H.M.S. Unseen (1999) Read online

  The weather was deteriorating. With the fading light of that early-spring evening, the breeze was backing southwest, and a gale-force wind was gusting off the Atlantic straight up the English Channel. The sea was rougher than it had been for a week, and Captain Fuller, on the bridge of Exeter, was extremely concerned the search would become impossible if sea conditions worsened much more.

  Back in the Staff Office, Lt. Commander Doug Roper, as the duty officer, was dealing with the minute-by-minute reports coming in. But he also could see the looks of real concern on the faces of Roger Martin and Charles Moss. He could hear the captain saying, “Time is of the absolute essence. The quicker we find it, the better our chances of getting any survivors off.”

  Back in the Staff Office, Lt. Commander Doug Roper, as the duty officer, was dealing with the minute-by-minute reports coming in. But he also could see the looks of real concern on the faces of Roger Martin and Charles Moss. He could hear the captain saying, “Time is of the absolute essence. The quicker we find it, the better our chances of getting any survivors off.”

  All four men knew that a major accident seemed certain, but that Bill Colley and his men might still be on board, on the bottom somewhere, their air supply strictly limited, some men possibly injured, waiting to escape when the searchers finally arrived. All submariners realize there’s no point just getting out and floating up into a raging, empty sea, where death is just about inevitable. The trick is to float up into the arms of your rescuers, who will haul you out, administer first aid, and get you into the ship’s hospital, where they can at least treat hypothermia and possibly the “bends” and CO2 poisoning.

  By 2130 two of the frigates were working with active sonars, checking out known wrecks and bottom contacts, to see if a new one had appeared. Captain Moss had ordered two minesweepers into the area because their sonars are particularly well suited to wreck searches. In the next twenty minutes they began scanning the bottom of the English Channel, trying to sift out a new wreck from the thousands of others that had been there since World War II. In Captain Fuller’s destroyer, and in the four frigates, the navigation officers pored over charts detailing almost all of the wrecks on the floor of the Channel. Commander Rob Willmot, in the 4,200-ton Duke-Class Type-23 Portland, thought they had something out on the western edge of the “square.” It was not marked as a known wreck, and, but for the sea conditions, he was ready to send down two divers and a TV camera to have a closer look.

  However, despite an evening full of false hopes, and false alarms, no one had anything firm. At midnight Captain Moss issued the fateful SUBMISS Signal, six hours after Unseen’s Diving Signal expired. There was now in place a full-scale, coordinated, international search, which would continue until the submarine was found. In the hard-edged mind of the Royal Navy, submarines do not just disappear. They might go missing, because they have sunk, or even blown up, or even been blown up. Nonetheless, the submarine, or its wreckage, had to be somewhere.

  The critical issue was, had Unseen left her area of operations? Why on earth should she have left it? Bad navigation? Incorrect tidal calculations? Sheer carelessness? Not very likely. But the specter of the Affray still haunted the Royal Navy submarine operators—because that 1,800-tonner out of Portsmouth on a training exercise, full of men just in from the surface Navy, was finally found on the bottom a long way outside her allocated area, right down by the Hurd Deep, off the Channel Island of Alderney, weeks after any hope of survivors had disappeared.

  Shortly after midnight the next of kin of the four British Sea Riders were informed. A communication was drafted to the Brazilian Navy Headquarters in Rio de Janeiro detailing the men who were on board. The press were informed very quickly, because that way they could be controlled a little more, rather than having them pick something up on the Naval networks and start off by asking, Are You Trying To Keep This A Secret?

  Nonetheless everyone knew the press would do its worst, dragging up every Royal Navy submarine that had ever been lost, starting with Affray, then going back a year to January 1950, when Truculent collided with a merchant ship and sank in the Thames Estuary, then moving back to June 1, 1939, when the Thetis went down off Birkenhead. It was all more than half a century ago, but still it was sufficient for the media, apparently, to conclude that submarines are not much better than iron coffins. At least that’s how the news was presented by the time the headline writers had gone to work. Should Our Bravest Young Men Be Subjected To This Carelessness?

  At 1945 (EDT) the news reached the office of the director of National Security in Fort Meade, Maryland, and Admiral George Morris was very thoughtful. He read the brief details over and looked at a chart on one of the computer screens, tapping a button that drew it in closer, then took in a much larger area. Out of Plymouth, eh? Long time since the Brits lost a submarine. Wonder what happened?

  Ten minutes later he had reached Admiral Morgan at the White House, still in his office, and interested, as ever, in anything to do with submarines.

  “How long’s it been missing, George?”

  “Seven or eight hours since its Surfacing Signal was due.”

  “I don’t mean that. How long since they heard from it?”

  “They got a Check Report in at 0700 their time. ’Bout twelve hours before her Diving Signal expired.”

  “Hmmmm. Where was she?”

  “Twenty miles off Plymouth Sound.”

  “They gotta lot of ships out there searching?”

  “Guess so. They’ve had sonars working the bottom of the ocean for several hours, but no one’s found anything.”

  “Ocean?” replied the old blue-water submariner. “That’s not a goddamned ocean, it’s some kind of a fucking mudflat. The English Channel’s only about 20 feet deep. I bet the fucking periscope’s sticking out of the water! Incompetent Brits. Couldn’t find an elephant in a chicken coop.”

  George Morris laughed politely. “Anyway, they have found literally nothing. No buoys, no signals, no wreckage, no oil slick, no survivors. Damn thing just vanished off the face of the ocean. Sorry, Arnold…off the face of the mudflat.”

  Admiral Morgan chuckled. “They asked us for help yet?”

  “No. At least no one’s told me. But SUBLANT will know.”

  “Okay, George. Keep me posted on it, will you? And if the Brits do get in touch, would you have their Flag Officer give me a call…he’s an old friend just got promoted. Admiral Sir Richard Birley. ’Course when I knew him he was Commander Dick Birley, trying to drive a Polaris boat. We shared a few laughs in London…too long ago. So long, George.”

  Arnold Morgan was late. It was after eight o’clock, the exact time he was due at a small French restaurant in Georgetown for an assignment to which he increasingly looked forward. It was only dinner with his secretary, which might almost have been mundane for a sixty-year-old, twice-divorced admiral. Except this secretary, the thirty-six-year-old divorcée Kathy O’Brien, was possibly the best-looking woman in the entire White House. A long-legged redhead from Chevy Chase, she had worked for the tyrannical Texan since first he had entered the building and almost fired his new chauffeur on opening day.

  For one month she had gazed with awe at his command of the workings of the world’s navies, his knowledge of international events, the intentions of various countries, his total mistrust of foreigners. For another six months she had watched him ride roughshod over men in the highest offices, contemptuous of stupidity, withering in his judgments, cynical in his appraisal of diplomats, especially foreign ones.

  The President himself, a right-wing Republican from Oklahoma, trusted Arnold Morgan implicitly. He actually loved Arnold Morgan. So, fortuitously, did the beautiful Mrs. Kathy O’Brien. And the friendship had grown, hesitantly at first. For it was beyond the comprehension of Arnold Morgan, who had no illusions about his craggy lack of good looks, how any woman could be attracted to him, far less this goddess who worked as his secretary.

  His failed marriages, and the endless criti
cisms of his wives, both of whom had summarily left him, had created a man who believed that all women were a mystery, and whatever it was they wanted or liked, it most definitely was not him. As such, he chose to “get along without ’em,” and it had been so long since any woman had shown the slightest interest in him, he almost died when Kathy O’Brien said one day, “You, sir, eat too many of those damned roast beef sandwiches, and you drink too much coffee. Why don’t you come out to my house tomorrow night, and I’ll cook you a decent dinner?”

  He was so utterly flabbergasted, he had just said lamely, “Okay, what are you going to cook for me?”

  The slender Kathy, sassy to the last, called back “Roast beef,” as she swung out of the door.

  That had all started a year ago, during which time the admiral had discovered that this lady, who had her own money and did not particularly need the job, offered him what he had never had from either wife. She offered him total respect for what he did. In her heart Kathy O’Brien worshiped him, although she was not anxious for that aspect of the relationship to become known.

  But unlike the wives, she had seen him operate first hand…talking to the President as an equal, laying down the law to people of incredible stature on the international stage. She had seen high officers of the CIA tremble before his wrath. She had seen top brass from the Pentagon arriving at the White House just to hear his opinion. She had fielded calls for him from the heart of the Kremlin. Even from Beijing.

  As far as she was concerned, this five-foot-eight-inch, powerfully built military dynamo was the most important man in Washington. He was important not for his family background, and not just for his job. Nor even for the fact that he had been one of the Navy’s best captains of a nuclear submarine. No, in Kathy’s mind, Admiral Arnold Morgan was important for his towering intellect and his towering personality. He was biggest medium-sized man she had ever seen.

  In turn she never minded if he was late…Christ, he’s probably saving the world. She never scolded him when he forgot a gift, or failed to thank her, or was suddenly unable to accompany her to her mother’s house in northern Maryland. Because she knew him. If Arnold could cram those little matters into his crowded life for her, he would do so. If not, he was probably in the Oval Office, or in the Pentagon, or visiting Admiral Morris at Fort Meade. He could be anywhere. How many girlfriends could say that? Not many. And above all, he was most definitely not a womanizer. As his secretary, Kathy really knew that.

  And now as she waited at Le Champignon, nursing a kir royale, she smiled at how she knew he would look when he came in the door—flustered, irritated, preoccupied, worried he had forgotten something, a look like thunder on his face, frightening the maitre d’ to death, telling him to get someone out there to park his car…until he saw her. And then the pent-up fury of Admiral Morgan would evaporate while she watched, and his face would light up, and he would lean over and tell her that he loved her above all else. And she almost wept with joy at the very thought of him.

  He finally arrived at 2025, having fought his way up Pennsylvania Avenue

  in the pouring rain, cut across M Street and into Georgetown along Twenty-ninth Street

  . As she expected, he told Marc, the maitre d’ to get someone to get rid of his car. But he was too late. Marc, like Kathy, was honored to be in the great man’s presence, and he’d had someone out there waiting under the awning ever since Kathy was seated. The admiral always arrived and just jumped out, right outside the door, leaving the car running, with no thought for the two slightly confused Secret Servicemen who followed him everywhere in another vehicle. One of them would drive them both home to Mrs. O’Brien’s house later.

  The admiral greeted her with enthusiasm, since it had been all of three hours since they had seen each other. And he ordered the same drink as Kathy. The admiral was a curious dichotomy, because, for a man who professed to mistrust all foreigners, he had developed the most cosmopolitan taste in food, thanks in part to Kathy, who had lived in Paris with her former husband for almost three years in the 1990s.

  Tonight they chose pâté de foie gras, followed by sole meunière for her, and coq au vin for the admiral. He selected a bottle of 1995 Puligny Montrachet to share with the first course, which Kathy could finish with her fish. And he chose a half bottle of 1996 Château Talbot to go with his chicken. It was an expensive dinner, and they tried to make time for it twice a week.

  Admiral Morgan was financially better off than he had ever been, because his job as national security advisor to the President now carried a salary of almost $200,000, and under a new law he was also entitled to collect most of his admiral’s pension while he served in the White House. The President himself had pushed that law through, because he believed it was absurd that top military people were being lost to government simply because their pensions were suspended while they worked as senior public servants.

  “The pensions have been earned, over years and years of service,” he said. “I expect these outstanding men to be paid entirely separately should they choose to enter another important job in government when their days in the armed services are over.”

  All of this was outstandingly good news for the admiral, because his two former wives had both remarried, his children were grown and earning, and, anyway, his daughter, like the wives, was not actually speaking to him right at the moment. His obligations were minimal.

  Kathy, meanwhile, was noticing that her admiral was not actually speaking to her much at the moment either. He was very much within himself, and munched contentedly.

  “Is there anything the matter?” she asked.

  And he looked up suddenly, “No, no…I’m sorry. I was just thinking about something…kinda bothering me.”

  “What kind of thing? Not me I hope.”

  “No, no. You don’t look anything like an Upholder-Class submarine…entirely the wrong shape…and you’re faster.” He grinned his lopsided grin.

  “What submarine?”

  “Oh, it’s just been announced that the Brits have lost a submarine in the English Channel. It’s on all the news channels, and it’ll be in every newspaper tomorrow. It’s the first time they’ve lost one for a half century. There’s a real fuss going on over there. Right now, as we sit here, half the Royal Navy is trying to find it, but there seems to be no sign.”

  “Oh, how horrible. Do you think it’s on the bottom somewhere, and they’re all still alive? How long have they got before the air runs out?”

  “Not long…forty-eight hours at most…and they were last heard from about twenty hours ago. They’re gonna have to move very quickly to save them.”

  “Look, darling, I know how awful it is and everything. But why is it giving you such concern?”

  “To tell you truth I’m not sure. There’s just something in the back of my mind that’s bothering me. I think it’s because there’s been no sign of any wreckage, no oil, no buoys, nothing. Which means it went down intact. Now there could be a complete electrical failure, I suppose, but the Brits are damned good at this sort of thing, and modern sonars are damned good at sweeping the ocean floor. Chances are she’s got some power, but no one’s heard anything. And her area of operations was not that big. They’ve got God knows how many ships in there. And to me that suggests the submarine is not in its ops area. For some reason it went outside the square.”

  “Well is that so bad?”

  “Only because it’s missing. But if it did go outside the square, there are five clear reasons why it may have done so.”

  “Tell me what they are.”

  “One, they got confused, made a mistake. Two, they got careless, weren’t paying attention. Three, catastrophic mechanical failure. Four, the submarine was hijacked by persons unknown who forced the crew to drive it somewhere. Five, the submarine was stolen, and the crew are all dead.”

  “Jesus. Are you serious?”

  “Kathy, let me tell you something. When we lost the Thomas Jefferson, nearly three years ago, the whole da
rned thing started with a missing submarine. And a Navy that simply did not know where it had gone.”

  “I notice you always get very jumpy when there’s any kind of a problem with a submarine.”

  “That’s because I know what a menace they are in the wrong hands. And I’m not going to be all that relaxed until I know those guys in Plymouth have found it, either in good shape or wrecked. I just hate not knowing.”

  “You haven’t spoken to anyone over there?”

  “No. Not yet. But I was thinking about having a chat with FOSM tomorrow. He’s an old friend.”

  “FOSM?”

  “Sorry. Flag Officer Submarines. Dick Birley. He and I were in London together for a few months. Haven’t spoken to him for a while. But he always sends me a Christmas card.”

  “Do you send him one?”

  “Well, I don’t really do Christmas cards.”

  “Perhaps we should think about rectifying that this year.”

  The admiral smiled. “Yes,” he said. “I think we should. Perhaps it’s nearly time we shared one.”