"I think we're going to want to have a closer look at those vehicles," Tangretti said.
Thunder rolled overhead. The SEALs glanced up, but then ignored a pair of Iranian MiGs streaking through the cloudless sky from northwest to southeast. Aircraft of various types had been in the sky all day, most of them headed east, toward Bandar Abbas, or southeast, toward the south side of the straits.
Ohio had broadcast the news of Iran's invasion of the Musand'am peninsula early that morning, before alerting the SEALs to the fact that they were going deep — and out of touch. The peninsula lay roughly east-southeast of the SEAL OP, and the Iranian flights no doubt were on their way to continue providing air support for their troops.
Tangretti returned his full attention to the tunnels below. The concrete reinforcement suggested bunkers: thick-walled and well-protected. The soldiers guarding them… that was the curious part. They weren't regular Iranian army. Their uniforms were more ragged, less like uniforms than a mix-and-match of cast-off army surplus.
Pasdaran, then, which confirmed what Black Stallion had reported. It also confirmed a key part of SEAL Detachment Delta's premission briefing, back in the States. Iran's unconventional warfare assets — their nuclear, biological, and chemical weaponry — were controlled by the IRGC and not by the army regulars.
A new sound gradually imposed itself on Tangretti's awareness… a low clatter approaching from the west.
"Uh-oh," Avery said. "Company."
"Alert the others."
Avery slipped away, backing deeper into the shade of the tarp. Some of the other SEALs would be asleep.
The clatter grew louder. West, through his binoculars, Tangretti could see six dark shapes low above the mountain ridge. Helicopters.
MiGs traveled too high and too fast to have any chance of spotting the SEAL OP on the ridgetop below, but helicopters were something else. Behind him, the rest of Delta One came fully awake and alert, grabbing their weapons. Hutchinson swiftly pulled the satellite communications antenna out of the sunlight and under the tarp.
Moments later the shapes resolved themselves into a flight of Iranian CH-46 transports, the same big, twin-rotored aircraft favored by the U.S. Marines. They were flying in a rough V-formation less than two hundred feet above the mountain, and appeared to be on a course that would take them directly over the SEAL hide.
At the last moment, though, they sheared off, swinging south and out over the steel-blue waters of the Gulf. Brilliant sunlight flashed off Plexiglas canopies and windows. It was not a patrol, then, searching for intruders on the Kuh-e Gab, but another load of soldiers en route to the war zone over northern Oman. Their new course was actually more dangerous for the SEALs than their old, since, at a lower angle, the patch of shadow beneath the tarp was more visible, and a bored-soldier looking out one of the aircraft's windows might see them. After a tense moment, though, the helicopters continued on their new course, evidently having been routed away from the mountain base. The SEALs relaxed back into routine. Richardson and Hutch set up the satcom antenna again, realigning it on the coded signal transmitted by the satellite. Tangretti and Avery went back to watching the sleepy base below.
Patience was one of the SEALs' key weapons. They would wait, and watch.
At least until nightfall.
"Periscope depth, Captain," Lieutenant Hanson, the Diving Officer of the Watch, reported.
"Very well. Up scope."
He rode the periscope up as it rose, angling the head straight up to check the surface directly overhead before it even pierced the roof, then circling carefully, taking in everything on the horizon, and checking the sky above as well.
They were in the clear, at least for the moment. "Communications," he said. "Transmit our position."
"Aye aye, sir."
With Ohio's Type 18 scope above water, they were again in satellite communications with the outside world, could take a GPS fix on their precise position, and with the ESM receiver affixed to the mast — the acronym stood for Electronic Support Measures — they could sample the flood of radio and radar signals passing through the air above the waters of the Gulf.
And there was a lot to listen to. Iranian military radar was thick and constant, and the air was crackling with radio calls on military frequencies. Much of it was short-range FM, signals that didn't go beyond the horizon and therefore weren't even encoded. Ohio's communications center quietly recorded everything, uploading it to Washington via satellite as it came through.
Radio waves weren't the only thing coming thick and furious, however. Active sonar pinging was picking up fast, most of it coming from the north. The sonar department had reported heavy search activity all along the Iranian coast, both from submarines and from surface vessels, and the Iranians were making extensive use of air-dropped sonobuoys as well. By plotting all of the active sonar sources on a chart, it became clear that the Iranians were attempting to create a wall of sound all the way from the bight of the Straits of Hormuz to Ra's al Mutaf, halfway up Iran's Gulf coast.
Most of the activity was, of course, focused around the two points of greatest American interest — Bandar Abbas and the area where the two U.S. patrol boats had been intercepted the previous month, off Bandar-e Charak. Stewart was glad he'd decided to move off into deeper water. There was less search activity out here, and the bottom was deeper, with more room to hide.
Things were going to get dicey, though, when Ohio had to move back to the shallows to retrieve the SEALs. Somehow, they were going to have to penetrate that wall of sound without being detected, and that was going to take some doing.
They'd moved thirty miles to the southwest, to a point just north of the island of Abu Musa, a triangular speck of land less than three miles across at its widest point, with scarcely room enough for a single runway and a small port.
This was close to the center of the Gulf's main shipping channel. The water was over two hundred feet deep here — still damned shallow for an Ohio-class boat, but offering better protection than the shallows tucked in close under the lee of Qeshm, where there was barely enough for them to remain submerged.
Bandar-e Charak was over seventy miles to the northwest. Technically, the SEAL ASDS could make it all the way out here for retrieval, but after spending a couple of days close inshore, the minisub's batteries would be running on the electrical equivalent of fumes.
As of the last report, the ASDS had dropped Delta One off near Bandar-e Charak. Those SEALs were at Objective White Scimitar now, carrying out their primary mission. Taggart had then piloted the ASDS farther east along the coast, and put the second SEAL group ashore to check out reports of mobile missile launchers in the vicinity of Bandar-e Lengeh, thirty miles away.
According to the mission track, both SEAL teams would complete their ops tonight, exfiltrate, and execute retrievals on the ASDS. The SEAL sub would then bring them all back to Waypoint Bravo for pickup, an empty stretch of water fifteen miles off the coast and halfway between Bandar-e Charak and Bandar-e Lengeh.
That pickup point could easily be changed if the tactical situation warranted, but Stewart was determined to get as close to shore for the retrieval as he could. Those SEALs deserved no less, and, if things got hot for them ashore, they were going to need all the help with their travel arrangements he could manage.
He took an extra long time studying Abu Musa through the scope, recording it on 70mm film and giving the electronic warfare boys plenty of eavesdropping time. The Iranians were known to have Chinese Silkworms on the island, and possibly other antishipping assets as well. The island was also a possible flashpoint for a widening of hostilities. So far, all of the fighting appeared to be limited to Iran against the Omanis, but if the United Arab Emirates decided to get involved — or if Iran decided it wanted more than just the tip of the Musand'am peninsula and went after the UAE as well, the UAE might decide to take back the island, which had been snatched from them back in the 1970s.