GOLAN: This is the Future of War (Future War)

by FX Holden

  “What is your latest estimate for the phase timeline?”

  Phase one, cyber and space, will be initiated in the next four to six hours. This will be followed by an initial attempt to begin diplomatic negotiations. If this attempt fails, ground operations could be initiated within one to three days. Ground operations would likely begin with small-scale commando or insurgency activities as a precursor to full-scale war. I predict attempts to provoke civil unrest in key Israeli population centers, in the Palestinian territories, on the border with Lebanon and within the Golan Heights, combined with increased diplomatic activity. If this is not successful in provoking peace negotiations, then a full-scale invasion of the Golan Heights would be initiated and would likely succeed in the first few days due to the massive disruption still being experienced by Israeli command, control and intelligence systems.

  “Is there any updated intelligence on the existence of Iranian nuclear weapons in the area of operations?” HOLMES had real-time access to CIA, DIA, NSA, FBI, DoD, SPACECOM and CYBERCOM intelligence reporting and could update and pull down intelligence community-wide information faster than any of her own analysts.

  Updating. Naval intelligence reports indicate the USS Canberra is currently conducting a seizure and search operation of the IRIN vessel Besat. No further information. Satellite and aerial surveillance data indicates the Iranian Quds battalion located near Quneitra on the Syrian border with Israel includes a battery of Shahab-3 medium-range ballistic missiles capable of being fitted with tactical nuclear warheads and with a range that would easily allow a strike on any target in Israel. The satellite data indicates the missiles have already been fitted to their launchers and could be fueled and fired within 30 minutes if needed. Five launchers have been identified but their current locations are unknown as they are both camouflaged and believed to have been hidden inside buildings or subsurface revetments.

  “Is there even a single recent report confirming Iran possesses North Korean weapons and has fitted them to its battlefield platforms on land or sea?”

  No new reporting, Madam Director.

  Tonya reached for her laptop and pulled up the list of people she wanted to facetime with today. She made the week’s list every Sunday night, to make sure she regularly and meticulously covered her entire network, making up for not meeting people in the real. It was still a very long list and she might only have four hours to make the calls, so she drained the last of her bourbon and tapped the icon for the next person on the list. She put the glass down and looked at it. Yes, I am an alcoholic. I am a social misfit. I shouldn’t be in charge of a kindergarten fundraising drive, let alone coordinating America’s cyber warfare capabilities. But here we are.

  LCS-30 USS Canberra, The Red Sea, May 17

  ‘Ears’ Bell’s watch was over, and like every other sailor on the Canberra who didn’t have somewhere he or she was supposed to be, he was loitering on the warship’s aft deck. Unlike frigates of old, the Canberra’s stealth design allowed for very little deck space on which the crew could grab some sea air. The superstructure ran down flush to the sides of the hull, and the forward deck was taken up with the housing for its 2-inch gun, recently modified to take a GPS-guided artillery round. There was limited space for lounging around on the foredeck.

  In any case, the aft helicopter deck was where the action was right now. And then some. They had been joined by one of the newest Arleigh Burke-class ships in the fleet, the USS Sam Nunn, which was steaming watchfully about a mile behind the Iranian sub. If, for some crazy reason, the crew of the Besat were ordered to fire a torpedo or missile either at their rescuers or at a target in Israel, it would be a very short-lived attack.

  A braided steel tow cable was fixed to a cleat on the stern of the Canberra, and they were pulling the disabled Iranian submarine through the water at a slow and safe ten knots. Ears had still been in the CIC when a message had been sent to the Captain of the Besat, inside his submarine, to advise him his request to be released from the tow had been agreed. With the Besat still unable to engage its own propulsion system, the maneuver was not a simple one as it involved the submarine crew manually releasing the tow cable from its bow at the same time as the Canberra began to accelerate and turn to take it out of the path of the submarine as its momentum continued to carry it through the water. But the conditions for the maneuver were perfect – the Red Sea was cooperating today, and its waters were calm, with only slight swells – and it was agreed the operation would take place in two hours. Which suited Bell perfectly. He could come off watch, get a shower and some food, and still make it down to the helo deck to watch the show.

  Along with the seventy other off-watch members of the Canberra’s complement. Bell arrived to find all the best places along the stern rail taken and so he went forward to the helo hangars. The hangar doors were closed – no doubt so that the Iranians couldn’t get a view inside – but there was a service ladder to the navigation radar housing above the hangar and Bell climbed up there, sat down on the deck a good distance from the small rotating radar, and pulled out a sandwich.

  He frowned. There was something wrong with the picture he was looking at, but he couldn’t immediately see what it was. The Iranian officers had spent most of the morning standing in the sail of their submarine, watching the Canberra through binos or taking photos of it. On the big screen inside the CIC he’d even clearly seen them taking selfies of themselves with the Canberra in the background. He guessed it was as rare an event for them as it was for the crew of the US warship.

  Right now, though, the top of the sail was vacant as the officers and crew no doubt prepared for the coming maneuver. The Canberra’s signals interception unit had also detected outgoing radio energy from the submarine, which was no doubt coordinating with nearby friendly naval units to come and provide assistance. According to the intel Bell had seen, the nearest Iranian naval unit capable of providing a tow to a 1,200-ton boat like the Besat was the Moudge-class light frigate, the IRIN Sahand, currently steaming at flank speed on an intercept course, but still at least three hours away, in the Gulf of Aden. All of this seemed perfectly normal to Bell.

  What was not normal was the complement of Marines on Zodiac raiding craft who were making their way from the aft port quarter of the Canberra and toward the hulking metal hull of the Iranian submarine. The Canberra had sailed with a platoon-sized detachment of Marines who were on a training rotation, and Bell and the rest of the crew had gotten used to working around them, and their constant bitching. They bitched about the gym timeslots they were given (green side hours) and were constantly trying to sneak in during Navy timeslots (blue side hours). They bitched about any duty that involved cleaning or trash removal or any of the hundreds of other menial tasks aboard a ship, which, admittedly, they were probably given more than their fair share of. They bitched about having to salute Navy officers who generally showed them zero respect. They bitched about having to take their turn at ‘breakouts’, moving supplies out of storage, because there weren’t enough of them to do it efficiently, so it involved more work for the few Marines when it was their turn on breakouts or replenishment duty. And they resented Navy ratings reacting to their moaning by remarking, “SITFU dude.”

  The men in the two Zodiacs drifting slowly back toward the Besat weren’t complaining right now. They were dressed in dark blue Navy coveralls, rather than their own Marine working uniforms, which made no sense. He scanned the faces again. OK, maybe a couple of the men in the Zodiacs were Navy, but the rest were definitely Marines. Bell could also clearly see that each of them was carrying a sidearm on holsters strapped to their left thighs. Also, very weird. As he watched, Bell saw one of them check a duffel bag lying in the bottom of the boat, unzipping it to reveal what looked very much to him like a Benelli M4 Super 90 semi-auto shotgun, which the man quickly pushed to the bottom of the bag under some ropes, before zipping it up again.

  That was no Navy working party.

  Bell realized he still had a mo
uthful of sandwich hanging out of his open mouth and he quickly chewed and swallowed. He decided he and the rest of the crew assembled on the helo deck were about to be ringside to a boarding operation.

  Sure enough, the Zodiacs bumped alongside the portside hull of the submarine and grabbed a handhold just aft of its fifty-foot-high sail. Three Navy ratings and a chief petty officer climbed out of the rubber boats – real Navy ratings – and made their way forward so that they would be visible to anyone on watch atop the sail. The Marines in Navy coveralls climbed out of the Zodiacs too, but took up positions aft of the sail, out of view. Bell counted ten. He had no idea how many crew members an Iranian sub like the Besat carried but guessed it would be at least twenty, maybe thirty. It seemed like a pretty underpowered boarding force, but hey, he was no expert.

  He watched with fascination as the Navy crewmen took out a wrench and hammered on the sail of the submarine to indicate they were aboard and ready to begin the tow cable release work. As they did so, Bell saw at least four Marines climbing a ladder at the back of the sail and hang on it, just below the lip of the access hatches. The four Navy personnel also walked casually toward the bow to wait by a forward access hatch on the Besat’s foredeck.

  Bell noticed they all had gas masks on their belts, which was not normal equipment for sailors about to cast off a tow line.

  A moment later, the hatch was pushed open and a head appeared. Bell was a good 200 yards away and couldn’t hear what was said, but he heard laughing. The US sailors took a couple of steps back, and a couple of Iranian seamen hoisted themselves out of the hatch and onto the deck. They all began shaking hands. Up on the Besat’s sail, another hatch opened and an officer began climbing out. Bell had seen the submarine’s Captain enough times to recognize it was him climbing out of the conning tower to check on the operation.

  What happened next took only seconds. Three US sailors grabbed their counterparts by their forearms, turning handshakes into a grapple as they swung the Iranians around and, putting a boot into their chests or guts, kicked them off the side of the sub and into the sea. Stepping around the fray, a fourth US sailor pulled what looked like grenades from the utility pockets of his coveralls and dropped them through the hatch the Iranians had just climbed out of. Bell couldn’t hear any explosions, but white smoke came streaming out of the hatch and the four Navy sailors on the foredeck pulled on gas masks and jumped into the open hatch. Tear gas? Or worse?

  Up on the conning tower, there was another struggle underway. The Marines on the ladder going up the sail had jumped up behind the officers emerging onto the submarine’s watch deck and were fighting with the two Iranian officers there. They quickly overwhelmed them and pinned them against a railing with their arms behind their back. In moments, the remaining eight Marines also dropped gas grenades into the open conning tower hatch, pulled on gas masks and disappeared inside the submarine. The first and last ones through were carrying the shotguns Bell had seen.

  He could only imagine the mayhem inside the submarine as the Navy and Marine boarding party entered in a cloud of what was probably tear gas. Surely the crew would slam internal hatches shut at the first sign of a boarding party, seal the raiders in and isolate themselves? But if the boarders could get control of the command center under the conning tower, that might be enough. It would depend on what they wanted to do: take the crew hostage, take control of the submarine, or just prevent them from taking hostile action?

  There was visible consternation among the watching crew of the Canberra on the helo deck at what they’d just witnessed, and a few officers were ordering people below decks. If they hadn’t been there watching, it would have looked suspicious, but spectators were clearly not needed anymore. After the brief rush of action, there was nothing to see anymore anyway. The decks of the submarine were clear. The officers and Marines, and their captives, atop the sail had either ducked out of sight or descended into the sub. The only activity was the two Zodiacs, which had fallen behind the sub now, their crews pulling three sodden Iranian sailors out of the water at pistol point.

  Bell finished the last mouthful of his sandwich and decided he might as well climb down under his own steam, before he was ordered down. Holy crap. He’d never heard of the successful capture of an enemy submarine at sea.

  Perhaps he’d just seen the first one!

  White House Briefing Room, May 17

  Carmine Lewis stood by impatiently watching the circus around Oliver Henderson as he prepared for his address. He’d been bunkered down with his speech writers all afternoon, he’d been through the final draft line by line with Carmine and his National Security Advisor, he’d taken a briefing on preparations for the naval blockade and no-fly zone from the Joint Chiefs, and he’d made calls to the Senate and House majority and minority leaders to let them know what was coming. Most had their own sources inside the administration, even inside ExComm, but they’d appreciated the gesture, Carmine was sure, even if they had their own opinions about the direction Henderson was taking.

  Pro-Israel congressmen of course wanted him to go further. Anything less than a full-blooded commitment to the defense of Israel would not satisfy their donors. Isolationists thought he was going too far. The USA had bigger issues to worry about, right here at home. A third faction, being pushed by the House minority leader, was forming around the opinion this was the wrong fight altogether, and the USA could not afford to waste lives and materiel in the Middle East, again, when it was facing even greater challenges in Asia from China.

  “I wish the crises would get in line and we could deal with them in priority order, Alexandria, I really do. But the world doesn’t work that way,” he’d told her.

  After finishing with his makeup, he’d stolen a moment to walk to the corner where Carmine was standing waiting her turn.

  “Any word from the Red Sea?” he’d asked her immediately, sipping on a glass of water. She was glad to see his hand was steady.

  “We’ve taken the Besat’s command center and penetrated to the forward missile hold. Half of the crew has been taken hostage and is being held on the Canberra. The other half has sealed itself behind watertight doors and isn’t coming out. One Marine was wounded, and two Iranians. None seriously. It seems the missile launch systems are all controlled from the command center, so the danger of them launching any Kalibr-M missiles at Israel has been nullified.” Carmine tried to sound upbeat, but there was no avoiding his next question.

  “And the nuke?”

  “We checked the radiation levels on the missiles in the tubes. There are radiation levels that are above normal. But there are no nuclear missiles on her now.”

  His shoulders sagged. “God damn it, Carmine.”

  “No. This changes nothing. Maybe those photos show a test loading operation, and they took the nukes off again before she sailed. Maybe they’re playing cat and mouse with us and were worried the mouse would get caught. Your speech was written to cover any outcome. The reality doesn’t change. Iran has nuclear weapons. Policy response: we want Israel and Iran negotiating a nuclear arms treaty instead of dragging us and the region into another endless war, right? You have two audiences tonight, one in the USA, one in the Middle East.”

  He straightened. “Yes. You’re right.”

  Carmine leaned close, her mouth to his ear so no one nearby could hear. “This is your Kennedy moment, Oliver. But remember. Kennedy and Khrushchev both went into the missile crisis with the possibility that a single wrong move could trigger Armageddon. We aren’t quite there, yet.”

  He gave a short laugh. “Yet? Thanks for the pep talk, Carmine,” he said and turned away.

  OK, she could have handled that better. But Henderson settled behind the Resolute desk with a resolute demeanor and before she knew it, the cameras were rolling.

  “Good evening, my fellow citizens. Six months ago, American troops took part in a battle with Russian-backed Syrian forces to protect a NATO base in Turkey. This Government, as promised, has maintained th
e closest surveillance of foreign interference in the affairs of Syria and its neighbors and we have worked tirelessly against the efforts of Iran, another close ally of Syria, to develop atomic weapons.

  Within the past few days, we have obtained unmistakable evidence that Iran has procured nuclear weapons and is attempting to deploy them on its ships at sea. The purpose of these efforts can be none other than to provide themselves with a nuclear strike capability against their perceived enemies, the United States and Israel.”

  Carmine could sense a ripple of tension, even shock, among those in the room. Not all of the audio and video technicians, nor even all of the aides, had seen the content of the President’s address in advance. Many were hearing it for the first time, just like the rest of the nation. She heard a collective intake of breath.

  Henderson continued. “Yesterday, you may have seen news reports about a US vessel going to the aid of an Iranian submarine in the Red Sea, which is just off the coast of Israel. The brave men and women of the US Navy will always stand ready to assist seafarers in distress, no matter what nation they belong to. But while working to rescue the Iranian sailors aboard the submarine, our medical teams detected traces of nuclear radiation aboard the Iranian vessel. This provoked us to review satellite intelligence of the Iranian submarine as it prepared to take to sea, and our intelligence analysts discovered these grave images.”

  The camera cut to grainy photos of the Besat being loaded with the Kalibr-M cruise missile.

  “These are images of a nuclear-capable Kalibr-M cruise missile being placed into a missile launch tube on the Iranian submarine, the Besat. The same submarine that got into difficulties off the coast of Israel yesterday.”

  Nuclear-capable? That was true. And they had been careful not to definitively say nuclear-armed. But ‘off the coast of Israel’ … well, that was a bit of creative license, Carmine had pointed out to the speech writers. It was closer to the coast of Egypt. Ah, but only a hundred miles from the port of Eilat in Israel as the crow – or cruise missile – flew, they’d replied.