“The thing is, though, that it will take her two weeks to get up there. About as long as to get the planes ready. A lot could happen before then, and it might be necessary to modify her instructions, but at least it’s one string to our bow we ought not to pass up. We ought to send her now, and in the meantime get the planes ready, too.”
There was a glint in Donaldson’s eyes as he answered. “That’s a convincing argument to me, Rich. Does anyone have anything more to add? … Then that’s the decision. Now that that’s settled, can anyone enlighten me on this next item? It was handed to me just as I got aboard the plane that brought us here.” He extracted a torn and folded paper from the inside pocket of his civilian jacket, put on a pair of Navy-issue glasses, and began to read:
U.S. sub shoots down Soviet research plane, claims Kremlin. (Tass) In an unprecedented action, the Soviet Foreign Office today released the text of a secret report from the commander of the current Russian polar exploration expedition, claiming that an unnamed American submarine in Arctic waters had without warning and totally without cause opened fire on and shot down a Soviet research aircraft attached to his group. Noting the presence of a foreign submarine in the area under research, the aircraft had approached to ascertain its nationality, ask if it needed assistance and request it not to interfere with the exploration and research being conducted. Instead of responding to this legitimate and civilized request, the submarine, later identified as a nuclear missile launching type belonging to the United States, opened fire with a sophisticated war weapon, one shot of which injured the plane so badly that it crashed on the ice with the loss of one of its crew members and injury to the others.
Clearly this was not the act of a single misguided submarine commander, for the fact that one of its missile firing submarines has invaded the hitherto peaceful waters of the Arctic Ocean with the intent of converting them into the front arena of threat and blackmail against the Soviet Union shows the perfidy and warmaking objectives of the United States, which cries peace on the one hand while it secretly makes war with the other.
Barbaric actions of this nature by the warmongering United States are continuing proof that she has no consideration whatever for the rights of man, human dignity or even life itself if they conflict with her imperialistic designs on freedom and peace throughout the world.
It is expected the Foreign Office will protest this outrage most strenuously to the government of the United States, demand indemnity for the injuries to persons and material, and insist vigorously that the perpetrators of this extraordinary affront be suitably and severely punished.
Admiral Donaldson clamped his mouth shut with almost an audible snap as he finished reading. No one spoke. “What do you reckon happened?” he finally said, spitting the words out to the room in general. Then, singling out Admiral Murphy, who was already looking slightly uncomfortable, “Murph, this has got to be the Cushing they’re talking about. What do you make of it? You’re not putting any new weapons on your boats that I haven’t heard about, are you?” Although there was a light tone to his question, and in his voice, the look on his face had no levity in it.
“Nosir — umm,” said Murphy. “It couldn’t have been the Cushing. She has no such weapons. A couple of rapid-fire rifles, maybe. Nothing that fits this description. What do you think, Tready?”
“It probably was the Cushing all right,” said Treadwell, “but I agree with Murphy. She could not have shot down an aircraft. It just doesn’t make any sense.”
“You knew the Soviets protested our sending a missile sub into the Arctic, didn’t you, Tready?”
“I heard about it, yes sir. But we didn’t pay any attention, absent any instructions from Norfolk or Washington.”
Buck Williams whispered something to Richardson. Rich nodded his understanding. “Based on the protest,” he said after Treadwell had finished, “it figures they knew a lot more about Leone’s mission than this press release indicates. So it’s a front job. Some kind of a coverup for something.”
“Maybe they’re doing the old Japanese bellytalk — maybe they are accusing us of doing what they’ve done,” said Treadwell.
“You mean maybe they’ve sunk the Cushing? That’s why they claim they lost a plane?” Donaldson laughed a brief laugh of derision. “That doesn’t hang together. Murphy, what do you think?”
“Umm … none of it makes any sense to me, except that the Cushing could not have done what they say.”
“Brighting?”
“I’m only an engineer. This is an operational matter. Analytically, it seems to me the Soviets are saying they’ve lost an aircraft in the Arctic.”
“You’re right. That’s the only positive statement in the whole press release,” said Donaldson, “but we’ve still got no idea what Cushing could have had to do with it, if anything.”
“It’s all lies,” said Admiral Murphy. “Umm … Brighting’s right. They are saying they lost an aircraft, so that must be true. But also they’re saying it’s because of the Cushing. That’s what’s so um — um … weird.”
“Murph, put it all in your next message to the Cushing. Maybe Leone’ll have a simple explanation, if he can ever get clear to use his radio. We’ll know in a couple of weeks anyhow, when the Manta gets up there. I have to go to the tank with this in the morning, so we have to compose a message to the Cushing before we can close off this meeting, and I’ll tell the other Joint Chiefs that we’ll just have to hold the fort awhile.” Admiral Donaldson paused a moment, put his hands on the arms of Rich’s office chair, in which he had been sitting. “Well, I guess that concludes the business we came up here for. I wonder how many people we fooled with these civilian clothes. Rich, will you have someone alert our pilot and organize transportation for us back to the airport as soon as we get the message done? Oh, wait a minute”—as Rich reached for the communication handset on the bulkhead behind his desk—“have you thought about going on this expedition yourself?”
“We had thought about it, yes sir, but …” Indeed he had thought about that. And he had come to know that there was nothing he wanted so much. But even as he was talking, in the middle of a very short sentence, there was an instantaneous flash of self-understanding. The days aboard the Walrus and Eel had been the highpoint of his life. The single-minded concentration they demanded of him had so focused his energies that even now, a decade and a half after it all had ended, those four years loomed in his mind as the most imperative of the psychological imperatives that drove him. Being off in the Manta, with Buck, was the closest he could ever come again.
But it would not do to be too affirmative. This might transmit lack of confidence in Buck Williams. And he well remembered his own ambivalent reaction at taking his own old skipper, Joe Blunt, on that second, fatal, war patrol of the Eel. “I’m sure Buck Williams is fully able to handle this mission on his own,” he went on swiftly. “He’s the skipper, and he’s trained both his people and himself. Having a squadron commander along would just weight him down. I’d be excess baggage…” This was the speech Joe Blunt should have made, would have made if he had only known himself better. But times were different then, although perhaps there were similarities too. The prewar submarine skipper, sidelined while his juniors took to war and glory the new fleet submarines he had helped design and build, was not so far removed from himself, thirsting for one more fling at the old days with a newer and greater ship under him.