Detective McDwyer persisted. “Did you see his back, or his coat?”
“I did not. I was focused on the milk cans swaying around in the back. I just thought Jerry was off on some errand and that he’d be back. I didn’t mean to mislead you, sir. You can trust me on that.”
“I know you didn’t,” replied Detective Ray McDwyer. “The memory’s a funny thing. It can trick you. And I’m grateful for your help.”
Officer Joe Carey drove them back to the Crookhaven waterfront, where McDwyer called in the other cars. He asked all seven of his men to pay attention, and he told them, “It looks to me as if Jerry O’Connell was removed from his truck somewhere between the top road and Goleen, a distance of less than three miles.
“I want you to organize a search all along there with as many officers as you can find. This is getting more serious than I first thought. But Jerry’s truck was seen driving fast through Goleen at around seven o’clock. You may assume he was not at the wheel.”
There were many hours of daylight left, and another dozen policemen were drafted in from outlying districts. And for hour after hour they walked along the high road above the harbor, searching both sides of the road for signs of an injured man-or a dumped body.
At 4:30 P.M., Ray McDwyer himself was walking along the road, staring down in search of any clue as to where the milk truck had stopped. And he stopped at a short, maybe four-foot-long skid mark on the left-hand side of the road. To him, the rubber looked fresh and black, and he told Joe Carey to step up the search along this stretch of road, with six men on the left and eight on the right, along the cliff top.
At 5:25 that afternoon, they found the body of Jerry O’Connell, his septum crushed into his brain.
“Mother of God!” murmured Ray McDwyer.
The Royal Navy’s 7,000-ton Astute-class hunter-killer submarine Artful was making a steady course southwest at twenty-two knots, bound for the Gibraltar Base. This part of the North Atlantic has been known for centuries as St. George’s Channel, named of course by the English, possibly to let the hapless Irish know precisely who owned the great waters and who indeed might be expected to walk on them. Cry God for Harry, England, and St. George.
The ship was quiet. There were no U.S. submarines this far south, the French underwater boats were in their huge base at Brest on the Brittany coast, and the Russians right now had nothing beyond the confines of the Baltic. Everyone knew there was nothing around, and nothing was expected.
However, at four minutes past four o’clock, a short, sharp exclamation was uttered by one of the young sonar operators; uttered almost in disbelief, in language not normally associated with the formal idiom of a submarine on patrol.
“What the bloody hell’s that?” snapped Able Seaman Jeff Cooper, staring at his screen. “I’m getting something, a rise, could be engine lines. I’d say it’s a submarine.”
A supervisor walked over and said, “Let me take a look.”
AB Cooper just had time to say “Right here, sir,” before the contact disappeared. And it did not return any time in the next five minutes. But then it did, and this time it was clearer, perhaps closer. Jeff Cooper coordinated the data quickly.
“Level of certainty they were engine lines?”
“One hundred percent, sir.”
“You thought it was a submarine?”
“I’m sure it was.”
“Well, that’s very peculiar. We have no notification that there is any submarine within two hundred miles of our track. What does the computer conclude?”
“Single shaft. Five blades. Compressed cavitation. Fits Russian diesel-electric Kilo-class boat.”
Five minutes later, the commanding officer was informed. Immediately, he ordered Artful to periscope depth and sent a signal to the satellite.
Lt. Commander Jimmy Ramshawe stared at the signal in front of him, which had arrived direct from Naval Intelligence. It was not couched in alarming tones, nor was it regarded as urgent. It just stated: RN HMS Artful 51.15N 08.29W picked up short transient contact on very quiet vessel at 161604JULY12. Insufficient hard copy for firm classification-aural, compressed cavitation, one shaft, five blades, probably non-nuclear. No information on friendly transits relates.
“That, old mate,” said Jimmy decisively, to the entirely empty room, “is a bloke who was bloody sure he just heard a submarine.”
He pulled up his computer chart for the northeastern Atlantic and checked the precise whereabouts of Artful when the transient contact was detected. About twenty-four miles south of Kinsale in County Cork… now, what in the name of Christ is an unknown submarine doing there? Unless the crew wants a decent round of golf-my dad played Old Head, Kinsale, last year-shot a 98!
He hit the secure link to COMSUBLANT and spoke to a lieutenant he knew well, questioning the likelihood of a submarine patrolling the coast of Ireland.
“Jack, I think it might have been Russian,” he said. “Five blades, that’s Russian for sure, and non-nuclear. The Brits obviously think it’s a Kilo, but they haven’t said so in as many words.”
Jim, we do have something on the boards. Only one, an Iranian Kilo, recently out of refit in the Baltic. We were tracking it in the western end of the Med, then tracked it north maybe a week ago. That’s probably her.
“Well, the Brits are damn reliable and wouldn’t make a mistake like this. Were you guys tracking it subsurface?”
Sure. We had Cheyenne in there.
Jimmy closed down the link and phoned the Big Man, who was, for once in his life, not betraying outright impatience.
“Listen, kid. You are sure the only submarine that has gone off the boards is that Iranian Kilo, right?”
“I am sure. COMSUBLANT has every other underwater boat on earth under observation.”
“And now a submarine, which fits the pattern, is located by the Brits twenty-four miles south of Kinsale in Ireland, right? Maybe 1,500 miles from its last known.”
“Correct.”
“Well, that Kilo can probably cover three hundred miles in a day, snorkeling. I guess that’s gotta be it. Hull 901 on the loose, way south in the Irish Sea.”
“That’s how I figured it, boss.”
“And what do you want me to do about it? Fire a torpedo?”
“Nossir. But I just had a few thoughts.”
“Don’t tell me. You think the Kilo is being driven by a barmaid from Brockhurst?”
“Close. I’ll talk to you later.”
As he said good-bye, the lieutenant commander could hear Arnold Morgan chuckling… heh-heh-heh, the knowing laugh of an ex-nuclear submarine commander who still thinks he’s one jump ahead.
Which was precisely the opposite of what Jimmy Ramshawe thought. For the first time in his life, he considered the Big Man to be several steps behind. And if he didn’t shape up, he’d be several steps dead. And now Jim pulled his biggest computerized chart into zoom-out mode, showing the ocean from Gibraltar to Kinsale.
He studied it, measured it, and deduced that the distance was almost 1,500 miles-that was five days, maybe less if she was in a major hurry. And since there was no likelihood that it was proposing to open fire on someone, Jimmy considered it most likely that the submarine was either picking someone up or depositing a person or persons on the shores of Ireland. Probably yesterday.
Intelligence officers of his caliber often act on a hunch. And right now Jimmy did so. He called a regular contact at the FBI and asked him to check whether anyone, repeat anyone, had purchased an unbooked ticket, either first-class or business-class, on a flight to Shannon or Dublin on the morning of July 3. “Almost certainly Aer Lingus,” he added. “They have a virtual monopoly on flights into southern Ireland from the USA. Try Washington, New York, and Boston.”