Chapter 6
Monahan and Andrews got back from Washington at three o’clock on Sunday afternoon and went their separate ways, Andrews’s driver dropping Monahan off on Mitcher Avenue, near the headquarters building. Monahan was halfway amazed that the day spent with the intelligence chief had gone so smoothly. So far, apparently, Monahan had not issued silly orders, stepped on the wrong toes, or otherwise gotten in the way of Rear Admiral Matthew Andrews and his concise view of naval life and command.
Monahan went directly to Operations.
The Operations Center of the Commander-in-Chief, Atlantic Fleet was a well-disciplined beehive. Behind the scenes, a few thousand people all around the world and a large number of electronic surveillance mechanisms fed data to the computers at CINCLANTFLT. Routine reports from warships, task forces, and fleets were entered into the database. CIA, Defense Intelligence, and Navy agents in foreign ports, satellites, reconnaissance aircraft, and hydrophones resting on the sea bottom provided their information about the movement of both hostile and friendly sea vessels.
Most of the activity — telex, data, and voice communications, data entry, analysis — took place in another room. In the Operations Center, the focal point was the massive electronic plotting screen mounted on one wall. Currently on the screen was a map of the normal operations area of the Second Fleet. All of the Atlantic Ocean area was displayed, as well as the Caribbean. Land masses — the eastern coasts of North America and South America and the western coasts of Europe and Africa — were shaded in gray. A hodge-podge of symbols defined ship types at sea, each colored to represent its nationality. The predominating color was blue, for American ships. Dotted blue rectangles outlined the operating sectors of ballistic missile submarines. Nobody knew exactly where they were, which was the idea.
Soviet naval vessels were shown in red. The assumed location of Soviet submarines was projected by dotted lines from their last point of contact by a U.S. ship, an ASW helicopter strewing sonobuoys, or with SOSUS — the Sound Surveillance system composed of listening devices sited at “choke points,” narrow passages above the sea bed.
COMSUBLANT, the commander of the submarine fleet, had responsibility for all subsurface vessels. The rest belonged to Admiral Bingham Clay, and he took his responsibility seriously.
Captain Aubrey Nelson was the watch officer when Monahan entered the center. He waved Monahan to a chair beside him at the long table in the center of the room.
“Well, Jim?”
Monahan sagged into the chair. His sleep was coming in two-hour chunks lately. “Nothing, Aubrey. Personally, I think Malgard is behind the leak to The Post, though I don’t think we’d ever prove it. I don’t think he’s involved in the theft.”
“Intuition working for you?”
“Basically, yes. Plus, from what NI can find of Advanced Marine’s financial records they look to be right on the edge of solvency. They’re borrowed to the hilt, using the XMC-22 contract as collateral. My gut tells me he leaked the data, trying to pressure Ship R&D into completing the tests and approving the construction phase.”
“So we’re back to the Warriors of Allah?”
“If Hakkar hadn’t jumped ship to another group before he met Allah.” Monahan retrieved a sheet of paper from the inside pocket of his uniform blouse. “This is the listing I got from CIA.”
Andrews took it and scanned it quickly.
“Jesus! Forty-three of them?”
“That’s only the ones they know about, Jim. I doubt they all participated in the operation.”
“Ibrahim Badr. He’s the leader?”
“Palestinian, and apparently a pretty fair commander. Langley thinks he’s had training from the Libyans and maybe even the Soviets, in addition to on-the-job training with a couple of far-out groups. On actual and suspected terrorist operations, he’s credited with almost four hundred deaths. The profile suggests he’s a fanatic, but that he doesn’t let it get in the way of his thinking.”
Nelson shook his head and looked up at the plotting board. “And we’ve got him out there, somewhere.”
“What all have you got involved in Safari?” Monahan asked. The search for the Sea Spectres had been given the code name Operation Safari.
“Mr. Dean,” Nelson called to an ensign sitting at a console at the side of the room, “give me Safari.”
All of the odd-colored symbols blinked out, leaving the blue. They ranged from the Artic to the Antarctic, from Norfolk to the Mediterranean.
“Everything we’ve got is looking for those boats,” Nelson said. “Mr. Dean, Safari Bravo.”
Most of the symbols disappeared from the screen. The chief groups were located in four task forces off the coast.
“That’s the primary hunt group,” Nelson said. “Prebble and Mitscher are the two destroyers directly east of us.”
“Isn’t Prebble the destroyer with the anti-stealth gear?”
“Right. We’re trying to keep her centrally located. Northwest of them is a six-ship task force headed by the frigate Knox. Down near the Bahamas is a task force under command of the Oliver H. Perry. The carrier America and her Task Force 22 has been recalled from the Caribbean. That’s it, coming through the Straits of Florida.”
“You’re not showing Coast Guard vessels?”
“Not on the screen. They’re Safari Alpha, and right now, we’ve got them canvassing the ports.”
“You don’t think the Sea Spectres have left the area,” Monahan said.
Nelson grimaced. “Hell, Jim, I don’t know. Admiral Clay and I have gone over this a dozen times. By now, those boats could be entering the Med. But to answer your question, I don’t think so, not yet.”
“Why?”
“With two boats travelling together, one or the other should have been seen by someone’s naked eye by now. Clay thinks they might have been loaded aboard some transport to hide them, and I tend to agree with him.”
“And the transports are slower.”
“Right. Mr. Dean, let me see Safari Target Two.”
The screen blinked, and several dozen small rectangles appeared, each of them shown in orange. They were spread up and down the Atlantic, some of them halfway across it. Many were clustered near the West Indies.
“Target One are the boats themselves, Jim. Target Two are suspicious vessels, primarily of Third World registry, with the capability of transporting one or both Sea Spectres. Freighters, tankers, container ships. We can’t exactly board these ships on the high seas, so we’re tracking them with choppers and other aircraft from the task forces, with subs and with land-based AWACS aircraft. As they make port, we’ll be able to begin eliminating them.”
“The ships you’re showing are all outbound.”
“Right,” Nelson said. “The premise was based on finding vessels that could have had a sea rendezvous with the stealth boats, then headed for somewhere else.”
“What about inbound ships?”
“What for?”
“Something Aaron Stein mentioned is sticking with me,” Monahan said. “The Persian Gulf is not the only place terrorists could operate those boats. We’ve got a lot of shoreline and shipping right here. Why pollute the Gulf when you can sink a supertanker off Houston or in New York harbor?”
Nelson looked stricken. “Goddamn. You don’t mean it?”
“I’d hate to overlook the possibility, Aubrey. Hell, who’s to say one of those ships out there didn’t pick up the boats, steam out a ways, then turn around before we got our search grid set up?”