Brenthoven said, “The United Kingdom for certain, sir. Greece. Italy, maybe.”
Doyle shook her head. “Not Italy. They’re tied up too closely to France and Germany both. They’ve all got that Joint Theater Defense Missile thing going. Greece is a little shaky too.”
The president ran his right index finger up and down along the bridge of his nose. “We’ll get State to drum us up a list of possibles. In the meantime, we’ll start with the UK.” He glanced at his watch and nodded toward the door to the East Room. “I’d better get back out there before Jenny gets spoiled by so much attention.” He turned his eyes to his chief of staff. “Get me Prime Minister Irons on the phone in an hour. Britain has at least as big a stake in this as we have.” His eyes shifted to his national security advisor. “Wake some people up at Langley. You’d better call ONI as well. If I’m going to yell for help, I want some idea of what we’re up against.” He looked at his watch again. “You’ve got about fifty-seven minutes.”
CHAPTER 11
The signal rocketed through the fiber-optic core of the gray Kevlar cable and into the torpedo’s dorsal interface module. A portion of R-92’s digital brain powered itself up and awaited further instructions.
The cable, known as an umbilical in the parlance of technicians and torpedomen, served as a digital communications conduit between the weapon and the submarine’s digital fire control computers.
In the seconds preceding a launch, the umbilical would upload programming commands and updated target information into the weapon’s on-board computer. When the launch order came, the umbilical would relay that command to the torpedo and then automatically detach itself from the weapon at the instant of firing.
But the burst of digital codes coming through the umbilical now was not a launch order or targeting data. It was a routine maintenance signal.
R-92’s on-board computer responded as ordered — transmitting power to each of its major systems in turn, running diagnostic routines to test for faults or errors — and then removing power and letting each subsystem revert to its normal at-rest condition.
The entire sequence of electronic tests took just under three seconds.
All subsystems reported themselves as fully operational. R-92’s digital computer relayed the reports back to the fire control computers via the umbilical.
This done, the torpedo waited another three hundred seconds for follow-on orders. When none were detected, R-92’s digital brain powered itself down. Secure in its firing tube, deep in the belly of Gröeler’s U-307, the predator was dormant.
CHAPTER 12
The bridge of HMS York was rigged for darken-ship: all unnecessary lights turned off to preserve the night vision of the watchstanders. What little illumination there was came from the soft red glow of instrument lamps, and even those feeble lights were turned down to minimal intensity to preserve the night vision of the bridge crew. As was often the case on evenings when the moon was out, it was actually darker on the bridge of the old British destroyer than it was outside under the night sky.
Second Officer of the Watch, Sub Lieutenant Michael Kensington, felt the front panel of the radar repeater until his fingers located the dimmer knob. He turned the brightness up for a few seconds, just enough to get a good look at the sweep. Still just the one contact, aft and off to port. He turned the dimmer back down. That would be HMS Chatham, the Royal Navy frigate that formed the other half of their little task force.
The young officer raised his binoculars and peered out the window into the night. The seas were calm, and the moonlight coated the gently rolling wave tops with liquid silver. “Good moon tonight,” he said, in what he hoped was an authoritative voice. “Shouldn’t be very hard to spot a periscope.”
Somewhere behind him, Ian Bryce, a seasoned lieutenant and First Officer of the Watch, exhaled sharply through his nose. “I keep telling you, there aren’t going to be any periscopes. Fact of the matter is there aren’t going to be any submarines. No submarines — no periscopes. Can’t very well have one without the other, now, can we?”
Sub Lieutenant Kensington continued his binocular sweep of the waves. “I’d say Her Majesty’s Navy thinks otherwise, or else we wouldn’t be here.”
The other two crew members on the darkened bridge, the Helmsman and the Bo’sun of the Watch, performed their respective jobs in near silence. They were both enlisted men, and — in much the same fashion that butlers and chauffeurs are paid to ignore the dealings of their employers — enlisted men were trained to stay out of the private conversations of commissioned officers.
Lieutenant Bryce sighed, his breath a disembodied sound on the darkened bridge. “The Germans are many things, but they are not stupid.
They may posture and rattle their sabers, but when it comes down to it, they aren’t going to challenge the combined might of NATO. They’d have to be pretty well deranged to pull a fool stunt like that, now wouldn’t they?
Use your head. If the Admiralty really intended for us to blockade the strait against those German subs, they’d have sent more than two ships.”
His words were punctuated by the sound of him patting something in the darkness. “This old girl has got more than twenty-five years on her, and the Chatham’s getting a bit long in the tooth as well. One old destroyer and one old frigate do not a blockade make.”
Sub Lieutenant Kensington lowered his binoculars. “Then why send us out here at all?”
“We … are a symbol,” said his unseen superior. “We are a visual reminder to the Germans, and to the world, that Her Majesty’s government and her NATO allies are firmly opposed to the illegal sale of arms to Siraj.
The Germans have rattled their sabers, and now it’s time to rattle ours.
Trust me on this, lad; it’s all posturing.”
Kensington shook his head, a pointless gesture in the darkness. “The captain doesn’t seem to think so. You were at the briefing; he made it sound as if we’re going to see some action.”
Lieutenant Bryce laughed softly, that condescending chuckle that adults use when trying to explain difficult concepts to children. “Our fair captain is a wise man. Far too wise to cast doubt, however slight, upon the stated policies of his superiors. If you watch closely, you’ll notice that his orders and opinions are always a close reflection of the current official rhetoric.
He’d have to be a fool to do otherwise, and that man is no fool.”
Kensington said, “You make him sound like a mindless puppet.”
“Not at all. He’s a smart naval officer who knows that his career floats as much on politics as it does on the ocean.”
“Ah,” Kensington said. “So a smart naval officer keeps his mouth shut and does his job. How is it, then, that you are able to speak your mind so freely?”
Lieutenant Bryce laughed. “Someone has got to teach the junior officers how the world really works.” He laughed again. “We haven’t fired a shot at one of Jerry’s ships since Churchill was PM. Do you really think we’re going to start another war over a handful of submarines? This is the voice of experience talking; if there’s any fighting to be done, it will all be political.”