“Joanna, I need your help. Will you please take over as national security advisor?”
“What!?” Lloyd half rose out of his chair. The others, not as senior, stifled their own outbursts, but wore expressions varying from surprised to stunned.
Hardy waved him down. “Interim only, Mr. Secretary. This is not a good time to lose a key member of our national security team. She certainly is qualified for the job.”
Lloyd sat back down, deep in thought. General Schiller and Admiral Hughes conversed in whispers, while DNI Peakes spoke the obvious. “It’s unprecedented, and the potential for conflict of interest…”
“Will no doubt be investigated at great lengths by numerous congressional committees,” Hardy completed. “However, I plead urgent necessity.”
Lloyd nodded, but observed, “You’re already receiving her advice, which has been very good, by the way,” with a nod toward Patterson, “but there’s no need to make it formal.”
DNI Peakes responded. “That’s not true, Mr. Secretary. Unless she’s officially the NSA, she can’t have access to all the intelligence sources that the position of national security advisor allows. The President has been walking a fine line on this, but without a formal NSA, that line becomes blurred. Unless there is someone officially occupying the NSA box in the wiring diagram, information can’t flow, by law.”
“What about Bill’s deputy?” Lloyd asked.
“He’s busy enough already,” Joanna answered, joining the discussion. “My husband is right…”
“I love those words,” Hardy interjected.
Patterson shot Hardy a look. “Sandy Hall’s an excellent deputy, but he will cease to be so if he’s suddenly promoted to the top spot. And we’ll have to find someone to take Sandy’s job. That means we’ll have two critical positions operating at less than full efficiency. If I take the NSA post, he provides continuity.”
Hardy turned to the two military officers. “Do you have any reservations on the appointment, Chairman?”
General Schiller, senior of the two officers, spoke for both of them. “The national security advisor is not in the chain of command. As far as we’re concerned, nothing has changed.”
“True, but is the military willing to work, on an interim basis,” Hardy emphasized, “with an NSA who is also the first lady?”
Schiller nodded sagely. “Absolutely. And woe betide anyone who says otherwise,” he promised.
Hardy smiled. “And by the time we announce Bill’s resignation ‘for health reasons,’ in all likelihood, Overcharge will be public. By the way, when you all write about this in your memoirs, please be kind to Bill. He’s right that this could spiral out of control.”
In response to their surprised looks, Hardy explained. “The Russians are still getting ready. If they’d already started moving, if Fedorin and his generals had committed themselves, I believe the risks of escalation would be much greater. But we have a narrow window that Carter is doing her best to sneak through. Bill couldn’t see the difference between now and what’s to come.”
The president tapped Carter’s report on his desk. “The good news in this message is that the Russians have not finished construction. Sun Tzu said that if you aren’t trying to wipe out an enemy, leave him a line of retreat, and he won’t fight as desperately. Unless they are going to try something in Europe in the next twelve hours, without their nuclear trump card, they’ll be able to pretend it really was an exercise, back out and save face.”
The UCC crew had just started recovering José when Walter reached the part of the mine belt nearest Toledo’s grave. It had taken some careful figuring to find the best combination of depth and distance from the minefield to avoid triggering either the acoustic sensors or the mines. Luckily, the mines were easy to see on Walter’s imaging sonar.
While Jimmy Carter’s crew had mapped much of the minefield during her first visit to the area, they had not plotted the position of every mine. They’d established the extent of the field, its shape, confirmed that it was composed of a single mine type, and then kept as far from the area as circumstance allowed.
Walter actually began its search over a mile short of where they believed there would be a gap. The UUV crept parallel to the barrier at two knots, twenty feet off the seabed, using the long-range mode on its navigation sonar.
José was docked and recharging by the time Walter saw the first mine, but after that it became easier. They had been placed about eleven hundred yards apart. Once the precise location of the first mine was known, Walter’s operators brought him a little farther out, increased the speed, and motored over to where the next one should be. It was exactly where they expected. The next mine was also in its proper place, and the next one. They were now a little over a mile and a half from their starting point, and all they could do was keep looking and hope they didn’t find one.
Carter remained close enough to maintain good communications with Walter, but as far away from the minefield as that allowed. Cavanaugh knew that eventually they’d be getting much closer to the minefield, and hoped he could hide his nervousness.
The fifth mine was in place, but the sixth one was not. After Walter had gone several hundred yards past where the next mine should have been, Ford ordered the operator to circle the remote back and switch to high-res mode.
They were so close that as soon as Walter had finished his turn, they saw it. A long tube lay on the seabed. One end was connected by a cable to a large round disc close by — the anchor. “Tallyho,” Jerry cried. “Finally!”
The empty canister that had held the torpedo had flooded with seawater and was no longer buoyant. In high-res mode, the sonar image was so clear they could see the open end of the cylinder. Jerry knew that everyone in the control room could see the image on their own displays, but he hit the intercom switch and reported, “Control, UCC, we just found the center of our path through the minefield. We will begin looking for the acoustic sensors.”
That took longer. Under Ford’s direction, Petty Officer Frederick had Walter look straight toward the mine barrier at dead slow, with the imaging sonar reset to its longest range. Cavanaugh stared at the screen along with the rest, watching for something that would look like a squat oil drum. Each time Walter approached one hundred yards from the line without seeing anything, Ford backed the UUV out and then moved it along the barrier to a new spot.
It was boring to watch, but nobody complained. Control could see what was being done, and did not hurry them. Cavanaugh knew that Jimmy Carter’s sonar watch was keeping an ear tuned for the sound of a Lamb Tail sonar, or any other kind, for that matter. He tried to calculate if they could avoid being found again, and wondered what Mitchell and Weiss would do if that happened.
It took over an hour of careful probing to find one of the Sever nodes on the seabed. Its location was not helpful. “I should have guessed,” said Ford, frustrated.
“I made the same assumption,” Jerry admitted. “At least we know where the one on this side of gap is located. We’ll just have to look a little longer.”
Forty-five minutes later, they’d found the second acoustic sensor and entered everything on the geoplot. While the UCC team prepared to recover Walter, Jerry, Ford, and Cavanaugh joined Weiss in control and tried to decide what could be done.