Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 05 (7 page)

 
          
There
was more to see as they scanned the rest of the Iranian battle group: “Holy
cow, look at that,” Masters exclaimed as they studied the vessel. “Looks like a
big sucker....”

 
          
Paul
White was examining several photographs; he started shaking his head and said,
“Its not on the list of known ships in the
Khomeini
battle group. Lets see. .. destroyer from the looks of it. .. huge
superstructure, but not as big as a cruiser . . . big missile tubes amidships
... aha, boys, looks like
Iran
really did get the Chinese destroyer it was
looking for. That looks like a Luda-class destroyer, with two three-round Sea
Eagle missile canisters. Sky- walkers paid off right away, Doc. I don’t think
anyone knew another destroyer had joined the
Khomeini
group. This is a pretty significant find.”

 
          
Masters
still looked green around the gills, but he grinned like a schoolboy. “Of
course it is, Colonel,” he said, beaming with his usual bravado. “I’m here to
serve up the surprises for you.” White had the communications section relay a
message to the National Security Agency of the new Chinese destroyer’s
presence. “Only the best from Sky Masters.”

 
          
“Uh-oh,”
Knowlton said, “Mr. Modest is cranking it up again ...”

 
          
“No
brag, just fact,” Masters said jubilantly. “The Air Force or CIA should buy a
hundred HEARSE drones. You can’t get better intel than this—quick, reliable,
accurate, and ...”

 
          
Just
then, one of the Sky Masters technicians radioed, “Skywalker is reporting an
overtemp in the primary hydraulic pack. Could be a bleed air-duct
failure—might’ve got hit by a bird. Shutting down primary hydraulics ...”

 
          
Masters
looked as if someone had just slapped him in the face, and White and Knowlton
couldn’t help smiling over his sudden discomfort, even if it meant
discontinuing their surveillance. “Recall it!” Masters shouted. “Issue the
recall command!”

 
          
“Recall
order transmitted and acknowledged,” the technician responded immediately.
“Skywalker changing heading ... Skywalker’s on course back to home plate. It’s
reporting capable of normal recovery; it will be ready for recovery in one
hour, forty-two minutes.” Jon Masters shook his head. “If the Iranians are any
good, Skywalker will never make it back,” he said. “Bleed air-duct failure near
the primary hydraulic pack means a fire; a fire means visibility. With the
hydraulic failure, Skywalker will start trailing hydraulic fluid, maybe fuel,
maybe smoke and fire, and dragging control surfaces and maybe its arresting
system, and bye-bye, stealth.”

 
          
“Then
don’t aim it right back for the ship Jon,” White said. “Make it head to
someplace over land, in
Oman
, or self-destruct it—”

 
          
“I
am
not
self-destructing Skywalker
while it’s still flyable! ” Masters shouted. “If it heads directly for us, it’ll
highlight our position, highlight
us.
I’ll have to reprogram it manually. This was not supposed to happen . . . it’s
designed to head back to its launch base on as direct a route as possible.”

 
          
“Turn
it away, Jon,” White warned him urgently. “The Iranians will pick up on that
thing and trace it back to us.”

 
          
“Skywalker
reporting fire-control radar ... intermittent lock- on, Ku and X-brand radars,
probably Crotale antiaircraft missile fire control.”

 
          
Masters
turned to White, all hint of seasickness gone from his face—he was deadly
serious now. “We can surely kiss Skywalker good-bye, Colonel,” he said. “And
it’s not taking any navigation commands.”

 
          
“What?”

           
“It’s in emergency-nav mode, Paul,”
Masters said. “Conserving power, conserving hydraulics—it might even have its
controls locked. It won’t evade, won’t do anything but fly in a straight line.”

 
          
“I
think we’d better prepare for visitors,” White said grimly. He clicked on his
shipwide intercom: “Bridge, this is Lightfoot. We’ve been blown. I suggest you
put the ship at action stations, institute Buddy Time procedures, head for the
Omani coastline at flank speed, and be prepared for a boarding party alongside,
a hostile aircraft overflight—or worse.”

 
          
“Bridge
copies.” Immediately the alarm bell rang three times, and the captain
announced, “All hands, action stations, all hands, action stations, this is not
a drill.”

Aboard the Islamic Republic of
Iran aircraft carrier
Khomeini

 
          
“Bridge,
radar-contact aircraft, bearing two-one-zero, range seven- point-eight
kilometers, speed two-four-one, altitude two-point-one K, course
two-zero-zero.”

 
          
Major
Admiral Akbar Tufayli, Commanding Admiral of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards
Seventh Task Force, turned his chair on the admiral’s bridge of the
Khomeini
toward the battle-staff area of
the compartment. Within the admiral’s bridge, one deck down from the main
bridge but still able to view all of the above-deck activities on the ship,
Admiral Tufayli and his staff could monitor all the ship’s radio and intercom
transmissions and, if he so chose, interject his own commands directly into the
system, even to aircraft in flight or to nearby ships, bypassing all other
commanders’ orders.

 
          
Tufayli
had immense power for a relatively young man. He started as a common street
fighter and gangster, staging wild, bloody executions of known spies and
informants of the Shah before the revolution. He’d joined the elite Pasdaran in
1981 and risen swiftly through the ranks, commanding larger and larger special
forces and shock forces. Now he was the fifth-highest-ranking officer of the
Pasdaran, and had been honored over all other field generals when he’d been
awarded command of the Pasdaran forces—nearly three thousand commandos,
infantrymen, pilots, and other highly trained specialists—aboard
Iran
’s first aircraft carrier.

 
          
Tufayli’s
battle staff was a mirror image of the ship’s captain’s own, and they were
assembled in the admiral’s bridge now, monitoring all essential ship’s
departments and reporting to Tufayli’s chief of staff, Brigadier General
Muhammad Badi. “General,” Tufayli called out, “is that an
aircraft?
How did it get so close to my battle group without
detection?”

 
          
“Unknown,
sir,” Badi responded. “Though it is possible .. . very small aircraft, weighing
less than five thousand kilograms, flying less than two hundred fifty
kilometers per hour, and greater than fifteen kilometers from the center of the
group, would be squelched from the combat radar display as a non-hostile. Once
our attack began, something that small might be ignored or omitted.”

 
          
“Damn
your eyes, Badi, that so-called non-hostile is now an unidentified aircraft
less than ten kilometers from my battle group! ” Tufayli shouted. “I want it
destroyed immediately—no, wait! Is it transmitting anything? Can we identify
any signals it might be sending ... ?”

 
          
“Stand
by, sir,” Badi said. A few moments later: “Sir, the object is transmitting
non-directional microwave signals in random, frequency- agile burst patterns.
We can detect the signals, but only for very short periods of time. We cannot
record or decode the signals.” Tufayli felt his anger rising up through his
throat. Badi was very fond of jargon—it was one of his few faults.
“Non-directional signals, burst patterns . . . are they satellite transmissions,
Badi?”

           
“They do not appear to be jamming,
uplink, or radar energy patterns, so the best estimate would be satellite
signals,” Badi responded.

 
          
“Before
that contact gets out of optimal Crotale or SA-N-9 missile range, I want those
microwave signals identified and analyzed,” Tufayli ordered. “Then I want a
listing of all vessels between us and the contact’s course to the southwest.
Maybe the contact is some sort of reconnaissance aircraft, returning to its
home. I want that identified and reported to me immediately.”

           
“Yes, sir,” Badi acknowledged, and
ordered the batde staff to work on this new problem. “Sir, unidentified
aircraft is at eight kilometers, still on a constant heading south-southwest at
two hundred kilometers per hour.” Badi was handed a report, message form. “No
luck in identifying or decoding the signals it is transmitting.”

 
          
“Very
well. Destroy it,” Tufayli casually ordered.

 
          
Fifteen
seconds later, just before the first assault helicopter left the
Khomeini
*s deck forward of the island superstructure,
the battle staff turned and watched as a bright streak of fire shot upward from
the deck of the Chinese destroyer
Zhanjiang,
then gracefully arced toward the southwest and dived straight down. The first
French- made Crotale surface-to-air missile launch was followed by two more,
but the other two were unnecessary. Three seconds later they could see a bright
blob of light in the sky, and a sharp
boom!
rolled across the water.

 
          
“Unidentified
aircraft destroyed, sir,” Badi reported.

 
          
“Very
good,” Tufayli said. He was still amazed at the incredible power at his
fingertips. Yes, the
Khomeini
and its
air group was an awesome weapon, but the destroyer
Zhanjiang
had as much long- range killing power as an
entire Iranian artillery battalion. Tufayli controlled the skies, seas, and
soon the land for 100 kilometers from where he sat, and the feeling was almost
beyond comprehension. “Have one of the escorts send a launch to search for
wreckage.” “Yes, sir.”

 
          
“Where
is the report on the ships along that unidentified aircraft s course?”

 
          
“Still
cataloging all vessels along that projected course line, sir,” Badi responded.
“The flight path takes it very close to the Omani and UAE coastlines, and there
are several major oil platforms ...”

           
“It won’t be an Arab base—no
Gulf states
possess such sophisticated systems,”
Tufayli said irritably. “Any major Western vessels reported in this area
recently?”

 
          
Badi
searched the initial list quickly, then put his finger on one line: “Yes, sir,
just one. An American rescue-and-salvage vessel, the
Valley Mistress.
Identified by Sudanese coast patrol transiting the
Red Sea
three days ago, en route to
Bahrain
...”

 
          
“Identification?”

 
          
“Former
Edenton-class salvage-and-rescue ship, three thousand tons, one hundred thirty
men, long endurance, helicopter pad, and hangar facilities,” Badi responded,
reading from a copy of a Sudanese coast guard patrol report that had been
forwarded to the Iranian battle group commander. “Privately owned but
registered under the U.S. Navy Ready Reserve Fleet. Not inspected since leaving
Port Said
on its
Suez Canal
transit.”

 
          
Tufayli
was positive the unidentified aircraft, which he suspected was a small
reconnaissance aircraft, possibly a balloon or drone, had come from that
ship—it had the right size to handle such complex operations. “Send an
electronic reconnaissance helicopter out to take some photos and scan the ship
for unusual electronic emissions,” Tufayli ordered. “In particular, try to get
the ship to respond to a satellite communications transponder enquiry. I want a
direct overflight—let us see what that so-called salvage ship does when
threatened. Launch photo or decoy flares, drop a bomb, fire a marker rocket
toward that ship—anything, but try to elicit a reaction.”                 
.

 
          
Badi
issued the orders, and a Kamov-25 reconnaissance helicopter, fitted with
sensitive electronic warfare sensors and transmitters, was airborne within five
minutes and headed southwest toward the American salvage ship.