H.M.S. Unseen

armchair and put on his coat. He and Bill headed for the door, and twenty minutes later the Black Hawk was revving up and ready to go. All eight men were strapped in, Ben Adnam securely bound on the floor between the Marine staff sergeant and his corporal.

Bill and Laura watched them rise above the ranch and then above the prairie, and the sun came out briefly as the Army helicopter set a course southeast and clattered away toward Wichita, where the Gulfstream 4 awaited. About a dozen people in all of the world knew that the United States was in control of the arch terrorist who had caused havoc above the North Atlantic.

0930. Three Days Later, Monday, April 17.

The Memorial Garden.

CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia.

Admiral Morgan, Stephen Hart, and Frank Reidel were seated together on the wrought-iron garden bench in front of the pond. It was one of the first warm spring mornings, the third day of the relentless grilling of Ben Adnam by the CIA’s professional interrogators, some of whom had been flown in from the Middle East to test, and retest the validity of the Iraqi Intelligence officer’s information. Thus far he had neither cracked, nor so far as they could tell, lied to them in any way. But on the previous evening, tired and battered by the endless questioning, the commander had said something to Morgan which he plainly believed was a critical card.

“Tomorrow, Admiral, I will give you something that will show you once and for all that I am sincere in my desire to switch my allegiance to your country. I have told you my price is my life, but tomorrow I will write something out for you. Then you can decide for yourself my usefulness to you.”

The second night of interrogation had ended at 0230, long after Admiral Morgan left. Commander Adnam was due to reappear at 1015, and the admiral and the two CIA chiefs had agreed to meet here, in this outdoor cradle of American patriotism and loyalty, to discuss tactics.

It was peaceful in the garden. And the constant cascade of the falling water broke the silence and muffled their words. Admiral Morgan was reflective as he stared at the fieldstone wall around the pond. It was inlaid with an almost obscure bronze plaque on which were inscribed the words:

IN REMEMBRANCE OF THOSE WHOSE UNHERALDED EFFORTS SERVED A GRATEFUL NATION.

Whenever he read them, a chill went through Arnold Morgan, and he thought again of the terrible dangers unknown American agents had faced over the years. And he wished, irrationally, that he could somehow meet them again, right there, and rise to his feet, and shake the hand of every last one of them. They were his kind of people. Hard, unsung heroes, concerned with the well-being of their country, never personal glory.

The three men chatted for twenty minutes, trying to decide what course of action to take. Whether to eliminate the mass murderer in their midst and say nothing, thus avoiding the awkward problems of having to alert the general public to the known danger they had been dealing with since 2002, and risking exposure as complete incompetents. Or to come clean, admit everything, and put the terrorist on trial for crimes that carried a compulsory death penalty. Finally, there was the enticing prospect of saying nothing, utilizing Adnam to carry out a few harrowing strikes against the Islamic Fundamentalist regimes of the Middle East.

All three options had support. But it was the latter one that intrigued them most.

At 1005 they returned to the main building and made their way up to the interrogation room. They all picked up coffee on the way, and were sitting down when Commander Adnam was escorted in by four Marine guards. He was handcuffed, but free to walk in the direction the guards indicated.

Once seated, the bracelets were removed while he placed his hands on the table in front of him, where there were pens and writing pads. He immediately began to write neatly at the top of one of the yellow pages. His message was short, and he requested it be torn out and handed to Admiral Morgan.

“201200APR06 18.55S, 52.20E. Refueling.”

The admiral looked up sharply, and snapped, “Unseen?”

“Yessir.”

“Indian Ocean, right? Whereabouts.”

“Two hundred miles due east of Madagascar.”

“No bullshit?”

“Nossir. This is another way to help convince you of my worth.”

Admiral Morgan left the room and charged straight into the office of the deputy director. He grabbed the secure line and told the switchboard, “GET ME ADMIRAL MULLIGAN RIGHT NOW…EITHER IN THE PENTAGON OR WHEREVER HE MAY BE.”

It took five minutes to locate the Chief of Naval Operations, who at the time was on board the cruiser Arkansas in the navy yards at Norfolk, Virginia. And the conversation was brief.

“You secure, Joe?”

“No.”

“Go to SUBLANT right now and call me secure at Stephen Hart’s office, Langley.”

There were very few people those days who gave orders to Admiral Mulligan. None who spoke to him quite like that. But he and Morgan were old friends, and Joe Mulligan knew that was just Arnold’s way. And he also knew the edge of gravity in the voice of the national security advisor when he heard it,

The admiral left Arkansas immediately, and a waiting Navy staff car took him on the short drive to the headquarters of SUBLANT. Reconnected with Arnold Morgan, he had to stay right on top of his game to keep up with the President’s right-hand man, who he knew was now deep into the interrogation of Commander Adnam.

“Joe. I’m not saying we’ve cracked him. But he’s just come up with something…the position of HMS Unseen at midday this Wednesday. She’s gonna be in the Indian Ocean, which seems about right given she probably left the North Atlantic at the end of February…he has her position 18.55 South, 52.20 East. He says it’s 200 miles due east of Madagascar. I’m just looking at a map now…it’s 1,500 miles from DG…can we make it?…1200 Thursday, April 20…yeah…yeah…okay Joe, I’ll leave it with you. Let’s go…I’d prefer them alive…but I’ll take ’em dead if necessary.”

CRASH. The phone went down like a sledgehammer as Morgan marched resolutely back to the room where Ben Adnam was being systematically wrung out. Or at least a substantial group of people were trying to wring him out, the trouble being that Ben Adnam gave the impression of telling nothing that he did not want to tell.

Admiral Mulligan conferred quickly with COMSUBPAC, Vice Admiral Alan Cattee in Pearl Harbor, formally requesting that USS Columbia be released to Black Ops Control. They opened up a conference line to the Battle Group that operated around the 100,000-ton Nimitz-Class carrier Ronald Reagan, which was stationed off Diego Garcia for a few more hours. The vice admiral did the talking, on the secure line, and was patched through to Admiral Art Barry, who commanded the Group.

The former captain of the Arkansas checked his watch, which said almost 2000, nine hours ahead of Washington. He confirmed Columbia’s position, and said, “She’s ready to go anywhere. To make that location by midday on Thursday, she’ll need to clear DG by midnight. Leave it with me.”

Commander Mike Krause and his crew had already had a long day, testing a new sonar fitting, out in the deep water south of the American Naval base. He and his XO, Lt. Commander Jerry Curran, had dined together on board, but some of the crew were ashore, on base but ashore.

The U.S. Navy is trained to move quickly. The entire crew was located, and was on board the submarine inside two hours. At 2345 Commander Krause signaled the engineers to answer bells. Up on the casing, still warm in the hot tropical night, the deck crew prepared to cast her off. The Officer of the Deck ordered, “Let go all lines…pull off…”

And the tugs began to haul the jet-black 7,000-ton Los Angeles-Class nuclear boat away from her jetty.

“Engines backing two-thirds…the ship is under way…ahead one-third…” The commands were succinct as always, spoken calmly from the bridge by Mike Krause, the tall New Englander from Vermont, who had previously served as the Executive Officer in Columbia.

And now the great bulk of the nuclear boat moved forward down the channel, running fair at 12 knots, out toward the open water of the Indian Ocean, which surrounds the island of Diego Garcia. America’s sole operational