Nimitz Class

Russian was Commander Adnam.”

“Well, if he didn’t leave the airport, where the hell did he go? Your guys think he got a job as a customs officer?”

General Gavron laughed. “No, we think he just picked up a new passport and documents from his masters, and took off. Could be under any name, and now in any country.”

“Well, why not the Russian?”

“Our guys just don’t think it feasible. We do not think Ben was Russian. Nor do we think he was Turkish. We think he was an Arab, and we’ve done a lot of research. Why do you think he might have been Russian?”

“David, I don’t think he was Russian either. But I do think he might have been going there. And since he seems able to conjure up documents and currency anyplace he travels, why not this guy on the Soviet passport?”

David Gavron ignored the question. And came back with one of his own. “Why do you think he may have been going to Russia?”

“Because, David, we think the submarine that hit the Jefferson was a Soviet-built Kilo, a diesel electric-powered patrol boat, which Adnam and his masters either bought, rented, or stole, right out of the moribund Black Sea Fleet. I say the Black Sea Fleet because there’s no place else they could have gotten one. Also I’ve checked where every working diesel submarine in the world was on that night. They’re all accounted for — even yours! Except for one, and that’s Russian.”

“I see. We will continue to do everything we can to assist you. As a nation we do not like sneak attacks, and my people are extremely upset about the aircraft carrier. Even more upset that you even considered blaming us.”

“David, in our position you have to suspect everyone.”

General Gavron looked thoughtful as Morgan sipped his silky-sweet wine. The silence between the two men grew, until, finally, General Gavron broke it. “We have an accurate date,” he said. “If that Russian in Cairo airport was Commander Adnam, then he arrived in Istanbul late at night on November 25. If he was using his real name when he left Cairo, I would think he was still using it when he left Istanbul. We should run some checks on the passenger lists — airlines, maybe even ships, out of the city, the following morning.

“We have three or four good men in place in Istanbul. I suggest my organization gets a search started…then if we get nowhere in, say, three days…maybe your government could persuade the Turks to cooperate.”

“Good call, David. Right now we don’t want to be seen stirring up anything more than we must.”

“Very restrained, Admiral…for a man who has, in the last few hours, destroyed the underwater Navy of the Ayatollah of Iran.”

“Now, hang on, General. I told your colleagues I never left my desk. Anyway, how do you guys know what we did or didn’t do?”

“I know that only three or four nations could have done it so smoothly. Not us, we’d have caused an international uproar and bombed the place to bits. The British could have. Possibly the Russians. But you have the capacity to achieve that kind of excellence any time you want. The issue is motive. Who wanted to damage Iran? Not us, particularly. Not the British. Not the Russians. Nice job, Admiral. As a nation, we are delighted.”

Arnold Morgan just smiled at the suave Israeli officer. And he guessed, privately, as he had done a couple of times before, that he was indeed looking at the next head of the Mossad.

The following morning, August 3, twenty-six days after the disaster, the Saturday papers were still blazing with the story of the lost aircraft carrier but neither the Washington Post nor the New York Times carried even a paragraph about an accident in the Iranian Naval base at Bandar Abbas.

Admiral Morgan, Admiral Schnider, Lieutenant Commander Bill Baldridge, and Admiral Dunsmore were gathered in the office of General Josh Paul in readiness for a meeting with the President in the White House at 1100. Admiral Morgan briefed them fully on his dealings with General Gavron. But the subject was now more finely focused.

Scott Dunsmore believed the President would broadcast to the nation this evening at 2100, announcing unprecedented compensation for the families of the men who died in the carrier. Saturday night was most unusual for this kind of activity, but the CNO believed the White House press office had approved it for maximum impact.

The two Service Chiefs were afraid the President would assume that with the bombing of the Iranian Navy base American revenge was complete and that no further action should be taken, pending the arrival of hard evidence. However, Admiral Morgan’s now rigid belief that the rogue submarine was still out there was uppermost in all of their minds.

General Paul detailed his CNO to deal with it, to persuade the President that the United States hunt for the nation which had sunk the Jefferson must continue at all costs. “If necessary,” he said, “get Arnold to read him a modest riot act about the implications of the same thing happening to another of our warships.”

They left the Pentagon in two staff cars and met the President, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the President’s security adviser, and his press officer in the Situation Room, one floor below the Oval Office.

The President greeted them warmly. “I’ll say one thing,” he said. “You guys sure know how to take an instruction literally. Dare I ask what happened in Bandar Abbas, beyond this Navy signal which Bob here gave me this morning?”

“Sir,” said Admiral Dunsmore, “you did say you did not really want to know the details of the plan. I guess we took that literally as well.”

“How large a force went in, Scott?”

“Nine swimmers, sir, plus the driver in the ASDS.”

“Is that all? Many casualties?”

“None for us, sir. We have no idea how many Iranian crew were aboard the floating submarines. But one armed guard was marginalized in the floating dock.”

“Marginalized?”

“Yessir. Removed from our area of operation.”

“Shot? Killed?”

“Precisely so, sir.”

“Delicately stated, Admiral,” said the President. “Considering you run the world’s roughest hit squad.”

“Thank you, sir.”

The President shook his head in wonder at the professionalism with which he was surrounded. He then slipped quickly into his own agenda, and, as expected, said he would make a rare Saturday night broadcast to the nation, announcing his plans for special pension funds for the widows and children of the men who died in the carrier.

“I already know there will be objections from some branches of the Armed Services,” he said. “But no congressman will object, not if he wants to continue working in the Capitol. The newspapers will be forced to applaud us, the public will approve. Also I’m counting on the fact that I’m too good a friend to the military for any of you to upset me!”

General Paul ventured to say that there would be objections to special pensions from people who had lost fathers and husbands in other conflicts but were not being given special treatment. That was why the military routinely opposed such schemes, and had done so throughout the twentieth century.

“The worst thing,” the President interrupted, “the very worst thing that could happen to you guys would be for me to be driven from this office in the aftermath of this disaster. You would get a Democratic President, a Democratic Congress, and possibly a Democratic Senate. And they would have a great time dismantling the Navy, banning nuclear weapons, cutting out our shipbuilding programs, and above all ending the building of aircraft carriers for the foreseeable future. They would then take all of that money and do what they always do — give it away to the poor, the weak, the sick, the incompetent, the stupid, and the idle, and worse, the dishonest.

“The four billion dollars we spend on building an aircraft carrier each year keeps top engineers, shipbuilders,