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

by FX Holden

  They’d been caught napping. On the holograph they could see a bright red dot indicating the enemy torpedo, spearing straight into their path. The Iranian boat had managed to sneak up within torpedo range and the minute it sensed it had been detected, it had fired on them. Binyamin and Ehud knew every time they put to sea that Iran would relish the chance to destroy an Israeli nuclear-armed submarine if it could, and now they were seeing it was more than a possibility, it was a reality.

  “Gal: do you have a solution on the contact?”

  I have a bearing. Do you wish to fire aft Seahake in autonomous active terminal homing sonar mode? I estimate a 67 percent chance of a kill.

  Their rear tube weapons were all conventional warheads. If they fired now, their torpedo would have to leave its tube and immediately begin searching for the Iranian boat with its onboard seeker head. With the Iranians so close, it would give the torpedo very little time in which to acquire its target. But what choice did they have?

  “Gal: match generated bearing and shoot.”

  Aye, Captain. Target locked, targeting data downloaded, torpedo away.

  Now a blue dot sped outward on the holograph from the baffles of the Gal and began a sharp turn toward the Iranian behind them, spooling its optical fiber guidance cable out behind it. The Iranian torpedo closed on them with dismaying speed.

  And then Binyamin Ben-Zvi did something an onlooker might have thought quite strange for the skipper of a nuclear-armed submarine moments from potential destruction. He reached out his right hand, clasped Ehud’s left hand in his, and squeezed it tight.

  Because in the last year, he and Ehud had become close friends. Very close friends. And Binyamin wanted Ehud to know that now, at what could be the end of their lives, that’s what he was thinking about.

  Buq’ata, Golan Heights, May 19–20

  Amal Azaria’s Turtle looked exactly like its Galapagos Island namesake. It was a dome-shaped heavy-lift quadrotor drone capable of carrying payloads of up to 100lbs. Amal had built a payload module inside which carried six TMRP-6E anti-tank mines sewn into a fabric belt, wound around a central spool. The Serbian mines featured an explosively formed penetrator specifically designed to penetrate the hull of a main battle tank or knock out its track, and their upper bodies were made of radar-transparent plastic. The Turtle allowed its operator to drop a belt of mines directly in the path of incoming armor, completely removing the element of chance or luck in planting a mine, and taking away the need to plant large, hard to remove minefields. It also allowed flexibility if an enemy suddenly changed direction or took alternative routes.

  Her first designs had tried using an electric engine to unspool the belt of mines, but the added weight of the small electric engine and the larger battery needed to power it had proven impractical. So she had fallen back on a more manual technique. The operator would fly a Turtle to a position a mile ahead of a tank column, where it was near impossible to detect, and then hover it centimeters over the ground, dropping the first mine. They would then ‘hop’ the Turtle gently across the road, one mine at a time, feeding the mines out either straight across a roadway to increase the chances of hits on multiple vehicles, or diagonally in the direction of travel of the tank to increase the chances of multiple hits on the same tank.

  She only had enough mines for four Turtles. She knew there were many more tanks than that coming their way, but if she could hold them up, sow confusion, cause them to go cross-country or take back roads, it could buy them valuable time.

  With help from the Marine Johnson, a strapping Minnesota car mechanic, she lifted her Turtles out onto the apron behind her house and got them airborne. Then she went up to her rooftop beside Patel to direct them. Heavily laden, they traveled at only twenty miles an hour, but soon they were south of Buq’ata, moving down Highway 98 at a height of about fifty feet. There was no traffic, the emergency curfew meaning that only a few light military transport vehicles were on the road, with the bulk of Israeli forces snarled in traffic jams further west. According to the intelligence Patel had received from the US drone pilot overhead, the column of six T-14 Armata tanks, with their four unmanned Udar wingmen, had just passed the turnoff to Merom Golan, three miles south.

  When her drones got just beyond the kibbutz at El Rum, beyond the turnoff to the Mount Hermonit outpost, she hovered them at fifty feet, not wanting to drop mines in the path of Israeli military vehicles. But then she saw what had to be the dark forms of the lead vehicles in the Russian column. As she watched, an Israeli troop transport, an old M35 cargo truck, barreling down the road toward the Russian column, swerved violently then exploded in flames as the first Armata in the column opened fire on it with its 12.7mm Kord machine gun. The truck rolled to a stop in front of the tank, which barreled into it, shrugging its flaming carcass aside and continuing on its way as though nothing had happened.

  So, that’s how it is. Their action told her everything she needed to know about the Russians’ rules of engagement. And their intentions. She passed the news onto Patel.

  Two miles ahead of the Russian column, she lowered her first Turtle to the tarmac and laid a strip of six mines across the road, straddling both lanes. She flew the drone off to the side of the road and landed it, then moved control to the next of her Turtles and did the same, fifty feet further back. She had picked a section of the freeway known as Bar’on Junction, which traveled through thickly forested verges on both sides that would prevent the Russians from being able to easily pull off the road and bypass her minefield. Fifty feet further in toward Buq’ata again, she laid another strip of mines. There were now eighteen mines spread across the road one hundred and fifty feet deep, between the pine trees.

  The fourth Turtle she planned to keep in reserve, waiting to see the result of her attack before deploying the mines inside it. That one she flew about a quarter mile east, up the slope of a small hill that held an abandoned bunker complex from around the time of the Yom Kippur war. She parked the drone atop one of the concrete pillar boxes at the eastern end of the complex and powered down its engines, leaving the camera focused on the section of highway between the trees.

  All of the vehicles in the Russian convoy had passed the burning truck now and were approaching the forest pass. Amal had no illusions her few mines would be able to stop them all. She reached out and tugged Patel’s sleeve without taking her eyes off the screen on her command module. “Tell your pilot that if she has finished playing with the Russian Air Force, we may have a job for her.”

  Patel laid down his rifle and rolled onto his back, turning on the radio. They kept it turned off when not using it because the battery was running down and the only way to charge it was by firing up the noisy diesel generator out back.

  “Angel, Marine JTAC, we have eyes on the Russian column, three miles south of Buq’ata. They just took out an Israeli cargo truck. What is your status?” Patel asked.

  Bunny O’Hare’s status could nicely be defined as ‘pissed’. She had taken out two Felons but lost two of her air-to-air drones. She was now down to just two air-air, one recon and one ground attack bird. If Russia tried another push into Golani airspace with more determination than the last, she would quickly be out of missiles, probably also out of air-air Fantoms. Her recon bird had guns, but that was a last resort play in an air-air encounter.

  “Hey, Patel,” she replied. “You have clear air overhead for now. I am bringing my recon and ground attack units back up north to your position. I should have eyes on the Russian column myself in a few minutes, but we have to stay low and sneaky … I’m still getting painted intermittently by the anti-air radar on one of the T-14s in that column. I have to assume it has Verba missiles and a 30mm cannon, which can ruin a Fantom’s day.”

  “Well, we’re going to try to ruin their day. We’ve planted mines in their path just before the Mount Hermonit turnoff, so stand off and watch for fireworks. We may need an assist depending on how they react.”

  “Roger. We have Central Comm
and approval to drop the hammer if we need to protect you, Patel, so just say the word. Merit out.” Bunny flipped the view from her recon drone onto the main 2D screen inside the trailer. At that moment it was just showing a near blacked-out landscape, rushing below the aircraft.

  “How did they get mines planted on the roadway? I thought they were trapped inside the town,” Kovacs asked.

  “Beats me. How did they destroy a Namer IFV, two scouts and an assault platoon?” Bunny put her reconnaissance Fantom into a holding pattern low and to the west of Mount Hermonit, with its cameras trained on the intersection Patel had mentioned. She could see the glow from the still burning cargo truck further south, and the phosphorescent blobs from the engine heat of the Russian armored vehicles approaching the intersection.

  Kovacs leaned forward, squinting at the screen showing the video feed. “The bigger ones are the tanks, right? Can mines even stop an Armata tank?”

  “Their wingmen are Udar unmanned ground vehicles, built on the old BMP-3 IFV chassis. Pretty sure a decent-sized mine would blow through the hull or knock a track off one of those, but an Armata … those things were built to take a hit from a 120mm depleted uranium round and keep going.” She turned her attention to her heads-up display. “Circling our ground attack machine south of the Russian column. Arming JAGM missiles. If we’re going to hit them, our best chance is to hit them when those mines start popping off and their anti-air crew is a little distracted.”

  West Wing, Washington, DC, May 19–20

  President Oliver Henderson wasn’t distracted, but he was looking rather confused as he laid the telephone on his desk back in its cradle. “Anyone want to tell me what I just agreed to?”

  In the brightly lit Oval Office with him were Carmine Lewis, Defense Secretary McDonald and Secretary of State Shrier, who twenty minutes earlier had been on the phone with an agitated Iranian President who had spent the entire call protesting about the US seizing his submarine and the Israeli air attacks on his strategic missile and nuclear facilities. Shrier had to remind him several times he was the US Secretary of State, not the Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs, and the submarine and its crew had been released at Port Sudan, but that hadn’t calmed the man down. Shrier had advised them he wasn’t sure he had gotten the message through that the Israeli PM had agreed to begin immediate talks with Iran, under US auspices, regarding a future arms limitation treaty – if Iran ‘intervened’ to stop the ongoing cyber attack and pulled its strategic missile forces and submarines back.

  Their series of calls to the hard-pressed Israeli PM, who had just been advised his air force had lost at least twenty aircraft so far and his economy was bleeding billions, and to the Iranian President, who headed up the Iranian cabinet, had been timed so that when President Henderson called the Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Takhti, he would have had time to discuss the offer with his President.

  Takhti had inherited from the previous Ayatollah, Khamenei, an Iran deeply wounded by sanctions, but determined not to be cowed by either the US or Israel. Under his direction Iran had taken a hard line against Israel, responding to its many overt and covert provocations in kind – assassination for assassination, cyber attack for cyber attack – and Israeli air raids were answered with Iranian missiles. He had toned down the anti-US rhetoric, however, and had even brokered a prisoner swap in which Marines captured by Syrian forces in southern Turkey had been returned in exchange for Syrian prisoners of war.

  “Mr. Henderson, we had offered already to help Israel with this terrible cyber attack, but they rejected our offer and instead unleashed their air force against us,” the Ayatollah’s translator said when he had finished speaking. “The actions of Israel are not those of a nation seeking peace. Nor are those of the USA, which I am told has just issued an ultimatum to our ships in the Mediterranean.”

  “Mr. Takhti…” Henderson had refused to consider calling the Ayatollah either ‘your holiness’ or ‘Supreme Leader Takhti’, so both sides had agreed to use simple surnames for what was a historic first call between them. “If your ships are not found to be carrying illicit cargos, they will be free to continue to Port at Tartus…”

  The Ayatollah interrupted, changing tone. “Mr. Henderson, we should not waste our time on such small details. These we can leave to our generals and our cabinets. This is the first time you and I have spoken, shall we not speak of higher things?”

  Henderson had looked at Carmine, raising his eyebrows. “Well, yes, I agree, sir.”

  “Is it true, Mr. Henderson, that you were a Baptist Minister?”

  “Yes, Mr. Takhti, before I went into Congress, I was a minister in a small church.”

  “Then we are both men of faith.”

  “I guess you could say that.”

  “Yes. My faith enjoins its believers to pursue what is right and forbid what is reprehensible. I consider nuclear weapons, Mr. Henderson, to be reprehensible.”

  “They are indeed. And so what we propose…”

  “The sanctions against my country are also reprehensible. We cannot get medicines, foodstuffs, machinery parts, we cannot trade freely and fairly…”

  “Well, now, Mr. Takhti. Violence is also reprehensible. War … in all its forms, cyber or kinetic, is reprehensible.”

  Even through his translator, the Iranian projected a weary sadness. “War is an abomination. Why should we not, you and I, work together to forbid what is reprehensible, Mr. Henderson?”

  “I … think we should,” Henderson said, looking around the room for a steer. “So what we suggest is…”

  The Ayatollah interrupted again. “Your honest statement of intent is all I need, Mr. Henderson. Our people can agree on the smaller details, including the involvement of Russia in our discussions. Thank you for your call.”

  And that was it. The first call between an Iranian leader and a US President was over.

  “I think … I think you just agreed to lift our sanctions on Iran,” Harry McDonald said.

  “No. I did no such thing,” Henderson shook his head vehemently.

  “You agreed to work together,” Carmine said. “With Iran and Russia. On what, I’m not sure. Maybe, if we’re pushed, you agreed to a common desire for peace.”

  Kevin Shrier picked up his cell phone. “I want to get a communique to Tehran immediately, while the iron is still hot. Agree a form of words along the lines that in a call with the US President…” he was typing into his phone.

  “A historic first ever call…” Carmine suggested.

  “Yes, a historic first ever call between the US President and the Ayatollah of Iran, both sides agreed to work together to find solutions for, uh … what, exactly?”

  “Lasting peace in the Middle East,” Carmine said. “Keep it short and noncommittal, so there’s nothing for them to disagree with. The news value is the fact we even spoke together.”

  Henderson was tapping a pen on the desk. “Congress is going to hate it. The pro-Israel lobby is going to hate it. The press corps will go nuts.”

  “The Joint Chiefs are going to hate it too,” Harry McDonald said. “No, they are going to be rabid.”

  “Get the Israeli PM to issue a statement supporting it,” Carmine proposed. “We can offer some financial aid to underpin his economy. That neutralizes the Israeli lobby and most of Congress at least.”

  “He won’t do that while his country is under attack. While his planes are still striking Syrian and Iranian targets across the region.”

  “Someone’s got to blink first,” Carmine said. “He’s bleeding shekels and airplanes. His command and control infrastructure and ground forces are in disarray, he’s probably still days away from being able to mount a ground defense of the Golan Heights, let alone an offensive into Syria. It’s not the strongest hand he’s playing right now. If he pulls his air force back, we might see Iran do the same with their navy and their missiles, right? Without Iranian nukes at their back, Syria wouldn’t dare roll over that ceasefire line into the Golan. Isn
’t it worth asking him to think about it?”

  Henderson kept tapping his pencil. “Where the hell are those Iranian frigates now?”

  Carmine had a tablet in her lap and pulled up the latest report. “An hour away from our blockade line. Russia has declared they are sailing under Russian protection and any move to stop them will be treated as hostile.”

  “If this is going to achieve anything, we need to get it out there, pronto,” Shrier said, waving his phone.

  Henderson laid the pencil down and lined it up carefully with the blotter on his desk. “Alright, Kevin, send that form of words to Tehran, tell them we want to go public inside the hour. Harry, call a meeting of the Joint Chiefs and prepare them. Let them vent, but tell them it is what it is and they want to bitch, they can bitch to me.” He turned to Lewis. “You get down to the situation room and let ExComm know what we’ve been doing. I’ll call Karl Allen, ask him to get the Israeli PM on the line somehow. And have him warn the guy I’m making him an offer I don’t expect him to refuse.”

  US blockade line, Mediterranean Sea, May 19–20

  Ten seconds to torpedo impact … seven … six … five …

  They said it took brave men to go to sea in submarines, but Binyamin Ben-Zvi wasn’t a brave man. Not really. A brave man wouldn’t be about to soil himself. He wouldn’t have his eyes squeezed shut in fear. He wouldn’t be trying desperately to remember that quote from the Torah, Devarim, the one about fear, and his mind wouldn’t be a total bloody gibbering blank!

  But Ehud remembered it, and he said it out loud. “Do not be afraid for it is God, your God, who is fighting for you…”

  The Iranian Hoot torpedo had deviated in the last 100 yards of its trajectory and had been lured toward the last of their acoustic noisemaking decoys, now drifting thirty feet below and about fifty yards above them. The Hoot was going to miss, but not by enough.