The Shark Mutiny (3 page)

“Gentlemen, I ask you. What is the solution? And I must remind you, this is a PLOT…a diabolical Western PLOT…to devalue our great economies…to allow them to dominate us, as they have always tried to do.”

Admiral Zhang’s voice had risen during this delivery. But now it fell very softly again to the calm, gentle tones of his welcome. “We have the solution, my friends. It is a solution we have discussed before, and I believe it is a solution that will find much favor with both of our governments.”

The Ayatollah looked genuinely perplexed. And he looked up quizzically.

Admiral Zhang smiled back, and without further ceremony, he said flatly, “I am proposing we lay a minefield deep in the historic, national waters of the Islamic State of Iran. Right across the Strait of Hormuz.”

Admiral Badr looked up sharply and said immediately, “My friend, Yushu, you have become a tried and trusted confidant of my nation. But I feel I must remind you we have considered many times a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. But we have been frustrated for the same three reasons every time—one, the far side of the strait belongs to Oman, a country that is totally influenced by the American puppets in London.

“Two, we could never lay down a minefield quickly enough without being seen by the American satellites, which would surely bring down upon us the wrath of the Pentagon.

“And three, well, ultimately the Americans would clear it and paint us as lawless outcasts, enemies to the
peaceful trading nations of the world. No good could come of it, not from our point of view.”

Admiral Zhang nodded, and asked for the forbearance of the meeting. “Mohammed,” he said, “all of your reasons are correct. But now times have changed. The stakes are much higher. You and I have different oil both to sell and to use. We also have an unbreakable joint interest, our own oil routes from the strait to the Far East. And you, Mohammed, have the entire backing of the People’s Liberation Army/Navy.

“Together we could most certainly lay down a minefield, using both submarines and surface ships. And we could achieve it so swiftly, no one would have the slightest idea who had done what.”

“But they would find out, surely?”

“They would not find out. Though they might guess. And they would not be in time. Because one day a big Western tanker is going to hit one of the mines and blow up, and for the next year oil prices will go through the roof, except for ours. Which will of course cost us just the same—almost nothing. But that which we sell will be worth a fortune, while the world’s tankers back up on both sides of the minefield, all of them afraid to go through. For a while, we’ll very nearly own the world market for fuel oil.”

Admiral Badr smiled and shook his head. “It’s a bold plan, Yushu. I’ll give you that. And I suppose it just might work. But my country, and my Navy, have been on the wrong end of the fury of the Pentagon before. And it is not a place we want to go again.”

“So has mine, Mohammed. But they are not invincible. And in the end they are a Godless society interested only in money. They will raise heaven and hell to free up the tanker routes to the gulf, but I think they will see it as a business problem, not cause for armed conflict. And besides they will not want an all-out shooting war in the gulf because that will just compound the oil problems
and send prices even higher, and the sacred New York Stock Exchange even lower.”

“But, Yushu, if they suspect China is behind it, they may become very angry indeed.”

“True, Mohammed. True. But not sufficiently angry to want a war with us. That would send their precious stock market into free fall.

“No, my friends. The Americans will clear the minefield. Open up the tanker routes again, and send in heavy U.S. Naval muscle to make sure they stay cleared. By then we will have made vast sums of money, China and Iran. And, hopefully, many new friends, and customers, who will perhaps prefer to do business with us in future.

“One little minefield, Mohammed. Twenty miles wide. And we open a gateway to a glittering future together.”

Same day. Headquarters,
National Security Agency
.
Fort Meade, Maryland
.

Lieutenant Jimmy Ramshawe downloaded his computer screen for the umpteenth time that afternoon. As SOO (Security Ops Officer), his tasks included designating printouts to selected officers all over the ultrasecret labyrinth of the U.S. military Intelligence complex; a place so highly classified the walls had built-in copper shields to prevent any electronic eavesdropping.

The Lieutenant had been routinely bored by the entire procedure since lunchtime, sifting through screeds of messages, reports and signals from United States surveillance networks all over the world. But these two latest documents just in from the CIA’s Russian desk caught and held his attention:

From the precise same source another signal came in 94 minutes later at 1534 EST. Langley had so far offered no comment. Just the bald fact: “Russian Antonov 124 took off Moscow 2300, believed heading due east. Aircrew only, plus heavy cargo. AN-124 took 3,000 meters to liftoff. CIA field officer traces no flight plan. Inquiries continue.”

To Jimmy Ramshawe this was food and drink—a complex, slightly sinister problem that wanted studying, if not solving. He knew the gigantic Antonov freighter—known as the
Ruslan
, after a mythological Russian giant—could carry a colossal 120 tons of freight 35,000 feet above the earth’s surface. He had a good imagination and did not need to utilize much of it before he could visualize 120 big sea mines hurtling through the stratosphere at 550 knots, bound for some distant ocean where they could be primed to inconvenience U.S. Navy fleets.

At the age of 28, Jimmy had been selected by the Navy to serve in the Intelligence service. A tall dark-haired young officer, he possessed an acutely analytical mind. He was a lateral thinker, an observer of convolutions, complications and intricacies. As a commanding officer he would have developed into a living nightmare. No team in any warship would ever have provided him with
quite
sufficient data to make a major decision.

But he had a superb intelligence, the highest IQ in his class at Annapolis, and his superiors spotted him a long way out. Lt. Ramshawe was born for Intelligence work at the highest level. And while his young fellow officers went forward, following their stars as future commanding officers of surface or subsurface warships, the lanky, athletic Jimmy was sent into the electronic hothouse of
America’s most sensitive, heavily guarded Intelligence agency, where, to quote the admissions Admiral, “There would be ample outlet for his outstanding talents.”

He was an unusual member of Fort Meade’s staff for the simple reason that he looked and sounded like an Australian. The son of a Sydney diplomat, he had been born in Washington, D.C., while his father served a five-year tour of duty as Military Attaché at the grandiose Australian embassy on Massachusetts Avenue. They’d returned to New South Wales for just two years before Admiral Ramshawe accepted a position on the board of the Australian airline Qantas, working permanently in New York.

Young Jimmy, with his U.S. passport, went to school in Connecticut, starred for three years as a baseball pitcher who sounded as if he should have been playing cricket. And then followed his father into a career in Dark Blue. American Dark Blue, that is. He’d been in the U.S. Navy now for 10 years, but a couple of weeks earlier he had still brought a smile to the lugubrious face of the NSA’s Director, Admiral George Morris, by announcing, “G’day, sir…. I picked up that stuff you wanted…gimme two hours…she’ll be right.”

Ramshawe was always going to
sound
like Banjo Patterson and other members of Australian folklore, but he was American through and through, and Admiral Morris valued him highly, as highly as he valued his longtime friendship with Ramshawe Senior, the retired Aussie Diplomat/Admiral.

The trouble was, right now, Admiral Morris had just been admitted to the Bethesda Naval Hospital with suspected lung cancer, and the deputy directer, Rear Admiral David Borden, was a more remote, formal figure, who was not instantly receptive to young Lt. Ramshawe’s observations. And that might prove difficult for both of them—the acting director because he might miss something, for Jimmy because he might not be listened to.

He stared at the two signals in front of him, and attacked the problem as he always did: going instantly for the obvious worst-case scenario. That is,
some foreign nutcase has just bought several hundred sea mines from the bloody Russians with a view to laying the bastards somewhere they want to keep private
.

Lt. Ramshawe frowned. It seemed unlikely the Russians were using the mines themselves. They had nowhere to mine, and these days they rarely manufactured Naval hardware unless it was for export.

So who the hell did they make ’em for
? Jimmy Ramshawe ran the checks swiftly through his mind.
One of those crazy bastards in the gulf…Gadaffi? The Ayatollahs? The Iraqis? No reason really for any of them, but the Iranians had threatened a minefield more than once. But then the AN-124 would have been running south, not east. Or else the mines would have been transported by road. China? No. They’d make their own…I think. North Korea? Maybe. But they make their own
.

Lieutenant Ramshawe deemed the puzzle worthy of careful consideration. And he gathered up the two signals, muttering to himself, “I don’t think we better fuck this up, because if ships start blowing up, somewhere in the Far East or wherever, we’re likely to get the blame. ’Specially if an American ship was lost…bloody oath there’d be trouble then.”

He stood up from his screen, pushed his floppy dark hair off his forehead and walked resolutely out of the ops area down to the Director’s office. He was still reading the signals when he arrived in the hallowed area once occupied by Arnold Morgan himself. And he walked through absentmindedly, still reading, tapped on the door, pushed it open and walked in, as he always did.

“G’day, Admiral,” he said. “Coupla things here I think we want to take a sharp look at.”

David Borden looked up, an expression of surprise on his face.

“Lieutenant,” he said. “I wonder if you could bring
yourself to give me the elementary courtesy of knocking before you enter my office?”

“Sir? I thought I just did.”

“And then perhaps
waiting
to be invited in?”

“Sir? This isn’t a bloody social call. I have urgent stuff in my hand which I think you should know about right away.”

“Lieutenant Ramshawe, there are certain matters of etiquette still observed here in the U.S. Navy, though I imagine they have long been dispensed with in your own country.”

“Sir, this is my country.”

“Of course. But your accent sounds like no other U.S. officer I ever met.”

“Well, I can’t help that. But since we’re wasting time, and I don’t want to get off on the wrong foot now that you’re in the big chair, I’ll get back outside and we’ll start over, right?”

Before Admiral Borden could answer, Jimmy Ramshawe had walked out and closed the door behind him. Then he knocked on it, and the Director, feeling slightly absurd, called, “Come in, Lieutenant.”

“Christ, I’m glad we got that over with,” said Jimmy, turning on his Aussie-philosophical, lopsided grin. “Anyway, g’day, Admiral. Got something here I think we should take a look at.”

He handed the two signals over, and David Borden glanced down at them.

“I don’t see anything urgent here,” he said. “First of all, we do not even know the mines were on board the Russian aircraft. If they were, we don’t have the slightest idea where they might be going…and wherever that may be, it’s going to take a long time for anyone to unload them, transport them, and then start laying them in the ocean. At which point our satellites will pick them up. I shouldn’t waste any more time on it if I were you.”

“Now, hold hard, sir. We got possibly several hundred brand-new sea mines almost certainly packed into the
hold of the biggest freight aircraft on earth, now heading due east toward China, maybe India, maybe Pakistan, Korea, Indonesia? Brand-new mines specifically ordered and manufactured? And you don’t think we want to trace the bloody jokers who own them, right away?”

“No, Lieutenant. I think we’ll find out in good time without wasting any of our valuable resources, and in particular, your energies.”

“Well, I suppose if you say so, sir. But that’s a lot of high explosives, and…well, I mean some bugger wants it for something pretty definite. I think Admiral Morris would want it investigated…maybe alert the Big Man in the White House.”

“Lieutenant, Admiral Morris is no longer in command of this agency. And from now on, I trust you’ll respect my judgment. Forget the mines. They’ll come to the surface in good time.”

“Just hope they don’t bring a pile of bloody wreckage with ’em, that’s all.”

Lt. Ramshawe nodded, curtly, turned on his heel and left, muttering to himself an old Australian phrase, “Right mongrel bastard he’s turned out to be.”

Evening, same day. Ops Room
.
Great Hall of the People
.

The big computer screen had been switched off now. The Iranian delegation was heading northeast out along Jichang Lu toward Beijing International Airport. And Admiral Zhang was talking with Zu Jicai. Everyone else had gone. The two great Naval friends and colleagues sat alone, sipping tea, which Yushu had coerced a guard to produce, in the absence of any staff whatsoever in the Great Hall. It tasted, he thought, like a leftover thermos from Mao’s Long March of 1935.

“I am still slightly mystified, Yushu. Do you really
think there is enough advantage in this for us to become involved in a worldwide oil catastrophe?”