“Like big chips on their shoulders,” Masters summarized. “More like bricks. I guess they’re out of the terrorist game then, huh?”
“I wouldn’t say that at all,” White said. “They’ve mastered the art of terrorism over the years. It didn’t earn them any respect, except with other fanatical fringe groups. But now, with a powerful navy and air force, they’ve got respect—at least, everyone’s wary of them now. The U.S. definitely is.”
Skywalker continued its patrol after orbiting Zhanjiang for almost an hour—still no sign of detection, even after more than two hours over the Iranian battle group. The operation had been a complete success so far. They decided they’d recall Skywalker after the battle group had headed south around the Musandam Peninsula and entered the Gulf of Oman. They programmed the drone to fly about twenty miles west of the warships instead of directly over them. Using the drone’s sideways-looking radars, they kept track of the ships as they sailed southward into the sea lanes.
There was more to see as they scanned the rest of the Iranian battle group: “Holy cow, look at that,” Masters exclaimed as they studied the vessel. “Looks like a big sucker Paul White was examining several photographs; he started shaking his head and said, “It’s not on the list of known ships in the Khomeini battle group. Let’s see … destroyer from the looks of it … huge superstructure, but not as big as a cruiser … big missile tubes amidships … aha, boys, looks like Iran really did get the Chinese destroyer it was looking for. That looks like a Luda-class destroyer, with two three-round Sea Eagle missile canisters. Skywalker’s paid off right away, Doc. I don’t think anyone knew another destroyer had joined the Khomeini group. This is a pretty significant find.”
Masters still looked green around the gills, but he grinned like a schoolboy. “Of course it is, Colonel,” he said, beaming with his usual bravado. “I’m here to serve up the surprises for you.”
White had the communications section relay a message to the National Security Agency of the new Chinese destroyer’s presence.
“Only the best from Sky Masters.”
“Uh-oh,” Knowlton said, “Mr. Modest is cranking it up again …”
“No brag, just fact,” Masters said jubilantly. I “me Air Force or CIA should buy a hundred HEARSE drones. You can’t get better intel than this—quick, reliable, accurate, and, …”
Just then, one of the Sky Masters technicians radioed, “Skywalker is reporting an overtemp in the primary hydraulic pack. Could be a bleed air-duct failure—might’ve got hit by a bird. Shutting down primary hydraulics …”
Masters looked as if someone had just slapped him in the face, and White and Knowlton couldn’t help smiling over his sudden discomfort, even if it meant discontinuing their surveillance.
“Recall it!” Masters shouted. “Issue the recall command!”
“Recall order transmitted and acknowledged,” the technician responded immediately. “Skywalker changing heading …
Skywalker’s on course back to home plate. It’s reporting capable of normal recovery; it will be ready for recovery in one hour, forty-two minutes.”
Jon Masters shook his head. “If the Iranians are any good, Skywalker will never make it back,” he said. “Bleed airduct failure near the primary hydraulic pack means a fire; a fire means visibility. With the hydraulic failure, Skywalker will start trailing hydraulic fluid, maybe fuel, maybe smoke and fire, and dragging control surfaces and maybe its arresting system, and bye-bye, stealth.”
“Then don’t aim it right back for the ship, Jon,” White said. “Make it head to someplace over land, in Oman, or self-destruct it-“
“I am not self-destructing Skywalker while it’s still flyable!”
Masters shouted. “If it heads directly for us, it’ll highlight our position, highlight us. I’ll have to reprogram it manually.
This was not supposed to happen … it’s designed to head back to its launch base on as direct a route as possible.”
“Turn it away, Jon,” White warned him urgently. “The Iranians will pick up on that thing and trace it back to us.”
“Skywalker reporting fire-control radar … intermittent lock-on, KU- and X-band radars, probably Crotale antiaircraft missile fire control.”
Masters turned to White, all hint of seasickness gone from his face—he was deadly serious now. “We can surely kiss Skywalker good-bye, Colonel,” he said. “And it’s not taking any navigation commands.”
“What?”
“It’s in emergency-nav mode, Paul,” Masters said. “Conserving power, conserving hydraulics—it might even have its controls locked. It won’t evade, won’t do anything but fly in a straight line.”
“I think we’d better prepare for visitors,” White said grimly. He clicked on his shipwide intercom: “Bridge, this is Lightfoot.
We’ve been blown. I suggest you put the ship at action stations, institute Buddy Time procedures, head for the Omani coastline at flank speed, and be prepared for a boarding party alongside, a hostile aircraft overflight—or worse.”
“Bridge copies.” Immediately the alarm bell rang three times, and the captain announced, “All hands, action stations, all hands, action stations, this is not a drill.”
ABOARD THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN AIRCRAFT CARRIER KHOMEINI “Bridge, radar-contact aircraft, bearing two-one-zero, range seven-point-eight kilometers, speed two-four-one, altitude two-point-one K, course two-zero-zero.”
Major Admiral Akbar Tufayli, Commanding Admiral of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Seventh Task Force, turned his chair on the admiral’s bridge of the Khomeini toward the battle-staff area of the compartment. Within the admiral’s bridge, one deck down from the main bridge but still able to view all of the above-deck activities on the ship, Admiral Tufayli and his staff could monitor all the ship’s radio and intercom transmissions and, if he so chose, interject his own commands directly into the system, even to aircraft in flight or to nearby ships, bypassing all other commanders’ orders.
Tufayli had immense power for a relatively young man. He started as a common street fighter and gangster, staging wild, bloody executions of known spies and informants of the Shah before the revolution. He’d joined the elite Pasdaran in 1981 and risen swiftly through the ranks, commanding larger and larger special forces and shock forces. Now he was the fifth-highest-ranking officer of the Pasdaran, and had been honored over all other field generals when he’d been awarded command of the Pasdaran forces—nearly three thousand commandos, infantrymen, pilots, and other highly trained specialists—aboard Iran’s first aircraft carrier.
Tufayli’s battle staff was a mirror image of the ship’s captain’s own, and they were assembled in the admiral’s bridge now, monitoring all essential ship’s departments and reporting to Tufayli’s chief of staff, Brigadier General Muhammad Badi.
“General,” Tufayli’s called out, “is that an aircraft? How did it get so close to my battle group without detection?”
“Unknown, sir,” Badi responded. “Though it is possible … very small aircraft, weighing less than five thousand kilograms, flying less than two hundred fifty kilometers per hour, and greater than fifteen kilometers from the center of the group, would be squelched from the combat radar display as a non-hostile. Once our attack began, something that small might be ignored or omitted.”
“Damn your eyes, Badi, that so-called non-hostile is now an unidentified aircraft less than ten kilometers from my battle group!” Tufayli shouted. “I want it destroyed immediately—no, wait! Is it transmitting anything? Can we identify any signals it might be sending …?”
“Stand by, sir,” Badi said. A few moments later: “Sir, the object is transmitting non-directional microwave signals in random, frequency-agile burst patterns. We can detect the signals, but only for very short periods of time. We cannot record or decode the signals.”
Tufayli felt his anger rising up through his throat. Badi was very fond of jargon—it was one of his few faults.
“Nondirectional signals, burst patterns … are they satellite transmissions, Badi?”
“They do not appear to be jamming, up-link, or radar energy patterns, so the best estimate would be satellite signals,” Badi responded.
“Before that contact gets out of optimal Crotale or SAN-9 missile range, I want those microwave signals
