The Shark Mutiny Read Online Free PDF

Lieutenant. I think we’ll find out in good time without wasting any of our valuable resources, and in particular, your energies.”
    “Well, I suppose if you say so, sir. But that’s a lot of high explosives, and…well, I mean some bugger wants it for something pretty definite. I think Admiral Morris would want it investigated…maybe alert the Big Man in the White House.”
    “Lieutenant, Admiral Morris is no longer in command of this agency. And from now on, I trust you’ll respect my judgment. Forget the mines. They’ll come to the surface in good time.”
    “Just hope they don’t bring a pile of bloody wreckage with ’em, that’s all.”
    Lt. Ramshawe nodded, curtly, turned on his heel and left, muttering to himself an old Australian phrase, “Right mongrel bastard he’s turned out to be.”
    Evening, same day. Ops Room .
Great Hall of the People .
    The big computer screen had been switched off now. The Iranian delegation was heading northeast out along Jichang Lu toward Beijing International Airport. And Admiral Zhang was talking with Zu Jicai. Everyone else had gone. The two great Naval friends and colleagues sat alone, sipping tea, which Yushu had coerced a guard to produce, in the absence of any staff whatsoever in the Great Hall. It tasted, he thought, like a leftover thermos from Mao’s Long March of 1935.
    “I am still slightly mystified, Yushu. Do you reallythink there is enough advantage in this for us to become involved in a worldwide oil catastrophe?”
    “Ah, Jicai. You are ever the tactician, ever the strategist. Always the battle commander. You see things very clearly, the immediate crunch, the immediate aftermath.”
    “Well, don’t you?”
    “I used to, when I was C-in-C of the Navy. But I must be political now, and I have changed my perspectives. I am trying to look at a wider picture.”
    “I think, my Yushu, you will face a very wide picture indeed if an American tanker should collide with one of those Russian mines in the Strait of Hormuz.”
    Admiral Zhang smiled, sipped his tea, grimaced and said softly, “Do you think they accepted my plan? Do you think Hossein will call back with the agreement of his government?”
    “I am quite sure they accepted it. You can be very persuasive toward people who want to be convinced.”
    “That’s part of my strategy, Jicai. I know that deep in the soul of every Iranian military officer there beats the heart of a revolutionary. Oh yes, they would like to make colossal sums of money from a world oil crisis. But what they really want is to strike a violently disruptive blow against the Great Satan, particularly one with the potential to cause widespread chaos in the everyday lives of ordinary Americans.”
    “I am afraid you read them accurately, Yushu. And I am afraid your plan will take place. The minefield will be laid. But I am very afraid of the consequences. The Americans are likely to turn up in the gulf with guns blazing. Possibly against our own warships, and we are not really a match for them….”
    “There you go again, my good Jicai. The immediate crunch. The immediate aftermath. Soon I will ask you to raise your sights. But not quite yet…not until we are given an affirmative answer by the Iranians. Then all will be revealed to you.”
    “I look forward to that immensely, Yushu…but we have been in this room for almost twelve hours now. I think we should go and find some dinner together.”
    The two men traveled up in the elevator to the central floor of the Great Hall, and an eight-man military escort took them to the main doors, beyond which lay the dark, freezing Tiananmen Square. A long black Mercedes, its engine running, awaited them, and the guard escort remained in formation until its tires had creaked out across the fresh, uncluttered snow, bearing its two high commanders north. North along the west side of the square, toward the Forbidden City, the old guardian of the Dragon Throne, and still, in the eyes of most