Scrambling onto the lip of the weather bridge, he leaped as far out over the water as he could… falling… falling, then landing in the sea with a splash. The water, after the stifling heat belowdecks, was surprisingly cold.
Then he was swimming, hard, struggling to outrace the suction of the Noor as she went down.
And when at last he reached a rubber boat and willing hands had pulled him on board, he turned to look back at his command.
But the Noor was gone.
15
"The Supreme Leader," the bearded cleric told him, "has agreed to launch Operation Bold Fire. How long will it take to implement?"
Admiral Baba-Janzadeh had expected the question and was ready with an answer. "Twenty-four hours, Mullah Zeydvand. We will need that much time to transmit written orders to all of the field commanders. I suggest that we name five o'clock tomorrow morning as H-hour."
"So long?"
The admiral nodded. "The American CIA can intercept all radio communications through their satellites, and we cannot overlook the possibility that they have managed to tap our land lines as well. The only way to ensure surprise is to deliver orders by courier."
Baba-Janzadeh had never heard of a retired Marine named Van Riper, or of his fictitious sinking of the entire U.S. Fifth Fleet in an exercise six years before. Rather, Van Riper had anticipated the admiral's planning, step by methodical step. Surprise was essential to Bold Fire, and the enemy's ability to eavesdrop was, in Baba-Janzadeh's experience, nothing short of magical.
It only made sense to be carefully conservative, and to avoid the enemy's strengths.
One hurdle, at least, had been passed. The admiral's call to Iran's Supreme Leader three hours ago had produced the desired result. The Ayatollah Khameini could have reacted in anger at the presumption of his Defense minister calling with the request that Operation Bold Fire be launched immediately. Instead, after a few questions— the first few angry, the last few concerned — Khameini had agreed that the escape of the enemy submarine necessitated drastic and immediate action.
Originally, Bold Fire was to have been launched by the interception of the American submarine inside of Iranian waters. Subsequent Iranian actions could then be presented to an understanding world as purely self-defense.
But the escape of the enemy vessel — from under the very noses of the Iranian submarine armada — necessitated a change of strategy. To relocate the Ohio, the entire military southern command would have to be fully mobilized, and that, in turn, would put the American Fifth Fleet on its highest alert.
Instead, Tehran would launch Operation Bold Fire immediately, using the enemy's incursion as an excuse. The Ohio would be tracked down and destroyed as part of the larger operation.
A telephone rang, and a moment later a junior officer handed it to him. "Admiral? It's Admiral Vehedi."
He took the handset. "Baba-Janzadeh," he said. He listened. The man on the other end was excited, almost hysterically so.
"Gently, old friend," he said after a moment. "You're sure of your facts?" He listened a moment more. "Very well. New orders will be coming within the next few hours." He handed the phone back to the officer, and turned to Zeydvand. "A new development, Mullah," he said. "An important one. One of our submarines has been sunk."
"No! Where?"
"A few miles south of Qeshm. Inside our territorial waters."
"The Americans have sunk one of our warships?"
"As it happens, no. An hour ago the submarine Noor was sunk by one of our antisubmarine helicopters. An accident."
"No… "
"A fortunate accident, however."
"How is that?"
"We may know differently, but so far as the world is concerned, an American submarine has entered Iranian waters and torpedoed one of our vessels. We could not have planned such a stroke of luck!"
In fact, during the planning for Bold Fire, the possibility of sacrificing an Iranian warship had been discussed. The possibility of the truth getting out, however, had been deemed too great. It had been decided instead to attempt to trap the American submarine in a clear violation of Iranian sovereignty.
Operation Bold Fire — the invasion of Oman and the United Arab Emirates and the destruction of the
American Fifth Fleet — could be launched now without fear of negative political consequences.
The Americans would be seen as the clear aggressors, the Iranians as the holy defenders of Islam and the
Gulf.
And no matter what the outcome of the battle itself, victory, political victory, would be assured.
"Up scope."
Stewart took his time studying the horizon. It was fast growing light, and there was no need for the low-light optics. North, twelve miles away, was the western tip of Qeshm Island, though only the hilltops showed above the horizon. One mountain, to the northeast, stood well above all of the others — Kuh-e Bukhow, its almost perfectly dome-shaped summit glowing gold in the light of a sunrise that had not yet reached sea level.
South, only four miles distant, was another of the small and circular islands that dotted this stretch of the straits. Two and a half miles across at its widest, it carried the ungainly name of Tonb-e Bozorg on the charts. Its highest elevation was only about seventy feet above sea level, but it was large enough to possess an airstrip and a few straggling villages. The waters nearby were clear, however. Not even any local dhows. And this region offered reasonably deep water for the next part of the operation.
The key word was reasonably. In fact, the entire west end of Qeshm Island was surrounded by extremely shallow water. Satellite photographs showed the shallows as a horseshoe of pale aqua encircling the narrow island's western tip… coral reefs and shoals barely covered by seawater a meter or less in depth.
South of the shoals, however, and close to little Tonb-e Bozorg, the bottom dropped off sharply. The major Gulf shipping lanes entered the Straits of Hormuz from the Gulf proper just a few miles more to the south, and there the channel reached its greatest depth — sixty meters.
Here, the steeply sloping bottom passed the forty meter line — just over 130 feet deep. Ohio had been creeping along this undersea ridge, literally feeling her way using her depth finder sonar — highly directional transponders sending out extremely weak pulses of sound that would not be picked up by an enemy unless they were literally right on her tail.
And that, of course, was still a possibility, but Stewart was pretty sure they'd eluded the fleet of Iranian subs that had been following them the night before. After waiting out the search in their hide southeast of Bandar Abbas, they'd spent the rest of the night slipping west ten miles south of the coast of Qeshm Island.
And that had brought them… here.
"Down scope." He turned to face the three SEALs standing by the plot tables. He pointed to a spot the quartermaster had just marked on the chart — their current location, designated Waypoint Alpha. "We're on station, gentlemen," he told them. "You'll have to take it the rest of the way yourselves."
Commander Drake nodded. "We're squared away and ready to book, Captain." He looked at his watch. "We'll lay low and begin loading the ASDS in six more hours. She'll be ready to detach one hour after that… say… 1200 hours."