Nimitz Class

through the Bosporus. And the Turks say they saw nothing. We believe it came through under the surface.”

“Yes, that all adds up to me. But why do you now want to do the same thing? One of your television shows organized a contest?”

Bill laughed. “Not yet, sir. That’s probably next. No, the truth is our President is perfectly prepared to order a global hunt for the boat only if someone proves conclusively that it is possible to transit the Bosporus, north to south, underwater. The main trouble being that several dozen people have already told him it cannot be done. By anyone.”

“Yes, global hunts are apt to become obsessional,” said Admiral Elliott. “And once started they run away with money, and people, on a rather alarming scale. Your President is wise to be cautious.”

“Yessir. Almost all of his political advisers are urging him not to stray publicly from the ‘accident’ theory. And if we make the Bosporus journey, and there is any kind of a problem, he is going to stick to the only theory he has, and the only one he will ever admit.”

“Of course,” said the admiral. “Although that might turn out to be rather shortsighted if your Muslim enemy should strike again. The one good thing about losing an aircraft carrier was that it wasn’t two aircraft carriers.”

“Well, that’s the view of most of our senior Intelligence men, and the submariners, sir. But I guess you see the President’s point of view. In a way, we think he’s being reasonable given the circumstances. He’s just saying that if we want to conduct a massive search operation, costing probably a couple of billion dollars, he wants to know we are working on a premise which is at least possible.”

“Very Presidential,” replied the admiral. “Unless they hit again. Then he will be blamed, and slaughtered by his opponents for failing to take the grimmer advice of his senior military commanders.”

“Yessir,” replied the Kansan. “Guess that’s just about what will happen. And some of us think they might easily be preparing to strike again.”

“In these matters, Bill, as with legal contracts, you are never actually discussing what will happen. You must always be considering what could happen. However unlikely. In military matters, when you are dealing with a potential catastrophic loss of life, you must operate assuming the worst-case scenario. There is no other course. And in my experience, politicians have the utmost difficulty grasping that.”

At this point Captain Greenwood entered the conversation. “Can you tell me, Lieutenant Commander, why you are so sure it was a Russian Kilo?”

“I can, sir. We have checked the whereabouts of every other submarine in everyone’s Navy, including those from the Third World, which were either in refit, out of commission, or even sunk in the harbor in the cases of both Syria and Libya….”

“Sorry to interrupt,” said the admiral, looking up at Bill, with a half-smile, and one raised eyebrow, “but didn’t the Iranians have a similar problem a couple of days ago…?”

“I don’t really know about that,” replied the American.

“Of course not,” said the admiral, still wearing his half-smile…. “Do continue, won’t you?”

“Yessir. Well, having run all the checks we could, we came up with only one possibility. There was a Russian Kilo, which cleared Sevastopol in April, and was reported sunk in the Black Sea two weeks later. The Russians admit that they cannot find it after a long search, and they have reason to believe it may have escaped. Right now they are admitting it just vanished.”

“Well, I suppose it could have just sunk in an awkward place and they have not been able to find it. These things do happen,” said Captain Greenwood.

“Yessir. But if you were us, what would you believe?”

“I’d believe it might have attacked my carrier.”

“Yessir. It was the only submarine which could have. Which brings us right back to the President’s insistence that we prove the Bosporus underwater passage is possible.”

“Before you bring out the big guns, correct?” said Greenwood.

“I shouldn’t be surprised if there were a few senior officers in the Iranian Navy who consider that’s already happened,” said Admiral Elliott.

Lieutenant Commander Baldridge said nothing, noticed that the admiral still wore his knowing half- smile.

“It seems to me,” said Captain Greenwood, “that you are proposing something which is entirely unnecessary. Why risk a boat and her crew to establish such an outlandish possibility? Even if we were to do it, and were successful, it would merely tell us that a first-class boat, manned by the best possible crew, could exit the Black Sea underwater.

“You could decide that, quite reputably, in this room, and save a lot of trouble with an extremely dangerous mission. In any event I doubt the rewards. Not to mention the fact that it’s against international law, and we could lose the boat in about thirty different kinds of accident, possibly drowning several dozen sailors.”

“I did forget to mention, Bill,” said the admiral, “that Captain Greenwood is my personal devil’s advocate. I need one of those, because there are a lot of people who think I am only happy when I’m tackling something which could not, or should not, be done. Not true of course, but nevertheless a part of my reputation with which I have to live.”

“Absolutely, sir,” said Bill Baldridge. “But the answers to Captain Greenwood’s concerns are simple. The President of the United States has spoken. He wants this journey made, in order to justify to Congress and to the Senate why he is about to spend untold billions trying to find an enemy which may not exist.

“This is one of the best Presidents we’ve ever had. He’s a friend of the military and tries to understand the subject. He’s tough. He’s brilliantly clever, and always on our side. What he is trying to avoid is some smart-ass congressman second-guessing him about the Bosporus under the water, and a decision to spend billions of taxpayer dollars.”

“Yes,” said the admiral, thoughtfully. “I see. He needs proof of it.”

Captain Greenwood was beginning to look despondent as he saw the boss warming to the subject, and he spoke up again. “Why don’t you use a boat of your own?” he asked.

“That’s easy,” replied Baldridge. “We haven’t had one for twenty years.”

He referred to the old diesel-electrics which had been abandoned in a succession of defense cuts. U.S. strategists have long believed that America needed only big, powerful, long-range nuclear submarines as her operations were always across oceans.

“Matter of fact I thought there was a lot of sense in what the Americans did,” said Admiral Elliott. “They really do need their long-range SSNs, and they only require a stealthy inshore boat on the rarest of occasions.

“Politicians here in the U.K. think we can do the same but they are incorrect because we live in different geographical circumstances. We need to be able to operate right around the European coastline, with expert inshore submariners in command. Those little boats can be lethal to an enemy, which is why the Russians are still making and selling them. Dammit.

“Our own situation is not much short of absurd.”

“How do you mean, sir?” asked Baldridge.

“Well, in recent years we spent about 1 billion pounds on four Upholder Class submarines which are roughly the equivalent of a Russian Kilo. That included all the development costs, and they were going to get progressively cheaper.

“Then, from out of the blue, the politicians decided we did not need them, not even to keep under wraps for the day when we might. So in order to avoid any running costs whatsoever, however minor, they decided to sell ’em off cheaply to anyone who would buy. The Israelis already have one in operational service. The Brazilians are just starting workup. Followed by God knows who else.

“They are being sold for peanuts, and in the view of the Submarine Service this is a criminal waste of the taxpayers’ money, and it shows an almost criminal lack of military foresight by our government.

“Lieutenant Commander Baldridge, you come to me not as a bloody nuisance, which others might think. But as a particularly interesting opportunity.”

“Yessir. I understand. Because we now have a reason to get one of those babies up and running, carrying out an important joint operation between our two countries.”