Sea of Shadows

sometimes they would settle them by single combat. The toughest warrior from one country would do battle with the other country’s toughest warrior, often while the opposing armies looked on. The warrior who came out on top won the day for his side. It was a pretty good system. Disputes over land and resources could be resolved without the danger and expense of all-out war. Remember the Bible story about David and Goliath? That’s a classic example of single combat in its original form.”

The president’s eyebrows furrowed. “You think that’s what the Germans are trying to do here?”

“It fits, sir. They shot up a carrier strike group. That’s not the kind of thing we can let slide, right? We’ve got to take some sort of retaliatory action. We can’t risk letting the pocket Napoleons of the world think that they can attack our ships with impunity.”

“You’ve got that right,” the CNO said. “That’s why we’ve got to chase those bastards down and sink every goddamned one of them. If we don’t, it’s even money that somebody else will take a poke at one of our carriers next month, or next week.”

Secretary Whelkin looked around the room. “The Germans are not stupid. They know that we’re going to nail those subs. They knew it before they launched them.”

“It’s a hell of a risk on their part,” Brenthoven said.“How can they be certain that we wouldn’t go to war over this?”

“It’s not as much of a risk at it seems to be,” the secretary of state said.

“The Germans know that we’ll avoid going to war if we possibly can. They also know that we can’t afford to let an attack on one of our carrier strike groups go unpunished. If you put the two ideas together, it’s predictable that we will try to destroy those submarines without much further military escalation.”

“Single combat,” the president said slowly. “The modern version — a handful of their subs against a handful of our ships and aircraft.”

“It still doesn’t make sense,” Brenthoven said. “Selling weapons to Siraj I can understand, even if I don’t agree with it. Germany needs a lot of oil fast, and — in exchange for breaking the weapons embargo — Siraj is giving it to them at a fraction of fair market value. That part I can see.

But I cannot for the life of me see what the Germans stand to gain from attacking the Kitty Hawk.”

“That is the question,” the president said. “What do the Germans get out of this?”

“Turn the question around, Mr. President,” the secretary of state said.

“What do we stand to lose from this?”

“We live and die by our image over there,” the CNO said. “What success we’ve had in keeping a lid on the Middle East is largely due to our military strength. As long as we appear to be invincible, no Middle Eastern leader will seriously attempt to challenge us. Oh, they’ll rant and rave on the six o’clock news and call us dirty names on the floor of the UN General Assembly, but they’ll avoid direct conflict. It’s not a perfect peace, God knows — some of those guys just can’t pass up the chance to shoot at their neighbors — but it allows commerce rather than chaos to be the dominant mode of operation in the Gulf States.”

“There’s your answer,” Secretary Whelkin said. “The Germans have already demonstrated that they can penetrate our carrier strike groups.

Right now, their reputation is gaining ground and ours is losing. If we can’t prevent them from delivering those subs, they’re going to look even stronger, and we’re going to look weaker still.”

“A new Germany for the new century,” the president said. “Re-forged as a world power. Focused, independent, and not afraid to play rough with the big boys.”

“This whole thing has been a great showcase for their military hardware,” Whelkin said. “Four little submarines have managed to elude one carrier strike group and blow the hell out of a second one.”

“I can’t argue on that point,” Brenthoven said. “So far, they’ve succeeded in making us look like idiots. And we can’t afford to lose credibility in the region.”

“I agree,” the CNO said. “We can’t let even one of those subs get through to Siraj. A big chunk of our deterrence comes from our carriers.

Not just the carriers themselves, but the perceptions associated with them.

The American aircraft carrier is the embodiment of force projection.

We’ve all seen it work when some pissant third-world dictator gets too big for his britches. A carrier shows up a few miles off his coastline, and suddenly he’s jumping through hoops to show how enlightened and cooperative he can be. Most of the time, we don’t have to fire a single shot. The aura of power reaches out from the carrier like an umbrella and practically blocks out the sun.

“We’ve got two carriers off the Chinese coast right now. Do you think the Chinese would be minding their P’s and Q’s if they thought they could hit our carriers with impunity?”

“An excellent point,” the president said. “And a vital point. I think Admiral Casey is correct. The credibility of our conventional deterrence is on the line here. If we screw this up, it could affect the balance of power in countries all over the planet.”

“Okay,” said Brenthoven, “we throw everything we’ve got at those subs.” He snapped his fingers three or four times. “I remember reading a proposal for eradicating the Iranian Kilo Class submarines. Something about catching them in the Straits of Hormuz and carpet-bombing the hell out of them with thousand-pound bombs. We could do that. The German subs will have to transit the straits to get into the Arabian Gulf. We can wait and nail them then.”

“I’m not sure how Iran would take that,” said the secretary of state.

“The Straits of Hormuz are right off the Iranian coastline. If we were already at war with Iran, a scenario that your carpet-bombing proposal was apparently designed for — since it calls for attacking Iranian submarines — it wouldn’t be an issue. But we’re not at war with Iran, and we aren’t looking to start one. It might be a good idea to think twice before bombing the hell out of their coastal waters.”

“It’s the wrong kind of response, anyway,” the president said. “We’ve thrown two carrier strike groups at those subs already, and we’ve gotten our asses kicked. If we’re going to salvage our credibility, we need to beat them in a fair fight. They’ve got four submarines — we send four surface combatants to take them on. No carriers, no bombers, no land-based aircraft. Just our destroyers and frigates against their submarines.”

“Mr. President, you can’t be serious,” the CNO said. “The credibility of our national deterrence is at stake, and you’re asking me to fight with one hand tied behind my back?”

The president said, “I want you to look me in the eye and tell me that our Navy is good enough to go one- on-one with the Germans and come out on top. If you can’t say that with a straight face, we’ve got bigger problems than credibility.”

“We snatched the Kitty Hawk out of there pretty quickly, sir,” the CNO said. “I’m not sure if I can get four ships into a position to intercept. I know I’ve got three Middle East Force deployers on station — two destroyers and a frigate — but I may have to scrounge around to come up with a fourth unit on short notice. Unless you’ll let me substitute a submarine. I should be able to get the Topeka in position without too much trouble.”

The president shook his head. “No submarines. Those bastards have been lucky so far. If they managed to get a shot in on one of our subs, we could end up with nuclear contamination from one end of the Gulf to the other. Besides, the credibility of our sub force isn’t in question right now. We need to do this with surface combatants.” He looked at Whelkin.

“Single combat.”

The national security advisor cleared his throat. “Isn’t that giving the Germans what they want?”

“We’ll give them what they want,” the president said. “We’ll stick it up their ass and break it off.”

“We might end up with only three ships,” the CNO said. “Against four submarines.”

“Then we do it with three ships,” the president said, “but we do it. And keep this in mind: if any of those submarines make it to Siraj, the Germans win this thing.”

Admiral Casey nodded slowly. “Understood, sir.”

The president stood up. “I have to go figure out what to tell the American people about this mess.”

The door opened and a young Navy lieutenant (junior grade) walked in, carrying a red and white striped folder. He scanned the room quickly and made his way toward the Chief of Naval Operations.

Every eye in the room followed the young officer as he walked. Under the color-coding system of the White House Signals Office, red and white stripes indicated highly classified material of utmost urgency.