H.M.S. Unseen

“Plus the fact that your villain is: A) supposed to be dead, as far as anyone knows, and B) he is from a country that does not even own a submarine at all, far less the most lethal antiaircraft boat ever built.”

“I know that, too, Harcourt.”

“When I listen to you fit some of the pieces together, I do accept there is a remote chance you may be correct. But by God, Arnold, it is so remote. If the British submarine was not sunk, if it was somehow stolen, if this Adnam character is somehow still alive, if Iraq was somehow able to get it, hide it, convert it, man it, and operate it. If this same country was able to buy such a missile system from someone and fit it onto a submarine. If this Adnam was able to conceal himself in the North Atlantic, if he had been able to fire two untried SAM missiles from some kind of a jury-rigged launcher, and actually hit two of the highest-flying, fastest aircraft ever built. If, Arnold, your auntie had balls, I guess she’d somehow be your uncle. Count me out, pal. At least until you can provide me with one solitary shining F-A-C-T.”

The President shook his head. Then he repeated his last question. “Well, what do we do?”

“I honestly don’t know, sir,” replied the admiral, ignoring the onslaught of skepticism displayed by Harcourt Travis. “I suppose we could accept my theory and obliterate Baghdad in retribution. But we’d look pretty fucking silly if a different kind of truth came out about the crashes. So that’s out. At least for the moment.”

“You can say that again,” interjected the Secretary of State. “Do you have any idea what an uproar something like this could cause? Really, Arnold, even you have to get real on matters of this scale.”

“Harcourt,” replied Morgan, wearily, “you don’t have to keep reminding me of my shortcomings, mainly because I might have to remind you of a few of yours…lemme just run this technical detail past the chief.

“Just assuming my unsupported theory is largely correct, the search area for a submarine is, by now, massive. Take the spot around 30 West where the two aircraft vanished. It’s at 50.30 North. By the time we get out there with search aircraft, Commander Adnam could have been moving for twenty-four hours, leaving us a search area of at least 30,000 square miles. Expanding with every fucking minute that passes. By the time we get ships out there three days later, the target could be virtually anywhere.

“If you take 50.30 North, 30 West as the search-center, he could be on an 800-mile radius circle, or, stated another way, in a search area of over 2 million square miles…and that 2 million square miles is all water. Because the crashes happened bang in the middle of the ocean. One suspects by design.

“HMS Unseen could have gone north toward the coastal area of Greenland; west, way off the coast of the U.S.A. and Canada; east toward the west coast of Ireland; or south to absolutely nowhere. Adnam could be anywhere in that area. We’d have only one chance — that he gets careless and SOSUS picks him up, holds him long enough for MPA to get a fix. Sir, whatever, we’re still looking for a poisoned needle in the Sahara desert.”

“Supposition, supposition. The entire theory is one of supposition…we’re not just looking for a needle in the Sahara. We’re looking for a needle that probably does not exist. And in my book that’s probably a needle not worth looking for.” Harcourt Travis was on the verge of exasperation.

But the President wanted to proceed. “Arnold, how would it have been if we’d sent a fleet of nuclear submarines out there the moment we knew about the crash?”

“Better, but not much. They’d want three days minimum to get to the crash site. Unseen would still be more than 600 miles from the datum. That’s a 600-mile radius circle, or 1 million square miles. We’d still have to trip over the sonofabitch. And we’d be just as likely to trip over ourselves.”

“Who else knows your thoughts? Just Joe?”

“And our old friend Admiral MacLean. As you know, I visited him in Scotland. And I spoke to him again about two hours ago. He agrees. Adnam is on the loose, and he will almost certainly strike again. But Iain does have one thought which is useful…refueling. Unseen has a range of about 7,000 miles. He thinks it likely that Ben was topped up, say 1,000 miles out from the datum before Concorde. That means he’s probably used up more than half of it, running back and forth.

“Joe’s activating a search for any suspicious-looking tanker in the North Atlantic, Iraqi or otherwise, that is apparently going nowhere. If we find any, I guess we could have ’em tailed by a nuclear boat. That’s how the Brits caught General Belgrano off the Falklands. Tracking the refueling ship.”

“You want Harcourt to call some kind of council of war?”

“Not yet, sir. We better wait to see if anything whatsoever shakes out of the crashes in the next two or three days. I really think it would be crazy to start sending the Atlantic Fleet out right now. We’ve told ’em to maintain overhead surveillance in the immediate search area, and SOSUS has been briefed to be more than usually vigilant for anything that might be a U-Class signature anywhere in the North Atlantic. Meanwhile, I think we better keep our powder dry…. The last thing we need is coast-to-coast panic because an unseen enemy is wiping out international air traffic.”

“No. We won’t be thanked for causing that. But, Jesus, what if he hits another airliner?”

“Sir, I think we have to brace ourselves for that. But we’ll be much more alert, and I think we should quietly send a Carrier Battle Group into the area…they’re pretty good at finding submarines. Usually. Then we can keep land-based Maritime Patrol Aircraft working as well. Make it a general area search. But we should keep the SSN force well clear. Otherwise, we’ll end up with a Blue on Blue. If we stay with surface-and-air search only, we can say they’re just looking for wreckage.”

“Arnold, as always it was instructive in the extreme. Keep me well posted, will you? I agree we ought not to make an early, rash move. But please, if you have any thoughts whatsoever, make sure I know about ’em. Real early.”

“Absolutely, sir.”

The admiral walked toward the Oval Office door, and, as he opened it, the President spoke again. “That, by the way, was not an admonishment…just my way of congratulating myself on my choice of a national security advisor.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Then turning to the Secretary of State, the President said, “You were pretty hard on him, Harcourt. I know I told you to bounce him up and down a little, find out how strong his theory was, but you came close to making him look a fool.”

“Men like Admiral Morgan cannot to be made to look very foolish,” replied Travis. “He’s too damned clever. Also he happens to have the only theory in town about the crashes. But it is so far-fetched…more Hollywood than Washington…and I still believe it will be completely discredited in the end.”

Harcourt Travis stood, gathered up his documents, and made for the door. But he was leaving behind a man in a mammoth quandary. The President had always recognized the admiral’s paranoia about submarines, and he did not want to be sucked into some drastic action against an enemy that might not exist. As Morgan had pointed out, he had not one shred of proof that Ben Adnam was out there, no proof that he was even alive, never mind at the helm of a rogue submarine. Certainly nothing but a bunch of circumstantial evidence to back up a truly majestic theory of international terrorism on an unimaginable scale. Harcourt Travis offered the easy, do-nothing, political solution, the cynical, lethargic stance of the international statesmen. Never get into a fight you might not win.

Maybe the admiral’s losing it, the President thought. Maybe he’s just worked this one out a step too far, since, by his own admission, the Iraqis seem incapable of operating a submarine, much less making the missile conversion on the stolen submarine. And yet…and yet…being right has a virtue of its own. And with my own eyes I saw that Morgan was the only man in the United States this morning who was right, who was half expecting Starstriker might not make it across the Atlantic. What do they say in horse racing: keep backing him until he loses? I guess he’s my man, for better or for worse.

By the time the President had made his decision, the admiral had quickened his stride, marching back to his own office, head thrust forward, his mind locked on to one unnerving fact. I have to get this whole fucking scenario right out of the hands of civilians and under the control of the military on both sides of the Atlantic. I just can’t have some fat, dumb, and happy asshole in a Savile Row suit making some loosey-goosey remark on the BBC that is gonna send half the world into a fucking tailspin. And that is highly likely to happen. Specially if they find one of the black boxes.”

He walked into his office, closed the door, kissed Kathy, told her he loved her, then ordered her to get her ass