Notwithstanding, no man would have been happier than Jack Kennedy if one or other, ideally, both the Scorpion and the Dreadnought had miraculously survived. Looking into Walter Brenckmann’s eyes he’d glimpsed a window into the soul of a broken man; a broken man who rightly blamed him for the death of his first born on the Scorpion.
When, eventually Admiral Vincent Lincoln Gray, CINCLANT, took his President’s call it was immediately apparent that he didn’t see what the problem was. From where he sat in his Headquarters at Norfolk, Virginia, everything was hunky dory. Nobody had stormed his command station, there were no vigilantes or terrorists on the streets outside and his boys had just expunged the memory of the ignominious way HMS Dreadnought had run rings around the Enterprise Battle Group for most of the last month.
“Admiral Gray,” Jack Kennedy drawled wearily, “even by your own account of the incident the only units we know for sure put torpedoes in the water were the two S-2 Trackers off the Enterprise. Again, even from your own account whatever happened to the USS Scorpion, happened to her when she was in close contact — very close contact, it seems — with HMS Dreadnought. There is nothing in your report to me that discounts the possibility that the two submarines might have actually collided.” He almost choked on the next possibility: “Likewise, there is nothing to discount the possibility that the Scorpion was ‘downed’ by the first pair of torpedoes launched by the S-2s.”
“I don’t think we need to seriously consider that possibility, Mister President,” the other man retorted. The President had only been a jumped up Lieutenant, a PT boat commander, what did he know? The Admiral could barely keep the condescension out of his voice. “We are analysing recordings from several sonar buoys at this time, Mr President,” CINCLANT insisted in a stentorian monotone. “In a few hours we expect to have definitive evidence that our boat was attacked without warning…”
Jack Kennedy tried not to lose his temper.
“We don’t have ‘a few hours’, Admiral Gray.” This was uncannily like when that crazy Soviet sub skipper nuked the USS Beale last year. The Navy still hadn’t come clean about all the circumstances leading up to that incident. They’d had carrier and land-based air in the area, three destroyers slowly cruising above the grounded Soviet boat; they could have stood off, waited for the B59 to surface but no, the Navy had bombed the submarine with practice depth charges!
Admiral Gray had been on the Board of Inquiry that exonerated the flag officer in command of the USS Randolph ‘hunting group’ of any blame for the loss of the Beale. The ‘enemy’s action was not predictable in advance’ and in any case, neither he nor anybody else in the Navy Department, or the Pentagon had known that Soviet submarines were equipped with nuclear-tipped torpedoes.
“There is a lot of data to be analysed, sir.”
The President of the United States of America had been driven to nuclear war once by the Navy and it wasn’t going to happen again. Leastways, he hoped it wasn’t going to happen again. Once bitten, twice shy was the maxim that applied.
“Admiral Gray, please listen very carefully,” Jack Kennedy said slowly. As he said it he looked up at the circle of men gathered around the table in the Situation Room. Curtis LeMay, Robert McNamara and his younger brother, Bobby’s expressions were stony. LeMay wanted to have CINCLANT arrested, the Secretary of Defence was, yet again, appalled by the imbecilic machismo of the Navy at a time of impossibly high international tension, and the Attorney General didn’t actually believe this, any of this was happening. Outside the city was burning, the nation’s heart was bleeding and the fucking Navy had decided to start World War IV early! “General LeMay, Acting Chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary for Defence, and the Attorney General are witnesses to this call and the orders I am about to give you which are to be executed without delay…”
Admiral Gray began to say something.
“I’m still talking, Admiral Gray,” Jack Kennedy snapped. “You will kindly do your Commander-in-Chief the courtesy of listening to him. You will immediately order, and personally ensure, that the following officers are placed under close confinement. These officers may not be interrogated by, or have any personal unrecorded interactions with any officer of an equivalent or senior rank without the direct written authorization of the Attorney General, and or, General LeMay or Mr McNamara. Please repeat what I have just mandated, Admiral.”
CINCLANT hadn’t been listening that closely so there was a delay while his staffers primed him to call back a vaguely verbatim version of his Commander-in-Chief’s peremptory edict.
“You will immediately relieve from duty and confine the following officers,” Jack Kennedy went on, consulting the scrawled list on his desk before him, “the Officer commanding the Enterprise Task Force, his Operations Officer and his Senior Intelligence Officer, the Enterprise’s CAG and his deputy, and the pilots and crew of both S-2 Trackers involved in the Scorpion incident. All records pertaining to that incident are to be impounded by the Captain of the Enterprise who will take command of the Task Force and withdraw it at its best speed from the area of the Atlantic Ocean designated as a ‘Total Exclusion Zone’ by the United Kingdom Interim Emergency Administration…”
“That may not be possible to expedite immediately, Mister President…”
“Furthermore, as previously ordered you will ensure that all air, surface and undersea assets under your command immediately disengage from contact with any Royal Navy aircraft or vessel. If necessary, they will communicate that intention to the British prior to disengagement just to make sure that there is no scope for misunderstanding by either party.”
“That won’t be easy…”
“Admiral Gray,” Jack Kennedy rasped, “if you are unable to immediately execute my orders I will find somebody who will. If there is any delay in executing my orders by you or by anybody else at Norfolk I will deploy elements of the 101st Airborne Division to expedite matters. Do I make myself clear, Admiral?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Thank you. General LeMay’s people are already in transit to your headquarters to report to me on the completeness with which my orders have been executed, Admiral.”
Jack Kennedy put down the handset.
He looked at Curtis Lemay.
“I want the 101st Airborne on the ground in Virginia ASAP,” he said with deadly intent. “If that arsehole Gray doesn’t call off his boys I want his arse on stick.”
The Acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff nodded grimly.
“Yes, Mister President.”
Chapter 45
“Surface! Surface! Surface!”
The submarine trembled and juddered as her ballast tanks were explosively emptied with blasting compressed air. In the thick, slowly fouling air of the control room exhausted men felt the boat rising, faster and faster.