The fighter hit the incline bow “ski jump,” sailed gracefully into the night sky, disappeared as it fell beneath the ski jump, then could be seen straight off the nose, its afterburners still on full power. “Finally!” Tufayli shouted. “Recover that helicopter, then get that second fighter airborne as soon as …”
“Sir, Interceptor One is reporting a flight-control malfunction!”
Badi shouted. Tufayli turned his attention back to the fighter that had just taken off..It was still in max afterburner, climbing at a very steep angle. “The pilot is having great difficulty moving any flight controls, and the landing gear is stuck in an intermediate position.”
“What in hell is it, Badi?” Tufayli shouted. The fighter disappeared in the night sky, its afterburners still on full. At that rate of fuel consumption, Tufayli thought, it might have time for one long-range missile shot at one of the intruders before it had to return.
“it could be contamination in the hydraulic fluid,” Badi speculated. “This is a similar malfunction as the patrol helicopter. I …” He paused as he listened to the intercom report in his headset, then turned, ashen-faced, to Tufayli.
“Sir, flight ops reports the pilot of Interceptor One was unable to maintain control of the fighter and was forced to attempt to eject.”
“Eject?” Tufayli shouted. He leapt to his feet and scanned the horizon for the plane, but saw nothing. “What happened?”
“His last report stated that his ejection system had malfunctioned,” Badi reported. “The fighter has been lost on radar.
Tufayli was momentarily in shock, but his only thought was of the unidentified fighters out there. “Get Interceptor Two airborne!”
he screamed. “Get it up there now!”
“Sir, there is something happening on the flight deck,” Badi said.
“I do not know if it is fuel or hydraulic fluid contamination or corrosion or some kind of maintenance error, but it may have affected the entire air wing. We should postpone all aircraft launches until the problem has been-“
“No!” Tufayli shouted. “I want air cover up immediately! We are unprotected without it! Range to the bomber?”
“Sir, the only possible target is now thirty kilometers from the carrier and increasing—it is not a threat to the group,” Badi said. He touched his headset, listening carefully to the intercom reports. “Sir, combat section is reporting a possible malfunction of the radar arrays.”
“What in hell is going on here?” Tufayli shouted. “Is everything breaking all at once? What sort of malfunction?”
“Problem with the antenna itself, possibly a bad bearing or problems in the gear mechanism—the radar array is not rotating properly,” Badi replied. “We still have adequate radar coverage and antiaircraft capability Sir, Interceptor Two is ready for takeoff. I request permission to delay takeoff until a fast examination of the aircraft hydraulic system can be accomplished.
It will only-“
“No, launch Interceptor Two immediately!” Tufayli shouted. Badi had no choice but to give the order.
The takeoff appeared normal—for only a few seconds, right at the beginning of the takeoff run. The afterburners flared, the fighter paused, the holdback bar released, the fighter leapt toward the ski jump—then seemed to actually slow down! Tufayli thought it was an optical illusion, but as the fighter neared the beginning of the jump, it seemed as if the pilot were braking to a halt—it was slowing down! “Badi, what in God’s name …?”
Just as Badi was keying his mike button, ordering flight ops to order the pilot to abort the takeoff, the long twin afterburner plumes wobbled unsteadily from side to side, then suddenly pitched upward as the nose gear collapsed. Still in full afterburner power, the force of the engines snapped the Su-33 fighter in half, the fuel tanks burst open, and the fighter exploded in a huge fireball that instantly engulfed the entire flight deck. The men on the admiral’s bridge dropped to the deck as the observation windows imploded, and a wall of searing heat followed the ear-shattering thunder of the explosion. Several secondary explosions rumbled around them as other fighters and helicopters up on deck caught fire and exploded.
“All stop! All stop! Damage-control report!” Tufayli was shouting. The collision and damage-control alarms were blaring as Tufayli weakly got to his feet and stared in utter amazement and horror through the shattered observation windows at the flight deck of the Middle East’s first aircraft carrier. Although the foam fire-fighting cannons at the flight deck’s edge had activated, the forward half of the flight deck was still on fire.
Damage-control floodlights revealed dozens of naked, burned bodies lying all over the scorched deck. “Badi, damn you, report!”
“No report from damage control yet, sir!” General Badi, his face cut up and blackened by the blast, replied. “Sir, I am receiving a report from the destroyer Zhanjiang …”
“I do not care about the destroyer, Badi. What is happening to my carrier?”
“Sir, the Zhanjiang is reporting a foreign substance on its decks and superstructures that is causing severe damage to all above-decks equipment,” Badi went on. “Radar, weapons, all reporting severe corrosion from a sticky substance that is preventing any movement—objects are being stuck together, as if they had been coated with a powerful liquid cement.”
“What?”
“Yes, sir—the Zhanjiang cannot operate its radar or train any of its weapons, and even personnel on deck are having trouble moving around. Sir, it could be that the same substance fell on the Khomeini. If it got onto the fighters’ landing gear, it would have prevented a normal takeoff. If it got onto the rotors or transmission of the helicopter, it could cause stress of …”
“What in hell are you saying, Badi?” Tufayli shouted. “You are saying we were somehow attacked … by glue? Someone sprayed our ships with glue to cause such damage?”
“I do not know, sir,” Badi said, placing a hand on a cut on his forehead. He listened to his intercom, then said, “Sir, the fire has spread to the hangar deck. Damage-control crews are responding. The ammunition magazines and fuel stores are in no immediate danger.” He paused, then said, “Sir, you should consider evacuating the ship. You can transfer your flag to the Sadaf.”
“Evacuate … my … ship?” Tufayli muttered. “Never! I will never-!”
But he was interrupted by a sharp explosion and a rumble throughout the ship. He searched and found that one of the P-700 Granit anti-ship missiles, housed in vertical launch boxes on the front of the carrier near the ski jump, had exploded inside its canister, blowing huge sections of steel into the sky and gouging out large sections of the ship. Each missile weighed 11,000 pounds and carried a 2,200-pound high-explosive warhead.
“One Granit missile has exploded, sir!” Badi reported.
“I can see that, damn you, Badi!” Tufayli shouted. “Damage report!”
“Substantial damage reported on all forward decks,” Badi reported.
The general’s battle staff was in complete disarray; reports were coming in from all corners of the ship, and he could hardly understand any of them. “Sir, you should evacuate the ship immediately. You should take the entire intelligence staff; the senior staff will remain on board. I now suggest transferring directly ashore to Chah Bahar, since it appears that the Zhanjiang has been damaged and cannot defend itself, and it is too dangerous to bring the Sadaf alongside.”
Tufayli thought for a moment, then nodded—he knew Badi was right.
If just a few of the remaining P-700 cruise missiles went up, the carrier could be at the bottom of the Gulf of Oman in just a few short minutes. And if missile number seven, the nuclear-loaded missile, exploded … well, they would be spared the humiliation of a court-martial, at least. “All right, General,” Tufayli said.
“I will transfer to Chah Bahar with the intelligence staff—but the captain stays with this ship at all times, do you hear me? I want no member of the ship’s complement to leave unless this ship is ready to capsize! I want the cruiser Sadaf to dispatch a helicopter to stand by with us at Chah Bahar, ready to take us back to the Sadaf to direct the remainder of the battle group in case the bomber tries to attack the fleet again.
“Badi, next, I want this ship to maneuver in the center of the international sea lane in the Gulf of Oman and remain in place,” Tufayli continued. “If it sinks, I want it to sink in the center of the sea lane, and I want the sea lanes blocked by all the other ships. Whoever attacked this battle group, I want it made clear that we will still close this waterway to all traffic and control its access, even if we have to use our own ship’s hulk to do it!”
