But he had his orders. Yon Hun Glo would follow them exactly, of course. He turned to his conning officer and ordered the submarine to come to a flank bell and turn to a course to the southwest. Then he told the torpedo room to back-haul the four YU-9 torpedoes and to instead load the YJ-18 missiles. That would still give him two torpedoes, ready to employ for self-defense if he really needed them. But now, with both the Iranian and the American submarines destroyed, he was alone in this bit of ocean. Such an attack was not a big concern.
As the sub’s deck tilted beneath his feet, the skipper pondered the next few hours. By the time the weapons were all rearranged in the submarine’s torpedo room, the battery would be exhausted from this high-speed dash. Then he would need to surface and run the diesels for a while to continue the race and recharge those batteries.
Finally, he could waste his perfectly good weapons, as commanded. At least it would be a good training exercise for his crew.
Nothing more.
Ψ
“Captain, contact zig! Upshift in received frequency,” LTjg Bob Ronson called out as his fingers danced across the keyboard. He was trying to deduce what this sudden move by the Chinese submarine they had been bird-dogging meant. “Sonar reports contact zig. Increasing SNR, suppressed cavitation. Master Chief says they are speeding up and going deep.”
Joe Glass glanced at the young officer’s computer display for a few seconds and then leafed through the sonar displays. Just as the Toledo’s team was reporting, it appeared that crazy Chinese captain had kicked it in the tail, abruptly going fast and deep. Before he responded, though, Glass needed to figure out what might be going on. Had he been counter-detected and the Chinese skipper was trying to evade? And was the guy possibly lining up for an attack? Or, since the Yuan had just been to periscope depth, was he merely responding to new orders from home base? It would take a few minutes to make a best guess. And, considering what had so recently happened in the area, it would need to be his very best guess. In the meantime, it was better to assume the Yuan still did not know Toledo was lurking nearby, just sit where they were, deep in his baffles, and watch the Chinese submarine dance. But to absolutely not lose sight of him.
“Attention in the attack center,” Glass called out. He waited for a beat, until he saw Master Chief Zillich stick his head out the sonar room door. It sure looked like the grizzled old sonarman needed a shave and probably a few hours’ sleep. Glass grinned, imagining that he looked pretty much the same. “Confirmed contact zig on Master One, the Chinese Yuan.” Glass spoke loudly enough so everyone could hear. “It looks like he has speeded up and gone deep. I intend to stay back here, deep in his baffles, until he stables up and we see what his intentions are. Then I intend to take a position deep in his baffles and continue the trail. Resume tracking.”
Now the whole team knew where they stood and what their captain intended to do.
Glass chewed on his lower lip as he studied the displays around him. He could only wish he had a better idea of what he intended to do. The Chinese sub could well be off to something drastic and ugly in response to recent events. If so, the Yuan’s skipper would not hesitate to shove Toledo out of his way to get there. And should they trail them, remaining undetected, and the other vessel was obviously ready to launch something really destructive at a city full of unsuspecting human beings, how bad would it have to be for Toledo to intervene?
“That’s why I get paid the big bucks,” Glass mumbled sarcastically.
“Pardon me, sir?” a sailor at a console nearby asked.
“I just said I’m going to grab a cup of coffee. Stay alert now.”
“I will, sir.”
And that was the only comforting thing. He knew the young sailor and all the other young—and old—sailors at work up and down the length of his submarine would do just that.
Glass whistled tunelessly as he headed toward the wardroom.
29
The plan was all coming together very nicely. Perhaps too nicely. A full decade of scheming, praying, killing, politicking, training, recruiting, investing, bribing, and maneuvering was all mere hours from glorious fulfillment. But something still didn’t seem right.
Nabiin, the Prophet, sat in his new most-favored place, on the bridge wing of the Ocean Mystery, and watched the placid waters stretch reassuringly to the horizon. He made certain no one else saw any hint of concern on his face. After all, this was his homeland. These were his people, doing his bidding, just as many such followers had done since the very first day he left a lucrative position in the financial industry in Abu Dhabi to do Allah’s bidding. And Allah would assure the success of the world-changing events about to occur at Nabiin’s direction.
The pieces were perfectly aligning on the chessboard. The shattered remnants of the Chinese PLAN battlegroup were still struggling to reach relative safety, but that would only be at their quite vulnerable port in Djibouti. Nabiin toyed with the idea of attacking the hulks again and finally sinking them, but quickly rejected it. On the one hand, there was no reason to attack again. The damaged vessels might very well sink of their own accord in transit. And if they did reach Djibouti, they would surely rust away alongside the crowded pier before they would ever be fit for sea again. There was certainly no hope of repair before the upcoming events. It was also a fact that, after expending thousands of his unmanned aerial vehicles in the initial attack, Nabiin’s supply was running precipitously low. He might well have need for every one of them still in his arsenal. But the final determining factor in his decision was that it was not part of the final plan. The plan revealed to the Prophet by Allah himself.
No, they must not ad lib now. Allah had blessed the plan as it stood.
The next chess piece, the Iranian missile submarine, would soon be in place, on schedule and carrying its crucial payload. The vessel’s commander reported that they had successfully remained completely undetected. No one even suspected their presence. They would be able to complete their mission without problem. He did report some minor issues with the new submarine’s atmosphere, but it was under control and of no concern. The nuclear armed missiles she carried were, of course, key to providing the rain of fire prophesied in the End Days.
That left only one more key piece on the board. The Americans. Nabiin considered them to be little more than pawns. But useful pawns to his eventual victory.
It was time to prod them one more time, a provocation that would assure the haughty aggressors would take precipitous action. Another metaphor occurred to the Prophet. He would kick the hornet’s nest one more time. Then the Americans would be counted among the Ya’jooj and Ma’jooj, the vicious killers of all believers that would arise in the End Times.
But even with such glorious thoughts and even in the final stages of such a massive holy operation, more mundane things would need to be seen about first as final preparation. The Ocean Mystery would need to return to their hidden island base to safely refuel and restock. And to remove and deal with certain “cargo” that no longer held value to the plan’s success.
The tiny, desolate bit of rock had just appeared dead ahead, low on the western horizon. The sun was poised, as if awaiting their arrival, then ready to set spectacularly behind the granite pillar. The monolith slowly grew until the high, overhanging cliffs blotted out the cloudless sky. Men appeared from caves carved into the rock cliffs and ran out to handle the ship. Camouflage netting fell down over the Ocean Mystery even as the crew tied the ship to the rough, ramshackle pier. To any observer more than a few hundred meters away, the Ocean Mystery disappeared against the mountainside.
Darkness was not far away as the fuel lines snaked out of a cave and across the pier to fill the ship’s near-empty tanks with diesel fuel. Boxes and crates of food and supplies were manhandled aboard, piled high on the after deck to be stored later belowdecks.
At Nabiin’s order, the prisoners were marched from below to topside and then off the ship. Chas ben-Wabi, the United Nations representative, and
the rest of the surviving crew blinked and shielded their eyes from the unaccustomed bright sunshine. But Yves Monagnad, the ship’s captain, merely closed his and looked up, allowing the wonderful sunlight to bathe his face. It seemed like months since he had last felt its warming rays. That was surely why it seemed to give him a tiny bit of hope that he might still survive this ordeal.
Nabiin watched all of this from his seat on the ship’s bridge. He turned to General Babak and ordered, “Farad, my old friend, you will stay behind this time. I need you to arrange for the disposal of our guests, now that we know we will no longer have any possible need for them. Then I need you to return to your duties in Yemen. Yours is the honor of the last major sign. You shall ignite the fire to come out of Yemen, the conflagration that will cause the Mahshar Al Qiy’amah, the Gathering to Judgment. Allah has truly blessed you.”
Babak genuflected before the Prophet, tears in his eyes as he spoke. “Alzaeim Almuqadas, Holy Leader, it shall be as you ordered. I will feed the infidels to the sharks and then depart for my sacred duties.”
Nabiin held up a hand, a slight smile behind his beard. “Do not be so hasty, Farad. Allow the infidels to see the glory of the coming of Allah first. They have earned that small bit of comfort before they burn. Allow them to see our victory before they die.”
Babak nodded. “I understand. It shall be as you order.”
He started to back away from his leader, but Nabiin was not yet finished.
“There is one final duty for you to attend to. When the last of the infidels and all their stink is finally ashore, you will have a new name painted on our ship. This vessel shall henceforth be known throughout history as Darih al Mahit al Muqadas, the Holy Ocean Shrine.”
Now there were tears in the eyes of both men.
Babak stepped into the brilliant sunshine. Looking skyward, he paused to say a short prayer, thanking Allah for allowing him to be a part of what was about to occur. Then he hurried away to do the Prophet’s bidding.
Ψ
At that moment, sixty thousand feet overhead, Triton Flight Zero-Seven-Six recorded detailed imagery of the rock island far below. Visual, infrared, and imaging radar data from the orbiting drone was instantly linked to a P-8 Poseidon flying lazy circles a thousand miles away, out over the Arabian Sea.
Within seconds, the data was being examined by expert analysts almost half a world away, in Northern Virginia.
Ψ
The red phone on Tom Donnegan’s desk jangled annoyingly. The elderly admiral looked up from the charts and spreadsheets he and Jon Ward had been discussing before the interruption.
“Jimmy, answer that damn phone if you would,” Donnegan growled. “Don’t they know we’re doing important work here?”
Ward grunted. “Important work,” he confirmed.
The folders on the desk indicated they were actually reviewing reams of budget analyses for submission to some obscure Congressional committee whose members would likely never even look at them. Not studying the mounds of incoming data from what was certain to be an imminent inferno in the Mid-East.
Donnegan used his thumb to point to a plaque on the wall behind him, a gift from his staff many Christmases ago. It featured the words of Charles Dickens: “...like a trussed fowl, skewered through and through with office pens, and bound hand and foot with red tape.”
Lieutenant Wilson grabbed the offending handset. He listened for a few seconds and then looked wide-eyed at the other two men.
“Admiral Donnegan, they need you and Admiral Ward down in the Tank. Looks like they may have finally found the Ocean Mystery. And maybe the crew.”
Deep beneath the Pentagon, the National Military Command Center—commonly referred to as the Tank—served as the heart and nerve center of American military might. At the very highest levels, information flowed into the Tank, decisions were made, and orders were issued. Orders that affected far reaches of the planet and, sometimes, its future. From the NMCC, the President, the Secretary of Defense, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff directed the US military. And now the watch staff in the Tank had information that Donnegan and Ward needed to know.
The pair hurried to the elevator that would whisk them directly from their fifth-floor office down to the Tank. Though tired from the long hours of looking, hoping, and planning for all possible contingencies in a growing crisis—and wading through piles of humdrum budget files—the summons to the Tank reinvigorated the two. They stepped briskly out of the elevator, were cleared by the Marine security guards at the high security entrance, and stepped into the high-activity maelstrom.
Donnegan immediately spied Air Force General William “Winking Willie” Willoughby, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, standing by the senior watch officer’s command console. The general’s presence confirmed this was important. The chairman waved the two naval officers over to where he stood.
“Glad you two could get down here so quickly.” He waved toward the Marine one-star standing next to him. “This is ‘Bull Dog’ Harris. He’s the on-watch deputy director of operations. Dog, why don’t you show these two swabbies what got you into a lather?”
Despite his jocular manner, Donnegan noted that Winking Willie’s left eye was beating out a rapid rhythm. That trait was the source of his nickname but also a surefire sign that something really had the general’s attention. And anything that got Willoughby’s attention typically turned out to not be good.
The Marine general—who appeared to still be perfectly capable of hand-to-hand combat if called upon—pointed toward a pair of flat-panel displays in front of them.
“We just got this downloaded from NRO out in Chantilly. The analyst out there got it from a Triton orbiting over the Gulf of Aden. On the left is a visual and IR composite. On the right is an ISAR image.”
He zoomed the screens in to a closer view of a rock sitting out in the middle of open water. The rock took definition, resolving into a small, mostly vertical island, with no other nearby land in sight. As he zipped in closer, individual features became clear. They all recognized the distinctive IR blooms on the composite screen. Those were heat sources on an island that was supposed to be uninhabited by anything bigger than a few sea birds. The ISAR image resolved, first mostly in fuzz, but then into what was clearly a ship tied up next to a rock face. There appeared to be much activity around that ship.
“Now watch this,” Harris said as he flipped to a new series of images.
A group of people were being herded across a narrow pier by what appeared to be armed guards. Remarkably, the pictures were clear enough to make out some individual features. One of the prisoners obligingly looked up, directly at the faraway camera. Harris froze the image.
“Facial recognition has identified that as Yves Monagnad, the captain of the Ocean Mystery. NRO is doing its best to see if they can ID anyone else. The only other one they are positive about is...” Harris clicked the computer mouse a few times to advance the frames. “…this one. He is General Farad Babak.”
Donnegan nodded. “Looks like Talbot and Mossad’s intel was valid. That was pretty much where he told us to look. And who might be on the scene. I only wish we’d had these assets in the right place to see this weeks ago.” Donnegan scratched the stubble on his chin. He had not thought to shave for several days. “I especially don’t like confirming Babak is involved in this. He leads the Houthi terrorists in Yemen, and as you boys likely know, he has a deserved reputation for being about as ruthless a bastard as there is. He gives the word ‘terrorist’ a bad name.”
Willoughby nodded agreement. “Yep. He’d cut his momma’s throat for the goofiest of causes. Now Tom, how quick can one of your SEAL teams mount a mission to try to rescue these people. I know you well enough to know you got something nearby. We start shooting big stuff, a lot of innocent people will get hurt. But I don’t like Babak having his hands on them either. Tough mission but your boys might be their only chance. And maybe having them on the scene, they can help us put some more of the piec
es together on what’s going down, too.”
Donnegan rubbed his chin for a few seconds, putting pins in a mental map and calculating times and distances. But he already knew his best choice.
“As luck has it, we have one of our crack teams on call, catching a nap in Djibouti, and another team a couple of hours away. We should be able to stage something inside of twenty-four hours.”
Winking Willie’s eye was doing double-time. Bull Dog Harris looked impressed.
“Tom, we won’t have much in place to back you up if the world turns to shit,” Winking Willie growled. “Closest help is the Gerald Ford Strike Group. It just pulled into Haifa for a liberty port. We’ll do an emergency sortie, but it will be a couple of days before they can transit the Suez and be in range.”
Jon Ward chewed his lower lip. He knew precisely which SEAL teams the admiral had in mind. And he also knew perfectly well who the leader of one of those teams was. So did the admiral. The two men exchanged quick glances.
General Willoughby nodded and said, “Make it happen, Tom.”
30
Dawn found the freshly renamed Darih al Mahit al Muqadas already underway, steaming west toward the Bab al-Mandab and to the Red Sea beyond. Nabiin looked more like a cruise ship passenger, reclining in a chaise lounge on the bridge wing, than he did a madman about to set off a global conflagration. He allowed a smile to cross his face as he watched the glorious splashes of gold, orange, and red paint a swath across the purple daybreak sky. This was one of the things he loved most about the region, how there was such low humidity that colors at the beginning and end of each day were more brilliant than anywhere else on the planet that he had seen.
And now they promised a truly spectacular day.
Arabian Storm (The Hunter Killer Series Book 5) Page 24