"Samad?" the man whispered. "Samad--"
Fisher shot him in the side of the head, then rushed forward to catch the falling body. As he did so, the man's left foot slid out from under him, kicking a shower of gravel against the wall. Fisher lowered him the rest of the way to the ground, holstered the pistol, and drew the SC-20. He stepped back to the doors, peeked through.
A figure darted across the nook and down the hall.
Fisher stepped through the doors, cleared the nook and kitchen, started down the hall. There were doorways to his left and right, both dark. He checked them: empty bedrooms. From the end of the hall came the sound of steel banging on stone and and image flashed through Fisher's mind: a steel lid banging open against the stone floor. He heard fluttering papers and the whoosh of flame.
Fisher rushed down the hall. At the end, he peeked right, saw nothing. Left, a small living room with a tattered Oriental rug, floor cushions, and an open-hearth fireplace. A man was crouched before it, tossing papers into the flames.
"Stop right there!" Fisher called.
The man froze. He turned. His profile was lit by the flames. It was Abelzada.
He studied Fisher for a moment, then narrowed his eyes.
"Don't do it!" Fisher warned.
Even as the words left his mouth, Abelzada's hand was moving. From beside his foot, he snatched up an object, started swinging it around. The gun glinted in the fire-light. Abelzada yelled something, a cry for help.
He needed Abelzada alive, had to have him alive. But crouched as he was, there was no guarantee of a wounding shot and there was no time to change the SC-20's setting. Fisher fired a round into the hearth beside Abelzada's head. The man didn't flinch, kept moving, bringing the gun around. . . .
Fisher adjusted his aim and fired.
ABELZADA rocked back on his heels, then crumpled over into the fetal position. His gun clattered to the stone floor. Fisher rushed forward and checked him. Dead. The bullet had missed Abelzada's bicep by a half inch and entered under his armpit. It was a heart shot.
Fisher looked around, thinking, thinking. . . . The box at Abelzada's feet was still mostly full of papers He spotted a leather satchel lying on a nearby chair. He snatched it up, stuffed the papers inside.
In the distance, he heard alarmed voices shouting in Farsi.
He keyed his subdermal. "Pike, this is Sickle, over."
"Go ahead, Sickle."
"Pike, I am Skyfall; I say again, Skyfall." Translation: now operating in Escape and Evasion mode. "Home on my beacon, LZ is hot."
"Roger, hold tight, Sickle. We are en route."
SHANGHAI
"MESSAGE from Sarani, Uncle."
Zhao looked up. "Yes."
"There was an attack. Gunfire in the village."
"How big a force?"
"Small. They estimate less than a dozen soldiers."
"Not the Iranians, then. Abelzada?"
"Dead. He was in the process of burning material when he was shot. But if he talked--"
"He didn't," Zhao said, then went silent. He folded his hands on his desk and closed his eyes for a few moments. The board had changed; a piece had fallen. Zhao imagined the breach suddenly opening in his line, saw his opponent, now confident, moving ahead. Would Abelzada's involvement be enough to unravel the strategy? he wondered. No, the Iranian government had no credibility with the rest of world. Any denial would ring hollow.
"What about Abelzada's team?" Zhao asked.
"In place and ready."
"Then it doesn't matter. He's served his purpose. In fact, this is a lucky coincidence. Do you know why?"
Xun thought for a moment. "Abelzada's a zealot. He might have been tempted to speak out--to claim credit."
Zhao smiled at his nephew. "Very good. I'm impressed."
Xun smiled back. "Synchronicity, yes?"
"Perfect synchronicity." One more move left.
53
TWO hours later, they were out of Iranian airspace and 110 miles southeast of Ashgabat, crossing the Garagum Desert on their way to Afghanistan.
Bird had been true to his promise. Eighty seconds after Fisher's call, the Osprey had come roaring through the canyon and swept over Sarani's rooftops, then popped up, did a tidy hover-turn over the plateau, and dropped the ramp twenty feet from Fisher.
After scooping the papers into the satchel, he'd locked the front door, planted a wall mine opposite it, then gone out the back and planted two more mines along the side walkway before scaling the bluff to await the Osprey. As he mounted the ramp, he'd heard an explosion from inside Abelzada's house, followed by screaming, then by two more explosions from the walkway.
The Osprey lifted off and Bird went to full power, leaving the same way he came in. A half-dozen desultory rifle shots trailed after them, but Osprey had turned down the canyon and was lost in the darkness.
The trip out of Iran went smoothly. Having had a couple hours to study and refine his flight plan, Bird took them past the radar stations along the border without incident and with a minimum of beeping from the warning alarm.
Now Redding and Fisher sat in the cabin, sorting through Abelzada's papers.
"Yeah, it's all in Farsi," Redding said.
"Got some Mandarin here," Fisher replied.
He checked his watch: six hours until the Reagan's destroyers moved into the Strait of Hormuz.
There had to be something coming, Fisher thought. Zhao had meticulously planned his game--had probably spent two or more years laying the groundwork. He wouldn't be satisfied to simply let momentum and chance finish it for him. So what was his final move? Every base on the U.S.'s East and West Coasts were on full alert.
What was the last task Abelzada had sent his followers on?
TWO hours later they entered Afghanistan airspace. Fisher sat down at the com console and waited for his call to be patched through to Third Echelon's Situation Room. Lambert's face appeared on the screen. Fisher said without preamble, "Abelzada's dead," and then explained. "When I found him he was making a bonfire. I got most of it--a few dozen pages in Farsi; some in Mandarin. And we've got Marjani. I suspect with the right incentives, he'll have more to say."
"Stand by." Lambert was back ten seconds later. "Our best bet for translators and interrogators is CENTAF." This would be the U.S. Central Command's Air Force Headquarters at Al Udeid Air Base in Doha, Qatar. "Give me your ETA; I'll get you cleared through Reagan 's airspace."
Fisher changed channels, got an answer from Bird, then switched back. "We have to refuel at the Marine base in Herat. From there, it'll be five hours."
"I'll make it happen," Lambert said. "Tell Bird to find a tailwind."
THEY didn't catch a tailwind, but a headwind, and five hours later they were just crossing Pakistan's Makran Coast into the Arabian Sea. Their escorts, a pair of Pakastani Air Force Mirage III's, waggled their wings and peeled off, their navigation strobes disappearing into the night. Dawn was still an hour away, but Fisher could see a fringe of orange on the horizon, toward India and the Himalayas.
Bird banked the Osprey west and headed into the Gulf of Oman. As they settled on the new course, Fisher walked to the opposite window and looked out. It took him a moment to find what he was looking for on the ocean's surface: a rough concentric circle of lighted dots--the Reagan Battle Group, steaming toward the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz. Farther still, out of sight from here, the warships of DESRON 9 would already be moving through the Strait, ready to meet the Iranian Navy should Tehran decided to contest the shipping lanes. It would be a mismatch, Fisher knew, but any exchange of shots would signal the end of the parrying and jockeying and the start of war.
From the cockpit, an American voice came over the intercom, "Pike, this is CoalDust Zero-Six, come in, over."
"Roger, CoalDust, we read you."
"Here to escort you to Doha. Stay on current heading and switch to button five for ATAC control from Port Royal."
"Roger," Bird replied.
Fishe
r saw the wing strobes of an F-14 Tomcat slide into view out the window.
Behind him, Redding groaned. He was still sitting on the cabin floor with Abelzada's papers spread all around him.
"Problem?" Fisher asked.
"I've got some Farsi and some Mandarin, but I'm not fluent enough to make any sense of this."
"Another hour and we'll be at Al Udeid. Let them worry about it."
"Yeah, yeah . . . I mean, look at this here," Redding grumbled, and held up a sheaf of papers. "Clearly, Abelzada or someone was translating this, but we've only got bits and pieces. For example, this character here . . ."
Fisher walked over. As he passed Marjani, who was still strapped to the bulkhead, he glared at Fisher and tried to yell through his gag. Fisher leveled a finger at him. "Mind your manners." He squatted next to Redding. "Show me."
Redding pointed to one of the Mandarin characters. "This means snake or worm, I think. And this one here . . . I think that means cloth. Now, what kind of sense does that make?"
"Take a break. You'll drive yourself nuts." He stood up and walked back to the window.
"I guess so. . . . And this one . . . cat. So what's it mean: The early cat catches the cloth worm?"
Fisher turned. "What was that? What did you just say?"
"The early cat catches the cloth--"
Fisher held up his hand, silencing Redding. Cat. Snake Cloth.
"What is it, Sam?"
"You said that character could be a worm or a snake."
"Right. And cat, and cloth."
"Could it be silk?"
Redding thought about it and shrugged. "Yeah, I guess so. What--"
"Silkworm," Fisher murmured.
54
FISHER hurried to the console and got Lambert and Grimsdottir on the screen. "It's not a U.S. base, Colonel. It's here--it's somewhere out here." He explained about Redding's study of the Mandarin documents. "One character means worm; cloth could be silk; the other one, cat."
"Silkworm missiles," Lambert finished.
"Right. And Cat could be Cat-14."
For decades the Chinese government had been exporting surface-to-surface/antiship HY-2/3/4 "Silkworm" missiles to Iran, and had in the last five years begun selling them Cat-14 Fast Patrol Boats, mostly for special Pasdaran units. Each Cat was capable of fifty-plus knots--almost sixty miles per hour--and carried twelve Silkworm missiles, each of which had a range of sixty miles and carried a twelve-hundred-pound ship-buster warhead.
"Good God," Lambert murmured.
"Okay, let's think it through: Silkworm shore batteries are heavily defended, especially right now. Abelzada's men wouldn't have a chance of sneaking onto an Iranian Naval base, stealing a Cat-14, and getting away with it clean. What does that leave?"
"Given Zhao's influence, we have to assume he could, for the right price, get his hands on some Silkworms. Suppose Abelzada's men have their own supply. How would they deliver them? What would be the best way to strike the Reagan Group?"
Fisher thought for a moment, then said, "Shipyards."
"Explain," Lambert said.
"The Reagan's recon aircraft have taken shots of every military facility on the coast. We're looking for a shipyard that does repairs on Cat-14s. Find one's that's being refitted . . . some minor repairs. . . . Shipyard security isn't as tight as a Naval base's."
Lambert caught on. "A Cat that's operational, but stripped of missiles."
"Right."
GRIMSDOTTIR went to work, and came back ten minutes later. "The Iranian Navy has twenty-six Cat-14s in service. Twenty-two of them are operational and the Navy's tracking all of them. None are within eighty miles of the Group. Four are docked--one for crew rotation and three for repairs or refit."
"Put the shipyards on my screen."
The monitor resolved into an overhead view of the Iranian coastline. Two spots were marked by red circles: one at Halileh, south of the Bushehr naval base deep inside the Persian Gulf; and one near Kordap, just outside the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz.
"We just flew over Kordap," Fisher said to Lambert. "Get a hold of the Port Royal and tell them to cut us loose. We'll circle back and check it."
Redding said, "The Tomcats--"
"They're BARCAPs," Fisher said. "They're not loaded for surface targets. They'll have to divert some Hornets."
"How sure are you about this, Sam?" asked Lambert.
"Fifty-fifty. If we're wrong, fine. If we're right . . ."
"Okay, hold on, I'll get back to you."
Fisher got up and jogged to the cockpit. "Bird, slow us down and get ready for a U-turn."
Lambert was back. Fisher took the call in the cockpit. "You're cut loose," Lambert said. "Just don't make any sudden turns back toward the Group."
Fisher nodded to Bird, who eased the Osprey into a gentle turn.
"Are they sending planes to Kordap?" Fisher asked.
"Negative. I got the polite brush-off from NAV-CENT'S operations officer. He says they haven't got time for a wild-goose chase. They know where each and every Cat-14 is."
"As of how long ago?"
"Don't know. What's your ETA to Kordap?"
Sandy mouthed, Thirty.
"Half hour, Colonel."
"Don't get shot down. The Iranians have F-16s up; they've been playing tag with the Reagan's BARCAPs. They're getting pretty aggressive."
Bird interrupted. "Colonel, get me clearance into Dubai."
"What? Why?"
"Trust me. I'll explain later."
"Okay . . ."
Off the air, Fisher asked Bird, "What's that about?"
"A little sleight-of-hand. The Iranians have been tracking us since we left Pakistan. I'm lining up with Dubai's final approach lane. I'll drop some altitude to simulate a landing, then once we're below the radar, we'll swing back around. It'll add some time, but it'll save us a missile up the heinie."
Fisher smiled. "I like the way you think."
Bird descended steadily, crossing first into UAE airspace and then over coastline. When their alititude reached one hundred feet, he banked hard and swung around on a reciprocal course, heading back into the Gulf of Oman. Twenty minutes later, he called, "Iranian coast coming up. Kordap Shipyard dead on our nose, three miles. Powering up the FLIR."
"Give me a picture back here," Fisher called, and sat down at the console.
The FLIR image came on the monitor; it looked like an X-ray. As Fisher watched, the image slowly glided over the ocean.
"Shipyard in one mile," Bird called. The cockpit radar warning alarm started beeping. "They're just tickling us," Bird called. "They haven't got us yet." Ten seconds later: "Should be seeing something at the edge of the FLIR."
Fisher did. Enclosed by twin pincers of land, Kordap Shipyard came into view. Fisher could clearly make out four piers, some cranes jutting up into the sky, and a cluster of manufacturing and refit buildings. He counted four ships at dock.
"Swing right," Fisher called. "I need a better look at the piers."
Bird banked the Osprey slightly and realigned the nose with the piers.
Fisher studied each vessel. The Cat-14 had a unique outline, mainly from its twin Silkworm launchers jutting at an angle from the port and starboard decks.
"It's not there," Fisher said.
"You're sure?" Redding asked.
"I'm sure. Bird, bring us about. Get us out of here."
The Osprey banked, swinging over the shipyard and back over the water. A minute and half later, they were out of Iranian territorial waters. Bird started climbing.
Trouble, Fisher thought.
In normal circumstances he wouldn't be worried about a lone patrol boat getting anywhere near the Reagan . Her picket ships, most of which were Aegis cruisers, would lock onto and destroy the Cat long before it came within Silkworm range. But these weren't normal circumstances. The Reagan's Group was split, with DESRON 9 moving through the Strait of Hormuz and the remaining picket ships restationing to give the huge carrier room to m
anuever. The mouth of the strait was a mere sixty miles wide--a tight fit for an entire battle group. Under those conditions, a fast boat might be able to get close enough to strike. And with as many as twelve Silkworms, at least one had a good chance of hitting something.
"Get Lambert on the line," Fisher called. "Have him contact NAVCENT--"
"Hold your horses!" Bird called. "Check your screen, Sam."
Fisher looked at the monitor. Dead ahead, cast in the FLIR's negative image, was the missing Cat-14. It was sitting still in the water beside a cargo ship. As they drew nearer, Fisher could see figures on the decks of both vessels scrambling for cover.
From the cockpit came the radar warning alarm.
"We're being painted!" Bird called.
The alarm went to a steady beep.
"Missile lock!"
On the monitor, Fisher saw a bloom of white appear on the Cat's aftderdeck. "Got a launch!" he yelled. "Shoulder-fired missile. Left side!"
The Osprey banked hard. Fisher was tossed from his seat. He and Redding collided and tumbled across the deck together. Fisher snagged a cargo strap and dragged Redding to it.
"Active homing!" Bird said. "It's got us!"
The Osprey heeled over again.
"Launch chaff!" Bird called.
There was a series of rapid pops outside the Osprey.
"Chaff away!" Sandy replied.
A long three seconds passed. Fisher heard a whump on the Osprey's right side. A dozen jagged, quarter-sized holes appeared in the fuselage.
"Hit!" Sandy called.
Through the cockpit door Fisher could see Bird's and Sandy's hands moving from control to control, their voices overlapping as they checked the aircraft's vital readouts: oil pressure, hydraulics, temperature, fuel. . . .
"We're okay, we're okay," Bird called.
"Where's the Cat?" Fisher said.
"Right side, two miles. They're thirty miles from the outer ring of the battle group."
Already within missile range, Fisher thought. He ran to the cockpit. "Can you get ahead of them--line up right on their bow?"
Checkmate (2006) Page 24
