that thing off! That Iranian helicopter might have an electronic warfare suite that can send satellite transponder interrogate codes. Your computer was sending sync codes to the Iranians, trying to lock on to it!”
“I didn’t know … I didn’t realize it was still active!”
Masters cried, yanking cables and practically overturning the terminal to shut it down. “Skywalker was off the air, shot down … I didn’t think to shut down the up-link channel!”
“The Iranians must be reading our satellite transponder data signals,” White said. “No way those signals can be mistaken for communication or navigation signals. And if they picked up Skywalker’s up-link signals and matched them with our transponder signals … shit, the Iranians will know we were talking to Skywalker. We just gave ourselves away to the bad guys.”
ABOARD THE IRANIAN AIRCRAFT CARRIER KHOMEINI “Message from Patrol Helicopter Three,” General Badi reported to Commanding Admiral Tufayli. “The crew reports non-directional microwave signals emanating from the salvage ship. They report the signals are identical to the signals transmitted by the unidentified aircraft.”
“Excellent! We have them!” Admiral Tufayli shouted. “And that unidentified aircraft definitely constituted a hostile aircraft overlying my fleet without proper identification or communications. That is an act of war, and I am permitted to defend my men and vessels by any means at my command. General Badi, what anti-ship strike aircraft do we have ready at this time?”
“One fighter is airborne over checkpoint four, carrying two AS-18 radar-guided missiles and two AA-10 air- to-air missiles,” the air operations officer reported. “It is scheduled to return to base in eleven minutes. Its replacement will be ready for launch in five minutes.”
The patrol point for that fighter was only five kilometers east of the American warship—perfect! “Divert the fighter over checkpoint four, issue vector instructions to that American spy ship,” Tufayli ordered. “As soon as the replacement fighter comes up on deck, launch it as a second strike and air cover; if the spy ship is still afloat, have the second fighter divert as well. We must attempt to keep that vessel out of Omani waters until we can reach it with a boarding party. Divert the destroyer Medina and Pasdaran Boghammar patrol boats to the spy ship’s location to capture and detain any survivors and to search the wreckage for evidence; have Patrol Helicopter Four and the Medina’s helicopter keep visual contact on the spy ship until the Medina arrives on station. We will teach the Americans a lesson for spying on my ships!
S.S. VALLEY MISTRESS Jon Masters had that equipment packed up, last terminal and all the rest of the rigged, and thrown overboard in record time, and he even helped move several of the cargo boxes into the reconnaissance room, as the crew furiously tried to make the room look more like a cargo container and less like a control room.
The underwater explosions reverberated through the ship as, one by one, the fifty-three containers associated with the Skywalker unmanned reconnaissance drone were blown into a hundred pieces and scattered across the bottom of the Gulf of Oman.
“Are we in Omani waters yet?” Masters shouted to White as he trotted back outside for another box.
“Get your life jacket on, Jon,” White said grimly. He had just returned from the helicopter deck, where he’d been monitoring the crew as they stowed the surface and air search radar arrays. The SPS-40 was already stowed in its container and was even partially disassembled and the pieces thrown overboard—it would look very, very bad to have the Iranians find a sophisticated air surveillance radar on a salvage ship—but the SPS-69, which had been hoisted 100 feet above the deckhouse, was slow in coming down. It would not be so bad for the Iranians to find an SPS-69 on the Valley Mistress, but it would look very suspicious indeed for it to be up on a 100-foot mast.
“It’s down in my cabin.”
“Then get it,” White shouted, grabbing Master’s arm and pulling him around so that he was facing down the catwalk toward the ladder leading to the crew cabins, “and don’t let me see you without it until we get back on dry land.”
Masters stared at White in absolute terror. “Hey, Colonel …”
“It doesn’t matter if we’re in Omani waters or international waters or U.S. waters,” White said, “because the Iranians are coming to get us. Now, get your damned life jacket, and make sure you’ve got your passport on you and no papers, disks, faxes, or computer records in your cabin. If you’re not sure, toss the computer overboard. Move.”
Masters had never seen White this grim, and it scared him even more. “Paul, I … I’m sorry about the terminal, about the satellite.”
“Forget it,” White said. “I think the Iranians were coming for us anyway. Now get going. Meet me right back up here on deck.”
Masters ran all the way back to his cabin.
“Lightfoot, bridge.”
White keyed his intercom button: “Go.”
“Air target one now approaching at one hundred knots,” the radar officer on the bridge reported.
Shit, White swore to himself, that meant trouble. The helicopter was moving into visual range—reporting to other Iranian inbounds, no doubt. “Any other targets?”
“Negative.”
“There will be,” White warned him. “Keep me posted. Out.”
“Paul?” It was Carl Knowlton, supervising the work on the SPS-69 radar.
“What’d you get, Carl?”
“No good on the radar mast—it’s jammed,” Dammit, dammit, dammit—”Well, I was hoping NSA would buy me a better system anyway,” White said. “That patrol helicopter is moving in fast. Blow the radar mast’ Sound the bell fifteen seconds prior. Break. All hands, this is Lightfoot, use caution, the SPS-69 mast is coming down hard. Take cover when you hear the alarm bell.”
Masters met up with White on the helicopter pad, where they could watch the SPS-69 but close enough to the hangar door so they could run inside if the mast and radar antenna fell toward them. The life preserver he wore was a thin-line Class V jacket, which looked more like a thick Windbreaker than a typical vest, but it still looked three sizes too big on Masters. “My cabin’s cleaned out,” he told White breathlessly. “I tossed everything overboard, even my pager.”
“Good. Thanks.” A few seconds later the alarm bell rang, followed shortly by two flashes of light and two loud bangs as the mast and the port-side guy wires were cut by small explosive charges and the SPS-69 radar antenna and forty feet of mast toppled over to starboard into the sea. Two more explosive charges cut the starboard guy wires a second later, and the antenna disappeared from view. “The damned Iranians owe me a new surface search radar,” White said under his breath. “Bridge, Lightfoot.”
“Go.”
“We’re receiving numerous radio calls from the Iranian Beet, ordering us to heave to for an inspection,” the bridge officer reported. “We’ve told them repeatedly that we are an American Naval Reserve Fleet rescue vessel and cannot be detained on the high seas while under way, but they are still ordering us to heave to. I’m quoting chapter and verse out of the law books, but they’re ignoring it.”
“Keep on reading ‘em the law,” White said. “Not that they’ll obey it, but keep on reading it to them anyway. Broadcast on international distress freqs, too—maybe a maritime lawyer will jump in.”
There was a slight pause, then: “Lightfoot, bridge, they are asking if they can lower an inspector on our hangar deck by helicopter.”
“Tell them we need to keep our decks clear.”
“They’re asking why we’re running from them and if we know anything about a spy aircraft that tried to attack them just now.”
“Tell them … shit, bridge, tell them anything, read them the Bible, read them the law, just keep on looking innocent. But we’re not stopping.”
“Lightfoot, the Iranians advise us that they’re lowering an Iranian customs officer to the helicopter deck to speak with the captain. They state that we were in Iranian waters and they have a right to have customs inspect our vessel. They say if we do not submit to an inspection, they will attempt to stop us by force.”
“Tell them we weren’t in Iranian waters, but we’ll be happy to submit to an inspection at our destination port, Muscat. We’re o an urgent call, and that’s where we’re headed. Lowering a man onto our deck at night is too hazardous, so we refuse.”
“Oh, shit—look,” Knowlton said, pointing to the north. Just as the radar mast hit the water, the Iranian patrol
