This time, Joanna Patterson waited to be announced and admitted before going into the Oval Office. Secretary Lloyd and the president were both waiting for her. “Done, Mr. President,” she announced with satisfaction. “They’re not happy at having to find out from us, but they’re even more unhappy about the problem. They’ve agreed to coordinate with us through Guam, and Admiral Hughes has gone back to the Pentagon to get it organized.”
The two men looked disappointed, and Myles, looking at Lloyd, said, “It doesn’t matter. We can reach him there.”
Puzzled, Patterson asked, “Should I have kept him with me?”
Myles gave a small shake of his head. “No, Joanna, it’s fine. He has a lot to do, and you couldn’t have anticipated this. Nobody could.”
Her heart started to sink. “What’s happened?”
Myles quickly reassured her. “Nothing bad. It’s just — unusual.”
Lloyd said, “While you were in meetings with the Chinese and then the Littoral Alliance, I was informing the other governments of what we had decided.” He paused for a moment, then declared, “The Indians want Girish Samant to take part in the hunt for Chakra, ‘as a witness,’ as they put it. They’re making arrangements to fly him to Guam.” He then reprised his conversation with the Indian foreign secretary.
By this time she’d sat down, and found herself agreeing with the Indians’ logic. “It makes sense,” she said, nodding. “If nothing else, they will be able to say it was a joint operation.”
“Then I called the Russians,” Lloyd reported, “to inform them that Chakra had sailed. They were not happy at the thought of their bootleg warheads actually being used. They want Alex Petrov there, as well.” He saw her surprised expression, but didn’t give her a chance to speak. “They also want to say they were involved in the ‘search for and destruction of’ the warheads.”
“By sinking the sub they’re carried on.” She made a face.
“The Russians were not happy that the Indians had let Chakra leave, in spite of a two-day warning. They reminded me that Petrov has the best information on Chakra’s technical characteristics, since changes were made after Samant turned over command.” Lloyd added, “I agreed, and the president has approved the request. I’ve already called the Hyderabad consulate and told them to load Petrov on the same plane as Samant. They’ll be glad to have those two off their hands. What’s left is to tell Admiral Hughes to expect two foreign observers at Guam for the duration of the operation. If nothing else, he has to find them a place to stay…”
“On the base, you mean.” She interrupted. “On Guam.” When he started to agree, she said firmly, “That won’t work. They’ll be treated as fifth wheels, and won’t be able to help. Besides their information is more tactical; putting them at the headquarters doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
Lloyd shrugged. “That’s where the operation will be run,” he said. “Where else…” He paused, then frowned and shook his head. “No. Absolutely not.”
“Put them aboard Jerry’s sub,” she insisted. “We know North Dakota is the best sub in Squadron Fifteen, and Simonis has already said he’s going to place her off of Hong Kong — the most likely first target. She has the best chance of finding and killing Chakra.”
“And I do not get a good feeling about putting an Indian and Russian aboard a sub that will probably have to fire on a Russian-built, Indian-crewed submarine.”
“That is precisely why we need them aboard. Petrov knows the boat better than anyone else, and Samant knows the new skipper.” She looked to President Myles, who was watching them both silently.
“And what if they attempt to interfere somehow?” Myles asked.
“I think there’s little chance of that,” she replied. “They’ve both showed, at considerable risk to themselves, that they aren’t driven simply by national interests.”
“One could suggest they’ve both acted in their higher national interests. Honorably,” Myles concluded. After a short pause, he added, “The Navy won’t be happy, they’re allergic to this sort of thing, but I’ll tell Simonis, through the chain, to put them aboard North Dakota. We get only one good crack at stopping Chakra before she launches a nuclear weapon. It needs to be our best shot.”
16
EN ROUTE
The Indian Navy P-8 aircraft descended smoothly toward the tarmac, two short puffs of smoke marking when the tires touched the concrete. The aircraft rolled to the far end of runway 24R, passing by a half dozen B-52s parked in the center of the field, before turning left onto a taxiway that led to the air base terminal.
Glenn Jacobs paced impatiently by the car. He was anxious to collect his passengers, no, his guests, and get them to the pier as fast as he could. He wanted this bothersome evolution over and done with, preferably before his commodore suffered a severe stroke. Jacobs vividly recalled the video conversation Simonis had with his immediate boss, Rear Admiral Burroughs, yesterday evening. The chief staff officer had never seen that shade of purplish red on Simonis’s face before, and if Jacobs had anything to do with it, he didn’t want to ever see it again.
“Yes, sir, I get it that we have to work with India and Russia, truly,” complained Simonis bitterly. “But that can easily be accommodated by having them observe the operation from my watch floor! Putting them on North Dakota is just a boondoggle, and a violation of every security safeguard we’ve ever put in place!”
“I’m sympathetic, Chuck, but those security regs were written for more ‘normal times.’ This current crisis is far from normal,” Burroughs countered.
“Admiral, Dr. Patterson has gone too far by demanding we put two foreign senior naval officers, both qualified submarine commanders, onto our newest class of attack submarines! They’ll be able to understand every single detail they see!”
“For the record, Chuck, she didn’t demand. She made a recommendation to the president, who agreed with her argument — as did the CNO, and Pac Fleet, for that matter. Captain Samant knows Chakra’s current commanding officer intimately. He trained him and knows how he thinks. Captain Petrov personally supervised the modifications to the submarine’s sonar system, and he’s bringing a complete set of technical manuals with him. The information these men possess will be of tremendous value in finding and neutralizing the Akula, hopefully before it can deploy any nuclear weapons. And since North Dakota is our first line of defense, it made sense to put the two men on her.”
“And the fact that both Samant and Petrov are on friendly terms with Patterson, and Mitchell, didn’t influence this request at all?” grumbled Simonis sarcastically. “Sir, neither the CNO nor the Pacific Fleet commander are submariners, they don’t fully understand why those regulations were created in the first place! To prevent our critical technological advantage from being compromised!”
Burroughs’s expression hardened. He was visibly losing patience with Simonis.
“Commodore, if anyone doesn’t understand this present situation, it’s you. We are desperately trying to prevent an escalation of a conventional conflict into one that sees the wide-scale use of nuclear weapons. Can you not grasp that? How can the knowledge of these two individuals be of any help to Commander Mitchell when they are stuck in Guam and he’s out searching for a very quiet boat that had just been updated, and is doing its damnedest not to be found. Is he going to spend his whole patrol at periscope depth just so he can call in at a moment’s notice for tactical guidance?!