Torpedo!

CHAPTER 18

Admiral Benson and Bob Wilson left the Director’s office on the top floor of the seven-story CIA headquarters building and walked into a private elevator and descended to the basement of the building. A driver stood waiting beside a long, black Cadillac with heavily tinted bulletproof windows. The two men got into the back seat of the car and locked the doors and the car eased out of the quarter-mile long tunnel that extended out of the back of the building. The driver made his way along a narrow roadway that wound through a thick stand of trees. A guard at the high, electrified fence opened a gate and waved the car through. As the car drove down the road toward Langley it passed a faded sign that read “Research Station, U.S. Government,” a pseudonym known to every intelligence agency in the world as the headquarters of the CIA. The car picked up speed and reached the Roosevelt Bridge and crossed the Potomac River, leaving Virginia behind.

Admiral Benson read through the report that Wilson had written, passing each page to Wilson as he finished reading. Wilson took the last page of the report and put it away in his attaché case.

“Things are getting to the critical stage,” he said to Admiral Benson. “That memo from Admiral Brannon about one of his attack submarines bumping, is that what he called it, bumping? Running into the Russian ballistic missile submarine. That’s pretty risky, isn’t it? You make the tiniest mistake and you both go down. Hell of a way to let the other side know you aren’t fooling around.”

“I think Admiral Brannon may be going a little bit too far,” Benson said. “We’ve lost one submarine and we’ve sunk one of theirs in return and it’s being kept a pretty damned good secret. If we lose another submarine because of some tactic like this, keeping it a secret will be damned near impossible.”

“I don’t think the secret is being that well kept,” Wilson said. He reached in his coat pocket for a cigarette and lit it. “You hear the latest? Captain Steel is making his move. And to do that he has to tell some other people about what’s been going on.”

“No, I didn’t hear about that,” Benson said.

“Steel has a buddy in the House,” Wilson said. “Representative Wendell, the Chairman of the Housed Armed Services Committee. I got a tip yesterday that one of Wendell’s bird dogs — he’s got some damned tough investigative people on his personal staff. One of his bird dogs went to the FBI yesterday and asked to see J. Edgar’s private files on Vice Admiral Brannon.

“The guy who tipped me said there is no file on Admiral Brannon in J. Edgar’s safe. So Captain Steel is moving in another direction. Wendell wants the contract for building a new nuclear carrier to go to a shipyard in his district. Captain Steel can help a lot. So Wendell is going to lean on Admiral McCarty of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to force Admiral Brannon to retire. Now, or damned soon, before Brannon reaches the mandatory retirement age.”

“That’s dirty pool,” Admiral Benson said.

“Yeah, but it’s the way they play hard ball in this town,” Wilson said. “They made a mistake in leaving their tracks in the FBI. We’ve got good sources there. I could have told them they wouldn’t find anything kinky about Brannon.”

“How would you know?”

“I like to know what kind of people I’m dealing with,” Wilson said. “I ran a check on Brannon early on. He’s as clean as a whistle. Got a good marriage to a good woman and he doesn’t play around. Good Irish Catholic type. He’s got one daughter. She’s clean. Married to a Navy officer who’s on a submarine out in Pearl Harbor. The daughter’s out there with her husband. But this new angle, the Joint Chiefs of Staff thing, this Admiral McCarty could force Brannon to retire?”

“I would think so,” Admiral Benson said. “The Joint Chiefs of Staff are pretty powerful in the military. All Admiral McCarty would have to do is to tell Admiral Brannon that he had a younger man he wanted in Brannon’s duty station and tell him his retirement was required for the good of the Service. Brannon must be about sixty-three years old. He’d have a hard time fighting something like that.”

A carafe of hot coffee and a platter of doughnuts were on the coffee table in front of the larger sofa in Admiral Brannon’s office when Benson and Wilson walked into the office. Rear Admiral John Olsen turned from the window and smiled a greeting and the four men sat down around the coffee table and filled their cups.

“The reason I asked for this meeting,” Admiral Benson began, “is because Bob has some new information from his contact in Israeli intelligence that you should know about.” He turned to Wilson.

“The Navy has listening devices on the ocean bottom so that if any of the Russian submarines go into the Atlantic or Pacific you people know about it?” Wilson looked at Mike Brannon, who nodded assent.

“You’ve also mined the areas just outside of the listening devices, that right?”

“Yes,” John Olsen said. “It’s called a passive mine defense. It has to be activated before the mines will work.”

“The mines are torpedoes, that right?”

“Modified torpedoes,” Olsen said. “But that’s not supposed to be talked about, Bob. It’s classified as highly confidential information.”

“Israeli intelligence knows about it,” Wilson said. “And they’ve told the KGB about those modified torpedoes and how they work.” There was a silence in the office.

“What are you trying to tell me?” Brannon snapped. “That the Israeli intelligence is on the side of the Soviet Union?”

“What I’m saying is that the KGB is on our side, your side, in this mess,” Wilson said. “The KGB doesn’t want a nuclear war. They don’t want any upset in international relations at all. It screws up their operations. The Mossad knows this and they don’t want a nuclear war either. If that comes they go down the drain because the Third World nations would survive a nuclear war and they’d be on the side of the Arabs and that would be the end of the Jews.” He watched as John Olsen selected a cruller crusted with dark chocolate frosting from the platter on the coffee table.

“I’ve been on the other side of the KGB ever since I’ve been in the Company,” Wilson said slowly. “When you’ve been at it as long as I have you begin to develop a sense of what the other side is doing. My contact in the Mossad has damned good penetration in the Soviet Union, way better than any other intelligence service. He tells me everything he can, that is, everything he can tell me as long as it’s in his best national interest. The Mossad people are professionals.

“The KGB are professionals. Like us, they’ve got more than one intelligence service and like us those intelligence services are more often than not fighting each other.

“In the Soviet Union there are two big intelligence services, the KGB and the GRU. The GRU is Army intelligence. They don’t get along with the KGB. The GRU and the military think that the United States can be pushed and pushed and that we won’t hit back. That’s why they tested that new torpedo and sank the Sharkfin. They didn’t give a real damn about the torpedo, that was just an excuse. What the GRU was trying to prove was that it was right and the KGB was wrong, that Uncle Sam doesn’t have any teeth anymore.” He took a long drink from his cup of cooling coffee.

“If the GRU had been right the next move would have been something a hell of a lot more serious than sinking one of our submarines.”

“Such as?” Olsen prompted.

“I don’t know, not exactly, sir,” Wilson answered. “Maybe they’d try a move into the Middle East. The Soviet Army rearmed Israel, you know, after the Forty-seven War. They played their cards wrong after they gave Israel all new weapons and we moved in and played the right cards and froze them out of Israel.

“But the rest of the Middle East is wide open to Soviet expansion. Iraq, Syria, North and South Yemen, even the Emirates down in the south end of the Gulf are all targets for the Russians. About the only strong power base we have in the Middle East right now is Israel and Iran. And I’m not too sure of Iran. I was on the team that helped put that bastard of a Shah back on his Peacock Throne and he’s turned into a real son of a bitch. The bastard kills more of his people each year with torture and that sort of thing than any nation in the world. One of these days they’re going to throw his ass out of there in a revolution and when that comes Iran will be up for grabs. The Soviets know this and if they have a power base in the Middle East before that happens then they can move in.” He paused and shrugged his powerful shoulders.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to give a lecture. Let me get back to business.

“The GRU and the KGB are at each other’s throats most of the time. The GRU has won this round. They put enough pressure on in the Politburo through the hardliners they own there to force Brezhnev to not vote when the motion came before the Politburo to test the torpedo. The Mossad guy tells me that if Brezhnev had voted it would have been a tie vote and the motion would have been tabled. He didn’t feel he had the power, I guess, to force the issue to a tie so he didn’t vote. The GRU won the poker hand and you, we, lost the Sharkfin.

“Your response,” Wilson looked directly at Vice Admiral Brannon, “that changed things. The KGB is working on the Politburo members who voted against the test of the torpedo. We don’t know how that will end up, the Mossad doesn’t know. So the Mossad fed the KGB the information about the passive mines to give them an ace in the hole, a card they could play if push comes to shove.” He reached for the carafe and refilled his cup.

“The reading I get from the Mossad is that it’s touch and go in the Politburo right now. There’s a showdown coming. The guy the Mossad is worried about is a Soviet admiral named Zurahv. He’s the front man for the hardliners and the GRU and he’s got a lot of power.”

“I know the name,” Brannon said. He went to his desk and opened a drawer and pulled out a file. He came back to his chair and sat down and riffled through the papers in the file folder.

“Yes, here he is. His father was a captain in the Soviet Navy. His ship went down and the father drowned in 1905, in the Battle of Tshushima Straits.” He looked up at the other men.

“That was in the war between Japan and Russia, the old Russia. The Russian Navy thought they could whip the Japanese but the Japs smashed the Russian battle fleet to bits. That ended Russia as a major sea power and they are just now beginning to make a move toward becoming a world sea power again. My file on Admiral Zurahv says that he didn’t see much action in World War II but that’s understandable, the Soviet Navy didn’t have much opportunity to do anything. Since then, since World War II, Admiral Zurahv has made a big name for himself in building up the Soviet Navy and the file says he’s accumulated a lot of political power. That reinforces what you’ve just said, Bob.”

“Which leaves us where?” John Olsen asked.

“Where we are now,” Brannon said. “As I mentioned in my memo, Admiral Benson, we’re dogging every Soviet ballistic missile submarine that’s now out in the open sea. We’ve got two or more attack submarines on each Soviet submarine. The skippers of our attack subs have let the Soviet sub skippers know they’re being dogged. They’ll report that to their commands.” He stopped and closed the file folder he was holding.

“We’ve intercepted some traffic from the Soviet submarines, they’re hollering for instructions on what to do, telling their bosses that we’re riding herd on them.” A grin came and went on his heavy face. “I’ll have a copy made of the message that skipper sent after he got bumped by the Orca. He’s asking for orders to be sent back home. He’s got some minor damage to his hull up forward and he’s scared out of his wits. At last report he was on the surface and waiting to be told what to do.”

“It sounds pretty good but you’re playing a hell of a dangerous game, Mike,” Admiral Benson said. “Bob told me this morning on the way over that Captain Steel is playing dirty. Sooner or later you’re going to have to go to the President with this whole business, you know that.”

“I know about Captain Steel,” Mike Brannon said. “And I know about Wendell and about Admiral McCarty. We haven’t fired all our tubes yet, we’ve got some torpedoes they don’t know we’ve got.” He stood up and the others rose.

“I want to thank you, gentlemen, for coming over, for the information, Bob. It helps.”

Admiral Benson brushed a doughnut crumb from his immaculate jacket. He looked at Mike Brannon, his face serious.

“I liked it better when I was at sea, Mike, didn’t you?”

“I don’t know,” Mike Brannon said. “It’s like being in World War II again, sort of.”

“Except that you aren’t sure who the enemy is,” Admiral Benson said.