Checkmate

he’ll have more to say.”

“Stand by.” Lambert was back ten seconds later. “Our best bet for translators and interrogators is CENTAF.” This would be the U.S. Central Command’s Air Force Headquarters at Al Udeid Air Base in Doha, Qatar. “Give me your ETA; I’ll get you cleared through Reagan ’s airspace.”

Fisher changed channels, got an answer from Bird, then switched back. “We have to refuel at the Marine base in Herat. From there, it’ll be five hours.”

“I’ll make it happen,” Lambert said. “Tell Bird to find a tailwind.”

* * *

They didn’t catch a tailwind, but a headwind, and five hours later they were just crossing Pakistan’s Makran Coast into the Arabian Sea. Their escorts, a pair of Pakastani Air Force Mirage III’s, waggled their wings and peeled off, their navigation strobes disappearing into the night. Dawn was still an hour away, but Fisher could see a fringe of orange on the horizon, toward India and the Himalayas.

Bird banked the Osprey west and headed into the Gulf of Oman. As they settled on the new course, Fisher walked to the opposite window and looked out. It took him a moment to find what he was looking for on the ocean’s surface: a rough concentric circle of lighted dots — the Reagan Battle Group, steaming toward the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz. Farther still, out of sight from here, the warships of DESRON 9 would already be moving through the Strait, ready to meet the Iranian Navy should Tehran decided to contest the shipping lanes. It would be a mismatch, Fisher knew, but any exchange of shots would signal the end of the parrying and jockeying and the start of war.

From the cockpit, an American voice came over the intercom, “Pike, this is CoalDust Zero-Six, come in, over.”

“Roger, CoalDust, we read you.”

“Here to escort you to Doha. Stay on current heading and switch to button five for ATAC control from Port Royal.”

“Roger,” Bird replied.

Fisher saw the wing strobes of an F-14 Tomcat slide into view out the window.

Behind him, Redding groaned. He was still sitting on the cabin floor with Abelzada’s papers spread all around him.

“Problem?” Fisher asked.

“I’ve got some Farsi and some Mandarin, but I’m not fluent enough to make any sense of this.”

“Another hour and we’ll be at Al Udeid. Let them worry about it.”

“Yeah, yeah… I mean, look at this here,” Redding grumbled, and held up a sheaf of papers. “Clearly, Abelzada or someone was translating this, but we’ve only got bits and pieces. For example, this character here…”

Fisher walked over. As he passed Marjani, who was still strapped to the bulkhead, he glared at Fisher and tried to yell through his gag. Fisher leveled a finger at him. “Mind your manners.” He squatted next to Redding. “Show me.”

Redding pointed to one of the Mandarin characters. “This means snake or worm, I think. And this one here… I think that means cloth. Now, what kind of sense does that make?”

“Take a break. You’ll drive yourself nuts.” He stood up and walked back to the window.

“I guess so… And this one… cat. So what’s it mean: The early cat catches the cloth worm?”

Fisher turned. “What was that? What did you just say?”

“The early cat catches the cloth—”

Fisher held up his hand, silencing Redding. Cat. Snake Cloth.

“What is it, Sam?”

“You said that character could be a worm or a snake.”

“Right. And cat, and cloth.”

“Could it be silk?”

Redding thought about it and shrugged. “Yeah, I guess so. What—”

“Silkworm,” Fisher murmured.

54

Fisher hurried to the console and got Lambert and Grimsdottir on the screen. “It’s not a U.S. base, Colonel. It’s here — it’s somewhere out here.” He explained about Redding’s study of the Mandarin documents. “One character means worm; cloth could be silk; the other one, cat.”

“Silkworm missiles,” Lambert finished.

“Right. And Cat could be Cat-14.”

For decades the Chinese government had been exporting surface-to-surface/antiship HY-2/3/4 “Silkworm” missiles to Iran, and had in the last five years begun selling them Cat-14 Fast Patrol Boats, mostly for special Pasdaran units. Each Cat was capable of fifty-plus knots — almost sixty miles per hour — and carried twelve Silkworm missiles, each of which had a range of sixty miles and carried a twelve-hundred-pound ship-buster warhead.

“Good God,” Lambert murmured.

“Okay, let’s think it through: Silkworm shore batteries are heavily defended, especially right now. Abelzada’s men wouldn’t have a chance of sneaking onto an Iranian Naval base, stealing a Cat-14, and getting away with it clean. What does that leave?”

“Given Zhao’s influence, we have to assume he could, for the right price, get his hands on some Silkworms. Suppose Abelzada’s men have their own supply. How would they deliver them? What would be the best way to strike the Reagan Group?”

Fisher thought for a moment, then said, “Shipyards.”

“Explain,” Lambert said.

“The Reagan’s recon aircraft have taken shots of every military facility on the coast. We’re looking for a shipyard that does repairs on Cat-14s. Find one’s that’s being refitted… some minor repairs… Shipyard security isn’t as tight as a Naval base’s.”

Lambert caught on. “A Cat that’s operational, but stripped of missiles.”

“Right.”

* * *

Grimsdottir went to work, and came back ten minutes later. “The Iranian Navy has twenty-six Cat-14s in service. Twenty-two of them are operational and the Navy’s tracking all of them. None are within eighty miles of the Group. Four are docked — one for crew rotation and three for repairs or refit.”

“Put the shipyards on my screen.”

The monitor resolved into an overhead view of the Iranian coastline. Two spots were marked by red circles: one at Halileh, south of the Bushehr naval base deep inside the Persian Gulf; and one near Kordap, just outside the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz.

“We just flew over Kordap,” Fisher said to Lambert. “Get a hold of the Port Royal and tell them to cut us loose. We’ll circle back and check it.”

Redding said, “The Tomcats—”

“They’re BARCAPs,” Fisher said. “They’re not loaded for surface targets. They’ll have to divert some Hornets.”

“How sure are you about this, Sam?” asked Lambert.

“Fifty-fifty. If we’re wrong, fine. If we’re right…”

“Okay, hold on, I’ll get back to you.”

Fisher got up and jogged to the cockpit. “Bird, slow us down and get ready for a U-turn.”

Lambert was back. Fisher took the call in the cockpit. “You’re cut loose,” Lambert said. “Just don’t make any sudden turns back toward the Group.”

Fisher nodded to Bird, who eased the Osprey into a gentle turn.