The trawler’s radar operator studied his scope, watching the big blip move toward them. He had noticed it thirty minutes earlier but had decided it was one of the rare ships that still chanced the run into Kuwait. He carefully plotted the new position of the ship, confirming its course. “Konstantine,” he called out the open door of the stifling hot cabin that served as the radar shack on the trawler, “there is a large ship bearing down on us. Have the lookouts check on it and tell the captain. It is not in the shipping channels.”
“Impossible,” the mate said. “It would have to be out of ballast to be in these shallow waters. They don’t do that.” One of the lookouts solved the argument by calling in and reporting that an oil tanker riding high in the water was bearing down on them but should pass to their left, between them and Ras Assanya. Konstantine ran out to the bridge’s wing and focused his binoculars on the ship. “Get the captain,” he snapped. Every eye on the trawler studied the tanker.
The captain came onto the bridge, still half-asleep and rubbing his chin. “Identify him,” he said, focusing his binoculars on the ship. “We will report him to the International Maritime Commission. At least his insurance rates will rocket for being out of the shipping channels—” He froze as he saw the bow of the tanker start a swing toward his trawler, putting them on a collision course. “Hard to starboard,” he ordered the helmsman, turning his much smaller craft away from the looming mass of the tanker brushing past them. Well, at least the idiot must realize where he is and return to the proper channel—
“Fighters!” the aft lookout reported in. “I count over thirty headed north, are launching… ”
“Why didn’t you report them sooner?” the captain barked into his headset.
“The tanker was in the way. I cannot see through steel, Captain. Ask the radar operators why they have not reported it.”
The captain knew the 45th maintained strict radio silence and his operators had to rely on radar to pick up launching aircraft out of Ras Assanya. But why hadn’t they reported anything? “Captain, we’re being jammed,” the chief radar operator told him, answering his unspoken question.
All doubts he had about the tanker vanished. It was a trick of the Americans. But whose tanker was it? They had not been able to identify it. “Radio a warning,” the captain told his operators, hoping the air-defense net would receive the message in time to react.
“Captain,” the mate told him, “all our radio frequencies are being jammed. The jamming is very close to us. It must be from the tanker.” The two men ran back out onto the open wing of the bridge. The tanker was slowly turning, staying close to the trawler. Until they could stand well clear of the tanker, they could not overcome its jamming.
“We’ve got to outrun the tanker. Turn to the north; find another frequency. They can’t jam everything we have… ” The mate could hear the building panic in the captain’s orders. Soon he would be in command of the trawler and not the old fool who swilled cheap vodka and slept past six in the morning. The radio operators rapidly cycled to new frequencies as they searched for an open channel to transmit a warning message. But as soon as they found one the automatic frequency sweep on the tanker’s jammer would lock on them and override their signal. As the trawler tried to draw abeam of the tanker the huge ship again turned into the trawler, forcing it to turn eastward and continuing to cast its shadow over the trawler’s radio frequencies.
After seventeen minutes, the jamming ceased and the tanker stood clear of the trawler, signaling, “Can we be of any assistance?”
The captain swore and beat on the railing, fully aware the Phantoms were reaching into Iran.
The captain of the oil tanker Tokara Maru stood on the starboard wing of the bridge, concentrating on the Russian trawler as his ship turned south, his weather-beaten face impassive while the trawler disappeared behind him. The captain stood almost five feet ten inches, tall for a Japanese of his generation, and at sixty-three years of age, his rigid discipline and self-control masked the satisfaction he felt. He turned now and walked into the spotless, air-conditioned bridge.
The officer of the watch saw him turn and warned the helmsman that the captain was coming. The old man was a perfectionist.
The navigation officer was still awed by the captain’s piloting of the 150,000-ton ship — small by supertanker standards — around the trawler. Only the officer of the watch acknowledged the captain’s entrance with a crisp bow. The captain glanced at the radar, fixing the location of the trawler and his ship, and walked out onto the port wing.
“He hates the Russians,” the helmsman said sotto voce.
“Most Kuril islanders do,” the navigation officer put in. “He was forced to leave with his family in 1945 when the Russians took over their island, Kunashir.”
The bridge became silent when the captain reentered and stood beside his chair — he seldom sat down. “How long to the rendezvous with our escort?”
“Forty-six minutes,” the navigation officer told him. “We are in radio contact with the British frigate and Dutch minesweeper the United Arab Command has arranged to escort us through the Strait of Hormuz. The frigate sends a ‘well done.’”
The old man focused on the horizon. “Please relay the message to the crew and tell them I am most satisfied with their performance. Now we must return the Tokara Maru safely to the open sea. She is my last command.” He silently reprimanded himself for saying so much, but he was pleased with his crew. He had not been allowed to tell them about the coded radio message from the company’s headquarters in Yokohama that asked him to take his ship into the Persian Gulf as a jamming platform for the Americans. He had only told them that the next voyage would be dangerous. They had volunteered to the man. The captain’s face relaxed. The men on the bridge exchanged furtive glances. Their captain was very pleased.
This time, without warnings from either Mashur or the trawler, the strike force was able to reach its targets unopposed, hugging the deck and trying to avoid early-warning air-defense radar. Without MiGs to contend with they were able to fly around the last known positions of SAM and Triple A sites. And their intelligence was current, courtesy of the Stealths.