Shadows of Steel

Crowley had just maneuvered his F-14 behind the KA-6D tanker and was setting up for the run in toward the lighted drogue when suddenly they heard, “All units, all units, pop-up bogeys bearing zero-two-zero, two-seven-five miles bull’s-eye, angels twenty, speed six-zero-zero-knots, all Aardvark units, say fuel status and stand by.”

“121 flight’s on the hose, ten-point-one!” Crowley shouted as he rushed toward the drogue for at least a token on-load. But the harder he tried to plug the drogue, the worse he did. He finally got the tanker to fly straight and level for longer than normal so he could plug the drogue; he took a fast five thousand pounds and cycled off. “121’s clear.”

“121, vector to intercept new bogey one, heading zero-five-zero, angels forty,” the combat controller aboard a different E-2C Hawkeye ordered. Crowley finally realized that the new voice was from the new Hawkeye just launched to cover north of the Lincoln carrier group—sure enough, another Tu-22M Backfire bomber had sneaked in and was now within 250 miles of the carrier! “Go single ship, 122 will follow in trail.”

“121 copies,” Crowley responded, banking to the vector heading and again pushing his throttles up to military power. “Wallbanger, be advised, 121 will be bingo fuel in two-zero mike, I only got a token on-load. I’m down two Ps.”

“Copy that, 121, break, Aardvark-122, top ‘em off, you’ll be the only north CAP when your leader bingos. Say your state.

122 copies, I’m down two Ps also. I’m on the hose.”

Crowley’s RIO wasn’t able to lock the second Tupolev22M until it was within 250 miles from the carrier and just over 100 miles ahead. “Stand by for Kitchens, home plate,” Crowley yelled.

“Stand by!”

But the Tu-22M continued to barrel in, now traveling at well over the speed of sound. “Wallbanger, 121, do you want me on the Backfire or do you want me to wait on the Kitchens?”

“Stand by, 121 …”

“You better hurry with an answer, Wallbanger,” Crowley said. He was now within range to fire on the Backfire bomber itself, but it had not launched a missile. “Wallbanger, let’s hear it!”

Just before Crowley was in position to launch, the combat controller aboard the E-2C Hawkeye responded, “Bandit one turning … bandit one now heading two-seven-five, angels forty, looks like he’s bugging out … 121, home plate says hold fire and maintain contact.”

“Copy, Wallbanger. I will …”

“Missile launch!” Matte suddenly shouted. “The Backfire’s launching missiles!”

It had happened so fast, Crowley didn’t see it happening, and they were expecting another attack on the carrier, not on anything else. Before anyone could react, the Backfire bomber had launched four missiles—not at the carrier, but all of them at the third E-2C Hawkeye radar plane that had just launched from the Lincoln.

The missiles were new Russian Novator KS-172 Pithon “Python” air-to-air missiles, designed specifically for use against airborne radar planes and intelligence-gathering aircraft by homing in on their radars and electromagnetic emissions—they could even home in on the stray electronic emissions from computer screens leaking through the cockpit or observation windows.

Flying at a speed of Mach two and fired from a distance of well over two hundred miles, the Pithon missiles were devastating weapons. Even though the E-2C shut off its radar and took evasive action, the missiles “remembered” the plane’s last position and activated its onboard radar when it got within range. Then it could not miss. All four Pithon missiles plowed into the Hawkeye’s twenty-foot rotodome, stripping it from the fuselage and sending the entire aircraft spinning into the sea.

Crowley could do nothing as the third Wallbanger aircraft abruptly went off the air. He immediately turned to pursue, even plugging in full afterburner to try to catch up, but he never got within Phoenix missile range of the retreating Backfire bomber, and within minutes was forced to return to the tanker.

THE WHITE House OVAL OFFICE 25 APRIL 1997, 1321 HOURs ET

“Do we know that it was an Iranian Backfire bomber?” the President of the United States asked in a low, bitter voice. “Positive ID …?”

“We didn’t get a visual ID, sir,” Philip Freeman replied. Freeman had called the President out of a Rose Garden bill-signing ceremony, and now they were back in the Oval Office, with the President scanning a written report on the Gulf of Oman incident.

“But its size was estimated by the radar operators, and based on the range at which it was detected, it had to be a large aircraft.

Combine its speed and altitude, then add in the flight characteristics of the missiles it launched—we’re ninety-nine percent sure it was an Iranian Backfire bomber.”

“What in our inventory could do something like that?”

“The B-1B Lancer bomber has a very similar flight profile,” Freeman replied. “The F-111, F-15, F-16, or F-22 fighters could mimic a Backfire’s speed and performance, but not its range or payload.

We have nothing like the AS-4 Kitchen missile—all of our cruise missiles are subsonic.”

“What about other countries? What about China?”

“The Chinese have a bomber, the B-6D Badger, that Possibly could mimic the speed of the Backfire bomber,” Freeman said. “They have one supersonic anti-ship cruise missile, but it has a much shorter range than the AS-4 Kitchen missile—forty miles versus two hundred miles. Iraq and Libya also fly the Backfire bomber, but none are reported to be in serviceable condition, and neither country is known to possess any supersonic cruise missiles. Pakistan’s F-16 fighter might be able to mimic the speed and performance of a Backfire bomber, but it could not carry any cruise missiles with the performance of an AS-4 missile.

“Russia of course still flies the Backfire and its upgraded follow-on supersonic bomber, the Tu-145 Blackjack. Ukraine owns several Backfire and Blackjack bombers acquired from Russia, but it is uncertain if they are operational.

Russia also still possesses the AS-4, a few of the AS-6, and the AS-9 supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles.”

“You’re saying Russia might have done this?”

“Extremely unlikely, sir,” Freeman said, shaking his head. “At best, the Russians keep twenty-five percent of their supersonic bombers flyable—they were selling off their Backfire bombers to anyone in the world that might be interested, and they didn’t squawk too loudly when Ukraine claimed the Blackjack bombers.

Given what’s happened in Iran in the past few days with the establishment of martial law and the suspension of President Nateq-Nouri by the Ayatollah Khamenei, I think Iran is the most likely culprit.” He paused for a moment, then asked, “Do you want us to be positive before we go further?”

“Hell no, Philip, I’m damned positive,” the President said resolutely. “I don’t need a bomb to fall on me to figure out that this is Buzhazi’s attempt to scare us away. But you said you’re still looking for the Backfire bomber base …?”

“It should be much easier to find them now, sir,” Freeman said.

“The Navy was able to track the Backfires well inside Iran after their attack, and we’ve had many more surveillance assets in place looking for them. Jon Masters launched two constellations of tactical reconnaissance satellites himself—just gave us the satellites. Once Space Command picked out an orbit for them, Masters put them up there. He’s got every airfield in Iran capable of landing a Backfire bomber under constant surveillance.”

“Good,” the President said. “I want to meet Masters one of these days, after this is over. Now,” the President went on, fixing a serious gaze on his National Security Advisor, “it’s important to me to hit back without starting a huge, full-scale war in the Middle East. The allies and the oil companies are already jumpy enough—oil prices are already spiking. Now, I know it was this Intelligence Support Agency group that launched those ‘screamer’ missiles, but I f, want to start shutting down Iran’s ability to make war, not just harass them. What have you got?”

“We’re already sending Future Hight the entire Disruptor series of weapons,” Freeman said. “Brad Elliott’s Disruptors don’t just screw with radars and sensors—they can do a lot of damage as well.”

“I never thought I’d be saying this, Philip—it sounds like a bad movie,” the President said, “but it’s the truth: I want this to look like an accident. When Masters finds those BACKfire bombers, I want them grounded, for good—and I want it to look like an accident. If that Iranian carrier comes anywhere near the Lincoln or any American warship, I want it on the bottom of end Saudi or Turkey, I want a major military headquarters building in Tehran to grow a large jagged hole in its middle—and I want it to look like an accident. Can you do that?”

“I understand completely, sir,” Freeman said. “And, yes, I think we can.”

“Good. Keep me advised, day or night, before any operation starts, but you’ve got the green light,” the President said, straightening his tie and getting ready to head back to the reception following the Rose Garden bill-signing ceremony. “Get the forces moving, then brief me as soon as you can; I want to OK each mission before the B-2A crosses into hostile airspace.

“This operation is to be quiet, deniable, and squeaky clean, General, but most of all, I want Iran to pay for shooting down our aircraft, the sons of bitches—attacking unarmed support aircraft is the lowest act any military man can do, and I want Buzhazi to feel it right in his damned groin. Get to it, Philip.”

General Philip Freeman was almost embarrassed by the enthusiasm he felt as he headed to the White House Situation Room to issue his orders to the Intelligence Support Agency. No more “disruptions,” no more “screamers”—the President wanted Iran’s war-making machine shut down, piece by piece, and that’s exactly what was going to happen.

ANDERSEN AIR FORCE BASE, GUAM 26 APRIL 1997, 1625 HOURS LOCAL

Jon Masters didn’t knock—he never knocked. He always burst into a room, day or night, and started talking as if the conversation had already started minutes before. This time, it was in the middle of a briefing being given by Colonel Dominguez on the maintenance status of the B-2A Spirit stealth bomber.

“Okay, so we got them. What we did, General,” Masters said breathlessly, “was simple: we launched two NIRTSat boosters, each carrying four Pacer Sky digital photo intelligence satellites, over Iran. We targeted each and every Iranian airfield, civilian or military, longer than forty-five hundred feet long and one hundred fifty feet wide, capable of handling something like a Tu-22M Backfire bomber. We took pictures of each airfield every sixty to ninety minutes. Of course, the Iranians didn’t know we launched these satellites—heck, nobody knew we launched them except you and me. We hit pay dirt.”

Griffith and Dominguez leapt to their feet and followed Masters down the hall of the fourth floor of the Thirteenth Air Force headquarters building, which was now occupied by the members of the Air Intelligence Agency and Future Flight for the B-2A missions against Iran. When everyone was in place and the door closed and locked behind them, Masters clicked the button on his display controller. The large-screen computer monitor showed an overhead view of a very large airport. “They can run, but they couldn’t hide,” Masters said proudly. “Sky Masters comes through again.”

Jon Masters’s NIRTSats (Need it Right This Second Satellites) were small devices, smaller than a washing machine, but capable of photographing a dog from 200 miles in space clearly enough to discern the breed. Four photo-reconnaissance NIRTSats, code-named Pacer Sky, could be loaded aboard a small two-stage scissor-winged rocket booster Masters called ALARM (for Air-Launched Alert Response Missile), and two such ALARM boosters could be loaded aboard Masters’s specially designed DC-10 aircraft. The DC-10 would take the ALARM boosters up to 40,000 feet, then drop them one by one. The DC-10 acted as the boosters’ first-stage engine—the booster’s two stages would fly the missile up as high as 400 miles in space, where the satellites would be inserted in their proper orbit. In this way, Masters could give almost any battlefield commander a complete reconnaissance, surveillance, and communications satellite network in a matter of hours.

Today, however, Masters wasn’t under a government or commercial contract to launch NIRTSats over Iran—this he was doing for himself.

“Beghin Airport, near Kerman, Iran, about two hundred fifty miles north of Bandar Abbas,” Masters went on. “Two hours after the attack on the Lincoln carrier group, we photographed this.” He directed a laser-beam pointer on the screen, then clicked another button, which zoomed the image down around the laser-beam point.

Magnified in the image was the unmistakable outline of a B-1B Lancer-type aircraft, with a long, pointed nose, slender body, and thin wings swept back very close to its fuselage.

“There’s your Tupolev-22M bomber base, folks: Beghin Airport—at least it’s one of them.” Masters zoomed the image out until the entire airport could be seen. “With the wings folded, those hangars there can accommodate six Backfires, two per hangar, so we’re still missing at least six more. I’m setting up round-the-clock surveillance on Beghin, and I’m still beating the bushes for the other six bombers.”

“Thank you, Jon,” Major General Brien Griffith, Commander of the U.S. Air Force Air Intelligence Agency, said. “Good work.”

“My extreme friggin’ pleasure, sir,” Masters said acidly. “The data’s been relayed to McLanahan and Jamieson via Sheila MacNichol was just returning from the ladies’ room that afternoon—her sixth month of pregnancy seemed like one endless trip to the bathroom—and was returning to her desk in the 722nd Air Refueling Wing commander’s office, where she was “flying a desk,” grounded from her regular job as an Air Force Reserve KC-10 copilot and now acting as the wing executive officer, when she noticed the scared, almost panicked look on the face of the wing commander’s civilian secretary. Instantly her throat turned dry, and the baby kicked, and she felt as if her knees were going to give way.

Even before the secretary got to her feet and headed toward her; even before she saw the door to the wing commander’s office open and the general emerge, his face ashen and drawn; even before she saw the base chaplain and the squadron commander recognize her and open their mouths in surprise and dread—she knew Scotty was dead.

Sheila’s husband Major Scott MacNichol was one of the best, most experienced KC-10 Extender tanker pilots in the U.S. Air Force, a veteran of over four hundred sorties, some over enemy territory, in the “tanker war” during Desert Shield and Desert Storm, a dedicated, knowledgeable flight commander and instructor pilot.

No mission was too tough or impossible. The unspoken rule “never volunteer” was MILSTAR, fed right into their attack computers. They’ll be over the target in ten hours.”

Such ferocity looked so out of place for a young-looking guy like Masters, Griffith thought, but he had undergone much in the last few days—including nearly losing his life at the hands of the Iranian navy. This young man had the technology, the money, and the desire to make Iran pay dearly for what they had done.

RIVERSIDE, CALIFORNIA THAT SAME TIME First Lieutenant her sixth trip to unheard of in Scotty’s lexicon—he volunteered for everything. He enjoyed, relished, rejoiced, in putting his 600,000pound tanker-transport plane in the tightest spots, the most difficult missions, the shortest runways, the most hazardous jobs.

He had been awarded the Air Medal with two oak-leaf clusters for his service in Desert Storm—very, very unusual for an aircraft that was never supposed to be in enemy territory. Scotty would go in and get his receivers if there was the slightest hint of trouble. There were only forty KC-10 tankers in the world, but as a “force multiplier,” able to refuel both Air Force, Navy, Marines, and many foreign aircraft, it was worth a hundred times its number—too valuable to risk over Indian country. But Scotty went there.

Damn him, Sheila cursed silently, he did this on purpose! When the baby came, she thought, he knew he was going to be asked to give up all the TDY, all the long weeks of traveling to exotic foreign destinations, all the secret missions, the sudden midnight phone calls, the hastily packed mobility bags—packing cold-weather gear when it was ninety degrees out. She knew he wasn’t going to have fun in Hawaii while she stayed home with the backaches and swollen feet and hemorrhoids. He wanted to get all his excitement, all his heroics in before he was asked to settle down and be a regular dad, a regular guy, for the first time in his life.

The wing commander motioned her inside his office and helped her sit down. Sheila knew the chaplain and the squadron commander, of course, so she got right to it: “Scotty … is dead?”

“His plane suffered an unknown, catastrophic failure of some kind over the Gulf of Oman,” the wing commander said. “His plane was lost with all aboard. I’m so sorry, Lieutenant.

Sheila tried not to cry, but the tears came unbidden, and then the sobbing. She didn’t mean to do that, in front of the wing king and the squadron commander and the chaplain, but it was happening, and she couldn’t stop it until she heard the wing commander ask his secretary to call for an ambulance to stand by out front, and Sheila decided she wasn’t going to have any of that, so she stopped.

“A … a catastrophic failure, sir? What kind? A bird strike?

Compressor failure? Fuel-system malfunction?” Everyone in this room was an experienced KC-10 driver except for the chaplain, and even he had a couple hundred hours in one—why was he being so obtuse? Probably because the plane had crashed in the ocean—not much chance to do an accident investigation with the pieces scattered across the seabed. The wing king was in his “comfort the grieving survivors” mode, too, so maybe he wasn’t trying to be so evasive—he wasn’t accustomed to talking to widows about compressor stalls, center-of-gravity violations, or inflight emergencies.

“We don’t know yet, Lieutenant … Sheila,” the general said.

“An investigation is under way.”

“The Gulf of Oman? Why was Scotty out there?” Sheila asked. “I heard temporary flight restrictions were in effect for all airspace within five hundred miles of Iran. What was he doing over the Gulf of Oman?”

The wing commander looked at the chaplain, who let go of Sheila’s hand and stepped away. “Sheila, please, let’s not focus on where Scotty’s plane went down right now, all right? I just want you to know how sorry we are, and that we want to help you through this terrible tragedy.”

“This has to do with Iran, doesn’t it?” Sheila asked, the hurt turning into stone-cold anger. “All the things the government has been saying about how great, how wonderful everything is over in the Middle East, it’s not true, is it …?”

“Lieutenant ..

“The Iranians shot him down, didn’t they, sir?” Sheila asked hotly. “The Iranians shot down my Scotty, flying in an unarmed, vulnerable tanker.”

“Lieutenant, please, I know you’re upset, and I’m sorry, truly sorry, but I’m asking you to keep your opinions to yourself, please!”

“I hope we went in there to bomb the crap out of those rag-heads!” Sheila cried. The paramedics were rushing into the wing commander’s office with a gurney, trying to get her to relax, but Sheila’s heart felt as cold, as heavy, and as still as the child in her womb did right now, and the anger she was releasing felt good, felt right. “I hope my Scotty helped us get those damned Iranian terrorists, dammit. I hope they all burn in hell!”

BEGHIN REGIONAL AIRPORT, KERMAN PROVINCE, IRAN 27 APRIL 1997, 0206 HOURS LOCAL

According to law, all flights landing in Iran had to be on the ground and at their arrival gate by midnight; the last flight into Beghin Regional Airport in central Iran had arrived at ten P.m., and shortly thereafter the airport was all but shut down, leaving only maintenance crews at the airport until sunrise. By two A.M. the airport appeared totally deserted …

… except at the extreme southern end of the airport, south of the 11,000-foot-long, 150-foot-wide northwest-southeast running concrete runway that had been closed to commercial and civil traffic two years earlier. Three large and rather shabby-looking hangars and several smaller buildings sat near that closed runway, in front of a large, completely deserted aircraft parking ramp.

Weeds growing up through the cracks on that parking ramp suggested that the ramp had not supported an aircraft in quite some time.

This was the secret Iranian base for one squadron, six planes, of Iran’s most deadly military aircraft, the Tupolev22M bomber, NATO code-named “Backfire.” The Russian-made supersonic Backfire bomber could reach any target in the Middle East within an hour or, refueled from an Iranian C-707 aerial refueling tanker, could reach targets as far away as Italy or Germany in two hours. It carried a devastating 53,000-pound payload of gravity bombs, antiship missiles, or land or sea mines. The presence of Tu-22M Backfire bombers in the Islamic Republic of Iran’s air force had been rumored since 1993, but had been constantly refuted because no Backfires had ever been spotted in Iran.

“For a secret bomber base, this place looks like shit,” Tony Jamieson muttered. He and Patrick McLanahan had been orbiting over the base for twenty minutes now, “shooting” the base with the synthetic aperture radar every few minutes and comparing the SAR images with past images, trying to piece together enough information to verify that the deadly Backfire bombers were really here. They had looked at every crack in the concrete, every skid mark, every vehicle on the airport grounds—nothing. No sign of one of the world’s most advanced bombers. “We’ve only got twenty minutes left in our orbit.”

“Something will show,” McLanahan said. “Jon Masters’s NIRT-Sats never let us down before … well, maybe once before …”

“Great,” Jamieson groused. “And I’m getting tired of always carrying these so-called non-lethal weapons on board my plane, too, McLanahan. The ragheads want to fight—let’s start carrying some weapons that have a little punch. At least a couple JSOWs with high-explosive warheads would be useful—that’s not too much to ask …”

“SAR coming on,” McLanahan announced. “SAR shot, ready, ready …

now … SAR in standby, antenna secure.”

“Well, hot damn, there they are—a regular ‘baby elephant walk,’ “Jamieson exclaimed as he studied the SAR image on McLanahan’s supercockpit monitor. As clear as a black-and-white photograph, the long, thin body of a Tupolev-22M Backfire bomber had appeared from one of the hangars on the south side of the airport. Another bomber was exiting the same hangar, behind and slightly to one side of the first, while a third bomber had just poked its nose outside the doors of the middle hangar, obviously waiting its turn to taxi.

By using cursor commands, McLanahan was able to electronically “twist” the SAR image until they were actually looking inside the hangars, as if they were standing right on the ramp, and they found all three large hangar doors open, with two Tu-22M bombers in each hangar. The rear of the hangar was open so the bombers could run their engines while inside, safely under cover.

“Bingo,” Jamieson said. “Shit, they are there!”

“And it looks like they’re going hunting again,” McLanahan said.

“We can take care of that.” And just a few moments later six AGM-154 JSOW missiles were on their way toward Beghin Airport, their autopilots programmed to fly an attack course just fifty feet over the runway.

As the JSOW missile flew toward the runway, an electronic low-light TV camera activated, sending real-time TV images back to McLanahan in the B-2A Spirit stealth bomber flying 45,000 feet overhead. McLanahan used his cursor to lock an aiming reticle on one of the bombers, and the JSOW’s autopilot flew the missile to its quarry. As it passed overhead, two of its four bomb bays opened, and it ejected a sixty-pound blob of a thick, gooey substance that landed on the upper surface of the bomber. As the JSOW missile flew away, McLanahan programmed the missile to fly to a secondary target—in the first case, the airport’s power-transformer substation—and drop the last two globs on that.

The missile then automatically flew itself thirty miles farther west, where it crashed in the middle of the Bahlamabad Reservoir and sank quickly out of sight. One by one, each JSOW missile dropped one-half of its unidentifiable load on top of a Tu-22M bomber, then on top of another target somewhere else on the south side of the base—the regional air-traffic-control radar dome, a communications antenna farm, another power transformer farm, and three JSOWs dropped their gooey mass ion the south base’s POL (petroleum, oil, and lubricant) tank farm.

“Well, that was exciting,” Jamieson muttered as McLanahan programmed the last of the JSOW missiles. He steered the B-2A bomber south along the Afghanistan and Pakistan borders and out over the Gulf of Oman once again.

The air-traffic-control radar was the first to feel the effect.

The two large blobs hit the thin reinforced Fiberglas radar dome and immediately burned through, then scattered on the rotating antenna and control cabin inside. Within minutes, the thin metal antenna began to twist out of shape because of the fast twelve-revolutions-per-minute speed, and the antenna quickly failed and collapsed.

The metal-eating blobs of acid that struck the first Tu-22M bomber hit squarely on the upper fuselage and on the non-swiveling outboard portion of the left wing glove; on the second bomber, they hit on the fuselage just aft of the cockpit windows and on the very upper lip of the right engine intake, spattering across the guidance and warhead sections of the AS-4 cruise missile mounted under the right wing glove. As the first two bombers taxied out onto the active runway and picked up speed for takeoff, the globs spread across the airframe, eating away inside the left wing pivot section and spreading across the fuselage fuel tanks, the upper engine compartments, the vertical and horizontal stabilizers, and the rudder.

When the acid ate through the Backfire’s thin aluminum skin, the first bomber was already 3,000 feet above ground and passing through 300 miles per hour. Just as the pilot began sweeping the wings of his Backfire bomber from the twenty-degree takeoff setting to the thirty-degree cruise setting, the wing pivot mechanism failed, and the left wing uncontrollably folded all the way back to its aft-most sixty-degree setting. The bomber immediately snap-rolled to the left, quickly losing altitude.

The pilot applied hard right rudder to keep the bomber upright, and with the copilot’s help he was able to keep the bomber level at 500 feet above ground and accelerate to a safe emergency cruise speed—until the acid blob finally ate through the thicker, stronger titanium lining the leading edge of the vertical stabilizer. The bomber began an uncontrolled left roll, immediately lost all lift, and plowed into the Iranian countryside just south of the city of Kerman.

The second Backfire bomber’s fate was decided much quicker. The Tu-22M had just rotated and its main landing gear had just left the runway when the entire cockpit canopy failed, ripping a thirty-foot section of the fuselage directly over the crew compartment off the fuselage like an orange peel. At the same time, the electronics section of the right AS-4 Kitchen anti-ship missile sparked, ignited the acid, and detonated the missile’s 2,200-pound warhead, blowing the 300,000-pound warplane into bits with a spectacular cloud of fire that illuminated the entire airport.

Luckily for the third and fourth Backfire bomber’s crews, they had not yet left the runway, and the damage to their planes was localized and not so dramatic. Blobs of caustic acid burned through into fuselage fuel tanks and fright controls, starting fuselage and engine fires. Both four-man crews safely evacuated their planes and watched helplessly as their $200 million bombers burned. Soon, the lights of burning Backfire bombers were the only ones on the entire airport, for the JSOWs’ deadly cargos had destroyed the main power grids … but those lights were soon followed by the brilliant mushroom of fire that erupted as the POL farm exploded, sending sheets of flame a thousand feet into the sky.

In minutes, one entire squadron of Iranian heavy bombers had been effectively destroyed, and their base rendered heavily damaged and unusable.

As they got closer and closer to the Gulf of Oman, the B-2A Spirit stealth bomber’s threat scope became littered with dozens of Iranian threats, mostly MiG-29 and F-14 fighters—McLanahan was so concerned that he enlarged the threat display to cover almost the entire supercockpit display. The threat scope graphically depicted the position of each fighter and estimated range of each fighter’s search radar; green, yellow, or red colors showed whether or not the radar was in a search, target-tracking, or missile-guidance mode. A few of the Iranian fighters’ radar beams swept across the B-2A bomber, depicted in the center of the threat display, but the color of the radar cone never changed, indicating that the radar never locked on. Along with the extensive fighter patrols, there were two Iranian A-10 Mainstay airborne warning radar aircraft in the area, plus the normal array of ground-based radars and radar-guided antiaircraft sites.

“Jesus, there’s got to be a half dozen flights of fighters up tonight, just over this one section of Iran,” McLanahan said.

“Guess they’re pretty upset about what we did to Chah Bahar the other night, huh?”

“Hey, they deserved to get their asses kicked,” Jamieson said, “and I was glad that it was us who helped ‘em. How long till feet-wet?”

“Fifteen minutes,” McLanahan replied uneasily.

He fell silent again; Jamieson could tell that something was bugging McLanahan. “Problem, MC?”

“Nah … well, it’s just the arrangement of these Iranian aircraft … it’s changed since we went feet-dry on the bomb run,” McLanahan said, pointing at the supercockpit screen. He expanded the ratio on the threat display until the entire region, from Bandar Abbas to the extreme eastern part of the Gulf of Oman, could be seen. The radar range circles from Chah Bahar, from the carrier Khomeini, and from the two Iranian A-10 airborne radar planes could be seen, forming a “basket” all along the southern and southwestern portions of Iran—and they were headed right for that basket. “Two AWACS radar planes practically side by side across the Gulf of Oman—that’s weird. Everybody’s clustered around each other. Not a very efficient use of their air defense assets.”

“Whoever gave the ragheads a lot of credit for smarts?” Jamieson said. “Just keep an eye out for yellow or red—we’re clean as long as the threats stay green, right?”

Something was still nagging at McLanahan’s head. This looked too strange. The Iranians had showed much better deployment of their forces before—even four hours earlier, as they were heading into the target area, they had set up their defenses very effectively.

Now they were bunching up, with many more fighters aimlessly buzzing around. Was it a bit of confusion following the attack on Beghin Airport? Were they a little disorganized, trying to catch a shadow and screwing their valuable assets up even further in the process? Maybe…

“And look,” he went on. “When the threat symbol comes up on the screen? It’s not one by one—it’s a flash. Look … barn, they all come up at once.”

“So?” “So, I’ve never seen that before,” McLanahan explained.

“We usually see one guy pop up, then another, then another, because their radars are different frequencies and different rpms and different timing and all that. Now, it’s like all their radars are coming up exactly the same.”

“That’s impossible,” Jamieson said. “You can’t match a ground radar and an airborne radar up so they match everything like that.

It’s just the way the signal processor is displaying the threats, that’s all. No big deal.”

Yeah, no big deal. Yes, it was impossible, or at least very highly unlikely, that all of the Iranians’ radars were synced up that tight …

… or maybe it wasn’t. “Let’s take a detour,” McLanahan said.

“Let’s overfly Pakistan on our way out of here.”

“Say what?”

“I know we’re supposed to take pictures of Chah Bahar and the Khomeini, to find out how many extra fighters and ground-based air defense systems they’ve deployed—but I’ve got a bad feeling about this. It’s like the Iranian air defenses are hanging around right in our flight path, daring us to drive through them. And their waves are all the same, they’re too … similar. I wonder what they’re up to.”

“Well, whatever it is, they’re doing it deaf, dumb, and blind,” Jamieson remarked, with a satisfied smile. “They can’t see us up here, MC-we’ve proven that without a doubt now. All they’re doing is just microwaving birds and bugs. Besides, we don’t have clearance to overfly Pakistan yet, and if Mr. Murphy kicks us in the butt and we’re forced down over the Paks, we’re really screwed. I say we follow the ‘blue line’ and see what happens.”

McLanahan triple-checked that they were in COMBAT mode and that all of their defensive systems were in full operation. Maybe he was being too cautious, too defensive, a little paranoid. Was it because Wendy was back on Guam, waiting for him? Probably … “Okay, we continue,” he said. But as they flew south into the midst of the cluster of Iranian radars, he ordered the defensive systems to perform a fast self-test—no problems, everything fully functional. McLanahan then began formulating an escape plan, just in case, a …

But things were looking worse and worse every second.

They had been within Chah Bahar’s long-range radar coverage for several minutes now, but there was absolutely no hint that they were an item of interest. As they neared the coast, flying at 50,000 feet fifty miles west of Chah Bahar, they entered the aircraft carrier Khomeini’s long-range radar coverage. There was still no sign of detection—both Chah Bahar and the Khomeini’s radars stayed in two dimensional search mode, blindly sweeping the skies in azimuth and range. The signal delta-threshold showed that the signal strength was not enough to create a return—the difference in the signal received by the threat-detection gear compared to the signal reflected back to the same source was too great. If they had been detected, one of those radars—probably the Khomeini’s—would switch to target-tracking mode, introducing a height-finder radar that would show up immediately. Nothing had changed … except …

“The fighters,” McLanahan muttered. “The fighters disappeared.”

“Say again?”

“Two fighters were right here, now they’re gone,” McLanahan said.

“They stopped transmitting their attack radars.”

“What was their range to us?”

“About sixty miles,” McLanahan said. “Too far away for a missile shot…”

“Damned right,” Jamieson said. “The AA-1 I can fly for over a hundred miles, but it homes on radar, and we’re not transmitting anything … are we …?”

“No,” McLanahan said—but they both quickly double-checked their switches. They were in COMBAT mode, all right—all radio transmitters were off, no synthetic aperture radars on, no Doppler radars on, no missile warning and tracking radars on, and the “cloaking device” was on—no electronic energy could leave the bomber with the electronic field activated. They were running silent. “Man, I still have a bad feeling.”

“Then let’s hurry up, take the SAR shot on the carrier, and let’s get the hell outta Dodge,” Jamieson said.

They were within SAR range of the carrier now, just sixty miles off the nose. “Okay, stand by, SAR coming on.”

But just before he activated the system, which would automatically control the radar exposure as necessary to get a good picture of the carrier, McLanahan also activated the AN/ALQ-199 HAVE GLANCE system—as soon as the BEADS “cloaking device” went down, HAVE GLANCE would scan the sky all around the bomber with radar to search for nearby threats. “What’s that for?”

“Precautionary,” McLanahan said. “SAR exposure routine active …

in five … four … three … two … one … SAR radiating …”

And at the same instant, they heard a high-pitched, fast Deedledeedledeedle! warning tone, and a “bat-wing” fighter symbol appeared on the threat scope, just a few miles off their right rear quadrant! “Fighter, four o’clock, four miles, same altitude!” McLanahan screamed. “Descend! Accelerate! SAR down!

Break, Tiger, break right!”

Thankfully, Jamieson didn’t hesitate. He immediately rolled the big B-2A stealth bomber to 90, then 100, then 120 degrees of bank—practically inverted!—pulled on the control stick until it was at the forward stop, and jammed the throttles to full military power. He held the bank in until they had almost flown a 180-degree turn, facing toward the fighter, turning their hot engine exhausts away from the fighter and presenting their smallest radar and thermal cross-section.

But he wasn’t fast enough. They heard a loud explosion off to the left, the big bomber shuddered, and the ENGINE FIRE warning light on the eyebrow panel came on. “Fire on number one!” McLanahan shouted. His supercockpit display had automatically switched over to the WCA and emergency-procedures displays so he could monitor the automatic engine shutdown, but the shaking was so rough that he couldn’t read the screen. He had to trust that the computers were still functioning and they would complete the emergency shutdown checklist before the fire destroyed the aircraft.

Jamieson kept the right bank in, but now they were no longer turning—they were spinning! With no smooth airflow over the wings to create lift, the B-2A Spirit stealth bomber had stopped flying—it was in a complete stall, and with one wing low, it transitioned immediately into a “death spiral” spin. The bomber’s nose was now pointed almost straight down at the ocean, and they were careening down toward the Gulf of Oman at 20,000 feet per minute.

“Recover!” McLanahan shouted. “Recover, Tiger!” McLanahan couldn’t focus anymore. He had the threat display up on his supercockpit screen, with the flight instruments hidden behind it, and it was completely dark outside the cockpit windows, so he had absolutely no sense of up or down, left or right. McLanahan immediately craned his neck over to the left so he could see the pilot’s artificial horizon, but moving his head like that caused the disorientation to increase a hundredfold. Jesus, they were completely out of control! They were going to hit the ocean any second!

McLanahan hit the BYPASs button on his control stick, then fumbled for the speed brake button on his throttle quadrant—normally they could not deploy speed brakes in comBAT mode because it spoiled the bomber’s stealth characteristics. He felt a rumbling in the airframe as the elevons on the bomber’s wing tips split, acting as speed brakes to slow the bomber’s wild, uncontrolled descent. At the same time, he held the control stick centered and full forward, then stomped on the left rudder to counteract the right spin. No good—no reaction. He tried jamming the control stick hard left, hoping that the increased elevon authority would … “Let go of the controls, MC!” he heard Jamieson shout.

“I got it! I got it!” McLanahan shouted. “Let me know when!”

“I said, I got it, dammit!” Jamieson shouted back.

“No! I can pull us out! I got it! Just let me know when!”

Suddenly he felt a crushing smack! on his face, and the world went dark. McLanahan thought he was dead, but he wasn’t … not yet. In a second the ocean would rush in, he’d swallow, and then …

But they hadn’t hit the water. Jamieson had backhanded McLanahan in the face! “I said, I got it,” Jamieson said calmly. Smoothly, carefully, Jamieson pulled the throttles to idle and stepped on the right rudder pedals.

The spinning was still as intense as ever. “We’re still spinning!” McLanahan shouted. “Get the rudder in! Get-!”

“The plane’s wings-level, Patrick,” Jamieson said. “It’s your damned navigator brain that’s spinning.” Jamieson reached up and hit a button on his top center mission display unit, and a sixteen-color, larger-than-life attitude-direction indicator appeared on McLanahan’s supercockpit display. The ADI showed them slightly nose-low but, sure enough, they were wings-level. “I pulled us out of the spin, but you kept on pushing us right back into another one. That’s why they call those a ‘death spiral,’ you know—every time you try to recover without looking at the instruments, you put yourself in another spin in the other direction. Remember to keep an ADI on your screen all the time from now on, okay?”

It took several moments for McLanahan to get his head to stop spinning and flipping upside down, but after staring at the electronic ADI on his monitor and willing himself to believe it was true, everything finally calmed down. McLanahan checked their status. Jamieson had them down at 100feet above the Gulf of Oman, at max continuous thrust, heading south toward Omani airspace—away from the Khomeini and those Iranian radars as fast as possible. “You all right?” Jamieson asked.

“Yeah … yeah, I’m okay, thanks,” McLanahan said weakly. He checked the Warnings, Cautions, and Alerts page. “Fire extinguishers fired off, so that engine is bye-bye,” he said. “All number one systems down. Fuel pressure is fluctuating … hydraulic pressure OK … electrical system OK … fuel system is … wait, fuel valves three and four are still open. I’m going to MANUAL on the fuel system … ok, fuel shutoff valves to the number one engine are closed. All engines are feeding off the right wing tank. I’ll empty that one first in case we sustained any damage.” Jamieson checked the fuel panel switches, then nodded his agreement.

Iranian fighters were everywhere overhead, and the next twenty minutes was a nightmare come true. Every few minutes they would see fighters beginning to converge on them, so they would change course and edge as low as they dared to the ocean surface—at one point, they were at fifty feet, the absolute lowest they dared go without activating the radar altimeter or SAR. Even after they exited Iranian territorial waters, the Iranian fighters pursued.

They had to fly almost all the way to the Omani coast before the Iranian fighters began to retreat. Finally they were over land, and the fighters were gone.

“Jesus, that was close. It must’ve been that fighter jock’s lucky day, stumbling onto us like that “I don’t think he lucked into us. Look at this,” McLanahan said, motioning to his display. “We’re well within radar range of Omani air defense radars and even Saudi Arabian F-15 fighters, but they’re not coming after us. It’s only the Iranians—they figured out how to track a B-2A bomber.”

“Track us? With what? They didn’t have a lock on us.”

“I know, but they found us,” McLanahan said. “Somehow they figured out a way to detect us well enough to vector a fighter in on us. Remember those fighters suddenly shutting down their radars, even though they didn’t have a lock on us? They did that so we wouldn’t find out we were being watched. It’s gotta have something to do with that cluster of radars they set up.”

“If that’s true, then we’re probably out of this fight,” Jamieson said. “The whole B-2A program could be in jeopardy. The Pentagon won’t risk a B-2A bomber again until they figure out how they were able to track us.”

“I don’t think we’ll have too much time,” McLanahan said. He began composing a report to the National Security Agency via the Air Intelligence Agency to report on the whole incredible, frightening incident. “The Iranians have the upper hand now—they might not rest until they get everything they want.”

RESIDENCE OF THE PRESIDENT, SHAMSOL EMAREH PALACE, TEHRAN, IRAN

A SHORT TIME LATER President of the Islamic Republic Ali Akbar Nateq-Nouri was writing, pencil on paper, in a journal—no computer, no television, no radio in his quarters anymore—when suddenly the door to his room burst open, and General Hesarak all-Kan Buzhazi stormed in and strode directly up to him. “Come in, the door is open,” Nateq-Nouri deadpanned.

Buzhazi virtually dragged the President to his feet in anger. “I want the codes,” he demanded.

“I am well, thank you for asking, General,” the President said.

“How are you?”

“I will put a gun in your mouth and blow your addled brain apart and make it appear as if you’ve killed yourself,” Buzhazi shouted.

“I want-“

“How did I get a weapon, General?”

“You took it from a guard and-“

“All of your precious Pasdaran troopers are at least eleven kilos heavier and six centimeters taller than I,” Nateq-Nouri observed.

“How can I possibly overpower one of your precious “Guardians of Allah’ after being virtually starved to death here in my own residence?”

“I want the codes, Mr. President.”

“Codes? What codes?”

Buzhazi had had enough. He clenched a fist and swung, catching the President across the mouth.

Nateq-Nouri reeled from the blow, his eyes taking several moments to clear and his head to stop spinning. “You know damned well which codes, Mr. President,” the general said. “Give them to me, and I will let you live.”

“I have no illusions that you will allow me to do anything of the kind for very much longer,” the President said. “This proves how little you have thought about your coup d’etat, General: you should have gotten the codes from me first, then declared martial law and had me killed. However, you still command a significant military force, so I am confused as to exactly why you need to arm a nuclear weapon. I assume you wish to arm the P-700 anti-ship missile you have on board the Khomeini?”

Buzhazi told himself that he should not be surprised to learn that Nateq-Nouri, who had distanced himself from the military at every turn and did everything he could to cut its size and complexity, knew about the secret nuclear missile project. It could not stay secret for very long. “Our nation is under attack, Mr. President,” Buzhazi said, trying a slightly different tactic.

“Beghin Airport in Kerman Province was assaulted just a few minutes ago. Two Backfire bombers were destroyed, two heavily damaged, and eight crewmen are dead, plus there are billions of rials in damage to the airport. I suspect it is the work of the United States and their stealth bomber fleet.”

“Quite possible, General,” Nateq-Nouri said. “You cannot hope to defeat the Americans. I suspect they have been using one aircraft, one stealth bomber, to conduct all these attacks—Bandar Abbas, your carrier, Chah Bahar, and now Beghin Airport. I have seen the reports, General: the American television networks have reporters at the main B-2A bomber base in the American republic of Missouri; all of the operational stealth bombers are still there.

That means the Americans have one, possibly more of those infernal machines out there, being operated by some secret government agency.”

“So you agree with me!” Buzhazi said, surprised. “You agree that we are under attack by the Americans!”

“Of course we are, you idiot!” the President said. “This is all in retaliation for your flying your fighters off that carrier, sinking their spy ship, and capturing their spies.”

“So you acknowledge that the Americans were spying on us.”

“You give yourself very little credit, General—or perhaps you are even more stupid than even I gave you credit for,” Nateq-Nouri said with a wry smile. “The Americans assisted the Gulf Cooperative Council in that raid against Abu Musa Island. You countered by launching that infernal carrier. The Americans respond by flying their little stealth contraption from the spy ship to spy on us—silly, really, because it would have been far simpler to go out into the Gulf of Oman with a rowboat and a radio and report on what we were doing!—and you sink their ship and capture all the spies. Sinking their ship was a colossal mistake, but the Americans would have forgotten about it if only you hadn’t captured those men. After all, it was a spy ship masquerading as a civilian vessel—if America’s allies in the Gulf knew that a civilian rescue vessel in their waters was really a spy ship, they would have been very upset. The United States would have gladly forfeited that ship in the hope that no one would find out it really was a spy ship.

“If you had released those men immediately, we would not be in this mess,” the President went on. “We would have had an agreement in place that would have removed the threat of an American carrier invasion force sitting off our shores forever.

We would have had increased foreign investment, because the military pressure would have been relieved. Instead, you started a shooting war with the Americans. You are angry about Beghin Airport and a couple of useless Backfire bombers? Wait until the cruise missiles and laser-guided bombs start falling on Tehran.”

“The only way to stop that from happening, Mr. President, is force against force,” Buzhazi said angrily. “Sink one of their carriers, and the American people will not allow Martindale to continue this secret bombing campaign against us.”

“You are so naive, General,” Nateq-Nouri said sadly, shaking his head. “All that might have been true thirty years ago, when Americans were fighting and dying in the jungles of Vietnam and the people wanted peace at any price. No longer—not with this American President. He will choose to fight. He will call for jihad against Iran, and he will rally the people and the military behind him.”

“And what about your own people, Mr. President?” Buzhazi asked.

“if we allow the Americans to roam our skies, kill our soldiers, and destroy our bases at will, what will your people think?”

“Unlike you and the religious leaders of our country, Buzhazi, the Iranian people want peace, not war,” Nateq-Nouri said. “I know our people, General, you and the mullahs do not. The treaty with America and the GCC to prohibit land-attack warships and aircraft carriers from the Gulf was our best hope for peace. The American stealth bombers never would have crossed into our airspace unless that was the only hope to destroy our forces.”

“Now who is the naive one, Mr. President?” Buzhazi interjected.

“Who is to say this is the first time the stealth bombers have been flying over Iran? Perhaps they are assisting the Kurdish rebels hiding in Iraq, or assisting the Armenians in disrupting our northern borders.”

“You may create any fantasy that your paranoid mind wishes, General, but the truth is, our government has influenced events around our borders and in other countries all around the world far more than the United States. Yes, we have had to deal with the American CIA in our midst for years, supporting various anti-government factions, and they have been just as disruptive as the Shah’s terror squads ever were. But since the revolution, our history has been decided mostly by our own efforts, not by the United States or the Shah.

“Peace could have been ours, General. Abu Musa could have been ours to share with the United Arab Emirates with our oil technology and their funding, we both could have been rich. The money we have spent on that monstrosity you dared name after the Imam Khomeini and on all these Russian fighters and bombers and cruise missiles could have been used to complete the oil terminal at Chah Bahar, and we would not be at the mercy of Iraq, the GCC, or the West when we ship oil through the Shatt all Arab Waterway or the Persian Gulf. Instead, you chose war, a war we cannot win except by sacrificing ourselves. I will not assist you in following this course, General. Fight and die on your own terms.”

In response, General Buzhazi pulled out an automatic pistol, cocked it, stepped around to President Nateq-Nouri’s right side, and aimed it at his temple. The President of Iran closed his eyes and waited for the bullet to enter his brain.

“It would be so easy, Mr. President.”

“Then do it, General,” Nateq-Nouri said. “If you have the courage to face the wrath of the Ayatollah Khamenei and the Leadership Council, who commanded that I be protected, do it. I am prepared to die. Are you prepared to live?”

“Prepared or not, you will be dead, and I will be alive,” Buzhazi said. “You know I will get the codes to the nuclear and chemical arsenals eventually—you cannot Stop it.”

“It seems as if you have everything well in order,” Nateq-Nouri said, with mock approval. “Carry out your plan, then. Kill me.

Then explain to the Imam how all this was a suicide, or an accident. See how long you will be commanding your troops then.”

Buzhazi took a deep, angry breath, leveled the pistol again …

but did not pull the trigger. Instead, he holstered it, swore under his breath, and left the President’s residence. Nateq-Nouri caught a glimpse of two Pasdaran troopers guarding the door outside as Buzhazi departed.

After what seemed like an eternity, Nateq-Nouri took a deep breath, then returned to his desk and plunked down into the chair on wobbly legs. All that bravado was a charade, he knew—he was very afraid of dying, and terrified of dying at the hands of Hesarak all-Kan Buzhazi, lying at his feet in a pool of red blood and gray brain matter. He had worked too hard to leave this life that way. He …

“Trouble with the staff tonight, Mr. President?” a woman’s voice asked in Farsi. Nateq-Nouri turned, his heart skipping a few beats in shock. There, emerging from the curtains surrounding the bedchamber, were a man and a woman, both dressed like commandos in black skintight body suits, gloves, and boots. They were armed, but their weapons were at their sides, ready but not threatening.

When he regained his composure, the President of Iran gaily, casually waved at the strangers. “Please, come in, come in,” he said effusively in Farsi. “Everyone else seems to be making themselves welcome in my residence, so why not you two? You are Arab, I am sure.” Nateq-Nouri switched to almost accent-free Arabic. “Your African friend, a Libyan perhaps? Sudanese?”

“At least he’s bein’ sociable about this,” the man said in English.

“Ah! An American!” Nateq-Nouri said, his eyes dancing. In equally good English, he said, “Welcome to my home, young man.

Yes, the only luxury I have right now is to be sociable. Now, do you mind telling me why you are here? Are you here to assassinate me?”

“I should blow you away, motherfucker, for what you done to my homeboys!”

“Your American ghetto dialect is very difficult for me to understand, young man, but I assume you are associates of Colonel Paul White, and you are angry at me for the circumstances surrounding his capture and internment,” the President of Iran said. “I have been expecting you, although I expected to see a brilliant high-tech assault on the headquarters building, beginning with some of your wonderful cruise missiles dropped by your stealth bomber, followed by your, how do you call them, your ‘tilt-rotor’ aircraft, with lots of well-trained, steely-eyed, square-jawed, whisky-drinking commandos jumping and sliding down ropes with guns blazing to make the heroic rescue … or will I not be disappointed? Is that what is happening now?”

“Tell us where Colonel White is, Mr. President, and you won’t get hurt.”

“Hurt? My dear young man, I am as good as dead already,” Nateq-Nouri said with a lighthearted laugh. “I assume you heard General Buzhazi. As soon as he gets the codes for the nuclear weapons aboard the carrier Khomeini, I will be disposed of In his humbling sort of way, he will try to make it look like an accident, but everyone will know, of course.”

“Just tell us where Colonel White is, Mr. President.”

“Your Colonel Paul White is being held in an interrogation center at Pasdaran headquarters,” Nateq-Nouri replied, “but to tell you the truth, sir, I do not know if he is still alive.”

“We’ll find out ourselves—and if he’s not, we’ll take the news very poorly,” Briggs said coldly. “Can you be a little more specific about his location, Mr. President?”

“No, unfortunately not,” Nateq-Nouri admitted. “I understand the Pasdaran interrogates its prisoners by administering drugs at what they call a ‘medical care facility’ in the basement of their headquarters—awful, brutal place, filled with evil, brutal men!—but I do not know if White has been taken there.”

“Perhaps you could inquire, Mr. President?” Behrouzi suggested.

“I was never a favorite of the Pasdaran,” Nateq-Nouri said, “but I believe there are one or two officers at headquarters that may speak to me.” With that, Nateq-Nouri picked up a phone.

Briggs raised his Uzi. “Be careful what you ask for, Mr. President.”

“You, sir,” said the President of Iran with a cold smile, “are the least of my worries right now.” He dialed the phone, spoke briefly in Farsi to two different persons, then hung up. “Colonel White is indeed in the Pasdaran medical facility, headquarters building, first subfloor A, room A-193. He is alive and perhaps even conscious. My friends have arranged for the guards at the medical facility to be ‘preoccupied’ for the next half hour. I trust you can effect some sort of rescue in that time.”

Hal Briggs was almost too stunned for words. He shrugged, gave Riza a confused expression, then nodded. “Sure, Mr. President.

That will be great.” He paused for a moment, then asked, “Will you be safe after General Buzhazi finds out about this, sir?”

“I do not know, young man.”

“Hal. Call me Hal, Mr. President,” Briggs interjected. Riza looked at him in absolute surprise—Intelligence Support Agency operatives were not supposed to use their real names—but, somehow, it fit in this very bizarre setting. Thirty seconds ago, Briggs was ready to shoot this man between the eyes—now he was introducing himself to him, using his real name!

“Just Hal is fine.”

“Yes. Hal it is then.” Nateq-Nouri regarded Riza for a moment, searched his memory; then, wagging a knowing finger at her and smiling, said, “Ah. Now I recall. OPEC Ministers’ Conference, last year, Quito, Ecuador, the reception at Energy Minister Nazur’s residence. It was hotter than Mogadishu in the summer and the humidity … forgive me, I do not remember your name, but I will never forget the black dress and that delicious diamond ankle bracelet you wore—very alluring, I must say. You accompanied Minister Yusuf of the United Arab Emirates to the reception, but I could not help but notice you two spent very little time together—he already had a young translator that he kept fondling, as I recall—so you must have been on some sort of secret assignment, perhaps for the Directorate of Intelligence for the United Arab Emirates, no?”

“Your memory is quite remarkable, Mr. President,” Behrouzi said, touched by the man’s charm in the face of almost certain disaster, “but it would be best if your memory of me was restricted to an ankle bracelet in Ecuador.”

“Of course,” Nateq-Nouri said. “Now, you must do something for me in return.”

“What’s that?”

Nateq-Nouri fixed both of them with a deadly serious stare.

“Destroy the aircraft carrier Khomeini, Hal,” the President of Iran said.

“Say what?”

“I cannot hold out against General Buzhazi for long, Hal,” Nateq-Nouri said resignedly. “He will either discover or bypass the code, or he will torture the code out of me, in a very short time—perhaps even tonight.”

“Code? What code?”

“The code to arm the nuclear warhead on the carrier Khomeini,” Nateq-Nouri said. “One of the anti-ship missiles on board that carrier has a very large nuclear warhead capable, I daresay, of sinking your Abraham Lincoln very efficiently.”

“Holy shit!”

“Please, mind your sacrilegious language, young man,” Nateq-Nouri scolded Briggs. His tone softened immediately, however, and he went on: “To continue: General Buzhazi has one set of codes, I have the other. I do not know how long I could hold out, but I know the general has very effective ways to get the information he desires. Then he will have both sets of codes he requires to arm the nuclear missiles. When he does, he will move the carrier and launch the P-700 missile—perhaps at Saudi Arabia, perhaps at Iraq, perhaps at your Lincoln carrier group. I do not know. I feel he will use that carrier, along with his other forces, to decimate the Gulf Cooperative Council military bases along the Gulf. You must stop him.”

Briggs looked at Behrouzi, then slapped a fist into his other hand in frustration. “I had that sucker in my sights once, Mr. President—I’d love to get another shot at it and send it to Davy Jones’s locker for real. You got a deal.”

“Very good,” Nateq-Nouri said. “Now, I suggest you should leave.

Good luck to you.” And Nateq-Nouri headed “Thank you, Hal … or is it colonel, major, captain …

for the door to his suite, closed the door behind him and left the two commandos by themselves.

“I must be dreaming, Riza,” Briggs said as they prepared to depart. “The President of fuckin’ Iran is helping us spring Colonel White, and in exchange wants us to destroy his fuckin’—I mean, his friggin’ carrier…?”

“I am not so surprised—Ali Akbar Nateq-Nouri is truly a man of peace, a rare commodity in Iran these days,” Behrouzi said with a smile, “What is even more surprising is you telling him your real name!”

“I felt it was a pretty safe move,” Briggs said coldly. “I owed him a little sign of gratitude, of respect—and I don’t think he’s going to be alive very much longer to tell anybody about us, poor devil. Now let’s get moving!”

The back portico of the President’s residence was hidden from most of the compound because of the intricate design of the old palace; hidden sensors and surveillance cameras had effectively compensated for the shortfall, but those were easily bypassed by Madcap Magician commandos.

Chris Wohl was on the ground just below the President’s apartment window, covering the primary exit, when he saw the curtain above flutter, a sliding door bang open, even heard muted voices!

“Shit, Briggs, what in hell are you doing?” Wohl muttered. This exfiltration was going down the shitter real fast, he thought. He hurriedly clicked his transceiver to alert the ten other commandos in the compound to get ready to move and that they possibly had been discovered—when suddenly he heard footsteps behind him. He whirled, gun at the ready.

“Hang on, Mondo, it’s me—George and Gracie. Shit, Wohl thought, it was Briggs and Behrouzi, climbing down the side of the building. “Let’s get going. We know where Colonel White is, and we’ve got less than thirty minutes to get him.”

“Briggs, what in hell are you talking about?”

“We found out where White is,” Briggs said. “He’s at Pasdaran headquarters, first subfloor, room A-193. He’s waiting for us.”

“Waiting for us? Who the hell told you this?”

“Thank him,” Briggs said. Wohl followed his pointed finger up the dark, looming walls of Shamsol Emareh Palace and, to his continuing astonishment, saw the President of Iran, Ali Akbar Nateq-Nouri, looking down on them from his open fourth-floor window! “We gotta get moving, Chris—the President has a job for us.”

“The President—you mean, the President of fucking Iran?”

“Hey, watch your sacrilegious language, young man,” Briggs scolded Wohl. “This is serious, man—some bad shit could be happening any hour now out in the Gulf. Nateq-Nouri told us about it, he asked for our help, and he sprung the colonel for us to show he’s for real—he probably just sacrificed his own life to help us. In return, he wants us to trash Iran’s aircraft carrier …”

“What?”

“Never mind now, Chris—when we get back, we’ll get hold of Future Flight and get them loaded up for bear again. Right now, we gotta get the colonel before the Pasdaran troopers shut the door on us for good. Let’s hit it, Marine.” Briggs and Behrouzi trotted off down their preplanned exfiltration route, leaving a totally perplexed Chris Wohl and his fellow ISA commandos shaking their heads.

THE WHITE House OVAL OFFICE, WASHINGTON, D.C. 27 APRIL 1997, 2136 HOURS LOCAL TIME

“General Buzhazi, this is President Kevin Martindale, calling from Washington, D.C. How are you this morning?”

The translator’s voice responded, “Very well, thank you.” A Farsi-speaking interpreter listening in on the line made notes on a computer terminal in front of the President, verifying the accuracy of the Iranian translator.

“I wish to speak to you about the aircraft carrier Khomeini, General,” the President said. “My government has received disturbing news. We have learned that the carrier is carrying a cruise missile with a nuclear warhead.”

There was a very long pause after the translation, then: “The Islamic Republic cannot confirm or deny the presence of any nuclear weapons that may or may not be in our possession, Mr. President.”

Martindale swore under his breath, glaring angrily at the wall as Vice President Ellen Whiting, Secretary of State Jeffrey Hartman, Secretary of Defense Arthur Chastain, and National Security Advisor Philip Freeman looked on. The President recognized Buzhazi’s response—it was the standard response of the U.S. military when asked that very same question about any of its bases or warships. The United States never spoke about its deployment of nuclear weapons. “I see, General,” Martindale said.

“Is there anything else, Mr. President?”

“You do realize, sir, that Iran’s possession of nuclear weapons and long-range maritime missile technology fitted with such warheads is in violation of the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and the 1993 Missile Technology Export Treaty,” the President said. “Iran signed these treaties without reservations.”

“The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty was signed by the traitor Shah Reza Pahlavi’s regime, Mr. President,” Buzhazi reminded him, “not by the Islamic revolutionary government. It holds no at all with the other agreement.”

“Your membership in the United Nations, the World Bank, OPEC, the Seabeds Committee, and the International Civil Aeronautics Organization also predate the Islamic revolution,” the President said. “Should we consider your membership in all those organizations also without validity?”

“You may do as you wish, Mr. President,” Buzhazi said sternly.

“In any case, all of this is of no consequence. The aircraft carrier and the destroyer Zhanjiang are both the property of the People’s Republic of China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy. For a fee, Iran has been allowed to service and refurbish these vessels, and perform flight training on them.

In time, they will be returned to China. Whatever weapons these vessels carry is determined by the People’s Republic of China.

Perhaps you should speak with Premier Jiang Zemin.” Jiang Zemin, the successor to the powerful and popular Chinese Premier Deng Xiaoping, was a well-educated, well-spoken man—young for a top Chinese leader, at age sixty-eight—but was even more enigmatic and unpredictable than Buzhazi. Since the Chinese mini-invasion of the Philippines and the Chinese transfer of potentially devastating weapons to unstable regimes such as North Korea, Syria, Iraq, Sudan, and Iran, relations between the U.S. and China had been strained, and Martindale and Zemin did not have much to say to each other, “Since you control the movement of the Khomeini, General, I’ll speak to you,” the President said sternly. “Your forces unsuccessfully attacked the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln last night with long-range bombers, and now we observe your aircraft carrier sailing out of the Gulf of Oman toward our carrier group. We regard that movement as a hostile action, and we will take steps to stop it if it is not returned to port immediately.”

“Then it shall be returned to port,” Buzhazi said. “The carrier Khomeini and the destroyer Zhanjiang will be returned to their home port … of Ningbo.”

“Ningbo … where’s that?” the President asked the room, covering the receiver. Seconds later, the information appeared on his computer screen from a military intelligence analyst: Ningbo was the Chinese Eastern Fleet headquarters, situated on the East China Sea—within easy fighter range of all of South Korea, including Seoul; the Japanese main islands of Kyushu, Shikoku, western Honshu, and all of the Ryukyu Islands, including Okinawa; and the island of Taiwan. “You’re sailing a nuclear-armed aircraft carrier to the East China Sea?”

“It is what the customer ordered, President Martindale,” Buzhazi’s translator said. “We shall be conducting trials in the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean, possibly with a cruise up the Red Sea to a port call in Libya first; then, we shall transfer the ship first to Victoria, then on to Ningbo. I trust the United States will not interfere with the transit.” Victoria was to be the newest Chinese naval base on the island of Hong Kong, about to be transferred to Chinese control.

“We strongly object to that ship carrying nuclear weapons,” the President said, “and we will urge all nations through which this vessel will pass to prohibit you from entering their waters.”

“And I object to the United States flying its stealth bomber across our sovereign airspace, attacking our airfields, and killing our citizens,” Buzhazi interrupted hotly. “The United States has sailed nuclear-armed warships past our country for over forty years, in your ‘national interest’ and ‘defense’ interests—now we shall do the same. Is there anything further, Mr. President?”

“I should like to inquire about President Nateq-Nouri’s condition and his political status,” Martindale said.

“I regret to inform you, sir, that President Ali Akbar Nateq-Nouri was found dead in his home in Tehran not too long ago,” Buzhazi said, completely without emotion. “He was found with a single bullet wound to the head, made by an Italian-made Beretta Model 92 handgun—I believe it is the standard issue to American military forces, is it not …?”

“You son of a bitch!” President Martindale snapped. “You murdered President Nateq-Nouri!”

“An investigation is under way, but we believe the incident may have been a murder by foreign assassins,” Buzhazi said matter-of-factly. “The President may have been coerced into using his office to release a foreign prisoner from a military prison facility, then killed. Such a regrettable incident. I hope Allah has no mercy to those who did such a deed.”

Martindale slammed the telephone back on its cradle in absolute anger and disgust. “That bastard!” he shouted.

“That insane bastard! He had Nateq-Nouri killed for helping Paul White escape from Tehran!”

“I’m sorry, Mr. President,” Philip Freeman said. “I’m sorry my guys got him in this predicament. I take full responsibility for Nateq-Nouri’s death.”

“Bullshit, Philip, it had to be Buzhazi himself who did it,” Secretary of Defense Chastain said. “He was looking for a way to off the President for a long time—it’s no secret that Buzhazi wanted the presidency, but he’d be completely unable to stand for an election. He’s a power-crazy madman.”

“And right now, he has the ear of the mullahs, including Khamenei,” Secretary of State Hartman said. “If he survives the scrutiny of the Leadership Council, his power will grow exponentially—especially if he helps cement a strong relationship between Tehran and Beijing. He will be quite unstoppable then.

He may gather enough strength to weaken or even topple the religious leadership.”

“Our problem right now is that carrier,” the President said. “I don’t want it to leave the Gulf of Oman. Philip, can your boys stop that thing without starting a war in the Middle East?”

“We had trouble in our last sortie, sir,” Freeman said. “The Iranians have apparently figured out a way to detect the stealth bomber.”

“They what?” Chastain retorted. “What happened?”

“Three radar sites—land, sea, and air—perfectly synchronized,” Freeman explained. “Each one receiving the other’s radar signals and combing them on one display. The off-axis lobes created by the stealth design are picked up by other sites and reported to the master radar site. It’s enough to get a weak return. After that, just vector a fighter close enough to that blip to get a visual or infrared signal, and he’s yours. An Iranian fighter got close enough to fire a missile at our secret B-2A bomber—the missile was diverted by the bomber’s active countermeasures, but one engine was shot out. Jamieson and McLanahan barely got away.”

“Thank God,” the President breathed. “So what’s the solution?”

“The solution, Sir, is to knock out the synchronized radar sites,” Freeman said. “We have anti-radar missiles that can destroy the radar sites from five to ten miles out. The problem is that Iran has got every air machine they have in the air, and they’re sure to intercept the missile shooters at long range. The other problem is that the only anti-radar missile shooters we have in the region right now are on the Lincoln—the EA-6 Prowlers, the A-6 Intruders, and the F/A-18 Hornets. It’ll take just about every one of them to take out all the Iranian radars.”

“And now we’re talking about an invasion force,” the President said, “something I want to avoid. Iran hasn’t declared war on anybody—if we shoot first, we’re the bad guys.”

“And after all that, our chances of success will be low,” Freeman admitted. “The shooters would be outnumbered ten to one by advanced Iranian fighters, and they’d be detected long before they got within firing range. And because the Lincoln is so far from the Gulf of Oman right now, fighter coverage would be minimal or nonexistent.”

“I take it you have an alternate plan, or else you wouldn’t be here right now,” the President said to Freeman. “Let’s have it.

“The plan involves considerable risk to Air Vehicle Eleven, the B-2A bomber Jamieson and McLanahan are flying,” Freeman said.

“It’ll be sent in against the Iranian air defenses all by itself, armed with non-lethal weapons. It involves much more risk—not just to the crews, but to you politically as well. If it fails at a critical time, you’ll be totally exposed—there’ll be no doubt about what you attempted to do. If it succeeds, we’ll be able to meet your original criteria: the mission will be totally deniable, it’ll involve no or minimal loss of life, and it won’t look like an invasion force is out to destroy Iran.”

“Then let’s do it,” the President said. “Brief me on the plan, and let’s get started.”

“You should think about this for a time, Mr. President,” Freeman said. “The plan involves great personal political risk.”

“Philip, this job is nothing but a long list of great personal political risks,” President Martindale said. “But I told you, I want that carrier stopped. If you got a way to do it without starting a general war in the Middle East-“

“Or Asia, sir?” Freeman interjected.

The President hesitated—Freeman and the other advisers could see the President avert his eyes, thinking hard, perhaps reconsidering …

“Or Asia,” the President said. “Let’s hear it.” And with that, Philip Freeman began outlining his plan to the President and his advisers.

TEHRAN, IRAN THAT SAME TIME Smiling, General Buzhazi hung up the dead phone. “Your threats will do you no good, President Martindale,” he said. To Air Force General Sattari, Buzhazi’s acting chief of staff, he asked, “Is the mission ready to proceed, General?”

“Yes, sir,” Sattari responded. “Backfire bombers from Esfahan and attack planes from Bandar Abbas will attack the United Arab Emirates’ bases at Taweela, Mina Saqr, and Mina Sultan, and the Omani naval base on the Musandam Peninsula; six fighter-bombers from the Khomeini will attack Sib Air and Naval Base near Muscat in Oman. Six fighters from the Khomeini will provide primary air cover to the east, backed up by fighters from Chah Bahar; Bandar Abbas and Abu Musa will provide air- and ground-based air defense cover for the western attackers. The attack will be perfectly coordinated so that all attacks are simultaneous and that air defense fighters will launch and cover the strikers’ retreat, without alerting anyone that an attack is imminent.”

“And what about the Americans?” Buzhazi asked. “The Americans patrol the Arabian Peninsula almost all the way to the Gulf of Oman.”

“We outnumber all Western and GCC aircraft by a factor of three to one,” Sattari responded. “As you ordered, we shall launch six fighters for every one of theirs. The American and Saudi F-15s are respectable, but they are not a match for a locust swarm of MiG-29s and their own F-14 Tomcats.”

“Very good,” Buzhazi said. “And the preparations for an attack by their stealth bombers?”

“Radar sites from Shiraz to Char Babar are now all synchronized.

We cover the entire Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman region with radar capable of detecting the B-2A stealth bomber,” Sattari replied proudly. “The network is controlled by the master combat information center aboard the Khomeini, but any radar facility can become the master combat center if the others should go off the line. The long-range air defense radars around Tehran have also been synchronized, and soon all of Iran’s long-range radar systems will be synchronized to be able to detect stealth aircraft.”

“And what of our preparations for the follow-on attacks?”

“We are ready, sir,” Sattari reported. “We have two fighter bomber and one additional fighter-interceptor teams ready to fly in follow-up sorties should the first round of attacks prove successful. The slowest element in the follow-on sorties will be the carrier-based aircraft, so we have split their force into two bomber and two fighter elements, to provide continuous air defense patrols while the bombers land and depart. The other elements from Chah Bahar and Bandar Abbas will be ready to attack the follow-on targets in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Qatar immediately.

In addition, other forces from Tabriz and Mahabad will be standing by to strike targets in Turkey if you so order.”

“Excellent, General, excellent,” Buzhazi said. “The attack will commence tonight. May Allah be with our pilots!”

ANDERSEN AIR FORCE BASE, GUAM 28 APRIL 1997, 1551 HOURS LOCAL Patrick McLanahan was on the third-floor catwalk of the hangar in which his B-2A Spirit stealth bomber was going through its final maintenance checks. He wore a black flight suit with no patches or insignia—it looked like mechanic’s overalls—with Chinese-made flight boots, thick and woolly.

“The thousand-yard stare again,” Wendy McLanahan said as she approached him. She linked her arm in his and rested her head on his right shoulder. “They did a pretty good job on it in such a short time,” she said, looking at the left engine nacelles.

“Can’t even tell you were hit by an Iranian missile and almost blown into a thousand pieces.”

“Wendy..

“This is really a crazy idea,” Wendy said irritably, “and I can’t believe you thought of it, and I can’t believe Freeman accepted it.

“It’s the only way we can do it, Wendy,” Patrick said absently, still staring at nothing, as if trying to look into the future and see if this was going to work. “If there was another way, I’m open to suggestions…”

“I’ve got one—let it be. Let the Iranian carrier be,” Wendy said angrily. “No one has declared war here, Patrick. Paul White and the survivors of the Valley Mistress are safe, Hal got back at the Iranians for what they did—aren’t we even now?”

“We were—until Buzhazi had President Nateq-Nouri killed,” Patrick said. “It’s obvious that he doesn’t want peace. He wants to take that carrier battle group and wreak havoc in the entire region, all for the sake of glory and power for himself.”

“Why risk your life for a man you didn’t know—for an Iranian,” Wendy asked incredulously. “He was just another fundamentalist Muslim looking to infect the rest of the world with his brand of Islam by whatever means he could..

“Nateq-Nouri was a man who wanted peace,” Patrick said. “He wasn’t a Muslim fundamentalist—he was a realist. He may not have liked the United States, but he was wise enough to think of innovative ways to avoid a conflict. Buzhazi’s not a fundamentalist, either—he’s a homicidal psychopath. He’s out there taking shots at our aircraft carriers with Backfire bombers and supersonic cruise missiles just for fun. What if he gets lucky and lands a one-ton warhead on the decks of the Abraham Lincoln, or decides to put a torpedo into one of our ships? How many Americans does he have to kill before we should go after him?” Wendy had no answer for him.

They stood together for a few minutes longer, until Patrick looked at his watch and sighed. “I’ve got to go,” he said.

“I know,” Wendy responded. He hugged Wendy closely, and she started to cry. “You know … you know we talked about trying to have another child,” Wendy said in a tiny voice through her tears.

“We should stop trying …

“What?” Patrick asked. “Why, Wendy? We both want one so much.

Why …?” He read the sorrow in her eyes, then shook his head in exasperation. “Is it because I’m with Future Flight? Dammit, Wendy, I was afraid this would happen. I never should have accepted this Future flight assignment. I was happy working the pub in Old Sacrament’, “No you weren’t,” Wendy interjected. “You wanted to come back, wanted to start flying again. When Freeman came along, it was a dream come true for you. You made a decision.”

“But I love you, Wendy. I want us to be happy. I know how much you want a child, how upset you were when you lost the first one.

If it means that much to you, Wendy, I’ll quit.

“You will? Right now? Three hours before takeoff?”

“Yes,” Patrick said resolutely. “You mean more to me than this mission or Future Flight or even the damned country!

Wendy was so surprised that she had to remember to close her mouth. “I … I can’t believe this …

you’d do that for me? For us?”

“Yes.”

“That’s so sweet … I love you so much, Patrick,” Wendy said.

“But that’s not what I meant.”

“What? You don’t … I’m confused, Wendy. What are you saying?

Don’t you want me to quit flying?”

“Of course not,” Wendy said. “What, and watch you stare off into space and mope around the House all day and yell and scream at the employees all night? No, you’re doing what you love to do, and you’re the best at it, so keep doing it. I’ll consult for Jon Masters, and telecommute with Sky Masters from home while I take care of our baby.”

“Our … our what?”

“Our baby, bomber-brain—our offspring, our rug-rat, our cookie-cruncher,” Wendy said. “We can stop trying to have a baby because we did it—I’m pregnant.”

“But … but how …?”

“How? Your mom never told you the facts of life?”

“No, dammit … I thought you couldn’t have a baby after the accident because of trauma to your follicles or something … I thought we had to do all that in vitro fertilization stuff, do the test tubes and the echography and follicle punctures …”

“Well, either it was an immaculate conception or the doctors were wrong about the old lady’s plumbing, because we got pregnant the old-fashioned way—without Synarel sprays or Pergonal shots or micromanipulation,” Wendy said proudly. “You’re going to be a daddy after all—that is, as long as you come back to me.”

“Of course I’ll be back, Wendy,” Patrick said. “Even if I have to walk. If I’ve got any skill, if I’ve got any luck, if I’ve got any brains at all, I’ll use them all to come back to YOU.”

They embraced again, tighter than ever before; and even amid the sounds of external power carts and shouting soldiers and missiles and weapons being uploaded and all the other sounds of war in that hangar, for a brief instant in time, there were only the two of them, together forever Takeoff was shortly after darkness set in on Guam. After the area was cleared for any unidentified aircraft or vessels, Air Vehicle 011 launched from Andersen’s north-south runway, instantly 500 feet above the ocean as it left the runway because the end of the runway was on a tall cliff on Guam’s northernmost tip. McLanahan couldn’t help but think of the last time he had taken a B-2 bomber into combat from Guam—they almost hadn’t made it. But that was a lifetime ago, it seemed.

The launch brought the same thrill of fear into Tony Jamieson’s heart. He remembered all too well their mission against the Chinese navy and air force over the Philippines.

And this mission was even more insane. They had planned it less, and all the planning had been done by McLanahan—a damned civilian, no less!—along with his computers and his buddies at Sky Masters, Inc. The enemy was more numerous, better equipped, better prepared, and they were on their home turf, defending their homeland. But Jamieson had agreed to do it—he couldn’t back out now. He had to prove to himself that he really did have the right stuff to fly into combat.

Just two hours after takeoff, over the Philippine Sea between Luzon and the Batan Islands, they rendezvoused with a KC-135 tanker that had taken off before them, and they topped off their tanks—it was the loneliest feeling in the world to see that KC-135 leave. They began a step-climb to 48,000 feet, saving as much fuel as possible. Both crew members could see the lights of Manila about 300 miles to the south; 300 miles north were the lights of Taipei, and off the B-2A’s curved beak nose on the horizon were the lights of Victoria and Macao. They altered course slightly to avoid overflying Hong Kong …

… but went feet-dry over the city of Zhelang, Guangdong Province, in the People’s Republic of China. They were overflying China on their way to strike Iran.

“I don’t friggin’ believe this,” Jamieson said, “but we’re doing it. We’ve just violated China’s airspace with an armed strategic bomber.”

The huge naval and air base at Guangzhou was the biggest concern right now. They had picked up strong radar and air defense signals from more than 300 miles out, shortly after completing their aerial refueling. Guangzhou was alive with air defense systems—most older, ex-Soviet systems, like the Vietnam-era SA-2 long-range “flying telephone pole” missile; China was flying late-evening air patrols as well. The majority of Chinese air interceptors on patrol showed on the threat scope as MiG-21s, with a few more modern Sukhoi27s in the mix. “Well, the Chinese air force is certainly awake tonight,” Jamieson commented. “Training day, I hope.

Just then, one of the Chinese-built Xian J-7 fighters, copies of the Russian MiG-21, swept its radar beam across the B-2A stealth bomber—and the green triangle representing its search radar changed to yellow. Shit, that MiG-21 locked onto us!” Jamieson called out. “He’s at eight o’clock, twenty miles!”

“If we get intercepted, our best plan is an emergency descent, then deviate southwest across Laos or Burma,” McLanahan said, repeating their hastily planned escape procedures. “Range to the Laotian border is about five hundred miles. Radar coverage is almost nonexistent to the southwest.”

“If he gets an eyeball on us, we’ll be lucky to make it five minutes, let alone five hundred miles,” Jamieson muttered. But thankfully, the fighter’s radar broke lock a few moments later, and he did not reacquire. “God, that was close.”

But it wasn’t over yet. Several minutes later, another fighter—this one a Russian-built Sukhoi-27, a much more up-to-date fighter-bomber—started sweeping the area, searching for the B-2A bomber—and seconds later, it too showed a lock-on.

“The Su-27’s got us,” McLanahan said. “Seven o’clock, fifteen miles.”

“What in hell’s going on?” Jamieson asked. “Recheck your switches.” But after quickly scanning the status page of the computer readouts, they could find nothing out of place—they were in COMBAT mode, with all stealth and defensive systems on and functioning. “That’s two in a row.

Are we hanging something?”

“That’s got to be it,” McLanahan said. “Try a turn to the left.”

Sure enough, as soon as they turned into the fighter, the yellow target-tracking radar turned to a green search radar, and the fighter began sweeping the skies in other directions, trying to lock on. The closest he got was ten miles, well outside visual range even with night-vision optics.

“I was afraid of that,” Jamieson said. “Field maintenance in a B-2A bomber is not like any other plane. The maintenance crews have to be specially trained, and the plane has to be checked to make sure its stealth characteristics weren’t altered. One fastener not screwed in all the way, one seam not in perfect alignment, one ding in the skin, can destroy the stealth characteristics and increase the radar cross-section two or three times.” Jamieson turned to McLanahan. “We got a decision to make, bub. The Chinese generally are known to have shitty military stuff, but their standard line aircraft got a lock-on and closed within missile range—twice. Iran’s got top-of-the-line stuff; so do India and Pakistan. Burma’s our last safe chance to get out.”

McLanahan knew that they had no choice—the mission was in serious jeopardy. “All right,” he said, “I have to agree. I think we can still make it, but the risk is too much. We’ll execute the Burma escape route; once we’re clear of Chinese radar coverage, I’ll flash a message to Andersen to schedule a tanker.” In the back of his head was Wendy’s surprise message, too—he was going to be a father. He couldn’t risk his first child growing up without him.

As McLanahan composed their status and abort message for satellite relay, they continued on for another hour until they were well clear of the Chinese air defense region near Chengdu, where it was safe to temporarily deactivate the AN/VUQ-13 BEADS “cloaking device,” get a GPS satellite navigation fix, and activate the encoded satellite transceiver. Just as McLanahan was ready to send his message, a priority message came in.

“Shit,” McLanahan said. “Iran is attacking the United Arab Emirates and Oman!”

“What?”

“Bomber attacks on three bases in the UAE and two bases in Oman,” McLanahan read. “Iran is shutting down any Gulf Cooperative Council base that might threaten the carrier Khomeini while it’s stationed in the Gulf of Oman. Extensive Iranian fighter coverage throughout the region, including near the Abraham Lincoln battle group … no U.S. or GCC air defense units were able to respond.

The attack came out of nowhere.”

“We’ll get plastered,” Jamieson said. “If Iran presses the attack, we could lose every usable air and naval base east of the Red Sea. We’d …” He knew … they both knew, what this meant—they couldn’t abort their mission now. Their B-2A bomber was the only allied strike aircraft in the Gulf region ready to fight back, the only one that could shut off the Iranian surge.

“What’s our ETE to the area, MC?”

“About three hours,” McLanahan responded.

“Well, we won’t be in time to help in the first series of attacks, but we can sure as hell do some damage in the second,” Jamieson said. “Let’s get cloaked up again and get back on the blue line—we’ve got an aircraft carrier to knock out.”

Once past Chengdu, all Chinese air defense activity dropped off markedly. They deactivated BEADS to get more target and status updates via satellite, activating the system once again as they neared Lhasa in southern China, then again as they approached Kathmandu in Nepal.

As they came closer to India, they studied the updated threat charts closely. “I think it’s too risky,” McLanahan said finally.

“The original plan had us crossing northern India and Pakistan, which is the shortest track, but the radar coverage is too thick there—the border skirmishes between India and Pakistan over the Punjab and Kashmir have that area too heavily fortified. Our best bet would be to extend farther north and go through Afghanistan north of Kabul, then south to Chah Bahar.”

“What’s that do to our fuel status?” Jamieson asked.

“It’ll add another hour to our flight time,” McLanahan said. “If we assume that all our divert bases on the Arabian Peninsula and Turkey are unavailable because of Iran’s attacks, that means we either hit a tanker right away over the Arabian Sea on the outbound leg, or we splash down—Diego Garcia goes away as an alternate. No other safe alternates are available.”

“What’s our decision point?”

“Right about now,” McLanahan said. “If we decided to abort from here, we’d reverse course and bug out over Burma, head east, and pick up a tanker just east of Manila. We can probably abort later on in the sortie and bug out over India, but then we’d have to bootleg a tanker out of Diego Garcia to meet us over the Arabian Sea or Bay of Bengal. Any way you cook it, AC, we’ll be skosh on gas from here on in. The last time we’ll have the right amount of fuel on board is right now.”

“Shit,” Jamieson swore on interphone. “You know, this is exactly the situation I warned General Samson not to get into. Don’t get backed into corners. Don’t do stupid stunts. I guess it’s true—you never learn anything new when you’re yakking.” He paused, then looked at McLanahan. “It’s your call, mission commander. I’ll drive the bus anywhere you want.”

McLanahan looked at Jamieson in surprise. “First time you’ve said that without the words dripping in sarcasm, Tiger.”

“Yeah, maybe I should check my oxygen—I might be getting hypoxic.” He shrugged, then nodded. “You’re a pretty good stick after all, Mack. You got us this far. Make the call.”

McLanahan paused, thinking; then: “You know, I just found out I’m going to be a father. Wendy’s pregnant.”

“No shit? That’s great. Congrats. I got three of my own. Those critters will change your life, believe me.” He looked hard at McLanahan. “So you thinking about bagging this mission?”

“Couldn’t think of a better reason He hesitated, thought for a short moment, then added, “… except there’s troops on the ground counting on us. We gotta do it, Tiger. We go.”

“Then we go,” Jamieson agreed. “We’re committed.”

The trip across Afghanistan was quiet and uneventful, but things changed immediately as the Spirit approached southeastern Iran.

Their original chosen flight path had them flying through the less populated parts of the provinces of northeastern Kerman and northern Baluchistan va Sistan, but the closer they got to the Iranian army air base at Zahedran, they realized they could not put the left wing toward any emitters, so they flew east of Zahedan through western Pakistan.

Before reaching the city of Zahedan, they briefly deactivated the “cloaking device” to get a last GPS satellite navigation update to the inertial navigation system, use the SAR radar to input an accurate pressure altitude into the flight computer, and to pick up any last-minute satellite intelligence and targeting data, including updates on the Iranian attacks on the United Arab Emirates and Oman. “The battle is going into phase two,” McLanahan reported as he read the retrieved messages. “Kamza Omani Naval Base on Musandam in the Strait of Hormuz, destroyed.

Sib Air Base in Oman, heavily damaged along with nearly all of Oman’s air force. Mina Sultan Naval Base in the UAE, heavily damaged—that’s where Madcap Magician was based. God, I hope they’re okay.”

“Your spy buddies made it this far, didn’t they?”

“Yep … and I’d say they kicked some butt, too,” McLanahan said with a smile. “Listen: Peninsula Shield reports a counterattack by commando forces out of Mina Sultan on the rebuilt Iranian air defense emplacements on Abu Musa Island. Some injuries, no casualties, but the Iranian defenses were destroyed—two Hawk, one Rapier SAM emplacements, the command-and-control center destroyed, and the runway cratered. That sounds like my friends, all right.”

As the B-2A flew southwest past Zahedan, they picked up the first indications of the air defense radar at Chah Bahar.

“Let’s head on down,” McLanahan said, punching in commands to the flight-control computer. “COLA mode engaged.” He configured his supercockpit display to provide a God’s-eye view of the sky and terrain around the B-2A bomber.

“Ready,” Jamieson said. “Deaf, dumb, and blind, we’re going hunting.” He engaged the autopilot to the new commands being entered into the flight-control system, and the B-2A bomber headed earthward at 15,000 feet per minute. Because the B-2A bomber used BEADS, the so-called cloaking device, it could not use a conventional terrain-following or terrain-avoidance radar system as with the B-52, F-111, F-15E, or B-1B bombers—it could not even use a radar altimeter to measure the distance below it, because BEADS would absorb all the outgoing energy.

Instead, this B-2A bomber used a system developed by the High Technology Aerospace Weapons Center called COLA, or COmputer-generated Lowest Attitude. First used on an experimental B-52H bomber nicknamed the “Megafortress”—so called because it had pioneered many of the advanced stealth and attack systems used on future war machines—the B-2A’s flight computers split up the entire globe into one-mile blocks, then had the highest terrain elevation within that block programmed into it. Using its inertial navigation system, accurate to 200 to 300 feet per hour, the B-2A’s flight-control system knew what terrain was coming up all along its flight path, and it would choose the lowest possible altitude while still avoiding the terrain. The flight-control computer could look “into” an upcoming turn, evaluate its airspeed, gross weight, outside air data, and flight performance, and fly as close as possible to the earth—sometimes as low as 100 feet—even though neither crew member could see out the cockpit windows! As the accuracy of the inertial navigation system degraded over time—there was no way to update the inertial navigation system with the “cloaking device” activated—COLA would select a higher altitude to provide a greater margin of safety while still flying as low as possible.

The terrain in southeastern Iran was flat, with occasional high razorback ridgelines plunging down into flat valleys, many with marshes or dry lake beds at the bottom. Fifty miles south of Zahedan, they crossed a major superhighway, the Mashhad-Chah Bahar Highway. Their flight path took them about forty miles west of it, far enough to stay away from any detection from populated areas along the highway but close enough that Jamieson could see it. “Lots of traffic out there, heading north,” Jamieson said.

“Good idea to get away from the coast these days.”

About 180 miles north of Chah Bahar, they picked up the first threat indications from radar sites out in the Gulf of Oman. They saw a bat-wing symbol with a small circle on the apex—the symbol for an airborne early-warning radar. “There’s the Iranian A-10 radar plane,” McLanahan said. “About two hundred fifty miles away—seventy miles offshore. The radar guys say that if they’re going to pick us up, we’ll be within one hundred twenty miles of the second site. That means we might be visible to them for seventy to one hundred miles—ten, maybe fifteen minutes.”

Just then, another bat-wing symbol appeared on the scope—not an A-10 radar plane, but an Iranian F-14 Tomcat fighter. “F-14 off the nose, about one hundred miles,” McLanahan said. “Not locked on yet, but he’s headed right for us …”

“It’s that loose screw or rivet or joint on the left wing,” Jamieson said. “It’s screwing up our stealthy stuff. And the F-14’s designed to look for low-flying targets as small as a cruise missile.”

“So let’s start giving them something to shoot at,” McLanahan said. “It’s a little earlier than we wanted, but we’re definitely an item of interest. I’m setting five hundred feet—stand by for missile launch.” McLanahan switched the terrain-avoidance system to 500 feet, then commanded the first launch of an AGM-86C cruise missile. The subsonic AGM-86C cruise missile had a turbojet engine that flew the missile at six miles per minute for 500 miles; this one had no warhead, only radio transmitters that gave it the radar cross-section and electronic profile of a large bomber. The cruise missile made an immediate right turn and headed west toward Bandar Abbas—and the F-14 Tomcat turned west to pursue. “He took the bait,” McLanahan said. “Let’s make a jog east, put Iranshahr off our right wing.” McLanahan reselected COLA on the terrain-avoidance computer, and they recrossed the Chah Bahar-Mashhad Highway again, heading east along the ridgelines.

“One hundred twenty miles to go,” McLanahan said. “Threat scope’s clear … got an SA-10 site at Chah Bahar searching, but so far we’re …” And just then, the F-14 Tomcat appeared on the threat scope again.

“Shit, the F-14’s back—he must’ve downed the cruise missile and is searching for wingmen.”

“Let’s give him one—this time, bugging out,” McLanahan said. He commanded 500 feet on the terrain-avoidance system again and launched the second AGM-86C, this one programmed to head north, toward Beghin Airport. “Missile away, resetting COLA …”

Just then, they heard the computer-synthesized voice in their headphones shouting. “WARNING, MISSILE LAUNCH, WARNING, MISSILE LAUNCH!” The SA-10 Grumble surface-to-air missile site had opened fire on them—and with their bomb doors open, the B-2A bomber was a very inviting target, even at very long range. “MAWS activated!” McLanahan shouted. “Track-breakers active!” But it was the wrong decision—McLanahan recognized it seconds later.

“No, the SA-10 launched against the cruise missile!” But it was too late—when he activated the missile defense system and jammers, it briefly deactivated the BEADS cloaking device, and the F-14 Tomcat, which had not yet detected the decoy cruise missile, locked on to the B-2A.

“MAWS down, track breakers in standby,” McLanahan reported—but they could see the F-14 barreling down on them now, coming “down the ramp” from its high-altitude combat air patrol straight at the B-2A bomber. “He’s still headed for us. Stand by to …”

Suddenly they received another “WARNING, MISSILE LAUNCH!” as the F-14 fired.

McLanahan reactivated the MAWS missile defense system, and the system immediately dumped chaff from the left ejectors as Jamieson broke hard right. “Track breakers active, MAWS tracking!” They could actually see the first missile, probably a Phoenix or air-launched Hawk missile, depicted on the threat scope, getting closer every second … then another “WARNING, MISSILE LAUNCH!”

as a second missile was fired from long range.

The’HAVE GLANCE defense system started firing its high-power laser “blinding” system only three seconds before the first missile hit—but it was enough. The Phoenix missile’s active terminal radar overheated, causing a safety self-destruct. The Phoenix missile exploded less than 500 feet from the B-2A bomber. “Break left, second missile coming in!” McLanahan shouted, and Jamieson executed a hard left turn, pulling on the control stick to tighten the turn even more. The MAWS system pumped out chaff from the right ejectors in response.

The second Phoenix missile was momentarily decoyed by the chaff and by the loss of radar lock when the damaged left wing dipped from view, but reacquired a lock when the chaff cloud dissipated—however, it locked on to Kuhiri Mountain, south of Iran-shahr, not on the B-2A. Again, the second missile missed by less than 300 feet—one-tenth of a second of missile flight time!—and exploded on the barren desert highlands below.

But now the F-14 itself was moving in. “Fighter at one o’clock high, range less than three miles, closing at seven hundred knots … HAVE GLANCE active!”

The HAVE GLANCE system, the high-powered laser emitter married to a missile-tracking radar, had a deadly effect on delicate, sensitive combat sensors such as those found on heat-seeking missiles, passive and active radar-homing missiles—and the human eyeball. The F-14 pilot had just zoomed down the ramp through 15,000 feet and was arming up his 20-millimeter cannon when the HAVE GLANCE laser blinder locked on to his aircraft and fired.

The helium-argon laser, only the size of a large videotape camera but just as powerful as an industrial-strength diamond-cutting laser, didn’t cause any pain when the orange-blue beam hit the pilot’s eyes. He saw a quick flash of dirty blue light that temporarily obscured his vision, like a waft of smoke or sand. He blinked—the spot was still there. He blinked again—ah, the spot was beginning to clear, still fuzzy but getting better. The Iranian pilot could see the radar range click down on his heads-up display … 3,000 meters to fire … 2,000 meters to fire … ready to fire … now!

But he wasn’t locked on to the target anymore—like the Phoenix missile, his fire-control radar had first locked on to a cloud of chaff, then on a piece of terrain when the bomber jinked away.

The radar wasn’t counting down to his shoot point … it was counting down to when his fighter would hit the ground. A light from a passing car near the town of Chanf was the first indication to the pilot of how close he was to the ground—a split second before he impacted, traveling at almost the speed of sound straight down.

“Scope’s clear,” McLanahan said. “Chah Bahar’s off the nose, forty miles. We’re well inside radar range of that A-10 radar plane now.”

ABOARD THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN AIRCRAFT CARRIER AYATOLLAH RUHOLLAH KHOMEINI THAT SAME TIME “Combined radar reports a low-flying aircraft now two hundred fifty kilometers north of our position, heading south at very low altitude—less than two hundred meters, speed seven hundred kilometers per hour,” Brigadier General Muhammad Badi, Major Admiral Akbar Tufayli’s chief of staff aboard the carrier Khomeini, reported. “Chah Bahar air defense forces have engaged numerous unidentified air targets south of Iranshahr, destroying one believed to be a decoy.”

“Good,” Tufayli said confidently. “This new radar system seems to be working perfectly.”

“Shall we commit any of our fighters to the pursuit?”

“No, Badi, not yet,” the Pasdaran naval commander replied. “We shall wait until the aircraft is over water before committing our forces.” He paused to think for a moment. “The bomber is over eastern Iran now? That means it must have flown westward across Afghanistan … and across India and China, too, perhaps? This means that the Americans may have violated Chinese airspace to attack from the Asian side, rather than attempt another attack from over-water! I think our Chinese friends would be very interested to learn about this new development, wouldn’t you say, Badi? Get me the Chinese group commander at Chah Babar immediately.”

ABOARD AIR VEHICLE-01 I “It worked once before—let’s see if they work again,” McLanahan said. “Missile launch, ready … ready … now … doors open …

one away … two away … doors closed …” At that instant, there was another missile launch warning from the SA-10 site—again, when the bomb doors were open, the B-2A bomber was at its most vulnerable position.

The SA-10 Grumble missile flew a high ballistic flight path over the rugged terrain of southeast Iran, flying up to 50,000 feet before starting its terminal dive into the “basket,” where its quarry was supposed to fly. When it turned on its active terminal radar and flashed it into the target “basket,” it acquired the B-2A bomber immediately. The SA-10 Grumble missile actually had two seeker heads—an active radar seeker in the nose and, since the missile actually flew “sideways” into a lead-computing intercept, it also had an infrared seeker head mounted in the body of the missile that looked sideways at its target as it got closer, acting as a backup and as a terminal fine-tuning device for a precision kill. With two seeker heads, the SA-10 was very difficult to decoy.

But the bomber’s HAVE GLANCE laser immediately destroyed the infrared seeker, allowing the IR seeker’s computers to deliver false aim-correcting data to the missile—just for about a second, but long enough to knock the missile out of its nice, smooth intercept. At the same instant that the HAVE GLANCE laser hit, Jamieson threw the bomber into another hard left break, just as McLanahan dumped chaff. The SA-10 missile wobbled, reacquired, locked on to the chaff, decided it wasn’t moving fast enough and rejected that lock, reacquired the bomber—and hit the right wing, near the tip just forward of the trailing edge. The shaped-charge missile warhead punched a two-foot-wide hole in the wing, destroying the right wing ruddervators and rupturing the right wing fuel tank.

The B-2A bomber heeled sharply to the right, flipping over at nearly a ninety-degree bank, throwing the bomber nearly into a full accelerated stall. Jamieson tried to correct the turn, but had trouble controlling the aircraft. “Controls not responding!”

he shouted at McLanahan. “We lost the right niddervators …

c’mon, dammit, give it to me, give it to me!” It took both men on the control stick, then full left rudder trim, to straighten the bomber out.

“Lost the right ruddervators,” McLanahan confirmed. “Left ruddervators are deployed fifty, sixty percent. Power plants, all other systems OK. Fuel looks like it’s draining out the right wing … right wing valves are closed, all engines feeding off the left wing, boost pumps on, system still in AuTo but I’ll watch it.

Hydraulics OK.”

Meanwhile, the two JSOW cruise missiles were on their way, and as expected, the “screamers” did their magic once again. Two JSOW “screamers,” one east and one west of Chah Bahar, created so many false targets, emergency radar locks, and close-in automatic engagements that a dozen air defense sites within twenty miles of Chah Bahar opened up all at once—and all of them shooting east or west, instead of north, toward the B-2A.

At ten miles from Chah Bahar, McLanahan and Jamieson launched the next two missiles—these were AGM-88 HARMs (High-speed Anti-Radiation Missiles), supersonic radar seekers loaded with a 150-pound conventional high-explosive warhead with tungsten alloy steel cubes embedded in the explosive to triple the warhead’s destructive power. The rotary launcher ejected two HARM missiles out into the slipstream, the missiles fired ahead of the bomber, then quickly locked onto the Chah Bahar radar straight ahead and homed in. With the radar at Chah Bahar on full-cycle duty to counter the JSOW “screamers” and direct Chah Bahar’s murderous antiaircraft defenses, the HARM missile had a clear shot all the way, and seconds later the search radar had been destroyed for good.

“Okay, Mack,” Jamieson said. “We’re at the IP. We can turn back and hightail it for the hills, and we got a pretty good chance to make it outta here. We can E and E through the Pakistani or Afghan hills, then bug out over the Gulf of Oman and catch our tanker.”

“You don’t want to do that, Tiger,” McLanahan said. “You want to see that carrier go down. So do I.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Jamieson said. “Hell, I didn’t want to live forever anyway. Let’s take care of business and get the hell outta here.” He began pushing up the throttles to full military power while McLanahan cut off the COLA terrain-avoidance system, and they started a steep climb over the Gulf of Oman toward the carrier.

ABOARD THE KHOMEINI THAT SAME TIME “The radar at Chah Bahar is down,” Badi reported to Major Admiral Akbar Tufayli. “We are resynchronizing with the A-10 radar plane and our own search radar. He is repositioning his orbit fifty kilometers further north to compensate for the loss of the shore station. We have requested that another A-10 take up a position to back up our A-10 on station; his ETE is thirty minutes Stand by …” It took only a few moments. “We have reacquired the target, sir, bearing zero-one-five, range ninety-six kilometers, speed six hundred kilometers per hour—it appears to have slowed down considerably.”

“Possibly damaged,” Tufayli said. “Now may be the time to commit our forces to hunt that bomber down and destroy it forever!”

“Range ninety kilometers, speed five-ninety, altitude now reading … sir, altitude is increasing. He’s climbing … now passing three hundred meters, four hundred … range eighty kilometers, passing six hundred kilometers in altitude. We have a solid lock-on, sir … seventy-five kilometers and closing, speed down to five hundred kilometers!”

“Engage at maximum range,” Tufayli ordered. “Launch the alert fighters. Get everything we have airborne. Where is that bomber now?”

“Still climbing, sir … Interceptor flights Twenty and Twenty-one engaging target, range sixty kilometers and closing..

“Twenty? Twenty-one? Where are those flights from’?” Tufayli asked.

“Those are the air defense F-4 Phantoms from Chah Babar, on station with the A-10.” He stopped and looked at his commander.

“The A-10? Could that bomber be going after the radar plane?”

“Get him out of there! Have him take evasive action!” But it was too late. The B-2A bomber launched two more AGM-88 HARM missiles, which horned in straight and true on the A-10 radar plane, sending it quickly spinning into the Gulf of Oman.

“He’s … he’s gone, sir, off our radar screens,” Badi reported.

“Interceptors have lost the target.”

“No!” Tufayli shouted, slamming a fist on his seat in anger. The F-4s had poorly maintained radars, with few spare parts, and were not as reliable as the Sukhoi-33s or the MiG-29s. “Not now! We were so close! Badi, I want every fighter we have in the air right now! I do not care if we shoot at every bird or every cloud in the sky that even remotely looks like a bomber on radar. I want it done, and I want that bomber on the bottom of the Gulf of Oman! Now!”

ABOARD AIR VEHICLE-01 I Nose pointed down to the sea, throttles to idle to present the smallest possible thermal cross-section astern, the B-2A Spirit stealth bomber plunged down into the darkness of the Gulf of Oman.

As it passed through 5,000 feet, following the computer’s projected track to where it thought the carrier Khomeini was, McLanahan saw a tiny spot of light—on the ocean—soon he saw others. “SAR coming on he announced, “now … SAR standby. Got the carrier, directly ahead, fifteen miles … last four missiles are programmed and ready to go.”

“Punch those ‘Elmers’ out and let’s go home,” Jamieson said.

Thirty seconds later, the last four JSOW missiles were on their way to the aircraft carrier Khomeini.

Following McLanahan’s programmed flight plan, the four “Elmer’s” missiles arced north of the Iranian battle group, then turned south-southeast, roughly following each other in trail 1,500 feet apart. They were just a few dozen feet above the tallest antenna on the destroyer Zhanjiang by the time they passed over the fleet.

As they passed overhead, tiny bomb bays opened up on each missile and an invisible liquid vapor cloud sprayed over the Iranian warships. The heavy vapor droplets settled quickly in a straight sausage-shaped pattern, coating the ships with a thin, odorless, tasteless film. As the missiles completed their silent deliveries right on target, they splashed harmlessly into the Gulf of Oman, completely undetected and unrecoverable.

In seconds, exposed to air, the thin clear film that had been deposited over the two big warships began to change toward THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER KHOMEINI “it is about cursed time!” Admiral Tufayli shouted. The first rescue helicopter was just lifting off the deck and taking position on the port-side, ready to rescue any crewmen who might have to eject shortly after takeoff. It had taken more than five minutes to scramble a crew and get a helicopter airborne, and that was totally unacceptable.

The admiral turned from the helicopter deck forward to the short holdback point near the center of the carrier in front of the island superstructure, where a Sukhoi-33 fighter sat loaded with two R-73 long-range air-to-air missiles—the deck crews had managed to off-load the fighter’s four Kh25 laser-guided attack missiles, but did not have the time to replace the empty stations with more air-to-air missiles. With only a 400-kilogram payload and a partial fuel load, that Su33 could use the shorter 100-meter takeoff run, while the heavier fighters had to use the 200-meter run along the port-side of the ship. Tufayli was impatient, but he knew that night carrier operations were the most dangerous and the crews were working at their best speed. “Any radar indications on that bomber?” he asked.

“Possible unidentified target bearing zero-five-zero, range twelve miles, flying away from us,” came the reply.

“That has got to be the bomber, Badi,” Tufayli said. “I want it checked out immediately! And dispatch a radar helicopter to track that aircraft. If our fighters shoot it down, I want searchers to recover any bodies and as much wreckage as-“

“Sir, we have an emergency, the pilot of our rescue helicopter reports a hot hydraulic pack and wants a ready deck for an immediate precautionary landing,” General Badi announced suddenly.

“Denied!” Tufayli shouted. “I want two fighters airborne before any other deck operations!”

“Sir, the Mil-8 helicopters have only a single hydraulic pack and an emergency system,” Badi reminded the Pasdaran commander. “The emergency system is useful only in performing a controlled descent, not for maneuvering. Sir, no hostiles are engaging us—it is not critical to have fighter coverage airborne right away. We should bring that helicopter aboard.

“All right, Badi, but after the first fighter launches,” Tufayli said. Relieved, Badi passed along the order.

As a second fighter was placed into the holdback position on the 600-foot launch run, the first fighter on the number two 300-foot launch track activated its afterburners, and after a few seconds to allow the thrust to stabilize, it was released and it headed for the ski jump. Acceleration looked normal, although any fighter launch off the short 100-meter run was always very tense.

The fighter hit the incline bow “ski jump,” sailed gracefully into the night sky, disappeared as it fell beneath the ski jump, then could be seen straight off the nose, its afterburners still on full power. “Finally!” Tufayli shouted. “Recover that helicopter, then get that second fighter airborne as soon as …”

“Sir, Interceptor One is reporting a flight-control malfunction!”

Badi shouted. Tufayli turned his attention back to the fighter that had just taken off..It was still in max afterburner, climbing at a very steep angle. “The pilot is having great difficulty moving any flight controls, and the landing gear is stuck in an intermediate position.”

“What in hell is it, Badi?” Tufayli shouted. The fighter disappeared in the night sky, its afterburners still on full. At that rate of fuel consumption, Tufayli thought, it might have time for one long-range missile shot at one of the intruders before it had to return.

“it could be contamination in the hydraulic fluid,” Badi speculated. “This is a similar malfunction as the patrol helicopter. I …” He paused as he listened to the intercom report in his headset, then turned, ashen-faced, to Tufayli.

“Sir, flight ops reports the pilot of Interceptor One was unable to maintain control of the fighter and was forced to attempt to eject.”

“Eject?” Tufayli shouted. He leapt to his feet and scanned the horizon for the plane, but saw nothing. “What happened?”

“His last report stated that his ejection system had malfunctioned,” Badi reported. “The fighter has been lost on radar.

Tufayli was momentarily in shock, but his only thought was of the unidentified fighters out there. “Get Interceptor Two airborne!”

he screamed. “Get it up there now!”

“Sir, there is something happening on the flight deck,” Badi said.

“I do not know if it is fuel or hydraulic fluid contamination or corrosion or some kind of maintenance error, but it may have affected the entire air wing. We should postpone all aircraft launches until the problem has been-“

“No!” Tufayli shouted. “I want air cover up immediately! We are unprotected without it! Range to the bomber?”

“Sir, the only possible target is now thirty kilometers from the carrier and increasing—it is not a threat to the group,” Badi said. He touched his headset, listening carefully to the intercom reports. “Sir, combat section is reporting a possible malfunction of the radar arrays.”

“What in hell is going on here?” Tufayli shouted. “Is everything breaking all at once? What sort of malfunction?”

“Problem with the antenna itself, possibly a bad bearing or problems in the gear mechanism—the radar array is not rotating properly,” Badi replied. “We still have adequate radar coverage and antiaircraft capability Sir, Interceptor Two is ready for takeoff. I request permission to delay takeoff until a fast examination of the aircraft hydraulic system can be accomplished.

It will only-“

“No, launch Interceptor Two immediately!” Tufayli shouted. Badi had no choice but to give the order.

The takeoff appeared normal—for only a few seconds, right at the beginning of the takeoff run. The afterburners flared, the fighter paused, the holdback bar released, the fighter leapt toward the ski jump—then seemed to actually slow down! Tufayli thought it was an optical illusion, but as the fighter neared the beginning of the jump, it seemed as if the pilot were braking to a halt—it was slowing down! “Badi, what in God’s name …?”

Just as Badi was keying his mike button, ordering flight ops to order the pilot to abort the takeoff, the long twin afterburner plumes wobbled unsteadily from side to side, then suddenly pitched upward as the nose gear collapsed. Still in full afterburner power, the force of the engines snapped the Su-33 fighter in half, the fuel tanks burst open, and the fighter exploded in a huge fireball that instantly engulfed the entire flight deck. The men on the admiral’s bridge dropped to the deck as the observation windows imploded, and a wall of searing heat followed the ear-shattering thunder of the explosion. Several secondary explosions rumbled around them as other fighters and helicopters up on deck caught fire and exploded.

“All stop! All stop! Damage-control report!” Tufayli was shouting. The collision and damage-control alarms were blaring as Tufayli weakly got to his feet and stared in utter amazement and horror through the shattered observation windows at the flight deck of the Middle East’s first aircraft carrier. Although the foam fire-fighting cannons at the flight deck’s edge had activated, the forward half of the flight deck was still on fire.

Damage-control floodlights revealed dozens of naked, burned bodies lying all over the scorched deck. “Badi, damn you, report!”

“No report from damage control yet, sir!” General Badi, his face cut up and blackened by the blast, replied. “Sir, I am receiving a report from the destroyer Zhanjiang …”

“I do not care about the destroyer, Badi. What is happening to my carrier?”

“Sir, the Zhanjiang is reporting a foreign substance on its decks and superstructures that is causing severe damage to all above-decks equipment,” Badi went on. “Radar, weapons, all reporting severe corrosion from a sticky substance that is preventing any movement—objects are being stuck together, as if they had been coated with a powerful liquid cement.”

“What?”

“Yes, sir—the Zhanjiang cannot operate its radar or train any of its weapons, and even personnel on deck are having trouble moving around. Sir, it could be that the same substance fell on the Khomeini. If it got onto the fighters’ landing gear, it would have prevented a normal takeoff. If it got onto the rotors or transmission of the helicopter, it could cause stress of …”

“What in hell are you saying, Badi?” Tufayli shouted. “You are saying we were somehow attacked … by glue? Someone sprayed our ships with glue to cause such damage?”

“I do not know, sir,” Badi said, placing a hand on a cut on his forehead. He listened to his intercom, then said, “Sir, the fire has spread to the hangar deck. Damage-control crews are responding. The ammunition magazines and fuel stores are in no immediate danger.” He paused, then said, “Sir, you should consider evacuating the ship. You can transfer your flag to the Sadaf.”

“Evacuate … my … ship?” Tufayli muttered. “Never! I will never-!”

But he was interrupted by a sharp explosion and a rumble throughout the ship. He searched and found that one of the P-700 Granit anti-ship missiles, housed in vertical launch boxes on the front of the carrier near the ski jump, had exploded inside its canister, blowing huge sections of steel into the sky and gouging out large sections of the ship. Each missile weighed 11,000 pounds and carried a 2,200-pound high-explosive warhead.

“One Granit missile has exploded, sir!” Badi reported.

“I can see that, damn you, Badi!” Tufayli shouted. “Damage report!”

“Substantial damage reported on all forward decks,” Badi reported.

The general’s battle staff was in complete disarray; reports were coming in from all corners of the ship, and he could hardly understand any of them. “Sir, you should evacuate the ship immediately. You should take the entire intelligence staff; the senior staff will remain on board. I now suggest transferring directly ashore to Chah Bahar, since it appears that the Zhanjiang has been damaged and cannot defend itself, and it is too dangerous to bring the Sadaf alongside.”

Tufayli thought for a moment, then nodded—he knew Badi was right.

If just a few of the remaining P-700 cruise missiles went up, the carrier could be at the bottom of the Gulf of Oman in just a few short minutes. And if missile number seven, the nuclear-loaded missile, exploded … well, they would be spared the humiliation of a court-martial, at least. “All right, General,” Tufayli said.

“I will transfer to Chah Bahar with the intelligence staff—but the captain stays with this ship at all times, do you hear me? I want no member of the ship’s complement to leave unless this ship is ready to capsize! I want the cruiser Sadaf to dispatch a helicopter to stand by with us at Chah Bahar, ready to take us back to the Sadaf to direct the remainder of the battle group in case the bomber tries to attack the fleet again.

“Badi, next, I want this ship to maneuver in the center of the international sea lane in the Gulf of Oman and remain in place,” Tufayli continued. “If it sinks, I want it to sink in the center of the sea lane, and I want the sea lanes blocked by all the other ships. Whoever attacked this battle group, I want it made clear that we will still close this waterway to all traffic and control its access, even if we have to use our own ship’s hulk to do it!”

It took another hour to execute Admiral Tufayli’s evacuation plan.

Since all of the Khomeini’s helicopters were either destroyed, crippled by the adhesive, or under repair, a Mil8 helicopter had to be flown out from the destroyer Sadaf to fetch the admiral; a simple oilcloth tarp was laid out on deck for the helicopter to land safely. While Tufayli waited for his helicopter to arrive, he had to suffer listening to the systematic destruction of fran’s fleet by Gulf Cooperative Council air attacks. One by one, the smaller ships in the Khomeini’s escort fleet were struck and hit by wave after wave of GCC jets and helicopters launching Harpoon, Exocet, and Sea Eagle anti-ship missiles—without forward early-warning radar coverage or air defense cover from the carrier or the Chinese cruiser Zhanjiang, the escorts were easy prey for GCC attackers. Twice the cruiser Zhanjiang was hit; three times the close-in-weapon systems on the carrier Khomeini came to life, destroying inbound anti-ship missiles seconds before they plowed into their prey.

When Tufayli was brought up on deck to board his helicopter, he saw the devastation in the seas around him: dotting the horizon in every direction were the bright spots of flickering red, yellow, and orange light representing burning Iranian warships. The Zhanjiang was still under way, and had repositioned itself between the Omani coast and the carrier, but a fire below-decks was still not fully contained. But even worse than that sight was the look of fear, anger, and betrayal in the eyes of the Iranian sailors around him. The Khomeini was still afloat, crippled but still fighting—but its commander was running. Tufayli could almost hear the sailors’ derisive words, calling him a coward”

It didn’t matter, Tufayli thought bitterly. It was their job to fight and die for him and their country—it was his job to command, to lead, and he couldn’t do it very well from a crippled aircraft carrier covered in contact cement, with a six-meter-wide hole yawning in its belly and a nuclear warhead threatening to blow at any second.

ABOARD THE CV-22 PAVE HAMMER TILT-ROTOR, OVER THE GULF OF OMAN THAT SAME TIME The CV-22 Pave Hammer tilt-rotor aircraft’s refueling probe had no sooner nestled into the HC-130P Hercules tanker’s lighted basket of the refueling drogue and transferred a few hundred pounds of JP-7 fuel when the navigator aboard the HC-130P Hercules called on secure interplane, “Hammer Zero-One, Peninsula Shield Skywatch is reporting a single helicopter, designate Target Seven, leaving the deck of the Khomeini.”

“Roger,” the pilot of the CV-22 responded. “Continue the transfer.” He clicked open the intercom: “Right when you said he’d show, Major.”

Hal Briggs punched the air with satisfaction and smiled broadly at the men of Madcap Magician surrounding him. “You were right, Paul—but we don’t know Tufayli’s on board that helicopter. It could be a medevac, could be anything”

“Even so, Tufayli will still be on it—no matter how many injured there might be on that carrier, I’ll bet Tufayli will make room for himself.” He paused, then regarded Briggs and said, “But the next step’s up to you, Hal. You’re in charge of this mission.”

“Thanks,” Briggs said. “And I say we go see who’s out flying around at this time of night.” He clicked open the intercom: “Greg, get a vector to Target Seven, finish your on-load, and intercept.”

“Got it,” the CV-22 pilot responded happily.

In less than five minutes, the HC-130P tanker had filled the CV-22’s tanks. The CV-22 disconnected, turned to clear the tanker—they were flying less than 500 feet above the Gulf of Oman, so no one dared descend to get separation!and transitioned to airplane mode to pursue the Iranian helicopter. Their top speed in helicopter mode was only about 110 miles per hour, but once the CV-22 tilt-rotor’s twin engine nacelles swiveled horizontally, which changed the helicopter rotors to function as aircraft propellers, the CV-22 quickly accelerated to over 360 miles an hour. Following vectors from the Saudi Arabian E-3S AWACS radar plane orbiting near the Omani border in the southeast corner of the Arabian Peninsula, the CV-22 sped northward after its quarry at low altitude.

With a nearly 200-mile-per-hour overtake, the Madcap Magician special-ops aircraft closed the distance in ten minutes, less than 100 miles from the Iranian shoreline. The Iranian Mil-8 cargo/anti-submarine warfare helicopter, a rather round, squat, bug-shaped machine with twin tails and two sets of main rotor blades counter-rotating on one rotor mast, showed up perfectly in the CV-22’s imaging infrared scanner, and they maneuvered above and to the left, out of direct sight of the helicopter’s pilot. The helicopter was cruising without running lights at medium altitude; its engines were brightly glowing red-hot from the engine’s high-power setting.

The CV-22 pilot used a small thumbwheel on the cyclic/control stick to swivel the engine nacelles up to a thirty-five-degree setting, to obtain the best combination of forward speed, maneuverability, and vertical flight capability.

“The Mil-8 is definitely not made for high-speed cruising,” Briggs observed as he studied the Mil-8’s image on the copilot’s monitor.

“Its engines will probably have to be shelled after this flight.

See any door guns on that thing?”

“Negative,” the pilot responded. “Nothing stopping them from sticking a rifle out the window and blowing us away, though.”

“We got a few popguns of our own,” Briggs said. “If you see even one pistol aimed at you, blow that bug out of the sky.”

“They’re going to call for help,” the pilot said, “and the Iranian fighters aren’t too far away. We got no comm jammers …”

“We’ll give Tufayli the chance to surrender, or we splash him,” Briggs said angrily. “I’m not letting him get away. Peace Shield Sky-watch better do their job. Let’s take this bad boy down.”

With a touch of the power control lever, the CV-22 slipped within sight of the Mil-8’s copilot, and they hit the exterior lights “What in God’s name …?” The copilot’s scream made the pilot’s head snap over as if he’d been slapped. It was hard to see exactly what was out there, but in the flashing red and white lights, they saw an immense aircraft, as large as a small cargo plane but with propellers canted at an unusual angle. But there was no mistaking the black-and-green star centered between three horizontal bars—the chevrons of an American military aircraft. The copilot could see weapons pylons with some sort of missile on it—it resembled a four-round American Hellfire anti-tank missile pod—plus a large steerable cannon on a chin turret, with the muzzle of the big Gatling gun aimed right at them! Seconds later, the American aircraft’s lights winked out, plunging the horrifying scene back into total darkness. “Admiral!”

“I saw it,” Major Admiral Akbar Tufayli said. “What are you waiting for? Get on the radio and get some fighters from Chah Bahar or Bandar Abbas out here to help us.”

“Shall we try to lose it?”

“Don’t be a fool,” Tufayli said. “It found us easily, at night and at low altitude. They must be in contact with their radar planes and using infrared scanners—running will do us no-“

“Attention on the Iranian Mil-8 helicopter,” came a voice in English on the international GUARD emergency frequency. “You have been intercepted. Turn left heading two-zero-zero immediately or you will be destroyed. Repeat, turn left to a heading of two-zero-zero immediately or you will be destroyed.”

“Ignore them,” Tufayli ordered. “Continue on your present course and speed. Any response from our fighters?”

“A flight of two Sukhoi-27 fighters, Interceptor Eleven flight, will rendezvous with us in five minutes,” the copilot responded.

“Good,” Tufayli said. “Then I want …”

Just then a brilliant flash of light and a line of bright white tracers lanced across the sky—the tracers were so close that everyone in the cockpit could hear the concussion of the shells beat on the canopy. Then they heard a voice in Farsi say, “Admiral Tufayli, you cannot escape.”

“He knows you!” the pilot shouted. “He knows you are on board!”

“Colonel Paul White,” Tufayli said angrily. “It is the American spy we captured. So the rumor is true: President Nateq-Nouri did conspire with the Americans to release White from prison.”

“Admiral Tufayli, you have one last chance,” White radioed. “Turn about now or die.”

“Where are those fighters?” Tufayli shouted.

“Our fighters have the American aircraft locked on radar,” the copilot shouted as he monitored the tactical frequency. “He will be in missile range in less than two minutes.”

“Tell him to fly at full reheat if he has to,” Tufayli shouted, “but get him in firing position now!”

It took a little more than one minute for the Iranian MiG-29 fighter to report that he was in radar-missile firing range …

but: “Be advised, Khomeini Five, that I am painting only one radar return, repeat, one radar return. I do not see the second aircraft on my radar.”

“He’s flying too closely, sir,” the pilot of the Mil-8 helicopter said. “Our radar images are merging.”

“Tell him to close the infrared scanner range,” Tufayli ordered.

He knew that the MiG-29 fighter had a system called IRSTS, or Infrared Search and Track System, which could guide the fighter pilot into an intercept and kill even at night, without the use of airborne or ground-based radar. “Tell him to use his guns. The American tilt-rotor is northwest of us.”

The MiG-29 pilot acknowledged Tufayli’s instructions.

“Admiral Tufayli, I order you to turn around and surrender,” White radioed again in broken Farsi. “Your MiG-29s will not save you.”

The Americans obviously had a radar plane of their own up now, Tufayli thought grimly—but it was no matter. In a matter of seconds, the tilt-rotor would fly through a hail of bullets.

“Range ten kilometers,” the Mil-8 pilot reported. There was no way to stop him—the Americans had no fighters up this far toward Iran close enough to help. “Eight kilometers …”

Suddenly everyone on the Mil-8 helicopter saw several bright flashes of light and a brief but spectacular streak of fire race through the night sky. “Missiles!” the Mil-8 pilot shouted on his interplane radio. “The Americans are launching missiles! Take evasive action!” Although the Hellfire missile was intended as an anti-tank weapon, it was just as capable and deadly against flying targets—and evidence of that came just a few seconds later, as the Mil-8 crew saw a flash of red-and-orange light and a streak of fire arcing down into the sea.

“Khomeini Five, Khomeini Five, this is Interceptor Eleven, I have lost contact with my leader,” a new voice on the interplane frequency said. “What in Allah’s name is that aircraft?”

“It is nothing more than a fancy helicopter, damn you!” Tufayli shouted in response. “Get down here and destroy them!”

The lone MiG-29 wheeled back and set up for a stern gun pass—but his fate was no different than his leader’s. Seconds before flying into cannon range, the CV-22 wheeled around, locked its laser designator onto the approaching fighter, and fired another salvo of Hellfire laser-guided missiles. The MiG-29 exploded into a huge fireball long before the pilot could press his trigger.

The CV-22 wheeled around again and was on the Iranian Mil-8 helicopter in less than a minute. “You’re next, Admiral,” Paul White’s voice echoed on the GUARD frequency. “Surrender now or you’ll die.”

“We have wounded sailors on board this aircraft,” Tufayli said.

“You will not dare to harm them. That is a barbaric act of a coward!”

“Their blood will be on your hands, Admiral, not mine,” White said. “Surrender, and I will see to it that your wounded receive all the medical care they need and are then immediately returned to Iran.”

“Go to hell, filthy American terrorist pig!” Tufayli shouted in response. “We are in Iranian airspace, over Iranian waters. If you shoot us down, it is an act of war! You go to hell!”

“After you, Admiral Tufayli,” White radioed—seconds before the CV-22’s last two Hellfire missiles plowed into the Mil-8 helicopter, blowing it to pieces and sending it crashing into the Gulf of Oman.

“Oh, man, that looked good,” Paul White said, uncharacteristically angry, almost bloodthirsty. “That felt real good.”

“We’ll turn you into a mad-dog killer yet, Colonel,” Hal Briggs added with a wry smile. “A stone mad-dog killer.”

“About as likely as you becoming a chaste monk,” White shot back.

“Speaking of which, where did that charming young lady of yours run off to? I’m sure she’s a capable agent, and I know the United Arab Emirates must have plenty of safe houses in Tehran, but do you think it was wise for her to stay down there?”

“She’s not just a capable agent—she’s the best I’ve ever seen,” Briggs said. “And as much as I want her with me, she’s got a job to do. I can’t wait to see her again, boss White noticed the unexpected intensity in Briggs’s voice. “This sounds serious, Hal,” he said with a smile. “is it?”

“Could be, Colonel,” Briggs said. “Could be …”

TEHRAN, IRAN “Your incredible incompetence has nearly resulted in bringing this entire government down, General Buzhazi,” the Faqih Ayatollah Ali Hoseini Khamenei said angrily. He and the members of the Council of Guardians, the twelve-member legal and religious tribunal that advised the Faqih on government matters, were meeting with Buzhazi in the Council’s chambers. “You almost single-handedly managed to create a third world war, with the military forces of nearly the entire planet directed against us—only the incompetence of your military commanders on board the aircraft carrier saved the Islamic Republic from disaster. Further, you directly violated our orders that President Nateq-Nouri not be harmed. Allah and his faithful servants demand an answer. Speak, General. What have you to say for yourself’.?”

“Your Excellency, I demand to know why you ordered our air and naval forces to cease their operations,” Hesarak akan Buzhazi said in response, ignoring the Ayatollah’s demand. “The aircraft carrier Khomeini and several vessels in the battle group sustained heavy damage, but our air forces had the upper hand …”

“We ordered the operations to stop because our armed forces were facing virtual annihilation, General,” Khamenei said. “Our carrier was barely able to return to Chah Bahar, and I now understand that it is still in danger of sinking, even though several hundred workers are struggling to save it.”

“Your Excellency, I was one or two days away from completely eliminating all foreign threats to Iran!” Buzhazi said angrily.

“In just a few hours, my air forces could have destroyed or damaged every military base within fifteen hundred kilometers of our shores. With no American or foreign military forces to support them, every nation in the region would have been forced to sign non-aggression pacts with us. With this cease-fire, we allow the United States to deploy more air defense forces to Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Turkey, Kuwait …”

“Several bases in the Islamic Republic, a radar plane, and our carrier battle group were attacked by the Americans—and it is said that it was a single American bomber,” Khamenei pointed out.

“Our destruction was imminent. Your failures have angered Allah, and it was his command that this senseless waste of lives and resources of the Islamic Republic stop immed-“

Buzhazi shot to his feet before the Faqih and the Council of Guardians. “Enough of this religious tripe, Khamenei,” he said angrily. “My war has not ended—it is just beginning.”

Every member of the Council of Guardians recoiled in horror at Buzhazi’s words—everyone but Khamenei himself. “How so, General?” the Faqih asked calmly.

“Iran is suffering under men like you—small-minded men who actually believe that Allah is going to elevate this country ahead of all others simply because you invoke his name,” Buzhazi said.

“Iran will be powerful and take charge of the true believers around the world only if its leadership has the guts to do so—and you need a powerful military force to do it.

“My men control the government now, Khamenei,” Buzhazi went on.

“I control the press, the Cabinet, and all telecommunications in and out of this capital. I have a military force of two million men under arms, and I have begun the mobilization of the Basij under the direct control of my Pasdaran forces—that is another million men and women under arms. We do not believe that Allah is speaking to you, any of you. Iran is under attack, and Allah has commanded me to lead her, to drive the non-believers away, and to secure our borders and our future.

“I have a suggestion for all you tired, shriveled-up old men,” he said as he turned to depart. “Finger your worry beads and pray in silence, or stand up and support me and your warriors. If you attempt to involve yourself in military affairs again, I will see to it that this Council is disbanded or replaced. You have been warned.”

“We will discuss your suggestion—and your warning with our military advisers,” the Ayatollah Khamenei said calmly.

“Our military advisers,” Khamenei said, raising a hand. From a side room, several men, some in uniform, entered—including one who made Buzhazi’s jaw drop in surprise. “I am sure you know the leader of our new military advisory panel: the honorable Dr. Ding Henggao, Minister of National Defense Science, Technology, and Industry of the People’s Republic of China. He was kind enough to bring along General Fu Qanyou, Chief of General Logistics, and Vice Admiral Qu Zhenmou, commander of the East China Sea Fleet of the People’s Liberation Army Navy. The others with him are-“

“What in God’s name is this?” Buzhazi retorted. “What are they doing here? I did not request this-“

“These gentlemen are representatives of the Chinese government, come to inspect their equipment and inquire as to the status of their country’s considerable investment in the Islamic Republic,” Khamenei said with a satisfied smile. His smile dimmed dramatically as he went on: “They were very, very disappointed to learn of the attack and destruction on their aircraft carrier and their cruiser.”

Buzhazi was thunderstruck. Khamenei, the man who hated all foreigners and disdained almost anything having to do with the military, had secretly called a high-level delegation of Chinese military advisers to Tehran! Next to Russia, China was Iran’s largest arms supplier; most of Iran’s naval and missile technology had come from China, the agreements signed by most of these gentlemen now present and delivered by these very military commanders. “I am prepared to brief these distinguished visitors from the People’s Republic of China at any time on the nature of the attacks by the Americans.”

“Excuse me, please,” Minister Ding said in Beijing Mandarin, translated into Farsi by an Iranian linguist, “but it is quite apparent to us and to my government that any continued plans for the employment of People’s Liberation Army Navy vessels and weapons by forces under your command would be foolish …”

“but Iran is the victim of American treachery. With all due respect, the Chinese government should be considering sanctions against the American government for their role in the destruction of your warships. I …”

“The People’s Republic of China no longer has confidence in your ability to command, or any confidence in your judgment, General Buzhazi,” Minister Ding said acidly. To the Ayatollah Khamenei, Ding said. “The carrier Varyag and the cruiser 7.hanjiang shall be transferred to our control immediately, Your Eminence. It shall be totally disarmed and rendered completely non-operational.”

“This is not possible!” Buzhazi interjected. “This cannot be done! I forbid it!”

“We would advise you not to interfere,” General Fu, Chief of General Logistics, interrupted. “The People’s Liberation “Your what … “I beg your pardon, Minister Ding,” Buzhazi retorted, Army Navy has already sent a contingent of soldiers to Chah Bahar to effect the turnover. These include a security detachment of two People’s Liberation Army marine battalions.”

“Based in Tehran and at Bandar Abbas until the transfer is complete,” Vice Admiral Qu Zhenmou, commander of the East China Sea Fleet, added. “Compliments of the Ayatollah Khamenei. This will coincide with the signing of a new friendship and cooperation treaty between China and Iran, including logistics and basing rights.”

“You … you will allow Chinese troops to be stationed on Iranian soil?” Buzhazi asked incredulously. “It … it is impossible!”

“Our two countries have grown together greatly over the years,” the Ayatollah Khamenei said. “We both desire expansion beyond our local regions, increased trade, fewer trading barriers, and greater technology transfer and development. Along with Afghanistan and Pakistan, China’s other two allies in the Middle East, this shall be attained.” He paused, fixing Buzhazi with a deadly stare, and added, “And it should prove to be a strong stabilizing force against foreign or domestic intrigue, wouldn’t you agree, General Buzhazi?” Buzhazi’s mouth went dry. He knew exactly what Khamenei meant—the Chinese troops were there to back Khamenei’s government against the threat of a military coup d’etat.

“We have summoned General Hosein Esmail Akhundi to assist us in completing the transfer of the carrier and cruiser to the Chinese navy, and to help establish the People’s Liberation Army’s liaison offices, headquarters, and barracks in the capital,” Khamenei said. Akhundi was the already-chosen replacement. Damn, Buzhazi thought, I should have had him executed when I had the chance! “I believe we have no further need of your services, General. There are guards outside who will escort you to your quarters.”

Khamenei said the word escort like a guillotine sliding down on its rails. “You are dismissed.”

Several Basij paramilitary guards—Buzhazi noticed that the Pasdaran guards normally assigned to the Council chambers were already missing!—appeared out of side doors and stood ready to escort Buzhazi out. He was relieved to see that none of them were armed with rifles, only side arms—good. If he had to kill them to make his escape, he would have no trouble. “I prefer to be alone, Your Eminence,” Buzhazi said. Khamenei dismissed him with a wave of his hand, and Buzhazi departed.

The hallways outside the Council chambers were empty; none of the Basij guards had followed him out. One of Buzhazi’s Pasdaran bodyguards had changed positions over to the elevator down the hallway. When he saw his superior officer, the guard immediately raised his radio to his lips to alert the general’s driver and other bodyguards that he was on his way downstairs. Buzhazi trotted toward the elevator, an action which only seemed to agitate the guard more. “Where is General Sattari?” Buzhazi asked.

“Waiting in your car, sir …”

“Good,” Buzhazi said. Sattari, his air forces commander and close friend, would be vital in helping to restructure and build his opposition force—he was one of the few military commanders he could totally trust. “Radio ahead,” Buzhazi told the Pasdaran guard. “Have my helicopter waiting at Doshan Tappeh ready for immediate departure. You stay here and do not allow anyone to use this elevator until you are notified that I am airborne.” The guard nodded and made his radio call.

The elevator was set in “express” mode, which would take it all the way to the secure parking garage on the second subfloor of the Council building and directly to his waiting armored limousine.

Finally, inside the express elevator, Buzhazi felt safe. Damn Khamenei! Buzhazi cursed. Damn his unexpected backbone. The only thing that would save him from the power and wrath of the Pasdaran was a bold innovative move, and inviting the Chinese to establish bases in Iran was such a move. What else had Khamenei had to promise Jiang Zemin and his powerful military warlords? If it worked, Iran, its Islamic partners, and China would make a powerful Asian union, strong enough even to take on the West and its overwhelming military superiority.

Well, this fight was not over, Buzhazi decided. Khamenei was not bulletproof, and the relations he now seemed to enjoy with China might turn sour very quickly. Both Jiang and Khamenei were ideologues, obsessed with fantasies of global domination and leadership—one Communist, the other Islamist. Buzhazi was more pragmatic. There might be others in China much like himself. The chief of the People’s Liberation Army Air Force, for example: General Cao Shuangming, young, brash, opportunistic, and eager to ascend the ranks of the world’s largest military force in the world’s most populous state.

The elevator stopped and the doors swung open—but it had not stopped on the second subfloor security level, but on the first subfloor. There, standing before him, was a woman, dressed completely in traditional black robes and a black veil—and aiming a small submachine gun at him.

Buzhazi screamed, raised his arms to his head to cover his face, and lunged at the woman. The gun fired, spraying bullets across Buzhazi’s head and left shoulder, but his sudden charge and the recoil of the weapon caused most of her bullets to pass up and over Buzhazi’s left shoulder. At that same moment, General Sattari and a guard burst through the stairwell adjacent to the elevator door—they’d seen the elevator unexpectedly stop one floor above and known it had to be a setup for an assassination.

The woman whirled toward Sattari and the Pasdaran guards and fired again, but she was too late. Several guns opened up on her at once, cutting her down.

Sattari ran over to Buzhazi. His face, neck, and shoulders were masses of blood and bone, but somehow the general was still osen for its small size and not necessarily for its dependable killing power. “The general is still alive,” Sattari said as he began to apply pressure to the larger neck and head wounds. “Get his car up here immediately! Get a first-aid kit, and notify the headquarters doctor and emergency medical team to meet us at the general’s helicopter. Move!”

Several guards took Sattari’s place, giving Buzhazi CPR and tending to his wounds, so Sattari went over to examine the assassin. An Arab woman, young and beautiful. Her robe and veil would have assured her almost complete anonymity, and thus virtual invisibility, on the streets of the Islamic Republic’s capital.

Somehow she had made her way down two secure subfloors of a major government building to attempt to assassinate the chief of staff.

“I want this person identified,” Sattari said, “and I want it done secretly. No one must know of this assassination attempt.”

Seconds later, Buzhazi was taken away by Sattari and his Pasdaran guards, leaving two guards to watch over the body of Riza Behrouzi until another car could come to take her away.

CORONADO, CALIFORNIA 1 MAY 1997, 1737 HOURS LOCAL

From the east-side patio of the high-rise condominium, Patrick McLanahan could see the beautiful skyline of San Diego, the glass towers illuminated by the first orange rays of the setting sun.

He put down the phone and walked through the eleventh-floor three-bedroom condo to the west-side patio, where Wendy was waiting. He sat beside her, and they locked hands and let the sun’s rays wash over them with delightful splendor.

“How is Hal?” Wendy asked quietly. “Devastated,” Patrick said.

“Angry. Just what you’d expect. But he’ll be all right, I think.” He gazed off to the city. “You know what he told me?

When ISA told him just how Riza had died, he thought … good for her. That’s how she would have wanted it.” He shook his head.

“Hell of a woman.”

“Hell of a warrior,” said Wendy. Patrick gave Wendy’s hand a squeeze, then looked around.

“I just realized: eleventh floor, unit eleven—Air Vehicle Eleven.”

“Jon Masters must be psychic—or he’s got a better sense of humor than we give him credit for,” Wendy said. She squeezed his hand.

“I’m sure we can move if it bothers YOU.”

“Bother me? No,” Patrick said, smiling. “That thing brought me back from the brink twice. I think we’ll be linked forever. Why try to fight it?” He paused for a moment, then asked, “Where is Jon, anyway?”

“He was deployed on the Lincoln to help keep an eye on the Khomeini and the Zhanjiang as they withdraw from the area,” Wendy said. “The Navy seems very interested in his stealth drone stuff.

God, I’m glad this is over. I wish Iran never had that carrier in the first place.”

“Unfortunately, now we’ll have to contend with it over in the East China Sea,” Patrick said. “China says it’s committed to refurbishing it. They’re pretty angry we beat it up … of course, we’re denying it, and it does look like an aircraft accident all the way …”

“A Chinese aircraft carrier,” Wendy said. “Almost as ominous-sounding as an Iranian carrier. Think you might be targeting some JSOWs on that same ship in a few months’?”

“God, I hope not,” Patrick said. “I hope not.”

OVER THE GULF OF OMAN, SIXTY MILES NORTH OF MUSCAT, OMAN 2 MAY 1997, 0817 HOURS LOCAL

“Well, there she goes,” Jon Masters exclaimed happily. He was watching the damaged aircraft carrier Mao Zedong, formerly known as the Khomeini, as it cruised eastward through the middle of the Gulf of Oman. It was being towed by the Chinese destroyer Zhanjiang, like a daughter giving her crippled and aging mother assistance in walking home. “Good riddance to bad rubbish.”

Masters was watching the progress of the warships from the comfort of the Combat Information Center on the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, stationed 200 miles east in the Arabian Sea. Masters had been allowed to deploy one of his new HEARSE stealth reconnaissance drones to the Lincoln to run more tests. There had been talk about deploying a number of HEARSE drones on board every American carrier and even on some smaller warships such as cruisers or destroyers.

Masters’s spy plane was running perfectly after eight full hours on station—it was not programmed to be recalled for another eight hours—and the Lincoln’s CIC was crowded with personnel wanting to get a close look at the photographic-quality real-time radar pictures coming back from the drone. Masters caught the eye of a very pretty young female fighter pilot, pointed at the screen, and said to her: “Look, Lieutenant, here are the steel barricades the ragheads—I mean, the Iranians”—a conspiratorial chuckle all around the compartment—”put up to show that they were not going to deploy any aircraft on the carrier or launch any more Shipwreck missiles.” The damaged forward part of the deck had been strewn with steel girders to show anyone who was watching that the Khomeini was out of action.

“See? There’s where the Shipwreck missile cooked off—blew a hole big enough for four Greyhound buses to fit in,” Masters went on.

“The PRC kicked all the Iranians off the carrier—they have about three hundred men on board now to take it back to China. Pretty good picture, huh? I came up with this technology before I turned thirty.” The lady pilot was suitably impressed, and she rested her right forearm on Masters’s shoulder to admire his work, as she leaned against him for a better look. Crew members drifted in and out, looking at the images; Masters and the pilot stayed.

“So, what squadron are you with, Lieutenant?” Masters asked.

“VF-103 Sluggers,” she replied. “F-14A-Plus Tomcat. I’m number two tailhooker in my squadron. I’m gunning for number one—probably get it this week, too”—she smiled mischievously—”if a certain someone would get his big toy off our deck so we can do some real flying.”

“Now, now, Lieutenant,” Masters said, “be nice. This is progress!

This is the future of reconnaissance, maybe even of aerial combat!

I’ll bet you still do TARPS reconnaissance runs in your Tomcat.”

“I’m not TARPS qualified yet, but I will be soon.”

“God, what a waste!” Masters said with mock exasperation. “With my drones and satellites, I can get you detailed real-time pictures a hundred times better than TARPS. Check this out.”

Masters pointed again to the monitor as a large cargo helicopter approached the carrier. “We can even watch this helicopter come in, watch to see what they bring aboard the carrier, even count how many crew members they load or unload. Try doing that with TARPS. I can even …”

“Looks like you can’t get anything,” the lady pilot said. Masters looked back at the monitor—it was blank. As she left the CIC, she added with a smile, “Show’s over, huh, John?”

“What’s going on?” Masters said quickly, trying unsuccessfully to get her attention once more. “Must be a satellite relay glitch—sunspots, Martians.” In his head, he was running through several dozen real possibilities why the picture had gone off the air. He reached for his intercom headset to his technical crew, adding, “Don’t worry, it’ll come back. It’s very reliable …”

But he really wasn’t that sure: on the intercom, he asked, “Engineering, this is Ops … dammit, Tasker, what’s going on? It looks like the up-link’s being jammed. Tell the carrier radar officer or whoever that their radars are jamming my microwave up-link. Yes, you tell them. We can’t see a damned thing until they turn off that interference … it’s gotta be from the Lincoln, Tasker. Who in hell else is going to be doing it?”

ABOARD THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER KHOMEINI “The microwave jammers are operational,” the operations officer verified. “All communications are down.”

“Very well,” responded Vice Admiral Qu Zhenmou, commander of the East China Sea Fleet. Admiral Qu had taken personal command of the ex-Khomeini, now renamed the Mao Zedong for its two-month trip back to China. “Will the jammers shut down all transmissions from that American spy aircraft?”

“We believe so,” said General Fu Qanyou, Chief of General Logistics, the senior officer in charge of that night’s secret operation. “The Iranians gave us the data. The digital data relay between the spy aircraft and its mother ship is vulnerable to broadband microwave noise interference. If that spy plane is operating overhead tonight, it will be blind for short periods of time, until it can rechannel to another frequency. That should be long enough.”

“Very well,” Admiral Qu said. “We shall proceed with the transfer.”

With incredible speed and precision, two dozen Chinese soldiers, sailors, and technicians streamed off the rear cargo ramp of the large Zhi-8 transport helicopter. They were followed immediately by low carts carrying several missile canisters. A section of the torn-up flight deck was removed, and several dozen sailors emerged from the hole, carried the missile canisters below-decks, and the hole was closed. In less than three minutes, barely long enough for the rotor blades to stop turning, four carts carrying four missile canisters each had been unloaded and brought below.

“Excellent work,” General Fu said. “How many does that make now, Admiral?”

“We now have a half complement, about one hundred, 9M-330 Kinzhal antiaircraft missiles aboard,” Admiral Qu replied. “In ten days’ time, we will rendezvous with a supply vessel to transfer the replacement P-700 Granit missiles.” Admiral Qu smiled. “The carrier will have developed a serious ‘trim problem’ that will require the Beiyun large resupply vessel to assist us. The missiles will be brought aboard then.”

“But how will the Beiyun be able to carry the missiles past customs inspectors in Singapore and Indonesia?” Fu asked. “With all the commotion, the ship is bound to be inspected.”

“Six missiles will be carried by the submarin e Wuhan, sir,” Admiral Qu replied with another smile. “The Wtihan can bypass all unfriendly ports of call with ease—it can stay at sea for up to two months and if necessary can stay submerged for up to nine continuous days. The transfer can take place whenever the threat of a surprise inspection is over.”

“Excellent, Admiral, excellent,” General Fu said. “Barring any unforeseen problems, it appears that we can fully repair this carrier by the time it reaches Victoria, and perhaps even be fully operational by the time it enters the East China Sea.”

“If all goes well, sir, we shall have this carrier operational before it reaches Hong Kong,” Admiral Qu said proudly. “In the meantime, we shall continue the masquerade of making the world think this is just a useless hulk.”

“And in just a few short months, we will have one of the most powerful navies in the world,” said Fu.

Admiral Qu could not remember when he had seen the young, powerful commander so pleased, or for that matter, the Chinese Communist Party, the Chinese government, and the Chinese military so closely allied, its senior officers so motivated and energetic. Something was stirring, he decided, and it had to do with a lot more than just an aircraft carrier, much more than acquiring overseas bases.

“And then, General …?”

“And then, Admiral,” General Fu Qanyou responded, “China will no longer be the sleeping dragon it has been for the past two thousand years. And any who might oppose us will feel the might of our two hundred million teeth …