours sharp they took off for Inveraray, clattering over the gray, melancholy streets of Barrow, where life for the engineers and ship wrights was so uncertain in these days of canceled orders and abandoned Navy building programs.
Down below, out of the starboard window, Bill Baldridge could see the docks, and he craned to see the submarine that would take him through the Bosporus. But the cloud cover was too low.
On the flight back, the dreary landscape soon slipped away behind them, but there remained a feeling of despondency between the two men as they reflected on the hard lives of people in a shipbuilding town like Barrow. Only the welcoming sight of the former Miss Laura MacLean waving from the lawn as they flew up the loch and turned in to land cast a near-depression from Bill’s shoulders.
“You been waiting long out there?” he asked her.
“No. Just a few minutes. That helicopter always leaves Barrow at four o’clock when Dad’s on board. That means you’ll be home just after five, and that’s what it is. Did you have a good day?”
“We had a great day, and the admiral’s home for tea. Can’t beat that.”
Laura gazed at Bill. She had never seen him in uniform, and he did, she thought, cut a commanding figure. So why had no one landed him?
“Laura?” he asked, “why are you staring like that?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I’ve never seen you in uniform before. I was just getting used to how official you look.”
“Oh, I’m official all right,” he chuckled. “Right here on the business of the U.S. Government. And dressed for the part—stiff collar and battle honors.”
“You have those, too?”
“Nothing won in the field of conflict,” he said. “But I’ve had a few private moments.”
“He’s a rascal,” thought Laura, “but he’s nice.”
They watched the chopper climb away over the loch for its short journey back to Faslane. Lady MacLean called out from the doorway that tea was ready in the drawing room, so would everyone come in. “And Iain…keep those bloody dogs outside, will you?”
The evening, it emerged, was already planned. They were going up to the village pub, the George, in Inveraray for supper. “Sweaters and no ties,” said Lady MacLean. “They’ll give you a good Aberdeen steak, Bill…good even by the standards of an American rancher.”
“But you don’t know what his standards are, Mum,” said Laura.
“Neither,” said Mum, “do you.”
There was something knowing in that remark. Bill picked it up, and so did Laura. They did not look at each other. But their thoughts were intertwined. And they both knew that, too, without looking anywhere.
The admiral sipped his tea, read his paper, grunted but once. “Damn U.S. stock market. Goes up fifty or sixty points one day, then falls back fifty or sixty points the next. Been doing it for two weeks. Needn’t have opened at all. Save everyone a lot of trouble.”
They left for the George at seven o’clock, Laura driving the Range Rover up to the village and past the church. Admiral MacLean ordered a minor detour, and pointed out the town jetty, showing Bill where his old submarine mooring had been. “We used to stop out there overnight, and then come into the pub for a few drinks when we were exercising in the loch,” he said. “This is a very strange little village for a submariner, because the first thing you see is a rowing boat containing His Grace the Duke of Argyll and his ghillie. He calls on visiting submarines in his capacity as Admiral of the Western Isles.
“It used to be quite a ceremony. We’d pipe the duke aboard and give him a dram of whisky, and he’d tell us what was happening locally. He once told me his wife was the constable of Scotland. I suppose that might apply to any wife of any duke of Argyll. It’d be rather amusing if one of ’em married a chorus girl, don’t you think?”
The George itself had a beamed low ceiling and was almost empty. The steaks were excellent, and a couple of bottles of red wine were perfectly good. Bill insisted on paying, and said the President of the United States would be furious if he encroached upon the MacLean hospitality for one more evening. His last evening. Tomorrow he must begin his journey to Russia.
Back at Inveraray Court, Lady MacLean took charge. “I’m taking my husband to bed immediately,” she said, laughing. “Barrow today, Edinburgh yesterday, eight here for dinner on Sunday night. Fishing all day on the Tay on Saturday. Golf at Turnberry last Friday. He’ll be too tired for the Bosporus. Night, you two. I expect you’ll find a way to amuse yourselves for another hour.”
“And don’t drink all of that expensive port,” muttered the admiral as he clumped up the stairs. “See you tomorrow. Early, Bill. I’m driving you over to the base. They’ve got a man to take you on to the airport.”
Bill and Laura retired to the study, where the American put a couple of logs on the remains of the fire, and Laura slipped La Bohème onto the CD player. “Nothing too advanced for you, Inquisitor,” she teased. “Don’t they call this the beginner’s opera?”
“They do. And it is still probably my favorite, although I know I’m supposed to grow out of it.”
Laura said, “Mine too,” as she poured two glasses of Taylor’s ’47, and handed one to her guest. With Herbert von Karajan’s Berlin Philharmonic in the background, they sat quietly in the big chairs on either side of the fireplace, and sipped the admiral’s vintage port. Pavarotti’s Rodolfo and Mirella Freni’s Mimi completed the musical spell, woven almost a hundred years ago in northern Italy by Giacomo Puccini.
The time slipped by very quickly. They talked of music, and of Kansas, and of Ben Adnam. Laura shook her head despondently. The Israeli officer she had once loved was now the most wanted man on earth.
Absentmindedly, she remarked, “And now the two men in this house are planning to go off on some suicidal mission in Turkey…all because of bloody Ben. I don’t want you two to die. And I don’t really want you to go to Russia tomorrow either.”
“But, Laura,” Bill said, “you have to go back to Edinburgh. And I have to catch Ben’s submarine.”
Laura stared at him hard for the second time that day. Her green eyes were open wide, and she said again, very firmly, “I still don’t want you to go to Russia tomorrow.”
Bill Baldridge was silent for a few moments, as the implications slowly sank in. Then he asked her, “Would it make any difference if I told you I’d rather be going to Russia with you, than without you?”
“Yes,” she said, “it would make a difference. It would turn a situation I already find difficult into one which I would find almost impossible.”
“Laura, I recognize real danger when I see it. I have taken a few risks in my career, and sitting here discussing the immediate possibility of absconding with the married daughter of a senior British admiral, while I am on official U.S. Navy duty for the President of the United States, is not only beyond all my known limits…it’s way beyond yours as well.”
They sat and stared together, and while Rodolfo and Mimi made their respective confessions of love just beyond the horizon, Lieutenant Commander Baldridge heard himself saying the words he suspected would have a major bearing on his life. “Laura,” he told her, “I’m leaving the Navy when this mission is completed. At which time I’ll be back in Kansas, a free man answering to no one. Would you like to stay in touch with me until that time, as best we can?”
“Yes, I would.”
Laura stood up and brought over the decanter of port, and poured a little into each of their glasses. As she did so, she bent to kiss him for the first time. It was a swift and electrifying moment. Laura stood up and looked down at him. She caught her breath, pushed her hair off her face, and said, “You are a very beautiful man, but for the moment, anyway, I’m staying up here on the moral high ground.”
They finished their port almost in silence, smiling gently at each other. The iron link which bound them was made. Laura sent Bill to his room while she took the glasses to the kitchen. She retired fifteen minutes later, and all through a largely restless night, she refrained from considering the perilous journey through the mine field of the creaky passage outside her parents’ room, to that of the American Naval officer.
The following morning the admiral drove Bill away, before Laura was awake. The two men supposed they would meet in Istanbul on September 6. Meanwhile Bill would stay in touch via the Northwood office, to which he was now headed.
Collection of visas, tickets, and cash took him a few hours to complete during the morning in London. Admiral Elliott had provided a car and driver at the airport, and during the afternoon had proved a fountain of information.
He had spoken to the Turkish admiral, and informed him that he would like to run an Upholder Class submarine through the Bosporus on the surface for a goodwill visit to a couple of Russian ports.
No problem there. But the Turk had nearly done a double take when FOSM ventured that the British submarine might like to make the return journey underwater. But he saw no real harm in it for the Turkish nation. Perhaps a collision, for which they would be amply compensated. But not much else to worry him. There would be no nuclear weapons on board, and he would be firming up friendships with both the U.S. and the Royal Navy. Also, he would be glad of whatever information there was, after the mission was completed.
On one aspect of the mission, FOSM had been adamant. “We do not want you to say anything to anyone. We want to make the transit under completely normal circumstances, to see if it can be done.
“We will be making the journey back sometime between September 12 and 20—and all I’m really asking is that you do not rush out and depth charge the British boat, if you find her in the normal course of your surveillance.”
The Turkish admiral had laughed. “No, Peter, we won’t do that! I think it is quite an interesting idea. I will know you are doing it, but no one else will. And if all goes according to your plans, I will certainly improve our Bosporus security. Meanwhile, I will make no extra effort to find you. But I will be very interested to hear from you.”
Admiral Elliott did not quite believe him. The Turk would almost certainly sharpen up the surveillance, hoping at least to spot the British submarine. He would allow his men to attack and arrest, but he would not depth-charge them. And he would say nothing to anyone in advance. That way, if the British were not caught, the CNS alone would find out what had happened, and then he alone could strut around making “necessary national security improvements.”
Meantime Admiral MacLean and Lieutenant Commander Jeremy Shaw would make the treacherous north-south transit under almost identical circumstances to those likely undertaken by Commander Adnam. The biggest danger would be, as it had been for him, that they might crash and drown in the dark, fast-flowing, narrow waters.
It was also decided that Lieutenant Commander Baldridge should enter Russia the same way the Mossad thought Adnam had. A regular British Airways flight to Istanbul, and then by ship up the Black Sea to Odessa and Sevastopol.
It was possible to fly direct from London to Kiev, the Ukrainian city which lies 450 miles to the north of the Crimean Peninsula. But travel from there to Sevastopol was difficult, because the great, secretive Russian Navy port had been virtually a closed city for so long. Old securities, endless delays, irregular transportation, few flights, except military, made it a traveler’s nightmare. Better for Bill to arrive quietly by boat, with the correct papers, and be met by Admiral Rankov’s staff.
Bill stayed overnight at a hotel on the edge of London airport and made the flight to Istanbul the following morning, arriving in the ancient capital of the old Ottoman empire at six in the evening. The traffic was heavy as his taxi made its way through the old Sultanahmet area of the city to his hotel, which was situated in an old mansion block between the Blue Mosque and the waters of the Sea of Marmara.
He debated calling Laura at Inveraray Court, which now seemed about a million miles away, but decided against it in case her mother answered.
The telephone in his room was ringing loudly as Baldridge entered his room. “Well, it’s not Laura,” he thought glumly. “She has no idea where I am.” He was right. It was not Laura. It was Major Ted Lynch of the CIA, who was in Istanbul and wanted to come over right away. There were things to discuss, he said.
Bill liked the beefy ex-Ranger officer, and was delighted he was in the city, particularly since Major Lynch was the kind of guy who would know precisely what and where to eat and drink. He told the CIA man to come right over to the hotel on Amiral Tafdil Sokak.
Big Ted showed up within fifteen minutes, kept his cab waiting outside, and summoned Bill to the lobby. They shook hands and Bill was hustled into the taxi, which made a U-turn and swung back west, weaving through the crowded streets toward Kumkapi, the packed waterfront area of Istanbul, with literally dozens of excellent fish restaurants sprawled along the shore.
On hot August nights, the place gave the appearance of an immense street party, and the haunting beat of Middle Eastern music filled the air. The smell of a million spices mingled with the aromas of grilled fish, hot, frying peppers, and night-black Turkish coffee.
Bill noted the throngs of handsome couples: suave men and beautiful, expensively dressed women. Cabs hooted endlessly as they deposited their fares outside packed restaurants.
Ted Lynch had booked a table on an outside terrace, and ordered drinks as they were seated, two glasses of the ferociously strong aniseed raki, which he, like the Turks, would cut with water, half-and-half.
Bill still sucked in his breath as he took his first sip of the diluted Turkish firewater. “Christ!” he said. “You could start up the Concorde with this stuff.”
The CIA man chuckled and said, “I thought we’d sit here and chat for an hour or so, and then eat at around nine o’clock. The waiter will be here in a minute and I’ll order us some Turkish meze, and then some fish, which is wonderful here. I expect you know, Turkey is supposed to have the French cuisine of the East.”
“Not the kind of regular intelligence they throw around in Kansas,” said Bill, grinning. “Nor, since you mention it, in Maryland. But I’m with you—let’s jump right into the old meze—what the hell is it, by the way?”
“Big selection of hors d’oeuvres—things like borek, kabak dolmasi, patlican tava, and yaprak dolmasi. You’re gonna love it.”
“You got me,” said Bill. “Bring on the belly dancers. I’m going native for the night.” And he took a true sportsman’s swig of his raki, which almost pulverized his gullet.
Ted Lynch laughed. He was suddenly serious and said, “Bill, I don’t actually give a rat’s ass whether we knocked over the Ayatollah’s submarines or not last Saturday. I haven’t asked, but like everyone else I’ve guessed. Those Kilos were a goddamned nuisance at best, and a serious threat to the security of the Gulf at worst. So screw ’em.
“But I’m obliged to say, the more I conduct this investigation, the less I think Iran did it.”
“You don’t?”
“Uh-uh. There’s not a whisper, anywhere. Zepeda’s back in there again this week, heading for Tehran on a train, right now as we sit here. He left Istanbul last night, crossed into Iran at the border station, Razi. Then ran on down into Tabriz and then Tehran. He speaks Arabic, which gets him by, and he has so many contacts.
“But he says there is not a hint that the Ayatollahs had anything whatsoever to do with loss of the Jefferson. There is also not a hint of money being moved. If they’re covering something up, they’re doing a hell of a job. Jeff says he would be amazed if they were involved.”
“Well, Ted, I guess we have to listen to that.”
“We certainly do. And there’s something else.”
“Yeah?”
“From two quite separate sources, Jeff and I did hear a whisper.”
“You did? Who?”
“Iraq.”
“Jesus. Nothing firm, I guess?”
“No, but you don’t get anything firm in the Middle East. You get a lot of shrugs, smiles, nudges, and head-shaking. It’s a place of innuendo, and from those innuendoes you have to try to surmise correctly.
“Mine was from a member of the Syrian secret service operating out of Cairo. A man I have known for years. He had already said to me, ‘Well, Ted, I did hear several months ago that Iraq was considering purchasing a submarine from the Russians. It would make a big difference to them to have a weapon like that.’
“Then, on a separate occasion, sitting in a café in a very seedy part of the city, the same very well-informed man told me, ‘They are not as ignorant about the military structure of the Middle East as you think. Iraq’s biggest enemy is Israel, and their knowledge of the Israeli Navy’s habits and capabilities has always been uncanny. I’ve often wondered if they had a man deep in there.’
“In Arabia, that’s a huge hint. And one week later Zepeda picked up a tip that a very large sum of money had been taken in cash, millions of dollars, from one of the Iraqi bank accounts in Geneva. Nothing more. But together those suggestions add up to about three hundred times more than we have picked up on Iran.”
“Will we firm any of it up?”
“I’ve been working with the local guy from the Mossad on it. He’s one of their top men. Works in combination with General Gavron. They are right on top of the Iraqi money situation. God knows how. Last time I heard from him he thought he would have something in about two weeks.”
“What do you think will happen if we nail Iraq for the Jefferson?”
“I shudder to think. The President is perfectly capable of a preemptive military strike on Baghdad. He’s like Reagan. He would not hesitate if he thought that damnable country had killed six thousand Americans.”
“You’re right. He’d do it.”
“And, Bill, there was just one other thing I haven’t mentioned to anyone. My Israeli buddy here says the Mossad tapped into a very mysterious international phone conversation in Geneva during March. It was between Switzerland and Cairo, and involved ten million dollars. They spoke in Arabic and the phone belonged to the guy who handles Iraqi money in Switzerland. The Mossad eavesdroppers’ main observation was that both parties came from the same town.”
“Is that significant?”
“It is when it’s Tikrit, the birthplace of Saddam Hussein, and most of his government.”