periscope depth. “Uh-huh,” he responded, half listening, half blowing all kingstons. Then the shock of the CNO’s words seemed to hit home. And for a moment he was speechless. He looked up. “Did you just say what I thought you just said?” he grated.
“Yessir.”
“Well, what the hell are you talking about? I thought we all agreed our plan of action — for the President to come out and accuse France of treachery and then to blockade her, while we’re still safe in the protection of solid world opinion. Isn’t that right?”
“Yessir. But I thought about it some more. A lot more. And in my view it’s a very shaky plan.”
“Alan, you and I have known each other for a lot of years. Don’t tell me you’re losing your nerve?”
“Nossir. I’m not at all. But when you finish looking at these charts, like I’ve been doing for most of the night, you’re going to see problems turning up every which way. You’ve already located one of them. The vast expanse of shallow water that surrounds the port of Le Havre. I presume you would like to maintain an element of secrecy, rather than charging into the attack on the surface like Captain Hornblower?”
“Alan, I want you to stand there and methodically, logically, destroy my plan. That way, if I agree with you, we can get going and start again. I don’t want to hear it in a disjointed way. You said, I think, ‘too difficult, too dangerous, and too expensive.’ Lay it on me in that order. And for Christ’s sake stop calling me sir.”
Admiral Dickson could take an order as sharply as he could issue one. “Arnie,” he said, “each of the seaports involves a wide, sprawling target. It’s impossible, as you well know, to blockade with just one ship, even if it is a submarine. I admit you could do it, if you went right ahead and sank something immediately, thus frightening the bejesus out of everyone. But I think we should avoid that kind of first-strike violence in French waters.
“So we’d probably want two submarines at each place — Le Havre, Cherbourg, Bordeaux, Brest, and Marseille. That’s ten Los Angeles — class SSNs from the Atlantic Fleet, most of them stationed well offshore because of the depth. We would need backup on the surface, mainly so the French could see we meant business. That would probably mean five frigates and five destroyers from our bases on the east coast. Plus two or three fleet oilers if we want them to work for several weeks. And even then the operation would only work off Cherbourg and Le Havre. There’s a substantial French Navy presence in the port of Brest, and there are always French warships off the coast of Marseille. Bordeaux is probably worse, because the biggest French Navy firing ranges are positioned all along that stretch of Atlantic coast, and there are French warships all over the place almost all of the time. We’d certainly need at the very minimum, say, six surface ships off those three places, if we want an intimidating presence.
“Arnie, in case you hadn’t noticed…that’s more than twenty-five U.S. warships…”
“It’s twenty-nine. And I had, asshole.”
Alan Dickson laughed. But he pressed on. “My next point is the danger element,” he said lightly. “And, again, in case you hadn’t noticed, the French have a very formidable, very modern, well-trained Navy.”
“I had, supreme asshole.”
“Well, Arnie,” continued the CNO, “consulting my little black book here, I would like you to consider the following facts: The French Navy runs two carriers, one for fixed-wing aircraft, one for helicopters.”
“Right now they’re both in Brest,” replied Admiral Morgan.
“The
“Excellent,” said Admiral Dickson. “Which brings me to the submarine force. The French run twelve of them, all very efficiently. There are six Rubis-class attack submarines currently operational, plus two strategic missile ships, and four Triomphant-class SSBNs.
“They also have thirteen operational destroyers, all of them armed with heavy arsenals of guided missiles. The latest Exocets. They run twenty guided-missile frigates stuffed with Exocets, some of them carrying the new extended-range missile, the MM40 Block 3, which is probably the world’s foremost anti-ship missile.”
“Is that the one with the new air-breathing turbojets instead of the old rocket motors?” asked Morgan.
“That’s right,” said Admiral Dickson. “Damn thing flies a hundred nautical miles”
“And at high speed, I read,” replied Morgan. “Just subsonic, but fast. Can we take it out?”
“Maybe. But it’s capable of complex flight profiles. And good enough for land attack.”
“Damn thing. I guess we don’t want to fool with it, unless we have to.”
“No, Arnie. We don’t want to do that. And in my view it’s not necessary.”
Admiral Morgan nodded, unsmiling. “Are we ready to talk expense?”
“No. Not quite. I just wanted to throw in a couple of points about the French military philosophy. As you know, they have always retained total independence. They build their own ships, missiles, and fighter aircraft. They always have. For them it’s always France. Nothing else. And they’re pretty damned good at it.
“It is my opinion that if we sank a French warship right off their own coast, they would fight back, probably with that damned missile. And it would not be the greatest shock in the world if they hit and destroyed a couple of our own frigates. And what do you want to do then? Bomb the Arc de Triomphe?”
“No,” said Morgan. “No, I really don’t.”
“Well, then I guess we have to think again. Because to my mind it’s just too reckless for us to blockade France and start sinking ships. They’re just a little too strong for that.”
“And ain’t that a goddamn lesson for the left-wing assholes in our own precious Congress,” growled Morgan. “In serious international discussion, even we, a hundred times stronger than almost all the other nations put together, do not much want to mix it with the French. And why? Because we know they have the capacity to hit back a little too hard. And what’s more, they are proud enough to do it. And we do not want to get involved with such an operation. That’s the precise philosophy that’s kept this nation safe from foreign invasion for so long. No one wants to tangle with our military. We’re just too tough.”
“I agree with you,” said Admiral Dickson. “Which still leaves us with the problem of how to deal with the French. And it’s not easy. Because once President Bedford has made his speech, and hopefully lined up the rest of the world on our side, someone needs to do something.”
“You got any suggestions?” asked Morgan. “I know you would not have come in here on a purely destructive mission.”
“Arnie, I think we gotta hit the French oil industry at source.”
“You do?”
“Sure, I do. As we know, they have replaced most of their Saudi crude oil and LPG contracts with ones from other Gulf States. And that’s their Achilles’ heel. That stretch of coastline is where the really big reserves are found — Abu Dhabi has an oil economy like Saudi Arabia; Kuwait has the second largest crude reserves on earth; and Qatar’s north gas field is the biggest LPG source in the world.
“And that’s where the French have gone. And that means French-owned VLCCs moving very swiftly through the Strait of Hormuz. In my opinion, Arnie, we should take out one French VLCC right there in the southern part of the strait. Smack it hard with a torpedo. No one will know what the hell’s happened.”
“Then what?” asked Morgan.
“We park a submarine at the south end of the Red Sea and wait for one of those big gas carriers to come steaming in from Qatar, en route back to Marseille, and we whack that one as well. Then the French will know they’re in trouble. But they will not be certain who their enemy is.”
“Then what?” asked Morgan.
“Well, I’d guess the French will get very haughty about the entire thing, but will say nothing. Not with the whole world ranged against them. But the next French VLCC to come trundling out through the Strait of Hormuz will be escorted by one of those brand-new Horizon-class destroyers that, as we speak, is with a French flotilla exercising out in the northern Arabian Sea…”
“Interesting,” said Arnie. “Outstanding research. I like it already. Then what?”
“We slam the escort with a torpedo. You know, a new heat-seeking ADCAP. It’ll go straight for the props. Probably blow off the stern. Put her on the bottom.”
“Beautiful,” replied Morgan. “Then what?”
“In deference to world opinion on ocean pollution, we sink the tanker with a battery of Harpoon missiles. That way we’ll set her on fire, and the oil will burn instead of making a huge slick all over the goddamn strait.”
“Yeah. I like it,” said Morgan. “The assassin with a heart, right?”
“Yes. That’s us. And that’ll do it. The French will have been hit by an unseen enemy. The world will laugh.
