"You okay, there, Mr. Johnson?" Chief Allison asked.
"Yeah." Gingerly, he rubbed his head. He shot an angry glance at O'Brien. "You're not supposed to know things like that!"
O'Brien shrugged. "I heard it from one of the quartermasters," he said. "He sees the charts, works with 'em every day."
"It's common knowledge on the boat, Mr. Johnson," Benson added. "Hell, we all know where we're headed, more or less. And the fact that you guys are on board tells us we're gonna slip in close to the shore."
"I'm going to have to speak to the captain about this."
"Aw, can it, Mr. Johnson," Chief Allison said. "Who are we gonna tell, anyway?"
"That doesn't matter. Does every man on this ship know the details of our mission? Fuck! He—"
"This secrecy shit is getting on my nerves," Lieutenant Randall said. He'd been sitting on one of the aft bunks, listening, saying nothing, which made the interruption that much more startling. "Look, we have three different groups here. CIA—"
"Who says we're CIA?" Johnson demanded. He seemed startled at the revelation.
"C'mon. You're not Military Intelligence, and certainly not Naval Intelligence, or you wouldn't call this vessel a 'ship.' I suppose you could be NSA. The 'Never Say Anything' boys might have active field operations units no one knows about, but generally they're concerned with electronic intelligence and not gathering intelligence from the field, SIGINT instead of HUMINT. The CIA's Directorate of Operations is pretty well known for the games it plays, though. And you boys were all trained at Camp Perry, I was told."
"What's Camp Perry?" O'Brien asked.
"They call it 'The Farm,' " Randall replied. "It's a big, closely guarded compound, mostly woods, in Virginia just outside of Williamsburg. The Agency runs it as a training camp for agents and field officers, including, among other things, a complete mock-up of an Eastern European town, complete with a border crossing. Some SEALs have trained there for special ops we don't talk about."
"You shouldn't be talking about this," Johnson said, angry.
"If you're not CIA," Randall asked pleasantly, "why are you upset? This information is not classified, by the way. It's been circulating in books available to the public for the past five or ten years at least. But the Agency still doesn't like to talk about it, right, Mr. Johnson?"
"Lots of people train at The Farm," Smith added, "under Agency auspices. That doesn't mean we are CIA."
"Okay, okay," Randall said, raising a hand. "It doesn't matter. What I was trying to say is that we have three groups of people here — you spooks, whatever alphabet-soup agency you really work for, our submariner friends here, and us SEALs. All three of us are on the same side, and all three of us know how to keep a secret." He winked at O'Brien. "This is the Silent Service, right, son?"
"Yes, sir!"
"Listen," Benson said abruptly. "I've got a question, something that's been bothering me for a long time, okay? And maybe you guys can answer it for me."
"If it's not classified," Randall said, his tone bantering. It sounded as though he enjoyed yanking Johnson's chain.
"Yes, sir. I understand that. But, well, it's more philosophical than practical, if you know what I mean."
"Whoa, there," Doershner said. "We got us a genu-wine philosopher on board!"
"Stuff it, Doershner. It's like this. Ever since I joined the boats, I've heard stories about American submarines moving into Russian and Chinese waters, getting in real close, I mean, right up to their port cities, sometimes. I've heard stories of SEALs and Navy divers going in to actually examine Russian ships up close, or tapping underwater cables. I heard they did that right here in Oshkosh, where we're going."
"It was only because a traitor sold secrets to the Russians that anyone knows about that," Smith said.
"Whatever. On our last mission out here, the 'Burgh went into Oshkosh and provided some sort of distraction. I haven't heard any skinny on what the mission was all about, but scuttlebutt has it that we were providing a diversion for some other classified operation in the area, maybe getting the Russians to chase us instead of some other boat, if you know what I mean."
"Damn it, sailor, you are not supposed to—"
"Let him talk, Johnson," Randall said. "We all know more than you people would like us to. Let's hear what he has to say."
"I'm just wondering," Benson said in a rush, as though trying to get the words out before someone stopped him, "what right we have to do these kinds of things. I mean, what if a Russian submarine came into San Francisco Bay, and sent divers up the Mare Island Channel to look at our boats? Wouldn't we be damned mad about that? Wouldn't we demand an apology, or something?
"And if we caught a Russian sub in there, wouldn't we try to sink it, and maybe start a war? I mean, it would be like an invasion or something, wouldn't it?"
"That's the way the game is played, kid," Johnson said with a shrug.
"Yeah, we've been doing this sort of thing since the late 1940s," Chief Allison said. Johnson gave him a dark look, but he kept talking. "American subs have been operating in Russian waters since the fifties. Old news."
"What makes you think the Russians haven't been doing just that?" Randall asked.
"You mean… they are?" O'Brien asked, shocked.
Randall appeared to turn something over in his mind, as though trying to decide what to say. "Um, let's just say that there are cases where the Soviets have entered our territorial waters, even come ashore on our territory. And we've done the same. But intelligence gathering is absolutely vital. Think of it this way. We have two guys who don't like each other, each one with a loaded pistol up against the other guy's head. The first guy is thinking something like, 'I don't want to fire first, but if I think he's going to fire, I'll have to fire first.' And the second guy is thinking exactly the same thing.
"Now, if the first guy knows what the second guy is thinking, he won't shoot. He might even take a bit of pressure off the trigger. If someone who knows the second guy comes and whispers in the first guy's ear, 'don't worry, he's just as scared as you are, and won't shoot unless he thinks you will,' well, that might make the first guy relax, just a little. Maybe he might even suggest the two of them talk about their differences… maybe get the other guy to agree that both of them should aim their pistols up in the air instead of at each other's heads.
"Of course, a lot of intelligence work has to do not so much with what the other guy is thinking as what he has. How good his ships and submarines are. How well his supply network and logistics work. How fast his response time is to a threat. The more we know about what he's capable of, the less likely we are to panic, assume he has an overwhelming advantage, and pull the trigger."
"Hear, hear," Chief Allison said, laughing. "And the submarine service leads the way, defenders of world peace!"
"Truck drivers," Johnson and Randall said in unplanned unison. The two looked at each other, and then laughed. Most of the men in the compartment joined in.
"Spooks!" Chief Allison said with a snort. "You wouldn't get there without the truck drivers, that's for damned sure!"
"It still just doesn't seem right," Benson said as the laughter died. "I mean, you keep hearing, on TV and stuff, about how one mistake could touch off a nuclear war. Well, doesn't it make sense not to provide the other guy with an excuse to start shooting?"
"There have been shots fired," Randall told him. "And people have died."
"There've been mistakes, too," Allison said. "Lots of times when one side's submarine was following a boat from the other side, got too close, and bumped. Hell, just last year, the Augusta bumped into a Russian missile sub in the Atlantic… and there's a story going around about a British boat, the Splendid, that got too close to a Soviet Typhoon right inside one of the Russian's bastions. The Typhoon brushed the Splendid, and snagged one of her towed sonar arrays."