Power Play (37 page)

A couple of times every year, his own Northern Fleet surveillance detected enormous US attack submarines, sometimes even the chilling Ohio Class Trident boats, patrolling the Barents and Norwegian Seas, armed, he guessed, with formidable weapons, a mere twenty-five-minute flight from submerged launch to Moscow.

Was it any wonder that a president like Nikita Markova should want to cut off the hand that threatened him, shut down US military communications indefinitely, and return Russia to its rightful place at the top end of world superpowers?

And his conclusion about the activities of the late Nikolai Chirkov and his phantom contact, John Carter? On reflection, he had to believe the Americans knew nothing. It was simply inconceivable to him, the most senior fleet commander in all of Russia, that Chirkov had somehow discovered the scope of fireproof-secret FOM-2 and disclosed it to the United States, which had proceeded to do absolutely nothing. No. That had to be impossible. FOM-2 was safe. And what’s more, it could not fail.

 

Simon Andre had liked all that he had been shown. Captain Bedford’s survey and subsequent visit to Ireland were revealing and enormously informative. He had selected what must be one of the most perfect spots ever for a US Navy base, in a country that could scarcely be more friendly and sympathetic to all things American.

The north side of Donegal Bay had all five prime requirements: (1) an ample main water supply, (2) ample national grid electricity, (3) easy access to diesel and petroleum fuel, (4) available local workforce suffering from rampant unemployment, and (5) deep water, up close to shore. In addition, it was a mile and a half from probably the biggest stone-quarrying corporation in Ireland.

Admiral Bradfield’s cost estimates were wide ranging and well within reasonable limits. Captain Bedford’s high end, $1.4 billion, was acceptable, but the CNO thought the project could be brought in for inside $1 billion.

Considering its strategic importance, the price was modest for the navy, where the cost of almost everything traditionally petrified even the boldest of four-star admirals.

For instance, a hundred-thousand-ton Nimitz Class aircraft carrier cost the thick end of $5 billion. These hundred-thousand-foot nuclear leviathans, named for the legendary World War II Pacific Fleet commander, utilized a pressurized water-reactor four-prop propulsion unit generating 260,000 hp.

Simon Andre was an expert, one of those executives who grasped numbers like Willie Mays making grabs in the outfield. He was probably the only man in the Pentagon who knew the three new Zumwalt supersonic guided-missile destroyers would cost, on average, $4.61 billion apiece.

He thus considered the costs irrelevant and the initial plans for the new base entirely acceptable. His own participation was strictly political, and he did not think the project should require an act of Congress. It was a reasonable part of the naval budget, necessitated by a succession of
unexpected changes in the political and military intentions of the United Kingdom.

Which left just one major hurdle: how to present, persuade, and, if necessary, cajole or bribe the Irish government into agreeing the base should not just be constructed but constructed right now.

On that, Secretary Andre had arrived at one or two very definite conclusions, the first one being that America’s approach to the
taoiseach
(Ireland’s prime minister, always referred to in Gaelic) should be one of a friend in need.

The Russian problem, which must affect all Western nations, now saw Moscow contemplating a strike against the United States. There was no help coming from the United Kingdom, which was penniless and saddled with welfare payments that would nearly bring down the national economy of China. Not to mention a National Health Service that was the third-largest employer on earth, right behind the Red Army and the Indian Railway system.

And that left America’s most loyal and dearest friends—and indeed relatives—to help out as realistic working partners, rather than just spiritual ones.
We come to you as friends, and we come bearing gifts, with a proposal you will never regret . . .

“That last part will get the bastards, see if it doesn’t,” said Andre with a devilish smirk. “I think we should consider the level of approach—perhaps start at ambassador status—and then be seen to bring in a real heavy hitter who can deal directly with the
taoiseach
. The Irish are a proud nation from top to bottom, and they won’t like our dealing with them through some sundry government official.”

“That could be difficult in terms of secrecy,” said Captain Bedford. “Our top men tend to attract the goddamned media, and that’s the very last thing we need.”

“Agreed,” replied Simon Andre. “We need a very special man, and I have not yet figured out whom it should be. But he needs serious qualifications, because he will certainly have to make the approach and then charm the life out of the Irish PM and his cabinet—give dinner parties and stuff. But he has to stay in the game, dealing with things on a daily basis. And for that he’ll need to be in Ireland. Someone’s got to move in. Of that I am nearly certain.”

Mark Bradfield added, “Whomever we select must have navy experience,
because any questions that arrive during the building of a small dockyard must involve naval warfare, far from the United States. It would be useless having some kind of a structural engineer answering military problems.”

Simon Andre agreed with that, but told the small group in his office that he thought the most pressing issue was to reach a sound proposal that could be put to the Irish government.

“You mean tell ’em what they will get out of it?” said Mack Bedford. “Lay out our offer, make it attractive, and then help them overcome difficulties, probably of a local nature, and almost certainly a half-assed assault from the Green Party or whatever is the Irish equivalent?”

“Can we get a handle on the guys who might object to a brand-new base?” asked Admiral Bradfield.

“Probably not all of them immediately,” replied Secretary Andre. “But you can count on the obvious groups—I mean the shellfishermen along those shores, men who work in that very cold water in all weather in search of mussels, clams, oysters, cockles and scallops, crabs and lobsters.

“Donegal has a couple of large shellfishing areas in the bay itself, and the deep-sea fishing industry operates from Killybegs, just along the coast. I expect we’ll hear from the shellfishermen, and we’ll just have to buy them off. But there won’t be many.”

“Have there been political problems there over fishing rights and standards?” asked Captain Bedford.

“So far as I could see, not very many,” said the defense secretary. “A few years back there was some kind of a row over water pollution, and the government stepped in and solved it with a few new laws. But it seems pretty peaceful to me.”

“There is a long tradition of commercial fishing in those waters, right?” said Mack. “I’m talking a way of life for generations, same as it is in my own part of the world.”

“It’s probably worth remembering we are not going into their waters and poisoning all the stupid fish, are we?” replied Simon Andre. “And we don’t plan to be in their way, or snag their nets, or run over their fucking lobster pots. We’re just conducting a safe harbor for the world’s cleanest boats and attempting to be good neighbors.”

“But they’ll be looking for compensation, and they’ll level every possible charge at us,” replied Admiral Bradfield.

“Perhaps not, if the Irish government offers them a very fair deal,” said
the defense secretary, “and informs them the prosperity of the entire country depends on the new project in Donegal Bay being completed and operated with the minimum of fuss and argument.”

“That’s a darned good point,” said the admiral. “We really don’t want the Russians knowing that we are interested in building a new base in northwestern Ireland. They’d have satellites trained on the place 24/7.

“When this thing is revealed to the Irish people, it ought not to be announced as a big deal, just a small, new ferry port or something to suggest Killybegs is too busy with fishing and freight to house the passenger boats any longer.”

“Sounds like our new man, whoever he is, will be pretty versatile,” said Captain Bedford. “Some kinda combination of deep-sea fishing expert, CO of a US warship, lobsterman, professional clammer, and social clammer all at once!”

The SEAL commander could usually be counted on for a sideways look at any situation, no matter how serious. Secretary Andre always appreciated that from one of his department’s principal warriors.

But he deftly changed the subject and suggested they could do a lot worse than come up with a good national package for the Irish government, a plan to help them deal with the huge financial debt that hung over them. “I was thinking we could offer to take care of maybe half of it,” he said. “That would be in return for allowing the naval base and granting us a long lease. This would not mean we suddenly had to find a trillion dollars on their behalf. But that we would sort out the interest payments, with a view toward Ireland, in time, becoming the fifty-first state.

“Thereafter, perhaps in two years, we could take over the whole situation and collect significant taxation from Dublin to help pay for it. But it would remove their financial burden because they’d only be paying us, while we took care of their debts.”

Mark Bradfield nodded in agreement. “I guess we’d allow the Irish government to keep what they needed to meet their national budget,” he said. “But we’d have some control and a big hunk of cash from them each year to cover their share of the interest.”

Simon Andre continued, “At the point when we decide to go the whole hog, and nationalize the country into a US state, then we’d be responsible for all of their debts. But we’re easily big enough to let them get on with
being the prosperous little nation they always were—remember the Celtic Tigers?

“Either way, we’d both be on the pig’s back. They’d get their enormous debt removed, and once the pressure was off their banks, they could start lending again, all backed by Uncle Sam. In return, we get a whole country, and one that most Americans have always loved.”

“There are a lot of Irish industries that would do really well out of this,” said Mack. “Like the stone-quarry company, plus the Irish utility firms—water and electricity. And once we get US Navy Base Donegal up and running, there’d be a lot of money to be made locally. We’d need workers at the base, plus all the associated businesses that spring up around a place like that—restaurants, cleaning, grocery stores . . . ”

“Brothels,” added Simon Andre, worldly to the end. But he quickly added, “There are no losers in this. Everyone wins, and a lot of people will get rich. But we must always return to the main point of the mission—that we get that critical navy presence in the northeastern Atlantic and no longer have to tiptoe around the broke and rabidly party-political British government.”

“That’s the heart of it,” concluded Captain Mack Bedford. “We can zap FOM-2 so fast, and so quietly, the Russians will be baffled for years. Just so long as we have safe harbor in Donegal Bay and the fast-strike range that goes with it.”

Simon Andre had arranged a highly classified meeting with the president and General Lancaster for 11:30 a.m. in the Oval Office. And as surprises go, this one would be about 240 on the Richter scale . . .

And the words “
You want to do WHAT!”
flickered across their minds, knowing, as they all did, how little this particular president enjoyed the unexpected.

 

General Zack Lancaster was attempting to achieve the outright impossible by doing seventeen different things at once while being interrupted, on average, every eight minutes by members of staff shining a glaring light on what he irascibly described as “the abso-fucking-lutely obvious.”

He’d been in the office since six in the morning and had less than one hour left before he was due in the Oval Office for a possibly traumatic meeting with the president and the Pentagon’s three resident fire-eaters, Andre, Bradfield, and Bedford.

Personally, General Lancaster thought it entirely possible neither he nor the president would survive the morning without having a heart attack, especially when the president heard they were planning to annex the Republic of Ireland as the fifty-first American state at the apparent cost of more than a trillion dollars.

At this point, his personal assistant walked into the room and told him there was yet another phone call he would want to take.

“I doubt it,” growled the former Rangers C-in-C. “In fact, I will not be taking it or any other call before four o’clock this afternoon.”

“It’s from overseas, sir. Admiral Morgan.”

“Well, put him on,” snapped the general, his face lighting up into a broad smile.

Thus it was that General Zack Lancaster, the principal military adviser to the president of the United States, was able to sit in the Oval Office with calm indifference and listen to the long discussion about the annexation of northwestern Ireland and the endless wrangle about who could take charge of the operation, dealing on a personal basis with the Irish prime minister.