Alone, the zealot aboard the Al Solomon was truly now in charge of his own destiny. Without the micro managing conservative, disapproving leadership of the Al Nasser’s older, if more experienced, captain, the rogue skipper intended to show the revolution a true Islamic warrior.
One hour later the Al Solomon changed course to approach the Spanish coast. It penetrated Spanish territorial waters off the Bay of Cadiz a few minutes after midnight.
Here, Al Solomon raised its periscope and did a quick navigational fix, using the lights of the oldest continuously inhabited city in Europe and other isolated lights blinking along the coast. Then Al Solomon commenced a quiet five knot racetrack circuit as it monitored the Spanish fleet at the naval base at Rota and commenced a watch for any approaching American naval force. As far as he knew, there wasn’t an approaching American naval force, but there would be, and when it arrived it would find the brave revolutionary warriors of Al Solomon blocking its path. He looked at his watch — the one taken off a patriot executed yesterday. He smiled, tapped the watch crystal a couple of times, and headed toward the mess decks. He had another court to attend. When his ship returned to the new Algeria, not only would they be heroes of the revolution, but there would only be Islamic warriors on board.
Captain Ibn Al Jamal of the former republic of Algeria Navy waited patiently to see if the Al Solomon was detected. Soon an American battle force would come this way. He nodded as he gave silent thanks to Allah for the decision by the Americans to leave Rota Naval Base ten years ago. Only Spanish antisubmarine forces remained to endanger the Algerian submarines. The Americans had given up their only logistic hub at the entrance to the Mediterranean. The Americans would have to come through the strait without the benefit of a forward-deployed force to sanitize their path into the Med. Of even more importance was the fact that without Rota Naval Base, the survival of Israel was threatened. America could never remount the air resupply line it did in 1973 to save that terrorist country without somewhere to refuel.
The only concern to him was the Spanish Armada, led by its Harrier aircraft carrier the Principe de Asturias, four F-100-class frigates, and several auxiliary ships. The frigates were the biggest danger to the submarine. The F100s were variants of the United States Navy’s old single screw FFG-7 ASW frigate. They were Spain’s premier antisubmarine forces. Each frigate could carry two Sikorsky S-70L ASW helicopters; though Algerian Navy Intelligence reported that normally only one was embarked on the two-hanger ships. The Al Solomon could maneuver unmolested, awaiting the imminent American carrier force, as long as the Spanish kept their Navy in port. From his own experience, he hoped the captain on the Al Solomon did not underestimate the Spanish. Spain was a maritime nation with a long naval history — a proud history. Its Navy would not hesitate to attack a submarine violating its territorial waters and though Spain’s naval force was small, it had the tenacity of a barracuda on the seas.
He watched the compass needle move as Al Nasser turned slowly toward the strait.
Five minutes later, Ibn Al Jamal secured General Quarters to allow the crew to eat, use the toilet, and, for those capable, grab a few minutes’ sleep. There were two American submarines in the Mediterranean and, while Algerian Navy Intelligence had located one in Gaeta, the other remained missing. His ASW crew searched with passive sonar, looking for the telltale noise that nuclear submarines made. He was proud of his skilled plotting team. He looked over their shoulders as they monitored, plotted, and tracked every contact in an effort to maintain a surface picture of the ships above. At midnight, satisfied they had completed the first part of their mission without being detected, Ibn Al Jamal gave the orders for the Al Nasser to commence its lone transit back through the Strait of Gibraltar and into the Mediterranean.
It was now time for the second part. He brought the submarine to periscope depth to take a navigation fix against the evening lights at Algeciras and Gibraltar. Satisfied, Ibn Al Jamal calculated they would be through the strait and near Malaga by dawn. He looked at the air monitor.
They could stay submerged another week without surfacing.
He tapped the battery meter. Battery was fine, but it never hurt to keep the submarine’s battery power topped off. He wanted to be in a position by tomorrow night to either surface or snorkel to recharge the batteries and exchange the air. Plus, his plans called for them to be off Algeria in safer waters by tomorrow night. He would prefer to surface to recharge.
An hour later, the submarine passed abreast of Algeciras, the large Spanish port near the entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar. Ibn Al Jamal quietly urged the crew back to their battle stations. When every station was manned, he called the stern torpedo crew and gave them what he sometimes thought of as his “patriotic talk number two” about Allah, Algeria, and the revolutionary brotherhood, encouraging them to do their job quietly, thoroughly, and professionally.
He nodded to the plotting team watching him. He saw the questions in their eyes. When informed by the watch officer that the stern torpedo crew was ready, and he was satisfied the plotting team knew the importance of their role, he gave the order to launch.
From the stern tubes, in controlled sequence, magnetic acoustic influence mines, designed by the long-dead Soviet Union and propelled by compressed air, shot out. They traveled nearly twenty meters before inertia took over and gravity pulled the rusty weapons to the bottom. In the control room, the plotting team marked on the chart each mine’s location.
It would be three hours before internal programs activated the mines. A magnetic detection of a target would turn on a sound analysis system where preset decibel levels would determine if the mines would attack. Modern mines were nothing like the floating balls dotted with sensitive pins used during World War II. Modern mines were computerized, capable of determining when, and if, to explode.
They could count the number of ships passing overhead or the number of blades on a propeller. They could be programmed to attack on any combination of aural and magnetic factors. They were truly the weapons of choice for a secret war at sea. Even if one of them were recovered, they could not be traced to Algeria — only to the Soviet Union … and the Soviet Union was dead.
These were the only mines of this sophistication in the Algerian inventory. When the sensors of the mines agreed, and the computer program directed, they would separate from their weights and, like small torpedoes, home toward the propellers of their target. Mines, unlike torpedoes, attacked from below and the chance of detecting them prior to impact was minute. Even if an astute surface ASW operator serendipitously detected the ascent, a surface ship would have little opportunity to avoid the initial hit.
He changed the course of Al Nasser slightly and commenced a zigzag transit through the Strait of Gibraltar. The Kilo submarine carried eighteen mines and nine torpedoes, unlike the Al Solomon, which waited for the Americans with a full complement of eighteen torpedoes.
He envied Al Solomon, in a professional way. When the American carrier task force arrived, and he knew it would, A/ Solomon would be the sword of the revolution, protecting the Barbary Coast against America’s might. The Al Solomon would be the first obstacle to stop America from returning in strength to the Mediterranean. When Ibn Al Jamal finished here, tonight, the Mediterranean would be sealed to the American Navy and the success of the “plan” would be assured. Only the small American amphibious task force would stand between them and ultimate victory.