extremely concerned by the impact of an explosion, which took place at 2103. We have further loss of life, sir, possibly twenty to thirty men. But nothing comparable to the catastrophe involving the aircraft carrier.”
“So. Into the valley of death rode the six thousand,” intoned the admiral, an edge of disdain in his voice, suggesting he held CINCPAC responsible for the entire outrage.
Gene Sadowski betrayed no irritation. He fought back his sorrow at the loss of several personal friends, and replied, “Yessir. I suppose they did.”
Admiral Dunsmore was not able to discern the shock in his voice, for the two men were strangers, and their priorities were different. The Washington-based Naval Chief now faced one of the most onerous tasks ever visited upon a peacetime commander — within thirty minutes he must face the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and then, possibly, the President of the United States. To each of them he would be required to explain how his Navy had managed to lose more than twice as many serving officers and men as had been killed at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
“Thank you, Admiral,” he said. “I’m grateful for the promptness and the privacy of your call. Please stand by for further instructions. Inform the Battle Group to close down all communication circuits except within the fleet, and to Pearl Harbor HQ. And thank you once more for the clarity of your call.”
The admiral pressed the button to summon Lieutenant Commander Jay Bamberg back into his office. The young officer moved faster than the admiral had ever witnessed before. He cleared the big room in two bounds and blurted out the chilling but four-minute old news that Admiral Morgan, over at the National Security Agency, was “damn near certain we’ve lost a big warship in a nuclear explosion somewhere in the northern half of the Arabian Sea.”
Jay Bamberg was visibly shaken. He was too well trained to allow his sentences to become confused, but he kept talking. “Morgan has evidence on the satellite, sir,” added the CNO’s assistant. “They picked it up on one of the KH-11’s which was still photographing all of the approaches to the Gulf after that last panic. They have a clear picture of an obvious rise in temperature in the water, consistent only with a nuclear test, right in the middle of the Battle Group surrounding the
Admiral Dunsmore shook his head and said resignedly, “That last call was from CINCPAC. We’ve lost the carrier, almost certainly in a nuclear accident. They believe there are no survivors.”
“Good God, sir.”
“Yes. Good God…Now let’s touch base with Admiral Morgan…then with CINCPAC. Tell NSA we do know, and find out if they have anything significant I should hear. Then suggest Admiral Morgan contact CINCPAC directly, and meanwhile please arrange for me to meet the Chairman in the next ten minutes as a matter of the highest possible priority.”
Lieutenant Commander Bamberg left the room, and Admiral Dunsmore tried to prevent his mind from conjuring up a picture of a U.S. aircraft carrier containing six thousand of the finest men in the nation being instantly vaporized ten thousand miles from home. It was always fatal to focus on individuals, but for the moment he could not believe he would never see Zack Carson again, and the death of Jack Baldridge was almost more than he could cope with.
He stood up and walked across the room, put on his jacket, and paced back and forth for a few minutes. Then there was a tap on the door and Jay Bamberg put his head around the corner and said quietly, “The Chairman will see you immediately.”
Scott Dunsmore had rarely, if ever, looked forward less to a meeting. “Come down with me,” he said, and the two men strode out into corridor seven, turned left, past the salute of the young Naval guard, and onto E Ring, the great circular outer throughway of the Pentagon, where the High Commands of all three services operated, the Army on the third floor, the Navy and Air Force on the fourth. The office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs was located on the second floor, immediately below that of the Secretary of Defense. Each of the five outer corridors which traverse the Pentagon, on all five upper levels, was over three hundred yards long. The world’s largest office building contained more than seventeen miles of passageway, and was three times bigger than the Empire State Building.
It is said that no two points in this monstrous military labyrinth are more than seven minutes apart. As far as Admiral Dunsmore was concerned, seven hours would have been much better. The short journey down the elevator and into the office of the senior military figure in America seemed to him as if it took only seven seconds before he stood in the outer office of the beefy five-star general who ran the place, fifty-five-year-old Joshua R. Paul of New York, Vietnam veteran, Gulf War tank commander, possibly the best running back ever to play football for West Point.
“I am not,” muttered Admiral Dunsmore, in the general direction of Jay Bamberg, “terribly looking forward to this. Wait here, will you? I may need assistance.”
“Morning, CNO,” said the Chairman. “Siddown. Wanna cup of coffee? I’m having some.” He grinned cheerfully, his bright blue eyes peering over the top of his half-spectacles, noticing instantly the look of undisguised concern on the normally composed face of the tall, patrician Chief of the Navy. “What’s up?”
“Well, sir, first of all, I might recommend we both give serious consideration to the possibility of a bottle of brandy rather than a couple of mugs of coffee.”
“Oh shit. Trouble?”
“Very, very big trouble, sir. I am almost certain we have lost an aircraft carrier.”
“Well I suggest you get your guys to find it, real quick.”
“Nossir. I am talking about the total destruction of a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, along with all six thousand men on board. Nuclear accident in the Arabian Sea.”
General Josh Paul sucked his breath in, hissing through his teeth. “Jesus Christ! Tell me you’re kidding me. You could not be serious. You are sitting there telling me that we somehow have to deal with the biggest single peacetime crisis in American history? You sure that as Joint Chiefs we’re not having some kind of a Joint Dream?”
“Do I look as if I’m dreaming, sir?”
“No, Scott,” he said gently. “No you don’t. You look as if you have just seen a fucking ghost.”
“Six thousand of them, actually, sir.”
“Jesus Christ! Okay. Now give it to me slowly and carefully.”
“Right, sir. The one-hundred-thousand-ton carrier
“She is loosely surrounded by her Battle Group, you know, cruisers, destroyers, half a dozen frigates, a couple of SSN’s. Not to mention her entire air force on deck and in the hangars. ’Bout eighty-four aircraft.
“Around twenty-five miles away, they see a sudden flash, sonar operators all over the fleet would have had their ears blown out but for the audio cut-off system. A series of damn great waves come through and almost sink four ships, the wind from the blast causes some damage, all communications go out, and within twenty minutes or a half hour it becomes obvious to a couple of the big outer warships that the carrier has vanished.
“There’s no communication. And when the radar systems start working again, she’s definitely vanished. And the entire downwind area is covered by radioactive particles. CINCPAC hears from Captain Barry on board
“I guess I don’t need to ask whether the carrier was carrying substantial nuclear missiles, do I?”
“No, sir. You do not.”
“Okay. You get back upstairs and begin compiling in the next ten minutes all the information we can get. I’ll contact the White House, and request a personal, immediate meeting with the President. He can decide if anyone else sits in. My instinct is the less people who know about this for the next two hours the better. Get back down here fifteen minutes from now; we’ll go down in my elevator, and I’ll have the car waiting for us.”
“You want me to come as well, sir?” asked Admiral Dunsmore somewhat lamely.
“You don’t think I’m gonna deal with this one on my own,” replied the Chairman wryly. “Besides, the
