“That boat’s already wasted as far as we are concerned. We’re never going to see it again. But by hitting it, we ensure her secrets remain safe.”
“At least until we get a new Democratic administration,” said Harcourt.
“Don’t make me shudder,” said Arnold Morgan. “I’m already under severe stress.”
“Okay if I conclude this meeting, Mr. Chairman?” said the President. “I understand what you have outlined. And I think it would be better if we reconvened this afternoon, say at fifteen hundred. Meantime you could get a quick feasibility study done about such a bombing raid. Then we could talk more about the crew, and maybe we’ll have a few updates from the overheads, and possibly a reply from the ambassador. Let’s plan on working through dinner. Let’s face it, there’s nothing else matters like this matters.”
“Okay, sir. Just as you say. I’ll get all the stuff together and we’ll meet right here at fifteen hundred.” Admiral Morgan motioned for Joe Mulligan to join him, and the two men stood up and left immediately.
They walked in silence for a few paces before the CNO muttered, “You know, Arnie, I hate to go around in circles, but aren’t we always returning to the same problem…like any attack, they start killing the prisoners? I’m not sure it’s much different if the submarine blows up, however it happens. Might they not just start getting rid of the prisoners since they don’t really need them?”
“They might, Joe. And worse yet, they might start torturing them, trying to force information out of them about the systems. And that might be terrible. But I did not especially want to mention that in front of the President.”
“No sense doing that. You can see how upset he is.”
“Right…but Joe, we gotta think. We gotta get into my office and come up with something. And we gotta have it in the next four hours. Meanwhile, we’ll bounce their ambassador around some more. And their naval attaché…but my God, Joe, this is a real bastard of a problem. Because we’re dealing with a hostage situation, whatever the Chinese say. And that’s always trouble.”
“Especially one particular hostage.”
“You got that right.”
For the next four hours the two admirals went around and around the puzzle. And every time they were blocked by the same threat — that of the Chinese starting to kill the captive crew of USS Seawolf. Every hour Admiral Morgan called and threatened the ambassador, assuring him that American revenge would be swift and devastating. And every time, the reply was the same: “No problem here, Admiral. My government has no problem. Submarine being fixed. You have it back very soon. Crew honored guests of my government. No problem.”
Admiral Morgan could have throttled him.
And all the while, a new plan was circulating through his subconscious. It was a plan driven by his natural flair for the subversive, the stealthy, and the downright underhanded. In his heart, Arnold Morgan loathed the idea of crash forward, kick down the unlocked door, and blast your enemy to pieces.
Admiral Morgan was an ex-nuclear submarine commander and his natural kingdom was the kingdom of the devil, the kingdom of deceit, stealth and cunning. Never in a thousand years would he have bombed Libya, Iraq, nor the Sudan nor Afghanistan, nor even Belgrade. He might have sanctioned a small, devastating sneak attack that left no trace. But more likely he would have sent in a Special Forces team to move quietly around, stalking the enemy, and then pouncing, grabbing and executing the leader and all of his cabinet. Good-bye Muammar, Saddam, Bin Laden, and Slobodan. Arnold Morgan loved Special Forces and the mass confusion they left in their wake.
And now, faced with an apparently insurmountable conundrum, complicated by a priceless American hostage, his thoughts returned to the kingdom of the night, in which brilliantly skilled American operators moved swiftly, silently and to brutal effect. He was not quite ready to articulate it. Yet. But Arnold Morgan, in the deepest canyons of his soul, was planning to spring the American captives right out of that Chinese jail. Every ounce of common sense told him it was probably impossible. But every instinct he had about the capabilities of Special Forces told him there was a chance. Not much of a chance. But one which, in this instance, he would have to take.
He dismissed the possibility of any strategy that would involve direct attack, any attack that would involve direct confrontation, indeed any confrontation whatsoever. Arnold Morgan’s military brain was telling him to isolate the jail in which the prisoners were held. Then have the guys go in, take out the guards and release the American crew.
“Two things, Arnie,” said Joe for the umpteenth time that day. “How do we get a dozen guys in there? How do we get more’n a hundred of ’em out of there?”
“Skip the details, Joe. Right here I’m talking principle.” And without missing a beat, he picked up the phone and growled, “Kathy, get me SPECWARCOM in Coronado on the line…I want to talk to Vice Admiral Bergstrom. Right away. Wherever he is. Whatever he’s doing.”
By now, it was 2:00 P.M. on the East Coast, which put Admiral Bergstrom in his office talking to two of his top Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) instructors, the hardest men in the world’s hardest regiment, the standard-setters of the U.S. Navy SEALs.
“Hey, Arnold, how are you, sir? Haven’t talked for a few weeks.”
“John, quite frankly I’m desperate. I must talk to you.”
“Fine. Shoot.”
“No, here.”
“Where?”
“Washington.”
“When?”
“Now.”
“What, right now?”
“Right now.”
“How do I get there?”
“Any aircraft you have.”
“Alone?”
“Alone.”
“Andrews?”
“Right.”
“Six hours.”
“I’ll have a chopper waiting.”
“See ya.”
One thing, Admirals Bergstrom and Morgan knew each other well.
“He, of course, being our great Special Forces pragmatist, will be even more pessimistic than I am,” suggested Joe Mulligan.
“Yeah. But he’ll say, Okay, let’s do it, but how? You’re saying, Let’s not do it, because it’s impossible.”
“Well, Arnie, it is.”
“I know.”
“It would be as if we had a hundred important Chinese prisoners in a state penitentiary in, say, the middle of Atlanta. And a dozen armed Chinese insurgents tried to get ’em out. We’d wrap those guys up in a matter of hours.”
“Not if they made their move in the dead of night. And not if they’d been trained by Bergstrom’s guys out in Coronado. And they brought with them all the right gear. Because that might prove very tough indeed.”
“Okay, Arnie. I guess it might.”
“And that’s our chance, Joe. And we gotta try. Did you see the President this morning? The poor guy was close to tears. We have to do something. I’m just not prepared to tell him we won’t even try.”
The meeting had been running for four hours now. And the arguments swayed back and forth. Every time the military members of the committee suggested any form of attack, Harcourt Travis pointed out the appalling consequences of war with China. He stressed the Asian fixation with “loss of face.” And he made no concessions whatsoever—“If the USA begins killing Chinese citizens in order to free the submarine and the prisoners, the Chinese will hit back, no question in my mind.”
“But surely that would apply to any nation we considered had to be punished?” said General Scannell.
“Maybe,” replied Harcourt. “But the Chinese are different. They have so many people. If we hit them a devastating blow and took ten million of their citizens off the face of the earth, their mindset would not alter. They would shrug and say, Irrelevant, we still have twelve hundred and forty million people left.”