“A privilege to have you both aboard,” smiled the Teacher, and, looking at Bill, said, “You will find I am not quite such an ogre as your host was back in the eighties.”
“He’s just being modest. Rob’s one of my very best Perishers.”
Admiral MacLean smiled, patted his old pupil on the shoulder, and said, “What about some coffee while they’re getting this steamer to sea?”
“No time, really, sir. Not if you want to be on the bridge going down the Gareloch.”
“Right. Come on, Bill. I’ll show you the way.”
“Permission for the admiral and his guest on the bridge, sir?”
“Yes, please.”
“Okay, Bill, up we go.”
Two minutes later the hunter-killer was under way. From the top of the fin, the views of the loch and surrounding landscape were so striking that Baldridge hardly spoke for several minutes. Running south before the backdrop of the great mountain, with mists still hugging the shoreline on both sides, and the long heathery hillsides of Glen Fruin up to the left, made it very easy to forget the true purpose of this mission.
It was a typical July morning; no rays of sun had yet lit up the eastern slopes of The Cobbler, as HMS
“Is it deep enough to run down here at periscope depth?” asked Bill.
“Yes, it is,” replied the admiral. “But we don’t do it these days, and certainly not in a nuclear boat. It’s considered an unnecessary risk…I mean, if something went wrong, no one would thank us for dumping a nuclear reactor on the floor of a Scottish loch in which it would remain active for probably a hundred years.”
“No. I guess not. Has anything ever gone wrong in this loch?”
“Not for a long time. Not seriously since World War I when someone managed to leave a funnel-hatch open by mistake in one of the old K-Class submarines. The water filled the boiler room and she plunged to the bottom of the loch, drowned thirty-two men. They are all buried up in Faslane cemetery.”
“That’s one of the big troubles with these damn things…one mistake and you may never get a second chance,” said Bill quietly. “I guess that’s why we all think that a submarine CO is superior to any other.”
“What d’ya mean,
Everyone laughed at the boss’s joke. But the seriousness of this mission had put all of them on edge. They were going out for a month, into great waters, west of the British Isles. They would take this submarine into the depths of the Atlantic, working as much as one thousand feet down, in water which was two miles deep, out beyond the Rockall Rise, five hundred miles offshore, well off the continental shelf.
This is the area known in the trade as the GIUK Gap, the deep-water patrolling ground of the most powerful nuclear submarines in the Western world. It is the “choke point” formed by the coastlines of Greenland, Iceland, and the U.K., through which all Russian submarines must pass from their principal northern bases on the Murman Coast, which forms the southern shore of the Barents Sea. This was the old Soviet submarine way to the transatlantic trade routes, should it come to war.
In those days there was no way they could navigate through the GIUK Gap without the Americans or the Brits knowing precisely who they were, how many there were, and the direction in which they were headed. From that point on, no Soviet submarine was ever alone for long.
It was the strategic importance of these deep waters which made the submarine bases in the Scottish lochs so important, and so efficient. It was easy to bottle up the Russians in the Black Sea, because the Turks were in charge of the
The difficult area was the GIUK Gap, and to that potential theater of submarine warfare both the Pentagon and the Royal Navy historically sent their best men and their best equipment.
Admiral MacLean chatted to Bill about the forthcoming program the Perishers must face as
The admiral kept Bill apprised of the activities, as they continued southwesterly toward the southern coast of the Isle of Arran, which stands in the eastern lee of the Mull of Kintyre.
Once past Arran, they surfaced again, and the admiral again took Bill to the bridge for a perfect ride across the unusually sunlit fifteen-mile channel to Campbeltown, where a Navy helicopter would pick them up and fly them back to Faslane.
All the way to Kintyre, Bill found himself wondering about the Perishers down below, working away at their notes and diagrams, listening to the sonars, consulting with the surface picture compiler, talking to the AWO, conferring with the weapons officer, discussing the systems which governed the missiles and torpedoes.
It had been in this very area where Commander Ben Adnam had learned the specialized techniques of modern submarine warfare. But there was no longer one shred of doubt in Bill’s mind — for any potential terrorist, this was the place to learn the tricks of the trade. He guessed, too, that if he nailed Adnam, the Royal Navy would never again train a Middle Eastern submariner.
But now they could hear the distant clatter of the Navy chopper, flying down Kilbrennan Sound between Kintyre and Arran. For a few moments it hovered twenty feet above the fore-casing, while the winchman pulled Baldridge and the admiral unceremoniously into the cabin, before it swept away for Faslane.
On landing, there was an urgent message for Bill. “Call Admiral Arnold Morgan on his private line in Fort Meade.” A waiting lieutenant escorted him to a small private office, which had a private phone line, bypassing the main switchboard. “Just dial straight out, sir, 001, then the U.S. area code, then the number.”
Bill dialed, private line to private line. Within seconds he heard the permanently irritated growl of Admiral Morgan come down the line. “Morgan…speak.”
Bill chuckled. “Lieutenant Commander Baldridge. Ready to speak.”
He heard the admiral laugh. “Hey Bill, good to hear you. What’s hot?”
“Howd’ya find me?”
“Old buddy. Admiral Elliott. New buddy for you, right?”
“Yessir. A real good guy. Paved my way.”
“I hear you may be onto something.”
“I sure am, sir. About as near to certain as I ever could be — if someone hit our carrier, I got the guy who did it.”
“Give it to me.”
“Israeli officer. Commander Benjamin Adnam. A-D-N-A-M. The best trainee commanding officer they ever taught up here. I’ve just spent a day with his Teacher, Admiral Sir Iain MacLean. He reckons there’s about five people on this earth who could get out underwater through the Bosporus. Him and Elliott…a couple of other possibles…and Adnam.”
“Shit! Is that right? Where is this sonofabitch?”
“Not sure. But I suppose either at the Israeli Navy Base in Haifa, or in one of their submarines. He was up here less than a year ago, working up an Upholder Class submarine his Navy had just bought.”
“No chance he might be an Arab, eh?”
“Yessir. I think there is such a chance. Several quite suspicious aspects of his life. I’ve been talking to a close friend of his…he’s been completely out of touch for months and months, which is apparently unusual.”
“You got all you need?”
“Yessir. I was planning to come back either overnight or first thing tomorrow. I’ve a ton of things to tell you.”
“Lemme know when you’re arriving in Washington. I’ll have someone meet you. Then come straight on down to Fort Meade. Between you and me, the President is getting trigger-happy. He is determined to smack someone’s Navy right in the mouth, ASAP. Hurry home.” The line went dead, a disconcerting habit of the admiral’s. He just didn’t bother with good-byes. Didn’t have time. Scott Dunsmore said old Morgan did it to the President once. Not this President, the one before.
Bill glanced at his watch. It was five forty-five in the afternoon. What he needed was the Concorde flight to Washington, first thing in the morning. That meant he must leave for London this evening. He left the office,
