Ohio Class

21

"Range to target… sixteen hundred meters!" the weapons officer shouted. "Outer torpedo tube doors open!"

"Fire torpedo one!" Captain Damavandi ordered.

A sharp hiss, and a lurch, as the torpedo erupted from Ghadir's bow.

"Tube one fired electrically!"

"Fire two!"

"Tube two fired electrically."

Damavandi turned to Tavakkoli, his exec. "We have him."

"Thanks be to Allah!"

Damavandi glanced at Khodaei, who was standing nearby. "Yes."

"Torpedo one has acquired the target, Captain," the weapons officer announced. A moment later, "Torpedo two has also acquired!"

"Cut the wires," Damavandi ordered. "Helm! Bring us left to course one-eight-five. Maneuvering, ahead full!"

By using every stealthy trick he'd learned from his Russian teachers, by virture of the Ghadir's superb battery-driven silence — and, yes, by the grace of Allah the Mighty in Battle — they'd been able to sneak up on the American giant. The moment they'd sent out that ranging ping, however, the enemy captain had heard them and become aware of his danger. If he had a torpedo ready and loaded, he might execute what the Americans called a snapshot, in an effort to kill the Ghadir. By turning south and accelerating to full speed, Damavandi hoped to preserve Ghadir's tactical freedom, giving the Iranian sub space and depth within which to maneuver.

The American didn't have that freedom. He was close up against shallow water — Lieutenant Shirazi had reported sounds of the enemy vessel scraping bottom moments ago — and he was at a dead stop. If he bolted, if he ran for open water, he risked running solidly aground, and then the Iranian navy would have the ultimate prize, an American nuclear submarine as hostage, as bargaining chip, as propaganda victory… even as a source for a working nuclear reactor. Iranian nuclear research would be bootstrapped forward by years.

That possibility, Damavandi knew, had been endlessly discussed by the higher-ups within the Iranian Ministry of Defense. For a time, Operation Bold Fire had included a scenario — wishful thinking, so far as he was concerned — of using Iranian submarines to drive an intruder American submarine aground, capturing it instead of destroying it. Ultimately, that scenario had been dropped as something too uncertain, too dependent on too many variables, to work. Surely, the Americans would not be so stupid as to risk one of their nuclear vessels so close in to shore.

But it appeared that chance — or Allah — had just delivered precisely that opportunity squarely into Damavandi's hands.

For a time, as he'd quietly followed the slow-moving enemy vessel north, he'd considered approaching the enemy with active sonar blasting away, hoping to startle him into a rash movement that would put him aground. He'd decided against that, however. The American submarine forces were well-trained and, while incredibly bold — if some of the tales told by their Russian colleagues were true — were not given to rashness or to panic. An all-out charge by the Ghadir would be as likely to elicit a torpedo as flight.

Damavandi had chosen, therefore, to raise his radio mast and transmit a coded message to Bandar Abbas and to all Iranian ASW forces in the area, alerting them to the American's presence between Forur and Qeys Islands, and then to prepare to fire torpedoes.

The American submarine had been fully submerged at the time; it should not have heard the radio call. Luck — or just possibly divine providence — was most assuredly working to the advantage of Iran this day.

By firing two torpedoes at the enemy, he'd done his best to cover all eventualities. If the enemy sub ran, the torpedoes might sink him, would almost certainly cripple him, possibly in water so shallow that salvage of the secrets of the American nuclear reactor would be easy. If anything could make the American captain act in a hasty or rash way, it was word that two Russian-made torpedoes were bearing down on him.

There was an excellent chance that he would run aground after all.

Either way, the rest of the ASW forces in the Charak Bay region were heading this way at flank speed.

"Torpedo one is closing with the enemy, Captain!" the weapons officer called. "He's still moving slowly. Impact in thirty seconds!"

For this American submarine captain, there was no escape now….

"Torpedo impact in thirty seconds, Captain! Range six hundred!"

"Release countermeasures!"

"Countermeasures released."

Stewart watched the bulkhead clock, as sweat beaded on his forehead and upper lip. He'd already ordered ahead flank; the trouble was that just as it took time to stop eighteen thousand tons already moving forward, it took time to get eighteen thousand tons moving from a dead stop.

Thank God, however, he'd already ordered the Ohio to swing around with her screw toward the beach, to save time once they'd picked up the SEALs. By accelerating straight out the way they'd come in, they shouldn't run aground.

But those torpedoes had been fired almost at point-blank range, for submarine combat, and Ohio wouldn't cover much ground before they arrived. Unless divine providence came through with another miracle, they were going to be in trouble a lot deeper than the water around them very shortly now.

"Control Room, Sonar! Torpedo one appears to have lost its lock! I think it's going for the decoy!"

"Please, God, make it so," Shea said at his side.

They waited. There was nothing else to do.

Russian ASW torpedoes could be set to travel at one of two speeds — slow, for long chases in order to conserve fuel, and fast, for short ranges. This one was running at better than forty knots — high speed — and its simple-minded on-board processor had focused on the expanding cloud of bubbles.

Traveling northwest, it streaked through the bubble cloud, losing its targeting lock. According to programming, it began to go into a turn, entering a search pattern to reacquire its lost target.

At forty-plus knots, though, it could not turn within a tight radius. Seconds after passing the decoy cloud, it entered rapidly shoaling water and, as it began turning, it entered shallower water still.

Northeast of Qeys Island was a sandbar and coral reef that very nearly reached the surface….

Tangretti sat in the near darkness of the ASDS, exhausted, cold, aching in every bone and joint of his body. It was always this way at the end of an op. As the adrenaline began to leave his system, he began feeling the stress and strain of the exertion.

It had taken twenty minutes to motor out to the waiting ASDS, which had come up until its upper deck was awash. They'd transferred their gear down the upper hatch in a pitching sea, knifed the empty CRRCs to send them to the bottom, and clambered aboard.

The second platoon, Delta Two, was already on board. They'd completed their missile-launcher hunt on the headland south of Bandar-e Charak yesterday, and returned to the ASDS early that evening. For the next hour and half, or a bit more, the ASDS had made its slow way south across Charak Bay. They should now be within a mile or so of their rendezvous with the Ohio. If anything was going to go wrong on this op, now was the time….

The sudden boom transmitted through the water and the minisub's hull brought all of the SEALs up short. "What the hell was that?" Avery cried.

"Depth charges!" Wilson said. He looked scared.

"Whatever it is, it's not depth charges," Tangretti told them. "And we're not the target."

"If not us, who? Olivetti asked. "Maybe they're shooting at our ride!"

" Ohio can take care of herself," Tangretti said.

He wondered, though, how true that was in shallow water, surrounded by half the Iranian navy.

The crack of an underwater explosion close astern thundered through the Ohio, and sent the long vessel surging ahead like a surfboard riding a wave. Overpressure caused pipes to burst in several compartments. In the control room an overhead pipe suddenly gave way, sending a white stream of high-pressure water blasting across the compartment.

Two enlisted men, well-trained, thoroughly drilled, and with many hours experience in the submarine casualty simulator at New London, Connecticut, with exactly this sort of event — a "casualty," in submariner terminology — leaped for the broken pipe, wrestling a clamp into place against the torrent and tightening it shut. In seconds the water had stopped.

"Good job!" Stewart commended the soaking wet men. "Mr. Jarrett! What do you have for me?"

"Reports still coming in," Ohio's damage control officer reported. "No injuries so far. A few busted pipes. Nothing major."

"Keep on it. Sonar! Where's that second fish?"

"Locked onto us again, Captain! Seven hundred yards… closing fast! Forty seconds to impact!"

"Maneuvering! What's our speed?

"Now passing twenty knots, Captain. We're at all ahead flank, making revs for twenty-five."

"Control, Sonar. Incoming torpedo now at four hundred… three-five-zero…. "

"Release countermeasures."

"Countermeasures released."

"Helm! Come left four-five degrees!"

"Helm, come left four-five degrees, aye aye, sir!"

"Torpedo at two-zero-zero yards… "

"Release countermeasures."

"Countermeasures released."

"Torpedo still tracking us, Captain," Sonar reported. "Sonar, this is the Captain. Which side is it coming in on?"

"S-Sir?"

"Is that you, Caswell?"

"Yes, Captain!"

"Caswell, which side of the boat is that torpedo homing on? Port or starboard? Or is coming straight up our ass, dead center?"

There was a moment's hesitation. "Sir! It's slightly to port!"

That made sense. Their last maneuver, turning to port forty-five degrees, would have put the Iranian torpedo off Ohio's port stern quarter.

"Torpedo range, one hundred yards!"

Fifteen seconds, a hair less… allowing for Ohio's forward velocity.

Silently, he began counting….

"You guys okay back there?" Mayhew asked, ducking his head in through the aft lockout chamber hatch.

"Sure thing, Wheel," Tangretti replied. "What's all the racket up there?"

"Don't know yet. We've been picking up a lot of active sonar. I think the bad guys have been hunting for the Ohio. That explosion… well, that might be what it was."

"Hey, Wheel?"

"What is it, Olivetti?"

"If the bad guys got the Ohio, how are we supposed to get back?"

"We'll swim back if we have to. What do you think?"

"Sure," Tangretti added. "Manama and the Fifth Fleet are just 230 miles that way, as the SEAL swims."

"If anything happens to our ride," Mayhew added, "they'll come get us. Patrol boats. Rescue helos. Something. They're not going to leave us out here. Okay? They're not going to forget us."

"Okay, Wheel."

Mayhew pulled back through the hatch, dogging it behind them — a precaution in case the ASDS found itself in battle and one or another of its compartments started to flood. The SEALs aft were left alone with uneasy thoughts.

Of course the Navy wasn't going to forget them. Still, from the fragmentary reports they'd heard while ashore at OP Tamarind, it sounded like a major shooting war had broken out, and if the Iranians were taking shots at the Ohio, that war had just escalated, big-time. The safest bet, probably, would be to turn the ASDS around and get back to shore… the Iranian shore. The ASDS had a maximum range limited by its battery life, and must be running close to empty already. Ashore, they could dig in, call for help, and wait.

Here, in the Gulf, they were helpless. Sitting ducks when their air ran out and they had to surface.

Of course, the real sitting ducks at the moment were the officers and crew of the Ohio, a mile or so to the south….

"Fifty yards! Sir, it's on top of us!"

"Helm! Come right forty-five degrees!"

He could hear it now, a faint, high-pitched whine, approaching from astern and to port. A second later and they all heard a loud thump, followed by a grating sound, like something heavy and metallic dragging along the port side, moving forward. The sound stopped… and then there was a second thump, and a third.

The torpedo was scraping along the Ohio's left side.

It wouldn't have worked if the Iranians had fired a wake-homing torpedo at them, or if they had used a proximity fuse on the warhead. In either case, the torpedo would have detonated by now, and Ohio would be sinking, or, at the very least, would be seriously damaged.

And it would not have worked had Stewart not been able to rely on his sonar crew's sharp ears and sharper interpretation of their data. Caswell's ears had let him time the maneuvers perfectly: turning left, first, to bring the incoming torpedo toward that side of the sub, then turning away at the very last moment, so that when the torpedo hit, it did so at such an oblique angle that the impact trigger in the nose didn't fire.

For several long seconds the men on Ohio's control room deck strained to hear the silence.

"Sonar. What's happened to the torpedo?"

"It's gone silent, sir. I heard one sharp clank, like maybe the screw fouled on a steering vane. Its homing sonar is dead, too. I don't hear a thing."

"Keep listening. Helm, continue the turn to starboard. Come to course two-nine-zero."

"Continue hard right to course two-nine-zero, aye aye."

At his side, Shea let out a long, pent-up breath. "My God, Skipper. You know how to time 'em tight! Did I just hear a 533mm torpedo bounce off our side?"

"Thank Caswell. That kid deserves a medal after this."

"Control Room, Sonar! I have Sierra Three-three-nine on passive. Passing us to starboard at seventeen knots!"

Good.

"Helm, come right to new course one-eight-zero!"

"Come right to new course one-eight-zero, aye aye, sir!"

"Maneuvering, make revs for one-zero knots!"

"Maneuvering, making revolutions for one-zero knots, aye, Captain."

A Kilo had a top speed underwater of seventeen knots, and Stewart was willing to bet that the new Iranian Ghadir-class, based on the same design, could do no better. By continuing the turn, he would put Ohio on the Iranian sub's tail, in his baffles, and at ten knots, Ohio's sonar would be able to hear the other vessel.

"Weapons Officer! Lock onto Sierra Three-three-nine. Prepare to fire tubes one and three."

"Lock onto Sierra Three-three-nine, aye, Captain. Tubes one and three are loaded and ready to fire."

"Control Room! Sonar! I have aircraft close overhead! Splash to starboard!"

That splash could be sonobuoys, dropped to pinpoint Ohio's position… or it could be antisubmarine torpedoes. There was no time to prosecute the attack against the Iranian sub. Time was critical, and he acted without hesitation.

"Maneuvering! Ahead flank!"

Maneuvering repeated and acknowledged, and Ohio sped forward, accelerating to 25 knots. Ping! Ping!

A sonobuoy, then. But a torpedo might follow at any moment.

"Snapshot, tube one, Sierra Three-three-nine!" He could at least send a fish streaking after the Iranian sub, just to return the favor. "Helm! Come left to one-five-zero!" That was to avoid slamming into the Iranian boat from behind.

No plan survives contact with the enemy, Stewart thought.

And in this case, with the plan to pick up the SEALs in their ASDS, that was quite literally true.

Lieutenant Commander Hawking, too, had heard the explosion, though it was muffled and far off. At that moment he was nearly forty miles southeast of Ohio's position, leading several Iranian surface vessels on a high-speed chase that they could not possibly win. When he heard the distant rumble, however, and checked the bearing on his sonar, he knew that either Ohio had just taken a shot at someone… or that someone else had taken a shot at the Ohio.

Either way meant serious trouble.

Easing back on the control stick, he let the Manta rise toward the surface. A moment later the canopy broke through the water, giving him a brief glimpse of the world above.

The sky was quite light now, with sunrise just minutes away. He could easily see the nearest Iranian vessel, an Alvand-class light patrol frigate, a thousand yards away.

Splashes geysered out of the sea nearby as the frigate opened fire with its 37mm twin antiaircraft mount. Alvands mounted surface-to-surface Sea Killer missiles and an ASW mortar, too, and Hawking didn't want to be the one providing the Iranian sailors marksmanship practice. Pushing the stick forward and accelerating, he slipped back beneath the surface, as rounds continued to pop and hiss nearby. Within thirty seconds, however, he was rocketing through the black depths at eighty knots, easily twice the frigate's top speed, leaving the confused Iranians far behind.

He didn't want to push the speed higher than that. His fuel cells were already weakening, requiring a recharge, and the faster he went, the faster he drained them. But at eighty knots he would be back at the Ohio within thirty minutes.

"Hang on, boys," he said aloud. "It's the cavalry to the rescue!"

The question was whether he would get there in time… or if Ohio had already been sent to the bottom.

An aide held out the telephone receiver, and Admiral Mehdi Baba-Janzadeh took it and held it to his ear. What, he wondered, would bring the Supreme Leader onto the phone in person? "Yes, sir. Admiral Baba-Janzadeh speaking."

"Yes, Admiral," Khamenei said on the other end. "We have been receiving disturbing reports here from Bandar Abbas."

"Yes, sir." Of course they had. Baba-Janzadeh himself had ordered the reports forwarded directly to the Supreme Leader's bunker.

"Explosions. One of our submarines sunk. American submarines off our coast… and the Alvand has just reported an… an unidentified underwater object. Something traveling at impossible speeds. What do you know of this?"

"Sir, we believe the Americans may be using a small, high-speed submarine drone. We're not sure what its capabilities are, but they may be using it to decoy our forces."

"To what end?"

"They remain interested in the special weapons facility at Bandar-e Charak. That, at any rate, is where most of the activity has been centered. We believe the large American submarine may be trying to put naval commandos ashore."

"Indeed. What have you done about this?"

"I have ordered the Twenty-third Regiment to seal off that entire stretch of beach, to either side of the town. And I have ordered helicopter patrols stepped up over the beaches and above the bay itself."

"That seems adequate. This… this unidentified object worries us, however. Alvand's captain was convinced that there were no fewer than three of the things operating in his area."

"Yes, sir. I've seen the report." Alvand's captain, in fact, was prone to exaggeration. It was a wonder he hadn't reported seeing little green aliens driving the thing. "I would not put too much stock in it. In combat conditions, men become excitable. Confused. And eyewitness reports become unreliable."

"I agree." There was a pause. "Except for this… excitement off Bandar-e Charak, Bold Fire appears to be going well. And, as you predicted, we have definite evidence of American submarines operating inside our territorial waters."

"Yes, sir." It would have been better if they had the submarine itself, either run aground and captured, or sunken at the bottom of the Gulf. But the plan had succeeded, at least, to the extent of having provided Tehran with the causus helium it sought.

"We are giving the order to initiate Phase Three."

That took Baba-Janzadeh aback, unprepared. "Sir… is that wise? We may still defeat the Americans without—"

"Do not question your orders, Admiral."

"No, sir." He hesitated. To press the issue might put his career at risk. "It's just that this seems an unwarranted escalation so early in the process."

"Unwarranted? American submarines have entered our territorial waters, conducted missions obviously related to espionage or sabotage, and sunk two of our submarines! They are engaged in combat with our forces as we speak!"

"Yes, sir. But I must point out that, so far, there is evidence of only a single American submarine in the region, and there is an excellent chance that we will have it trapped within the next thirty minutes."

"Admiral, you know as well as I do that the American Fifth Fleet is the object of our exercise in the Gulf, do you not?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. I was afraid you had lost sight of our principle objective! The latest reports show that the American fleet has begun preparations to leave Manama. It is putting to sea… and it may well be heading for our coast to support this lone submarine of which you speak."

Or it could be preparing to leave the Gulf. He doubted that… but it was a possibility. There clearly was no arguing with the Supreme Leader, however, not when he'd worked himself into such a state.

"It is vital, vital, that the Islamic world see us taking on the American Satan and delivering a telling blow! For that reason, I am giving the order to execute Phase Three immediately. You should alert your own commands so that they can be ready for any American reaction… and in order to follow up on the advantage once the strike takes place."

"Yes, sir. I will alert my people immediately."

"Good. I know we can count on you, Admiral." There was a click, and the line was dead.

He handed the phone to the aide, who'd been standing by impassively, without expression.

No, no, he thought. This is premature. We are not ready for this….

Operationally, Phase Three was a direct strike against the American Fifth Fleet stationed at Bahrain. The original concept had actually been far more complex, involving not only Iran's fleet of Chinese Hudong missile boats, but some hundreds of small craft, pleasure boats, even fishing boats outfitted with Sea Eagle missiles, Exocets, and anything else that could be hurled against the enemy giant to bring him down.

As planning had progressed, however, the plan had been changed. Khamenei and the people closest to him were fixated on Iran's new intermediate range missile force, the Shahabs. In tests, they'd proven themselves far more accurate and deadly than the unlamented Saddam

Hussein's Scud attacks on Saudi Arabia and Israel sixteen years before.

But Baba-Janzadeh did not have the trust in the new technology others did. The Scuds had failed Saddam badly, not only in their performance overall, but in the backlash of public opinion worldwide against him.

At least Khamenei and his sycophants hadn't insisted on making this a nuclear strike. Baba-Janzadeh had argued long and hard that the special weapons at Bandar-e Charak should be held back, that simply the idea of them made them a deterrent.

Phase Three as originally conceived would have been more sure of success, he thought. Hundreds of missiles flying at the American fleet from all directions, instead of a few dozen. And there was such powerful symbology in the death blow to the enemy being delivered by small and relatively low-tech forces.

But missiles were the ultimate symbols of modern warfare. Technology against technology.

All he could do was alert the other commands to Khamenei's intent. The special weapons, controlled entirely by the IRGC fanatics, were not under his operational control anyway. After that he would focus all of his attention on the battle unfolding outside of Charak Bay, as Iranian naval forces closed in at last on the American intruder.

He reached again for the phone.