It appeared for all intents and purposes that the Iranians were playing the game by the rules. The reporters from some networks crowed in triumph, while others were at the very least cautiously optimistic that this might actually be a step in the right direction.
The nuclear containers were loaded onto pallets in the belly of the freighter. They were left uncovered for the short trip across the Straits of Hormuz so Western satellites could maintain a constant vigil. An hour later the ship pulled out of the harbor. The harbormaster departed the bridge and went over the side to his launch. At the harbor exit a dozen Iranian naval vessels escorted the freighter west to Abu Dhabi.
Captain Mustafa of the Iranian Navy piloted the freighter through the Straits of Hormuz. It was one of the demands Iran made of the Security Council and the company was only too glad to comply considering the amount of money the Iranians agreed to pay in order to lease the ship, behind the scenes of course.
Everything went according to the press plan. In live feeds across the Western world the press had a party atmosphere. It was markedly different in the bridge of the Atlas. Captain Mustafa was grave, checking, always checking that things were right. His crew had much to do and little time to do it. Although the trip was short it was the most important moment in their careers. At Midnight he looked to his first officer. “Is everything prepared?”
“We are ready sir,” he replied, looking at their American invented, Chinese manufactured GPS system. “We are approaching the coordinates.”
“Binoculars,” the captain asked, and one of the men handed him a pair of German made binoculars. “Let’s find our little friends. Helmsman steady as she goes.”
“Aye sir.”
The captain and the first officer scanned the dark waters ahead. “Time!”
“Twenty-three hundred hours, fifty five minutes and thirty seconds sir!”
They kept scanning. Every few moments the captain asked the time. When the time approached and passed midnight he became audibly nervous. “Where is he? He’s late!”
“I don’t know,” the first mate replied, perturbed.
The captain lowered his glasses, squinting out into the night. “Time!”
“Zero hours and four minutes, twenty-three seconds!”
“Damn!”
“Captain!” the first officer exclaimed. “Twenty degrees to port; I see it!”
The captain trained his glasses on a hardly to be seen speck of light appearing and disappearing against the black waters. “That’s him, he’s late and a half kilometer off, but’s thank the Prophet he’s there. Signal him!” The captain went to the control panel and rang the engine room. “Start the operation!”
The engines slowed and the smokestack began pumping out thick black smoke. The captain went out on deck, looking up at the gathering cloud. When it reached a level of opacity that blotted out the stars he nodded to the team of men waiting for his order.
They ran down into the hold and activated airbladders built into the pallets of the three cargo containers. Air hissed and the bladders billowed around the cargo containers. Once the men were out of the cargo hold the captain returned to the bridge.
The first officer reported, “The Rahman is beginning its approach. Our support vessels are calling us.”
“Tell the destroyers we are having engine problems. We request their assistance. Make ready to tow.”
“Yes sir,” he said, beginning the busy work of a ship in distress.
The captain was unconcerned. Taking hold of a large lever on the control panel he pulled it back. The whine of hydraulic motors and the groan of steel drowned out every other sound. In the hold the two huge clamshell doors in the bottom of the ship opened. In the normal course of the ship’s duties they opened so as to drop tons of rock onto the ocean floor, thereby building artificial reefs and breakwaters. In this case they opened to the sea. The three containers with the enriched Uranium settled into the water, secured by ropes but now floating on the ocean.
The crew dragged the containers to the bow of the ship and held them there. The containers didn’t protest; they stayed there, bobbing sedately. For a few minutes that’s all that happened.
The ship’s crew fell silent, waiting with anticipation, peering into the dark waters of the hold. Finally something appeared, a black stalk pierced the water and rose about two meters above the surface, but it was close to the side of the hold — very close.
A dull metallic clang rang over the ship. It shuddered.
“Idiot!” the captain breathed. “He hit the ship!”
The stalk sank back down into the depths.
Turning to a team of six men wearing wetsuits he motioned them angrily into the water. They frogmen entered the hold. After getting into the water the deckhands threw lines to the frogmen. Catching the lines the frogmen descended into the darkness. Flashlight beams cut the black water.
A few minutes later the frogmen emerged and shouted directions to the deckhands. The men on the starboard side began winching in their lines. The frogmen watched the progress of the work, finally signaling the deckhands on the port side to operate their winches.
The frogmen directed the forward operator to start his winch and then gave direction the aft operator. Slowly a narrow black mass rose from the depths. It was half as long as the hold, a narrow torpedo shape with a trashcan shaped conning tower amidships: a midget sub. On its aft deck were three cargo containers identical to the three containers now floating in the freighter’s hold.
The hatch to the tower opened and a man popped out. Two more followed, crowding the small conning tower. With a great deal of yelling and manipulating the winches moved the midget sub to the center of the hold. When it was in place the frogmen activated container’s air bladders and secured them with ropes. Then they unlatched them from the subs decking.
The containers bobbed to the surface and the frogmen moved them aside. The old containers were switched for the new ones. It was a seemingly simple process, but between the numbers of men, ropes and floating containers it quickly became confused. The captain of the ship and the captain of the sub shouted incessantly, and finally they got the containers swapped.
With the frogmen holding the containers in place on the deck of the sub the captain ordered the dive tanks blown. A hiss of air could be heard. Bubbles rose to the surface as did the midget sub. The containers settled to the sub’s deck and were deflated and lashed down.
With the sub’s deck now fully above water the sub captain and his engineer climbed out of the conning tower and onto the deck to inspect the damage caused when he struck the freighter. Squatting on the rounded hull, they looked with concern at what appeared to be a long dent or gash.
The captain of the freighter went down to the deck. As his men secured the containers he yelled down, “How bad is it?”
The sub captain looked up and yelled back, “We’re leaking. It’s not bad but we’ll be limited to periscope depth,” he replied. “We need to get going fast. We need the darkness.”
“Well why did you run into my ship in the first place?”
“You try berthing that tub blindfolded then you’ll understand what we were attempting! Do you know how many times I have done this — once!”
“All right, all right,” the freighter captain relented. “Get going then and may the Prophet be with you!”
The sub captain and his companion climbed the conning tower and disappeared into the midget sub. The frogmen cast off the sub’s lines. One man patted the side of the conning tower three times. The frogmen jumped off the sub and swam to the ladders out of the holds. As they clambered up the hold the sub began to sink into the ocean.