firmly into gear and to get Admiral Sir Richard Birley on the line in London immediately, if not sooner. “He’s probably at his residence. It’s 2100 over there…he lives right near the base at Northwood…the number’s on file…comes under FOSM.”
Before he had finished yelling instructions, Admiral Birley was on the line from his office.
“Arnold. Hello, I was half expecting you to call…if our last conversation had a basis in truth, we are, shall we say, in the deepest possible trouble.”
“Dick, we have more or less accepted here the truth of our last talk. I am presuming there has never been a squeak from
“Well, I had a purpose in this call…I think circumstances have thrown the Royal Navy and the United States Navy together. What may appear at first sight to be a civilian problem is now no such thing.”
“Correct. I had absolutely the same thought myself.”
“Are the search ships for Concorde all Royal Navy?”
“Yes. Two frigates and a destroyer. We’re running a deep unmanned submarine from a civilian mother ship as well, but I can keep the lid on them.”
“Great. Because we’re sending three Navy ships out there to search for the wreckage of Starstriker. Also I wanna get a CVBG into the area as soon as possible. And, even quicker, some MPA. The thing is we have to keep any news of any black box we find under very tight control.”
“We realize that over here. If the recording has the pilot shouting out that he was about to get hit up the arse by a guided missile…well, we won’t want the media getting hold of that too soon. Because they would go instantly berserk. God knows what would happen then. I suppose all transatlantic flights would be in chaos, but also Adnam would know we were onto him…and that way he might make a bolt for it and disappear for good…knocking down a sodding aircraft whenever he felt so inclined.”
“That’s it, Dick. We have to keep this very, very tight. What I need to know is this, how can our two organizations keep a handle on it? The black boxes must be kept out of careless hands. I’m assuming your investigators won’t just unpick the box and issue a press release?”
“Good God no. We’re probably as tight with this information as you are. The box will be dealt with in secret at the laboratories of our Air Accident Investigation people. Nothing will be released to anyone until they are sure of their ground. But in this case I think there should be a formal military representative on the team.”
“Right. I was going to suggest our CNO talk to your First Sea Lord…just to ensure that if either you, or we, get ahold of any one of the four boxes, we share whatever information we have. The idea is to catch this bastard, not sell fucking newspapers.”
“Absolutely. I’ll tell you what. I’ll speak to someone in the ministry right away, and brief them as to our thoughts. Basically I think the way forward is for our Air Accident Investigation people to lock in with your Federal Aviation Administration. I’ll call you back.”
“Okay, I’ll be waiting.”
All through the small hours of the night, the Navy chiefs conferred. The First Sea Lord arranged for both the Navy and the Air Force to listen to the black-box recordings at the headquarters of the Air Accident Investigation people. Admiral Joe Mulligan, through Admiral Dunsmore, received similar clearance from the Oval Office, and by 0400 London time, the deal was done. The Royal Navy and the United States Navy would work in tandem, expense no object, in order to bring up the black boxes.
It was as well they had all worked so quickly. At 1340 (GMT) the following day, the Royal Navy’s deep- submerged submarine, found one. It was still transmitting its locator signal, and
Back on board
The box was ultimately flown straight to the Royal Navy Air Base at Culdrose, Cornwall, and on from there by fixed-wing military aircraft. It was a long costly mission for one single word. The only sound to be heard from the cockpit beyond the reams of regular flight recordings was just one short shout from Captain Lambert. It sounded like “MISS,” but there was a lot of interference. It could just as easily have been “KISS,” or “BLISS.”
That part of the recording was relayed to the White House immediately, where Admiral Morgan and Admiral Mulligan were waiting. Arnold Morgan suggested, “the guy either wanted to take a leak, or he was requiring, or getting, a blow job from the stewardess!”
He caught Admiral Mulligan in mid-swig, and the CNO did his unavailing best not to laugh or blow coffee down his nose, but he failed on both counts. And while the towering ex — Trident commander mopped his mouth with a big white handkerchief, the national security advisor moved into serious mode without missing a beat.
“Joe,” he said, “Captain Brian Lambert saw it, didn’t he? Not once in the whole recording, all the way from Heathrow, did we hear him even raise his voice for emphasis. That loud shout of ‘MISS,’ was entirely out of character. The captain meant to say ‘MISSILE!’ in my opinion. Poor guy never got the chance. The bastard was coming straight at him, closing at MACH-4, nearly 2,700 mph If he’d spotted it in clear skies even as much as 4 miles away, it would have hit him in five seconds. And that’d be my rough assessment of a totally lousy equation.”
“Sounds right to me, Arnold. There is no other word that fits the pattern, especially the ones in your sexually explicit theory. He was trying to shout ‘MISSILE’ all right. This recording has been very useful…it’s just about confirmed our original thoughts. And it emphasizes that if the Brits can find a small box in the middle of the Atlantic with modern equipment, they sure as hell could have found a fucking great submarine in the shallow English Channel.”
Just then the telephone rang on Admiral Morgan’s desk. It was a call that had been intercepted by Kathy, so it was plainly important. The national security advisor picked it up and was put through to Admiral George Morris, calling from Fort Meade.
“Arnold, hi. One of my guys just got something that might interest you. We’ve been running routine date checks on the computers, seeing if anything interesting correlates. And he’s come up with this. January 17, the day Concorde, and our oil men, were blown out of the sky. It was the fifteenth anniversary to the day since the opening shots of the Gulf War. January 17 was the day we unleashed the first barrages of Tomahawk cruise missiles at Baghdad…it’s not that much of a coincidence, but it’s a bit of one.”
“Yes, George. Yes it is. The odds against it are 364–1, and it might be a pointer. I thank you and your team.” Click. As ever, Morgan had no time to say good-bye, as the problems that were ostensibly civilian crowded in, unproven, on his military mind.
That evening he and Kathy O’Brien were dining together in Georgetown, and despite all of his efforts to make it cheerful and pleasant, the silences were too long and the admiral’s preoccupation was almost total.
“You always take these matters so personally,” she said, holding his hand, looking into his eyes, confirming unknowingly that she was easily the most beautiful woman in the room. But he kept repeating over and over, “Darling, he’s going to do it again. I know this bastard.”
“Would you like to go home?”
“No. We better hang around for a bit, then get the driver to swing back through the city and pick up the first editions, see if the Fourth Estate has stumbled on something I’ve missed.”
“Would that be a first in your long career?” she asked sweetly, fluttering her eyelashes.
“Maybe a second,” he growled. “But I don’t remember the other occasion.”
They sat companionably, sipping amaretto on the rocks, while the admiral tried to cast from his mind the all- too-real vision of a missile, closing at MACH-4, as the one that probably hit Starstriker most certainly was. “Imagine that,” he said. “You could see it 4 miles out, perhaps a glint in the sunlight, thin contrail behind…now count to five…that’s it. One. Two. Three. Four. BAM. And it’s gotcha. Wouldn’t that be a bitch?”
“Oh yes, I think it would,” she replied. “A real bitch.”
Even Admiral Morgan smiled, just once.
