H.M.S. Unseen

spectacular.

Finally, he returned to the car, to drive, he knew, to the east bank of Loch Fyne, to look across the water to the house where Laura used to live.

It was growing dark by the time he arrived at his observation post on the edge of the road. A soft tallow mist was already gathering in the central channel of the loch, and it would obscure his view of the grandiose MacLean mansion. But it was still pretty good. The high-powered glasses magnified the far bank many times, and Ben could see the lawn running down the water. He and Laura had walked along that bank before dinner on the one night he was invited.

Ben focused, and he could see the lawn clearly. He could also see two or maybe three figures moving toward the loch. But it was too far. He could not make them out, and he guessed it was his old Teacher, Commander MacLean, perhaps with his wife and an early-arriving weekend guest. He remembered the family did a lot of private entertaining. But what Ben really wanted to know was the whereabouts of Laura. And he had no way to overcome the obdu-rate stupidity of that thought. His mind ranged over a succession of ludicrous options associated with such a reunion.

1) Take out Douglas Anderson, and maybe she would come with me, to where?

2) Try to charm her, persuade her to see me. No possibility. We both knew it was over the last time we met.

3) Kidnap her, and beg for a second chance.

Forget it, Ben. It cannot happen…but if I could just see her…

He stared across the water, at the green of the MacLean lawn, and wondered again where she was. Never had he known himself so acutely irrational. But he had nothing else to do, and he had no idea where to go.

The end of the afternoon on the other side of the loch saw the admiral, Bill, and Laura, dressed warmly, strolling back across the lawn after a long walk down the shore. Both of the visitors had found the conversation riveting, because Iain MacLean was telling them in a perfectly matter-of-fact way, that he and Arnold Morgan both believed that Ben Adnam was still alive. At that point in the talk, Bill Baldridge almost fell into the loch.

“Alive?” he said. “How could that be? The Mossad took him out in Cairo, didn’t they? Jesus, I’ve got his badge, Admiral Morgan’s seen the documents, so’ve the Israelis. They’ve got his passport. They have his personal Navy record, the one he owned, with his entire career on it.”

“All true,” replied Admiral MacLean. “The trouble is none of them have seen the body. You’ll remember that Ben was, apparently, assassinated by two people who’d never laid eyes on him. They left with the dead man’s papers, but the Egyptian police took the body, and it was cremated. As Admiral Morgan is rather fond of saying, the Mossad have no idea whether they took out Ben Adnam or Genghis Khan.”

Bill laughed. But he was thoughtful. “And what gave rise to this sudden desire to exhume the Israeli commander?”

“Ah, that’s another story,” replied the admiral. “I’ll tell you at dinner. Come on, let’s go in and have some tea…we’ve walked far enough for one day.”

“Do you really think he’s still alive, Daddy?”

“Quite frankly, yes I do.”

“Try to remember, darling,” said Bill soothingly. “Should he call, don’t forget to let us know.”

Dinner that night was a re-creation of the feast Bill had enjoyed when first he had come to visit the admiral back in 2002, the time when he had first met Mrs. Laura Anderson. There was a magnificent poached salmon, with mayonnaise, potatoes, and peas. A bottle of elegant white Burgundy from Mersault and a superb bottle of Lynch Bages 1990 were set in the middle of the table. Bill remembered two things about his first dinner at the MacLeans — one that the admiral never served a first course with salmon, because he believed everyone would much rather have “another bit of fish if they were still hungry.” Two, the admiral preferred to drink Bordeaux with salmon, as did Laura, which left Lady MacLean to deal with the Mersault.

Of the many other differences between the previous time and this one, the most striking was the lack of a view. In that hot July when his heart raced at the very sight of Laura, he had been able to see right down the loch while they dined, and he recalled Sir Iain pointing out through the window the little village of Strachur over on the Cowal Peninsula,

On this occasion it was just as charming but different. There was a glowing log fire in the 50-foot-long dining room, and the big patterned brocade curtains were drawn. Lights were switched on above the six paintings that hung from the high walls, three ancestors, one nineteenth-century racehorse, a stag, probably at bay, and a pack of hounds in full flight. Otherwise, the only light in the room came from the eight lighted candles, set in obviously Georgian silver holders, which Bill thought probably came with the house.

As before, he sat next to Laura, facing Annie MacLean, the two girls having had an early supper in order to watch television in Laura’s old nursery.

The salmon was as good as the last time, when it was the best Bill had ever tasted. The Lynch Bages was perfect, and the admiral was amusing, recounting tall stories about Arnold Morgan’s visit several months ago.

“What precisely did he come here for?” asked Bill.

“Well, I think he wanted to get away for a week or so with that extremely attractive lady he plans to marry.”

“Kathy? Yes, she is very beautiful, isn’t she?”

“Absolutely,” said Sir Iain. “I told him she was probably a bit too good for him really. And he took it very well, for him.”

“But what else, Iain? Tell me more.”

“Well, Bill, I suppose you, if anyone, is entitled to know this. And so indeed is your wife. I have been wondering whether to break this to you gently or just to come straight out with it. And I’ve decided on the latter course. Arnold Morgan and I think that Ben Adnam has stolen, and now commands, the missing Royal Navy submarine HMS Unseen, and that he has been sitting in the middle of the Atlantic, underwater, banging out jet airliners, including Concorde, Starstriker, and Air Force Three.”

As showstoppers go, that one went. Laura choked on her Lynch Bages, and Bill dropped his fork on the table with a clatter.

But he recovered, quickly. “Oh, nothing serious,” he said. “I was thinking it might be something important.”

“Oh, no,” said the admiral, “very routine. Just the sort of thing he might do, don’t you think?”

“Well, assuming he managed to jump off that Egyptian funeral pyre, I’d say most definitely. Right up his alley. Any evidence, or are you and Arnold going in for thriller writing?”

“Actually, there isn’t much evidence, except circumstantial. But there’s a lot of it, and, very curiously, Arnold and I stacked it up quite separately, on different sides of the Atlantic, and arrived at precisely the same conclusion.”

“Might I ask when Arnold arrived here?”

“Yes. Last May. A few weeks after Unseen went missing. He came here with a real bee in his bonnet about it. And his reasons, as you would expect, were pretty good. He considered first that the submarine had not been found by the Royal Navy, despite the use of God knows how many ships, all the most modern sonar, and underwater diving equipment in a relatively narrow, shallow section of the English Channel. It was obviously not there. He thus reasoned that it had left its exercise area, and that it had been deliberately driven out of that area by someone else. Not, he decided, by the British lieutenant commander who was in charge.

“Therefore, he considered the ship had been either hijacked or stolen, and he went for the second option. Unseen sent all the right signals back, as soon as she left Plymouth; therefore, her CO knew what they were and he knew how to send them. Ben Adnam? I taught him all that; I even taught him how to drive an Upholder-Class boat, which Unseen is.”

“Hmmmm,” said Bill. “And then…?”

“Well, she vanishes and is never heard from again. But then the Concorde falls out of the sky, for no reason whatsoever. The most brilliantly maintained aircraft on the North Atlantic suddenly vanishes without a word. Then, a matter of days later, Starstriker falls out of the sky on her maiden voyage. A brand-new, tried and tested prototype that Boeing swear by, an aircraft that’s been under guard for weeks, no passengers, just crew, falls straight into the Atlantic without a word. Same place, 30 West, right on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, the very best place