The Shark Mutiny Read Online Free Page B
Author: Patrick Robinson
Rosvoorouzhenie mine production factory outside central Moscow. Three heavytransit military vehicles sighted leaving the plant, fully laden. Sighted again at Sheremetyevo II Airport, Moscow, two hours later. Then again leaving the airport 1400 EST, empty. Destination unknown.
From the precise same source another signal came in 94 minutes later at 1534 EST. Langley had so far offered no comment. Just the bald fact: “Russian Antonov 124 took off Moscow 2300, believed heading due east. Aircrew only, plus heavy cargo. AN-124 took 3,000 meters to liftoff. CIA field officer traces no flight plan. Inquiries continue.”
To Jimmy Ramshawe this was food and drink—a complex, slightly sinister problem that wanted studying, if not solving. He knew the gigantic Antonov freighter—known as the Ruslan , after a mythological Russian giant—could carry a colossal 120 tons of freight 35,000 feet above the earth’s surface. He had a good imagination and did not need to utilize much of it before he could visualize 120 big sea mines hurtling through the stratosphere at 550 knots, bound for some distant ocean where they could be primed to inconvenience U.S. Navy fleets.
At the age of 28, Jimmy had been selected by the Navy to serve in the Intelligence service. A tall dark-haired young officer, he possessed an acutely analytical mind. He was a lateral thinker, an observer of convolutions, complications and intricacies. As a commanding officer he would have developed into a living nightmare. No team in any warship would ever have provided him with quite sufficient data to make a major decision.
But he had a superb intelligence, the highest IQ in his class at Annapolis, and his superiors spotted him a long way out. Lt. Ramshawe was born for Intelligence work at the highest level. And while his young fellow officers went forward, following their stars as future commanding officers of surface or subsurface warships, the lanky, athletic Jimmy was sent into the electronic hothouse ofAmerica’s most sensitive, heavily guarded Intelligence agency, where, to quote the admissions Admiral, “There would be ample outlet for his outstanding talents.”
He was an unusual member of Fort Meade’s staff for the simple reason that he looked and sounded like an Australian. The son of a Sydney diplomat, he had been born in Washington, D.C., while his father served a five-year tour of duty as Military Attaché at the grandiose Australian embassy on Massachusetts Avenue. They’d returned to New South Wales for just two years before Admiral Ramshawe accepted a position on the board of the Australian airline Qantas, working permanently in New York.
Young Jimmy, with his U.S. passport, went to school in Connecticut, starred for three years as a baseball pitcher who sounded as if he should have been playing cricket. And then followed his father into a career in Dark Blue. American Dark Blue, that is. He’d been in the U.S. Navy now for 10 years, but a couple of weeks earlier he had still brought a smile to the lugubrious face of the NSA’s Director, Admiral George Morris, by announcing, “G’day, sir…. I picked up that stuff you wanted…gimme two hours…she’ll be right.”
Ramshawe was always going to sound like Banjo Patterson and other members of Australian folklore, but he was American through and through, and Admiral Morris valued him highly, as highly as he valued his longtime friendship with Ramshawe Senior, the retired Aussie Diplomat/Admiral.
The trouble was, right now, Admiral Morris had just been admitted to the Bethesda Naval Hospital with suspected lung cancer, and the deputy directer, Rear Admiral David Borden, was a more remote, formal figure, who was not instantly receptive to young Lt. Ramshawe’s observations. And that might prove difficult for both of them—the acting director because he might miss something, for Jimmy because he might not be listened to.
He stared at the two signals in front of him, and attacked the problem
From the precise same source another signal came in 94 minutes later at 1534 EST. Langley had so far offered no comment. Just the bald fact: “Russian Antonov 124 took off Moscow 2300, believed heading due east. Aircrew only, plus heavy cargo. AN-124 took 3,000 meters to liftoff. CIA field officer traces no flight plan. Inquiries continue.”
To Jimmy Ramshawe this was food and drink—a complex, slightly sinister problem that wanted studying, if not solving. He knew the gigantic Antonov freighter—known as the Ruslan , after a mythological Russian giant—could carry a colossal 120 tons of freight 35,000 feet above the earth’s surface. He had a good imagination and did not need to utilize much of it before he could visualize 120 big sea mines hurtling through the stratosphere at 550 knots, bound for some distant ocean where they could be primed to inconvenience U.S. Navy fleets.
At the age of 28, Jimmy had been selected by the Navy to serve in the Intelligence service. A tall dark-haired young officer, he possessed an acutely analytical mind. He was a lateral thinker, an observer of convolutions, complications and intricacies. As a commanding officer he would have developed into a living nightmare. No team in any warship would ever have provided him with quite sufficient data to make a major decision.
But he had a superb intelligence, the highest IQ in his class at Annapolis, and his superiors spotted him a long way out. Lt. Ramshawe was born for Intelligence work at the highest level. And while his young fellow officers went forward, following their stars as future commanding officers of surface or subsurface warships, the lanky, athletic Jimmy was sent into the electronic hothouse ofAmerica’s most sensitive, heavily guarded Intelligence agency, where, to quote the admissions Admiral, “There would be ample outlet for his outstanding talents.”
He was an unusual member of Fort Meade’s staff for the simple reason that he looked and sounded like an Australian. The son of a Sydney diplomat, he had been born in Washington, D.C., while his father served a five-year tour of duty as Military Attaché at the grandiose Australian embassy on Massachusetts Avenue. They’d returned to New South Wales for just two years before Admiral Ramshawe accepted a position on the board of the Australian airline Qantas, working permanently in New York.
Young Jimmy, with his U.S. passport, went to school in Connecticut, starred for three years as a baseball pitcher who sounded as if he should have been playing cricket. And then followed his father into a career in Dark Blue. American Dark Blue, that is. He’d been in the U.S. Navy now for 10 years, but a couple of weeks earlier he had still brought a smile to the lugubrious face of the NSA’s Director, Admiral George Morris, by announcing, “G’day, sir…. I picked up that stuff you wanted…gimme two hours…she’ll be right.”
Ramshawe was always going to sound like Banjo Patterson and other members of Australian folklore, but he was American through and through, and Admiral Morris valued him highly, as highly as he valued his longtime friendship with Ramshawe Senior, the retired Aussie Diplomat/Admiral.
The trouble was, right now, Admiral Morris had just been admitted to the Bethesda Naval Hospital with suspected lung cancer, and the deputy directer, Rear Admiral David Borden, was a more remote, formal figure, who was not instantly receptive to young Lt. Ramshawe’s observations. And that might prove difficult for both of them—the acting director because he might miss something, for Jimmy because he might not be listened to.
He stared at the two signals in front of him, and attacked the problem
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