small price to pay.”
“It cannot be possible. It simply cannot,” said General Boyce.
And for just a few seconds, the entire table went silent. Then Admiral Morgan spoke again. “Gentlemen, let’s face it, we have to start from the basis that this guy is not joking. And our options are very limited. Priority number one is to catch and destroy the fucker. Right?”
He glared around the table. No one dissented. “Therefore, number two is to produce a fleet deployment plan. Number three is to appoint a Commander in Chief to that fleet. Number four is to try to get the President, the Commander in Chief of all U.S. Armed Forces, to agree to such a deployment. The last one is the most difficult, by a very long way.”
“You want an educated forecast?” asked Admiral Morris.
“Always,” replied Arnold Morgan.
“He is not going to agree, now or ever, to put this country essentially on a war footing to deal with what he believes is a crank letter. And he will not listen to us. Now or ever.”
A silence enveloped the table. “Then we may,” said General Scannell, “have to go without him.”
“Which would be a bit unorthodox,” said Admiral Dickson.
“Maybe,” replied the CJC. “But we cannot, knowingly, let the people of this nation down, when we all believe there is a real danger someone could wipe out the East Coast of the United States. I believe Lieutenant Commander Ramshawe has issued everyone with a short and concise report on the experts’ assessment of the volcano on the island of La Palma.”
“I guess there’s no stopping the tidal wave once it develops?” asked General Boyce.
“Apparently not,” replied Arnold Morgan. “Because when that develops, we’re looking at probably the greatest force on earth, traveling along the seabed at the speed of a jet aircraft. Less than nine hours to New York, the waves building all the way.”
“Jesus Christ,” replied the General.
“So far as I can see,” said the Admiral, “we have two chances. The first one slim, the second one better, but not foolproof. We set sail for the Canary Islands with a 100-strong fleet and search for the missing
“Secondly, we position a defensive screen of surface warships to the west of La Palma, primed to hit and destroy the missile, or missiles, in mid-flight. It would help, of course, if we knew roughly where they’re going to fire it from. But we don’t.”
“Well, regardless, we’ll have to move the entire East Coast fleet the hell out of all our Navy bases,” said Admiral Curran. “A wave like that would wipe us out. We can’t leave any ship in port. We have drafted a rough plan that I think Admiral Dickson would like everyone to see…that is, if we are unanimous about the reality of the threat. And are we unanimously agreed that we must go ahead with a fleet plan to counteract that threat, regardless of the opinions of our political masters? Right hands please.”
Nine right hands were solemnly raised high.
“No choice,” said General Scannell. “Absolutely no choice.”
“Okay. Now today’s the twenty-fourth,” said Arnold Morgan. “That means we have forty-seven days to get things into line. I suggest we invent some forthcoming fleet exercises in the Atlantic and start getting ships at least on standby for deployment. I presume the Middle East is sufficiently quiet for us to move the Carrier Groups into the Atlantic without causing a huge amount of fuss? Alan?”
“No problem.”
“Good. Now perhaps we should hear the preliminary plan I understand Alan and Freddie have been developing for the past couple of days…”
Admiral Curran handed out a single sheet of paper to each man. Then he told them, “As a submariner, I have been asked to explain the first part of the plan before I turn things over to Admiral Dickson. I am sure you know there are innate difficulties in conducting underwater hunts with submarines because of how they are apt to shoot each other if we’re not damned careful.
“My recommendation is we take a ‘box’ 500 miles north to south, running up and down the La Palma coastline, by 500 miles west out into the Atlantic. That’s a colossal area of 250,000 square miles, and from somewhere in there, we expect the
“It is not impossible that she could fire from even farther west, perhaps up to 1,000 miles out from La Palma. But I personally doubt that. Her Commanding Officer will know we’re out there in force looking for her, and will probably be keenly aware of our excellent surface-to-air missile defense systems and probably will not want to have his birds in the air for too long.
“If I had to guess I’d say he’ll launch from under 300 miles from the La Palma coast. But we cannot take that chance. We need to cover the outer limits of his range.”
“How many missiles do you think, Freddie?” asked Arnold Morgan.
“Possibly twenty SLCMs, to be sure of knocking the cliff down. Unless he goes nuclear. Then he’ll only want two.”
“Can he go nuclear?”
“I don’t think so,” interrupted Admiral Morris. “Simply because I can’t imagine where he’d get ’em. They have to be especially fitted for the
“Certainly they are unlikely to admit compliance with a bunch of terrorists trying to wreck the East Coast of the United States of America. The Chinese might be cunning and they might be devious, but they’re not stupid.”
“They might be able to buy ’em at that place in Bosnia,” said Arnold Morgan. “But I’d be surprised if a European country would agree to that, especially one in NATO, or the EU.”
“How about North Korea?” said Admiral Morris.
“Possible. Though I’m not sure if they have developed the sophistication to build a nuclear-headed missile that would fit into a big Russian submarine.”
“Let’s hope not,” said Admiral Dickson. “But I guess in the end it doesn’t matter where they got the warhead. We have to stop it, whether it was made in Korea, Belgrade, or Macy’s.”
“Okay,” said Arnold, “let’s hear that outline from Freddie on the deployment of the fleet.”
“We’ll definitely need to use a ‘box’ system for our submarine force,” said Admiral Curran. “And my recommendation is, we form a screen from the 500-mile mark moving inshore to perhaps 300. Each one of fifteen boats taking a square of around 40 miles by 40 miles, each of them with a towed array, trying to pick up every sound in the water. Altogether, that should take care of an area of 24,000 square miles.
“My personal view is that the
“I then recommend we take five more submarines and position them in boxes 40 miles long, right inshore. The water’s very deep, and there is just a chance the
“I do not say this is any more likely a scenario than any other. But it would be ridiculous to have our defensive screens way offshore, while our enemy creeps underneath us, in two-mile-deep ocean, and opens fire from close range, giving us restricted time to set up for the intercept.”
General Hudson apologized but requested permission to interrupt, reminding the group that there plainly had to be a Patriot missile-shield positioned at the top of the cliff, and around the rim of the volcanoes. “We can only hope he launches something that flies high, rather than a sea skimmer,” he said. “Just to give us a real shot at it.”
Admiral Curran nodded in agreement. He suggested the submarine force should answer directly to SUBLANT headquarters, wherever that might be. It was becoming ominously certain that they were looking at a general
