Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 05 (10 page)

 
          
“Range
nine miles. Target bearing one-five-zero.” The
Valley Mistress
turned northwest as the fighter swung slightly
south—the fighter was maneuvering to try to get a larger profile picture of its
quarry, and the helmsman of the
Valley Mistress
was trying to turn to keep the fighter behind the ship.

 
          
“Seven
miles, bearing two-two-zero ...” No sooner had the ship finished that first
right turn than it suddenly heeled sharply to starboard as the helmsman threw
the ship into a tight turn to port. The fighter had turned farther around,
coming in from the southwest, so the helmsman now tried to point the bow of the
Valley Mistress
at the incoming
fighter instead of the stern. “Six miles, bearing ...”

 
          
Suddenly
the sea behind the ship exploded into a huge geyser of water and foam, followed
by a second explosion. The sound rolled across the deck a second later, hitting
them like a double thunder-clap. “That motherfucker fired at us!” Masters
shouted. “They're shooting at us!” The Su-33 fighter had launched two
radar-guided anti-ship missiles, which had locked on to the much larger radar
target—the decoy floater. The missiles hit the water less than a thousand yards
astern.

 
          
“Range
five miles, target turning north escape vector bearing one-eight-zero ... range
three miles ...”

 
          
“Stinger
crews, batteries released!” White ordered. “Nail the bastard!”

 
          
Unlike
with the attack on the helicopter, this time the Stinger launcher crewman
couldn’t see the fighter itself through the viewfinder, so he had replaced the
regular optical viewfinder on his Stinger launcher with a two-inch-square LCD
screen, which showed an electronic image of the Stinger viewfinder and the
Iranian fighter, along with target flight data and missile status. Data
received from the AWACS radar plane orbiting over
Saudi Arabia
was transmitted via wireless datalink to
the
Valley Mistress,
then to a
receiver carried by the Stinger launcher crew, and presented on the tiny screen
so that the launcher crewman could aim his Stinger system in total
darkness.                      
|

 
          
When
the electronic image of the fighter was centered in the screen, the launcher
crewman first hit a button on the right handgrip, which fired a radio
interrogation signal at the fighter. A friendly plane would have responded to
the radio signal—this one did not. “IFF negative! Clear me to shoot!”

 
          
“Clear
to shoot!” White shouted. Again, the Stinger crew fired. The missile
disappeared from view into the darkness ... but far out on the horizon, they
saw a bright flash of light and a stream of fire— another hit.

 
          
But
there was no celebrating their victory. Everyone knew there were at least
nineteen more fast-movers and six more fling-wings out there based on the
aircraft carrier
Khomeini,
plus
hundreds more based in
Iran
just a few hundred miles away, that could
quickly send the
Valley Mistress
to
the bottom of the
Persian
Gulf
. Their little
counterattack merely bought them a few precious minutes, perhaps a little
hesitation or overcaution in the minds of the Iranian attackers, perhaps a mile
or two closer to the Omani coast, where the Iranians might not pursue. But the
fight was still on. . ..

Aboard the
Khomeini

 
          
“Contact
lost with Patrol Three! ” the radar operator shouted on the intercom. He began
reading off last position, altitude, and airspeed, which would be relayed to
rescue forces. “Lost contact with attack two as well!”

 
          
“What
in hell happened?” Admiral Tufayli shouted. “Did the pilot crash? Get me a
report!”

 
          
“Message
from scout helicopter, just before contact was lost,” General Badi interjected.
“The pilot reported that a missile was fired from the deck of the American
salvage ship shortly after they fired their warning shots.”

 
          
“Missiles?
That American ship fired missiles?” Tufayli shouted. “I want that damned ship
on the bottom of the
Gulf
of
Oman
now!”

 
          
“The
American vessel appears to be still under way. It is crossing into Omani
territorial waters, now five kilometers offshore and less than twenty
kilometers northeast of Ra’s Haffah, heading southwest at twenty knots. The
pilot of Attack Two said he had contact on the target, but apparently he struck
a decoy.”

 
          
“Decoys
. . . antiaircraft missiles . . . this is no damned salvage ship, and its no
spy ship, either—it is an American z^rship, and they have declared war with
Iran
and with my battle group!” Tufayli shouted.

 
          
“Sir,
Strike Unit Nine is ready for launch,” General Badi said. Tufayli looked
outside his flight deck windows and saw the long double tongues of flame
erupting from the holdback spot, as the Sukhoi-33 fighter-bomber activated its
afterburners. A second later, the fighter began to roll down the long flight
deck, uncomfortably slow at first but rapidly picking up speed. The afterburner
flames described a bright yellow arc through the sky as the fighter leapt off
the ski jump, sank toward the water, slowly leveled off, then accelerated with
a smooth, shallow ascent into the sky. Passing 200 meters’ altitude, the
afterburner flames disappeared. “What are your instructions, sir?”

 
          
“Destroy
that ship!” Tufayli screamed.
“Destroy
it!”

 
          
“But,
sir, the vessel is in Omani waters now,” Badi said. “It is within sight of
land, and there are many small villages near.”

 
          
“I
do not care how many people will see this—I want that American warship destroyed!”
Tufayli cried. “Divert another fighter with anti-ship weapons to follow if the
second pilot fails as well, then rearm another fighter for anti-ship
operations, and do it
now!”
Badi
could do or say nothing else.

Aboard the
S.S.
Valley
Mistress

 
          
The
first two lifeboats were loaded up with technicians from Sky Masters, crowded
shoulder to shoulder in three rows of ten men in each boat. They had just been
lowered to the water and were beginning to motor toward the UAE shoreline when
the intercom blared, “Incoming aircraft bearing zero-three-zero, speed six
hundred knots, range thirty-six miles and closing!”

 
          
“Go!
Fast as you can! ” White shouted to the crew of the second lifeboat as they
finally detached from the lowering cables and started the lifeboat’s engine. A
third lifeboat was being loaded with the rest of the civilian contractors plus
the non-essential seamen—only a handful of seamen, the ten officers, and the
thirty members of Madcap Magician remained aboard the
Valley Mistress.
“Lower lifeboat! ” White shouted. “Head for shore
and don’t stop! ” He keyed his intercom mike: “CM, release floater! Stinger
crews, stand by!” When White returned to the helicopter landing pad, the members
of the crew assigned to the countermeasures crew were assembled there, waiting
for him. He was shocked to see Jon Masters standing with them. “Masters, what
in hell are you doing here? I ordered you to go in the third lifeboat.”

 
          
“They
needed some help with the signal generator on the floater,” Masters replied. “Its
fixed.”

 
          
“That
was the last floater, right?” White asked. He got a nod in reply. “Take
lifeboat four and head for shore. Jon, bridge, crew, engineering, you go with
them.”

 
          
“Lifeboat
four is the last one,” Masters said. “You won’t have a boat.”

 
          
“We’re
not leaving without the rest of you,” Master Sergeant Steven Cromwell, the
senior member of the twenty-four-man Marine platoon attached to Madcap
Magician, said sternly. “Our job is to protect the ISA technical group. We
don’t split up and we don’t leave anyone behind.”

 
          
“If
you all get captured by the fucking Iranians, we’ll all be in deep shit,
Sergeant.”

 
          
“You
said it yourself, Colonel,” Cromwell said. “‘Deep Shit’ is our middle name.
We’re not leaving. We’ll man an extra Stinger crew if you want one.”

 
          
“What
I want is a Stinger crew in lifeboat four to trail the others and provide air
cover in case an Iranian helicopter tries to pursue,” White said. “Grab four
men and as many tubes as you can carry and head toward the others. You’ll have
a datalink as long as the ship is still operational—if you lose the datalink,
you’ll just have to guide by hearing. Get going, Steve.” He looked at Jon
Masters, then at Cromwell, and said, “Take Dr. Masters with you.”

 
          
“I’ll
stay here if it’s all the same.”

 
          
“It
is not,” White said. “Sergeant, your responsibility now is the safety of the
disembarked crew and the civilians. You are to deliver all the members of the
ship’s crew and the civilian contractors, including Dr. Masters here, safely to
the
U.S.
embassy in
Dubai
or Abu

 
          
Dhabi,
or any friendly agency or military unit, to ensure the safe delivery of these
men back to the
United States
. You are to take any and all steps
necessary to ensure their safety and the security of the ISA cell. Is that
clear?”

 
          
Cromwell
appeared as if he were going to make another argument for staying, but he knew
White was right. Most of the ISA cell members were going to be on shore, and
White had four Marines to help him here. “Yes, sir,” Cromwell responded. He
turned to the Stinger crew members and said, “Sergeant Reynard, you’re in
charge of this detachment.” The young Stinger crewman acknowledged the order,
and Cromwell saluted White and departed with his men. Masters still hesitated:
“Hey, Paul...”

 
          
“Get
moving, Doc. I want you on that lifeboat.”

 
          
“Why
don’t you come with us?” Masters asked.

 
          
“Can’t
leave the ship,” White replied.

 
          
“But
if the Iranians get... you know, if they attack ...”

 
          
“You’re
assuming they’ll attack, and assuming they’ll hit us, and assuming they’ll put
us out of commission,” White said. “I don’t make assumptions. We’ll get off the
ship only when it’s necessary— otherwise we stay.”

 
          
“But
you’re ISA, you’re Madcap Magician,” Masters said. “We need you to reassemble
your team. Let the ship’s crew take care of the ship. If they get captured,
they’ve got an airtight cover.”

 
          
“Listen,
Doc, I’ve put too much time in this tub to leave it when it’s still slimy side
down and running,” Paul White said. “It may not technically be
my
ship, but I made it what it is right
now. I’m not leaving the
Mistress
until it’s not safe to stay. Now get moving, Jon.” White turned away, and a
Marine was pulling at Masters’s arm, practically dragging him to the last
lifeboat.

 
          
“Nice
working with you, Colonel,” Masters said, but White was talking on his headset
and didn’t hear him. One minute later they were speeding away from the ship,
trying to catch up with the other three lifeboats. The Marines on board had one
Stinger missile assembled and ready for launch, with one Stinger missile
“coffin,” containing two missile tubes, a spare launcher grip assembly, and
three battery units, opened up and ready to load.