by Robert Gandt
Sometimes the new skipper, Brick Maxwell, jogged with her, and that was fun. For an old guy—he was at least thirty-eight or forty—he did okay. In fact, for an old guy he was kind of cute, with that Tom Selleck mustache and lopsided grin.
She remembered the really bad times, the alien days, when Maxwell was her jogging partner—and only friend. On one of the especially bad days, she poured out her innermost fears and frustrations to him. She was ready to quit, turn in her wings. Maxwell had talked her out of it.
She liked to think that they had a bond, she and Maxwell. Maybe more than a bond.
She knew the realities of military protocol. He was a commander and she was a lieutenant. He was a friend. A mentor. Nothing more.
She picked up the pace to a seven minute mile. Running hard kept her from thinking too much.
<>
After landing on the hard-packed road, he let the Marchetti roll under the camouflage nets, into the open bay of the underground revetment.
Climbing down from the wing, he saw Shakeeb waiting for him.
“I was watching, Colonel. Naguib is dead. The killing is finished, no?”
“No.” Al-Fasr pulled off his helmet and handed it to him. “The traitors are dead, but the killing is not finished.”
Shakeeb nodded, his face revealing no change of expression.
The overhead fluorescent lights illuminated the spacious bunker. In the same revetment were two MiG-29 Fulcrums. In the adjoining bunkers were four other Fulcrums, as well as six attack-configured Dauphin turbine-powered helicopters.
In addition to the MiGs, the complex’s air defenses consisted of a SAM-6 anti-aircraft missile battery on a self-propelled launcher, a dozen SA-16 shoulder-launched missiles, and a battery each of fifty-seven and thirty millimeter anti-aircraft guns. All Russian-built, purchased in the underground arms market of the third world.
His eight hundred Sherji—freedom fighters—were bivouacked outside the compound. Technically, they were mercenaries, but most were veterans of the Afghanistan war and had been trained in Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda camps. Each possessed his own ingrained hatred for all non-Islamic adversaries.
Though Al-Fasr had no belief in a being more supreme than himself, he understood the power that Islam had over its faithful. Like bin Laden’s followers, the Sherji believed that if they died in battle, they would join Allah in the hereafter. Their willingness to become martyrs, as well as their skill in guerilla warfare, made them the most potent weapon in Al-Fasr’s arsenal.
His tiny air force was another matter. It was neither skilled nor potent Despite its size, it possessed an advantage of incalculable value. The Americans didn’t know they existed.
Or so his intelligence source had assured him.
The arrival of the MiGs two weeks ago—flown in darkness across the Red Sea from Chad, where they had been delivered by the Libyan Air Force—was timed to avoid the scrutiny of the two American reconnaissance satellites that regularly spied on Yemen. The satellite-tracking technology was a purchase from China, stolen, Al-Fasr presumed, along with a plethora of secrets from the United States.
They walked outside the bunker to Shakeeb’s Land Rover. As they drove to the command post, Al-Fasr peered around the complex. It had been constructed back in the 1950s when British Petroleum was still drilling the Arabian peninsula for oil deposits. Declaring Yemen to be a dry hole, they abandoned the complex, leaving behind the tin-roofed buildings and hard-packed road.
And the air strip.
The old BP road meandered out of the desert, running in a nearly straight line for the last three kilometers to the compound. Though the road was gravelly and pot-holed, it was suitable for the sturdy MiG-29, which had been designed for the unimproved runways of Russia. For take off and landing, a door in each of the two big air intakes closed to prevent foreign object ingestion while intake air was ducted through louvers on the top of the wing roots.
Seen from the lens of a satellite camera or a low-flying reconnaissance jet, the old road was nearly invisible. It looked like just another of the primitive camel-paths worn into the arid earth of Yemen. It was a trick the Soviets had long used— building long, straight sections of highway that could be instantly converted to tactical jet runways.
The Land Rover pulled up to the tin-roofed building that served as Al-Fasr’s headquarters. An array of antennas festooned the building. Inside, a dozen technicians worked at the rows of consoles, listening to encrypted message traffic, monitoring the movements of the U. S. Navy’s Middle East fleets.
The operator at the SatComm station looked up and saw Al-Fasr. “You have a message, Colonel. From the Reagan.”
<>
“There’s the answer to my question,” said Claire, pointing to the land masses passing on either side of the Reagan. “Now we know where we’re going.”
“Not exactly,” said Maxwell. “But we know where we’re not going.”
They stood on the viewing deck behind the island, six stories above the flight deck. The heat of the afternoon sun was tempered by the twenty knot breeze that whipped over the open deck.
The Reagan was leaving the Persian Gulf. To starboard, jutting into the sea like a spearhead, was the long pointed tip of Oman. On the opposite shore lay the hazy brown coastline of Iran.
The entire battle group was steaming southeastward through the strait of Hormuz. In the lead was a pair of destroyers followed by the Aegis cruiser Arkansas. Behind the cruiser sailed Reagan, flanked by a destroyer on either side and trailed by the amphibious helicopter carrier Saipan. The ammunition ship Baywater brought up the rear, in company with two more destroyers.
On the Saipan’s flight deck Maxwell could see a swarm of medium transport helos and Cobra gunships. The ship carried an entire Marine Expeditionary Unit—over a thousand battle-ready marines.
From the loudspeaker bellowed the voice of the Reagan’s air boss. “Standby to recover CODs!” COD stood for Carrier Onboard Delivery. CODs ferried everything from personnel to airplane parts to toilet paper. “Recover CODs in five minutes!”
The bow was swinging into the wind. On the flight deck, yellow shirted crewmen in float coats and cranial protectors scurried to clear the landing zone. The rescue helicopter lifted from the flight deck and wheeled out over the water, taking up its alert station.
The first of the two blunt-nosed turbo-prop C-2A Greyhounds was already in the groove. Maxwell watched the COD sweep over the ramp and settle with a plop onto the number three wire. Seconds later, the twin-engined aircraft was clear of the wire and scuttling to the forward flight deck. The second COD arrived, snagging a two wire, then joined the first one on the forward deck. The howling of the turbine engines came to a stop.
Maxwell saw the clamshell doors open in the aft fuselage of each COD. At the same time a party of officers came out of the island onto the flight deck. He recognized one of them, a tall man in khakis. It was Sticks Stickney, captain of the Reagan.
Over the loudspeaker blared the Bosun’s pipe. Following naval custom, the Bosun’s Mate’s voice announced, Commander, Task Force Eleven—arriving.” Another screech of the whistle, then: “Deputy National Security Advisor—arriving.”
A civilian wearing starched khakis and aviator sunglasses emerged from the COD. He was followed by an officer with two stars. Captain Stickney rendered a stiff salute, which both men returned.
“Good Lord,” said Claire. “Who’s that?”
“The new Battle Group Commander. Admiral Langhorne Fletcher.”
“Who’s the civilian? The one dressed up like MacArthur that they’re all cowtowing to?”
“You’re looking at the honorable Whitney T. Babcock, confidante and advisor to the President. Remember him?”
Claire nodded. “The one who took all the credit for directing the recent strike on Iraq?”
“The one and the same. Back by popular demand.”
“Oh, oh. Watch out, Sam.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
&n
bsp; <>
Boyce sat alone in the conference room. Spook Morse had removed the image of Jamal Al-Fasr. Now a map of Yemen covered the screen.
Here we go again, thought Boyce. Within a few hours his strike fighters would be on their way to another target in yet another godforsaken hostile country. There was no end to it. The world was crazy. Instead of a single, monolithic kickass opponent like the Soviet Union, now they had an enemy du jour. Little pissant wars were breaking out like ant hills in a pasture.
Boyce had already ordered a practice load out. On the hangar and flight decks, the ordnance divisions of the air wing's squadrons were scrambling to hang weapons—thousand and two-thousand pound bombs—beneath the wings of the Hornet strike fighters. Chief petty officers were yelling at the red shirts, hacking stop watches, exhorting them to move faster.
When they were finished, they would unload. Then they do it all over again. It was a backbreaking job, but critical. When the strike order came down with specific weapon loads, Boyce wanted his jets armed and ready.
He hadn’t yet designated a strike leader. He had already ruled himself out, much as he wanted to be in the front. Something about this one was giving him a bad feeling. If things went sour, the place for an Air Wing Commander was not in the cockpit but here aboard ship.
Who, then? To be fair, the nod should go to Rico Flores, who commanded the VFA-34 Bluetails. He was the senior squadron skipper and a competent strike leader. Or Burner Crump, who ran the Tomcat squadron. Crump had the most combat experience and was a steady leader.
Something in Boyce's gut was troubling him. When you had nutcase enemies like these Islamic terrorists, who had nothing to lose and believed that dying was a ticket to paradise, you never knew what to expect.
There wasn’t a textbook solution for everything that could go wrong on a deep air strike. They had to keep learning that same damned lesson every time—Lebanon, Libya, Iraq, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq again, Afghanistan.
Now Yemen.
This operation could turn ugly. He needed a strike leader who could make decisions on the spot. Somebody who could change the game plan if necessary.
Brick Maxwell.
Boyce could already hear the outraged bitching from the other strike leaders. It would be the same old stuff about seniority and that carpetbagging ex-astronaut and what the hell does he know about tactical air combat?
Too bad. They’d have to get over it.
Maxwell was the right guy. Every eye in the Pentagon would be on the Reagan and its air wing these next few days. Maxwell knew when to shoot and when to hold his fire. In the No-Fly Zone over Iraq, he had passed up a sure MiG shot when it wasn't necessary to kill him. Then he had not hesitated to kill an adversary when the bastard needed killing. Maxwell was a guy who didn't agonize over decisions.
Boyce looked at his unlit cigar. The conference room, like almost every other space on the ship, was a no smoking area. The goddamn tree-hugging pure air freaks had ruined it for everyone.
He pulled out his ancient Zippo and applied the flame to the cigar. He got a nice ember going, then wafted a cloud of gray smoke across the room. Yeah, he would take flak about his choice of strike leader. Sometimes you just had to break a few rules.
Chapter Four
Kilo
Gulf of Aden
0450, Sunday, 16 June
Lieutenant Commander Pietr Ilychin entered the control room. “It’s here, Captain. The updated point of intended movement.”
Captain Yevgeny Manilov took the message from Ilychin and turned back to his keyboard. He inserted the coordinates of the new position into the Andoga navigational computer.
When he was finished, he tilted back and studied the display for a moment. “Almost no change, three kilometers perhaps. The wind must be shifting. They will change course to launch aircraft.” Manilov handed the message back to Ilychin. He glanced at his watch. “Ahead five knots, maintain ninety meters. Set course for the updated position.”
“Aye, captain.”
This last message from Yemen, via satellite, had arrived just in time. It was almost sunrise. In daylight he could no longer risk raising the periscope-mounted antenna even for the few minutes it took to download messages.
Yevgeny Manilov was the commander of the Ilia Mourmetz, a Project 636 Kilo class diesel/electric submarine with a displacement of nearly 2,000 tons. During the pre-dawn hours he had sailed the Mourmetz on the darkened surface into the Gulf of Aden. Now that they were within fifty kilometers of prying eyes along the shoreline, they would submerge and enter the littoral waters off the Yemeni coast.
The old Kilo class boats and their Amur class derivatives were the stealthiest undersea vessels yet constructed in Russia. Even better than the brutish nuclear-powered Oscar subs, conventional boats like the Mourmetz could hide in shallow water, lurk beneath thermal layers—and emit virtually no acoustical signal. With the addition of the anechoic tile coating on the outer hull, the Mourmetz in a passive mode could elude almost all magnetic anomaly and sonar detection equipment.
Sitting at his table in the control room, Manilov considered his situation. Nineteen years it had taken him to get here. Nineteen humiliating, ruble-begging, egg-sucking years. Like every other uniformed member of the Russian navy, he had endured months without pay, eaten food unfit for cattle, suffered the indignity of seeing their once-magnificent submarine fleet mouldering like derelicts in the naval yards.
Manilov had remained in the Navy mainly because he had no other options. Being the underpaid captain of a derelict submarine was preferable to hammering nails or selling shoes or shoveling shit in the streets of Moscow. The nation’s economy was imploding. Mother Russia was at the mercy of gangsters, its own inept leadership, and, worst of all, her former enemy.
The thought of the United States and its overweening arrogance was enough to fill Manilov with rage. For years he had played Cold War games, tracking the profiles of American warships. He had yearned for the order to send a torpedo crashing into one of those gray hulls. In his mind’s eye he could see the crimson fireball, the gushing oil smoke, the specter of a bow tilting upward and sliding like a steel sarcophagus beneath the waves. It would have been wonderful.
The order never came. Instead, the Soviet Union had burst apart like an overripe melon.
Then the final indignity. Everything was for sale— space vehicles, medical research, military technology.
Submarines.
The Ilia Mourmetz, Manilov was informed one day, had been sold. It would be Manilov’s duty to deliver his vessel to the Iranian naval base at Bandar Abbas. It would also be, he knew without doubt, his last voyage as a submarine commander. Russia’s Navy was transforming into a maritime auction house.
Four weeks elapsed while the Mourmetz underwent modifications at the Vladivostok naval base. The old boat’s navigational gear was retrofitted with the newer, state-of-the-art laser gyro inertial guidance units. The sonar and fire control systems were replaced with an MGK-400EM digital sonar and the MVU-110 combat information computer. An oxygen generator plant was installed that allowed the sub to operate for weeks beneath the surface without snorkeling to recharge batteries or replenish air supplies.
This only exacerbated Manilov’s mounting anger. The Iranians were getting equipment that was vastly superior to anything Manilov had used aboard the old Mourmetz. All it took was money! They all had it—Americans, Iranians, Chinese, Japanese—everyone except the Russians.
The deathlike bleakness of the Russian winter had not yet released its grip on Vladivostok. While he waited for the Mourmetz’s renovations to be completed, Manilov spent his idle hours in a quayside bar frequented by naval officers and shipyard bureaucrats. Only with sufficient alcohol in his blood could he put aside the dismal thoughts of his final voyage.
One evening in the bar, Manilov found himself in conversation with a dark-skinned man in an ill-fitting suit. Manilov guessed from the accent that he came from one of the new republics— Uzbekistan or Az
erbaijan, perhaps— somewhere in the southern Caucusus.
After several vodkas the man surprised Manilov with his knowledge of the Mourmetz and its upcoming voyage. Then he surprised him even further by presenting him with a business proposition. For an amount of money that exceeded anything Manilov could imagine, would he consider taking the Mourmetz not to its new owner, but to a different destination?
Manilov wondered if he was hearing correctly. Was it the vodka? It couldn’t be real.
There was more. Instead of turning over the Mourmetz’s weaponry to the Iranians, would he be interested in fulfilling his nineteen-year dream? Would he, perhaps, be interested in sinking an American warship?
Manilov felt his skin prickle.
The man—he identified himself only as Hakim—suggested that they meet again the next day. In the closed booth of a hotel restaurant, Hakim gave Manilov a glimpse of his briefcase. It contained what appeared to be millions of stacked Swiss francs. Manilov, if he accepted the terms, could live the rest of his life in unimaginable luxury.
“It is too incredible,” Manilov murmured. “Who wants this to happen? He must be insane.”
Hakim shook his head. “His name does not matter for now. He is not insane. He is a military leader who will change the balance of power in the Middle East.”
“By sinking one American warship?”
“It will be just one blow in a coordinated battle.”
It was too much for Manilov to comprehend. For the moment he had no more questions. He gazed out at the dreary shipyard and its ghost fleet. He let his imagination run, thinking of a life away from this miserable place.
After a minute had passed, Hakim said, “You have had time to consider. You must decide. Do you agree to what we discussed or not?”
For the first time Manilov noticed an edge to the man’s voice. Gone was the breezy vodka talk, the affable business manner. The man’s eyes had darkened, and his voice was clipped. Manilov understood that they had crossed a point of no return. He knew almost nothing, but even that was too much. Without realizing it, he had allowed himself to be drawn into a minefield.
