Robinson put the phone back in his pocket. The deck of the Jamaran raced closer.
We are not going to make it! Men on both decks were close enough to shake hands if they had chosen to. He was certain of a collision and watched the ever-so-slow maneuver turn the deck in a new direction and the Iranian destroyer seemed to run along side for a minute then veered off in another direction. He could see the smirking rear admiral standing near the rail surrounded by his officers.
“He is so full of himself,” observed Captain Schmitzer. He tossed the worry beads from hand to hand in a curious wringing motion.
Robinson had questions. “Does this sort of thing go on often?”
“More than you would care to know — the Iranians are the worst of the bunch. It is as though we are a target out here. We are the Fifth Fleet and a ship comes busting through here like a drunken sailor, forgive the play on words, breaking our ranks as though they owned the international waters. There are rules of etiquette — they broke them all a few minutes ago.”
A lieutenant broke in, “If we had pulled a stunt like that on them they would be crying about it for weeks. They would go on and on about how ‘we attacked them’ and have their citizens rioting in the streets, burning our flag and the rest of it.”
The captain surmised. “Yes, it is clearly a double standard.”
“We will hear about this — it will come out that we tried to run into them, ignored their warnings and it was only the skill of their captain that saved them from the capitalist Americans that roam their seas without regard for their safety.”
Robinson said, “I’ll see that the president hears exactly what went on here.”
“That’s great, but it’ll do no good if the Iranians decide to make an issue of it. I doubt anything will come of it and we may never hear about it. They know we were clearly right and, as nothing that you can point to occurred, that will be the end of it. We have the tapes of our call to them, their transgression with the Enterprise, the fact that they ignored the call, and did their best to ram us. They will consider it all and drop the whole thing as it would eventually blow up in their face. I doubt we’ll hear any more about it.”
“Now what?”
The Sikorsky Sea Kings butted into the scene at the Tanker. Schmitzer jumped to his communication desk and shouted, “Pull back. Tomcats fall back!”
“Falling back, Captain.”
The bodies of the hijackers were riddled with bullets and dropped like bricks off the side of the tanker. The speedboat ran around the stern and to the other side of the tanker. “There is no one driving the speedboat, Captain.”
“Take it out. Permission to Tomcat II to destroy the target when it clears the tanker.”
“Target to be destroyed in ten seconds, Captain.”
“Well, at least we did get some action for my boys out of this.” He sat back in a leather captain’s chair while he returned the beads to his pocket.
The speedboat exploded and left a small black cloud hanging over the cresting waves.
“Tomcats come home to daddy — mission accomplished. Good work men. ”
The other officers chimed in, “Good work, Captain,” and clapped their hands in approval.
“We’ll need to go over the tapes to see if we did this right. The Iranians will get credit for this and that’s OK with me. They will be focused on that and the incident with the Jamaran will be forgotten. Maybe next time we should forget the warnings. Another ten seconds and they would have been on the deck and it would have been a whole different ballgame.”
Amir Harazi, the Prime Minister of Israel was crystal clear.
“There will never be another Holocaust my son.” There was a pack of cheroots lying on the table beside him and he pulled one out, lit it and exhaled a cloud of dense smoke that filled the cozy office in Jerusalem.
The president, Arkady Dazdraperm, elaborated, “At least there will never be a Jewish Holocaust.”
Robinson felt that Israel possessed as many as three hundred nuclear warheads.
Everything about the Israel nuclear program was a guarded secret. The first suspicion of nuclear capabilities came in 1979 from a US Vela satellite that was built to detect a nuclear explosion. It spotted one in the Indian Ocean at the southern tip of Africa, or at least some thought “yes” and others thought otherwise. It was a heated point of discussion that South Africa and Israel had worked together to produce the two megaton double flash explosion. Others contended that any country with nuclear bombs could have set it off and simply was not about to step up to the plate to indicate they were conducting a test. One could read a library of books on the subject and in the end no one knew anything for sure — except the Israelis.
Robinson was certain the Israelis possessed WMD’s as everything they said insinuated that they had them and would use them if it was ever needed. They had developed the Jericho III and now had the ICBM’s that could drop a bomb anywhere they chose. They had submarines and carriers scurrying about the globe and all of them were capable of a launch into the USSR, Tehran, China, and certainly Iran.
Harazi said, “Israel will never divulge any information about our capabilities, however I would suggest that we are not Saddam and pretend we can do things and then you would find we cannot.”
The President of Israel shared in the discussion while offering tea to everyone. “We will never sign the NPT. To do so may very well be looked upon as unfriendly and we really do not care about the opinions of those who would choose to, shall I say, contain us, or lord over us. We understand what happens to those who are in positions of weakness and we are a determined people that would fight to the last man to see that another Holocaust would never repeat itself.”
Robinson suspected as much and it was no surprise to be in step with a tightrope that always seemed to be a part of the Middle Eastern balancing act. He had been sent here to be a sounding board and keep the diplomatic relationship open for the two countries. Landenberger had guessed correctly that Israel was on pins and needles with the recent test and needed comfort and assurances. Assurances that were ambiguous at best — a part of the USA diplomacy of not wanting to confront anything militarily and avoiding conflict at all costs. He had seen this firsthand two days earlier aboard the USS George H.W. Bush.
Harazi asked, “Does your president have any plan to disarm Iran other than the sanctions?” The smoke curled around his head.
“It is too early to say. He has everyone working on the sanctions and may very well feel that is all that would be appropriate for now. He would welcome your ideas if you would ever care to express them. That is why I am here today. I have no power of course, but will relay whatever you wish to him.”
“Of course we have no faith in the UN where Khalilullah 'Abd al-Wahhab is allowed to continue his barrage of anti-Semitic fanaticism.” His cigarette had burnt itself out and he ground it out into a metal ashtray. He lit another. “For that matter we find it disgraceful that he is allowed to enter the building. I would imagine that they would have allowed Hitler to do the same, had the UN existed then. While Hamas dropped thousands of missiles upon our helpless citizens, the UN failed to pass a single resolution to stop it.”
Dazdraperm sipped his tea while he peered out the window. “The UN has no sense of decency. They make a disgrace of the UN charter. There are those who do not feel threatened as Tehran spews its hatred at our country. History has shown that is only where it begins, and ends up touching all. The greatest threat facing the world today is the marriage between religious fundamentalism and the weapons of mass destruction. The challenge of the day is to prevent the tyrants of Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons. They steal elections from their own people then shoot those who protest in the streets where we watch them die choking on their own blood.”