strength — the gathering and ordering of immense detail, mainly in the area of maps, charts, and topology. In Ravi’s view, no one could plot and plan with greater detail than Shakira, especially cruise missile navigation. In the end, he had caved in to her demands to be allowed to serve onboard the submarine. And a wise decision it had been.
This lovely, black-haired Arabian woman, now twenty-seven years old, had a mind like a bear trap. And her performance in
And now she awaited them in the port of Huludao, and Admiral Badr greatly looked forward to seeing her, though perhaps not quite as intensely as North Korea’s big customer, sharing the bridge with Ahmed Sabah in comfortable silence, staring at the endless waters of the Yellow Sea, a couple of hundred miles to the north.
For both ships, the journey passed without incident. Escorted through the Strait, no one hit, or even dodged, anything. The
Chinese customs, all in Naval uniform, boarded her before anyone was permitted to leave the ship. And they insisted on inspecting at least two of the new missiles and having them identified with the full paperwork provided by the owner, General Rashood.
Two of the crates were unbolted, one of them containing the missile that would include one of the nuclear warheads sealed in the bright stainless-steel flasks lashed down for’ard of the freight deck.
General Ravi knew they were looking at one of the two nuclear cruises, because he could see the lettering near the stern, in English, denoting it was a Mark-2 Submarine-Launched weapon, custom-built for a designated submarine.
The missile had been named by Shakira, in honor of the ancient curved blade of the Muslims, the sword forged in Damascus and carried by Saladin himself when he faced the Lionheart’s Christians at the gates of Jerusalem in the twelfth century.
The name was clear, painted at Shakira’s request in letters of gold. They stood stark against the gunmetal- gray curve of the missile’s casing—
3
The lieutenant commander’s office looked as if it had been ransacked. There were sheets of paper covering literally every square inch of the area — on the desk, on the “research table” next to the printer, on the printer, and all over the floor. There were big piles, little piles, and single pieces. There was colored paper and plain. There was stuff in files, stuff wrapped in rubber bands. Stuff crammed between the pages of books. There was SECRET, TOP SECRET, CLASSIFIED, HIGHLY CLASSIFIED. The last pile was the largest.
Contrary to first impression, however, the place had not been ransacked — merely Ramshawed. Every office space he had ever occupied looked the same. His boss, the National Security Director, Rear Adm. George Morris, put it down to an active mind. Ramshawe mostly operated on around seventeen fronts. Damned efficiently.
“I try,” he once said, “to keep tabs on important matters, plus a few others that might become significant.”
Right now he was into one highly significant matter, and another that had elbowed its way forward from the back burner. The “highly significant” item required attention today as it involved a potential enemy’s nuclear submarine. The envelope from the “back burner” required action yesterday, because it had just arrived from Adm. Arnold Morgan.
The very name of the now-retired National Security Adviser still sent a tremor through the entire Fort Meade complex.
Jimmy Ramshawe had just sliced open the envelope with a wide-bladed hunting knife with a bound kangaroo-hide handle that would have raised the pulse of Crocodile Dundee.
Inside the outer envelope was a plain white file containing six 10 x 8 black-and-white photographs. Attached was a brief note from the Admiral—
Jimmy studied the pictures. There were four men in each frame. The pictures had been taken high on a cliff top with the ocean in the background. Three of the men were very clear, one was less so. But even this fourth image was well focused and showed the man in stark profile, from either side. The last one was snapped from his “seven o’clock,” as the Admiral might have said,
If the request had come from anywhere else, Jimmy Ramshawe would have put it in the nether regions of all back burners. But requests from Admiral Morgan, though rare, did not even count as requests. These were orders.
Jimmy picked up the envelope and headed to the office of his immediate boss, Admiral Morris, who was alone at his desk reading one of the endless stacks of field reports.
“G’day, chief,” said the Lieutenant Commander. “Just got an envelope from the Big Man, thought you might like to see it…”
Admiral Morris was instantly on alert. “What does he need?” he asked, already pulling the pictures from the file.
“Only the impossible,” replied Jimmy. “ ‘Please identify four towelheads out of a world population of about seven billion, spread through nineteen countries of their own, and about five hundred belonging to other nations.”
“Hmmmm,” said the Admiral. “I guess he thinks they may be prominent, or at least a couple of them may be. He wouldn’t ask us to identify a group of camel drovers, would he?”
George Morris studied the pictures for a moment and nodded. “Well, they’re good-quality shots, which means that Arnie didn’t take ’em himself. With something like a modern camera, he’d have an attention span of about five and a half seconds…Right. These would be the work of Harry. Remember the ones from the Admiral’s farewell party?”
“Yeah. Couldn’t forget ’em. There was one Jane said made me look like a bloody swag man, hair floppy, shirt out, holding a pint of Fosters, asking Mrs. Morgan for a dance.”
“Yes. I saw that one. And here’s four more guys who look like they didn’t want to be photographed. Again in very sharp focus. More dignified than you, of course, but very finely focused.”
They both chuckled. But Admiral Morris was not taking this lightly. “Okay, Jimmy,” he said. “Get these copied. Let’s have fifty sets. Then draft a note and we’ll send them through the regular mail to places we might get some feedback.”
“Like where?” said Lt. Comdr. Ramshawe.
“Well, we could start with our embassies in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, all the Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel. Then we’ll get the Pentagon to make some more copies and check out the commanding officers in all our Military and Naval Bases around the Middle East. We’ll get the FBI on the case, and the CIA. We’ll ask the Brits, MI5, MI6, Scotland Yard…”
“Christ, that’s a lot of trouble to go to, sir.”
“Happily we are assisted by a very large staff. I suggest we avoid putting anything on the networks. No Internet, no computers or E-mails, other than internal secure. The pictures are, after all, taken by a private citizen. And there is no suggestion of urgency. Arnold’s honeymoon was five months ago. It’s taken him that long to send them. But if the Big Man wants a check, we give him that check. As well as we can.”
“Okay, sir. I’ll take care of it right away.” And Jimmy Ramshawe retreated to his paper-strewn lair, muttering, “Some bloody private citizen. Takes a few holiday snaps, sticks ’em in the mail, and half the world goes into free fall.”
