December Ultimatum (18 page)

Someone came in with a tray of coffee cups and a large thermos beaker, and placed it on top of the map chest by the wall. The President stood up and without a word went to the chest, unscrewed the thermos top and poured coffee into eight cups. He picked up a sugar lump, hesitated and dropped it back into the bowl again. Then he walked back to the table empty-handed and sat on the edge of it.

‘How d’you get this, Richard?’

The President had never addressed his
CIA
director by his Christian name before, and everybody in the room understood.

‘We had a man in Riyadh, sir. He came out, it seems, with the evacuation planes, debriefed in Cairo. Seems that a few hours ago before the coup, King Fahd called him in. It was partly our doing. We were getting edgy and we told Saudi State Security he was there just in case they wanted anything from us. The King gave him everything, said he was about to break with
OPEC
and that they’d been planning it for some months. But somehow Gaddafi found out, though the King didn’t know.’

He paused, then went on, ‘But we did. We had been told that Iraq’s Defence Minister, Saadoun Karim, had been a
KGB
man since 1962 and during the past two and a half months he’d spent a lot of time in Baghdad, meeting Gaddafi, the Palestinians, the Yemenis, the Iranians and even Rahbar himself.’

‘Is Rahbar with the Soviets?’

‘No, Mr President. And our information is that he knows nothing about Karim’s background. He thinks he’s just another Moslem, just as devout and just as anxious that oil and Islam should be protected. He has no idea he is a Communist. Gaddafi doesn’t know Karim’s
KGB
connections. And Gaddafi’s convinced the idea to depose Fahd was his alone.’

‘No doubts?’

‘No, sir. None. It’s all suddenly coming together. Moscow set it up, Karim fed it to Gaddafi and then steered it through the meetings of the War Council in Baghdad. And we’ve finally established Karim’s Soviet credentials. Proof came two days before the coup, though we had no idea then it had any connection. He sent a telex from the General Post Office in Baghdad to a carpet importer, in Budapest. We picked it up on relay and decoded. It said simply
‘YAMANI GREEN LIGHT’.
Our man out of Riyadh says that Yamani was what Gaddafi was using as the code-name for the coup, used it to tell Moscow it was all systems go.’

‘One moment, Johns,’ said Admiral Holliwell. ‘You said he sent his telex two days ago?’

‘That’s right. Seven thirty-five in the morning from Baghdad
PTT.’

‘The
Minsk
and
Ivan Rogov,’
said the Admiral, ‘got their signals to move away from their warm-water exercises an hour later. We know their order to sail north to the Persian Gulf was acknowledged by them at 08h35 local time.’

‘That figures,’ said General Jarvis. ‘The Soviet aircraft refuelled in Iraq en route to the Yemen.’

‘Authorized by Karim,’ said Johns. ‘We know that too.’ ‘And who happens,’ said Tom Sorenson, ‘to be heir apparent to the Presidency of Iraq. In the New Year Saddam Hussein will retire. Karim replaces him.’

‘A
KGB
man as President of Iraq. That’s not possible.’

‘Not only possible,’ said Sorenson. ‘It’s inevitable!’

‘A Soviet Iraq?’

‘Yes, Mr President. A Soviet satellite exerting political and religious pressure on Saudi Arabia through Rahbar, with Iran still free-floating.’

‘Is that the scenario, Tom? The Soviets inside the Gulf?’

‘Yes, Mr President,’ said Sorenson. ‘They’ve outpaced us. You issued an ultimatum and they reckon they can ignore it because they’re certain of Rahbar. They’ll be in on those oilfields tonight. By tonight, sir.’

The President shifted his position on the edge of the table, and his hands fell on to his lap. He hunched his shoulders and in the unreal light of the underground room his skin looked grey and tight and shiny, like the smooth shine on an old man’s forehead.

Speaking as if there was no one else in the room, the President said, very quietly, ‘They’re on the move again. Remember that line about probing and finding mush? So they’re probing again. Yesterday we were worried about igniting, how did we say it, Islamic combustion? And all the time we’ve been missing it. I said there had to be Soviet involvement somewhere, but I never imagined Moscow openly going for the big number one. Not the Gulf. Not after what’s happened since Iran and Afghanistan.’ His voice was fading, so that only those close to him heard the last phrase. ‘Right inside the Persian Gulf and I don’t think there’s a thing we can do about it.’

‘Mr President.’ Tom Sorenson spoke loudly, deliberately. ‘Mr President. You said in this room yesterday that the oil was the stuff of our survival, you said they were our oilfields and you would use force to get them back. Your speech: “An attempt by outside forces to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States and will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.’”

The President stiffened. ‘What are you advocating against the Soviets, nuclear confrontation? That speech was to show our muscle, not to be a declaration of war. You know the gamble, so does everyone in this room . . . Do we go to the final option or do we find a way to regain those oilfields short of it? The Soviets will soon be there and we don’t have a force big enough outside the United States to move them. We do not have the capacity. You tell me it would take three weeks of preparation before landing units equipped to fight for any length of time could be on the ground. So we fly a few B-52s from Guam over them to show we can project military power, and that’ll be as frightening to them as saying boo to the Kremlin over the hot line.

‘Do you want me to go on television a second time to spell it out and appeal for a war mandate against the Soviet Union because the Iranians and the Saudis and the Iraqis have screwed us up? Because that’s how it’ll look from the outside. Broken by the Arabs.
You
do the persuading then. Convince America and the rest of the world it was all part and parcel of a Soviet master plan. We’re on our own . . . we’re alone on this. Moscow has outpaced and outwitted us and God help me, we are about to lose the Gulf to them and somehow we are going-to have to live with that reality and begin working on new strategies to get it back.’

‘But Mr President . . .’

‘No buts. General Warner. This is not Cuba, I am not JFK, and we are no longer in the game of bluff. We are too far from home on this one. We are the world’s number one power and we cannot even extend that power to the Middle East unless we have three weeks’ prior warning. Riots in San Salvador, an airlift to Nicaragua, a blockade of Cuba, and we’re in business. But Soviet troops and warships move into the Gulf and we sit here and shake our heads and our fists. Short of an intercontinental missile launch, there’s nothing else we can do about it.

‘You tell me now the Soviets are offloading MiGs and Sam-6s in Aden. That Moscow shipped in there two hundred and eighty tanks as part of their so-called friendship treaty. That’s five times the number of tanks assigned to a single US infantry division. Right, General Rogers?’

‘Right, Mr President.’

‘It’s more than half as many as the entire US Marines Corps has, right, General Jarvis?’

‘Right, Mr President?’

‘Right! So I made a speech. It was delivered as a warning, but it was received as an ultimatum. Whatever the rights and wrongs, it’s clear now that the Soviets were already underway and well advanced in their operation. You reckon they could have their troops on those wells tonight and if you’re right
. . .
I can’t see there’s anything this President can do about it . . . nothing short of total war. Let me tell you what Khrushchev told Kennedy: “In the next war, the survivors will envy the dead.” I will not be the one who gives mankind that epitaph.’

The faulty neon light gave a last loud click, and went out and one corner of the Situation Room was in shadow. The suddenness of it served to punctuate the end of the President’s speech, but there was no reaction and, except for the regular low hum of the air conditioning, the only noise in the room was Admiral Holliwell’s asthmatic breathing. The President looked at the cold cups of coffee and the seven men looked at him in silence.

Tom Sorenson dug his hands deep into his pockets. For the past two days he had listened to a President full of bluster and bluff, full of fine words and wisdom, seemingly turning the tide of American foreign relations and on the march again at home and abroad. Hadn’t he promised to put Fahd back on the throne, even if it took a task force to do it? What was it he had shouted on that first day here in the Situation Room? ‘I mean to get that oil before the Soviets go and get it themselves.’ Fine words that fail the resolution. Presidential pugnacity, then throw in the

Presidential towel just as soon as the punches hurt. A hazardous path ahead, he’d warned the nation, but here he was leading out by the side door. Run and live to fight another day.

The door from the Operations and Radio Communications Room opened and the Situation Room was filled with yellow light and the noise of telex machines, radio talk, telephone bells and the general hubbub of work. A young officer saluted and handed Admiral Holliwell a slip of paper. There was a pause. Then the Admiral jumped from his chair and sat down again hard. ‘Holy cow!’ he shouted.

Holliwell handed the signal to the young officer who took it quickly to the President.

‘It’s from the
Okinawa,
sir. From Captain Hanks. He has not acknowledged my order to move south, away from the Soviet ships. Instead he’s sailing into them, going to face them . . . says he will respond to intimidation in kind. He’s firing shots across their bows.’

But already the President was ahead of him, reading the last line from Captain Hanks. ‘As the President says, when the chips are down it’s time for the true peacekeepers to stand up. The
Okinawa
will not be found wanting. He has my word on it.’

The President gulped down two cups of cold black coffee. ‘Give me those flying times and distances again. General Jarvis.’

‘Sir?’

‘Flight times, General. I want to know exactly where the
Minsk
and
Ivan Rogov
are at this time and I want to know exactly how long it will take them to put their men down on those oilfields from their present position. I want to know exactly—and by exactly I mean to the minute—how long it will take for our men to get from standby to the dropping zones. Now, General. I want it now.’

General Jarvis collected a single sheet of paper from the others at the table; their estimates of timing were written on it, though none of them could even guess why the President should now suddenly demand the information so urgently.

‘Mr President,’ General Jarvis said, making the last calculation. ‘From the Strait of Hormuz, where the Soviet Fleet is now positioned, to the oilfields is approximately four hundred flying miles. By helicopter that’s two hours twenty minutes. By their vertical take-off Forger aircraft, forty-five. Moving our Rapid Deployment Force from Adana, Turkey, direct over the Mediterranean and through Syrian airspace is one thousand one hundred and five flying miles, and at
C-130
maximum cruising speed, time to the dropping zone will be four hours and ten minutes.’

‘That would mean,’ said the President, ‘the Soviets could have their men heloed into the oilfields an hour fifty minutes ahead of us, assuming the alert was given simultaneously?’

‘That’s right, sir.’

‘There’s no way, of course, to guarantee absolute secrecy for our
C-130s
on take-off or in flight?’

‘No, sir. The odds may be with us, but there are no guarantees.’

‘We could have a situation where our men were dropping on to an already Soviet-held position at the oilfields?’

‘That’s so, sir.’

‘So we must find a way to delay the Russians.’

‘Sir?’

‘I said, we must find a way to delay . . . or divert the Soviet Fleet while we get our men there.’

‘You think you have it, Mr President?’

‘Tom, I have a proposition.’

‘Yes, sir?’

‘It will need the support of every single one of you. Especially you, Admiral Holliwell.’

‘You have it, sir. You have it,’ said the Admiral.

‘You must hear it first,’ replied the President, more pale now than anyone had ever seen him. Slowly he got up from the table and walked, hands still clasped in front of him, to the wall-map of Saudi Arabia and stood below the extinguished strip light, partly in shadow, his face hidden. ‘The Soviets would beat us by nearly two hours,’ he said.

‘We would stand no chance if our take-off from Turkey was detected. So we need to prevent them thinking we mean to confront them in the air or on land by diverting them at sea.’

‘On sea, sir,’ interrupted Admiral Holliwell, ‘our nearest fleet is over three hundred miles south.

‘But the
Okinawa,
Admiral, is facing them. Captain Hanks says he is broadside on and preparing to fire.’ The President paused. ‘I suggest,’ he said quietly, ‘we authorize him to do just that.’

Someone’s hands hit the metal tabletop. Johns and Sorenson moved closer to the President.

‘Mr President?’ said Admiral Holliwell. ‘They’ll blow him out of the sea. They’ll destroy the
Okinawa
in minutes. No one will survive.’

The President went on as if he hadn’t heard. ‘I suggest we now send a message directly to the Commander of the Soviet Seventh Fleet warning him that the
Okinawa
is out of our control, that it is commanded by a captain who ignores our signals ordering him away from the area to avoid confrontation. Things must then take their course. A sea action, gentlemen, will divert their attention from the air. And we might just make it to those fields.’

Then Admiral Holliwell spoke, slowly, as if every word, every syllable, had first to be checked and cross-checked. The Generals clasped their hands together in front of them on the table-top.