“I think we’d better prepare for visitors,” White said grimly. He clicked on his shipwide intercom: “Bridge, this is Lightfoot.
We’ve been blown. I suggest you put the ship at action stations, institute Buddy Time procedures, head for the Omani coastline at flank speed, and be prepared for a boarding party alongside, a hostile aircraft overflight—or worse.”
“Bridge copies.” Immediately the alarm bell rang three times, and the captain announced, “All hands, action stations, all hands, action stations, this is not a drill.”
ABOARD THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN AIRCRAFT CARRIER KHOMEINI “Bridge, radar-contact aircraft, bearing two-one-zero, range seven-point-eight kilometers, speed two-four-one, altitude two-point-one K, course two-zero-zero.”
Major Admiral Akbar Tufayli, Commanding Admiral of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Seventh Task Force, turned his chair on the admiral’s bridge of the Khomeini toward the battle-staff area of the compartment. Within the admiral’s bridge, one deck down from the main bridge but still able to view all of the above-deck activities on the ship, Admiral Tufayli and his staff could monitor all the ship’s radio and intercom transmissions and, if he so chose, interject his own commands directly into the system, even to aircraft in flight or to nearby ships, bypassing all other commanders’ orders.
Tufayli had immense power for a relatively young man. He started as a common street fighter and gangster, staging wild, bloody executions of known spies and informants of the Shah before the revolution. He’d joined the elite Pasdaran in 1981 and risen swiftly through the ranks, commanding larger and larger special forces and shock forces. Now he was the fifth-highest-ranking officer of the Pasdaran, and had been honored over all other field generals when he’d been awarded command of the Pasdaran forces—nearly three thousand commandos, infantrymen, pilots, and other highly trained specialists—aboard Iran’s first aircraft carrier.
Tufayli’s battle staff was a mirror image of the ship’s captain’s own, and they were assembled in the admiral’s bridge now, monitoring all essential ship’s departments and reporting to Tufayli’s chief of staff, Brigadier General Muhammad Badi.
“General,” Tufayli’s called out, “is that an aircraft? How did it get so close to my battle group without detection?”
“Unknown, sir,” Badi responded. “Though it is possible … very small aircraft, weighing less than five thousand kilograms, flying less than two hundred fifty kilometers per hour, and greater than fifteen kilometers from the center of the group, would be squelched from the combat radar display as a non-hostile. Once our attack began, something that small might be ignored or omitted.”
“Damn your eyes, Badi, that so-called non-hostile is now an unidentified aircraft less than ten kilometers from my battle group!” Tufayli shouted. “I want it destroyed immediately—no, wait! Is it transmitting anything? Can we identify any signals it might be sending …?”
“Stand by, sir,” Badi said. A few moments later: “Sir, the object is transmitting non-directional microwave signals in random, frequency-agile burst patterns. We can detect the signals, but only for very short periods of time. We cannot record or decode the signals.”
Tufayli felt his anger rising up through his throat. Badi was very fond of jargon—it was one of his few faults.
“Nondirectional signals, burst patterns … are they satellite transmissions, Badi?”
“They do not appear to be jamming, up-link, or radar energy patterns, so the best estimate would be satellite signals,” Badi responded.
“Before that contact gets out of optimal Crotale or SAN-9 missile range, I want those microwave signals identified and analyzed,” Tufayli ordered. “Then I want a listing of all vessels between us and the contact’s course to the southwest. Maybe the contact is some sort of reconnaissance aircraft, returning to its home. I want that identified and reported to me immediately.”
“Yes, sir,” Badi acknowledged, and ordered the battle staff to work on this new problem. “Sir, unidentified aircraft is at eight kilometers, still on a constant heading south-southwest at two hundred kilometers per hour.” Badi was handed a report, message form. “No luck in identifying or decoding the signals it is transmitting.”
“Very well. Destroy it,” Tufayli casually ordered.
Fifteen seconds later, just before the first assault helicopter left the Khomeini’s deck forward of the island superstructure, the battle staff turned and watched as a bright streak of fire shot upward from the deck of the Chinese destroyer Zhanjiang, then gracefully arced toward the southwest and dived straight down.
The first French-made Crotale surface-to-air missile launch was followed by two more, but the other two were unnecessary. Three seconds later they could see a bright blob of light in the sky, and a sharp boom! rolled across the water.
“Unidentified aircraft destroyed, sir,” Badi reported.
“Very good,” Tufayli said. He was still amazed at the incredible power at his fingertips. Yes, the Khomeini—and its air group was an awesome weapon, but the destroyer Zhanjiang had as much long-range killing power as an entire Iranian artillery battalion.
Tufayli controlled the skies, seas, and soon the land for 100 kilometers from where he sat, and the feeling was almost beyond comprehension. “Have one of the escorts send a launch to search for wreckage.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Where is the report on the ships along that unidentified aircraft’s course?”
“Still cataloging all vessels along that projected course line, sir,” Badi responded. “The flight path takes it very close to the Omani and UAE coastlines, and there are several major oil platforms …”
“it won’t be an Arab base—no Gulf states possess such sophisticated systems,” Tufayli said irritably. “Any major Western vessels reported in this area recently?”
Badi searched the initial list quickly, then put his finger on one line: “Yes, sir, just one. An American rescue-and-salvage vessel, the Valley Mistress. Identified by Sudanese coast patrol transiting the Red Sea three days ago, enroute to Bahrain …”
“Identification?”
“Former Edenton-class salvage-and-rescue ship, three thousand tons, one hundred thirty men, long endurance, helicopter pad, and hangar facilities,” Badi responded, reading from a copy of a Sudanese coast guard patrol report that had been forwarded to the Iranian battle group commander.
“Privately owned but registered under the U.S. Navy Ready Reserve Fleet. Not inspected since leaving Port Said on its Suez Canal transit.”
Tufayli was positive the unidentified aircraft, which he suspected was a small reconnaissance aircraft, possibly a balloon or drone, had come from that ship—it had the right size to handle such complex operations. “Send an electronic reconnaissance helicopter out to take some photos and scan the ship for unusual electronic emissions,” Tufayli ordered. “In particular, try to get the ship to respond to a satellite communications transponder enquiry. I want a direct overflight—let us see what that so-called salvage ship does when threatened. Launch photo or decoy flares, drop a bomb, fire a marker rocket toward that ship—anything, but try to elicit a reaction.”
Badi issued the orders, and a Kamov-25 reconnaissance helicopter, fitted with sensitive electronic warfare sensors and transmitters, was airborne within five minutes and headed southwest toward the American salvage ship.
ABOARD THE S.S. VALLEY MISTRESS THAT SAME TIME “Lost contact with Skywalker,” the reconnaissance technician reported. “I had a brief lock-on by the Ku-band Crotale radar, then gone.”