Miller started to feel a shuttering of the large plane — a feeling much different than before. The large bunker busting bombs were being ejected in pairs from the plane. “Okay, sir. I am happy to comply. Please allow me to check in with Isfahan center for vector guidance.”
“You are on our radar. There is no other traffic. Turn immediately to bearing three six zero.”
Again, Miller paused. Inside the SAM battery command post, the officer yelled at his missile launch officer, who was listening in on the conversation. “Prepare to fire bird one.” Six SA-5 Gammon missiles were at the command of the officer. Each missile had a range of up to 300 kilometers at a top speed of Mach 4. The plane was now being illuminated by both the Square Pair radar and a second radar unit known as a PRV-17 “Odd Pair” that was being used to pinpoint the altitude of the target.
“I am happy to comply. Just confirming with Isfahan center now,” said Miller finally.
At the Isfahan regional air traffic control center, the man who had passed SAAC 622 Heavy onto Tehran approach minutes earlier, was listening to the discussion. His radar showed the big plane on its usual course heading north toward Tehran. He was confused by the conversation. He keyed his transmitter. “SAAC six-two-two Heavy. Isfahan.”
Miller reacted to the transmission as if it were a miracle. “Isfahan. SAAC six-two-two Heavy. Please provide course instruction.”
“SAAC six-two-two Heavy. I show you at flight level three one heading three four five. Confirm.”
“Affirmative. Confirmed, Isfahan. SAAC six-two-two at thirty-one thousand feet and heading three four five.”
In the SAM command bunker, the Iranian officer was forced to decide between what he had just heard from the Isfahan ATC center or what his own radar sets were telling him. He chose the latter. “SAAC six-two-two, I don’t give a damn about Isfahan control. Alter your course immediately. Confirm!”
Inside Mount Olympus, Amit Margolis and the other flight personnel listened to the exchange of radio communications between the American pilot, the Isfahan air traffic controller and the Iranian military officer. Each person was struck by the calmness in Miller’s voice and the increasing desperation and anger in the Iranian officer’s voice. Everyone realized that Jim Miller had to still be in the cockpit of the big plane, which would commence its final death dive any moment. The personnel of Mount Olympus already knew how this was going to end. No one spoke.
At Fordow to the north, relatively small explosions were the first sign that this was not another night. Spice 1000 bombs hit known and fixed SAM command bunkers and two static target acquisition radars. But just seconds later, a muted flash lit the ink black night for a fraction of a second, illuminating the rocky mountain outlines around the Fordow enrichment site. The first MOP had penetrated 183 feet through the hardened lava flows that formed the mountain above the underground chambers. It exploded just past the void of the southwest corner of the decoy chamber. A shockwave instantly obliterated everything and everyone in the decoy chamber. Four Iranian technicians died without ever having a conscious knowledge of their fate.
Three seconds later, the second MOP hit the crater wall that had just been formed by the first explosion and penetrated 212 feet at an angle, exploding just inside the hidden main chamber. Everything in the chamber was evaporated. Only seconds later, four Spice 1000 bombs simultaneously hit the uranium reception building, destroying its interior and the four horizontal autoclaves that heated uranium hexafluoride into vapor for insertion into the Fordow centrifuge cascades.
At the same moment, SAAC 715 Heavy turned its nose down, gaining speed as it lost altitude. The plane was now a guided missile, its mass and remaining fuel comprising the primary destructive potential.
The Ilyushin 76 met its end inside the massive crater created by the two MOPs. Its speed at impact was a supersonic 689 miles per hour.
James Miller clicked on his microphone to speak. When he pulled his mask away, he felt the shuddering of the plane stop. The cargo plane was suddenly flying level and smooth, all of its weapons having now been expended. Miller released the button on his microphone, his body relaxing in the pilot seat. He said a prayer for the first time since he couldn’t remember. He spoke to his God as if talking to his mother, seeking forgiveness for all he had done wrong in his life.
In the command bunker, the Iranian officer shouted his order. “Fire bird one.” A single SA-5 Gammon missile’s solid rocket fuel ignited instantly, propelling it from a standstill to Mach 3.4 in under 20 seconds. Tracking in on the Ilyushin was easy. The big plane had a massive radar cross section and was taking no evasive action. The plane started to lower its nose to commence its final act — to fly into Natanz as a highly radioactive missile. The Ilyushin lost about 500 feet of altitude as James Miller closed his eyes and continued to pray to a God who he could not fault if He wasn’t listening.
The Gammon missile was still in its boost phase when it exploded just thirty meters in front of the nose of the plane, spraying it with hundreds of ball bearings, each the size of double-aught buckshot. The supersonic shrapnel ripped through the nose, wings and engines of the Ilyushin, four pellets killing James Miller instantly. The plane exploded in flight, forming a fire ball that fell toward earth like a withering meteor.
Before the wreckage of SAAC 622 Heavy hit Iranian soil, 26 of 28 EGBU-28Bs punched through ten meters of dirt and four meters of reinforced concrete roofing and exploded within the voids of the enrichment halls of Natanz. Two of the sophisticated bombs failed, each one burying itself harmlessly into barren land before detonating at a depth that engulfed their warheads. Spice 1000 bombs hit their targets only moments later. One of the Spice bombs crashed through the relatively thin roof of the SAM battery command bunker. The Iranian officer who had just decided the fate of Jim Miller didn’t live to enjoy the downing of the big attacking cargo plane — or to suffer the consequences of his failure to shoot the plane out of the sky before it had launched its weapons.
The ability of Natanz to enrich uranium had been eliminated at the cost of an aging Russian cargo plane and an aging gay American pilot who would soon be immortalized as a hero of the state of Israel.
63 — Northwind by North
Flying over the Caspian Sea toward the southeast at a point about 170 miles north of Tehran, the Boeing 737-400F from Zurich via Ganja was cruising at 36,000 feet. The plane had flown 465 kilometers from Ganja and had fuel left to fly only another 300 to 350 kilometers depending on when its payload was released and it began descending. The crew, in discussion with Mount Olympus, had decided that they would perform their mission and then turn around to land at Baku. But right now the plane was still flying away from that salvation.
The co-pilot spoke up. “We are inside the launch window. Baku is now 270 kilometers away and growing.”
“I hear you,” responded the captain. He switched his transmitter to the encrypted satellite link to Israel. “Executing Sierra November.” The pilot then entered a code into the plane’s flight computer.
The cargo cabin quickly depressurized. Underneath the fuselage, a door that had been added by IAI engineers opened up. Within 20 seconds, eight Delilah missiles had been ejected, each one with a pre-programmed target along the Iranian coast or in Tehran. Immediately after the last Delilah was launched, the first of 46 Miniature Air-Launched Decoys, or MALDs, was ejected from the plane. It took another two minutes for the process to complete.