“It’s WHAT?”
“Destruction, sir. A better word altogether. I agree.”
“You mean bomb it?”
“Sir. Please? Let’s not be crude, like the oil.”
“Well, what are you saying?”
“I’m proposing an insertion of Special Forces, to put that refinery out of action forever.”
“You mean the SEALs?”
“Yessir.”
“Can we get them in? And out again?”
“Sure we can. We can do anything.”
“But surely everyone will know it’s us?”
“Same as we know who mined the gulf. But no one’s saying anything, at least not in a confrontational way. We make no accusations, at least not publicly. They make no admissions. We just do what we do.”
“But surely the goddamned Chinese would go bananas if we blew up their refinery?”
“Nossir. They’d feel like going bananas. But they’d get a very quiet message from us…You guys want to start fucking around with America’s oil supplies? We’ll show you how to REALLY fuck around.”
“Arnold, your brutality occasionally takes my breath away. But I like it. Makes me feel safe in this big chair.”
“My job, sir, is to make every American feel safe, no matter how big or small his or her chair may be.”
“Should I now conclude this strategy meeting?”
“Mr. President, this is not strategy. This is direct action. Clear the strait. Protect the sweepers. And then guard the strait with all the menace we can. By that I mean four CVBGs on station between the area inside the gulf, and our base on Diego Garcia. Any foreign warship moves in that area without our express permission, that warship’s history.”
“Arnold, please go ahead as you think fit.”
“That’s not quite all, sir.”
“It’s not? What else? You planning to conquer Russia or something?”
“No, sir. But I am distressed by China’s plain and obvious Naval expansion. It’s no secret they want a blue-water navy for the first time in more than five hundred years. And it’s no secret they are expanding at a rapid and apparently sustainable rate. In the past few years they’ve created a new submarine fleet. They’ve bought two aircraft carriers, three Russian destroyers and a ton of hardware from the old Soviet missile outfits. They’re reaching out, sir. And we really don’t like it.”
“We don’t?”
“Sir, we are staring a major problem bang in the face. China is on the move. They have cozied up to us for a lot of years. And they’ll go on doing so for as long as it suits them. But when they feel they’re good and ready to challenge us, to dominate the East and to swing the balance of power their way…that’s when you’ll see the real face of China. Trust me.”
“Well, what do you plan to do about that?”
“I plan to stop that global expansion dead in its tracks. I want that damned great Navy of theirs back in the China Seas.”
“But how do we do that without starting a shooting war?”
“Sir, how do we keep our own global presence? How do we keep our own Navy roaming the world’s oceans making sure no one steps out of line? Right here the world enjoys Pax Americana. Just as it once enjoyed Pax Romana. That was peace on the terms of the Romans. Now it’s peace on the terms of the Americans.
“And we do it by ensuring we have a succession of U.S. bases all over the place…in the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, in the Japanese Islands, with our buddies from London in the Atlantic. That’s the only way. A chain of supplies and allies. That’s what China does not have. Yet. Except for one place. Burma.”
“You mean that new base of theirs in the swamps west of Rangoon?”
“That’s the one, sir. The one on the island in the Bassein River. It’s huge. Massive facilities for servicing and refueling warships of all sizes, including submarines. The Chinese once dominated the entire Indian Ocean and my instinct is they want to do so again, because that would give ’em control of the main eastbound oil route through the Malacca Strait. Right now that narrow, shallow freeway, with its goddamned granite bottom, is just too far from China to allow them any influence over its tanker traffic.”
“Well, how do you propose to discourage them from using their new Burmese base?”
Arnold Morgan smiled. “Not too hasty right now, sir. We got bigger problems. But if you’ve got any shares in China’s Naval operation on Haing Gyi Island in the Bassein River…sell.”
4
By the start of the final half hour of the midnight watch, Lt. Commander Headley was already mobile, moving quietly through the 30-year-old, 5,000-ton nuclear boat, a half hour before he was due to take over the control room from Commander Reid.
He had already been down to the main propulsion room where Lt. Commander Paul Flynn was watching a very minor seal leak on the main shaft. Right now the pumps were operating efficiently and dealing with the incoming fine spray with relative ease.
“Damn thing wouldn’t want to get any worse, though,” said the dark-haired engineering officer from south Boston. “Still, the rest of the stuff’s looking good — reactor’s smooth, shaft’s steady. At twenty-nine knots she feels like she’s cruisin’. No problems, sir.”
Dan Headley made his way up to the Navigation Officer’s corner of the ops room. He had only just met young Lt. Shawn Pearson, but he knew he had been rescued with the crew of Seawolf when that massive nuclear attack boat had been lost the previous year in the South China Sea.
“Hi, Shawn,” he said, leaning on the big table and staring down at the chart. “What are we? ’Bout seven hundred nor’nor-west of DG?”
“Accurate, sir. Accurate. I like that in an XO…gives me confidence…. I just sent for coffee. Want some, sir?”
The Lieutenant Commander had immediately liked Shawn Pearson because he was sharp, amusing and never lacked respect for more senior officers. Whatever his part had been in the Seawolf debacle, he had been highly decorated for it — an honor Dan Headley assumed must have been well deserved.
“Good idea, Lieutenant,” he said. “Keep me awake for the next four hours.”
“Right now I have us five degrees north of the equator, on line of longitude six-five-zero-zero. As a matter of fact, we’re running fast beneath about a zillion square miles of absolutely nothing. Maybe five hundred miles west of the Maldives, still way short of the most southerly latitude of the Indian Continent…but we’re gettin’ there, sir.”
“Any ships around?”
“No, sir. Just our immediate escort, the frigate Vandegrift. She’s steaming about three miles off our starboard beam, sir, same course…three-five-two. We’re just about five miles off the carrier’s port bow, and she’s got a destroyer off each beam—Mason to port, Howard to starboard.”
“How about Cheyenne?”
“She’s way off the carrier’s starboard bow, maybe four miles east of us. Same depth.”
Dan Headley sipped his coffee. “Mind if I take this with me?” he asked companionably.
“Not at all, sir. It’ll keep you sharp, while I’m sleeping gently.”
“Well, remember you’ve still got fifteen to go. So long, Lieutenant…don’t get us lost now.”
“Nossir. I am right on top of this.”
And as he wandered toward the control room, Dan Headley thought again of the reality of the situation — this huge jet-black steel tube, forging north through the Indian Ocean, hundreds of feet below the surface, in complete secret, a lethal weapon of war, terminally deadly to any opponent. The esprit de corps in an attack submarine was like no other feeling in any other ship. He felt that he and Shawn Pearson were somehow friends for life, after an acquaintance of just a few hours.