identified and analyzed,” Tufayli ordered. “Then I want a listing of all vessels between us and the contact’s course to the southwest. Maybe the contact is some sort of reconnaissance aircraft, returning to its home. I want that identified and reported to me immediately.”
“Yes, sir,” Badi acknowledged, and ordered the battle staff to work on this new problem. “Sir, unidentified aircraft is at eight kilometers, still on a constant heading south-southwest at two hundred kilometers per hour.” Badi was handed a report, message form. “No luck in identifying or decoding the signals it is transmitting.”
“Very well. Destroy it,” Tufayli casually ordered.
Fifteen seconds later, just before the first assault helicopter left the Khomeini’s deck forward of the island superstructure, the battle staff turned and watched as a bright streak of fire shot upward from the deck of the Chinese destroyer Zhanjiang, then gracefully arced toward the southwest and dived straight down.
The first French-made Crotale surface-to-air missile launch was followed by two more, but the other two were unnecessary. Three seconds later they could see a bright blob of light in the sky, and a sharp boom! rolled across the water.
“Unidentified aircraft destroyed, sir,” Badi reported.
“Very good,” Tufayli said. He was still amazed at the incredible power at his fingertips. Yes, the Khomeini— and its air group was an awesome weapon, but the destroyer Zhanjiang had as much long-range killing power as an entire Iranian artillery battalion.
Tufayli controlled the skies, seas, and soon the land for 100 kilometers from where he sat, and the feeling was almost beyond comprehension. “Have one of the escorts send a launch to search for wreckage.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Where is the report on the ships along that unidentified aircraft’s course?”
“Still cataloging all vessels along that projected course line, sir,” Badi responded. “The flight path takes it very close to the Omani and UAE coastlines, and there are several major oil platforms …”
“it won’t be an Arab base—no Gulf states possess such sophisticated systems,” Tufayli said irritably. “Any major Western vessels reported in this area recently?”
Badi searched the initial list quickly, then put his finger on one line: “Yes, sir, just one. An American rescue- and-salvage vessel, the Valley Mistress. Identified by Sudanese coast patrol transiting the Red Sea three days ago, enroute to Bahrain …”
“Identification?”
“Former Edenton-class salvage-and-rescue ship, three thousand tons, one hundred thirty men, long endurance, helicopter pad, and hangar facilities,” Badi responded, reading from a copy of a Sudanese coast guard patrol report that had been forwarded to the Iranian battle group commander.
“Privately owned but registered under the U.S. Navy Ready Reserve Fleet. Not inspected since leaving Port Said on its Suez Canal transit.”
Tufayli was positive the unidentified aircraft, which he suspected was a small reconnaissance aircraft, possibly a balloon or drone, had come from that ship—it had the right size to handle such complex operations. “Send an electronic reconnaissance helicopter out to take some photos and scan the ship for unusual electronic emissions,” Tufayli ordered. “In particular, try to get the ship to respond to a satellite communications transponder enquiry. I want a direct overflight—let us see what that so-called salvage ship does when threatened. Launch photo or decoy flares, drop a bomb, fire a marker rocket toward that ship—anything, but try to elicit a reaction.”
Badi issued the orders, and a Kamov-25 reconnaissance helicopter, fitted with sensitive electronic warfare sensors and transmitters, was airborne within five minutes and headed southwest toward the American salvage ship.
ABOARD THE S.S. VALLEY MISTRESS THAT SAME TIME “Lost contact with Skywalker,” the reconnaissance technician reported. “I had a brief lock-on by the Ku-band Crotale radar, then gone.”
Jon Masters was mad enough to chew on a bulkhead door. “They got Skywalker, dammit!”
“Well, we’re out of the recon business—and the Iranians will be gunning for us next,” Paul White said. On shipwide intercom, he radioed, “Attention all hands, this is Lightfoot. Our reconnaissance aircraft was shot down by hostile action. We can expect a visit from Iranian patrols any minute now. All stations, begin a code-red scrub, repeat, begin code-red scrub procedures immediately. Initiate Buddy Time profile procedures. Helm, steer a direct course for Omani territorial waters, best speed. All section team leaders, meet me on the bridge. Lightfoot out.”
“Hey, wait a minute, Colonel!” Masters said. The technicians in the reconnaissance section had immediately begun deactivating their equipment—not by using the checklist, but instead by yanking cables and pulling plugs. It didn’t matter if yanking a hot plug caused a computer subsystem to lock up or suffer damage, because they were going to fit hundreds of pounds of explosives to all of it, drop it over the side, then set off the explosives.
All paper records went into red plastic “burn bags” for shredding and burning; software disks went into “smash bags” for magnetic erasure and destruction. “You called for a code red without even consulting me’? It’s my gear, you know!”
“Jon, buddy, stop thinking with your nuts or your pocketbook for one damned second,” White said as he helped prepare the equipment for disposal. The control units were mounted in large suitcase like enclosures, all of which had spaces built into the frames for cooling and access—those same access spaces made it easy to slip half-pound bars of C-4 plastic explosives into the equipment cases.
Fitted with simple timers activated by seawater, the explosives would sink several feet before automatically detonating. The pieces would be very, very difficult to find.
Yes, they were now in international waters, and soon they would be in Omani territorial waters, but White had no doubt in his mind that Iran would try to recover any evidence that the Valley Mistress was a spy ship. They would violate a stack of international maritime laws to get what they wanted.
“It’ll take one of those Iranian fighters just five minutes to shoot an anti-ship missile into us and disable the ship,” White went on, helping carry the first of several dozen containers out to the rail. “Ten minutes after that we could have an Iranian helicopter assault team dropping on deck. Sixty minutes after that, we could have an Iranian frigate pull up alongside. Now if they find any of this gear on board, we’ll be hauled away as spies, and we’ll never see the United States again—if they let us live.”
Masters wasn’t listening. “But at least let me transmit some of the data, save some of the records,” Masters protested. “This is supposed to be an operational evaluation—I’m still trying to collect performance data.”
“It’s all going to be fish food in about ten minutes,” White said.
“Jon, we can’t have any signs of anything on this ship except stuff that shows we’re a legitimate rescue vessel. We’ve already got stuff that we can’t hide, like the air search radar system and the-“
“It’ll just take me a minute to do a system dump,” Masters said, pushing past a technician and furiously typing on a keypad. “I’ll burst it out on the satellite, and we’ll be done with it.”
“Jon, forget it.”
“Lightfoot, bridge,” the intercom cut in. “WLR reports inbound sea surveillance signal contact, possible heliborne search radar, approximate range forty miles, bearing zero-two-zero and closing, speed one hundred knots.” The WLR-I and WLR-II systems aboard the Valley Mistress were passive radar-detection systems—they did not require the use of radar to pick up an enemy presence.
“We’ve just about run out of time, folks,” White shouted in the reconnaissance center—he forgot about Masters, who was still typing away on his terminal. “We’ve got about ten minutes to get this stuff overboard before they get within visual range. After that, it all has to go out the SDV access hatch.” The same chamber in the bottom of the ship that allowed Swimmer Delivery Vehicles to dock with the ship without surfacing could be used to dump some of the classified equipment while the Iranians were topside—that could give White’s crew an extra few minutes.
In less than three minutes, the reconnaissance compartment was cleared out—all except Masters. White wasn’t going to wait any longer: “Jon, dammit, pack it up, now!”
“I’m ready, it’s going,” Masters said. “Couple more seconds, and I’ll be done.”
White was about to yank the plug himself, when he noticed a blinking UAV SYNC light on the computer control panel, with a SYNC ERROR light underneath. “Jon, what in hell is that?”
Jon saw the blinking light at the exact same moment and hit a key—the light went out. “I don’t know,” Masters replied. “The computer is trying to sync with Skywalker—”
“Except Skywalker was destroyed,” White said. But then what was the computer talking to? “Shit, Jon, shut
