H.M.S. Unseen

pieces of wreckage on the surface, but only from the cabin. All of Concorde’s heavy-duty components, like the four engines, the tail plane and undercarriage, were on the bottom of the Atlantic. The wings seemed to have been blown into shards by exploding fuel, and they did not float. The Navy searchers found no sizable pieces whatsoever. The other problem was the height. “Normal” air disasters, which take place at the regular cruising altitude of above 30,000 feet can scatter debris over a 4-mile area.

In this case, given the 10-mile height and the terrific speed, the wreckage seemed scattered across a square of 10 miles by 10 miles, or, from the searchers’ point of view, 100 square miles, made infinitely more difficult because no one actually knew, with any accuracy, precisely where Concorde had been when she came apart.

Each day the department tried to assemble a report, demonstrating that some progress was being made. But it was almost impossible. Assisted by the senior brains of British Airways, and by the British Aircraft Corporation, even by French experts from Aerospatiale, there was nothing to piece together. Not unless they could find a way to reclaim the critical parts from the bottom of the Atlantic. And no one seemed very optimistic about that, particularly since it would cost a king’s ransom even to attempt it. No one had ever been anywhere near that depth in a search for wreckage. Not even the Titanic rested in water that deep.

Friday, February 3.

Office of the National Security Advisor.

The White House.

Admiral Arnold Morgan was on his “break.” This was a twenty-minute hiatus he tried to take each morning at around 1100 when he checked through newspapers and magazines, “just to check no one’s done anything absolutely fucking ridiculous.”

He was sitting at his big desk, perusing the national weeklies, chatting with Kathy O’Brien and sipping black coffee. “This Concorde thing’s like a time warp,” he was saying. “Remember last spring when the Brits were searching for the submarine? Well, they’re still doing the same thing now — groping around the bottom of the goddamned ocean, and both times they are finding nothing significant.”

“I could remind you,” said Kathy, “that despite your fears, the submarine has never been seen, and neither has it blown up another aircraft carrier. Most reasonable people believe it must be on the bottom, wherever that may be, a tomb for all the crew, whoever they may be.”

“You could remind me of that,” replied the admiral. “And you could remind me that in your view I suffer from incurable paranoia, which I do.”

They both laughed. But Arnold Morgan was serious. “When I was in the National Security Agency, I tried to connect apparently disconnected facts. And a lot of the time I was very wide of the mark. But not always. And I got it right more often than anyone else, which is, I guess, why I’m sitting in this chair. And I’m now pondering three totally disconnected facts.

“One, that British submarine is still missing, and I, in company with a very few like-minded paranoids, think it might be out there plotting and planning a strike against the West. I think it is possible that Commander Adnam may be alive, and that if he is, he is driving HMS Unseen… somewhere.

“Two, a brilliantly maintained aircraft, flying high, completely out of harm’s way, suddenly falls clean out of the sky, for no discernible reason.

“Three, there are, in the intelligence community, deep suspicions that Iraq, possibly assisted by the Russians, is testing SAMs, surface-to air-missiles, down in the southern marshes — a strange place, where we know there was some elation over the Concorde disaster.”

“Hold on one moment, Arnold, are you trying to tell me we have this homicidal maniac, who’s stolen a Royal Navy submarine, somewhere on the loose in a submarine which can shoot down supersonic airliners at will. Isn’t that a bit far-fetched?”

“Probably. At least it would be if his name wasn’t Benjamin Adnam…but the most far-fetched part is where Concorde vanished.”

“How do you mean?”

“Kathy, more than 94 percent of all air crashes take place on landing or takeoff. Just go over the ones you remember…the one in the Florida swamp, the one in the Potomac, the one at the end of the runway in Boston, the one up the mountain near Tokyo, even the TWA off Long Island, the one near Paris, the one that fell short of Birmingham airport in England. All near airports. Passenger aircraft hit mountains coming into land, they misjudge runways in bad weather, and they take off when something’s not quite right. But they hardly ever blow up of their own accord, or fall apart when they are cruising through empty skies…because there’s nothing up there.”

“No…I suppose they don’t.”

“Just think about it for a minute. Here we have this beautiful aircraft, powered by four Rolls Royce engines that the Brits check thoroughly about every two days. Its safety record is immaculate, its pilots and flight engineers carry out five times more safety checks than any other aircraft requires. When that baby takes off, every working part is as close to flawless as the Brits can get it. The safety procedures are sensational…they even ensure sufficient fuel to land on one engine anywhere during their journey….

“And yet, halfway across the ocean, in light winds, flying clear at 54,000 feet, not a semblance of a problem, something happens that is so sudden, so utterly drastic, the sonofabitch just self-destructs, all on its own. Neither pilot apparently had time to yell to Gander Control on the radio, ‘We’re in trouble.’ Not even ‘Holy shit!’ Nothing. Kathy, that aircraft was taken out at the speed of light, and even the terrorist community would have to admit it would be impossible to get through the BA security to plant a bomb. The Concorde team security-check every passenger’s goddamned baggage in detail… no, Kathy, in the absence of the black box, I’m saying something’s going on.”

“Do you think someone fired a missile at it…like they say happened to the TWA flight?”

“Kathy, I can’t say that…because there’s nowhere in that part of the Atlantic from which to fire a missile.”

“How about if there had been…a nearby island, say. Or a cruising foreign warship? What would you have said then?”

“I would have been pretty goddamned suspicious, that’s what, Kathy. I’d have been drawn to the conclusion that someone had knocked Concorde right out of the sky.”

“Which leaves us where.”

“Nowhere, basically.”

“How about Ben?”

“Well, no submarine in anyone’s navy has ever possessed the capacity to fire a surface-to-air guided missile that high, that fast, and that accurately. Not even us. And Ben Adnam is a known Iraqi, working for that barbarous but kinda primitive regime.

“I suppose they might have bought and tested a Russian missile that would have done the job. But it would have needed refining. And their submarine would have required major surgery. They don’t even have a submarine that we know of. They don’t even have any water deep enough to float it in. Hell, the Iraqis don’t even know how to service a submarine, never mind turn it into the most advanced underwater weapons system in the world. So I guess I just don’t know. Maybe the facts are incompatible.

“The trouble is, Kathy, if we accept there is even a possibility that Concorde was hit by a missile, we have to accept that it must have come from a vanishing submarine. Because there was nowhere else it could have come from. Barring outer space.”

Monday, February 6.

Office of the Chief of Naval Operations Admiral

Joseph Mulligan. The Pentagon, Washington.

“Arnold, as I live and breathe! To what do I owe the pleasure of this unexpected visit? Good to see you.”

“I just wanted to have a chat with one of the very few entirely sane minds operating in this neck of the woods.”

“You might have the wrong office. Bear that in mind…three years in here can really test your powers of logical thought.”

“Not yours, Joe. How ’bout some coffee. You might need it when you hear my latest theory.”

“Good call, lemme order some…then we’ll talk.”