eighteen would be recruited directly from the submarine service — men who had been essentially without ships since the U.S. attack two years before.
He spent long hours in consultation with the commanding officers of the IRGC, poring over the records and finally selecting five outstanding veterans for interview, of whom he would reject three. He spent, of course, even longer with the submarine commanders, looking for the men who would one day man the watches on a long submarine journey.
When he was not involved in selection, Ben spent many hours alone in the Black Ops inner office, studying the superb data on the little Toshiba computer that had come from Barrow-in-Furness. Then he would consult his designers and go to the model room, to help build and perfect another corner of the phantom submarine he had masterminded.
By early December the model was almost complete, and the commander had selected his personnel. In company with Admiral Badr he had made his way out to the building site to meet the busload of twenty young men with whom he would soon go on a mission of justice for their country.
Both officers stood and watched as the select few disembarked and formed two lines of 10 men in each. The admiral and the commander walked carefully along each line, addressing each man by name and rank, talking for perhaps two minutes with each of them. They then ordered everyone into the air-conditioned conference room, set beyond the stern end of the 200-foot-long model.
And there the world’s most notorious terrorist outlined their duties for them. Most of the men had some Arabic, but Ben spoke mostly in Farsi, using phrases he had learned especially for this talk. “Most of you,” he began, “are already familiar with the workings of a Kilo-Class submarine, and you will understand that I have deliberately selected officers who have worked in specialist areas — I mean, of course, those who have been in charge of propulsion, electronics, generators, sonar, hydrology, communications, navigation, and hydraulic systems.
“The submarine I shall acquire for our mission will be one with which you are not familiar, and in anticipation of that, we have constructed here this full-scale model. In the coming three weeks I want each of you to familiarize himself with the workings of this submarine. Every switch, valve, and keyboard. And when I say familiarize I mean that I would expect you to go on board the real submarine in the pitch dark, find your area of operation, and work your systems without error, and possibly without light.
“It is likely that during the course of the next four weeks some of you will not measure up, and we may have to replace you. That, however, will be up to you. This is a time of extensive study, note taking, and memorizing. Pure concentration. I have selected each one of you because I know you have the precise characteristics this mission demands.
“It will not be without its dangers, but I am confident in our skills, and I am confident in the abilities of each one of you. Now perhaps we should go and make a tour of the model.”
The national security advisor himself, Admiral Arnold Morgan, was in deep conference, studying satellite photographs with Admiral George Morris, director of the National Security Agency, located in Fort Meade, Maryland.
“What the hell’s that, goddammit?”
“Er, a building, sir. A large building.”
“I can see that, for Christ’s sake. What kind of a building is it? Looks like a fucking indoor football stadium. What the hell’s it doing in a Navy dockyard? Eh?” Then warming to his theme, as he was always prone to do, the admiral added, “Fucking Arabs taking up football? Nah, bullshit…they ain’t big enough. Betcha you couldn’t find a halfway decent lineman in the whole Middle East. Come on George, what kind of a building is it?”
“Sir, at a guess, I’d say it was a concrete dry dock for a submarine, but it has another big building on its left- hand side. Which seems to have a steel roof judging by the sun glinting off it. I have no idea what’s inside, because there are massive doors at the seaward end with a thick concrete wall at the landward end.”
“Hmmm. But let me ask you this. If it’s gonna be a dry dock, how come it’s not connected to the water? Look…you can see the land runs right across the entrance.”
“Yessir. I do see that. But these buildings are pretty complicated, and I would guess they are fitting all the flooding systems right here where this excavation is. I’d say they would remove the strip of land along the shore, right at the conclusion of the project. That way the submarine could just float in and settle; then they just pump the water out.”
“Correct.”
The two men had worked together for years. Lifelong Naval officers, they were as different in character as it was possible to be. Morgan, tough, hard-looking, irascible, brilliant, rude, and, curiously, admired by many, many people. Morris, an ex — Carrier Battle Group commander, was soft-spoken, lugubrious in delivery and appearance, thoughtful in the extreme. He had followed Morgan into the position as director at Fort Meade, and his biggest problem was that Morgan frequently believed he was now doing both jobs. But the concentrated attention the president’s chief security advisor focused on the ultrasecret Fort Meade operation gave the place a greater importance than it had enjoyed for many years.
“I wonder why the hell they’ve built a big secure dry dock,” Arnold Morgan mused.
“Possibly, old buddy, because they don’t want us taking out their new Russian Kilo. They’re…er…a bit short of submarines these days. You wouldn’t have thought it necessary, would you?”
“Not unless those stupid fucking Russians have agreed to sell ’em an entire new fleet of Kilos,” he rasped. “And if they have, we’ll remove them. Even Rankov understands that. When we saw the first new one in BA last week, I made it clear to him on the phone that the U.S. would not stand still while the Iranians hold up half the industrial world to ransom because of some mad fucking Muslim belief that they own the Gulf of Iran.”
“Absolutely, sir.”
“Anyway, George, I guess that new building is big enough and serious enough for us to take an interest. Thanks for bringing the photographs. I think we better get a couple of guys in there to take a look, since the satellite can’t do it for us…You better get back. I’ll talk to Langley.”
Five hours later the CIA’s Middle East chief, Jeff Austin, was on the secure line to the White House imparting the news that the Agency was well aware of the new building, but were at a loss to find out what precisely was going on.
“Admiral,” he said, “everyone in the area is aware of the construction. Apparently they dug out a foundation half the size of the Grand Canyon and dumped the sand back in the desert. Caused a daily dust storm. Our best guess is a dry dock, possibly for submarines. I believe they lost their little fleet…er…coupla years back in some kind of an accident.”
“Oh, yes…that’s right. I remember reading something about that.”
“Well, sir…I’m not sure how strongly you feel about it…and the security at the Bandar Abbas base is very hot right now. But I could try and get a couple of guys in there to take a look. Trouble is they’d have to swim in, and even if they reached the building, I’m not sure they could get close enough. Even then, they wouldn’t really know what they were looking at.”
“Uh-huh. I see that. Do we have anyone inside the base?”
“One man, an Iranian, white-collar guy in the procurement office…middle level…useful, too. We find out most of the ships they’re buying before the order gets placed.”
“Didn’t find out about the new Kilo, did he?”
“Nossir. He did not.”
“Could he get one of our top guys into the base?”
“Possibly, sir. Leave it with me. I’ll get back to you in the morning. It’s the middle of the night in Iran.”
“Okay, Jeff…make it early. I don’t like submarine activity among the towelheads, right?”
“Nossir.”
At 0830 the following morning Jeff Austin reported back. “They’re working on it, sir. There is, it seems, the possibility of a VIP pass to the base. Our man in there has used it before. He thinks the pass might just get him through the gate out near the building…but he’s not sure. They’ll be back to us in a couple of days.”
“Fine. Keep at it. I’m concerned about the Iranians.”
“Yessir.”
