“What?”
“Yes, sir—the Zhanjiang cannot operate its radar or train any of its weapons, and even personnel on deck are having trouble moving around. Sir, it could be that the same substance fell on the Khomeini. If it got onto the fighters’ landing gear, it would have prevented a normal takeoff. If it got onto the rotors or transmission of the helicopter, it could cause stress of …”
“What in hell are you saying, Badi?” Tufayli shouted. “You are saying we were somehow attacked … by glue? Someone sprayed our ships with glue to cause such damage?”
“I do not know, sir,” Badi said, placing a hand on a cut on his forehead. He listened to his intercom, then said, “Sir, the fire has spread to the hangar deck. Damage-control crews are responding. The ammunition magazines and fuel stores are in no immediate danger.” He paused, then said, “Sir, you should consider evacuating the ship. You can transfer your flag to the Sadaf.”
“Evacuate … my … ship?” Tufayli muttered. “Never! I will never-!”
But he was interrupted by a sharp explosion and a rumble throughout the ship. He searched and found that one of the P-700 Granit anti-ship missiles, housed in vertical launch boxes on the front of the carrier near the ski jump, had exploded inside its canister, blowing huge sections of steel into the sky and gouging out large sections of the ship. Each missile weighed 11,000 pounds and carried a 2,200-pound high-explosive warhead.
“One Granit missile has exploded, sir!” Badi reported.
“I can see that, damn you, Badi!” Tufayli shouted. “Damage report!”
“Substantial damage reported on all forward decks,” Badi reported.
The general’s battle staff was in complete disarray; reports were coming in from all corners of the ship, and he could hardly understand any of them. “Sir, you should evacuate the ship immediately. You should take the entire intelligence staff; the senior staff will remain on board. I now suggest transferring directly ashore to Chah Bahar, since it appears that the Zhanjiang has been damaged and cannot defend itself, and it is too dangerous to bring the Sadaf alongside.”
Tufayli thought for a moment, then nodded—he knew Badi was right.
If just a few of the remaining P-700 cruise missiles went up, the carrier could be at the bottom of the Gulf of Oman in just a few short minutes. And if missile number seven, the nuclear-loaded missile, exploded … well, they would be spared the humiliation of a court-martial, at least. “All right, General,” Tufayli said.
“I will transfer to Chah Bahar with the intelligence staff—but the captain stays with this ship at all times, do you hear me? I want no member of the ship’s complement to leave unless this ship is ready to capsize! I want the cruiser Sadaf to dispatch a helicopter to stand by with us at Chah Bahar, ready to take us back to the Sadaf to direct the remainder of the battle group in case the bomber tries to attack the fleet again.
“Badi, next, I want this ship to maneuver in the center of the international sea lane in the Gulf of Oman and remain in place,” Tufayli continued. “If it sinks, I want it to sink in the center of the sea lane, and I want the sea lanes blocked by all the other ships. Whoever attacked this battle group, I want it made clear that we will still close this waterway to all traffic and control its access, even if we have to use our own ship’s hulk to do it!”
It took another hour to execute Admiral Tufayli’s evacuation plan.
Since all of the Khomeini’s helicopters were either destroyed, crippled by the adhesive, or under repair, a Mil8 helicopter had to be flown out from the destroyer Sadaf to fetch the admiral; a simple oilcloth tarp was laid out on deck for the helicopter to land safely. While Tufayli waited for his helicopter to arrive, he had to suffer listening to the systematic destruction of fran’s fleet by Gulf Cooperative Council air attacks. One by one, the smaller ships in the Khomeini’s escort fleet were struck and hit by wave after wave of GCC jets and helicopters launching Harpoon, Exocet, and Sea Eagle anti-ship missiles—without forward early-warning radar coverage or air defense cover from the carrier or the Chinese cruiser Zhanjiang, the escorts were easy prey for GCC attackers. Twice the cruiser Zhanjiang was hit; three times the close-in-weapon systems on the carrier Khomeini came to life, destroying inbound anti-ship missiles seconds before they plowed into their prey.
When Tufayli was brought up on deck to board his helicopter, he saw the devastation in the seas around him: dotting the horizon in every direction were the bright spots of flickering red, yellow, and orange light representing burning Iranian warships. The Zhanjiang was still under way, and had repositioned itself between the Omani coast and the carrier, but a fire below-decks was still not fully contained. But even worse than that sight was the look of fear, anger, and betrayal in the eyes of the Iranian sailors around him. The Khomeini was still afloat, crippled but still fighting—but its commander was running. Tufayli could almost hear the sailors’ derisive words, calling him a coward”
It didn’t matter, Tufayli thought bitterly. It was their job to fight and die for him and their country—it was his job to command, to lead, and he couldn’t do it very well from a crippled aircraft carrier covered in contact cement, with a six-meter-wide hole yawning in its belly and a nuclear warhead threatening to blow at any second.
ABOARD THE CV-22 PAVE HAMMER TILT-ROTOR, OVER THE GULF OF OMAN THAT SAME TIME The CV-22 Pave Hammer tilt-rotor aircraft’s refueling probe had no sooner nestled into the HC-130P Hercules tanker’s lighted basket of the refueling drogue and transferred a few hundred pounds of JP-7 fuel when the navigator aboard the HC-130P Hercules called on secure interplane, “Hammer Zero-One, Peninsula Shield Skywatch is reporting a single helicopter, designate Target Seven, leaving the deck of the Khomeini.”
“Roger,” the pilot of the CV-22 responded. “Continue the transfer.” He clicked open the intercom: “Right when you said he’d show, Major.”
Hal Briggs punched the air with satisfaction and smiled broadly at the men of Madcap Magician surrounding him. “You were right, Paul—but we don’t know Tufayli’s on board that helicopter. It could be a medevac, could be anything”
“Even so, Tufayli will still be on it—no matter how many injured there might be on that carrier, I’ll bet Tufayli will make room for himself.” He paused, then regarded Briggs and said, “But the next step’s up to you, Hal. You’re in charge of this mission.”
“Thanks,” Briggs said. “And I say we go see who’s out flying around at this time of night.” He clicked open the intercom: “Greg, get a vector to Target Seven, finish your on-load, and intercept.”
“Got it,” the CV-22 pilot responded happily.
In less than five minutes, the HC-130P tanker had filled the CV-22’s tanks. The CV-22 disconnected, turned to clear the tanker—they were flying less than 500 feet above the Gulf of Oman, so no one dared descend to get separation!and transitioned to airplane mode to pursue the Iranian helicopter. Their top speed in helicopter mode was only about 110 miles per hour, but once the CV-22 tilt-rotor’s twin engine nacelles swiveled horizontally, which changed the helicopter rotors to function as aircraft propellers, the CV-22 quickly accelerated to over 360 miles an hour. Following vectors from the Saudi Arabian E-3S AWACS radar plane orbiting near the Omani border in the southeast corner of the Arabian Peninsula, the CV-22 sped northward after its quarry at low altitude.
With a nearly 200-mile-per-hour overtake, the Madcap Magician special-ops aircraft closed the distance in ten minutes, less than 100 miles from the Iranian shoreline. The Iranian Mil-8 cargo/anti-submarine warfare helicopter, a rather round, squat, bug-shaped machine with twin tails and two sets of main rotor blades counter-rotating on one rotor mast, showed up perfectly in the CV-22’s imaging infrared scanner, and they maneuvered above and to the left, out of direct sight of the helicopter’s pilot. The helicopter was cruising without running lights at medium altitude; its engines were brightly glowing red-hot from the engine’s high-power setting.