Still, the bottom dropped off in a steep cliff just north of the island, providing a good hiding area. The only time Ohio risked being sighted was, as now, when she had to come to periscope depth to stick her satcom antenna above the surface. Still, those times were few and kept as brief as possible. The chances of their being spotted from the air were—
"Control Room, Sonar."
"Control Room. Go ahead."
"I'm picking up aircraft noises, sir. Close and to the east."
Quickly, Stewart pivoted, bringing the Type 18 around to the left. Nothing on the horizon. He angled the head of the scope up, scanning empty blue sky….
No, not empty. Sunlight flashed from a canopy.
"Down scope!" Stewart snapped. "Diving Officer! Take us down! Deep as she'll go!"
He'd only had a glimpse, but he thought it was a Fencer.
And it was damned close…
Sheer luck… or, possibly, the munificence of Allah. But that, always, is the way of battle.
Lieutenant Colonel Alireza Tolouei was on his way back to Bandar Abbas, his munitions expended after a long-range strike against the Omani air base at Muscat. His aircraft was a Russian-built Sukhoi-24, a fighter bomber that had carried the NATO designation Fencer since it was first introduced in the early 1970s. Iran had purchased fourteen of the aircraft from the Soviet Union, but this one had come into Iran's inventory by way of Iraq, one of eighteen Su-24s flown across the border by defecting pilots during America's first war with that country. It was a rugged and fairly dependable aircraft with a swing-wing variable geometry similar to that of the U.S. F-111.
A straight-line flight from Oman's capital to Bandar Abbas would have taken him east of the Musand'am peninsula, but Military Air Traffic Control had routed him far to the west, over the Gulf, to avoid heavy helicopter traffic currently operating over the Straits of Hormuz. He was flying north low and slow, a few miles east of Abu Musa, and just happened to be in exactly the right place, with the sun at exactly the right angle.
All he saw was a shadow, a long and very narrow black shape in the water, but he knew instantly what it was — a submarine just beneath the surface.
He also knew it wasn't an Iranian vessel. This thing was a monster, two and a half times longer, at least, than a Kilo attack boat. All Iranian pilots had been briefed to be on the lookout for an American Ohio-class submarine believed to be operating now inside the Straits of Hormuz.
And Tolouei had found it.
His bomb racks were empty, and in any case he'd been carrying munitions designed to crater Omani runways, not sink enemy submarines. Putting the Sukhoi into a sharp left bank, he began to orbit the enemy's position.
"Bandar Abbas Control, Bandar Abbas Control," he called over the radio. "This is Mountain Eagle. I have a sighting…. "
"Do you think they spotted us?" Shea asked, looking up at the control room overhead as though to see through steel and water and up to a threatening sky.
"I don't know," Stewart replied. "No torpedoes in the water yet."
"They might not have been loaded for ASW work."
"No. Probably wasn't, in fact, if it was a Fencer… and I think it was. It was in a tight left bank, and the wings were extended."
"Swing wings," Shea said, nodding.
"Yup. But he was swinging around and heading our way. He might have spotted us, if the sun angle was right. We have to assume he did."
"Right."
"Helm… come right to three-zero-zero."
"Helm, come right to three-zero-zero, aye."
"Mr. Kelly, what's the depth beneath our keel?"
"We're scraping barnacles, Captain. The bottom is dropping, but we only have about three fathoms to spare."
"Follow the bottom down. Our friend topside could have an ASW helo overhead inside of five minutes. I want to be lost by that time."
"Aye aye, sir."
"Sonar! This is the captain."
"Sonar, aye aye, sir."
"Stay especially sharp. We may have company any time now."
"Aye aye, sir. Uh… you should know, though, that the background pinging is washing everything out."
Stewart understood. The splash of a torpedo or a sonobuoy hitting the water, the soft beat of a diesel-electric sub in stealth mode, the sound of an aircraft overhead— those were all remarkably subtle sounds, tough to pull from the background clutter under the best conditions. With all of the sonar banging away in the distance, it was like trying to hear a coin drop with the stereo speakers cranked up to the max. It was amazing the sonar boys had picked up that Fencer.
If the Iranians had one of their submarines out there, there'd be very little chance of hearing it, unless it went active.
And by then it might well be too late.
"Sir!" The naval aide was excited. "We've located the American Ohio submarine, sir."
Admiral Baba-Janzadeh turned, gesturing toward the large chart unrolled on a table nearby. "Show me."
"Yes, sir. One of our fighter-bombers spotted a shadow in the water… just here." The aide pointed, indicating a spot five miles north of Abu Musa.
Out in the middle of the shipping channel. Interesting. That was farther out than he'd expected. If the quarry was one of the new ballistic missile submarine conversions, it should have been much closer inshore, the better to drop off and recover naval commandos.
"Does our plane still have the enemy in sight?"
"No, sir. He reported it was already going deeper when he spotted it, but we have a course, and the pilot's report that it was moving very slowly. We have naval ASW aircraft en route now."
General Ramezani, his chief of staff, cleared his throat. "Sir. The Tareq is on patrol less than twenty kilometers from this location." He pointed to another spot on the map, to the northeast. "We could have Captain Jalali plot an intercept course. Ring this area with sonobuoys, and we have him."
Tareq was the first of the Kilo submarines purchased from the Russians: hull number 901. Jalali was experienced, one of the best of Iran's submarine skippers. Baba-Janzadeh nodded agreement. "Transmit the orders."
"Yes, sir."
"Admiral," one of the other staff officers said. "That is in international waters. We were ordered to find and trap the American inside our territorial waters."
"That no longer matters. With Bold Fire now under way, we can claim an accident of war, if necessary. However… have you forgotten that Abu Musa is Iranian territory?"
"Uh, no, sir. Of course not."
"Of course not. The lawyers can argue about lines on the map, but the rest of the world — the Islamic world— will know that we discovered and destroyed an American nuclear submarine just a few kilometers off of our coast. The Guardian Council will have their excuse for a full-scale confrontation with the Americans."
"Yes, sir."
"But we must not let them slip through the net again! I want the American found. I want him destroyed. Clear?"