Nimitz Class (22 page)

The final two foreign reports arrived, and the young Flag Lieutenant checked them in, and then went back upstairs to retrieve a couple of the English documents. Bill Baldridge opened the first of the newly arrived files and carefully placed his folded paper over the identity section on page one. He skimmed the results, noting the highest marks he had seen on any of the foreign papers. He skipped quickly to the Teacher’s comments, and his heart pounded as he read just six words. “The best Perisher I have taught yet.”

In his haste to see who had signed it, he turned the page, dropped the file, and managed to knock everything onto the floor. He shoved back the chair and stuck his head under the big table, as Andrew Waites arrived.

“What the hell are you doing down there?” he asked. “Trying to tunnel your way out?”

“No. I just knocked all the stuff over. Got kinda over excited. But I think I have something.”

Bill stood up and reopened the critical file. He carefully turned to the last page. The signature was clear. Commander Iain MacLean. “Holy shit!” said Bill Baldridge. “I think we might have him.”

They sat down together to read the full report. “This man was quite outstanding in every respect. He might have been even better if he had listened more carefully to my refinements. He was, however, a maverick by nature, and when I told him anything he was always trying to improve it before testing it.

“A perfectly remarkable mind…with the best memory of the periscope picture I ever met, never mind taught…iron nerves in the face of the oncoming frigates…icy sense of command under pressure…strange preoccupation with self-preservation…but a natural-born streak of daring….

“If I had to name one officer with whom I had to stand shoulder-to-shoulder in any submarine warfare situation it would be without question this lieutenant commander.”

Bill gazed anew at the signature. It was identical to three others—the handwriting unmistakably that of Commander MacLean.

He turned back to the opening page, unclipped his covering sheet, and tried to stay calm while he read through the personal details, hoping to discover a Muslim fundamentalist. But the officer was an Israeli, and a Jew.

“Fuck,” Baldridge muttered to himself.

And yet a sixth sense was telling Bill Baldridge that he had found his man. This brilliant Israeli submarine officer, who had passed the course in 1988, must now be around forty-two years old. Lieutenant Commander Adnam was his name—Benjamin Adnam.

He and Lieutenant Waites glanced through the final report, another Saudi, who was not in the same league. “No natural instincts for warfare,” the Teacher had written.

“Hey, we gotta go. I’ll take the main file, and we’ll ask the admiral if you can have a copy of the bits you want to take. I’ll tell him I checked ’em through with you.”

They hurried back up to FOSM’s offices. Bill recounted his findings to Captain Greenwood, who sent him directly to the admiral.

The great man listened carefully, and gave permission to copy the document and allowed the American to take it with him. “It’s a bit irregular,” he said. “But when our closest Naval allies have taken the body-blow you chaps have…we’ll usually bend a few rules to help out…now let’s go and have some lunch…celebrate a satisfactory morning’s work. Mr. Adnam, eh? Clever little bugger, by the sound of it.”

The admiral and his Flag Lieutenant accompanied Bill down the stairs, and into the large officers’ mess hall. The communal tables sat twelve people, and admirals mingled freely with captains, commanders, lieutenants, and lieutenant commanders. The Navy is more democratic than other services—possibly because when the bugle sounds the call of battle, senior officers do not send anyone anywhere. They all go together.

Bill Baldridge sat next to the admiral with Andrew on his other side. Bill thoroughly enjoyed chatting with fellow officers from the Royal Navy, reveling in their wit and laughter, as they fought their way through gigantic portions of fried cod and chips. After lunch he asked Admiral Elliott if he could see Commander MacLean. “He’s
retired now,” the admiral replied. “I relieved him in this job. Admiral MacLean lives in Scotland, quite near Faslane. But yes, certainly you may…might as well take the three-forty British Airways flight up to Glasgow. I’ll have someone meet you. Andrew’ll fix up your ticket. All we ask in return is that you keep us informed.”

“Thank you, sir. I am certain we will stay in close cooperation. I really appreciate all your help.”

Bill Baldridge collected his file, and a return ticket to Glasgow, which had appeared somewhat miraculously. He then said good-bye to his new friends, and the Navy driver got him to the airport with a half hour to spare. And once more the American was escorted to a double seat, with no neighbor, for the eighty-minute flight to the great shipbuilding city on the Clyde.

They touched down at Glasgow airport a little after five o’clock. The weather was much cooler, and a Royal Navy driver was again there to meet him. The man behind the wheel, Able Seaman Reginald White, turned out to be a submarine rating known to his friends as Knocker, whose home was in east London. The journey was slow, through rush-hour traffic and out across the River Clyde onto the busy A82 highway up to the Highlands. Road signs pointed to a place called Dumbarton, and quite suddenly the busy, urban character of the A82 gave way to an entirely different landscape. Where, just a few miles previously, the banks of the Clyde had been lined with shipyards, and the river itself an obvious, but rather deserted, commercial estuary, there was now a vast, glorious expanse of lonely water.

Out to his left Bill could see the Clyde become wider. To his right were low mountains which he guessed were likely to get a lot higher. He also sensed the car turning north. Quite suddenly, it seemed, the clouds vanished and he was surprised the sun was still so high.

“What’s the big white building on the far shore?” he asked Knocker. “The one right at the edge of the land.”

“That’s the Cloch Lighthouse, sir,” the man answered. “It’s over at Gourock. A landmark for submariners returning to base. Just past there we make a long starboard turn toward Helensburgh—in a few
minutes I’ll show you our markers at the Rhu Narrows. Faslane’s about four miles up from the entrance.”

They sped through a little town, still hugging the shore, and Bill could see now how narrow the entrance to the great submarine loch really was. There were several channel markers and navigational buoys around, but without the chart, Bill could make little of them. As a place to bring home a damned great submarine, he considered it would present a bit of a challenge.

“Christ!” said Bill. “That is narrow. You come through here at any time of the day?”

“Yes, sir,” he said. “It’s a lot easier now. They widened it quite a bit for Trident—that’s a really big bastard—ever seen one?”

“Uh-huh,” said Bill. “Matter of fact I’ve been on one of our own. You’re right. It’s a big bastard. Where’s Faslane from here?”

“Further up on the right, sir. You’ll see the ’ole complex over this next ’ill.”

Bill kept gazing at the peat-dark stretch of water. He was thinking how strangely deep it must be. And in his mind he envisioned one of the Royal Navy’s diesel-electrics sliding through here with just her periscope showing above the surface. “Too narrow,” he thought. “Can’t be more than about four hundred yards across.”

Staring through it was the dark-skinned, anonymous yet cruel face of Lieutenant Commander Benjamin Adnam. “You’d want to be very good indeed to command a submarine in these waters,” he said slowly.

“Yessir, very good. They don’t have anyone ’ere who’s
not
very good. At least, not in command of a submarine, thank Christ! And the best ’ere are the best there is. Trust me.”

“I believe you,” said Bill Baldridge, staring again at the dark waters of the Rhu Narrows. For a while he just stared in silence. And then he said, absentmindedly, “I wonder what he looks like.”

“Who? Admiral MacLean?” said Knocker cheerfully, continuing before his passenger could gather his thoughts. “He’d frighten the bloody life outta you. He was the toughest Teacher who ever served ’ere. Everyone knows that. He failed more Perishers than anyone
had ever done before. They fail one in five anyway. They say ole MacLean failed about one in two.

“For some that would mean he wasn’t nothing more than an ole bastard. But they say he was the best submariner there’s ever been.”

By now they could see the submarine base up ahead. It seemed to nestle down on the foreshore beneath the mountains. To the lay-man it might have looked like a sprawling factory complex. To a submariner it was unmistakable as a Navy base. Behind, to the north was a rugged Scottish mountain, the highest they had seen, jutting up into the clear blue sky, a summery green in the late sun of a July day.

“That’s called ‘The Cobbler,’” said Knocker helpfully. “Our main landmark comin’ home. You can see it for a long way, but you get used to the shape of it, as you turn up into the Gareloch. It’s got snow on its peak for about five months of the year. Must be bloody cold up there even in summer.”

Bill looked up at this great natural backdrop to Europe’s most sinister submarine base. It seemed to get bigger by the minute. But then suddenly they were at a guarded gateway. There was a small painted sign to the left: “
ROYAL NAVY SUBMARINE BASE
.
FASLANE
.” And then, underneath, “
UNAUTHORIZED PERSONS NOT ADMITTED
.”

Bill thought it might just as easily have said “
UNAUTHORIZED PER-SONS WILL BE SHOT
,” judging by the vigilance of the armed MOD Police guards. They must have known this was a staff car, and they must have recognized Knocker. But they treated him as a perfect stranger. One asked politely for his pass, and then handed it back with another document, for Lieutenant Commander Baldridge. Only then did the second guard step away from the front of the car.

Knocker drove through. “Bloody guards everywhere,” he said. And he added, “I dunno who the ’ell would wanna break in here. Load of ole cobblers, really.” Bill assumed this was a mark of general deference to Faslane’s private mountain.

They pulled into a parking place outside one of the low buildings above the waterfront. Bill could see a huge nuclear submarine at the jetty, and another much smaller one about a hundred yards further along the quayside. He was still surprised by the height of the sun,
and even more surprised by the sudden, damp chill in the air. Knocker led the way into the reception area and told the duty guard he was in possession of Lieutenant Commander Baldridge from America, who was here to see Admiral Sir Iain MacLean. He then told Bill that it had been nice meeting him, and he would leave his suitcase with the guard as he understood he would not be required further.

Bill shrugged, followed a guard down a short corridor into what he guessed was a private room for senior officers. Around the walls were some excellent marine paintings and on two long tables were scale models, under glass, of Royal Navy submarines. The furniture was comfortable, like a men’s club—leather armchairs, polished side tables, and a leather and brass fender seat around a large fireplace, in which a big, rather garish electric fire glowed falsely at him.

To the left of the fireplace was another deep leather armchair with a slightly higher back than the others, the kind of stately chair in which one might expect to find Admiral Lord Nelson himself. Instead, there sat the unmistakable figure of Vice Admiral Sir Iain MacLean, wearing a dark gray Savile Row suit, sipping China tea, and reading the
Financial Times
.

“Lieutenant Commander Baldridge, sir,” said the guard. The admiral peeped over the top of his half-spectacles, and stood up slowly. He was a tall man, all of six feet two inches, with pale blue eyes, and the kind of lined face which tends to settle upon those who have spent a lifetime at sea. His expression was one of mild amusement, and his handshake rock solid. Bill put him at around sixty. “Good afternoon, Mr. Baldridge,” he said. “I understand you are interested in one of my Perishers.”

Bill smiled his most disarming Midwestern grin. “Hello, Admiral,” he said. “It’s kind of you to come and meet me.”

“No question of kindness,” he replied, a bit brusquely. “I was ordered here. On what I suspect was the highest possible authority. Thought I’d done with all that. Now, sit down and let me get you a cup of tea, and I’ll outline what you might describe as my game plan.”