Phoenix Sub Zero

“Sir, I’m not sure what you might have heard from your sources. The missile attack did fail and the seals missed Sihoud’s departure from the bunker—he must have taken off before the Javelins hit, because the seals verified that nothing was left. We believe Sihoud made an escape on a Firestar fighter that flew out over the Med and dropped him off at a submarine. The UIF’s Destiny-class submarine.”

Donchez showed him the photos.

“This Destiny sub. It’s a diesel boat, right? Your guys can find it and kill it?”

“I’m afraid it’s a nuke, sir. Japanese built, state of the art, although it’s just an export-level unit—God help us if the Japanese ever decided to make their own wars with their own hardware.”

Barczynski was not amused. “Go on. Admiral.”

“The ship is run by Egyptians, Iranians, Iraqis and Libyans. We believe they are not very well trained, not operating as a smooth team—”

“You’ve got a bunch of your subs in the Med to get this guy, right?”

“We’ve got two front-line units, both Los Angeles-class attack submarines, one guarding Gibraltar at the mouth of the Med, the other sweeping the eastern basin to the west looking for the Destiny sub. We’ve got a few dozen antisub marine patrol aircraft in the air, some of them from the Reagan battle group. We’ll get him.”

“Where’s he going? What’s he doing?”

“We think he’s hiding from us for a while, then he’ll re deploy with one of his theater commanders, probably North Africa. But we’ll get him … Sihoud’s a dead man.”

“I hope so, Dick. The president wanted to know what happens after Sihoud is gone. Sihoud’s got three damned good field generals, the theater commanders. Even with him gone Bobby Kent at CIA thinks the generals can still run a pretty good war.”

Donchez handed over a file, the cover of it busy with classification stamps and banners.

“That’s Operation Early Retirement Phase Two, General. We’ll take out each of the theater commanders. CIA agrees with my staff that once the lower echelon generals are out of the picture—”

General Felix Clough, U.S. Air Force, walked in. Air Force chief of staff Clough was young to be a general, even in the Air Force. Most of his academy classmates were still colonels, some majors. Clough had a round face, made academic-looking by his wire-rimmed glasses. Like Barczynski, he was a broad-framed man, though taller than the JCS chief, but on Clough the paunch looked more like fat than Barczynski’s muscle. Clough had come up the Air Force’s ranks first as a nuclear missile silo commander, then as a scientist. He had met Barczysnki twenty years before at a seminar and the two had for some reason hit it off, the Air Force allowing Clough to be Barczynski’s liaison officer for several assignments. Donchez had nothing against Clough personally, but at the Pentagon Clough was his worst nightmare, an Air Force general officer with a doctorate who thought he knew all there was to know about military systems.

For Clough, life was simple: Trident submarines were wasteful and easily replaced by Air Force silos and B-2 bombers. Carrier air power existed only because of pork-barrel politics and was clearly inferior to long-range, stealthy, fast and lethal Air Force fighters. The Marine Corps was. redundant, its functions easily replaced by the Army, the Air Force and the Navy doing its unglamorous but utilitarian function of transporting troops to the battlefields. Donchez suspected it was Clough who had coined the “self-lickingicecream-cone” term concerning aircraft carrier battle groups, “missile silos lost at sea” for Trident submarines and “the Navy’s army” for the Marines. Unfortunately Clough had Barczynski’s ear.

Donchez continued as Clough sat down. “The lower-echelon generals,” Donchez said, glancing pointedly at Clough, “once killed, will drain the UIF Combined Armed Forces of so much talent that defeat should be nearly immediate.

The battlefields will be chaos—” “They usually are,” Barczynski said. But the point wasn’t lost on Donchez — the Army general had been in battlefields before, in Vietnam and Iraq, risking his life, while Donchez … though not by his choice … had not.

“Sir, once the Navy’s seals knock out Generals Ben Abbas, Ramadan, and lhaffe this war will be a mop-up.”

Clough smiled at Donchez.

“Well, at least your people will get to do something over there.”

Screw you, Donchez thought as he returned Clough’s smile.

“Dick, that should be it. Let me know about Sihoud.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” Donchez said, standing.

“Oh, one thing,” Clough said to Barczynski while waving Donchez to a seat. “Didn’t you want to ask Admiral Donchez about the testing of the Vortex missile? I heard that the Navy’s doing a live fire with two submarines tomorrow.”

Donchez took a deep breath, sitting back down, wondering what business of Clough’s the Vortex missile could be, except that it had a track record of failure that Clough could use against the Navy.