Dankleff stared into the distance. Pacino snapped his fingers in front of U-Boat’s eyes.
“Hey, OIC, where are you?”
Dankleff blinked and returned to the present. “This mission just started to feel real,” he said. “It’s not just a war game simulation or a scenario anymore. And I’m just wondering what the chances are of the Russians not guarding their nuclear reactor test platform. I feel like, fuck, Patch, I feel like I can hear Russian subs out there.”
“Can you hear the sounds of their hulls imploding as they go down from our ADCAP torpedoes?”
“Whoa, there, Mister Aggressive. Just because Dominatrix Navigatrix isn’t your sweetheart anymore doesn’t mean you should go all firing-point-procedures on our Russian friends.”
“Hey,” Pacino said, smirking. “I’m a pirate and a warrior.”
National Security Advisor Michael Pacino put President Carlucci’s torch lighter to the tip of the Cuban Cohiba and puffed it to life, peering through the smoke at the president as he passed the lighter back, the torch lighter showing the worn emblem of VFA-41 with its ace of trumps emblem, the logo of the F-18 squadron that had once been attached to the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan.
“Two fingers?” Carlucci asked, a crystal carafe of Balvenie 30 scotch poised over Pacino’s empty crystal rocks glass.
“Perfect,” Pacino said.
Vito Nunzio Carlucci, who went by the first name “Paul” in an effort to defuse a name that the local Ohio media had once characterized as sounding like it belonged to a New Jersey mob enforcer, was a tall, slender, distinguished fifty-year old with a full head of gray hair that swept over his ears, his features seeming more aristocratically British than Italian. He had once been in the Navy as a young junior officer, leaving the fleet to run for mayor of his native city of Cleveland. The lore of his Navy career had boosted him in the lion’s den of Ohio politics since Carlucci had flown one of the fighter jets off the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan in the Bo Hai Bay rescue mission of the captured submarine Tampa and the Seawolf, which was how he and Pacino eventually met, when Pacino paid him a visit to thank him for saving his Seawolf from the relentless depth charging of the Red Chinese surface action force. Carlucci’s F-18’s missiles had blown apart three Chinese destroyers and sank a fast frigate, allowing the Seawolf to survive and live to fight another day. By the day of their meeting, Carlucci was running for the American Party’s U.S senate seat from Ohio, and the two men became fast friends.
Carlucci avoided the Oval Office, much preferring the remodeled presidential study a few doors down, the room done in dark mahogany paneling with a large tigerwood desk and overstuffed leather chairs facing a ridiculously huge fireplace, where Carlucci kept a fire going even in sweltering Washington summers, the new air conditioning unit able to keep the room feeling freezing despite the logs crackling in the hearth. The windowless room was outfitted as a SCIF, a special compartmented information facility, with air-gapped electronics, no wifi, no ethernet connections, and best of all — according to Carlucci — no phone. A fan of Cuban cigars and scotch, Carlucci particularly enjoyed brainstorming with Pacino, since they could fill the room with smoke and get creative under the mild influence of Scotland’s finest.
Former Admiral Michael Pacino had turned sixty last fall, but was still as gaunt as he’d been as a midshipman. Well over six feet tall, Pacino’s stark cheekbones and penetrating emerald-green eyes shone under a canopy of snow-white hair, the legend that his once coal-black hair had gone to white after the Arctic Ocean mission’s sinking of the first USS Devilfish. Other than the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and the weathered skin of his face, Pacino looked like a youngish fifty-year old, as if he could be in a commercial for one of those Florida retirement golf-course neighborhoods.
“You know, Patch, the media scolded me for appointing you.” Carlucci put down his glass and made a sweeping motion with his arms and hands, as if framing a large headline. “‘Carlucci appoints warmonger admiral as top advisor in nod to military-industrial complex.’ Can you believe that?”
“Well, sir, the War of the East China Sea was somewhat bloody,” Pacino admitted. “Are you sure you still want me on the payroll?”
“Hell, yes, Patch. Those wonks can suck wind. You’re the one I want doing my thinking. Seriously, this office, this position? There’s way too much going on to think clearly, cohesively, about the one thing that truly matters — national security. No doubt about it, you’re the man.”
“Glad to help, sir,” Pacino said, peering through a cloud of smoke at the president.
“So, Patch, this just came in. The duty officer rushed in here right before you arrived. Gave me this.”
Carlucci handed over a clipboard with a simple printout on it. Pacino scanned it, then read it slowly from the beginning, then read it a second time. The USS Vermont had broken radio silence to request a change in the rules of engagement to capture the Iranian nuclear submarine test platform, the enhanced ROE to include approval to attack and sink foreign submarines, surface ships and employ nuclear weapons — presumably in an effort to confuse the opposition force, but also with the possibility that they’d be used on the opposition forces themselves. Finally Pacino looked up at President Carlucci.
“So, Mr. President, how vital is capturing and keeping this Iranian submarine? Is it worth slaughtering Russians over? Is it worth the public relations disaster of tossing a nuclear weapon in anger?”
“Assuming you know what I know, what do you think the answer to that question is?”
“Shouldn’t we be convening the joint chiefs at the Pentagon, and the Secretary of War, SecNav, SecAirForce and SecArmy?”
“You’d think that would be logical, Patch,” Carlucci said, pouring himself another two fingers. “But none of them are cleared for Top Secret Fractal Chaos. They have this annoying tendency to leak juicy things to the SNN NewsFiles. So, for the moment, it’s just you, me, Admiral Catardi and two top officials at CIA.”
“You didn’t answer the question, sir.”
“What question?”
“How important is it to grab this nuclear-powered Iranian sub? The context of this mission suggests that if Russian or Iranian forces oppose the Vermont crew, that Vermont should clear datum, get out of there undetected and let the Kilo test platform go. It’s a test of a revolutionary new reactor and the placing of a nuclear-powered sub in the hands of the Iranians — neither of which are good news for us, but not something to risk a shooting war with the Russians over.”
Carlucci considered for a long moment, then looked up a Pacino. “You remember, just now, I said to assume you know everything I know? Well, no surprise, you don’t. There’s another program I’m reading you into now. It’s classified Release-12. A program run by the Director Combined Intelligence, Margo Allende, and Admiral Rand, the CINC of the Atlantic and Pacific fleets. Its codename is Operation Blue Hardhat.” Carlucci opened his desk and withdrew a folder, broke the top-secret seal and handed it to Pacino. Pacino scanned it, then stood to put pen to the twelve places he had to sign to acknowledge the secrecy of the program. He handed the folder back and sat back down, raising an eyebrow at Carlucci.