Torpedo!

CHAPTER 20

Admiral Brannon and Moise Goldman walked down the hall in the White House to the door of the Oval Office. The Marine sentry on duty outside the door came to attention and snapped off a salute to Admiral Brannon.

“Is the President here yet?” Goldman asked the Marine. “Inside sir. Not alone.”

“Oh?” Goldman said. “Who’s with him?”

“Captain Steel and Representative Wendell, sir. They got here about fifteen minutes ago. Admiral Benson and his aide are also inside.”

“Thank you,” Goldman said. He touched Mike Brannon’s arm and the two men walked a few yards down the hall.

“We’ve been euchred, Admiral. I might not be able to do any preliminary talking. Play it by ear, sir. Don’t say anything you don’t have to say.” He turned and went back up the hall and the sentry knocked softly on the door and opened it.

The lights were on in the Oval Office to offset the gloom of the winter day outside. Inside the historic room three men were seated at an oblong table. John Milligan, the President of the United States, a big man whose sloping shoulders and barrel chest were the despair of tailors who tried to fit his suits, sat at the head of the table. At his left hand was Representative Walter W. Wendell and next to him Captain Herman Steel. The President smiled at Goldman and motioned to him to sit in the chair at his right. Mike Brannon took the chair next to Goldman, directly across the table from Captain Steel. Near the end of the table Admiral Benson and Bob Wilson were standing, closing their attaché cases.

“Thank you for the excellent briefing, Admiral Benson, Mr. Wilson,” the President said. “Please keep me informed.” He waited until the sentry had closed the door after Benson and Wilson left the room and turned to Mike Brannon.

“Are all admirals insane?” the President asked, looking at Mike Brannon. “This Russian admiral, Zurahv, who Wilson said is leading the hardliners in the Politburo, he must be insane to even think about starting a war.” He put his hands on the table and Mike Brannon noticed that the hands, despite the expert care of a manicurist, showed the signs of the President’s childhood and early manhood on a Kansas farm.

“You might be a little insane yourself, Admiral,” the President said softly. “Just a little bit. Captain Steel says you are completely mad but I don’t think that’s true.” The somber eyes beneath the thick graying eyebrows fixed on Mike Brannon.

“Why didn’t you notify me at once when you knew we had lost a submarine? Why didn’t you notify me as soon as you had determined that our submarine had been sunk by the Russians? I’m the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of this country, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“I haven’t forgotten, sir,” Brannon answered.

“Then why didn’t you inform me at once?” He locked his two hands together on the table. “Let me say this to you, Admiral. I told these other gentlemen and the two who left that I wanted the truth, the damned bone truth to be spoken in this meeting and what’s said in this office doesn’t go out of this office and no matter what you say I won’t use it against you.”

“Very well, sir,” Brannon answered. “I’ll level with you. I figured that if we didn’t do something in retaliation for the sinking of the Sharkfin and do it damned fast the Russians might do something even worse than sinking one of our submarines.

“I reasoned that if I came to you that your hands would be tied, so far as taking any retaliatory action. You’d have to notify congressional committees and the National Security Council and by the time all the arguing and speech-making was over the story would be in the newspapers and on television and then you wouldn’t be able to do a thing.” His dark blue eyes stared at the President.

“I issued the orders to destroy the Russian submarine that had sunk the Sharkfin because I am convinced that swift and terrible retaliation is the only language that the Russians understand. I was sure in my own mind that it was the only way to prevent a nuclear war, sir.”

“It’s a reasonable rationale, Admiral, but you’d better explain why you believe that the Soviet Union was or is ready to attack us.”

Admiral Brannon looked across the table at Captain Steel and then turned to look at the President.

“I do not cry wolf, sir,” he began. “My military record will bear that out. But there is a school of thought about how a nuclear war could begin that I think is soundly based. I’ll cover it as quickly as I can.

“The assumption is, sir, that if the Soviet Union should decide to start a nuclear war they would strike first at our hardened missile sites, at our land-based missile silos. As soon as their missiles were launched at those targets Mr. Brezhnev or whoever is head of the Soviet government, would call you on the hot line and tell you the missiles were underway, that they would hit their targets in about fifty minutes and that loss of American life would be minimal — most of our land missile sites are away from heavily populated areas, as you know, sir.

“You would be given the choice of surrendering at once, unconditionally, or the next missiles would be launched within minutes at our biggest cities. The probable death toll from that strike could be fifty million or more American lives.” Brannon paused and looked around the table and then back at the President.

“The assumption, sir, is that you would have no choice but to surrender and save at least fifty million Americans from death.”

“Horse shit!” the President said. “Anyone who thinks that I, that any American president who sits in this White House would surrender without firing a shot is crazy!” He balled a large hand into a fist and struck the table.

“We’d fire our own missiles in retaliation.” He looked down the table at Captain Steel.

“You told me, you testified before the Congress, that your submarine missiles can hit a pickle barrel at three thousand miles. Isn’t that so?” He turned back to Mike Brannon.

“Admiral, the Russians have to know that they’d be wiped out! They wouldn’t be as stupid as that.”

“If missile accuracy was what it’s supposed to be I would agree with you, sir,” Mike Brannon said.

The President nodded his head toward Captain Steel. “Let me hear it again, Captain, tell Admiral Brannon here what you told me and the Congress about how accurate our missiles really are.”

Captain Steel nodded his head. “Sir,” he began, “the accuracy of our missiles is based on firing under optimum conditions. We have never fired a missile under less than optimum conditions.”

“Let me put it this way, sir. Each target in the Soviet Union is to be hit by three or more nuclear missiles. We have never fired more than one missile in any test. We don’t have any knowledge of what would happen to the incoming missiles after the first missile exploded, if the incoming missiles would be blown apart in mid-air or blown away from the target. We just don’t know. We’ve never been given permission to make such a test, sir.”

The President slowly began to crack the knuckles on his right hand with the fingers of his left hand. The popping sound filled the quiet room.

“You said that your accuracy figures were based on firing under optimum conditions. Correct me if I’m wrong but optimum, if I remember the word, means ideal, perfect?”

“That’s right, sir,” Captain Steel said. “We have no accuracy figures on missiles fired from polar or near polar waters, sir. We don’t know what effect the polar winds, the temperatures over the Soviet Union would have on missiles.”

“My God!” the President said. “Go on, Captain.”

“We have no accuracy figures for land-based missiles, sir, other than those fired from the West Coast to island targets to the west. Obviously, we have never test-fired a missile across the North Pole toward the Soviet Union. We don’t have any accuracy components for those areas, sir.” His ascetic face was tight and drawn.

“What you’re telling me,” President Milligan said slowly, “is that you and the rest of the fucking military chiefs have been lying! I have been told, sworn to on a stack of Bibles, that even if they attack us first we can literally destroy the Soviet Union. That’s been the rationale behind your nuclear missile submarine programs and all the rest of our nuclear weapons programs — that neither side can dare risk starting a nuclear war. Now you sit here and tell me that our missiles aren’t accurate enough to justify that rationale! God damn it, where’s the truth in you people?”

“Everyone knows that our figures on accuracy are based on optimum conditions. It’s just that no one ever had the brains to ask about accuracy under unfavorable conditions,” Steel responded. “Nobody tried to pull the hat down over your eyes or over any president’s eyes, it’s just that we can’t test under the conditions of war so we do the best we can. And that’s the truth, Mr. President.” He leaned back and hooked one elbow over the back of his chair.

“The truth is hard to find in this world, Mr. President.” Representative Wendell spoke up suddenly. “The information given to you was given in good faith, sir, in good faith. It’s a matter of politics.” The old Congressman’s wrinkled face was placid.

“You know perfectly well, Mr. President, that if the military people went before the Appropriations Committee and said well, we know the Roosians are building missiles and we’ve got to match them there but we can’t tell you how accurate the missiles we build will be they wouldn’t get a damned dime! What they’d get is such a whoopin’ and hollerin’ from the press that they’d all be out on their asses.

“There’s another truth, sir, and that’s that the Roosians know we ain’t as accurate with our missiles as we say we are — and what’s more they know that we know that they ain’t accurate either. In fact, they’re worse shots with missiles under the best of conditions than we ever were or will be!

“What’s important, Mr. President, is that the Roosians made a move, figuring that we’d never have the guts to do anything about it. This Admiral across the table from me, he hit back. That’s what’s important! They sucker-punched us and Admiral Brannon hit ‘em back, slammed them one right in their damned balls! And the Roosians ain’t done one thing since that time. That’s what’s important.”

Captain Herman Steel half turned in his chair and stared at the Congressman, his face horrified.

“Captain Steel,” the President’s voice was low, soft. Steel turned away from staring at Representative Wendell with an effort and looked at the President.

“I want you to do something for me. I want your best estimate of our nuclear missile accuracy under the conditions we’re likely to face if we have to use those missiles. I understand that it’s never been done but I think that you’re the best man I could ask to do that. I want to see your figures as soon as you can pull them together. Now if you’ll excuse us, I have to do some talking to Admiral Brannon.” Captain Steel nodded and rose. He looked down at the old Congressman, who smiled up at him, turned, and left the room. The President turned to Admiral Brannon as the door closed behind Captain Steel.

“Okay, Admiral, what else have you done that I don’t know about?”

Brannon rubbed his chin. “Well, sir, I put two of our attack submarines on every Soviet missile submarine at sea. I gave them orders to bird dog the Soviet submarines and harass them in any way they could.

“That’s brought some results. Every one of the Soviet ballistic missile subs, there are ten of them at sea, sir, every one of them has been screaming to their bases, asking to know why we’re bird dogging them, asking if the world political situation has changed, which is another way of asking if a war has started. Moscow has been telling them to cool it, that no war has started.” He looked across the table at Representative Wendell.

“I think the Russians have read the message. They know that they’ll lose every missile submarine they have at sea the minute they open their missile hatches to fire.”

The President nodded and turned to Wendell. “Walter, give me your opinion of what the public reaction would have been if the Admiral had come to me and told me what had happened and what he wanted to do and I had bypassed the Congress and told him to go ahead and then made it public?”

Wendell moved his lower jaw back and forth, seating his dentures firmly. “The Congress would have been sore-assed, Mr. President. But not so much they wouldn’t sit there and take it because every damned voter in this country would be hollerin’ that we should have been doing this ever since the Roosians made their move to take over half of Europe after the war. No doubt about it, sir.”

“You’ve put me in a bad bind, Admiral,” the President said. “Admiral Benson told me that his aide, Wilson, let the KGB know that the whole mess could be cleared up if Brezhnev would call me and apologize. He hasn’t called.”

“I know, sir.” Brannon said.

“Mr. President,” Wendell said. “We ain’t in the same political party but I think you know that you can depend on me to help you out when things get a little dark brown around the edges. Why don’t we just sort of wait around a bit more and see what the Roosians do? Give ‘em until tomorrow morning and if they don’t do nothin’ by then you could mebbe get on the hot line yourself and tell ol’ Brezhnev that you know what’s happened and you sure as hell don’t want no nuclear war and he’d better not want one either. Sound reasonable to you, sir?’

“Maybe,” the President said. He looked at Mike Brannon. “What’s your reasoning on what the Soviets will do next?”

“I don’t honestly know,” Brannon said. “The last word I had from Bob Wilson was that the Politburo is in a crisis situation — a fight between the hardliners and the faction that wants to maintain the status quo, detente, sir. The Israeli intelligence people are on top of the situation in Moscow. They’ve apparently got agents deep inside the Kremlin. Israeli intelligence has been feeding information to the KGB about our intentions to retaliate with all we have in the hope this would give the softliners some ammunition to use, sir.”

“That’s what Mr. Wilson told me before you arrived,” the President said. He leaned back from the table. “If the hardliners win there’d a hell of a risk of a nuclear war. If the concept you mentioned earlier happens, if they call me and tell me they’ve fired at our missile bases, I will not surrender! I’ll fight!”

“I think they know that, sir,” Brannon said softly.

“Mmm,” the President said through closed lips. “But if the softliners win then we’ve got to clear up this mess. Make an announcement that we’ve lost a submarine and we don’t know how we lost it. And we’ve got to do something about the crews of those two submarines that sank the Russian submarine.”

“That can be handled, sir,” Brannon said quietly. “That’s my job.”

“I know you can swear the officers to secrecy and make it stick,” the President replied, “but I know from my own experience in the Marine Corps during World War II that you can’t keep things of importance from the troops. They probably know they sank a Russian submarine.”

“I would guess they do, sir,” Brannon answered. “We can order them to never say a word about it but some of them will talk. Sometime or other some of them will talk.”

“I don’t think that will do any harm.” Moise Goldman spoke for the first time since he had sat down at the table. “It will make a little flurry in the press but there’s no way anyone can prove anything and it’ll die down after a few days. I think that overseas the story will be believed and that won’t hurt our foreign policy, sir; we’ve got too many of our allies saying that we’re too soft on the Soviet Union, because of Vietnam. A story like this gets out and it won’t hurt us.”

“You might be right,” the President said. He turned his head toward Representative Wendell. “You have anything else, any other thoughts, Walter?”

“Only that if you’re thinkin’ about making a call to Brezhnev that you got to remember there’s a seven hour time difference. That Wilson fellow said that he had word that the Politburo is goin’ to meet at four tomorrow afternoon. That’s nine in the mornin’, our time, Mr. President.”

“Thank you for reminding me,” President Milligan said.

Riding back to the Pentagon in Goldman’s car, Mike Brannon turned to the President’s Chief of Staff.

“Did you see the look that Captain Steel gave Wendell when he said that I had hit the Russians in the balls?”

“He just lost his war, Admiral,” Goldman answered. “The Congressman was his ace in the hole for riding you out of the Navy. Now, as far as he knows, you’re still in the driver’s seat and he’s sucking wind. Might be interesting to see what he does. I’ll keep you posted if I hear anything.”

Admiral Brannon’s Chief Yeoman stopped him as he walked toward his office door. “Captain Steel is in your office, sir.

“Very well, Chief,” Brannon said. He walked into his office and saw Captain Steel standing by the window. The lean Captain turned and laid a sheet of paper on Brannon’s desk.

“My request for retirement, Admiral,” Captain Steel said. “Effective as soon as I can carry out the request the President made of me. Sir.”

Mike Brannon read the paper and then twisted it into a ball and tossed it in the wastebasket.

“Request denied, Captain,” he said. “The Navy needs you. I need you. Get the hell out of my office. I’ve got work to do.”