fired on,” said Admiral Dixon. “I do not want anyone even to know she is there. We’re looking for a silent, sudden, and deadly trap.”
“Meantime I think we ought to run through the broad outlines of the search phase,” said the Admiral. “We have Admiral Morgan right here, and I’ve a feeling we could use his help.
“For starters, we want one of our special-fit fishing trawlers in place, as near as they can get without being arrested, to the entrance to the bay. You know, the one which leads right down to Pol’arnyj, just in case the Kilos do, after all, stay on the surface. We also want the regular Barents Sea SSN on standby, though I don’t want to sink ’em right there. Too many ears in the water, right in the Russian backyard.
“The MPA boys will work out their own plan. But they cannot start too far east, or the Russians will see what they’re up to. And, we don’t want to start too far west, or south, or we might use up two years’ worth of sonobuoys in a week and still not get ’em. I guess we’re agreed, the GIUK Gap is the last resort.”
Arnold Morgan stared at the chart desk. “No alternative to those thoughts,” he said. “We have to get these guys as early as we can, without being caught. If they stay on the surface the Gap is the sensible place. If they dive, we want them as soon as we can, after they round the North Cape. The MPA boys can work there without being obvious, if, as I suspect it will, the Barents Sea SSN either misses or loses them.
“And Johnny, they’re gonna need a mass of support close to the op area. You have any idea yet where we’re gonna work from?”
“Well, it’ll be from the UK. I’ve penciled in my choice, a perfect spot, but we’ll need some clearance in Whitehall.”
“Don’t sweat it, Johnny. I’ll fix it.”
“Excellent. I’m looking at Machrihanish, an old disused former NATO air base. It’s stuck right down on the southwestern Atlantic corner of the Mull of Kintyre, opposite Campbeltown Loch, an old submarine haunt on the west coast of Scotland. But it’s a quiet place.
“I’m working on the theory that we’ll probably want six MPA for two weeks. More would be suspicious, and fewer wouldn’t cut it. They’ve gotta operate passive, without their radars. Keep Ivan in the dark, right?
“We’ll fly the aircraft in, Orion P-3C’s. They’ve got a pretty good long endurance, about fifteen hours. Then we’ll need a Galaxy transporter to bring in possibly as many as eight thousand sonobuoys, and all the support equipment. We’ll need a ton of fuel for the aircraft. But there are NATO stocks on the field. We ought to be able to rely on that, so long as we pay. The problem is, what do we tell the Brits? And what do we tell NATO?”
“Nothing we have to tell NATO. The Brits, they probably know too much already. But they might help us out on fuel.”
“Okay, Arnold. How do you suggest we move things forward?”
“I’ll get on to our London embassy and tell ’em to assign a Naval attache to go directly to the Ministry of Defence. Meantime I’ll do some groundwork as high up as I dare to make sure it goes through quickly.”
“What’s our cover story?”
“Try this: we’re running a big exercise to show that we can still deploy MPA anywhere in the world, to vestigial support airfields, and operate for at least two weeks. It’s something we don’t do very often, but we’re deliberately conducting this training in Europe, in mid-winter, thousands of miles from a home base.”
“Hey, that’s good. Will the Brits believe it?”
“Anyone would. Except the Brits. Cynical bastards. They’ll suspect the worst, and they’ll be right. But they’ll cooperate anyway.”
The meeting adjourned at 1600. Arnold Morgan telephoned London, attempting to contact an old friend he usually found at his London club, the UK’s Deputy Chief of Defence (Intelligence) Rear Admiral Jack Burnby, a man who had the dubious experience of watching his ship burn and sink in the Battle for the Falkland Islands twenty years previously. Admiral Burnby had just dined and was in amiable mood on the telephone, as Arnold Morgan knew he would be. He was delighted to hear from his old American ally, whom he had come to know at Fort Meade. He listened carefully to the short request, which essentially required him to do nothing except not get terribly excited when six big American patrol planes, plus a cloud of C5A Galaxys, came lumbering out of the night sky to land on the Mull of Kintyre two weeks from now.
Eventually, the Royal Navy Admiral said, “I don’t see any difficulties with that. I’ll speak to a couple of people tomorrow, and you’ll have clearance in forty-eight hours, direct from the MOD to your Naval attache in Grosvenor Square.
“Need any positive help from us, Arnie?”
“No thanks, Jack. Just your goodwill. Like always.”
“Feel free to call if you do need anything.”
“Appreciate it, Jack.”
“By the way, old man, you don’t happen to feel like telling me why you
Three thousand five hundred miles away, Admiral Morgan’s eyes rolled heavenward. “You don’t need to know, Jack,” he said quietly.
“Very well. I’ll do my best not to even make an educated guess, in the event. I might get it right, hmm?”
“Bound to, I guess. You normally do.”
“Well, good night old chap, hope to see you in the summer. By the way, your boys ought to know we’ve gone metric over here since we joined Europe; everything’s measured in meters now…and
“Is that right, Jack? Well, damn me. Anyway, ’bye…and thanks.”
Just then the door was unlocked for the second time, and the Navy guard crisply announced that the CNO’s helicopter had landed. Four minutes later, Admiral Joe Mulligan walked through the door. “Gentlemen,” he said, “Johnny, Arnold, Boomer. How do we look?”
“Not too bad,” said Admiral Dixon. “But I’m glad you’re here, sir. We were just getting into the detail of how to catch Kilos. And I’d appreciate your input.”
“Let me take a look at that chart. Any coffee? I missed lunch and to the best of my knowledge there is no one in the United States Navy who gives one thin dime whether I starve to death or not.”
Everyone laughed, and Commander Dunning’s navigation officer, the junior man among the senior officers in the room, picked up the telephone and ordered coffee. “And cookies for the CNO,” he added, jauntily.
Meanwhile they all gathered around the big North Atlantic chart. Joe Mulligan familiarized himself with the projected route of the Kilos and the preliminary plan Johnny Dixon had mapped out for entrapping them on the assumption they would travel beneath the surface.
The Admiral anticipated that the Kilos would make between seven and nine knots through the water dived, and that it could take up to five days for the surveillance to determine whether they had indeed sailed, and were on their way home to China.
“First contact is almost bound to be SOSUS, sir,” he said. “When we get an approximation of their position, we’ll vector the MPA’s, and they’ll begin to localize, using passive sonobuoys only.
“The main trouble is those Kilos need to snorkel for only an hour or so every day. And it’s only while they’re snorkeling that we have any real chance of catching them. One hour is very tight for decent localization if the MPA can’t use radar to pick up their masts.”
“We’re just gonna have to get used to it,” interjected the CNO. “To the fact that it’s gonna take several days before we know the rough speed of their advance, and their approximate course. But with luck a pattern will emerge, which will speed things up, and nail ’em down. That ocean’s a fucking big place, right?”
“Sure is. But by the sixth night, we should have enough data to clear
Admiral Dixon’s meaning was clear to everyone: this time when the Kilos came up to snorkel, they would unknowingly betray their position on the sonar screen. The modern-day war lord, Commander Boomer Dunning from Cape Cod, would be waiting in his fast nuclear boat, in the dark depths somewhere north of the Faeroe Isles. Waiting to execute the wishes of his President and Commander in Chief.
Joe Mulligan liked what he was hearing. “That’s it, Johnny,” he said. “Once SOSUS comes up we’ll find ’em. As far as I can see, the only problem is that we are assuming they will come up to snorkel every night at around the same time. What happens if they don’t establish a pattern? Say they snorkel only every other night at different times?”
