December Ultimatum (16 page)

USS
OKINAWA

‘Four miles and approaching’

Captain Hanks stood in his favourite corner of the bridge, forward port side, looking out across the three thousand square yards of flat grey deck. His hands were behind his back, and the small black rubber squash ball turned between the fingers and thumb of his right hand.

Below him, blue-overalled aircraft handling crews manoeuvred vertical take-off aircraft into neat lines, six of them abreast, guided by marshallers in yellow flight helmets communicating with the hangar below by two-way radios strung across their shoulders. And in the mess rooms below the flight deck, pilots sat drinking coffee and Coke and wondering why on a good-will tour they should suddenly be on standby alert.

In the gun turrets fore and aft of the bridge, crews sat in their anti-flash masks and green steel helmets deep inside the armour-plated screens and sweated with the weight of their flak-jackets cursing the Captain on his air-conditioned bridge.

The stub-nosed bow hardly moved. The horizon was steady and the sea, reflecting the day’s last seconds of sunlight, was like a pond, mirror-still. Only the slightest swirl of current at the stern showed that the ship was under power and, except for the movement on the flight deck, the whole vessel could have been asleep and at ease in the twilight. But every man had been at action stations for the past fifteen minutes, and Captain Hanks was not on the bridge to watch the splendour of a mid-Eastern sunset. He was searching the sea for the first sign of the Soviet Seventh Fleet, the silhouettes of the Soviet carrier
Minsk
and its support ship the
Ivan Rogov.

The
Okinawa
had not sailed down the southernmost coast of the Persian Gulf as instructed by US Naval Command in the Pentagon. Instead Captain Hanks had made his decision to take his warship at full power up to the Strait of Hormuz, the sea corridor through which all traffic entering and leaving the Gulf must pass by a deep water channel so narrow that a large ship sunk in it would delay passage and effectively block the movement of oil tankers and their vital cargo.

It was here, now, in the Strait of Hormuz, that Captain Hanks had positioned his carrier, broadside on, to face the oncoming Soviet fleet. He had mounted his own blockade across the only access the Arabian oil states had to their world markets, the only route the tankers could take. With the West’s dependence on Arab oil, the Strait had long become the world’s most vital sea corridor. Only Captain Hanks realized its strategic importance. Or so it seemed to him.

He had changed into a fresh uniform and stood, feet apart, his left hand holding binoculars, his right gently kneading the small black ball.

Lieutenant Ginsberg, Gunnery Officer, stood behind him and to one side, watching the ball turn; like the rest of the crew, he knew it was the mood indicator of the man. The ball turned slowly and regularly. Captain Hanks was as still inside as the sea he was scanning.

Lieutenant Vaduz, Communications Officer, knew it too, but he could not understand why. This was the time for Captain Hanks to be anxious. They had all listened to the President’s speech. Some had been impressed by it. Many more, who remembered similar ultimatums in similar crises, called him a maverick and his speech bullshit. Men who despite their uniforms and their employment aboard a
US
warship, would not willingly go to war whatever the cause or call, not for oil, not for the President, not for America right or wrong. Lieutenant Vaduz saw the President’s speech as a gambit, bluff, gusty fine platitudes in place of action because action of the kind necessary was not something American Presidents could ever indulge in again. Hadn’t they tried it in Vietnam and failed? Hadn’t they tried it in that fiasco in Cambodia when sixty-five marines died trying to rescue the merchant ship
Mayaguez
? Hadn’t they tried it sending commandos to rescue American
PoWs
in Son Tay prison, Hanoi, only to find it empty when they’d arrived? Hadn’t they lost eight Americans and American pride in the Iranian desert? Hadn’t every American foreign initiative, big and small, failed this generation? Wasn’t that why the United States had been ridiculed in Cuba and humiliated in Iran?

And Lieutenant Vaduz knew that, even if America had lost its clout, even if it was a tottering, pitiful giant, Captain Hanks was not the man to put it right. Everyone could see the double deal. Strong words from the President out of Washington, and then a signal from the Pentagon to sail away from trouble. Captain Hanks had defied it, but how many of his men would in turn now defy him if he pressed confrontation with the Soviet fleet up front?

Lieutenant Vaduz watched his Captain’s face in profile, watched for the jaw muscles to begin their flexing in and out, waited for the grating of his back teeth, and for the skin across his temples to tighten and glisten with sweat and the right hand to begin its violent convulsion with the ball. But there was none of it. The Captain pulled the binoculars to his eyes, using both hands, and Lieutenant Vaduz saw that he had placed the black rubber ball on the rack that held the fire extinguishers, abandoned.

‘Four miles. And approaching.’ The voice came up through the console speaker from Radar below.

Lieutenant Vaduz leant forward and pressed the reply switch.

‘Thank you. Radar. We should have them visual any moment now.’

‘I already have them visual, Mr Vaduz, 045 using the centre line as zero.’ The Captain’s voice was suddenly higher pitched than normal. Vaduz and Ginsberg followed the unfamiliar coordinates, using their binoculars to trace the line across the starboard corner of the carrier’s flight deck. And then they too saw them, blurred shapes in the dusk but, to sea-eyes, unmistakable.

‘The
Minsk
is second in line, sir,’ said Lieutenant Ginsberg. ‘The
Ivan Rogov
seems some distance back from her. A mile, maybe less.’

‘Radar sir, three miles bearing 110 degrees, speed 14 knots and slowing.’

‘110 and 14, slowing,’ Lieutenant Vaduz repeated back. ‘Now they’ve got us too,’ said Ginsberg.

‘They have had us for some time, Mr Ginsberg,’ said Captain Hanks, in the same distant and high-pitched voice. ‘For as long as I have had them.
Ivan Rogov
has distanced herself from the
Minsk.
She began turning away five minutes ago and eight—possibly nine—ships have followed. They’ve split. The
Minsk
and her battle group sailing to us, the others are moving port. There’s some land that way, I believe?’

‘The Malcolm Inlet, sir,’ Lieutenant Ginsberg replied. ‘Navigational for ten miles, but too shallow for anything large. There’s nothing for them there.’

Captain Hanks nodded his head. ‘I know their game. I know exactly their game. They’ve seen us broadside and now they want us to turn. They think I’m worried at having all my guns on one side.’

He adjusted the left-hand sight of his binoculars.

‘We’ll maintain our position and our tactic. Keep moving slowly fore and aft across the deep-water channel. The bastards can’t pass us and they know it.’

Lieutenant Ginsberg stepped forward. ‘We have to let them pass, sir. These are territorial waters shared by Iran and Oman and we’re breaking their laws. They have the right of innocent passage, sir.’

Captain Hanks adjusted the right sight-piece of his binoculars and said nothing.

‘Sir,’ said Lieutenant Vaduz, ‘If we remain in this position, it can be construed as a hostile act.’

‘You can bet on it, boy,’ replied Captain Hanks softly. ‘You can safely bet it’ll be exactly so construed. Innocent passage my ass!’

The door to the bridge opened and Lieutenant Commander Daniels, the
Okinawa’s
second-in-command, came in holding a single sheet of paper. The noise and bustle from the flight deck came in with him.

‘Top priority—Washington—sir. From Admiral Holliwell himself.’

‘Read it out,’ said Captain Hanks, keeping the glasses to his eyes, as Radar interrupted:

‘Two miles. Sonar Detection indicating they’ve reversed engines. Main vessels still on 110 degrees, other battle group three miles west on 127.’

‘So,’ said the Captain, ‘they’ve stopped to ask the Kremlin what to do next.’

‘Admiral Holliwell, sir,’ said Commander Daniels, waving the signal at the Captain’s back. ‘He’s ordered us to turn about.’ He read from the signal. ‘You are to avoid any confrontation. Utmost care—do not escalate situation— move away from Soviet fleet. Acknowledge receipt immediately.’

‘Is that all?’ asked Captain Hanks.

‘That’s all, sir.’

‘What’s the security prefix?’

‘Beg pardon, sir?’

‘You say it’s from the Admiral? Pentagon? You say it’s priority. Satellite communication. And uncoded?’

‘Yessir.’

‘Then there has to be a security prefix to match ours. You know that, Mr Daniels.’

‘No, sir, not necessarily,’ said Daniels.

‘What d’you mean—not necessarily? Goddammit, is there a standard naval security procedure or isn’t there? Are we going to have a debate on the bridge with Russian warships two miles off? Let me remind you this is suddenly an operational area and I’m confronting two of the cleverest warships of any navy of any sea and you tell me that I have to obey an uncoded order of this nature that has been sent over
SATCOM
for anyone to pick up? You’re telling me the Admiral of the United States Navy sends such a thing with no security ident?’ He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and spat phlegm into it.

‘Now you get back to Command, Mr Vaduz, and tell them of a signal we have received which purports to come from Admiral Holliwell—and you tell them, boy, that it is unorthodox and irregular and that I’m fucking suspicious. Now you just tell them that.’

‘Captain,’ said Daniels, ‘we have already received two coded and security-idented signals via
SATCOM
and we have, on your specific orders, failed to acknowledge either. Both signals have told us to move away from the Soviets, both have urged us to de-escalate the situation.’

Captain Hanks still held the binoculars to his eyes and Daniels stepped closer to him.

‘Sir, it’s plausible that Command are under the impression we cannot reply for technical or even security reasons, and Admiral Holliwell is anxious we move south. So he has broken routine security procedures to get through to us. And sir, I think it’s also possible the Admiral has deliberately sent his signal this way so that the Soviets out there can pick it up and know we do not want confrontation. I really do think that’s a possibility, sir.’

For half a minute, Captain Hanks said nothing. He held the binoculars to his eyes and scanned slowly from the main Soviet fleet ahead to the second convoy moving port. And then, to the dismay of his officers watching, he let the binoculars fall and hang the length of their short straps on his chest, and picked the black rubber ball up off the fire extinguisher rack. Lieutenant Vaduz saw his jaw muscles begin their angry contortions.

‘Radar, sir,
Minsk
steady at two and a quarter miles.’ Captain Hanks turned to them raised his chin and spoke. ‘Gentlemen, I appreciate the concern. I understand your explanations. I also remember less than two minutes ago telling Vaduz here to send a signal.’

In anxious reflex the young lieutenant backed painfully into the chart table again, saluted and left the bridge for the Satellite Communications Room.

‘You talk of de-escalation,’ the Captain continued after Vaduz had closed the bridge door. ‘D’you not think that this is exactly what I am trying to do? De-escalate. Do you not think that allowing twenty-two Soviet warships into the Persian Gulf would lead to an immediate escalation of hostilities? Do you not see we are guarding the entrance to a little piece of sea that’s suddenly vitally important to the United States? We know it, and so do those bastards out there, and why else d’you imagine it’s coincidence? Were they not, those twenty-two ships, a hundred miles south of us, three days ago, on warm-water exercises? Then there’s a coup and a new government and a shut-down of oil to the
US
and suddenly the
Minsk
leads her task force right in here.

‘I’m a simple sailor with forty-two years’ service and I know nothing of politics except that they double-deal us whether they’re Democrats or Republicans. But I’ll tell you one thing. The flags that are being waved on the streets of Riyadh today are of the same colour as those flying from those ships out there. I guarantee it. You heard the President. You heard what he said. I’ll use his words again, because they are indelible on my mind. “Communist ambition,” he said, “will attempt sooner or later to take it for itself. Because it is the Soviet’s economic and military strategy to deny the United States Saudi oil.” D’you remember him saying that? By God you should! What kind of world do we want to live in in five months, or five years from now?’

‘Second convoy stopped, sir, bearing 124 degrees—one and a quarter miles.’ The voice from radar control was quickly followed by a second urgent call from Lieutenant Vaduz.

‘Sir. The
Minsk
is signalling, a one-liner.
“CLEAR CHANNEL IMMEDIATELY.”
And we have a problem.’

‘Problem? What problem? What problem Mr Vaduz?’

‘I’ve lost
SATCOM
sir. All channels. I’m getting them but they can’t get us. They’re calling, but I can’t answer.’

‘Is the fault ours, Mr Vaduz?’

‘Hard to say, sir, it’s only just happened and we’re on book check now. But the signal’s leaving us strong so the fault could be at any of Wimex’s relay computers.’

‘Did you get my signal to Admiral Holliwell away?’

‘Can’t be sure, sir, but I think you must assume no.’

‘No it is.’

‘Sir, how shall I answer
Minsk?’

‘You just stand by, Mr Vaduz. You’ll give them an answer when I have one for you to send.’

‘Captain,’ said Commander Daniels. ‘With respect, sir, we are breaking all the laws of the sea and putting this ship in peril. We must answer the
Minsk.
This is the fourth signal in two days we’ve ignored.’