“I doubt it. No one ever has.”
“Could Ben Adnam have done it?”
But there was no time for an answer. The door pushed open, and a voice said softly, “Hello, Daddy… Commander Baldridge.”
Bill turned and saw a slender woman in her mid-thirties. She had long dark hair that fell below her shoulders, and her face was gentle as well as striking. She gazed at Bill with a mildly amused expression. “I haven’t met many Americans,” she said.
But the Kansan seemed slightly lost for words. He just stared into a perfect pair of calm, green eyes — perhaps, he thought, belonging to the lover of the man who had murdered his brother Jack.
7
Dinner at the Grand Lochside home of sir Iain and lady MacLean was not, Bill thought, too shabby. It was served by the white-coated and red-bearded Angus, in a fifty-foot-long dining room with southerly views toward Strachur and the Cowal Hills. Annie had seated them, as a four, on a long, highly polished antique table, she and her husband facing across to Laura and Bill. Behind the American was a magnificent Georgian sideboard where a two- foot-long, perfectly cooked Scottish salmon had been laid out with a dish of new potatoes and another of fresh peas. In the center of the table were two silver dishes filled with mayonnaise.
Bill guessed, correctly, that the admiral had caught the salmon. “Would you like me to serve everyone, sir?” asked Angus.
“Oh yes, a bit of everything for everyone.” Then to Bill he added, “I never bother with a first course with salmon. Everybody would much rather have another bit of fish if they’re still hungry. Landed this one up on the Tay two days ago.”
“That’s a heck of a fish, sir,” said Bill. “My brother was a fisherman, but he never caught anything like this on our local rivers in Kansas.”
The admiral looked up sharply. “You said ‘was’—you mean he’s given up the greatest art of the sportsman?”
“No, Admiral, I thought you knew. My brother Jack was the Group Operations Officer in the
“Good Lord, Bill. I am sorry. No one told me, and they should have.”
“How absolutely awful,” said Laura, speaking for the first time. “Is that any connection with why you are here? Conducting some sort of investigation?”
“Well, in a way I am. But it’s nothing to do with Jack. There are hundreds of people in the Navy who had relatives on the carrier, and thousands more outside.”
“I don’t suppose it makes it any easier though,” she said. “Shared grief never lessens it.”
“No, ma’am. It does not.”
Laura looked at the sadness in his face. He really was, she thought, a very captivating man, not obviously married, and with the conspicuously cavalier air, and wayward eye, of so many submariners. Especially one other. Married mother-of-two or not, Laura assessed Lieutenant Commander Baldridge as a potentially dangerous presence in her life. Only once before had she met anyone with such instant allure.
She was surprised when he smiled at her. “I’m beginning to adjust to the tragedy now, after a week. But I’ll never get used to not seeing Jack…not ever. He was one hell of an officer.”
“I suppose it’ll be up to you to carry on the family tradition now.”
“Not really. I’m leaving the Navy after this investigation. Going home to Kansas.”
“Will you miss all the excitement?”
“No. I don’t think so. I’ve gone about as far as I’m going in dark blue. They are not going to give me a full command.”
“Upset one too many old admirals,” she laughed. “That’s a good way to conclude a promising career. At least it is here.”
“You might be right at that.”
“Bill,” said the admiral, “if you would like to ask Laura a few questions, I am afraid we are going to have to confide in her. But don’t worry. She’s spent quite enough of her life in and around the Navy to know what can be repeated and what can’t.”
Bill tried to wheel the conversation out of its corner. He turned to her and smiled. “Now where are these two children I’ve been hearing about?”
“Oh, they’re with Brigitte on their way to bed. They’re very young, three and five. After the long drive over here from Edinburgh I’ve just about had them for the day. I said good night before dinner. Their grandma is going up to see them in a minute — I hope.”
“I guess Brigitte would be the nanny. I never met a proper English nanny.”
“You’re not going to tonight either,” replied Laura. “Brigitte is from Sweden. She’s an
Then her face clouded over, and she said suddenly, “It’s Ben, isn’t it? That’s who you’ve come about.”
Bill glanced at the admiral, who skillfully changed the subject. “Now, what would you all like to drink? There’s a bottle of cold Meursault here, and I opened a bottle of claret a while ago…Annie always drinks white wine with fish, so I know what she will have. But I don’t think white wine is mandatory with all fish. Matter of fact I prefer Bordeaux with salmon and that’s what I’m having.”
Bill was really growing to like the admiral. “If it’s Bordeaux for you, it’s Bordeaux for me,” he grinned.
“And me,” chimed in Laura.
“What can I tell you about Ben Adnam?” Laura asked after the wine had been poured.
Her father interrupted. “Laura, if it’s all right with you, I was proposing to leave you here with Bill for half an hour, after dinner, so you can answer his questions, or not, as you wish, in private. I think your mother would prefer not to have old memories…er…rekindled.”
“But, Admiral, there’s something I did want to ask you,” said Bill. “Why does everyone nearly have a heart attack at the mere thought of going through the Bosporus underwater? I don’t get it. It can’t be that dangerous, can it?”
“Yes. Yes, it can,” said the admiral, slowly. “Which is presumably why no one has ever even tried, never mind failed.”
“But why? What’s so dangerous about it? It’s pretty wide, isn’t it? It’s a kind of bay, right?”
The admiral smiled patiently. “In a way you are asking precisely the correct man,” he said. “I have been following various reports of Russians exporting ships to Middle Eastern nations for a couple of years. There’s been nothing but trouble over the submarine sales, especially to Iran, and some months ago I got Droggy to send me his latest chart of the Bosporus. Just to familiarize myself with the sheer difficulty of
“Then I have two critical questions,” said Bill. “First, who the hell’s Droggy? Second, can you tell me about the Bosporus?”
“Certainly I can. Droggy is our jargon for the hydrographer of the Navy. As for the Bosporus, I have been extremely anxious about this for some months…thought no one would ever ask me to drone on about my new favorite subject…do you have a couple of months to spare?”
“Sure I do, but I guess the Pentagon might wanna hear from me before September, Admiral.”
They both laughed, but the admiral was serious. “The trouble with modern submariners like you,” he said, “is that you think the entire world runs on computers, that your search-sensors and electronic technology will give you everything you need. But you, Bill, and your fellow American submariners, these days are essentially big-ship, deep-ocean men. And all of your kit is designed for that.
“Tackling the Bosporus requires inshore skills, which your Navy has largely thrown away. You haven’t trained for them for years, and, if we’re not bloody careful here, we’ll be doing the same.
