Kilo Class by Patrick Robinson

doing the trembling, but it’s not going to be the US of A.”
    At the West Wing entrance, Morgan’s car and driver awaited him. “Morning, Charlie,” he said. “Pentagon. CNO’s office. Gotta be there at 1030.”
    “SIR,” Charlie snapped back, like a cowed midshipman. He had never before driven a senior military man until the Admiral’s arrival, and he had not yet recovered from their very first meeting. Charlie had shown up two minutes late on Morgan’s first day in the office and could hardly believe his ears when Arnold Morgan had growled in menacing tones, “You are adrift, late, AWOL, slack, and useless. If anything like this
ever
happens again, you are fired. Do you understand me, asshole? My name is Admiral Arnold Morgan, and I have a goddamned lot on my mind, and I will not abide this kind of bullshit from anyone, not even if he works in the fucking White House.” Charlie Patterson nearly died of shock. A month later, he was still afraid of the Admiral. From that first encounter, he was inclined to show up twenty minutes early for all of his assignments with the new National Security Adviser. The story of his confrontation with the tyrant from Fort Meade had whipped around the White House like a prairie fire. Even the President knew about it.
    Charlie Patterson gunned the big limousine through the streets of Washington, heading east along the waterfront and picking up 1-395 at the Maine Avenue entrance. They crossed the Potomac and made straight for the United States military headquarters.
    Admiral Morgan was well used to the familiar route, but for the past four years he had usually driven himself. A chauffeur was just one aspect of his new life to which he had to become accustomed. The others were the more relaxed office hours and the more regular social obligations. If he missed anything, it was the time he had once spent prowling around in his Fort Meade headquarters, in the small hours of the morning, checking the signals from America’s surveillance posts around the world. He now believed it was entirely possible he might have to locate a new lady to run his life. The years in submarines and then in Naval intelligence had wreaked havoc with both of his marriages. As far as he could tell neither of his two ex-wives, nor even his two grown-up children, were speaking to him at present, the result of years of neglect. With his highly salaried position, he was regarded, alongside the President, as one of the most interesting middle-aged bachelors on the Washington circuit. Dangerous waters for an unarmed former commanding officer, who was having to relearn any vestige of real charm he may once have had as a young lieutenant.
    Not that he had time for a romantic involvement now. For years the Navy’s most fearless, and feared, seeker after truth, Admiral Morgan was trying to string together facts that seemed unconnected and incompatible. In the next few hours he was going to sort them out and almost certainly initiate drastic action against two of the world’s most powerful nations.
    Charlie slid the car down into the Pentagon’s subterranean garage. The limousine came to a halt outside the private elevator, which ran to the offices of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Scott Dunsmore, the former Chief of Naval Operations. Admiral Morgan would spend fifteen minutes having a cup of coffee there and then head for the headquarters of the new CNO, Admiral Joseph Mulligan, the former Commander of the Atlantic Submarine Force.
    Two US Marine guards were waiting to escort Morgan to the CJC offices. Before the Admiral stepped into the elevator, he turned to Charlie and said, “I might pop out of this door any time between now and 1630. Be here.”
    One of the guards risked a slight smile. The Admiral fixed him with a withering eye. “No bullshit, right?” he growled.
    “Right, sir,” replied the guard, uncertainly.
    Coffee with his old friend the Chairman was relaxed and informal, its purpose