The Enemy Within

by Larry Bond

  “Jesus, what a motley crew,” Diaz muttered with a grin. “I keep expecting someone to raise the Jolly Roger.”

  “Sorry you signed on for this little jaunt, Tow?” Thorn asked.

  “Hell, no, Pete!” Diaz shook his head. “Believe me, it sure beats waiting by the phone for Jimmy to call. All the kid does is piss and moan about how rough it is being a plebe! I’m looking forward to a little peace and quiet when we hit Tehran.”

  “Sure,” Thorn said, not believing a word of it. West Point Cadet James Diaz was his father’s pride and joy. Still, he was very glad to have the sergeant major aboard. TOW Diaz was the best rough-and-tumble soldier in the Delta Force, and he had a hunch they were going to need every edge they could get when they shot their way into Amir Taleh’s den.

  FBI Surveillance Team Six—near Milwaukee, Wisconsin

  FBI Special Agent James Orr stared through a set of almost-closed blinds at the house just across the way. He could see the terrorists moving around inside again.

  After a full day of close surveillance, he was beginning to put the faces and habits of these men together. There were four of them, all told. One, a short, brown-haired Caucasian, was a dedicated smoker. He was puffing away now while watching television with the sallow-faced Middle Easterner who seemed to be used mostly as a driver by the terrorist cell. The other two were out of sight somewhere in the back of the house they were renting.

  Orr grimaced. This was crazy. He had these guys. He had them and now he was being told to back off. He spoke sharply into the handheld secure phone. “Jesus Christ, Mike, I’m telling you we can take these guys without breaking a sweat. Hell, my snipers could drop two of them this second!”

  Mike Flynn’s voice came over the line loud and clear. “Negative, Jim. I’m telling you just what I’ve told every other team around the country. You wait for the word. You watch those people closely, but you do not make a move on them without my direct authorization. Is that understood?” he demanded.

  Orr bit back another oath. “Understood, Mike. Out.”

  Still shaking his head in disbelief, he clicked the phone off and went back to watching the enemies he was not allowed to touch.

  CHAPTER 24

  MOVEMENT TO THE

  OBJECTIVE

  DECEMBER 11

  Kilo-class submarine Taregh, off Bandar-e Abbas, near the Strait of Hormuz

  (D MINUS 4)

  Iran’s submarine force sortied out of Bandar-e Abbas well after dusk on a moonless, cloudy night. Three black, seventy-meter-long shapes slid quietly past the blinking buoys that marked the main channel. One after the other, as soon as they cleared the harbor area, the diesel boats submerged and went to periscope depth.

  Followed by her consorts, the lead submarine, Taregh, crept almost due south through the shallow Gulf waters. She was an ultra-quiet, Kilo-class boat, originally designed and built by the Soviets, and purchased for hard currency from the shrinking, cash-poor Russian fleet. Her forty-five-man crew was the best in the Iranian Navy.

  Once he was satisfied that they were safely en route and free of any shadowers, Taregh’s captain picked up the annunciator microphone. “Attention to orders.”

  He ignored the significant looks and whispers among his control room crew. “We have been assigned an extended exercise—one which may last several weeks.

  “Our mission is a simple one. We will take station in the Gulf of Oman and begin patrolling, maintaining silent status. Once on station, we will track all ships encountered, especially warships and foreign submarines. I know each man aboard will do his best. That is all.”

  In truth, the captain doubted any man aboard believed they were out on only a simple practice run. For two days before they sortied, working parties had sweated around the clock loading provisions and advanced torpedoes. Backed up by hired Russian technicians, the submarine’s officers and senior ratings had run countless tests—double-checking every critical propulsion, sonar, and weapons control system aboard the boat. Those extra efforts and the extraordinarily tight security around the Bandar-e Abbas Naval Base were clear evidence of something serious in the wind and water.

  The reality was so daunting that the captain wished he could share it openly with his men. Right now, only he, his executive officer, and the submarine’s departmental heads knew their full orders.

  Part of what he had said was true. They were heading for a box-shaped patrol area just outside the Strait of Hormuz. And they would indeed be tracking enemy warships. However, his instructions also required him to come up to listening depth at regular intervals. Once he received a specific coded radio signal, the boat’s mission would change dramatically: Taregh would sink all Western warships in its patrol zone. Its sister submarines had similar orders. Together they were expected to lay a deadly barrier across the entrance to the Persian Gulf.

  The captain felt a small shiver run up his spine at the thought of actual combat. Any new submarine with untested officers and crew was like an unfired clay pot. The fire might harden it, but some pots cracked in the flames.

  Then he shrugged. It would be as God willed it. In any case, all the advantages were his. Taregh was ideally suited to hide undetected in these shallow waters and she would have complete surprise. The first enemy vessel to die would know of his intentions only when a torpedo tore into its hull.

  Suddenly, he was eager for the go code.

  DECEMBER 12

  Near Lavan Island, in the Persian Gulf

  (D MINUS 3)

  Just after midnight, the passenger ferry Chamran slipped through the channel between Lavan Island and the rugged Iranian coastline, steaming north through the darkness with its running lights off. Five miles off her port bow, two armed Boghammer speedboats belonging to the Iranian Navy cruised back and forth in a patrol pattern—ready to shoo away unauthorized vessels intruding in what was now an unannounced restricted sea zone. There were more passenger ships requisitioned by the Iranian Navy at sea, some ahead of the Chamran and some behind—all moving north toward Bushehr, all at fairly regular intervals.

  One hundred and fifty miles above the Gulf, an American KH-12 spy satellite passed almost directly overhead and continued silently eastward. Ground controllers had used the 40,000-pound satellite’s on-board thrusters to shift it into a new orbit several days before. Using a MILSTAR satellite as a relay, the infrared photos the KH-12 took were transmitted back to the United States in real time.

  Fort Bragg, North Carolina

  It was still dark and bitterly cold outside when the lights began flicking on inside the Delta Force headquarters building.

  Summoned by phone from their temporary quarters, sixteen Army and Air Force officers and senior NCOs were waiting inside the briefing room for Colonel Peter Thorn and Sergeant Major Diaz. Together they commanded the four twenty-man Delta troops, five Army helicopters, and three specially equipped C-17 transport aircraft assigned to Operation NEMESIS.

  “Good morning, gentlemen,” Thorn said briskly as soon as he came through the door.

  He waved them down when they started to snap to attention. Inside its closed compound, Delta Force prided itself on its relative informality. Talent mattered more than rank among the outfit’s experienced professionals. They reserved the spit-and-polish show for outside visitors.

  Thorn moved to the front of the room while Diaz started setting up an overhead projector. “Sorry about interrupting your beauty sleep, gentlemen. God knows from the look of some of you, you could certainly use it.”

  That earned him a strained chuckle.

  He didn’t waste any more time. “I just got a call from Sam Farrell. The President has activated NEMESIS.”

  His commanders sat up straighter.

  Thorn nodded. “We’ve run out of time. New intelligence shows that the Iranian offensive is probably now less than seventy-two hours away.” He raised his voice slightly to reach the back of the room. “Ready, Tow?”

  Diaz nodded and dimmed the lights.


  “These satellite photos came down the wire from the National Reconnaissance Office fifteen minutes ago,” Thorn explained.

  The short, stocky NCO slipped each picture into the projector, keeping pace as Thorn ticked off the information they revealed. “Both the CIA and the DIA now estimate there are more than four frontline infantry divisions closed up and in their final assembly areas near Bandar-e Bushehr. Additional formations, all of them tank and mechanized units, have been spotted moving by rail to Bandar-e Khomeini.”

  He watched their reactions closely, pleased to see that every man appeared fully alert—and utterly focused. “Even more important than that, KH-12 and LACROSSE radar satellite passes yesterday and early today picked up signs of significant naval movements. First, the Iranians have shut down their regularly scheduled ferry services to the offshore islands. Those ships are now sailing north toward Bushehr. Second, their entire submarine force has left Bandar-e Abbas, apparently heading for the Gulf of Oman. If we needed anything else, the NSA reports that all Iranian army, air, and naval units switched to a new set of codes and ciphers six hours ago.”

  The lights came back to full brightness. Thorn stepped forward. “This is not a simple exercise or drill. They’re getting set to go—and to go soon.”

  Heads nodded in agreement with his assessment. The final pieces of the Iranian operation were falling into place. Switching codes and frequencies was a classic precursor to any significant military move, and no one with any economic sense moved that much shipping around on a whim.

  Thorn swept his eyes over the little group of officers and senior sergeants, picking out individuals. Keenly aware that they were looking to him for direction, he kept a tight rein on his expression. Beneath the impassive mask, however, he could feel the old eagerness, the driving urge toward action, welling up inside. He could tell they felt much the same way.

  Still, he had no illusions about the dangers involved in the mission ahead. Despite their intensive work over the past several days, NEMESIS was still very much an improvised, pick-up-and-go operation. If the plan started falling apart under the stress of unexpected events, it would be up to the men in this room to pick up the pieces and carry on—against all odds and no matter what the cost.

  Thorn focused on the commander of the NEMESIS helicopter detachment. “Your guys ready, Scott?”

  Captain Scott Finney, a compact Texan so calm other people often thought he was asleep or dead, nodded. “Yep. No sweat.”

  “How about yours, Mack?”

  The tall, lanky Air Force lieutenant colonel commanding their C-17 transports shrugged. “I wouldn’t mind making a few more practice runs, Pete, but we can do it without them.”

  One by one, the majors and captains commanding the four Delta troops gave him the same answer. No one was very happy about cutting their planned prep time short, but no one was ready to ask for further delay now that the Iranians were poised and ready to attack.

  Ordinarily, Thorn did not believe in giving pep talks—especially not to men like those in this room. Most were already veterans of half a dozen special operations—some of them so secret that only the barest hints had filtered out to the world beyond the Delta Force compound. Still, he wanted to impress on them his absolute conviction that NEMESIS, no matter how difficult and no matter how dangerous, was a mission with purpose—a mission with a critical and achievable objective.

  “One thing we know from the computer messages we’ve intercepted is that Amir Taleh is a control freak,” Thorn said firmly. “Taleh is the focus of political and military power inside Iran. He runs the Iranian armed forces pretty much as a one-man show. All crucial orders pass through his headquarters. His field commanders are highly unlikely to begin an invasion without a clear directive from him personally.

  “So our job is essential. If we stop Taleh, we stop this war before it starts. Everything else is secondary. Everything. Understood?”

  They nodded solemnly.

  “Very well, gentlemen,” Thorn said calmly. “Have your troops saddle up. We move out for Incirlik at 2030 hours, tonight.”

  In the Persian Gulf

  Twenty miles outside Saudi territorial waters, an old wooden dhow chugged through calm waters at a steady ten knots, relying on its auxiliary motor for power instead of its furled, lateen-rigged sails. Crates, boxes, and bales of varying sizes crowded the boat’s deck. To all outward appearances, the dhow was nothing more than a simple trading vessel—one of the hundreds that plied the Gulf on a daily basis. Her crew, too, appeared utterly ordinary: a mix of wiry young lads and weathered old men clad only in T-shirts and shorts against the noonday sun.

  Feeling self-conscious in his unaccustomed civilian garb, Lieutenant Kazem Buramand leaned down through the dhow’s forward hatch. After the dazzling brightness outdoors, the hold below seemed pitch-black. It took several seconds before the Iranian naval officer’s eyes adjusted enough to make out the ten men squatting comfortably around a mound of their own equipment.

  All of them wore the camouflage fatigues and green berets of Iran’s Special Forces. Besides their personal weapons, they were equipped with radios, two light machine guns, handheld SA-16 SAMs, demolition charges, directional mines modeled on the American claymore, and antitank mines.

  “Is there a problem, Lieutenant?” their leader, a captain, asked softly. Scarred by Iraqi grenade fragments, his narrow face had a permanently sardonic cast that always unnerved Buramand.

  “No, sir,” he stammered. “But we are two hours outside Saudi waters. I thought you would like to know.”

  “Yes.” The Special Forces officer nodded politely. “Thank you. I assume we have not received any recall order.”

  Buramand shook his head. “No, sir. None.”

  He had been monitoring the sophisticated communications gear he had brought aboard the dhow almost continuously, half expecting to hear the repeated code words that would bring this boat and the others like it scurrying back to port. Instead, he had heard nothing beyond the steady hiss and crackle of static. It was just beginning to dawn on the young naval officer that all their weeks and months of training had been in earnest.

  “Very good.” The captain tipped his beret over his eyes, leaned back against his bulky pack, and said quite calmly, “Then please wake me when it gets dark. My men and I will help you prepare the Zodiac rafts for our little trip to the shore.”

  DECEMBER 13

  Loading docks, Bandar-e Khomeini

  (D MINUS 2)

  The Iranian city of Bandar-e Khomeini lay at the northern end of the Persian Gulf, one hundred and fifty miles north and west of Bushehr. In peacetime it served as an oil terminus. Now its docks were crowded with valuable cargo of quite another kind.

  Shrill whistles blew as another heavily loaded freight train rumbled slowly down a spur line and out onto Bandar-e Khomeini’s largest pier. Although heavy tarpaulins muffled the massive shapes on each flatcar, Brigadier General Sayyed Malaek’s experienced eyes easily made out more of the T-80 tanks and BMP infantry fighting vehicles belonging to his 32nd Armored Brigade.

  Everywhere the bearded, hawk-nosed brigadier looked, he saw signs of hurried activity. Out at the end of the long pier, working parties of his own men were busy fueling and arming the vehicles brought down from the Ahvaz Garrison by earlier trains. Dockworkers and sailors scurried among the neat rows of tanks and APCs, guiding those that were ready aboard the waiting ships.

  Five vessels were moored at Bandar-e Khomeini. Three were the Navy’s Ropucha-class tank landing ships. Together, they could carry more than seventy of his tanks and six companies of infantry. Two more vessels were car ferries hastily modified to safely lift another company’s worth of the brigade’s vehicles.

  Malaek checked his watch and smiled. His troops were well ahead of schedule.

  Bushehr Air Base

  Arc lights strung around the airfield perimeter cast artificial daylight across a scene of frenzied activity.

  The first echelons o
f the SCIMITAR strike force—more than fifty advanced combat aircraft—were parked in hastily constructed shelters spaced around the Bushehr base. Additional squadrons were moving to full readiness at fields ranging northward in a wide arc from Bandar-e Abbas to Aghajari and Khorramshahr.

  Major Ashraf Bakhtiar stood near the revetments assigned to his Su-24 Fencer squadron, carefully overseeing the ordnance handlers fitting antiradar missiles and laser-guided bombs to his planes. Other teams were hard at work across the runway, outfitting the MiG-29s that would escort his fighter-bombers to their targets. Trolleys towing carts piled high with missiles, bombs, and decoy pods trundled to and fro around parked aircraft.

  He raised his eyes to the eastern horizon, noting the hint of pale pink that signaled the coming dawn. The high, concealing clouds of yesterday and the day before were gone. A new front was moving in—one that would bring clear skies and light winds for the next several days.

  Bakhtiar smiled and rubbed his hands together. He and his crews would have perfect flying weather. Perfect war weather.

  Special operations headquarters, Tehran

  General Amir Taleh looked at the bustle around him with undisguised pleasure. The Khorasan Square headquarters building was a hive of purposeful activity. In every room, staff officers hunched over keyboards or spoke into telephones, urging greater speed on the field commanders. Enlisted men updated status boards or carried messages and printouts. The long, hard months of training, reorganization, and reform were coming together perfectly. His staff was functioning like a well-oiled machine.