Authors: Patrick Robinson
He booked lunch tomorrow, Saturday, with Arnold Morgan, Admiral Dickson, and the visiting Rear Admiral Curran, to try to assess a Navy operational plan in the eastern Atlantic, almost certainly to surround the west coast of La Palma with a U.S. battle group with state-of-the-art surface-to-air missile capability.
General Scannell broke with long-standing Pentagon tradition by inviting the retired Admiral Morgan to chair the lunchtime meeting on the basis of his considerable experience as a strategist and a Commanding Officer, and by virtue of his months-long involvement with the terrorist volcano threat.
Admiral Morgan accepted, pretending to be put out, protesting that he was supposed to be retired, enjoying himself hugely.
“Aren’t you?” asked Admiral Dickson, handing over a preliminary chart of the deep waters around La Palma.
“You bet I am,” replied Arnold, glaring at the detailed map of the ocean depths. “Now where we gonna find these fucking underwater towelheads?”
The great man hadn’t lost his touch, no doubt of that, and the three senior officers who sat at the table with him, in General Scannell’s private conference room, all felt a stab of nostalgia for the old days, of not so long ago, when the world was a simpler place.
As recently as one year previous, this meeting would not have taken place privately, on a Saturday. It would have happened in the West Wing’s Situation Room in the White House, with the full backing and probably the attendance of a President who believed in these men. This was different. The meeting was on the verge of being subversive. The current President did not trust their judgment.
“I think we all accept that if Mount St. Helens was deliberately exploded, it was hit probably by a broadside of cruise missiles coming through the early morning fog. Correct?” Admiral Morgan was swiftly arranging his ducks in a line.
Everyone nodded.
“Those missiles must have been fired from a submarine, which we photographed leaving the Yellow Sea, and was picked up twice, north of the Aleutians. No other submarine in the entire world fits the pattern, and every one of them is accounted for. The dates fit. The speed fits. And the possible attack on Mount St. Helens fits.
“Also, we have the perfect witness—a highly reliable, highly respected Seattle Bank President standing at the foot of the mountain. He’s a banker and a lawyer, paid to have suspicions, but not reckless imagination.”
Admiral Morgan paused. “Gentlemen, that’s not 100 percent, cast-iron fact. But it is way, way too strong to be dismissed. Agreed?”
Everyone nodded again.
“And therefore,” continued the Admiral, “in light of the letter received from Hamas, we must face the possibility that there is a boatload of Middle Eastern terrorists determined to bang a big hole in the face of a cliff of La Palma. Militarily, any other line of thought is childish. That’s what we’re for, goddamnit. To keep this country safe. And we have no right to go around making half-assed assumptions that it might not happen. And I think it will happen, unless we can get between their fucking missile and that cliff.”
“Correct,” said General Scannell. “I hope we are all agreed on that…gentlemen?” Once more, Admirals Dickson and Curran nodded their agreement.
“And for the purposes of this meeting,” said General Scannell, “we should concentrate on how we catch ’em. Which is unlikely to be easy. We learned that the hard way.”
“Essentially, we’re looking for a submarine-launched cruise
missile,” said Admiral Dickson. “I suspect not a big ICBM that we would pick up a long way out. I’d say it’s a cruise, probably to be fired at around a 500-mile range. You can fire ’em from 1,000 miles, but that would give us too long to locate it. They’ll want to be in closer than that, maybe only 250 miles…25 minutes up range from the target. No nearer. Freddie?”
The Pacific Fleet submarine chief was frowning. “That’s likely to add up to one hell of a lot of water, sir,” he said. “If we take a best-case distance of a 500-mile north–south line, up and down the La Palma coast…forming a box out into the Atlantic from both ends…with the Cumbre Vieja volcano in the middle…then take a spot 500 miles due west of the mountain, we’re talking probably 200,000 square miles of ocean. If the
Barracuda
stands any farther offshore, it’s a whole lot more. But that way, we’d have more time to locate an incoming cruise…”
He paused for a moment, then added, “If I were trying to launch and get away, I’d probably go for around 300 miles up range of my target…So if we placed a cordon up to 500 miles out, we’d kind of have him trapped…Except the little son of a bitch could creep right out underneath us, dead slow in very deep water, and vanish. As he has done a few times before.”
“How many ships would we need?” asked the Chairman.
“Well, if we had a hundred in all—twenty submarines, plus frigates, destroyers, and cruisers—they’d each have to look after 2,000 square miles—roughly a 45-mile square each.”
“Jesus, Freddie…we didn’t have that many ships in the South Pacific in 1944,” said Arnold Morgan.
“And our enemy didn’t have nuclear submarines that could go as deep, stay there indefinitely, and run so quietly as this bastard,” replied the COMSUBPAC. “And I’ll tell you something else. Even then, with that big a fleet, we still might not catch him. With any less than hundred ships, I’d say we were almost guaranteed to miss him.”
“Even if we caught him, chances are he’d get one of his missiles away,” pondered Admiral Morgan.
“I’m not too bothered about that,” replied Admiral Curran. “Because I think we’d nail that missile. But I’m sure, sir, as ever, you’d rather nail the archer than the arrow.”
That was an old favorite policy of Admiral Morgan’s, and Arnold smiled wryly. “You got that right, Freddie,” he said. “But hunting submarines in a big pack is very difficult…”
“We’d have to use a box system,” said Admiral Curran. “You know, give each U.S. submarine an area in which he must stick…otherwise we’ll have ’em shooting at each other…”
“And there’s always a problem with that,” replied Arnold. “You pick the enemy up and track him to the edge of your box, then you’ve either got to break the rules and pursue him into somebody else’s box or let him go and hope your nearest colleague will pick him up as well.”
“Actually, sir, I was thinking of a search box only. I suggest our submarine COs will have orders to open fire and sink the enemy instantly.”
“Freddie, I think that’s exactly correct,” said Arnold. “Which means we can’t have our guys rampaging all over each other’s designated areas. In the final reckoning, the box system is usually best. Though I did once hear the Royal Navy’s High Command was somewhat less than thrilled when one of their submarines picked up the Argentinian submarine somewhere north of the Falklands and then let him go because they’d reached the end of the patrol box.”
“I guess that’s always the downside,” said Admiral Curran, thoughtfully. “But generally speaking, the worst-case scenario would be one of our nuclear boats hitting another.”
“Well,” said General Scannell. “I’d be more than happy for you guys to work on some kind of a fleet plan for Monday’s meeting…but I would like to know if we have enough ships!”
“No problem,” replied Admiral Dickson. “Right now we have Carrier Groups patrolling the northern Gulf, the east end of the Strait of Hormuz, the northern Arabian Gulf, and one in readiness at Diego Garcia. There’s a fifth preparing to leave Pearl Harbor.
All of them could be in the mid-Atlantic in well under three weeks. That’s fifty-five ships.”
“Okay. The rest, I presume, are already in the Atlantic, or in Norfolk, or New London, or somewhere else on the East Coast?”
“Correct, sir. We do not have a problem getting a full complement of ships into the operational area.”
“As for the
Barracuda
, of course we have no idea where that might be?” asked the CJC.
“Hell, yes, we got a hundred ideas,” said Arnold Morgan. “None of ’em reliable. But it seems to me, if this bastard unleashed a battery of submarine-launched cruise missiles at Mount St. Helens, somewhere off Washington State, or even Oregon, earlier this month, he’s got to be on his way to the eastern Atlantic by now.
“He will not want to go the longest way around. Not the way he came, all the way back north of the Aleutians, way down the coast of Asia, and then all the way across the Indian Ocean. That’s too far. Twenty thousand miles plus, most of it at slow speed. It’d take him nearly three months.”
Arnold Morgan let that rest for a few moments, and then he continued, speaking quietly to three very senior men who found it impossible to accept that he was no longer their spiritual leader.
“And this clever little son of a bitch certainly will not want to take the shorter route across the Pacific Basin,” said the Admiral. “As you know, it’s literally trembling with our SOSUS wires. No, sir. He’ll know that. And he’ll avoid that.
“And he plainly cannot use the Panama Canal. Which means his most likely route will be down the west coast of South America, which is not heavily patrolled, nor surveyed, by our ships and satellites.
“It’s shorter, safer, and much, much quieter, if he’s trying to get into the Atlantic…Remember, he hit Mount St. Helens on Sunday morning, August 9. Today’s the twenty-second. That’s thirteen days, and he was probably making only seven knots for ten of them, but now he could probably be making fifteen in deserted
waters. Which means he’s put nearly 3,000 miles between himself and the datum.
“Way down at the southern end of Chile, he’ll be moving even quicker. That damned
Barracuda
will be around Cape Horn in a couple of weeks, minimum.”
“Any point putting a submarine trap down there somewhere…try and stop him entering the Atlantic?” General Scannell was wracking his brains.
“Sir, it’s such a vast, deep seascape,” said Admiral Curran. “We’d need a lot of ships, and if we missed him, which we probably would, we’d be involved in some kind of race back to the Canary Islands…and we might lose that race. And that
Barracuda
could fire its missiles at the cliff face real quick. Sir, I think we’d be much better to get ourselves in line of battle, right where it counts—west of La Palma. We
know
he’s going there.”
“I’d go with that,” said Admiral Dickson. “This seems like no place to be taking any chances whatsoever.”
“I understand,” said the CJC. “And I have one last point to make before I hand over to the Admirals…We have just one credibility gap in my view. That’s the actual existence of the cruise missiles.
“But we do have one cast-iron witness, and we’re not making the most of him. Gentlemen, I recommend we bring Mr. Tilton in from Seattle for Monday’s meeting. Just so he can demonstrate to every one of us that what he heard was the genuine sound of an incoming missile.”
“I agree with that,” said Arnold Morgan. “You know the President and his half-witted advisers are going to pour scorn on our missile theory. I would even consider filming Mr. Tilton so his evidence can be locked in, and if necessary, shown to the President.”
“No problem with that either,” replied General Scannell. “Now we’ll go and find some lunch, and decide an approximate formation of ships, and whatever security we need on the southwest side of La Palma. Who’s going to track down Mr. Tilton on a Saturday morning out in Seattle?”
“I’ll take care of that,” said Admiral Morgan. “Have someone call Fort Meade and get Lieutenant Commander Ramshawe to call me on this private line, fast. He’ll be on inside ten minutes.”
That was way too big an estimate. The Admiral had just embarked on an alarming account of how he had been in the middle of his honeymoon, “
standing on the same volcano as the world’s most wanted man and…”
The phone rang. General Scannell answered.
“Good morning, sir. This is Lieutenant Commander Ramshawe of the National Security Agency returning a call…”
“Just a moment…Arnie…it’s your man…”
“Hi, Jimmy. You remember that bank president you spoke with about the missiles at Mount St. Helens?”
“Yes, sir, Tony Tilton. Seattle National.”
“That’s him. Can you get him on the line? This line. I mean I’d like to have him at our Monday morning meeting here.”
“Might take a while, sir. The bank’s closed this morning, I guess. But I’ll find him.”
“You in the office?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Okay. Let’s bring him in Sunday night. Leave Seattle around 0900, his time. Straight to Andrews.”
“How’s he to travel, sir?”
“Military aircraft, what d’you think? The fucking space shuttle?”
“Er, no, sir.”
The Admiral chuckled. “Jimmy, get him on standby, then call us back and we’ll give you his travel details. He can stay at our house.”
“Okay, sir. I’ll get right back.”
Lieutenant Commander Ramshawe hit what he called the “obvious buttons” first. Directory assistance. He found a Tony and Martha Tilton in Magnolia, and dialed the number himself, sparing everyone the hang-up of yet another third party tuning in to a classified subject.
No one answered. It was 8:56 on this Saturday morning. And
Jimmy left a message, knowing the phrase “National Security Agency, Fort Meade,” was
likely to put a rocket under anyone’s ass.
This was a three-minute rocket. Tony Tilton was on the line, agreeing to travel to Washington the next day for a Monday morning meeting at the Pentagon, but to discuss it with no one. Jimmy told him he’d be right back with travel details, and hit the wire to the office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
“He’s coming, sir. Let me have the travel plans. He’s waiting by the phone.”
This took another twenty minutes, but one day later, at 8:30
A.M.
on Sunday, the Bank President drove to work at his regular high-rise off Union Street at 6th Avenue. Waiting in the lobby were two uniformed Naval officers who escorted him to the wide flat roof of the building, thirty floors above street level. And there, its rotors running, was a big Navy helicopter, a Bell AH-1Z Super Cobra, which in less peaceful time carries eight Hellfire missiles for regular strike/assault, and in air warfare is equipped with two killer AIM-9L heat-seeking guided missiles.