The Enemy Within (57 page)

Orr grimaced. This was crazy. He had these guys. He had them and now he was being told to back off. He spoke sharply into the handheld secure phone. “Jesus Christ, Mike, I’m telling you we can take these guys without breaking a sweat. Hell, my snipers could drop two of them this second!”

Mike Flynn’s voice came over the line loud and clear. “Negative, Jim. I’m telling you just what I’ve told every other team around the country. You wait for the word. You watch those people closely, but you do not make a move on them without my direct authorisation. Is that understood?” he demanded.

Orr bit back another oath. “Understood, Mike. Out.”

Still shaking his head in disbelief, he clicked the phone off and went back to watching the enemies he was not allowed to touch.

DECEMBER
11

Kill-class submarine laugh, off Bandar-e Abbas, near the Strait of Hormuz.

(D
MINUS
4)

Iran’s submarine force sortied out of Bandar-e Abbas well after dusk on a moonless, cloudy night. Three black, seventy-meter-long shapes slid quietly past the blinking buoys that marked the main channel. One after the other, as soon as they cleared the harbor area, the diesel boats submerged and went to periscope depth.

Followed by her consorts, the lead submarine, Taregh, crept almost due south through the shallow Gulf waters. She was an ultra-quiet, Kilo-class boat, originally designed and built by the Soviets, and purchased for hard currency from the shrinking, cash-poor Russian fleet. Her forty-five-man crew was the best in the Iranian Navy.

Once he was satisfied that they were safely enroute and free of any shadowers, Taregh’s captain picked up the annunciator microphone.

“Attention to orders.”

He ignored the significant looks and whispers among his control room crew. “We have been assigned an extended exercise one which may last several weeks.

“Our mission is a simple one. We will take station in the Gulf of Oman and begin patrolling, maintaining silent status. Once on station, we will track all ships encountered, especially warships and foreign submarines. I know each man aboard will do his best. That is all.”

In truth, the captain doubted any man aboard believed they were out on only a simple practice run. For two days before they sortied, working parties had sweated around the clock loading provisions and advanced torpedoes. Backed up by hired Russian technicians, the submarine’s officers and senior ratings had run countless tests double-checking every critical propulsion, sonar, and weapons control system aboard the boat. Those extra efforts and the extraordinarily tight security around the Bandar-e Abbas Naval Base were clear evidence of something serious in the wind and water.

The reality was so daunting that the captain wished he could share it openly with his men. Right now, only he, his executive officer, and the submarine’s departmental heads knew their full orders.

Part of what he had said was true. They were heading for a box-shaped patrol area just outside the Strait of Hormuz. And they would indeed be tracking enemy warships. However, his instructions also required him to come up to listening depth at regular intervals. Once he received a specific coded radio signal, the boat’s mission would change dramatically: Taregh would sink all Western warships in its patrol zone. Its sister submarines had similar orders. Together they were expected to lay a deadly barrier across the entrance to the Persian Gulf.

The captain felt a small shiver run up his spine at the thought of actual combat. Any new submarine with untested officers and crew was like an unfired clay pot. The fire might harden it, but some pots cracked in the flames.

Then he shrugged. It would be as God willed it. In any case, all the advantages were his. Taregh was ideally suited to hide undetected in these shallow waters and she would have complete surprise. The first enemy vessel to die would know of his intentions only when a torpedo tore into its hull.

Suddenly, he was eager for the go code.

DECEMBER
12

Near Lavan Island, in the Persian Gulf

(D
MINUS
3)

Just after midnight, the passenger ferry Chamran slipped through the channel between Lavan Island and the rugged Iranian coastline, steaming north through the darkness with its running lights off. Five miles off her port bow, two armed Boghammer speedboats belonging to the Iranian Navy cruised back and forth in a patrol pattern ready to shoo away unauthorised vessels intruding in what was now an unannounced restricted sea zone. There were more passenger ships requisitioned by the Iranian Navy at sea, some ahead of the Chamran and some behind all moving north toward Bushehr, all at fairly regular intervals.

One hundred and fifty miles above the Gulf, an American KH-12 spy satellite passed almost directly overhead and continued silently eastward. Ground controllers had used the 40,000-pound satellite’s on-board thrusters to shift it into a new orbit several days before. Using a
MILSTAR
satellite as a relay, the infrared photos the KH-12 took were transmitted back to the United States in real time.

Fort Bragg, North Carolina

It was still dark and bitterly cold outside when the lights began flicking on inside the Delta Force headquarters building.

Summoned by phone from their temporary quarters, sixteen Army and Air Force officers and senior NCOs were waiting inside the briefing room for Colonel Peter Thorn and Sergeant Major Diaz. Together they commanded the four twenty-man Delta troops, five Army helicopters, and three specially equipped C-17 transport aircraft assigned to Operation
NEMESIS
.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” Thorn said briskly as soon as he came through the door.

He waved them down when they started to snap to attention. Inside its closed compound, Delta Force prided itself on its relative informality. Talent mattered more than rank among the outfit’s experienced professionals. They reserved the spit-and-polish show for outside visitors.

Thorn moved to the front of the room while Diaz started setting up an overhead projector. “Sorry about interrupting your beauty sleep, gentlemen. God knows from the look of some of you, you could certainly use it.”

That earned him a strained chuckle.

He didn’t waste any more time. “I just got a call from Sam Farrell. The President has activated
NEMESIS
.”

His commanders sat up straighter.

Thorn nodded. “We’ve run out of time. New intelligence shows that the Iranian offensive is probably now less than seventy-two hours away.” He raised his voice slightly to reach the back of the room. “Ready, Tow?”

Diaz nodded and dimmed the lights.

“These satellite photos came down the wire from the National Reconnaissance Office fifteen minutes ago,” Thorn explained.

The short, stocky
NCO
slipped each picture into the projector, keeping pace as Thorn ticked off the information they revealed. “Both the
CIA
and the
DLA
now estimate there are more than four front line infantry divisions closed up and in their final assembly areas near Bandar-e Bushehr. Additional formations, all of them tank and mechanised units, have been spotted moving by rail to Bandar-e Khomeini.”

He watched their reactions closely, pleased to see that every man appeared fully alert and utterly focused. “Even more important than that, KH-12 and
LACROSSE
radar satellite passes yesterday and early today picked up signs of significant naval movements. First, the Iranians have shut down their regularly scheduled ferry services to the offshore islands. Those ships are now sailing north toward Bushehr. Second, their entire submarine force has left Bandar-e Abbas, apparently heading for the Gulf of Oman. If we needed anything else, the
NSA
reports that all Iranian army, air, and naval units switched to a new set of codes and ciphers six hours ago.”

The lights came back to full brightness. Thorn stepped forward. “This is not a simple exercise or drill. They’re getting set to go and to go soon.”

Heads nodded in agreement with his assessment. The final pieces of the Iranian operation were falling into place. Switching codes and frequencies was a classic precursor to any significant military move, and no one with any economic sense moved that much shipping around on a whim.

Thorn swept his eyes over the little group of officers and senior sergeants, picking out individuals. Keenly aware that they were looking to him for direction, he kept a tight rein on his expression. Beneath the impassive mask, however, he could feel the old eagerness, the driving urge toward action, welling up inside. He could tell they felt much the same way.

Still, he had no illusions about the dangers involved in the mission ahead. Despite their intensive work over the past several days,
NEMESIS
was still very much an improvised, pick-up-and-go operation. If the plan started falling apart under the stress of unexpected events, it would be up to the men in this room to pick up the pieces and carry on against all odds and no matter what the cost.

Thorn focused on the commander of the
NEMESIS
helicopter detachment.

“Your guys ready, Scott?”

Captain Scott Finney, a compact Texan so calm other people often thought he was asleep or dead, nodded. “Yep. No sweat.”

“How about yours, Mack?”

The tall, lanky Air Force lieutenant colonel commanding their C-17 transports shrugged. “I wouldn’t mind making a few more practice runs, Pete, but we can do it without them.”

One by one, the majors and captains commanding the four Delta troops gave him the same answer. No one was very happy about cutting their planned prep time short, but no one was ready to ask for further delay now that the Iranians were poised and ready to attack.

Ordinarily, Thorn did not believe in giving pep talks especially not to men like those in this room. Most were already veterans of half a dozen special operations some of them so secret that only the barest hints had filtered out to the world beyond the Delta Force compound. Still, he wanted to impress on them his absolute conviction that
NEMESIS
, no matter how difficult and no matter how dangerous, was a mission with purpose a mission with a critical and achievable objective.

“One thing we know from the computer messages we’ve intercepted is that Amir Taleh is a control freak,” Thorn said firmly. “Taleh is the focus of political and military power inside Iran. He runs the Iranian armed forces pretty much as a overman show. All crucial orders pass through his headquarters. His field commanders are highly unlikely to begin an invasion without a clear directive from him personally.

“So our job is essential. If we stop Taleh, we stop this war before it starts. Everything else is secondary. Everything. Understood?”

They nodded solemnly.

“Very well, gentlemen,” Thorn said calmly. “Have your troops saddle up. We move out at 2030 hours, tonight.”

In the Persian Gulf Twenty miles outside Saudi territorial waters, an old wooden chow chugged through calm waters at a steady ten knots, relying on its auxiliary motor for power instead of its furled, lateen-rigged sails. Crates, boxes, and bales of varying sizes crowded the boat’s deck. To all outward appearances, the chow was nothing more than a simple trading vessel one of the hundreds that plied the Gulf on a daily basis. Her crew, too, appeared utterly ordinary: a mix of wiry young lads and weathered old men clad only in Tshirts and shorts against the noonday sun.

Feeling self-conscious in his unaccustomed civilian garb, Lieutenant Kazem Buramand leaned down through the chow’s forward hatch After the dazzling brightness outdoors, the hold below seemed pitch-black. It took several seconds before the Iranian naval officer’s eyes adjusted enough to make out the ten men squatting comfortably around a mound of their own equipment.

All of them wore the camouflage fatigues and green berets of Iran’s Special Forces. Besides their personal weapons, they were equipped with radios, two light machine guns, handheld SA-16 SAMs, demolition charges, directional mines modeledon the American claymore, and antitank mines.

“Is there a problem, Lieutenant?” their leader, a captain, asked softly. Scarred by Iraqi grenade fragments, his narrow face had a permanently sardonic cast that always unnerved Buramand.

“No, sir,” he stammered. “But we are two hours outside Saudi waters. I thought you would like to know.”

“Yes.” The Special Forces officer nodded politely. “Thank you. I assume we have not received any recall order.”

Buramand shook his head. “No, sir. None.”

He had been monitoring the sophisticated communications gear he had brought aboard the chow almost continuously, half expecting to hear the repeated code words that would bring this boat and the others like it scurrying back to port. Instead, he had heard nothing beyond the steady hiss and crackle of static. It was just beginning to dawn on the young naval officer that all their weeks and months of training had been in earnest.

“Very good.” The captain tipped his beret over his eyes, leaned back against his bulky pack, and said quite calmly, “Then please wake me when it gets dark. My men and I will help you prepare the Zodiac rafts for our little trip to the shore.”

DECEMBER
13

Loading docks, Bandar-e Khomeini (D
MINUS
2)

The Iranian city of Bandar-e Khomeini lay at the northern end of the Persian Gulf, one hundred and fifty miles north and west of Bushehr. In peacetime it served as an oil terminus. Now its docks were crowded with valuable cargo of quite another kind.

Shrill whistles blew as another heavily loaded freight train rumbled slowly down a spur line and out onto Bandar-e Kliomeini’s largest pier. Although heavy tarpaulins muffled the massive shapes on each flatcar, Brigadier General Sayyed Malaek’s experienced eyes easily made out more of the T-80 tanks and
BMP
infantry fighting vehicles belonging to his 32nd Armored Brigade.