American Los Angeles class going to full power, then slowing and disappearing off our screens.”
“An exercise, Yevgeniy… the first transient was an American missile submarine… an Ohio-class. What do you think of that?” Captain First Rank Valentin Borissovich Dubinin asked.
“No one has ever detected an Ohio in deep water…”
“For all things, there is a first time.”
“And now?”
“We will hover and wait. The Ohio is quieter than a sleeping whale, but at least we know now that there is one in the area. We will not chase after it. Very foolish of the Americans to make noise in this way. I've never seen that happen before.”
The game has changed, Captain,“ the sonar officer observed. It had changed quite a lot. He didn't have to say ”Comrade Captain' anymore.
“Indeed it has, Yevgeniy. Now it is a true game. No one need get hurt, and we can test our skills as in the Olympics.”
“Critique?”
“I would have closed a little before shooting, sir,” the weapons officer said. ”Even money he might have evaded that one.'
“Agreed, but we were only trying to shake him up,” Ricks said comfortably.
Then what was the purpose of that exercise? Dutch Claggett wondered. Oh, of course, to show how aggressive you are.
“I guess we accomplished that,” the XO said to support his captain. There were grins all around the control room. Boomers and fast-attack subs often played games, mostly pre-planned. As usual, the Ohio had won this one, too. They'd known that Omaha was around, of course, and that she was looking for a Russian Akula that the P-3s had lost off the Aleutians a few days before. But the Russian ”Shark' class sub was nowhere to be heard.
“OOD, take her south. We went and made a datum with that launch transient. We'll clear datum back down where Omaha was.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Well done, people.” Ricks walked back to his cabin.
“New course?”
“South,” Dubinin said. ”He'll clear datum by going into the area already swept by the Los Angeles. We'll maintain position just over the layer, leave our ‘tail’ under it, and try to reacquire.' There wasn't much chance, the Captain knew, but fortune still favored the bold. Or something like that. The submarine was due to go back to port in another week, and supposedly the new sonar array she was due to receive during his scheduled overhaul was a major improvement over the current one. He'd been here south of Alaska for three weeks. The submarine he'd detected, USS Maine or USS Nevada, if his intelligence reports were correct, would finish this patrol, refit, conduct another, refit again, then yet another patrol in February, which coincided with his deployment schedule after his overhaul. So, the next time he was back, he'd be up against the same captain, and this one had made a mistake. After a refit, Admiral Lunin would be quieter, and would have better sonar, and Dubinin was starting to wonder when he'd be able to play his game against the Americans… Wouldn't it be nice, he thought. All the time he'd spent to get here, the wonderful years learning his trade in Northern Fleet under Marko Ramius. What a pity, for such a brilliant officer to have died in an accident. But duty at sea was dangerous, always had been, always would be. Marko had gotten his crew off before scuttling… Dubinin shook his head. Today he might have gotten assistance from the Americans. Might? Would have, just as an American ship would get one from a Soviet. The changes in his country and the world made Dubinin feel much better about his job. It had always been a demanding game of skill, but its deadly purpose had changed. Oh, yes, the American missile submarines still had their rockets pointed at his country, and Soviet rockets were pointed at America, but perhaps they would be gone soon. Until they were, he'd continue to do his job, and it seemed ironic indeed that just as the Soviet Navy was on the threshold of becoming competitive — the Akula class was roughly equal with an early Los Angeles class in a mechanical sense — the need for it was diminishing. Like a friendly game of cards, perhaps? he asked himself. Not a bad simile…
“Speed, Captain?”
Dubinin considered that. “Assume a range of twenty nautical miles and a target speed of five knots. We'll do seven knots, I think. That way we can remain very quiet and perhaps still catch him… every two hours we'll turn to maximize the capacity of the sonar… Yes, that is the plan.” Next time, Yevgeniy, we'll have two new officer sonar operators to back you up, Dubinin reminded himself. The drawdown of the Soviet submarine force had released a lot of young officers who were now getting specialist training. The submarine's complement of officers would double, and even more than the new equipment, that would make a difference in his abilities to hunt.
“We blew it,” Bunker said. “I blew it. I gave the president bad advice.”
“You're not the only one,” Ryan admitted, as he stretched. ”But was that scenario realistic — I mean, really realistic?'
It turned out that the whole thing had been a ploy by a hard-pressed Soviet leader trying to get control over his military, and doing so by making it look as though some renegades had taken action.
“Not likely, but possible.”
“All things are possible,” Jack observed. “What do you suppose their war-games say about us?”
Bunker laughed. “Nothing good, I'm sure.”
At the end, America had had to accept the loss of its cruiser, USS Valley Forge, in return for the Charlie-class submarine that USS Kidd's helicopter had found and sunk. That was not regarded as an even trade, rather like losing a rook to the other fellow's knight. Soviet forces had gone on alert in Eastern Germany, and the weaker NATO forces had been unsure of their ability to deal with them. As a result, the Soviets had won a concession on the troop-pullback schedule. Ryan thought the whole scenario contrived, but they often were, and the point in any case was to see how to manage an unlikely crisis. Here they had done badly, moving too rapidly in non-essential areas, and too slowly on the ones that mattered, but which had not been recognized in time.
The lesson, as always, was: Don't make mistakes. That was something known by any first-grader, of course, and all men made mistakes, but the difference between a first-grader and a senior official was that official mistakes carried far more weight. That fact was an entirely different lesson, and one often not learned.
14
REVELATION
“So, what have you found?”
“He's a most interesting man,” Goodley replied. “He's done some things at CIA that are hardly believable.”
“I know about the submarine business, and the defection of the KGB head. What else?” Liz Elliot asked.
“He's rather well liked in the international intelligence community, like Sir Basil Charleston over in England — well, it's easy to see why they like him — but the same is true in the NATO countries, especially in France. Ryan stumbled across something that enabled the DGSE to bag a bunch of Action Directe people,” Goodley explained. He was somewhat uncomfortable with his role of designated informer.
The National Security Advisor didn't like to be kept waiting, but there was no sense in pressing the young scholar, was there? Her face took on a wry smile. “Am I to assume that you have started admiring the man?”
“He's done fine work, but he's made his mistakes, too. His estimate on the fall of East Germany and the progress of reunification was way off.” He had not managed to learn that everyone else was, as well. Goodley himself had guessed almost exactly right on this issue up at the Kennedy School, and the paper he'd published in an obscure journal was something else that had earned him attention at the White House. The White House fellow stopped again.
“And…?” Elliot prodded.
“And there are some troubling aspects in his personal life.”
Finally! “And those are?”
“Ryan was investigated by the SEC for possible insider-stock trading before he entered CIA employ. It seems there was a computer-software company about to get a Navy contract. Ryan found out about it before anyone else
