Hunter Killer

PARIS

There was an air of foreboding on the Quai d’Orsay. News of the Moselle’s demise was raging around government corridors. The President was furious, the military was demanding orders, and Pierre St. Martin was trying to prevent himself doing something that might ultimately be judged as rash.

And, of course, the dark, satanic cloud of the United States of America hung heavily over the entire scenario. Had Uncle Sam just whacked out a couple of French oil tankers? Or had there just been two ghastly, coincidental accidents?

Pierre St. Martin, as a lifelong career politician, knew it would be futile to ask the United States if their Navy had been responsible. And even if they answered, the Americans would certainly use the question to berate France: not every nation is willing to use destructive firepower in the cause of its own interests…do not judge others by your own infamous conduct…

No. St. Martin could see no earthly reason to contact the United States. He paced his elegant office, uncertain what to advise the President, uncertain what, if anything, he could do.

He was not helped by the simple fact that no one onboard either the Voltaire or the Moselle had any idea what had taken place. So far as both commanding officers were concerned, their ships had suddenly, for no discernible reason, exploded and burst into uncontrollable flames. Which did not assist St. Martin one iota.

His tenure as Foreign Minister had always been cushioned by the comfort and elegance of the job, and its many, many accoutrements, not to mention the priceless antiques and furnishings from bygone days of French glory that perpetually surrounded him as France’s frontline executive in the global community.

But now the whole thing was turning sour. Everything possible was going wrong. He felt powerless and vulnerable. He turned to the portrait of Napoleon, with that smug expression on his round, complacent face. And St. Martin understood, vaguely, how the Emperor must have felt as he prepared to depart for his final exile in St. Helena.

The trouble was, at this level of government, there was nowhere to hide. Worse yet, there was no one to whom he could turn. The President, at 7:30 this morning, had been incandescent with rage. “All I have ever asked for is secrecy…and what do I get? Some jackass French officer from the Pyrenees having his photograph taken on the front of a tank! It’s probably framed now in the U.S. Embassy.

“I get incompetence, betrayal. I ask for my massive highly paid security forces to guard one slim French lady and two children, not a group of terrorists. And they can’t even do that. And now I have America, which appears to know everything about us, blowing French ships out of the water, and you tell me I cannot even remonstrate! Pierre, this is intolerable!”

Pierre tried to calm himself. He picked up the telephone and asked to be connected to Gaston Savary over at La Piscine. And to him he repeated the words of the President, “Gaston, this is intolerable.”

But he was preaching to a man on his way back up the road from Tarsus. Savary knew that everything about this mission had turned out to be intolerable. And like the Foreign Minister and the President, he too believed that the U.S. Navy was banging French tankers out of the water.

“Is it your opinion that we should cease all oil shipments from Gulf ports to France?” asked Pierre St. Martin.

“Quite frankly, yes,” said Savary. “Because if we lost another one, and a lot of people were to be killed, there would be a major uproar in France. The people would accuse the government of callous indifference to poor, hardworking sailors, who now leave widows and fatherless children, because of our own ambitions. Pierre, we cannot afford to lose another big ship. The risks are too great.”

“Can nothing stop a U.S. Navy submarine from doing its worst?”

“Not really. Those things can stay underwater for eight years, if necessary. At least their nuclear reactors can run for that long, supplying all the heat, light, fresh air, fresh water, and power they need. They only come up for food when it runs out.”

“And what about sonar? We have zillions of euros’ worth of sonar on our ships. Can’t we find the American submarine?”

“Not much chance. A nuclear boat can be anywhere, very quickly…you could be searching in the Atlantic and she’s in the Indian Ocean. You could be searching in the Pacific and she’s six thousand miles away. Give it up, sir. They think we’ve smashed the world’s economy, and they’re taking revenge. And there is not too much we can do about it, short of war with the United States, which we would swiftly lose.”

“So your advice is simply to stop all tankers traveling from the Arabian loading docks to France?”

“Yes, sir. That’s my advice.”

“Then I shall have to seek further help from the Navy, Gaston. Bonjour, mon ami.”

Adm. Marc Romanet, in his office in Brest, besieged by government departments wondering what to do, or say, about the latest American outrage, was marginally more optimistic. “Foreign Minister,” he said, “the Navy could provide an escort to the tankers, as the British did for the Atlantic convoys against the u-boats in World War Two.”

“You mean each tanker leaving the Gulf and bound for a French port would be accompanied by a battleship?”

“Sir, we don’t have battleships as such. I was thinking of a destroyer.”

“La meme chose,” said the slightly precious Foreign Minister haughtily. “Very large, very smelly, very noisy ships loaded with guns and shells and angry young men in badly pressed uniforms.”

Admiral Romanet was deeply unimpressed by St. Martin’s grasp of the French Navy. “Not these days, sir,” he said briskly. “Very large, pristinely clean, guided-missile ships fitted with state-of-theart electronics incomprehensible to a civilian and crewed by very calm, very educated young men in immaculately pressed uniforms.”

Severely put in his place by one of the Navy’s favorite sons and the head of the entire submarine service, Pierre St. Martin beat a very fast retreat. “Just joking, Admiral,” he said.

“I very much hope so, sir,” replied Admiral Romanet. “Because in the final reckoning, should we ever come under attack, your life will very probably be in the hands of those young men in the pressed uniforms.”

“Of course,” replied the Minister. “I was only teasing.”

“Naturally,” said the Admiral. But he was not smiling. “To continue,” he added, “we have our newest Tourville-class destroyer, the De Grasse, exercising in the northern Arabian Sea at present. She’s our specialist antisubmarine warfare ship. If anything can protect a tanker against attack, she can.”

“Against torpedoes? Which I believe is what the Americans used against the tankers.”

“Tell the truth, sir, I don’t think they did. The fires were too big and too sudden, in both ships. My guess is they hit them with missiles. But the De Grasse is a specialist. She’s loaded with her own missiles, but her torpedo capacity is formidable, ten ECAN L5 antisubmarine active/passive, homing to six miles — with a hundred-fifty-kilogram warhead.

“She also carries two Lynx Mk 4 antisubmarine helicopters. She has towed-array torpedo warning, radar warnings, jammers, and decoys. You want a ship to protect a tanker from underwater attack, I’d request the De Grasse, if I were you.”

“Admiral, I thank you for this advice, which I will pass on to the President. But I must ask you: can you guarantee this destroyer will keep the tanker safe?”

“There’s no guarantees in my business,” said the Admiral.

“And, perhaps, unlike politicians, we do not like to say there are when there are not. But I’d give the De Grasse a fighting chance against any enemy.”

“Thank you, Admiral,” said the Foreign Minister, who had not enjoyed sparring with a very senior officer in the French Navy who had managed to make him feel faintly absurd.

Nonetheless, he called back the President, and, attempting a career-saving final throw of the dice, told him he could absolutely guarantee the safety of French tankers on the high seas if they were accompanied by French Navy warships, particularly Tourville-class destroyers like the De Grasse.

“Perhaps organize them into half a dozen groups,” he said ambitiously. “Six of these Tourvilles would