For once, the two Quds Force commandos guarding the bridge entrance stepped aside without being asked. Despite their bright yellow foul weather gear, they looked drenched from head to toe. Skoblin hurried past them without making eye contact. Once inside the bridge, he grabbed hold of the edge of the plot table to stay upright as the bow of the tanker smashed through another wave. Spray fountained high into the air before crashing down across the forecastle.
The Gulf Venture’s captain, Reza Heidari, and Dr. Hossein Majidi, the missile scientist in charge of the Zuljanah rocket, looked across the plot table at him. “You have a question, Major?” Heidari asked mildly.
“I do,” Skoblin said, unable to stop himself from scowling. “Why the devil are we circling in place like this? In the middle of this fucking storm? Why aren’t we proceeding directly to the launch point as planned?”
Heidari shrugged. “For the simple reason that there has been a slight change in our plans.”
“What sort of change?” Skoblin demanded sharply. His orders from Voronin might counsel patience with their Iranian allies, but there were limits to the amount of nonsense he was willing to put up with. Heidari might command the ship, but he was directly responsible for ensuring that this operation went ahead as intended. If the local sea or weather conditions dictated a need to delay their arrival at the launch point, he should have been briefed first. A flicker of suspicion stirred into flame inside his mind. Were the Iranians in communication with Tehran after all? Despite all their talk about the need for absolute radio silence? And if so, were the ruling theocrats suddenly getting cold feet about going through with MIDNIGHT? It was a contingency Voronin had planned for, which was one of the reasons the nuclear submarine Podmoskovye was secretly trailing them now — with additional Raven Syndicate troops aboard.
In answer, Heidari nodded toward a digital countdown clock fixed above the plot table. Its readout showed the estimated time remaining before their intended attack. As Skoblin watched, the numbers it showed abruptly changed — altering from T −26 hours to just T −4 hours.
Caught off guard, he swung back to the two Iranians. “You’re launching almost a day early?” he blurted out. “How is that possible?”
Majidi smiled back at him. “Simple,” the white-bearded scientist said. “Our Zuljanah rocket has always been able to fly farther than we told your Mr. Voronin and the rest of your people.”
Skoblin stared at him. “You lied to us from the beginning?” he growled.
“Naturally,” Heidari said flatly. His eyes held no trace of any emotion. He shrugged. “It seemed a simple precaution in the circumstances… just in case you had secret orders of your own to alter the conditions of our mutual alliance at the last moment.”
“I have no such orders,” Skoblin lied.
“That is good to know,” Heidari said. He shrugged again. “As I said, this one small deception was only a precaution.”
“And are there any other changes of plan I should know about now?” Skoblin demanded angrily.
“Just one,” the Iranian Revolutionary Guard naval officer said blandly. He nodded to someone behind the Russian. “Carry on, Rostami.”
Skoblin stiffened, hearing the unmistakable sound of a submachine gun bolt cycling. Carefully, he glanced over his shoulder and saw one of the Quds Force commandos at the hatch covering him with his 9mm weapon. He swore inwardly. This act of treachery had been carefully planned. The bearded Iranian commando was too far away for him to reach before being shot down. And both Heidari and Majidi were well out of the line of fire. Slowly, he raised his hands.
“A wise move, Major,” Heidari told him. He picked up an internal phone. “Touraj? We’re done up here. Carry on with your end of things.”
“So what now?” Skoblin asked bitterly. “You kill us?”
The Iranian looked at him quizzically. “Why would we do that, Major? We are allies, are we not?” He nodded toward the commando. “This is only another temporary safeguard. For the time being, I’ve decided to disarm you and your men. My own soldiers will provide any necessary security until the rocket lifts off. Once that’s accomplished, we’ll return to the normal state of affairs for the voyage back to Iran.”
The phone buzzed sharply. Heidari picked it up and listened intently for a few moments. He nodded abruptly. “Excellent work, Touraj. We’ll send Major Skoblin down to join his men shortly.” He turned back to the Russian. “I’m sure you’ll be glad to know that we’ve secured and disarmed your Raven Syndicate personnel without any serious injuries — apart from a few bruises, that is. You’ll be held securely in one of the ship’s storage compartments until after the missile is away.” He smiled and gestured to the countdown clock, which now showed T −3 hours and 55 minutes. “I realize your new accommodations may not be very comfortable, but at least you can console yourself with the knowledge that the inconvenience will be of short duration.”
One hundred meters below the surface of the Atlantic, Captain First Rank Mikhail Nakhimov frowned at the circular grease pencil track drawn on the control room’s plot table. It showed the Gulf Venture’s course according to Podmoskovye’s passive sonar systems, which were picking up the noise made by the tanker’s enormous screws thrashing through the water. He looked up at Konstantin Danilevsky, his Raven Syndicate coequal for this mission. The ex-Spetsnaz colonel wore a similarly perplexed expression. “Does anything in what you know of operational plan for MIDNIGHT explain this sudden change of course?” Nakhimov asked.
Danilevsky shook his head. “Nothing. That ship is still more than four hundred nautical miles from the projected launch coordinates.”
Nakhimov leaned over the table, watching as his navigating officer penciled in another arc, showing that the oil tanker was continuing the series of 360-degree turns it had unexpectedly begun making several minutes before. “And nothing in the covert satellite phone reports from your men on board suggested this was coming?”
“You saw the same communications summaries from Moscow I did,” the Raven Syndicate officer replied icily. “So you already know there was nothing.”
“I’m also familiar with the concept of special coded messages hidden within otherwise innocuous reports, Colonel,” Nakhimov said. “And it occurred to me that you might have seen something that I did not.”
Danilevsky allowed himself the hint of a smile. “A reasonable assumption, Captain. But in this case, I’ve received no such communications.” He gestured upward. “Can you come to periscope depth and raise your communications mast? Our team aboard the Gulf Venture may be trying to signal us now with some explanation for this change.”
Nakhimov shook his head. “That would be far too dangerous. In the current rough sea state, our periscope mast would feather.” He saw the bigger man’s look of incomprehension and explained. “I mean that our mast would throw up a spray of white foam whenever it hit a wave.”
“Which could easily be spotted by lookouts aboard the tanker,” Danilevsky realized.
Nakhimov nodded. “Precisely.” His mouth turned down. “I don’t know just how our Iranian allies would react to learning that they were being trailed by a submarine, but I can’t imagine they would be pleased.” He made a decision. “We’ll drop back a few kilometers so that we’re out of sight and contact Moscow using one of our remaining satellite buoys.”