The submarine’s lights were extinguished. Hamid and his two young sailors were left in the dark, their ears ringing from the small-arms fire. The Iranian patrol craft floated slowly away from the sub.
“Hamid, what do you want us to do?” one of his sailors asked. The boy had just taken in the lines and was standing near the bow. He was shaken.
Behind him, out of the distant darkness, a brilliant segment of yellow light arced towards them. It looked beautiful at first. Like a shooting star hovering silently over the black abyss of the Persian Gulf. Then Hamid realized what it was. The shooting star would soon transform into a violent tongue of flame.
The silent light show became a torrent of white-hot metal ripping through the patrol craft. When it came into contact with their vessel, hell awoke. The sailor that had just called to Hamid disappeared in a burst of wet reddish spray. Hamid and the other sailor dove behind the small superstructure of the boat. Destruction erupted around them as rounds hit the hull.
Pressing his body down and facing aft, Hamid could see the heavy machine-gun fire that missed his ship. The yellow tracers skipped on the surface of the water like stones on a river. They then bounced up into the night sky and disappeared as the tracer rounds ran out of energy.
The submarine drove away from them. Hamid watched its mast sink below the surface of the water.
In one of the few coherent thoughts he was capable of, he wondered just who was firing at them. Then he heard the ear-splitting sound of his patrol craft’s own machine gun. It was so loud that his chest thumped and his molars rattled with every round that it fired.
He peeked from behind his hiding spot and saw his lone remaining sailor standing behind their patrol craft’s forward-mounted weapon, gripping it with both of his hands and squeezing the two-handed trigger. Hamid was paralyzed with fear. He couldn’t think. He just wanted to be home, with his wife and child.
He clenched his jaw so tight that it hurt. When he thought that their attackers had ceased fire, another group of tracer rounds scattered around them, and then the patrol craft once again burst into chaos as bullets tore through it. Something exploded near the engines and a ten-foot flame rose from the aft end of his boat.
The return fire stopped. Hamid looked around the pilothouse and saw that his second sailor had been killed as well. He smelled something awful and realized that he had soiled himself. Hamid wasn’t sure when that had happened.
His ears still rang, but he could just make out the sound of large diesel engines getting closer.
The tracers had stopped. The pungent smell of gunpowder and diesel fuel filled his nostrils. He looked around in the direction the engine noise was coming from. It was a warship, or a large patrol craft. He couldn’t make out what nationality. They would be here shortly.
Hamid realized what that meant. He thought of Pakvar and of what he would do if he were captured. Hamid realized that he couldn’t allow that to happen. His family’s safety was at stake. For a moment, he thought of trying to take his own life.
In the reflection of the moonlight, he could now make out the mast and superstructure of a US Navy destroyer racing toward him.
He needed to get away. Perhaps if he could just escape before they arrived to search his boat, they wouldn’t find him? Hamid walked up to the bow of his ship and looked it over. It was torn up and burning. He reached down and grabbed an orange life vest and strapped it on. He could feel his boat listing badly, and he imagined that it must have been taking on water. He wasn’t sure how long it would stay afloat.
He climbed up the ladder to the pilothouse and clutched a radio in his hands. He turned the knob all the way to the right and began to let out a distress call. But the sound on the radio was unlike anything he had heard before.
It was a definite radio transmission, but it was electronic junk. He changed the frequency, but it was the same on every other channel.
At first he thought that his radio was broken. One of the American bullets must have hit the antennae. Or perhaps someone was jamming it? Why would the Americans do this? It didn’t matter. He would not be able to send a distress signal.
His only hope was to be rescued by one of his fellow IRGCN sailors. There was no telling what Pakvar would do to his family if he were taken by the Americans.
Hamid removed the small life raft from under the starboard storage area and pulled the inflation cord. The yellow single-person raft immediately filled up with pressurized air. He walked over to the rim of his boat and placed it in the water, ready to hop in.
He took one more look over at the remains of his two sailors. The aft end of the patrol boat was taking on a lot of water now. He took his first step into the lifeboat.
Then the world went white and silent.
He came to moments later, unsure how long he had been unconscious. He floated in the sea, dozens of meters away from where he last remembered being.
Through bloody, blurry eyes, he saw the remains of his patrol craft. It had been obliterated. Small flames covered what was left. He turned away, trying to swim, then realized that he was missing an arm.
Horror struck him upon the discovery, but he was pleased to find that he felt no pain. Just a coldness that was sweeping through his body. He looked away from the fiery wreckage.
He could just make out a strange object in the distance, protruding out of the water. It was barely illuminated by the flames of his own vessel. The object looked like a pole sticking up from the sea.
He tried to think. Hamid was getting colder and more tired. But he knew that shape. What was it? It was far away, and through the blur and disorientation, he could barely process the thought.
A periscope. It was a periscope.
He thought of what Pakvar had whispered to him that night. The night that had started this prison sentence. He’d whispered it just before throwing the switch and burning that poor man and his family in the oven. Hamid realized that the Chinese submarine must have fired upon his vessel. They, too, had followed Pakvar’s code.
No one can know of our secrets.
Chapter 2
Chase Manning watched as a dark green military pickup truck raced towards them, leaving a cloud of desert sand in its wake.
The man he was with nodded towards it and said, “I think somebody’s looking for one of us.”
Chase examined the vehicle through his protective sunglasses. “Fun’s over, I guess. Back to work.”
He double-checked that his MP-5 was in SAFE, and then placed it on the wooden bench before rolling up his target and collecting his shells. He thumbed through the sand to make sure he got them all.
“Christ, Chase, you ever miss?”
His companion, also a member of the CIA’s Special Operations Group, looked at Chase’s target. A group of holes was scattered in the very center of the inner black circle.
He smiled at his friend. “Not unless I mean to.”
“Guess I owe you another beer.”
“How many do you owe me now?”
“Too many. Who taught you to shoot?”
“The Navy.”
“Ah. Don’t say things like that. It makes it so much worse.”
Chase chuckled. Almost all of the SOG guys were former military. Most were former Army. Military branch rivalry jokes were commonplace.
The green Ford F350 came to a halt just behind where they were standing. They were the only ones using this gun range. A uniformed US Air Force technical sergeant got out.
“Chase Manning?”
“Yeah?”
“Sir, they need you over at Center. I can drive you, sir.” He motioned to his vehicle.