"What are you talking about, Captain? The Cold War was over when the Berlin Wall came down."
"I didn't mean that, sir," Garrett replied. "I meant about not needing these beasts or the money being better used elsewhere. The Virginia is going to pull her own weight, believe me."
"Oh, really? And I say it's about time we found that peace dividend everyone's been talking about for the past sixteen years! Submarines are damned expensive toys, Captain, and they're toys we can now do without."
Garrett had heard the sentiment before, had argued against it more than once.
"Congressman, the peace dividend wasn't leftover money in the national budget. It was forty-some years of peace."
"Indeed?" Blakeslee snorted. "Our veterans of Vietnam, Korea, and the Gulf Wars would be most interested in that sentiment."
The man, Garrett decided, was definitely testing him, pushing him to get a reaction. No man could be that obtuse, even if he was a politician.
"Peace between us and the other superpowers, Congressman. Somehow we made it through the fifties, the sixties, the seventies, the eighties… and not once did either side in the Cold War fire a nuclear missile. Not once was an American — or Russian — city incinerated. We fought wars, yes, sir — Korea, Vietnam — but we were never in a shooting war with the Russians or the Chinese. And part of the reason, a damned big part of the reason, I'll add, was the technology we put into military programs, including submarines. Technology is expensive, but the payoff was that we managed to balance things in such a way that we didn't turn our planet into a radioactive desert."
"Obviously we stand on different sides of the issue," Blakeslee said. "There are different ways of looking at history, you know. Different interpretations. But… even granting that you're right, my point is that we don't need attack submarines like this one any longer. The Navy can and should make do with the Los Angeles-class subs, gradually phasing them out as they reach the end of their operational service. We should never have built even one Seawolf … and certainly not the Virginia."
"Sir, did you ever hear the expression penny-wise, pound-foolish?"
The corners of Blakeslee's mouth twitched, and Garrett couldn't tell if it was a frown or a suppressed smile. "Don't overstep yourself, Commander. You do not want me as an enemy, believe me."
"The last time I checked, Congressman, you and I were on the same side. We both care for the peace and security of this country. And for the health of the armed forces."
"You're right, Commander, of course." He sighed. "Forgive me. Perhaps it was I who overstepped the bounds of propriety. But the tangle of budget and military appropriations is something of a Gordian knot… a very frustrating one. If there's a sword with which to cut the puppy, I have not yet been able to find it." He stopped suddenly and pointed. "What the hell is that?"
"The command center module," Garrett said, following Blakeslee's gaze. Amid a flurry of activity on the scaffolding, something like a huge, squat tin can was being lowered into place within the pressure hull. "Most of Virginia's compartments are being assembled separately, each in one piece. Then we lower them in — or 'snap them on,' as we say — to cushioned mounting points on board. The system is called MIDS, for 'modular isolated deck structures.' With each compartment riding its own set of cushioned mounts, it helps make for a very quiet boat."
"A very expensive boat, Captain. Who's going to hear you out there? The Iranians? The Lithuanians?"
"The Chinese are a possibility, sir. And a very real threat."
Blakeslee snorted again. That snort, Garrett decided, was a standard-issue part of Blakeslee's debating armamentarium.
"Your part in the Taiwan incident two years ago has not been forgotten," Blakeslee said. "If anything, I should think you, of all people, would understand that the Chinese are no longer a credible naval threat."
"Who suggested that, Congressman? Beijing has no interest in becoming a global naval power, but with eight thousand and some miles of convoluted coastline, they're very interested in becoming the regional power to be reckoned with. They remember the Battle of the Taiwan Strait as well as we do, sir, and they have a long memory."
In May of 2003, Garrett had been in command of the SSN Seawolf, the first-in-her-class demo model of a whole range of new submarine technologies. Tensions had heated sharply, as they did, periodically, over the island of Taiwan and its independence — as the Republic of China — from the Communist mainland, the People's Republic of China. An attempt by the People's Republic to cow Taiwan into accepting Beijing's rule had escalated. Taiwan had been bombarded — not for the first time — by missiles fired from the mainland, and the PRC's fleet of submarines had moved to block the Formosa Strait.
The naval action that followed between the People's
Republic forces and the U.S. Seventh Fleet had ended with the sinking of all but three of Beijing's attack submarines, including a deadly, nuclear-powered, Russian-built Akula and the sinking of a Luda-class destroyer. Referred to now as the Battle of the Taiwan Strait, the conflict had been played down by both Washington and Beijing. The PRC had its own reasons for minimizing its loss of face over the undeclared miniwar, and Washington, still involved in both Afghanistan and the Gulf, hadn't wanted to encourage the idea either at home or abroad that America was a bully, picking on rogue regimes around the world.
Garrett had often thought that he would have done it differently; letting the whole world know that the United States had stopped the Chinese threat with a single carrier battlegroup and the USS Seawolf ought to make hostile governments from Havana to Tripoli to Pyongyang think twice about testing American resolve or capabilities.
But Garrett was a sub driver, not a maker of foreign or military policy. His opinion didn't count, nor was it permitted a public airing.
"China is no threat to us," Blakeslee told him, "or to our interests abroad. They learned their lesson two years ago, and it's in our best interests to treat them as a prospective ally and business partner. Sinking someone else's submarines is not recommended if you wish to do business with them."
Garrett thought it politic not to point out that the PRC had fired first with its bombardment of an American ally or to mention that the U.S. had lost a ship of its own in that conflict, the USS Jarrett.
"Governments change, Congressman. Foreign policies change. In my experience, it's best to be ready."
"I quite agree, Commander. But this boondoggle's contribution to American readiness is completely unproven, even speculative. It's simply the Navy's way of getting around the fact that Congress curtailed the Seawolf program. Not on my watch, sir!"
Garrett's jaw and fists clenched as he bit off a reply. Damn it, what did Blakeslee want with him, anyway? Admiral Logan had ordered him to accompany Blakeslee on his tour of the Electric Boat yards — a simple enough request, given that various Washington bureaucrats frequently came up here for tours of one sort or another, and someone needed to guide them around. Garrett was beginning to wonder what he'd done to warrant a punishment detail.
Blakeslee was right in one way, of course. The Virginia was an ongoing set of compromises in a long and ugly war over the Navy's dwindling budget.
The Navy's planners had foreseen the need for a fleet of 80 attack submarines, beginning with 39 original Los Angeles-class subs and 23 improved L.A. boats. These 62 SSNs had a planned operational life of thirty-three years; the lead boat, the Los Angeles, had been launched in 1974, and unless her service life was extended, she would be pulled from the fleet in another two years. Eleven of the older, "straight" L.A. boats had been decommissioned in the nineties for various reasons. One more, the Memphis, had been turned into a research platform, bringing the total down to fifty.