Satisfied he had the best operational security available in this well-traveled funnel of water, the captain of the RORO gave the go-ahead. The rear ramp lowered halfway to reveal a metal contraption.
Hydraulic gears rolled the ramp past the gale to hang over the stern by ten meters. The crewmen began pushing pins through the various joints of the arrangement to make sure it wouldn’t fold up on itself. Then they placed a barrel-shaped mine on it, and watched it roll down to drop off past the stern into the water. The sowing continued at regular intervals, giving the mines tactical separation. The mines sank until they reached a preset depth of fifty meters, where a small sea anchor deployed to hold the undersea weapon in position. The logic sensor in the head of each mine would activate an hour after hitting seawater. The program told each weapon the strength of magnetic field and the acoustic signal-to-noise ratio needed to coincide for it to activate. The sea anchor would detach, whereupon, like a small torpedo, the weapon would home against the nearest magnetic source to explode on contact. With one hundred kilos of explosives in each warhead, one torpedo mine could sink a fishing vessel or cause serious damage to a destroyer or cruiser. Enough successful torpedo mine hits would either sink the American aircraft carrier or cause sufficient damage to send it into repair. It would not take too many hits on the American carrier to limit its capability to launch or recover aircraft..
The Libyan captain was well aware that it would take numerous hits to sink a carrier, but if the plan worked, there would be an American aircraft carrier sitting on the bottom of the Red Sea within the next forty-eight hours.
The RO-RO ship continued its slow 360-degree transit around the island.
Crewmen wrestled each of the heavy mines to the stern of the ship, grunted as they hoisted them manually onto the deploying ramp, and then took a two minute break as each mine rolled into the sea. When the ship finished the southern transit of the Bab El Mandeb on the western side, it turned north again and sowed its deadly cargo through the narrower eastern waters. By midnight, the lethal work had effectively sealed the southern end of the Red Sea. The only safe passage out of the Red Sea for the USS Roosevell was the Suez Canal, and the Egyptians would seal that tomorrow.
The French Atlantique turned back toward Djibouti, the small African country located at the western end of the Gulf of Aden, to reach the military airport before nightfall. Its highly accurate electro-optic surveillance cameras recorded the suspicious Libyan RO-RO ship to its north and caught the mine-laying contraption as it deployed. The highly focused computer-enhanced cameras corrected for distance, and refined the focus for the French airmen to discern that the RO-RO was dumping barrels into the strategic strait. Their “end of mission” report, transmitted while airborne was enroute to their base, caught the attention of the Foreign Legion colonel who controlled the French military presence in the former French colony. His orders from headquarters were very explicit. They required him to forward anything having to do with Libyan or Chinese activity in his area. He didn’t know why. but those were his orders. Automatically, he turned the report around to headquarters in Paris, adding the distribution code identified in his instructions.
An hour later when the reconnaissance aircraft touched down, Paris had already replied to the colonel, directing him to send a wooden-hull ship with French special forces embarked to conduct an underwater reconnaissance of the strait at first light. In Paris, someone already had an idea what the Libyan merchant vessel was doing, but this initial analysis remained within French channels, pending confirmation. Twenty hours later, this intelligence analyst would be patting herself on the back as French divers confirmed her analysis, and wondering why her superiors decided not to share this information with France’s allies.
The USS Roosevelt battle group continued sailing north toward the Suez Canal for its early morning transit, unaware of the threat astern of it.
At the Libyan operations room south of Tripoli, the soldier marked events zero two two and zero two three as “in progress” on the chart.
Colonel Alqahiray smiled as he read the new notation. He casually flicked ashes to the left. When these two events were completed, event zero two four would be initiated. The event that would catapult Jihad Wahid-Holy War One — into the history books. He reached for the phone.
Walid stood nearby, waiting for orders the colonel might give, but also in position to overhear anything said.
“Mintab,” Colonel Alqahiray said when the phone was answered. “Time to go. Good luck and we’ll be watching. I envy you this great moment in history.”
Colonel Alqahiray listened for a minute, and then with an angry scowl replied, “Yes, as planned, my friend! Everything is on schedule. We have done our part; it is up to you to finish it. May Allah be with you as he has been with us.” Colonel Alqahiray slammed the receiver down and butt-lit another cigarette. “Too many people worry needlessly,” he said aloud to himself.
Walid’s eyebrows raised slightly as he wondered what Mintab had said.
CHAPTER 9
“I have highspeed turns, I mean cavitation in the water!” shouted the USS John Rodgers ASW operator over the intercom.
The warning blared from the bridge speakers of the destroyer, bringing immediate silence to Combat. Captain Warren Lee Spangle dashed from the starboard bridge wing, where he had been enjoying the Spanish sun during their approach to the Strait of Gibraltar. He slammed his hand down on the intercom button. “What have you got, sonar?”
“Sir, I have multiple highspeed props in the water bearing one zero five with a slow left-bearing drift. Captain, I’m sorry, sir, but I think they’re torpedoes. They sound like torpedoes.”
“Sonar, keep the data coming,” Spangle told him.
Spangle turned to the boatswain mate of the watch. “Sound Genera] Quarters, Boats.” He pressed a second button on the intercom.
“Tactical action officer, this is the captain. I have the conn and the bridge.” Adrenaline rushed through his veins. The young sonar technician was probably wrong. At least. Spangle hoped so. It’d be at least three minutes before the chief and the ASW officer got to their stations and confirmed it.
From the bridge and Combat, the OOD and TAO acknowledged Captain Spangle’s control of the ship. The numbing bongs of the GQ alarm sent chills up Spangle’s back. Even during drills, the call to General Quarters sent adrenaline soaring. No sailor remained calm with sounds of imminent combat rattling the bulkheads. The metallic clicking of metal toed boondockers pounded the ladders between decks as sailors raced to their battle stations. The slams of watertight doors echoed through the ship as metal handles were rammed down to set Condition Zebra. Spangle heard the ship wide ventilation system winding down.