9 Days Falling, Volume I k-5

by John A. Schettler

  “Looks like another eruption from that volcano up north, sir.” said Duffy. “That’s going to pile a ton of ash into the sky near the target zone, Captain.”

  “Look, Cloud Man, why’d you have to go and spoil my lunch?”

  “Sorry, sir. It’s the damn volcano.”

  “Pyle!” The Captain wanted his communications officer.

  “Sir?”

  “You get on the radio and notify those strike groups. The weather up there is going to be a little smoky. They may have to divert to avoid that damn ash cloud.”

  Tanner spelled out what he wanted, and he was about to make a big mistake. The strike package would split into two groups. The Alpha Group would fly northwest to link up with the land based fighters out of Misawa. This combined force would then make their attack by coming in just off the coast of Hokkaido and far enough west to avoid the ash, which would wreak havoc on the planes if they got caught in it. The Bravo Group would fly northeast then north to avoid the ash cloud as well, and come in from the wide Pacific. They would not have the benefit of the Falcon fighter escort, but the planes designated for SEAD attacks would fire and then quickly assume an air defense role.

  There was going to be more in the sky than smoke and ash that day, and Tanner was satisfied his little pincer attack would catch the Russians napping. He was confident that he had the matter well in hand, but he had not yet taken the full measure of his opponent, and Karpov had ideas of his own that were soon to make it a bloody day for all concerned.

  “Their strike package is splitting up,” said Rodenko. “Looks like they’re diverting some planes over Hokkaido and a second group well east over the Pacific.”

  “Excellent!” Karpov saw an advantage here. “Contact Admiral Kuznetsov. Tell them I want everything they can fly heading east. They’ll provide a strong fighter screen there. As for the group over Hokkaido, let’s say hello with our new S-400s.”

  It was going to be a wild hour at the edge of a great firestorm, though no one realized just how bad it would be.

  Part VI

  Big Bad Humm

  “Marines are landing

  jolly joe jughead

  my that’s fine

  sandalwood khakis

  ho by dynamo

  big bad humm.”

  From: Invasion Jazz by Richard Gylgayton

  Chapter 16

  It started like any normal day in the Gulf. Shipping traffic was getting underway after a long night taking on a wide range of crude and distilled oil and gas. Princess Royal was only one of a number of very large tankers scheduled to transit the straits of Hormuz. Already bloated with Kuwaiti crude, Fairchild & Company had a lot riding on her safe return. Exercising a futures contract written when crude was still well below $100 per barrel, Elena Fairchild had managed to fill her largest fleet tanker for just $70 US per barrel. The price had already doubled in the 6 months since she signed the contract, committing a major share of the company’s remaining operating capital to the deal.

  The Captain of Princess Royal was very edgy that day. When the company owner and CEO interrupts a business dinner to make an emergency radio call to your ship, you listen very intently. Princess Royal was to be put on full alert, its modest crew to be on watch for any close approach of light craft. All four 50 caliber machine guns were to be deployed on deck, with orders to shoot first and ask questions later should any craft get within 500 yards of the giant tanker. The Captain was to launch his motorized cutter and sail it half a kilometer in front of the vessel at all times, with a party of seamen scouring all points of the compass, with particular attention to anything seen floating in the water.

  They were obviously worried about mines, thought the Captain, but had little understanding of how they really worked. He had no doubt that the Iranians had rocket assisted mines on the floor of the Gulf even now, and these could be triggered by the passing of a massively hulled ship like Princess Royal. They could come rocketing up from the sea floor at any time.

  In spite of the hair raised by such a call, the morning voyage had been thankfully uneventful. Princess Royal had passed Abu Musa half an hour ago, a small arrowhead shaped Gulf island that had been disputed by Iran and the UAE for some years. Iran had settled the matter by simply occupying the island, along with two other little rocks north of it, Tunb as Sugrah and Tunb al Kubra. The three sat astride, or flanked, the main deep water shipping lane of the Gulf, waters the Princess Royal had to navigate as she steamed for home. Now she was just at the technical maritime boundary between Iran and Oman, on her last leg up towards the Musandam Peninsula where she would enter the southernmost shipping lane and make her dog-leg right turn around the peninsula, officially entering the Straits of Hormuz.

  ~ ~ ~

  Abu Musa was a barren little island, with a small harbor at its western end, served by a sandbar quay. Seven small craft had been berthed there when Princess Royal made her closest approach to the Island. Six were there now. A single paved road circled the small island, which was bisected by a single runway air strip that extended all the way across from the western harbor to the east shore. Colonel Andar, the Island’s military commandant, was not at his desk this morning either. He had taken to his armored SUV half an hour earlier, heading for the east coast.

  A bit behind schedule, and with no air traffic due to land for hours, Andar decided to simply drive down the long concrete air strip rather than taking the longer coastal road. He had just arrived at the far end of the strip, ending just yards from the eastern shore of the island, and was sitting in his vehicle listening to Radio Teheran while he watched the sumptuous rear end of the British flagged Princess Royal through his binoculars as she headed into her turn in the distance.

  He checked his watch, knowing the seventh patrol boat would be coming round the sharp southeastern tip of the island at any moment. Officially he no longer commanded seven patrol boats. One had been sent home to the Iranian mainland three days ago for scheduled maintenance, or so the files would read now. Officially, this boat was never even in his harbor, and the fuel and munitions she loaded the previous evening were never in his inventory bunkers as well. It was amazing how unknowing and oblivious the government could be, he thought with a wry smile.

  He was here to witness the event that would change the world in a way that few could imagine just now. 9/11 had been called a day that changed everything. The anniversary of that event had just passed uneventfully, with nary a word from Osama bin Ladin. His second in command, Zawahiri, had chided the Islamic fighters the world over for not striking harder against the infidel occupiers. He had claimed they were in league with the devil Americans now, fearful of Iran as well. They should be fearful, Andar thought. And the Americans should be fearful as well. They had the impudence to threaten Iran, and lecture her as to what she might or might not do. Their lap dog Israel was always yammering, straining at the leash.

  The operation today had been carefully planned. The American carrier group, headed by CV Reagan had steamed into the North Arabian Sea on the final leg of her six month tour some days ago. The rotation cycle saw her relieve the Eisenhower there, which was already well across the Indian ocean, sailing for the troubled waters of the Pacific. Reagan was now standing its maritime security watch, which had been heated up on schedule to draw American interest there. Fighters in Iraq had been ordered to stir up trouble for the very same reason. Teheran had dictated the pace of activity and the theatre was brought to a high boil. Reagan would stay in the Arabian Sea and be unable to move east if needed there. It was all planned.

  He smiled as the patrol craft, of which he knew nothing officially, came into sight on schedule to his right. It was making a gradual approach to the lumbering supertanker, soon to cross the fading remnant of its wake, but never to get close enough to raise any alarm.

  The Americans and the British—meddlers, thieves, bullies, brigands—would soon see what their adventurism may cost them. The Princess Royal was about to have a few problems.
>
  ~ ~ ~

  On the bridge of Aegean Reliance, a Greek flagged 40,000 ton container ship moving up the Gulf, the Watch Commander leaned forward of the wheel to make certain his eyes had not deceived him. His jaw hung open in disbelief. The Duty Officer had just reported a fireball where the tanker Princess Royal was making its hard right into the shipping channel in the straits.

  “What happened? Did you see what I think I saw?”

  The duty officer pointed to the video imaging system, recording the forward arc of the ship as it navigated the constricted waters. It was a protocol now required by the tanker insurance industry, as a way of documenting any potential collision at sea.

  “Activate camera two and then play number one back again!” The Watch Commander wanted to be absolutely convinced before he took any action, but the playback did nothing to ease the sickly feeling in his gut. He saw the streaking shadow lance at the heart of Princess Royal and watched the fireball envelop the vessel amidships, expanding out in a massive explosion. The Watch Commander rubbed that spot on his left elbow that always started to throb when the world went topsy-turvy on him.

  “Signal the Director’s Office,” he said slowly. “Tell him we think the Princess Royal has had some kind of accident. No…tell them we think she was deliberately attacked. Indications are there was a major explosion aboard, but we think she was struck by a missile.”

  He was reaching for his field glasses, eyes scanning the dark waters for any sign of a small craft. He thought he spied something in the water, but then it was gone. Then he turned to focus on the burning tanker ahead. The fire was bad and he had to see about rendering assistance.

  “Traffic control!”

  “Sir?”

  “Anything ready for immediate launch?”

  “We have one cutter ready on 15 minute notice sir. “

  “Notify the Captain. We may be involved in rescue operations. Helmsman!”

  “Aye?”

  “Slow to 5 knots.” With a sinking feeling he realized he wasn’t going to follow Princess Royal into the straits any time soon. He would need security on deck at once, and a quick course plot to the nearest port, most likely Port Rashid at Dubai. They had shut down most commercial traffic there in March to favor newer facilities at Jebel Ali, but the port was still there, damn it, and this was going to be an emergency situation.

  Who had fired the missile? Was his ship next? But for now, the law of the sea tugged at him. He would see what he might do to help the stricken ship ahead, but his decks were stacked high with over a hundred steel shipping containers, and the safety of this vessel would have to come first. Princess Royal was on fire and blocking the channel ahead. If she sunk the channel would be closed indefinitely. He would need an emergency berthing at a local port, and that quickly.

  “Order the lighter to be ready to make way. Mission is search and rescue—Full medical team! I want complete video documentation on this console from now on. No tape rotation. You save every inch of footage. Understood?”

  “Aye, aye, sir.” The Duty Officer fed the orders down to the Launch Bay. Then the Watch Officer reached for the handset to call the Captain. All their lives were about to become very complicated.

  ~ ~ ~

  Arkansas Anchorage, was established 80 miles from Dubai in the Persian Gulf to support US military operations in the region. It was home to ASPRON-4, the Military Sealift Command's fourth “Afloat Prepositioning Ship Squadron Four,” though officially she did not exist either. The squadron was de-listed from the service rolls once the major movement of equipment to the Gulf had been officially completed. Unofficially, she still had a number of vessels at anchor, for contingencies that came up more often than bad weather in the volatile Persian Gulf. And with the Ronald Reagan group on the other side of the Straits of Hormuz, in the North Arabian Sea, ASPRON-4 was one of the few remaining navy units still available to quickly respond to the theater commander once reactivated. This was not a combat outfit, but the unit had four large, medium-speed, roll-on/roll-off ships, each one packed to the gills with pre-positioned military equipment, munitions and supplies for the US Marines.

  They were going to be needing them soon.

  Al Dhafra Air Base, located about an hour outside of Abu Dhabi, was one of the first US facilities to receive word on the incident involving Princess Royal. It had been home to the Air Force's 763rd Expeditionary Air Refueling Squadron in support of Operation Southern Watch during the pre-war years of containment for Saddam. At that time it used U-2s and Global Hawk spy planes to keep an eye on the Iraqis. Now, ten years later, nearly 300 US personnel were still deployed at Al Dhafra facility, though she had no teeth.

  For that the ball was quickly passed to Balad airfield in Iraq, where the flight controller inside “Kingpin,” the base control tower, was monitoring aircraft in flight over the battlespace at that very moment. The base had seen a quiet ‘surge’ of its own in recent months in a special agreement signed with Iraq. The big B-1s had returned, as well as fresh squadrons of F-16C fighters, the advanced ‘Block 50’ version, equipped with a high-tech cockpit helmet allowing the pilot to aim and fire his weapons at a target with a simple head movement. The base had also doubled its ISR component in the last two months, an acronym that stood for Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance.

  When the word came in that a tanker was on fire in the Straits of Hormuz, Balad went to red alert at once. The Air Force would be calling on all these services, and then some, in a matter of minutes. The Kingpin tower commander immediately diverted a pair of F-16s to overfly the scene, and a Global Hawk was on the tarmac in ten minutes, ready to take a high resolution look at anything happening in the vicinity of the incident.

  Further east, at the main port of Jebel Ali, the light helo carrier Iwo Jima was already slipping her moorings and getting ready to put to sea. Aboard were elements of the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit, with ten helicopters of varying types along with a squadron of five AV-8 Harrier type jump jets. The Marines had everything they would need to perform their signature mission—take and hold enemy ground by amphibious assault. And if anything was lacking, or needed by way of replenishment, ASPRON-4 would serve it up on a platter when the leathernecks called.

  The Americans were quick to react to the situation. Carrier Strike Group Ronald Reagan was already alerted to the trouble, and the Navy was revving up operations in the Arabian Sea. First and foremost on their minds was the safety of other shipping now using the Straits of Hormuz. If this was a terrorist attack, aimed at shutting down the vital channel, the US Navy was well equipped to respond. The guided-missile cruiser USS Chancellorsville, and destroyer USS Gridley were steaming in the van and ordered to the Straits at once. Additional support was nearby. The USS Ardent, an avenger-class Mine Countermeasure Ship, would accompany the two fighting ships into the narrow waters. Planes and helos from the big carrier provided a thick top cover for the operation.

  The situation was quickly confirmed as a deliberate attack. Already major media stations like CNN had picked up Al Jazirrah video feeds of the wounded Princess Royal , which was now breaking news. The question that hung in the air like the darkened pall of thick black smoke over the stricken tanker, was whether or not she was in any danger of sinking, and thus blocking the channel. She was not, but that information was known only to Fairchild & Company personnel at the moment.

  The navy acted as though the viability of the shipping channel was under immediate threat. They called Port Fujairah in the UAE for quick tug support when reconnaissance indicated the ship was in no immediate danger of sinking. Intel had a line on a patrol boat that had been picked up by cameras on a container ship following some ways behind Princess Royal when she was attacked.

  US Intelligence was quick to put two and two together. They scoured satellite imagery on the Gulf Islands they had been monitoring for some time. Last week’s archive showed seven boats in the harbor on Iranian occupied Abu Musa, the island closest to the point of the attack. Ph
oto specialists at Navy Intel were quick to match the satellite imagery with the video footage obtained from the container ship. They had found their smoking gun.

  The information was routed directly to the office of the Vice President, and then on to the White House. The briefing to the President would indicate, with a high reliability, that this was a deliberate, and state sponsored attack on a British registered oil tanker, and no mere incident of simple terrorism, particularly in light of the current geopolitical tensions. Within minutes, US forces in the Persian Gulf were brought to an elevated state of readiness, and the phone was ringing in the quay bunker at ASPRON-4.

  As the Fairchild ship was a British registered vessel, HMS Iron Duke, a Type 23 frigate, was immediately ordered to assist other Fairchild operations ongoing in the Med. Britain was covering all her bets, particularly those involving the conveyance of much needed oil supplies as the country prepared to go to a full wartime footing. The Iron Duke was happily en-route to the Eastern Med at the time, sailing to rejoin the US Roosevelt battlegroup. She had participated in “Operation Firestone,” a naval exercise held off the Carolina coast a month ago, sailed home briefly, and then put out to sea again with a new commanding officer, Captain Ian Williams. When word came in that he was to sail immediately for the Bosporus, he was quite surprised.

  With all this hubbub in the Persian Gulf why are we being sent up to the Bosporus? Are the Russians planning to sortie with something? Then he received further orders: rendezvous with a small flotilla of oil tankers led by the corporate maritime security ship Argos Fire and provide additional escort through the Black Sea to terminal ports at or near Supsa. He turned to his executive officer still dumbfounded by the message.