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SEA OF SHADOWS 267
“If they catch it, can they kill it?”
“I think so, Mr. President. I damned sure hope so.”
“You aren’t exactly filling me with confidence here, Bob.”
“With all due respect, sir, if you want more confidence you’ve got to
give me more assets. It’s not too late to get a couple of P-3s out there.
Then I could pretty much guarantee you a kill.”
“I can’t do that, Bob,” the president said. “We’ve got to show that we
can go toe-to-toe with the best the Germans can offer up and still come out
on top.”
“I understand that, sir. But what if that sub gets by us? Why risk
losing when there’s still a chance to guarantee a win?”
“Goddamn it, Bob! Can’t you see what this is about? In the minds of
the people, perception is reality. Shoernberg is making a power play here,
and he’s only thrown a few cards on the table to do it. If we have to call
up the militia, the Boy Scouts, and the Air National Guard to catch one
lousy German submarine, he wins. Shoernberg will have successfully
demonstrated that the United States cannot win in a fair fight against
German military hardware and tactics. He’ll come out of this flexing his
muscles, and we’ll end up looking weak. And about twenty minutes after
the dust settles, every pocket Napoleon in the developing world is going to
start wondering if the U.S. is really so tough after all.
“We’ve only got one choice here, Bob. We’ve got to take Friedrik
Shoernberg’s little power play and shove it so far up his ass that he can’t
remember what he had for breakfast. He sends out four submarines; none
of them get through. Not one of them! Then he only has two choices:
escalate the conflict or back down. And I don’t think he’s stupid enough
to escalate.”
“Mr. President, if what you say is true, then we need to guarantee a kill
on that last submarine,” the CNO said. “And, if you need a guaranteed
kill, you’ve got to let me throw some more assets into the hunt.”
“No, Bob. How we kill that submarine is every bit as important as
whether or not we kill it at all.”
“That’s what you keep telling me, sir,” the CNO said. “But I’ve got
two ships out there that have already had the shit shot out of them, and I’m
asking them to take on a killer submarine without backup.”
The president sighed. “Okay, Bob. Let’s try it this way … In a oneon-one
fight between a surface combatant and a submarine, who wins?”
“Whoever shoots first, sir.”
“Exactly. And who shoots first?”
“Whoever gets contact first.”