Sea of Shadows

knew about the embassy attack ahead of time. From what you’ve told me, I suspect you’re not going to be able to reveal your sources. That’ll give France all the excuse it needs to side with Germany. Belgium will probably follow Germany on this as well. Italy could go either way. They gave us nominal support during the liberation of Iraq, but they’ve bucked us on nearly everything since.

Turkey’s another coin toss. They’re still mad at us because we wouldn’t let them beat up the Kurds in northern Iraq.”

“Greece will back us,” Irons said. “So will Portugal, and Poland. And I think we can convince the majority of the others.”

“Maybe you’re right, Emily,” the president said. “Maybe you will be able to persuade most of the others. But at what cost? NATO is going to come apart at the seams. Do you really want that?”

“Of course not,” she said. “But the NATO alliance is worthless if we can’t call upon it to live up to its charter. Either NATO protects its members, or it doesn’t. And if it doesn’t, it isn’t an alliance at all. It’s just a lot of high- sounding words on paper.”

“What if I can take Shoernberg down?” the president asked. He gripped the phone more tightly as the words came out of his mouth, and he wished instantly that he hadn’t said them.

“What do you mean?” Irons asked.

The president gritted his teeth. In for a penny, in for a pound …

“Suppose I can take Shoernberg’s regime out of power … That would remove the threat to your country, wouldn’t it? The German people aren’t really your problem. It’s Shoernberg and his cronies.”

“How would you go about it?”

“For starters,” the president said, “I squash his last submarine like a bug. And if necessary, I order a surgical strike on the air base where the Germans are staging fighter jets for delivery to Siraj. I don’t let so much as a slingshot get through to Siraj.”

“Go on.”

“Then I rake Friedrik over the coals. I stand before the United Nations General Assembly and formally accuse him of violating everything from standing UN resolutions, to international law, to Article 5 of the NATO Treaty. I pull down his pants in front of the media. I paint him as not only a criminal, but an incompetent criminal. It’s not bad enough that he violates international law, but he’s not even smart enough to do it successfully.”

“That won’t be enough to push him out of power.”

“No. But it’s a start. Siraj won’t be supplying Germany with oil, because Germany won’t be delivering any weapons. My analysts tell me that the German economy is going to take a nosedive without that oil. They’re going to have one hell of an energy shortage, complete with power rationing — maybe even blackouts. I’ll crank up import tariffs on German-made products and squeeze their economy even harder. Once the crunch is really on, the German people will be screaming for Shoernberg’s head on a stick. I’ll have the CIA dig up every scrap of dirt that Shoernberg or his people ever touched. If one of them ever stole a candy bar, cheated on his taxes, or pinched a secretary on the rump, we’ll plaster it all over the six o’clock news. We’ll humiliate him every morning and discredit him every evening. Hell, I don’t know what all we’ll do. I’m just freewheeling here. I’ve never played dirty politics before. But I’ve got some smart people working for me, Emily. So do you. We’ll turn them loose on this.”

The prime minister paused before speaking. “I don’t think it will work, Frank.”

“Maybe it won’t,” the president said. “But it’s certainly worth trying.

Anything is better than war. You know what happened the last two times your country butted heads with Germany …”

“This situation isn’t remotely similar,” Irons said. “We’re not going to drag the entire world into this. It won’t happen that way again. The world has changed too much.”

“We’d like to believe that,” the president said. “But we can’t be sure.”

He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “If war with Germany cannot be avoided, the United States will honor its obligations of treaty and its long-standing friendship with Great Britain. But I beg you, Emily … give me a chance to prevent this war.”

“You sink that submarine, Mr. President,” the British prime minister said, “and then we’ll talk.”

CHAPTER 44

GUNSLINGER FOUR-ONE

CENTRAL ARABIAN GULF (OFF THE COAST OF QATAR) MONDAY; 21 MAY

0758 hours (7:58 AM)

TIME ZONE +3 ‘CHARLIE’

Lieutenant Vincent Brolan yawned hard enough to make his ears ring.

“I fucking hate dawn patrol,” he said, for about the eighth time that morning. “I mean I really fucking hate it.”

“I know you do, Vince,” the copilot said. “And you really hate spending all that flight pay that you get for flying it.”

Brolan eased his aircraft, Gunslinger Four-One, a little closer to the oil platform. They were close enough to see the workers going about their morning routines, doing whatever the hell it was that oil rig workers did.

A few of the workers turned at the sound of the helo’s rotor blades, and some of them even waved. Most of them paid no attention whatsoever.

Helicopters were a dime a dozen in the gulf.

Lieutenant Brolan leaned his helmet against the port-side window and felt the vibration of the engines resonating through his skull. “Lucky Number Seven is a bust,” he said. “Let’s move on to our next contestant.”

The copilot, Lieutenant (junior grade) Enrico “Henry” Chavez, pointed down at the platform. “Don’t you think we ought to swing around and check out the back side?”

“It’s a waste of time, Henry. There’s nobody home.” Under his breath, he said, “This whole thing is a waste of time.”

“We ought to do this by the numbers, Vince. That sub has got to be hiding somewhere.”

“Yeah? Well if it ever was here, it’s long gone by now.”

“Come on, Vince. You know our orders.”

In the rear seat, the Sensor Operator, Aviation Warfare Systems Operator Second Class Linda “Mojo” Haynes, listened to the exchange and didn’t say a word. As the only enlisted member of the flight crew, she made it her business to stay out of disagreements between the officers.

The pilot let out a heavy sigh. “All right, okay, I’m turning already.”

He banked the helicopter into a broad turn that would take them around behind the oil platform.

As they rounded the corner of the platform, it slid into view: a fat black cigar shape riding low in the water, tethered to the platform by a web of lines and hoses.

“Jackpot,” the SENSO said over the intercom. “There’s our submarine.”

Lieutenant (jg) Chavez reached up to key his mike, when a pair of nickel-sized holes surrounded by spider webs blossomed on the Plexiglas windshield to the left of his head. Simultaneously the helicopter was jarred sharply several times, as though someone with a hammer was banging on the fuselage.

“Holy shit!” Chavez shouted. “They’re shooting at us!”

Lieutenant Brolan swung the helo into a tight turn away from the station and put on the speed. A stream of tracers leapt up from the oil platform and blasted through the air where the helo had been a split second before. Brolan keyed his radio. “This is Gunslinger. I’m under fire!”

Lieutenant (jg) Chavez half turned in his seat and keyed his intercom.

“Hey, Mojo. You okay back there?”