Sea of Shadows eBook - Navy Thriller.com

158 JEFF EDWARDS
Whelkin turned her eyes to the president. “I think the German
government is challenging us to single combat.”
The president frowned. “You mean like they did in the Middle Ages?
Like jousting?”
“Pretty much, sir,” Whelkin said. “But in the Middle Ages, it was
primarily used as a display of battle skills, or to decide points of honor.”
She took a swallow of coffee and carefully wiped the lipstick off the rim of
the cup before continuing. “In biblical times, the concept had much
greater significance. When the leaders of opposing nations had
disagreements, sometimes they would settle them by single combat. The
toughest warrior from one country would do battle with the other country’s
toughest warrior, often while the opposing armies looked on. The warrior
who came out on top won the day for his side. It was a pretty good
system. Disputes over land and resources could be resolved without the
danger and expense of all-out war. Remember the Bible story about David
and Goliath? That’s a classic example of single combat in its original
form.”
The president’s eyebrows furrowed. “You think that’s what the
Germans are trying to do here?”
“It fits, sir. They shot up a carrier strike group. That’s not the kind of
thing we can let slide, right? We’ve got to take some sort of retaliatory
action. We can’t risk letting the pocket Napoleons of the world think that
they can attack our ships with impunity.”
“You’ve got that right,” the CNO said. “That’s why we’ve got to chase
those bastards down and sink every goddamned one of them. If we don’t,
it’s even money that somebody else will take a poke at one of our carriers
next month, or next week.”
Secretary Whelkin looked around the room. “The Germans are not
stupid. They know that we’re going to nail those subs. They knew it
before they launched them.”
“It’s a hell of a risk on their part,” Brenthoven said.“How can they be
certain that we wouldn’t go to war over this?”
“It’s not as much of a risk at it seems to be,” the secretary of state said.
“The Germans know that we’ll avoid going to war if we possibly can.
They also know that we can’t afford to let an attack on one of our carrier
strike groups go unpunished. If you put the two ideas together, it’s
predictable that we will try to destroy those submarines without much
further military escalation.”
“Single combat,” the president said slowly. “The modern version—a
handful of their subs against a handful of our ships and aircraft.”