Following a strained conversation with his London contact, Tremaine was content with the outcome, although now slightly irritated after hearing Alex Swan was now involved. What the secretary of state did not know was that he had already made a useful ally in the British Foreign Office, one of the major players in Tremaine’s own little game, a game already in play in the UK, and soon to be so in Cyprus. The senator also had other players, and reaching into his desk drawer, extracted a file entitled ‘Liberty Roost’. Thumbing through the pages, he stopped and picked out a loose photograph of an advert for an old Tench-class submarine for sale. He dialled a memorised number on his telephone, and after a few seconds, a man answered his call.
‘Mike, its Donovan. You can go ahead and make the purchase. Liberty Roost is a go. Call me when you’ve got her. I’m making arrangements for you to take her to Bermuda.’ He paused, leaning back in his chair. ‘Looks like you’ll soon have your revenge for what those bastard Brits did to your brother.’
On the other end of the line, the man coughed between his sentences. Tremaine put down the receiver and turning to the next page in the file, picked up another photo of an almost identical submarine, taken while moored in port. Compared to the first, there were a few differences to the exterior; the obvious one was that on the large sail was a Greek national flag. For a few moments, he glanced at both photographs, nodding his head in approval, then returning them to the file, he placed it back into the drawer.
He looked at his watch. There was now one more thing that he had to do before taking his mistress to Dominique’s. He reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a folded piece of paper and dialled the number he had earlier scribbled down.
From a hotel in a faraway land, a familiar voice rang through his ear. ‘Nick, its Don. You can arrange the meeting with Reynolds. Tell him that I will grant him anything he and his men need, including weapons and ammunition. Let him have half of the agreed fee and tell him that payment of the other half will only be made if his operation is a success.’
Tremaine put down the phone and looked at his watch again. A smile appeared on his face as he anticipated how the rest of his day was going to go, remembering to confirm the booking at the restaurant and more importantly, the hotel suite for afterwards.
Today, was the first anniversary of his third divorce, and he planned to celebrate it in style.
Chapter 5
Two days later, the warm sunshine enveloped the inlet of Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. At an old navy surplus yard Mike Murphy, an ex-US navy submarine captain, stood on the deck of a derelict Tench-class attack submarine. His thoughts were with his late brother. Like a well-played record, Murphy had had the same scenario playing over and over in his memory.
The family being half-Irish, his brother Patrick had lived there to raise his two sons on a farm in South Armagh. Two years previously, in January 1972, during a peace march in Londonderry violence had broken out between protesters and soldiers of the British Parachute Regiment. As a result, some civilians were killed. Among the casualties of what was became notoriously known as ‘Bloody Sunday’ were both Patrick’s oldest son, Niall, and Patrick himself.
On hearing news his son had been coerced to take part in the march by his student friends, Patrick had driven into Londonderry in order to retrieve him, and reprimand him for getting involved with the political issues of the country. On seeing Niall, Patrick approached him, ready to pull him away from the riotous crowd — when the troops had suddenly opened fire on them. He had seen Niall fall and ran towards him, trying to get him to safety, but as he did so a stray bullet struck his right temple, killing him instantly, his lifeless body collapsing just a few feet from his own dead son.
Since that day, his older brother Mike had hated the British. All Patrick had been trying to do, was what any normal father would do in the same circumstances. Murphy had been fishing in Boston Harbour at the time, helpless to save him, wishing that one day, he would be given the chance to avenge them. Now, the opportunity had arisen to do so.
As he walked along the dark-painted, rusting deck, an old man in a deerstalker hunting hat approached him from the quayside. ‘So, do you think that she’s suitable for your museum?’
Murphy moved to the sail of the long boat. ‘I’ll like to take a look inside, but I think she’s perfect.’
The man stepped aboard and walked up to him. ‘Well, how about I give you a guided tour? Just follow me.’
Murphy allowed the man to pass, then followed along the slatted walkway to the main entry door, to steps leading down inside the submarine. At the bottom, the familiar smell of stale air hit his nostrils, causing Murphy to remember the layout of this section of the boat. He started asking the old man questions, pointing out the various pieces of equipment that he was familiar with from the submarines of his previous commands.
The tour continued, as he was led into the bridge area. The man pointed out vital points, and then reaching under the chart table, produced a set of maps.
‘All the original charts are here. There’s one for the mid-Atlantic, south Atlantic, east Pacific… hell, there’s even one that takes us into russki waters!’ He rolled one out that showed the Kola Peninsula.
Murphy pulled out the chart for mid-Atlantic, unrolled it and clipped it down flat onto the surface. ‘Wow, they even show the TOTO, and the route for the SOSUS array.’
He was pleased, using his finger to move along the black line that represented the detection nets used by NATO to track unidentified submarines. This area was situated south of a deep and jagged trench, known to all submariners as the tongue of the ocean, a notorious spot they chose to avoid.
The man then pulled down one of the two periscopes known as the ‘attack’ scope and, snapping down the handles, allowed his guest to look through it. Murphy heaved familiarly with the big cylinder, making a few turns to view the inlet. He suddenly imagined his target, dead centre in the scope.
Moving forward, the man stopped to open the door for the captain’s stateroom. Murphy peered inside, taking in the small dropdown desk and comfortable-looking bunk. Then the old man pointed behind them, directly opposite to the sonar/radio room. ‘The equipment you see, was fitted before her last detail. All a bit too hi-tech for me, though,’ he joked.
Nodding his head, Murphy gave him an appreciative smile. They continued, looking at the junior officer’s stateroom, the galley and the crew washrooms. Murphy was amazed at how well this man and his small team of volunteers had maintained everything.
They then came to the business end and sole purpose for which this hunter — killer had been constructed. Murphy stared at the four hatch covers at the end of the torpedo chutes. The veteran sailor pointed to them. ‘These babies were never fired in anger. I reckon that if it came to it though, they will probably still function okay.’ He turned to a panel behind him. ‘The firing controls were something else upgraded before her last mission. I should know, I oversaw it.’ The old man put out his hand. ‘Name’s Reb Brandon, by the way. I sailed in her a few times in the Pacific, off Korea.’
Murphy raised an eyebrow. ‘Is that a fact? Did you see any action in her?’
‘During the Korean War? Hell no, we were mainly doing picket patrols, so that the commies kept away. We did tail a russki once, a big one. Chased those red bastards right out of there. She was decommissioned in ʼ68, after being shore based at Alameda for training purposes for ten years.’ Brandon stood, lost in the thoughts of his days at sea.