“Isn’t it a little soon, sir? If I remember, that game is played late in January.”
“I know when it’s played. Fidel is like all our sacred Cuban brothers, he’s completely disorganized.” Lubutkin nodded. Shevenko began to read the report from the submarine captain who had torpedoed and sunk the U.S.S. Sharkfin.
Vice Admiral Michael P. Brannon, Commander, Submarines Atlantic, turned at the door of his quarters and used his bulk to shield his wife from the wind.
“You’d better get inside, Gloria, this wind is cold. I’ll try to be home by eighteen hundred. If I’m going to be late I’ll phone.” He bent and kissed her upturned mouth and went down the steps to the sidewalk, carrying his heavy frame with an erectness that belied his age and the crushing weight of responsibility that went with his job. His driver smiled a greeting as he held open the car door. The driver trotted around the car and settled himself behind the wheel and the car moved off, the blue pennant with three white stars on it that flew from a front fender snapping in the cold morning wind.
The outer, or E-Ring of the four-story Pentagon building is the area where the offices of the nation’s defense chiefs and planners are located. The offices are large and comfortably furnished. Depending where in the E-Ring an office might be located, a sweeping view of some of the nation’s history is visible; the dome of the nation’s Capitol, old Georgetown, the Lincoln Memorial or, in summer, the lush greenery along the historic Potomac River.
The office suite occupied by Vice Admiral Brannon was luxuriously furnished in keeping with his rank and his position as ComSubLant. The General Services Administration saw to it there were comfortable sofas, chairs, coffee tables, and a massive walnut desk with a high backed swivel chair for the Admiral. Within arm’s reach of the swivel chair there was a taboret with a carafe of ice water and glasses. The walls were decorated with a large picture of the President of the United States and framed color photos of the submarines, the submarine squadrons, the heavy cruiser, and the battleship Mike Brannon had commanded during his long naval career. A corps of yeomen worked in the three outer offices of the suite under the supervision of a dour Chief Yeoman who wore seven gold hash marks on the left sleeve of his uniform jacket denoting twenty-eight years of honorable service.
Admiral Brannon paused at the Chief Yeoman’s desk in the outer office. “Good morning, Chief. Any word on the Sharkfin come in overnight?”
“Negative, sir. Admiral Olsen is waiting for you in your office. Coffee will be ready in a minute, Admiral.”
“Thank you. You’d better get a sweet roll for Admiral Olsen. He’s always hungry and nothing he eats puts an ounce on him.” Brannon went into his office as Rear Admiral John Olsen turned away from the office window.
“Good to see you, John. The Chief said there was nothing on Sharkfin. That right?”
“No word, Mike. As of zero eight hundred today, in a few minutes, she’ll be sixty-eight hours overdue with her position report. Aircraft search out of Spain and the Azores is negative. We’re calling her on all bands every five minutes, alternating from Rota and Washington. No answer.”
“She could have a breakdown in her communications gear,” Brannon said. There was a light tap on the door and a yeoman came in with a tray holding a carafe of coffee, cups, a can of condensed milk, sugar, and a huge sweet roll. He put the tray down on a coffee table and closed the door quietly behind him as he left the room. Brannon carefully measured half a teaspoon of sugar into his coffee and then poured in evaporated milk until the liquid was a creamy yellow. Olsen bit into the sweet roll and chewed rapidly.
“She’s got too much redundancy in communications for a breakdown to be the cause of not reporting,” Olsen said. “The only thing I can think of is a major breakdown in her nuclear power plant and that she might be somewhere on the bottom, trying to make repairs.”
“That won’t wash,” Brannon said. “Water’s too deep for her to be on the bottom. Way too deep.”
The two men, shipmates during World War II when Mike Brannon had commanded the U.S.S. Eelfish and John Olsen had been his Executive Officer during six harrowing submarine war patrols, looked at each other, each sensing the other’s concern.
“Let’s go down to the Black Room,” Brannon said. He turned and stretched, reaching for the console of buttons on his desk top.
“You don’t have to call them,” Olsen said. “I did that a little while ago. I asked Captain Steel to meet us there.”
Brannon frowned. “You think that was necessary at this point?”
“He’s an important man in the Navy, and still very powerful, Mike. He may not be able to contribute very much at this stage but if he isn’t kept informed he’ll raise so much hell that life won’t be worth living.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Brannon said. He drained his coffee cup and stood up, his mind on the abrasive Captain Herman Steel. “I just don’t much like that man, John.”
“Who does?” Olsen said as he unfolded his long, lean length from a sofa. “He doesn’t even have a wife or kids to like him. He’s just a mean, nasty, son of a bitch but he’s our son of a bitch and God help us.”
The Black Room in Operations was well named. Three of the four walls were made of thick glass. There were no lights in the room except for one red light on a desk in the center of the room and a glowing ruby tip on the end of a microphone that sprouted out of the desk top on a long flexible stalk.
“You took your time getting here.” The rasping voice of Captain Herman Steel was loud in the quiet dimness of the room. “I’ve got better things to do than to stand around and wait for people who can’t begin their day’s work until they’ve poisoned their systems with coffee. Caffeine is a drug. It dulls the brain. I see evidence of that every day when I have to deal with coffee-swilling, seagoing types.”
“Good morning, Captain.” Mike Brannon’s voice gave no evidence that he was aware of the rudeness of Captain Steel’s remarks. “I thank you for coming down here on such short notice. I know you have a busy schedule.” As his eyes adjusted to the room’s gloom Brannon saw that Captain Steel was watching Brannon closely.
Commander John Fencer, the officer in charge of the Black Room, moved out of the gloom to the desk. The red light illuminated his square, compact form and made deep shadows under his eyebrows. As he turned to face the three men the red light cast an eerie sheen on his close-cropped blond hair. He touched a finger to a button on the desk top.
“Standing by, sir.” The voice came from a speaker built into the desk.
“Please display the western half of the Mediterranean, the Strait of Gibraltar and the eastern half of the Atlantic,” Fencer said crisply. He turned with the others to face a glass wall that began to glow faintly and then lit up with a detailed nautical chart of the requested areas.
“Please chart the course of the U.S.S. Sharkfin up to and through the Strait and beyond and lay down her designated course after her last position report.” A black line appeared in the Mediterranean and moved through the Strait of Gibraltar and out into the Atlantic, veering slightly to the north as the line moved out to the edge of the chart.
“Thank you,” Fencer said. “Now indicate the points where Sharkfin made her known position reports.”
A black X showed on the chart in the Mediterranean and another black X appeared on the chart on the course line to the west of the Strait. Fencer looked at a paper he held in his hand, tilting it to catch the dim light.