"Foxing the American torpedo," he told him. "Or trying to."
"How?"
"By giving it something else to lock onto, at least for a moment. While it chases our decoy, we change course and slip away."
"Captain! Enemy torpedo has lost its lock!"
"Well done!" Bavafa said, face creasing in a smile.
"Don't count your blessings yet, holy man. We're not out of this yet."
The Kilo possessed an important advantage over the huge American vessel in its superior maneuverability. It wasn't as fast as the Ohio, but it could easily turn well inside the radius of the much faster torpedo, forcing the torpedo to make a long, wide swing around in a circle to reacquire if it missed.
"The enemy torpedo is circling. It has not reacquired…. "
Seconds passed.
"Sonar!" Jalali said. "Go active. I want to know what happened to the American!"
"Captain, the American is destroyed, surely!" Bavafa said. "We heard the explosions!"
"One thing you learn as a submariner, cleric," Jalali told him. "Take nothing for granted."
Ping!
"Captain!" the sonar officer cried. "The American! He's directly ahead! Bearing two-zero-four, range one thousand, speed twenty-five knots!"
So… not damaged after all, and certainly not destroyed.
"He's passing us off the port bow, Captain! Turning away… he's turning away from us!"
A chance to fire another shot, and take him at point-blank range. "Ready torpedo tubes four, five, and six!"
"Tubes four, five, and six are ready to fire, Captain!"
"Captain! Sonar! Incoming torpedo, dead ahead!"
"Idiot! The torpedo is astern of us, not in front!"
"No, sir! It's our torpedo, coming back at us!"
The tactical picture dropped into place for Jalali at that instant. The last of his three torpedoes had missed the American, who'd evidently pulled the same inside-turn maneuver he'd been attempting with the Tareq. Decoyed a second time, Tareq's torpedo had missed the Ohio, begun searching for its lost target, and acquired… the Tareq.
"Do something, Captain!" Bavafa screamed.
"Do?" He could already hear the whine of the torpedo coming closer. "There is nothing to do, cleric, but pray."
The explosion hurled both men across the deck, slamming them into the weapons console as the port side of the control room opened to the sea. For a thunderous instant men shrieked and struggled and died.
And there was only the sound of water flooding Tareq's crew spaces, as the Iranian submarine nosed into the soft bottom.
"Captain, Sonar. I'm getting breakup and flooding noises. We got him!"
"Where's our other fish? I don't want to score an own-goal like our friend out there just did."
"It's gone silent, sir. Must've run out of fuel." American torpedoes were set to flood and sink when they ran out of fuel, so as not to pose a hazard to surface ships.
Stewart allowed himself a long, slow, and somewhat shaky breath. Ohio boats simply were not designed to pull off maneuvers like an SSN. And yet, somehow, Ohio had pulled it off… and in water no deeper than a bathtub.
"Okay, gentlemen," he said, speaking into an utterly silent compartment. "It's not over. Not by a long shot. Diving Officer, take us as deep as we've got. Maneuvering, slow to one-third."
"Maneuvering, slow to one-third, aye, sir."
"Making depth one-zero-five feet, sir."
"Very well." He looked at Shea. "You can breathe again, Wayne," he told his XO.
"My God, Captain. You handled her like an attack boat!"
"And for our next trick," Stewart said, "we go north. We have some SEALs up there who are counting on us."
"Yes, sir!"
They would conduct the recon in two groups of four. Tangretti, Hutchinson, Avery, and Hobarth would carry out the actual descent and infiltration; Mayhew, Richardson, Olivetti, and Wilson would remain at the top of the cliff as the tactical reserve, and maintain the satellite link with the ASDS and with Washington.
They'd found a stretch of canyon wall around the bend in the valley above the tunnel entrances, a steeply descending slope with one vertical descent, a forty-foot drop. After carefully scoping the area out through their
NVGs, they secured four rappelling lines at the top of the cliff, checked climbing gloves, harnesses, and equipment, then backed over the edge, bouncing lightly down the face of the canyon wall in long, easy bounds.
At the bottom, Tangretti let Mayhew know they were all down safely over his M-biter. That was SEAL slang for the AN/PRC-148 (V) Maritime MultiBand Inter/Intra Team Radio — or MBITR for short — a 2.7 pound tactical radio each man wore attached to his combat harness.
"Delta One-one, One-two," he whispered into the needle mike beside his lips. "Down, set, and good to go."
"Copy, One-two. Good luck."
The descent lines were drawn up the cliff face by the men waiting above. There was no sense in risking having them discovered by a passing Iranian patrol.
They'd actually given thought to making their descent inside the complex fence. The Iranians had fenced off both ends of the valley, but not bothered with the sheer rock walls to either side. During the daylight hours, the SEALs had watched as several patrols went past along the canyon rim, several on foot and one by helicopter. None had noticed, however, the small and carefully camouflaged SEAL hide.
In any case, the canyon walls inside the base perimeter were sure to be more carefully watched than those outside, possibly by men using infrared or low-light goggles, or by electronic surveillance through cameras or more subtle technological means.
And so Tangretti's One-two descended to the canyon floor two hundred yards west of the fence, then made their way back along the canyon wall, moving slowly, quietly, and remaining blended with the shadows.
The pole lights inside the fence provided more than enough of a glow for them to navigate using their NVGs. Those lights also guaranteed a bonus; sentries inside the fence or close by it outside would not be dark-adapted. It would be that much harder to see four night-black shadows moving silently through the darkness.
When they reached the fence, they moved north along the outside, crossing the valley until they were about twenty yards from the four flatbed trucks parked inside the wire. After checking to be sure the chain-link fence itself wasn't wired, Hutch used a set of wire cutters to carefully snip open an entryway, a triangle-shaped flap that he left connected along one side. With the improvised gate open, the four SEALs crawled inside, and Avery wired the flap shut behind them, using short lengths of silver wire.
"One-one, One-two," Tangretti whispered. "We're in."
"Copy."
They crawled flat on their bellies, two at a time, across a patch of open but deeply shadowed ground. As Tangretti and Avery neared the trucks, however, he froze, raising a fist to signal a halt. He could hear boots crunching gravel just ahead.
The Pasdaran sentry rounded the back of the nearest flatbed, an AK-47 slung carelessly over his shoulder. He walked past the SEALs within ten feet of them, stopped, looked around, and then began fishing inside the front of his trousers. In another moment he was urinating against a slab of rock leaning against the north wall of the canyon, whistling tunelessly.
Tangretti and Avery lay motionless, flat on the ground; in the dark, the human eye sees movement before it can make out shapes, and so far the Iranian soldier hadn't seen them. In another moment the man refastened his trousers, turned, and walked back toward the nearest tunnel entrance, about fifteen yards away.