Nimitz Class

could kill a diver at five hundred yards. Rusty Bennett dreaded those fast frigates, and he ordered Dave Mills to drive the last half hour as deep as possible.

The Iranian frigates could cross the strait from Bandar Abbas to the eastern end of Qeshm in twenty minutes flat. He estimated it would take them one hour to get the crew organized and get under way — one hour from the explosions under the last two Kilos…one hour from 0145. In Rusty’s opinion that could, theoretically, put a high- powered Iranian mortar bomb right in the water close to the waiting-station of the Mendel Rivers by 0310.

Right now it was 0130 and they had a two-and-a-half-hour run in front of them. The ASDS was due to dock at 0400. Rusty tried to juggle the figures, tried to imagine the uproar in the Naval base, tried to imagine how quickly the admiral in command could get his act together. “I suppose it might just take ’em sixty minutes at this time of night to get a damage check from the experts. Then I guess it could be another hour to get one of those frigates moving,” he thought.

“But, Jesus. Any damn fool who’s lost his entire submarine fleet could work out that the attacker must have arrived in a submarine himself. And where is that submarine? He’s right out there in the first deep water you come to, right off the coast of Qeshm. That’s where he is. And he’s waiting for his demolition guys to get back, riding in some kind of a midget submarine. I know what I’d do. I charge out there and bombard the area with mortars. If I had three of those frigates available, I’d send ’em all. I’d definitely catch the divers, and I might get the big submarine, too.

“If the Iranian is sharp he will pass us overhead an hour before we reach the Mendel Rivers. If he’s unsharp, he might not get there until 0410, in which case he’s gonna be a bit late, but still dangerous. Either way we’re in dead trouble…step on it, Dave, willya?”

The limpet mines beneath the Kilos blew, precisely on time. Both submarines were almost split in two. Both batteries were blown apart. The interior fires were still raging as they each sank beneath the dark waters of the harbor. The Iranian admiral, called from his bed to inspect the wrecked dry dock and the written-off Kilo, very nearly had a heart attack when the other two joined them on the bottom.

Every light in the harbor was on. The admiral wanted to know whether the radar sweeps had found any contact whatsoever throughout the night. No one had seen anything, heard anything, done anything, or knew anything. He called a meeting of the High Command. He placed a call to the Iraqi Naval Base at Bazra, where the operator inquired irritably, was there a lunatic on the line.

Slowly his commanders began to appear on base. But it was not until 0315 that anyone asked the three pertinent questions. It was a young Iranian captain who wondered, “Who did this? How did they get here? And where are they now?”

And it was not until 0405 that one of the frigates was under way, speeding toward the deep water where the admiral now assessed any marauding submarine would be.

The Americans had just docked the ASDS as the Iranian warship left. Too late. Commander Banford and the captain were already moving south, running deep, at twenty knots in the nuclear-powered Mendel Rivers. They had a twelve-mile start, and the strait grew wider and deeper with every turn of the propeller. And the Iranians did not know what they were seeking, nor indeed what to do if they found anyone.

Twenty minutes after they set off, the crew of the Mendel Rivers heard the first wild mortar shot explode, far back and deep. But the Iranians were much too late.

The SEALS were safe, the mission was completed. “Nice job, Lieutenant,” said Commander Banford.

10

0520 Saturday, August 3.

The L. Mendel Rivers went as deep as she dared through the dark waters above the undulating, sandy seabed of the Strait of Hormuz. She ran at around eighty feet below the surface, making twenty knots toward the vast depths of the Gulf of Arabia. Nine exhausted Navy SEALS slept, as the big U.S. submarine headed south, away from the chaos they had caused in the Iranian Naval base.

Lieutenant Bennett sat in a small office with Commander Banford, working on the preliminary report of the operation in the port of Bandar Abbas. The commander sent his first half-page coded signal on the satellite direct to COMSUBPAC just before dawn.

“030530AUG02. 56.9E, 26.5N. Course one-three-five. Vengeance Bravo. Objectives achieved. No Blue casualties or damage. SEAL Leader reports Kilo in dry dock well into major overhaul, unlikely to have been operational during month of July.”

The signal traveled quickly to Pearl Harbor, then via CINCPAC to SPECWARCOM in Coronado, finally to the office of the CNO in the Pentagon where it was 1945 the previous evening, Friday, August 2. Lieutenant Commander Jay Bamberg was at his desk awaiting the message, wishing he were starting the weekend at home with his young family.

When a duty officer brought the communication in, Jay punched the air with a grim feeling of joy. The departing junior lieutenant grinned. “Way to go! Right, sir?”

“Way to go, Lieutenant.”

Jay Bamberg called the CNO at home, and then Arnold Morgan in his office in Fort Meade. His first call had brought something approaching glee to Admiral Dunsmore, but Admiral Morgan had just snapped, “Yeah, thanks, Jay. I already gottit.”

Lieutenant Commander Bamberg found this sufficiently puzzling to ask, “How so fast, sir?”

“Heard from the Mossad in Tel Aviv thirty minutes ago something had exploded in Bandar Abbas Navy Base, and what did I know about it? Told ’em I hadn’t left my desk since lunchtime, heh, heh, heh!”

“Did they know much, sir?”

“Nah, very little. ’Cept the Iranians probably had a weaker Navy now than they had before midnight. I guessed the rest. But thanks for calling, Jay, I’m glad they’re all safe.”

“Yessir. Good night, sir.” But the admiral was long gone, as usual.

By the time Lieutenant Commander Bamberg had replaced the receiver on the secure line to Fort Meade, Admiral Morgan was on his way to his car. He had a supper date at the Israeli embassy with General Gavron, a meeting to which he looked forward with great anticipation. When the Israeli officer had called asking if the American admiral would care to join him, he had insinuated he had an interesting conversation in store.

Morgan had resolved to hang around until 2000 awaiting official confirmation of the SEALS’ activities, then he would split for the embassy. The call thirty minutes previously had told him two things. One, he need not hang around beyond 2000, and two, the goddamned Mossad was about four times quicker off the mark than anyone else, on almost any incident, anywhere in the world. Jesus, it was 0230 in the morning for them.

He hit the highway at his usual high speed, and his mind was racing over that signal Bamberg had read out… the last sentence…the bit about the Kilo in the floating dock being in the middle of a major overhaul: “…unlikely to have been operational during month of July.”

The words kept turning over in his mind. That meant he and Baldridge had been right all along. The Iranians had not used an inventory submarine from Bandar Abbas to hit the Jefferson. They must have used a fourth submarine. Worse yet, that fourth submarine must be still out there. Waiting. Watching. Perhaps to strike again.

The more Arnold Morgan pondered the issue, the more certain he became that the underwater boat he sought was the lost Kilo from the Black Sea. The one from which the drowned Russian sailor had fallen, the one his own guys had heard in the Gibraltar Strait in the early morning of May 5, the one Lieutenant Joe Farrell had seen heading north up the Arabian Sea on June 28.

The one where all of the dates fit.

The one which that nitwit Rankov would not discuss.

Arnold Morgan, his adrenaline rising, glanced at the speedometer, which was hovering at around 104 mph. “Fuck it,” he said, slowing down to 85. “If David Gavron has found this Benjamin Adnam, a lot of questions are