Arabian Storm (The Hunter Killer Series Book 5)

by George Wallace

  The Boz-Manand had four of these missiles onboard. Sayyed Abdul-Qadir Gilani, the IRGN colonel now in command of the submarine, had shared with Dirbaz that he planned to launch all four missiles in a ripple, but still maintained that this was merely a test of the systems. That the missiles were benign and set to hit in the Indian Ocean.

  Dirbaz, of course, knew better. The four nuclear warheads were in place atop the missiles and they would be fully armed upon launch. They would cause death on a scale never before witnessed in all the bloody history of war. The engineer did not yet know precisely where the targets were but as he inspected the computer code, he could tell that it was far from open ocean.

  He shuddered and felt sick to his stomach at what he was being ordered to do. There had to be a way to stop this, but he had not yet found it. He could take no pride in the fact that the system was checking out perfectly. For once Iranian and Russian engineering was working just as it was promised to.

  The answer to his dilemma finally came to the Iranian engineer in a dream, as he involuntarily dozed for a few unexpected moments at his desk. Perhaps Allah had caused the sudden nap, that He was assuring him that this murderous assault was not at all His plan, but that of a madman. And that He had chosen Dirbaz to be the one to stop the Prophet’s lunacy.

  In the dream, a voice had told him that he did not need to stop the launch. He should, instead, divert the missiles’ flight path to a spot where their impact would not be catastrophic. All he had to do was re-target them to do exactly what Galani had told them they should do. Hit out somewhere in the lonely recesses of the Indian Ocean.

  Dirbaz now worked quickly, his fingers flying across the keyboard as he tried to make changes to the computer code that would determine the course of the missiles. He was just double-checking the new coordinates he had entered into the sequence when Colonel Gilani burst into the missile launch space’s cramped cubicle.

  The Revolutionary Guard officer’s eyes were wide and glowing maniacally.

  “Mohandes Doktor, is all in order?” he asked, peering over the engineer’s shoulder at the lines of code on the display. “Is the system functioning correctly? What were you typing?”

  Beads of nervous sweat ran down Dirbaz’s forehead, nearly blinding him as he pulled away the mask and wiped it from his eyes with a sleeve. Did the tyrant suspect what Dirbaz was attempting? The engineer tensed himself, certain that a bullet would be coming if the colonel had even the slightest suspicion.

  “I am merely running the diagnostic routine, Colonel. Double-checking the target co-ordinates as they were originally set. All is in order. For the test.”

  Gilani nodded, then broke into an evil grin.

  “Good. Very good. Now, please exit the program, bring that ridiculous mask if you must, and come to the control room to assist with the next step. Do not tarry, Doktor!”

  The colonel backed out of the cramped room. Armand Dirbaz hit the key to exit the launch command system.

  Only then did he let his chin fall to his chest and say a quick prayer of thanks for allowing him to be the one to do Allah’s true bidding. And that the changes he had made to the code were what was needed to divert the missiles.

  And that there was not some pre-programmed override built in to prevent just the kind of sabotage that Dirbaz was attempting.

  He rose and stepped out the doorway, adjusted the breathing mask, and headed to the submarine’s control room.

  34

  The beastly roar from an aircraft engine screaming by overhead rudely rousted Nabiin from his meditation. He shook his head, got to his feet, and rushed out onto the house’s second-floor portico, the alrawaq bialtaabiq alththani. There should be no aircraft in this area at all, much less so near the structure from which he would soon initiate the greatest destruction ever launched by man, in Allah’s service of course.

  He knew immediately what he was seeing. A black-painted Osprey, a most distinctive aircraft, and one he had once considered acquiring to employ its unique capabilities for his own needs. But it was also distinctive enough that such a purchase could have possibly raised the curiosity of Mossad, the CIA, and other intelligence agencies. Now, one of those planes was hovering about one meter above a dusty soccer field behind the Al Rayan Hospital. And a team of heavily armed men tumbled out of the back, already rushing straight toward the building where the Prophet was standing.

  His own men, expecting no such attack, nonetheless sprang into action. They rushed out of their rooms below and opened fire on the strangers. Muzzle blasts lit up the very-early-morning darkness, yet a full hour before people would begin stirring, preparing for morning prayers. An hour before he expected to send the launch order to the submarine.

  Bullets zinged and zipped across the open field. Nabiin watched as one of his men fell, the bodyguard’s anguished screams ringing in his ears. Then two more men went down. A grenade arced across the field and blasted one of the pickup trucks still parked out front of the building after their mad journey to this place.

  The Prophet was fascinated, both by the skill of the attackers—almost certainly US Navy SEALS or some type of Special Forces unit—and the ferocity with which his own guards fought to protect him. But then he shook his head as he dove back into the blackness of the small room. Its thick mud walls would provide some protection from the hail of gunfire that spattered the outside. And he was confident his men would keep the attackers at bay until he could do the deed that had brought him to this assumedly safe location in the first place.

  Nabiin crouched down on the thick carpet and hammered out an encoded message on his laptop computer. When he hit “Send,” the short set of code groups passed via Bluetooth to an input on the very-low-power HF transceiver resting against the far wall. A red light on its face blinked, indicating a transmission had been sent up the short run of coaxial cable to the tall antenna projecting from the roof. The brief, low-wattage signal would hardly be enough to make a blip on sophisticated listening gear in the region. But it would be more than enough to deliver the short instruction message out to a waiting submarine specifically listening for it. Even if it was almost an hour earlier than expected.

  Nabiin’s mission in this forgotten corner of the world was now complete. It was time for him to leave. He was destined to become a martyr, but on his own terms, not at the hands of some small pack of assassins who had somehow learned his whereabouts.

  Mossad. Talbot. This had all the hallmarks. Nabiin vowed to find out who within his followers had betrayed him. But then, in an instant, he realized it no longer mattered. The plan was proceeding. Soon the world would be embroiled in war.

  He slipped out the back door, keeping to the darker shadows, and then headed down the outside stairs. The gunfire and blasts were becoming less intense. But from the sound of the shooting, his own protectors were losing the battle. Then, just as he reached ground level and sprinted down a narrow alley, he heard a door crash open on the other side of the building.

  There were shouts, in English. “Runner! Got a runner heading down the alley to the south.”

  Nabiin ducked around a corner just as gunfire tore big chunks out of the wall behind him. He could hear running feet and shouts from somewhere back there. He was running toward the tiny harbor, little more than a rickety pier full of fishing boats. The main port facilities were several blocks to the west and would certainly be locked up tightly.

  He would try to make it to the pier. Maybe he could make his escape there somehow. Or hide among the fishing boats in the hopes his men might regroup and come to his rescue.

  Then, out of the darkness, Beren Sheedi suddenly stepped out in front of him. “Alzaeim Almuqadas,” he shouted. “This way. I have a boat ready.”

  Nabiin followed his faithful lieutenant as they ran out onto the pier, to a ladder most would not have even noticed, then down to a small runabout tied up in the darkness behind a canvas blind beneath the structure. Sheedi hastily untied and cast off the lines and Nabiin kicked the
boat away from the pier supports. Sheedi worked to start the engines, which had just begun to burble when the pursuers reached the pier. They stopped, confused that they could no longer see the shadow they had been chasing and shooting at.

  Then, just as the SEALs heard the engines start up, Sheedi opened the throttles wide and the boat rocketed down the narrow waterway, racing out toward the open gulf.

  Bullets shattered the windscreen and tore into the boat’s fiberglass as they raced away. They were almost out of range when Nabiin heard Sheedi yelp and crash into the boat’s wheel with a thud.

  “Master, I am hit!” Sheedi screamed. “Keep going. I will try to…”

  Nabiin turned to see the man slumping over the wheel, blood erupting in spurts from a wound in his chest. Without any hesitation, Nabiin shoved his servant aside and, while holding the wheel steady with one hand, lifted Sheedi’s legs up and over the gunwale. Then he braced himself and used his feet to push him over the side and into the dark water.

  The weight of one less person might guarantee another knot or two of speed, and certainly less fuel used. He did not have that far to flee, but he also had no idea who else might know of his location or exactly how much fuel might be in the runabout’s tank.

  He looked back. Nothing but the quickly dimming lights of the port. He got a better grip on the wheel and aimed the boat out to open water and safety.

  Ψ

  Jim Ward sprinted to the end of the pier and stared at Nabiin’s rapidly disappearing boat, escaping out into the Gulf of Aden. He kicked a cleat in frustration. This could not be happening. That slippery bastard was getting away yet again.

  “Boss,” Cantrell yelled. “Looky what I found.” The big SEAL was pointing to a speedboat tied up at the next pier. For a simple fishing pier, this place was certainly well-equipped with fast watercraft!

  “Roger,” Ward shouted. “Get the team. Maybe we can still catch this guy and end this problem for good.”

  The rest of his guys pounded down the pier and piled into the speedboat, only to find there were no keys. Martinelli shoved his way to the wheel.

  “Give me a second,” he grunted as he dove under the instrument panel. “This ain’t the first hot rod I’ve hot-wired.”

  Seconds later, with only a few sparks, the boat’s engines roared to life. The team shot out in hot pursuit of Nabiin. They appeared to have a slightly faster vessel and enough firepower to not even have to actually catch him.

  Even so, the fish they were so desperate to catch was no longer even in sight.

  35

  The general alarm sounded raucously throughout the Boz-Manand. Its piercing pulse yanked Arman Dirbaz from a very disturbing, chaotic dream. The engineer had dozed off and now jumped awake to find himself still slumped in front of the missile control panel. Maybe the ever-present breathing mask was not adequately doing its job. Or maybe he was just exhausted from no sleep and the tension of the last few days. The engineer rubbed the sleep from his eyes as he sensed people rushing about all around him.

  “The time has arrived, at last,” Sayyed Abdul-Qadir Gilani proclaimed from his position directly behind Dirbaz. “We will finally strike our blow and bring about the end times. All for the glory of Allah. Mohandes Doktor, it is truly a glorious day. And to you is the honor of pushing the button.”

  Obviously, the pretense of all this being a drill had been abandoned. Dirbaz almost smiled. Now, with the missiles destined to cook some fish somewhere in the far southern Indian Ocean, it would indeed be a great day. But for the haughty colonel, he only nodded, as if it did not matter at all to him that he was honored to be the one responsible for killing millions of people.

  But then Gilani roughly pushed Dirbaz aside.

  “But wait. If you will excuse me, Mohandes Doktor,” he ordered, “I must enter the actual targeting parameters for our missiles.” He pulled a small flash drive from a chain hanging around his neck and inserted it into the computer’s USB port. He quickly entered his password, and with a few more keystrokes, Dirbaz’s carefully laid plan was shattered. “The prophet insisted that the final parameters be confirmed and installed at the last possible moment to prevent the unlikely possibility of sabotage. Nothing can snuff the glorious flame now!”

  Gilani grabbed Dirbaz and dragged him back in front of the launch panel. Then he pulled his Russian-made MP443 Grach automatic pistol and held it up to the engineer’s right temple.

  “Mohandes Doktor, you have played me for a fool for the last time,” he sneered. “You will now do exactly as I order, or you will only hasten your eventual execution.”

  The loudspeaker at Gilani’s ear blasted the update.

  “Colonel, we are hovering. The Boz-Manand is ready to launch all missiles.”

  Gilani smiled. “Very well, open missile tube hatches.”

  Ψ

  “Captain! She’s opening missile hatches!” The voice of ST1 Joshua Hannon, the sonar operator on USS George Mason, rose several octaves in excitement.

  “Snap-shot tube one on the Iranian!” shouted Brian Edwards.

  The Weps, LCDR Aston Jennings, was next to chime in, but his report stopped things cold.

  “Captain, weapons not ready. We are inside minimum enable. Current range six hundred yards.” They simply were too close for any torpedoes fired by the submarine to arm themselves and be ready to explode before striking the target.

  Brian Edwards smashed his fist into the hardened plexiglass screen. He instantly regretted his show of emotion. A skipper was supposed to keep an even keel, always be in charge. And especially of himself.

  “Damn! No time to maneuver! By then he will have launched if he has already opened the missile hatches.”

  “Ram the son-of-a-bitch!” Jason Biddle shouted.

  Edwards looked over to the fire control panel where his executive officer stood. In a split second, he understood what Biddle was saying and realized that it was their only chance to stop the unthinkable. Suddenly, such an old-fashioned tactic seemed to make perfect sense.

  But he also knew it was horribly risky. There was a very real possibility that they would not survive such an undersea collision. And still a good chance the Iranian vessel would get his missiles off before they could even get there. By the time they got up to speed, those six hundred yards would take over a minute to cover.

  “Ahead flank!” Edwards ordered. “Rig ship for impact. Sound the collision alarm.”

  The pilot scrolled down on his screen and punched up a flank bell. The huge ship immediately jumped ahead as massive amounts of steam dumped through the wide-open throttles to spin the racing turbines. The alarm reverberated throughout the boat. Cavitation around the sail sounded like small-arms fire as the submarine raced ahead. Stealth was no longer required. Even if the Iranian sub heard them coming, there was little they could do to dodge or duck.

  Amid all the noise, they felt and heard a sudden massive roaring explosion that rocked the boat. Edwards knew it was exactly what they had feared.

  “Captain, Sonar.” Hannon’s voice came over the 21MC. “The Iranian has launched one missile. Rocket motor ignition.”

  Jesus. One away. They had to make sure that was the only one out of the barn.

  Then, suddenly, and with unbelievable force, the submarine crashed into something solid. The deck beneath them tilted upward as the ship rode up and almost over the Iranian missile boat. The sounds of screaming, tortured metal, and crashing equipment erupted up and down the length of George Mason.

  One of the key things all submariners work so hard to avoid had just been done on purpose.

  Though he had braced himself, Edwards was thrown hard against the command control console. As he woozily picked himself up, he felt something warm and sticky running down his forehead. His hand came away red with blood. His own blood.

  “All stop!” he shouted. But someone had already taken the foot off the gas pedal.

  The control room was a mess. People were slowly climbing back onto their feet
from where they had been tossed.

  First order of business was to determine damage and casualties. Jason Biddle quickly stepped over to where Edwards was leaning on the command console, trying to stop the compartment from spinning. He began giving reports simultaneously with their arrival on his headset.

  “Captain, torpedo room reports flooding around tube two. Emergency closures actuated. Flooding has stopped. Engineering is reporting loss of number two turbine generator. Steam leak port steam header. Port steam header is isolated.”

  “Good job,” Edwards said with a nod. How in hell had his XO gathered all those reports in the half a minute since the collision? George Mason was hurt, but it appeared she would survive. “People?”

  Biddle nodded and held up his hand as he listened to more incoming reports. Then, he continued. “Doc has four injured they know of and they’re putting them in the wardroom. Triage teams are checking and will move more injured there as they assess. Still getting reports.”

  “And the Iranian?”

  “No way of knowing. Our bow array sonar is apparently gone. I suspect he is in bad shape, though.”

  Edwards thought for a moment. He was finally getting his equilibrium back.

  Then he ordered, “Pilot, blow us to the surface. Time to get on the roof and tell home what’s happening. XO, get into radio and get an OPREP THREE NUC FLASH out. Gotta let the boss know that they got one missile off before we ran over their ass.”

  “Skipper, you may want to have Doc take a look at…” Biddle started, pointing to Edwards’s head wound.

  “I’m okay, XO. Mad as hell, but okay. Now let’s ride this gal to the surface.”

  But the deck was already beginning to tilt as high-pressure air flushed water out of the tanks and the submarine began a quick trip to first sunlight.