“Very well.” Donaldson rose. The interview was at an end. “I trust you will keep us informed of future developments.”
“That’s what we have to do, sir.” Ritter stood.
“Indeed. Thank you for coming down.” They did not shake hands this time either.
Ritter walked into the hall without passing through the anteroom. He stopped to look down into the atrium of the Hart building. It reminded him of the local Hyatt. Uncharacteristically, he took the stairs instead of the elevator down to the first floor. With luck he had just settled a major score. His car was waiting for him outside, and he told the driver to head for the FBI building.
“Not a CIA operation?” Peter Henderson, the senator’s chief aide, asked.
“No, I believe him,” Donaldson said. “He’s not smart enough to pull something like that.”
“I don’t know why the president doesn’t get rid of him,” Henderson commented. “Of course, the kind of person he is, maybe it’s better that he’s incompetent.” The senator agreed.
When he returned to his office, Henderson adjusted the venetian blinds on his window, though the sun was on the other side of the building. An hour later the driver of a passing Black & White taxicab looked up at the window and made a mental note.
Henderson worked late that night. The Hart building was nearly empty with most of the senators out of town. Donaldson was there only because of personal business and to keep an eye on things. As chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, he had more duties than he would have liked at this time of year. Henderson took the elevator down to the main lobby, looking every inch the senior congressional aide — a three-piece gray suit, an expensive leather attaché case, his hair just so, and his stride jaunty as he left the building. A Black & White cab came around the corner and stopped to let out a fare. Henderson got in.
“Watergate,” he said. Not until the taxi had driven a few blocks did he speak again.
Henderson had a modest one-bedroom condo in the Watergate complex, an irony that he himself had considered many times. When he got to his destination he did not tip the driver. A woman got in as he walked to the main entrance. Taxis in Washington are very busy in the early evening.
“Georgetown University, please,” she said, a pretty young woman with auburn hair and an armload of books.
“Night school?” the driver asked, checking the mirror.
“Exams,” the girl said, her voice a trace uneasy. “Psych.”
“Best thing to do with exams is relax,” the driver advised.
Special Agent Hazel Loomis fumbled with her books. Her purse dropped to the floor. “Oh, damn.” She bent over to pick it up, and while doing so retrieved a miniature tape recorder that another agent had left under the driver’s seat.
It took fifteen minutes to get to the university. The fare was $3.85. Loomis gave the driver a five and told him to keep the change. She walked across the campus and entered a Ford which drove straight to the J. Edgar Hoover Building. A lot of work had gone into this — and it had been so easy!
“Always is, when the bear walks into your sight.” The inspector who had been running the case turned left onto Pennsylvania Avenue. “The problem is finding the damned bear in the first place.”
“Gentlemen, you have been asked here because each of you is a career intelligence officer with a working knowledge of submarines and Russian,” Davenport said to the four officers seated in his office. “I have need of officers with your qualifications. This is a volunteer assignment. It could involve a considerable element of danger — we cannot be sure at this point. The only other thing I can say is that this will be a dream job for an intelligence officer — but the sort of dream that you’ll never be able to tell anyone about. We’re all used to that, aren’t we?” Davenport ventured a rare smile. “As they say in the movies, if you want in, fine; if not, you may leave at this point, and nothing will ever be said. It is asking a lot to expect men to walk into a potentially dangerous assignment blindfolded.”
Of course nobody left; the men who had been called here were not quitters. Besides, something would be said, and Davenport had a good memory. These were professional officers. One of the compensations for wearing a uniform and earning less money than an equally talented man can make in the real world is the off chance of being killed.
“Thank you, gentlemen. I think you will find this worth your while.” Davenport stood and handed each man a manila envelope. “You will soon have the chance to examine a Soviet missile submarine — from the inside.” Four pairs of eyes blinked in unison.
The USS Ethan Allen had been on station now for more than thirty hours. She was cruising in a five-mile circle at a depth of two hundred feet. There was no hurry. The submarine was making just enough speed to maintain steerage way, her reactor producing only ten percent of rated power. The chief quartermaster was assisting in the galley.
“First time I’ve ever done this in a sub,” one of the Allen’s officers who was acting as ship’s cook noted, stirring an omelette.
The quartermaster sighed imperceptibly. They ought to have sailed with a proper cook, but theirs had been a kid, and every enlisted man aboard now had over twenty years of service. The chiefs were all technicians, except the quartermaster, who could handle a toaster on a good day.
“You cook much at home, sir?”
“Some. My parents used to have a restaurant down at Pass Christian. This is my mama’s special Cajun omelette. Shame we don’t have any bass. I can do some nice things with bass and a little lemon. You fish much, Chief?”
“No, sir.” The small complement of officers and senior chiefs was working in an informal atmosphere, and the quartermaster was a man accustomed to discipline and status boundaries. “Commander, can I ask what the hell we’re doing?”
“Wish I knew, Chief. Mostly we’re waiting for something.”
“But what, sir?”
“Damned if I know. You want to hand me those ham cubes? And could you check the bread in the oven? Ought to be about done.”
Commander Eaton was perplexed. His battle group was holding twenty miles south of the Russians. If it hadn’t been dark he could have seen the Kirov’s towering superstructure on the horizon from his perch on the flat bridge. Her escorts were in a single broad line ahead of the battle cruiser, pinging away in the search for a submarine.
Since the air force had staged its mock attack the Soviets had been acting like sheep. This was out of character to say the least. The New Jersey and her escorts were keeping the Russian formation under constant observation, and a pair of Sentry aircraft were watching for good measure. The Russian redeployment had switched Eaton’s responsibility to the Kirov group. This suited him. His main battery turrets were trained in, but the guns were loaded with eight-inch guided rounds and the fire control stations were fully manned. The Tarawa was thirty miles south, her armed strike force of Harriers sitting ready to move at five-minute notice. The Soviets had to know this, even though their ASW helicopters had not come within five miles of an American ship for two days. The Bear and Backfire bombers which were passing overhead in shuttle rounds to Cuba — only a few, and those returning to Russia as quickly as they could be turned around — could not fail to report what they saw. The American vessels were in extended attack formation, the missiles on the New Jersey and her escorts being fed continuous information from the ships’ sensors. And the Russians were ignoring them. Their only electronic emissions were routine navigation radars. Strange.