“That is correct, Admiral,” replied the CNO. “But there’s not a snowball’s chance in Hell of his agreeing to that. I can nearly guarantee we’ll find a man bent on revenge, determined to punish the men who overthrew him in his own ship.”
“Yes. I am afraid you are right,” replied Admiral Morgan. “But we have to try. Because in the end, if Commander Reid wants that XO court-martialed, the Navy will have absolutely no option but to court-martial him.”
“And at that moment, we will be holding the flimsiest of redoubts against a massively hostile press and public. And I, for one, am not looking forward to it,” said Admiral Dixon.
“Do you think we could try the national security tack, the highly classified nature of the entire mission?”
“That’s probably our best shot, sir,” replied Admiral Dixon. “And certainly the one we should try first — and of course we do have the argument that events proved Lt. Commander Headley correct. He achieved his objectives.”
“It’s a powerful, but not necessarily winning, argument,” said Admiral Morgan, thoughtfully. “Though an old friend of mine, Iain MacLean — he’s an ex-Royal Navy flag officer, submarines — once told me it was the best way to convince everyone of the merits of the case.”
“They’d never had a tougher one than this, though?” asked Admiral Curran.
“Tougher,” replied the National Security Adviser. “They went to war over such a quandary.”
“They did?”
“Sure they did. The Falklands War. Iain MacLean was there.”
“I don’t quite follow, sir.”
“Well, when the Argentinians invaded in the spring of 1982, they put a force of about fifteen thousand on the islands. And that put the old Brits in a bit of a spot. They had this group of goddamned rocks, containing about eighteen hundred of their citizens, in the middle of the South Atlantic, eight thousand miles from home. They’d sold their carriers, there was no air cover for any assault force to land, the Falklands were now fortified by a well-equipped army, protected by a land-based air force.
“Unsurprisingly, the military advice was absolutely negative. The Royal Air Force said forget it, the Army said no air cover, no go. The United States wrote the whole thing off as impossible. In fact everyone said it was impossible for the Brits to travel that far and win the islands back.
“Except for one man, and he happened to be the First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Henry Leach, another old friend of mine. He said it could be done. He knew the carriers were sold, but not yet gone, and he convinced Margaret Thatcher the Navy could do it.
“As most of you know, it was a goddamned shaky exercise. The Brits lost seven warships, more than two hundred fifty men, and they fought like fucking tigers to pull it off. But they damn near lost it, and if they had lost it, one man would have taken the blame for probably Britain’s most humiliating defeat: Henry Leach.
“However, they did not lose it. They won it, thanks almost exclusively to Admiral Sandy Woodward and the parachute regiment. Without them, they would have lost it. Trust me. And the notion of taking an unforgivable risk, which you could say Henry Leach did, is never mentioned. Why? Because he was proved RIGHT.”
“Guess we could do with a few more like him around here,” said Admiral Greening. “Guys with the courage of their convictions, guys prepared to operate with no thoughts whatsoever for their own self-interest.”
“Guys like Dan Headley,” said Arnold Morgan, softly.
Admiral John Bergstrom paced the inner sanctum of the offices of SPECWARCOM. Before him sat the silent figures of the professional heads of America’s Pacific Strike Force, Admirals Freddie Curran and Dick Greening.
“You realize that my ultimate successor in this chair, Commander Rick Hunter, is quite prepared to put his entire career on the line and resign his commission over this, do you not?”
“Of course we do, John,” replied Dick Greening. “I am just trying to ask you if you feel just as strongly. Will you also resign if Dan Headley is court-martialed and found guilty?”
“Right now it is not necessary for the United States Navy to know whether I will resign. However, you should bear in mind that I have not yet decided not to.”
“John, I know how bad you all feel about this,” said Admiral Greening. “But I am afraid you have to inform the appropriate authorities if you intend to announce your retirement, if the Navy board recommends the court-martial of Lieutenant Commander Headley.”
“Listen, you guys,” said Admiral Bergstrom, slipping into the easy informality this particular High Command had always enjoyed. “We’ve all known each other for a lot of years, and I think we all know the pros and cons of this case.
“But I am here to tell you I have never known such intense feelings of betrayal by the SEALs. It is common knowledge that this nutcase captain of yours refused to help the guys coming out of Iran. Indeed, he left one of my men to die. And he would have left all my men to die coming out of the Bassein Delta. You guys somehow appointed a fucking psychopath to take my SEALs in and out of an area of operations. Twice. And there’s no way we’re gonna sit still for that.
“Anyway, my position here would be untenable if you decided to jail Lieutenant Commander Headley for making a mutiny. I’d never be taken seriously again. Not by the Special Forces. I would have to resign, because I’d be a standing joke — the SEAL chief who sent the guys in, put ’em in the hands of a rule-book shit, who everyone knew was fucking crazy. Do you have any idea what that would do to the morale of this place?
“Guys, somehow you have to stop this bullshit; you have to award Dan Headley a high decoration, and somehow get this fuckwit Reid the hell out of the United States Navy. Quietly, if possible.”
Admiral Greening nodded in agreement. “If it were that damned simple, we wouldn’t be sitting in this room, John,” he said. “But it isn’t. These things develop a life of their own. We have, right here, a ten-year veteran of a nuclear submarine command who was arrested on the high seas by his own XO and fellow officers, relieved of command of his own ship, locked up and told to shut up, while his orders were flagrantly contravened. Those actions plainly give the right to be heard, at least. The right to request a full Naval Board of Inquiry. The right to defend himself in front of his peers.”
“Okay, okay, I get it,” replied the SEAL boss. “But let me ask one question: In this specific case, who was right, Headley or Reid? And I mean both morally and in terms of war-fighting expertise? And even gallantry, concern for others? Headley or Reid?”
“Headley. Plainly. Headley was right,” replied Admiral Greening. “But I’m afraid that’s irrelevant. Being right gets you off the hook, as long as no one cares to push the case. But here we have an antagonist, who has been wronged in his own eyes and does not give a flying fuck whether Headley was right or not.
“We have a CO, who is brandishing the goddamned official book of rules, and saying loudly, I’m the injured party, and it says so, right here between these sacred covers…. Well, Admiral Bergstrom, right here we got a problem. A real, live problem. And we gotta deal with it. And if you don’t like it, Johnny, baby, I’m afraid that’s show business.”
Admiral Bergstrom chuckled. “You want me to get a couple of guys to take him out, nice and quiet?”
It was of course only a joke, a black, macabre joke. But the sheer simplicity of the solution was not lost on the two visiting Admirals, and neither of them laughed.