He sat at his desk after the meeting with Vice Admiral Brannon and Admiral Olsen, a pad of lined yellow paper in front of him. He lettered the name “Brannon” at the top left-hand corner of the page and slowly drew a box around the name. He could handle Brannon, he thought. It would mean calling in an IOU from the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. That worthy’s congressional district, thanks to Captain Steel, had been awarded a lot of military installations. Brannon was only a couple of years away from mandatory retirement for age, the Congressman could find cause for his early retirement.
Admiral John Olsen was another matter. If he got rid of Brannon there was little doubt that John Olsen would succeed him. The Navy’s rigid formula for promotion and succession could not be altered. John Olsen was, in Steel’s opinion, more intelligent than Brannon and therefore more dangerous. He made a small box next to Brannon’s name and lettered in “John Olsen,” recalling the single instance when he had fenced with Olsen.
The occasion had been shortly after Olsen had been assigned as Brannon’s Chief of Staff. Captain Steel had been called to Brannon’s office to discuss an appropriation he had requested for additional funds to build another nuclear training school. The very fact that his appropriation was being questioned had irked Captain Steel. He wasn’t accustomed to having his appropriations questioned.
During the discussion he had remarked that he had submitted the appropriation for the nuclear training school because it was logical to do so. Admiral Olsen, sitting on a sofa in Brannon’s office, had smiled and said, “As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once wrote, and I quote, The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience.’
“The Navy’s experience, Captain, has been that it is not logical to build facilities when you don’t have sufficient men to utilize them. We don’t have enough volunteers for nuclear submarine schools to justify building another one.”
Captain Steel’s reply, as he remembered it, had been short. “And I will quote to you, sir, from Thomas Henry Huxley: ‘Logical consequences are the scarecrows of fools and the beacons of wise men.’ ”
Admiral Brannon had ended the discussion by tabling the appropriations request. That had been almost six months ago and the request was still tabled. What bothered Captain Steel was that Admiral Olsen had accurately quoted a Supreme Court chief justice. In Steel’s experience seagoing naval officers didn’t often read in those areas, let alone remember what they read. He drew a line between the boxes that contained the names of Brannon and Olsen. If he got rid of Brannon he’d have to contend with John Olsen. He thought a moment and then he drew an X across each box. If he moved carefully there was a possibility that he could get rid of Brannon and shunt Olsen off to another Flag job. Whoever succeeded the two men would know why they had been given the job. The Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee could take care of that small chore and the successors would know enough to stand well clear of Captain Herman Steel. He smiled gently and reached for his telephone and dialed the private line of Representative Walter W. Wendell, the venerable Congressman from Virginia and the long-time Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
Captain Steel met the wizened Congressman near the flame that burned at the burial site of President John F. Kennedy in Arlington National Cemetery. The two men walked among the small grave markers, Captain Steel keeping his pace slow to accommodate the old politician. Steel recounted the events from the sinking of the Sharkfin to the meeting with Admiral Brannon earlier that day in a succinct manner. Representative Wendell stopped at a grave marker and looked up at Steel’s face.
“Can’t say I disagree with what the Admiral did, Captain. Can’t say that any patriotic American would disagree. Most people would probably want the Admiral to run for the Presidency. I know,” he stopped and raised a veined and gnarled hand as Steel started to speak.
“I know that what he did is an open act of war and against every rule in the book. Know that very well, sir. Know that before we get back from this little walk nuclear bombs might be falling all over the country.
“But I don’t think that will happen. Roosians respect strength. They even fear it.” He stopped and rubbed his chin with fingers that were misshapen from arthritis.
“And if the Roosians don’t do anything at all, and I don’t think they will, then your Admiral is going to be able to go to the President and while he may get his ass chewed off he ain’t gonna get fired from his job, Herman. That windbag we’ve got for a Secretary of State, Harold dee Antoine,” he pronounced the name with a downward twist of his long thin lips, “that big old windbag will get up on his hind legs and say that the Admiral done just what he would have done and the only fuss he’ll make is to ask why he wasn’t consulted so he could have advised the President to give orders to sink the Roosian submarine.” He grinned. “Not that he would have had the guts to do that.”
“That’s not the point, Congressman,” Captain Steel said. “Brannon has now become a dangerous man. He’s committed an act of war and if he gets away with it we don’t know what he’ll decide to do next. He might, to use your words, he might decide to run for President. There’re enough Conservatives in the country, enough worried Democrats that it might work.”
“Naw,” the Congressman scoffed. “You might be a genius, Herman, but you don’t know beans about national politics. You got to have an organization to get elected to any job. He’s got no organization. But I agree with one thing you said. If he gets away with this we don’t know what he might do next and I don’t like the idea of any admiral doing things with the military that I don’t first approve of. When he bypasses me he ain’t to be trusted, I’ll agree to that.”
Captain Steel walked a few yards in silence. The old Congressman looked at him out of the corner of his eye.
“Ain’t forgot that you’ve been very helpful to me, Herman. Let me think on this a little. If we don’t get burned up to a cinder by a nuclear bomb before we get back to our offices I’ll think on it real hard.”
“Thank you,” Captain Steel said. “I’d caution you, sir, that this is something that no one should know about.”
“You teaching an old dog how to suck eggs?” Congressman Wendell asked. “I got my own ways, Herman, you know that. You just go back to your office and figure out how we can scare the Roosians shitless with your nuclear submarines. Leave the politicking to me because that’s what this little job is, politicking. It’s something I’m pretty good at.”
“The one person we have to be careful to keep this from is Moise Goldman, the President’s Chief of Staff,” Steel said. “He hates me.”
“You boys ought to get along better,” Wendell said with a sly smile. “Made a big mistake, you did, not getting next to that Jew boy. He’s pretty near as smart as you are. Good politician, too. He’s pure burned the ass off some people in the Congress since old Milligan decided he had too much country boy in him to be a distinguished kind of President and hired the Jew boy to make him look like a real President.” He laughed silently, his thin shoulders shaking.