The Last Israelis - an Apocalyptic, Military Thriller about an Israeli Submarine and a Nuclear Iran

by Noah Beck

  Launching a weapon from a submarine is a complicated process that relies on the principle of an airlock to move the torpedo or missile into the sea from the different atmospheric pressure within the submarine to the ambient pressure of the water around the submarine. Interlocks within the torpedo tube prevent the breech door and muzzle door from opening at the same time, and ensure that the breech door is not opened when the torpedo tube is filled with water. The essential principles of engineering and physics underlying the weapons system – and the rest of the submarine – were well known to the crew, but working as a team under pressure in a way that optimized the efficacy of the submarine was an art that required regular practice.

  Daniel’s voice came in over the speakers in the weapons room: “Bao, prepare for torpedo drill.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Team, assume positions,” Bao said, sitting in the first of four seats facing the eight monitors and various control switches comprising the STN-Atlas ISUS-90 combat system. The three submariners under his command promptly moved into the three empty seats immediately to his right.

  “Ready for torpedo drill, Sir,” they each reported.

  Bao spoke into the intercom back to Daniel: “Ready for torpedo drill, Sir.”

  “Begin torpedo launch sequence.”

  “Beginning torpedo launch sequence, Sir…Load torpedo three,” Bao ordered.

  The weapons crew pushed various buttons to open the breech door, operate the machine that loaded the massive torpedo into the tube, and hook up the wire-guide connection and the torpedo power cable. Next, they flipped the switches that shut and locked the breech door and activated the torpedo’s power so that it began warming up.

  “Torpedo loaded, Sir.”

  “Flood tube three,” commanded Bao. With the help of a computerized visual representation of the torpedo tube’s current state, the weapons team filled the torpedo tube with water, while keeping it vented so that it filled completely without air pockets that might escape to the surface or cause damage when firing.

  “Three flooded, Sir.”

  “Equalize pressure,” ordered Bao. Another submariner hit a button that activated the special valve to equalize the pressure in the torpedo tube with the ambient sea pressure.

  “Pressure equalized, Sir.”

  “Open muzzle door.” Another weapons crewmember opened the door with the push of a button.

  “Muzzle door opened, Sir.”

  “Enter target coordinates.” The submariner immediately to Bao’s right entered the target coordinates.

  “Target coordinates entered, Sir.”

  “Confirming target coordinates,” Bao reported to Daniel, as the coordinates appeared on his screen. “Target coordinates confirmed. Not entering launch clearance code because this is just a drill, Sir.”

  “This time it took 4.6 minutes, Bao. Getting better.”

  After performing the above steps several times, the weapons team was eventually able to shorten the total torpedo firing time from five minutes to four. Daniel next ordered a drill of a nuclear missile launch, which was different in three respects. First, the nuclear launch command had to be approved by the Prime Minister of Israel, either by voice, over a satellite link witnessed by the communications officer, or by an authenticated code approval that was transmitted no more than two hours before the launch time and confirmed by the deputy captain. Second, the high-security lock to the sealed arsenal holding the nuclear warheads had to be opened so that they could be loaded into the torpedo tube. That lock could be opened only by inserting and turning three different keys; each such key was carried by a different person: the weapons officer, the deputy captain, and the captain. Third, the target coordinates entered had to be confirmed on the map and on the weapons console by Bao, Yisrael, and Daniel.

  Thus, when Daniel announced on the intercom “simulating nuclear missile launch,” the entire crew became attentive and some were scrambling into position, but Yisrael and Ambesah would be especially involved in the drill. It was the latter’s responsibility to secure communication with naval command. Once a satellite link to headquarters was established, Daniel would get on the call with Ambesah and the nerve center would connect the Prime Minister. If voice communication wasn’t feasible, then Ambesah had to manage the process of activating the communication buoy, and receiving and decrypting any message received. It was then Yisrael’s responsibility to confirm in front of the weapons team that the decrypted message had been transmitted within the last two hours and contained a nuclear launch code that matched one of the codes on the list held by him and Daniel. Only after these confirmations could Daniel give the final command to launch the nuclear missile.

  If the drill assumed a satellite call to naval command, the entire launch sequence for a nuclear attack by the Dolphin took 14 minutes, not including the time it might take to rise to periscope depth and, even less predictable, the time to connect the Prime Minister. If the simulation assumed a scenario in which two-way communication was not feasible, the launch sequence took a total of 16 minutes because of the time required to activate the buoy-communication system, retrieve the encoded message, decrypt it, and authenticate the nuclear launch code. The 16 minutes did not include the time to rise to 100 meters below the surface if the submarine had been submerged at a greater depth.

  After several nuclear attack drills, Daniel was able to reduce the total time for both authorization scenarios by about 90 seconds. During the nuclear drill involving an authorization from the Prime Minister via satellite, Daniel also requested that the Acting Prime Minister introduce himself briefly to Ambesah, Bao, and Yisrael. Naval command had originally planned just to have Daniel speak with the Acting Prime Minister because he was the only submariner who had ever spoken to Israel’s top leader. However, the captain insisted that the three senior officers involved in the launch procedure also be familiar with the Acting Prime Minister’s voice, in case one of them had to replace Daniel because he was suddenly unable to perform his launch duties when such a voice authorization was required.

  Chapter 21: Power Struggle Over a Nuclear Attack

  The crew’s practice and the resulting improvements in their operation of the submarine’s weapons systems seemed to have been perfectly timed. The fateful day had arrived shortly after the drills. Nobody was particularly surprised, with all of the developments in the region, but there was something so momentous about a decision to launch a nuclear strike that all of the events that followed had a certain unreal quality to them.

  “Sir, I have a link to headquarters. They are trying to connect the Prime Minister now.”

  “Coming now,” Daniel replied over the intercom. “Bao, put the weapons team on standby for further instructions.”

  Daniel entered the Dolphin’s confidential communications room. But before he could close the door, Jacob appeared and urgently called out to the captain and Ambesah: “Sir, the sonar system isn’t picking up any readings and I can’t seem to fix it.”

  “See what the problem is, Ambesah. I’ll take over from here,” Daniel ordered.

  “Yes, Sir,” Ambesah replied, as Daniel closed the door to the communications room.

  Five minutes later, Daniel’s voice boomed throughout the entire submarine over the public announcement system. “I have received an order from the Prime Minister of Israel to attack the preferred targets in Iran with our nuclear missiles. Our most consequential act as a navy and maybe even as a state will happen right now. Bao and Yisrael, prepare your nuclear arsenal keys.”

  Three weapons specialists sat in the seats facing the tactical monitors of the STN-Atlas ISUS-90 combat system. Yisrael and Bao were standing nearby, next to the lock system that secured the nuclear warheads and, once unlocked, loaded them into the torpedo tubes.

  Moments later, Daniel appeared in front of the weapons team with his nuclear key in his right hand. Bao put his key into the keyhole of the nuclear arsenal lock and turned it. Yisrael stood with his key ready in his left
hand, looking at Daniel expectantly.

  “Insert your key, Yisrael.”

  “Sir, I need Ambesah to confirm that you in fact received an attack authorization from the Prime Minister.”

  “He wasn’t in the communications room with me.”

  “Why not?”

  “He was fixing a problem with the sonar systems.”

  “According to protocol, there must be a witness, preferably the communications officer.”

  “And according to protocol, you have to address me with a ‘Sir’ because I’m your commanding officer.”

  “Yes, but protocol matters a bit more when we’re talking about an order to kill millions of people.”

  “The order came through properly. And as the captain of this submarine, I am ordering you to insert your key into the nuclear arsenal lock. Now.”

  “If you can’t produce a witness to confirm that the Prime Minister did in fact authorize a nuclear strike, then your order is illegal, and – under the naval code of ethics – every crewmember is under a duty to resist it.”

  The three weapons specialists sitting in their stations nearby were all turned towards the showdown between the captain and his deputy, unsure what to do and waiting to see who would prevail.

  In a lightning fast burst of energy, Daniel’s left hand grabbed Yisrael’s left wrist as his right hand delivered a powerful punch to Yisrael’s nose, so that he wobbled a bit and his spectacles flew off his face and on to the floor, where they cracked. The surprise blow loosened Yisrael’s grip on the nuclear key, which fell from his left hand to the floor, as blood began to run from his nose. Daniel swooped down and snatched Yisrael’s key.

  With ironclad determination, Daniel moved towards the high-security lock system with Yisrael’s key in his left hand, and his own nuclear key in his right hand. He pushed Yisrael’s key into the keyhole and turned it. But just as he began to insert his own key, Yisrael wrested the gun from Daniel’s holster.

  Daniel turned and saw that Yisrael was a few steps behind him, with the gun pointed at him. Yisrael cocked the pistol.

  “Pull the key out,” Yisrael ordered.

  Daniel stood there with his right hand still holding the key that he had just introduced into the keyhole. The captain turned to address his deputy: “Are you really prepared to commit treason and murder?”

  “Don’t test me. I would happily kill you rather than millions of innocent people.”

  “And I would happily die rather than fail in our mission. That’s what it means to be captain, Yisrael. Are you sure you’re ready to take over this submarine after I retire?”

  The rest of the crew watched intently to see who would blink first in this unprecedented and mutinous test of wills. Blood ran from Yisrael’s nose and his arm shook a little as he held the gun pointed directly at Daniel’s head.

  “We will proceed with the attack,” Daniel said firmly. “The Prime Minister and the people of Israel are relying on us.” He turned around so that he was facing the three nuclear unlock keys, with his back to Yisrael. Daniel turned his key.

  With the gun pointed at the back of Daniel’s head, Yisrael pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. He tried again in vain.

  Daniel turned and faced the weapons team. “Begin torpedo launch sequence.”

  “Beginning torpedo launch sequence, Sir,” Bao replied.

  Yisrael pulled the trigger a third time, but nothing.

  “Load tubes one, two, and three,” Bao ordered.

  “Yisrael, why are you doing that?” his wife, Netta, asked, appearing next to him. “You can’t hurt Daniel.” She put her hand on his arm, and gently pulled it down so that the gun was lowered.

  Undefeated and full of moral resolve, Yisrael insistently and forcefully raised his arm back up to attempt another shot at the captain. But as his arm swung back up, it hit the tough polyester strap holding the bunk that he was sleeping in.

  The abrupt and very physical contact between Yisrael’s arm and the tangible world made Netta vanish, along with Bao and Daniel, and the rest of the weapons team nearby. Yisrael looked around him, a little disoriented. The crew’s sleeping quarters were quiet. It was dark, except for some outside light that slipped in through a few cracks. Yisrael pressed the backlight on his watch. He still had two hours of sleep ahead of him. He turned in his bunk and tried to fall back asleep.

  Chapter 22: A Warning for the Dolphin

  On the 23rd day of its voyage, the Dolphin reached a point in the Arabian Sea that was about 193 kilometers due south of Sur, Oman. In his daily message to headquarters, Daniel estimated that in the next 27 to 30 hours, the Dolphin would reach the 16-kilometer radius around the last known position of the Leviathan, recorded at 22.63"N, 60.30"E. It had been 17 days since the final communication from the distressed submarine. If its captain had managed to leave behind a message in the ship’s encrypted black-box buoy, then the long-lasting battery in the special emergency device would probably still be operative and sending a signal.

  Three weeks and three days after the Dolphin’s embarkation, at approximately 1600 hours, Eitan anxiously announced to Daniel, “Sir, we just reached a position of 22 degrees 48 minutes North, 60 degrees 27 minutes East – about 16 kilometers south of the Leviathan’s last position.”

  “Release the communication buoy,” Daniel ordered the communications team.

  “Yes, Sir,” Ambesah said. His team activated the buoy cable, sending it 80 meters above their current depth. The suspenseful wait began as the cable with the buoy took a few minutes to reach the surface of the water. Ambesah and his team grew silent, with nothing but their slow breaths making a sound as they waited for the buoy to react to any signal that it might pick up. A few minutes later, a flashing white light on their monitor indicated that a black-box buoy ping had been received.

  “Sir, we have a black-box signal.”

  “Retrieve message.”

  “Yes, Sir.” With a few keystrokes on his control console, Ambesah sent a remote command to switch the black-box buoy from battery conservation mode, in which the transmitter sent out only an intermittent ping, to the more power-hungry messaging mode. Minutes later, Ambesah had received the encoded contents of the black-box buoy, which communication could be understood only by an Israeli naval vessel, using its special military decryption technology.

  Ambesah decoded the final message left by the doomed Leviathan, and handed a printout of the contents to Daniel. As the captain looked at the letters and punctuation marks that collectively amounted to the last communication that anyone would ever receive from the Leviathan’s crew, he thought about how, in the hierarchy of all possible outcomes regarding a submarine’s fate, this was the second worst. The very worst was a submarine that goes missing in a way that leaves the families of 35 crewmembers forever wondering about the fate of their loved ones.

  Daniel silently read the dispatch to himself: “This is a message from Ariel, Captain of the Leviathan. Crew has been very sick but has fought bravely against all odds. Our pressure hull was penetrated by a torpedo. Flooding is intense and depth is increasing. CO2 meters are high. We have just a few minutes of air left, so it looks like we’re not going to make it this time…Tell our families that we love them and they were in our hearts during these last moments…There were also a few special requests from the crew. From Shmuli, for his wife: I forgive you for cheating on me. I wasn’t always the best husband either. From Amos to his father, Rabbi Katz: Dad, I’m sorry for being such a rebel. I should have respected you and your religious views more. And now, for a final message from the entire crew, we wish the Dolphin better luck than we had…And may the State of Israel one day see peace…”

  As the sad news from his counterpart on the Leviathan settled in the captain’s mind, he meditated on whether to share the dispiriting information with the rest of the crew. On the one hand, doing so could lower the morale of the crewmembers and create a generally despondent mood. On the other hand, if he concealed the news, everyone w
ould be left speculating about what the retrieved message said and this could become a distraction, particularly as crewmembers might start trying to convince Ambesah to tell them what the message said. Moreover, informing them of their sister submarine’s woeful fate would also serve as a powerful warning of what could happen to them if they didn’t maintain peak performance, even as they grew weary from their long mission away from home. In the end, Daniel decided to use the intercom to inform the entire crew that a torpedo had sunk the Leviathan.

  “P…Poor guys,” Zvi remarked afterwards.

  “Yeah, we’ve entered the shark pool,” Jacob added. “These waters are full of enemy ships.”

  “Yes, but let’s not forget that we too are a shark,” Yisrael said. “Vastly outnumbered, but still a shark.”

  ****

  Daniel was eager to inform naval command of the news, but if he failed to wait until the area was clear of ships before rising to periscope depth, he risked turning the Dolphin into another Leviathan. So he would need to wait about 11 hours after finding the Leviathan’s black-box buoy before the traffic on the Arabian Sea would be lightest, in the early morning.

  On the Dolphin’s 24th day at sea, at a position of 23.66"N, 59.63"E, the crew rose to periscope depth to update headquarters. Daniel forwarded them the text of the somber message left by the Leviathan.

  Headquarters in turn had a sinister warning for him: “The Iranian leadership yesterday declared that ‘all of Palestine belongs to Muslims.’ Over the last few hours, we have seen suspicious military movements of weapons systems in Iran, Syria, Lebanon, and Gaza. Israeli military intelligence believes that an attack may be imminent. The Dolphin should proceed as swiftly as possible to its position of strategic deterrence, and remain there in a state of maximum readiness to respond to any attack. Expect an update within seven hours.”