The Shark Mutiny

New South Wales for just two years before Admiral Ramshawe accepted a position on the board of the Australian airline Qantas, working permanently in New York.

Young Jimmy, with his U.S. passport, went to school in Connecticut, starred for three years as a baseball pitcher who sounded as if he should have been playing cricket. And then followed his father into a career in Dark Blue. American Dark Blue, that is. He’d been in the U.S. Navy now for 10 years, but a couple of weeks earlier he had still brought a smile to the lugubrious face of the NSA’s Director, Admiral George Morris, by announcing, “G’day, sir…. I picked up that stuff you wanted…gimme two hours…she’ll be right.”

Ramshawe was always going to sound like Banjo Patterson and other members of Australian folklore, but he was American through and through, and Admiral Morris valued him highly, as highly as he valued his longtime friendship with Ramshawe Senior, the retired Aussie Diplomat/Admiral.

The trouble was, right now, Admiral Morris had just been admitted to the Bethesda Naval Hospital with suspected lung cancer, and the deputy directer, Rear Admiral David Borden, was a more remote, formal figure, who was not instantly receptive to young Lt. Ramshawe’s observations. And that might prove difficult for both of them — the acting director because he might miss something, for Jimmy because he might not be listened to.

He stared at the two signals in front of him, and attacked the problem as he always did: going instantly for the obvious worst-case scenario. That is, some foreign nutcase has just bought several hundred sea mines from the bloody Russians with a view to laying the bastards somewhere they want to keep private.

Lt. Ramshawe frowned. It seemed unlikely the Russians were using the mines themselves. They had nowhere to mine, and these days they rarely manufactured Naval hardware unless it was for export.

So who the hell did they make ’em for? Jimmy Ramshawe ran the checks swiftly through his mind. One of those crazy bastards in the gulf…Gadaffi? The Ayatollahs? The Iraqis? No reason really for any of them, but the Iranians had threatened a minefield more than once. But then the AN-124 would have been running south, not east. Or else the mines would have been transported by road. China? No. They’d make their own…I think. North Korea? Maybe. But they make their own.

Lieutenant Ramshawe deemed the puzzle worthy of careful consideration. And he gathered up the two signals, muttering to himself, “I don’t think we better fuck this up, because if ships start blowing up, somewhere in the Far East or wherever, we’re likely to get the blame. ’Specially if an American ship was lost…bloody oath there’d be trouble then.”

He stood up from his screen, pushed his floppy dark hair off his forehead and walked resolutely out of the ops area down to the Director’s office. He was still reading the signals when he arrived in the hallowed area once occupied by Arnold Morgan himself. And he walked through absentmindedly, still reading, tapped on the door, pushed it open and walked in, as he always did.

“G’day, Admiral,” he said. “Coupla things here I think we want to take a sharp look at.”

David Borden looked up, an expression of surprise on his face.

“Lieutenant,” he said. “I wonder if you could bring yourself to give me the elementary courtesy of knocking before you enter my office?”

“Sir? I thought I just did.”

“And then perhaps waiting to be invited in?”

“Sir? This isn’t a bloody social call. I have urgent stuff in my hand which I think you should know about right away.”

“Lieutenant Ramshawe, there are certain matters of etiquette still observed here in the U.S. Navy, though I imagine they have long been dispensed with in your own country.”

“Sir, this is my country.”

“Of course. But your accent sounds like no other U.S. officer I ever met.”

“Well, I can’t help that. But since we’re wasting time, and I don’t want to get off on the wrong foot now that you’re in the big chair, I’ll get back outside and we’ll start over, right?”

Before Admiral Borden could answer, Jimmy Ramshawe had walked out and closed the door behind him. Then he knocked on it, and the Director, feeling slightly absurd, called, “Come in, Lieutenant.”

“Christ, I’m glad we got that over with,” said Jimmy, turning on his Aussie-philosophical, lopsided grin. “Anyway, g’day, Admiral. Got something here I think we should take a look at.”

He handed the two signals over, and David Borden glanced down at them.

“I don’t see anything urgent here,” he said. “First of all, we do not even know the mines were on board the Russian aircraft. If they were, we don’t have the slightest idea where they might be going…and wherever that may be, it’s going to take a long time for anyone to unload them, transport them, and then start laying them in the ocean. At which point our satellites will pick them up. I shouldn’t waste any more time on it if I were you.”

“Now, hold hard, sir. We got possibly several hundred brand-new sea mines almost certainly packed into the hold of the biggest freight aircraft on earth, now heading due east toward China, maybe India, maybe Pakistan, Korea, Indonesia? Brand-new mines specifically ordered and manufactured? And you don’t think we want to trace the bloody jokers who own them, right away?”

“No, Lieutenant. I think we’ll find out in good time without wasting any of our valuable resources, and in particular, your energies.”

“Well, I suppose if you say so, sir. But that’s a lot of high explosives, and…well, I mean some bugger wants it for something pretty definite. I think Admiral Morris would want it investigated…maybe alert the Big Man in the White House.”

“Lieutenant, Admiral Morris is no longer in command of this agency. And from now on, I trust you’ll respect my judgment. Forget the mines. They’ll come to the surface in good time.”

“Just hope they don’t bring a pile of bloody wreckage with ’em, that’s all.”

Lt. Ramshawe nodded, curtly, turned on his heel and left, muttering to himself an old Australian phrase, “Right mongrel bastard he’s turned out to be.”

Evening, same day. Ops Room.

Great Hall of the People.

The big computer screen had been switched off now. The Iranian delegation was heading northeast out along Jichang Lu toward Beijing International Airport. And Admiral Zhang was talking with Zu Jicai. Everyone else had gone. The two great Naval friends and colleagues sat alone, sipping tea, which Yushu had coerced a guard to produce, in the absence of any staff whatsoever in the Great Hall. It tasted, he thought, like a leftover thermos from Mao’s Long March of 1935.

“I am still slightly mystified, Yushu. Do you really think there is enough advantage in this for us to become involved in a worldwide oil catastrophe?”

“Ah, Jicai. You are ever the tactician, ever the strategist. Always the battle commander. You see things very clearly, the immediate crunch, the immediate aftermath.”

“Well, don’t you?”

“I used to, when I was C-in-C of the Navy. But I must be political now, and I have changed my perspectives. I am trying to look at a wider picture.”

“I think, my Yushu, you will face a very wide picture indeed if an American tanker should collide with one of those Russian mines in the Strait of Hormuz.”

Admiral Zhang smiled, sipped his tea, grimaced and said softly, “Do you think they accepted my plan? Do you think Hossein will call back with the agreement of his government?”

“I am quite sure they accepted it. You can be very persuasive toward people who want to be convinced.”

“That’s part of my strategy, Jicai. I know that deep in the soul of every Iranian military officer there beats the heart of a revolutionary. Oh yes, they would like to make colossal sums of money from a world oil crisis. But what they really want is to strike a violently disruptive blow against the Great Satan, particularly one with the potential to cause widespread chaos in the everyday lives of ordinary Americans.”

“I am afraid you read them accurately, Yushu. And I am afraid your plan will take place. The minefield will be laid. But I am very afraid of the consequences. The Americans are likely to turn up in the gulf with guns blazing. Possibly against our own warships, and we are not really a match for them….”

“There you go again, my good Jicai. The immediate crunch. The immediate aftermath. Soon I will ask you to raise your sights. But not quite yet…not until we are given an affirmative answer by the Iranians. Then all will be