“I’m not saying Miss Laura ought to be made an honorary admiral or anything. But do not write off the possibility that the apple may not have fallen far from the tree…and now we wanna find out where the hell is Commander Benjamin Adnam, right?”
“Yessir. And we’d like to take a careful look at the activities and motives of Israel. So far as we know for certain, Adnam is an Israeli submarine commander.”
“Yeah, but we have accounted for the Israeli submarines. As we have almost accounted for the Iranian submarines. And the Iraqis don’t have any.”
“Unless one of them has one we don’t know about,” said Bill. “An unknown boat they sneaked out of the Black Sea with an unknown commander. Because we surely know now who that commander might be. Especially now you’ve put a branding iron on the man who taught him.”
“Bill, you’ll get no argument from me on any of that. Now, let’s have a few gulps of this coffee, and then I’ll tell you my news.”
The admiral finally stopped pacing the room. He sat down behind his desk and told Bill the salient points of his investigation. “Dealing with the rogue submarine first, we have two facts. One, we think we heard him in the strait, two, a Russian submariner went overboard and drowned off the Greek islands. The dates of the two incidents fit, which would make it, almost certainly, the same ship, and the Russians are not denying the dead man was a submariner.
“However, they are being a bit cagey about one thing. When I contacted them the day after we picked up the acoustic contact in the strait, they admitted they had lost a Kilo Class submarine in the previous three weeks in the Black Sea and were searching for the hull. But when I asked whether the drowned man was a member of that ship’s company, they clammed up real fast, and refused to confirm whether they had found the hull of the Kilo. I’m working on it right now. Talking to Rankov when he gets back Friday.
“Meanwhile the Turks confirm they received no application from the Russians to bring any submarine through the Bosporus on the surface during the months of March, April, or May. So what’s that goddamned Russian submariner’s body doing on a Greek beach?”
“Well, he couldn’t have washed right through from the Black Sea, and then the Dardanelles, not all that way,” said Baldridge. “So that’s all very significant for us. How about Israel — will they tell us about Adnam?”
“Bill, I thought they would, been trying to talk to them since we spoke on the phone, but they are being even more cagey than the Russians. I’m meeting one of their guys tonight, after we finish with Scott Dunsmore.”
“What’s the latest on Iran?”
“Hell, that’s just the usual hotbed of intrigue. We think one of their submarines vanished from off its moorings in Bandar Abbas three days before the
“If, however, they did, and somehow got back in again, and then parked the submarine in a covered dock, that makes them very clever, very dangerous little guys. Too goddamned clever.”
“I’ll tell you what Iain MacLean says. He reckons the Iranians are our number-one suspects by a long way. He says if all three of their Kilos are still in Bandar Abbas, then they either got a new one — which is still at large — or they got out of Bandar Abbas, and then got right back in again. Either way he says Iran is the likely culprit.”
“He’s right. They have the strongest motive, they are at least as careless about human life as the Iraqis. And they have three Russian Kilos which we know about.
“I’m telling you, Bill. The President is very concerned about them and their goddamned submarine fleet and their increases in Naval exercises in the Gulf. Right now, without a CVBG in the area, we are preparing to put at least twenty-four FA-18’s on the airstrip in Bahrain, like we did before, until the new carrier arrives in October. The Emir of Bahrain is a very good guy, and we are expecting permission this week.
“I’m not sure how the CNO and the President see it, but right now, it’s gotta be Iran, and Israel, probably not Iraq. Your information about Adnam is obviously critical, but we have to get the Israelis to tell us the truth. If they did do it, they’ll tell us Adnam is gone. If they did not do it, Adnam probably has gone! It’s a matter of getting Israeli Intelligence to tell us the truth. Then we’ll know what to do.”
The two men talked for another hour before leaving for the Pentagon. Once there, they apprised Admiral Dunsmore of their inquiries, told him about Commander Ben Adnam, and Admiral Morgan promised to be in touch as soon as he had finished with the Israeli general later in the evening. Admiral Dunsmore called General Paul and suggested that he meet with the President as soon as Morgan “has wrung the truth out of the Mossad.”
Bill Baldridge got a ride with Morgan to the Dunsmore estate in order to retrieve his car. Which would give the Intelligence chief ample time to drive back to Alexandria and prepare for the arrival of General Gavron.
Before leaving, he asked his office to dig up some background on the man he thought might pinpoint the precise whereabouts of Commander Adnam, and told his staff he would call at around six-thirty in the evening. Thereafter the time sped by rapidly. Admiral Morgan, driving himself as usual, joined the stream of south-running traffic on the western shore of the Potomac, and, with Bill Baldridge’s navigation, swept into the CNO’s residence.
Bill knew Grace Dunsmore was out, and anyway he was anxious to get home to Maryland, in his own car. He thanked Admiral Morgan for the ride, and arranged to speak to him either later that night or first thing in the morning.
Admiral Arnold Morgan turned north once more and made for the quaint little seaport of Alexandria. There was however nothing quaint about his business this evening. The Israeli would be very tough, and very uncooperative at first. The admiral considered it highly likely that he might have to impart a few home truths to this particular opponent.
He reached the bar, chatted for a few moments with the landlord, and asked him to put a pot of coffee in his usual booth. Then he disappeared through a door, into the proprietor’s private quarters, and called Fort Meade where his lieutenant was waiting. The time was 1830.
General Gavron’s details were sketchy but interesting. He was a pure Israeli of the blood, a true Sabra, born and bred in the fertile Jezreel Valley, southwest of the Sea of Galilee, between Nazareth and Megiddo. Like his old colleague General Moshe Dayan, he had been brought up by his parents to grow fruit and vegetables but ended up spending most of his adult life in the military. His family was from Germany, and had emigrated to help plant forests in the northern half of the country and thereby increase Israel’s rainfall. The Gavrons were devoted to enabling the young country to feed itself. Their eldest son, David, born six months after their arrival in 1947, elected to adopt another critical course for a Sabra, to help establish and defend Israel’s boundaries.
He was called up as a conscript, like every Israeli, when he was just eighteen. By 1973 he was a promising young captain in an armored brigade. The Yom Kippur War of that year established him as an officer of much potential. He fought in the front rank of General Abraham “Bren” Adan’s hastily assembled tank division as they drove out to face the army of Egypt, still swarming in across the canal, on that terrible early morning of October 8.
Face to face across the desert, heavily outnumbered, not quite prepared, still amazed by the suddenness of the surprise attack, Bren Adan drove his men into battle with reckless courage. The Egyptian Second Army, dug in and backed up by hundreds of tanks, almost lost their nerve at the ferocity of the Israeli onslaught. But after four hours, they forced the Israelis back.
At that point the entire country was in the hands of the largely teenage Army in the front line, whose task it was to hold the Egyptians at bay for forty-eight hours, until the reserves arrived. The death toll among Israel’s youth in those two days was staggering. Even Adan’s more experienced tank men died by the hundreds in the sands of the northern Sinai. David Gavron, fighting within twenty yards of the general, was shot in his left arm trying to drag a wounded man clear of a burning tank. Then the blast of an exploding shell flung him twenty feet forward into the sand.
But Gavron got up, and a field surgeon patched his arm, stitched his face, and, unhappily for Egypt, the same thing happened to the bloodstained Army of Israel. And when finally Bren Adan’s armored division regrouped, and again rolled forward eight days later, Captain Gavron, arm bandaged, his face deeply cut and seared from sand- burn, was in one of the leading Israeli tanks, directing fire coolly, to devastating effect.
He actually heard General Adan roar the motto of his beleaguered Army—“
