The admiral led him outside through a small side door to a waiting staff car, and they drove to his house. The journey was only six minutes, but the commander was asleep by the time they arrived. Admiral Badr awakened him and carried his sea bag past the six guards patrolling outside. Once inside, there were four young Iranian men to assist him.
They removed his Brazilian uniform, undershorts, and socks, the only kind of clothes he had worn since March 29, and carefully placed his knife on the table. Then they led him to a hot bath full of exotic restorative oils. Ben just managed to wash himself with a bar of jasmine soap, but he fell asleep three times in the bright steamy bathroom. Two of the servants shaved the rough dark stubble from his face. Finally, they just let the water out and helped him to his feet, drying him off with big, soft, orange towels. Then they sprayed him with scented water, dusted him with jasmine talcum powder, and helped him into a pressed white-cotton robe.
Ben Adnam fell into bed in the large air-conditioned room, where he slept for thirty hours, guarded like a pasha, protected like Fort Knox.
When the submarine commander finally surfaced it was 1000 on June 9. Admiral Badr had issued orders he was to be informed as soon as Ben returned from the undead. Shaved and sharp now, he was ready to come out at the bell, and he greeted Mohammed Badr in their private dining room, which was situated in Ben’s house.
“We followed much of your progress through the English newspapers,” he said. “Benjamin, you may leave no footprints, but you are very adroit at causing chaos.”
“I hope so, sir. By the way, under the terms of our agreement I am now owed $750,000, which I shall require before we move further.”
“I am aware of that. The wire transfer was made yesterday morning to your numbered account in Switzerland. I have here the document of confirmation, signed by the bank. You are at liberty to check with your own bank now if you wish, on that telephone, to ensure I am telling the truth.”
“That will not be necessary, Admiral,” replied the commander, nodding. “And I thank you for your meticulousness and punctuality.”
“As indeed we thank you, Benjamin,” smiled Mohammed Badr. “Any problems with the boat? All of our engineers report her in excellent shape. Just routine maintenance, minor leak in the seal around the shaft. She’s electronically perfect as far as we can tell.”
“She ran fine all the way. The operation was conducted with the utmost professionalism. I expect the Royal Navy was quite confused by the entire thing.”
“They have not said so, Ben. Indeed, the search goes on in the Channel. But I hear some rumblings that senior officers are beginning to wonder if she is there at all. However, nothing has been said publicly.”
“No, they won’t do that.”
“Ben, what I really want to discuss with you is the Russian missile system. It’s very large and very complicated to fit on a submarine. We could be refitting for a year.”
“Look, Admiral. If we were trying to fit a medium-range SAM system for use against military aircraft, you’d be absolutely correct. Because we’d need large complicated radar and control systems to cope with military aircraft, trying to evade, ducking and diving, using amazing decoys and jammers. But we’re not doing that. We’re dumbing down a very sophisticated system…we can actually bolt the parts we need onto the submarine, right up on the casing behind the fin. Our targets are much simpler, highly predictable, with steady course, speed, and height. No defensive systems.
“We will make one modification as I mentioned before, to ensure simple, active radar homing…just enough to allow front-lobe approach to the target. We can’t rely, for instance, on infrared, rear-lobe homing. This weapon has to go to the height we tell it, then turn to meet its target head-on. Then it must acquire the target with its own radar homing system…then lock on and hit, at a closing speed of perhaps Mach-4.”
“Mmmmm. Still, I’ve never seen so many radar systems as these.”
“But we don’t need them on the submarine. Those are intended to give the weapon considerable guidance-update information from its surface firing platform while it is in mid-flight. I intend to feed it all the information it needs to find its target before it’s fired. I’m after a sitting duck, not a swerving teal. We’re going to mount our missile launcher in a specially constructed pressure-tight box, and bolt it onto the rear end of the fin. The submarine’s regular radar will have to be tweaked up for long-range aircraft detection. And we need it to provide basic preflight guidance instructions for the missile. Then, in trade terms, we just ‘fire and forget.’ If the target’s not too fast, we should have time to get a second bird away, should the first one fail.”
“Ben, I’ve mentioned this before. You are a very clever man.”
“Still breathing, Admiral. In my game that’s a major plus.”
“I have a distinct feeling you’re likely to go on breathing for a long time. So long as you always stay a couple of steps ahead of the enemy.”
“I hope to, but right now I’d like to conclude this topic by making certain you follow our principal problem, that is fitting the ‘box’ to the submarine without dangerously reducing her surface stability. Like she might be so top-heavy she rolls right over. But that’s easily solved with a couple of buoyancy tanks, regular saddle tanks on either side of the hull.
“Our only other problem is to build our own fairly simple fire-control system to work from inside the hull. Then we need just to connect them up on a permanent and reliable basis, despite the difficulties of the underwater environment.”
“And you truly believe we can manage all that?”
“Certainly I do. Otherwise, I would never have begun the project.”
“But it’s never been done before, has it? Not by any navy?”
“No. But only because there’s never been an operational requirement for it. If there had been, every major maritime power would have such a system. It’s just that submarines have never been sufficiently under threat from aircraft. They still aren’t.”
222000JUN05. 30.30N, 49.05E. Course 90. Speed 2.
The big Iranian naval barge, edged along by a following tugboat had reached its destination now, 600 miles north up the coast from Bandar Abbas in the Gulf of Iran, a little more than 40 miles offshore. Commander Adnam, Admiral Badr, and the missile director from Unseen’s crew were all on the barge, on the bow of which was bolted the modified version of the Russian Grumble Rif missile system, securely covered, and surrounded by four engineers. The night was clear and moonlit, with the stars shining brightly above. The test site was close to perfect.
They took the covers off the consoles, which were situated right back on the stern, and the missile director sat in the bolted-down chair in front of it. There was little swell on the ocean that hot Arabian night, and everyone was in shirtsleeves. The radar on the barge scanned the skies for aircraft but found nothing within a radius of 100 miles.
Ben Adnam checked his watch, which now showed 2025, and he knew that the pilotless target aircraft was off the ground above Bandar Abbas, banking out over the Gulf, then back along the coast, climbing all the while to a huge altitude of 60,000 feet. Soon it would head north for around 100 miles, or seventeen minutes, then turn south for the final time and come racing back at 600 mph toward the skies above the barge.
They picked it up on the search radar on the southern leg of its journey, and the missile director found it again, incoming from 40 miles out. His fingers flew over the keys as he programmed in the information to the missile’s guidance system.
“Climb out position in.”
“Target course and speed set.”
“Target height preset at 60,000.”
“Weapon One ready.”
At two minutes before 2100 he called: “Stand by.”
Then he hit the launch key, and the big Russian Grumble-Class SAM missile, in a thunder of flame and exhaust, ripped out of the launcher, dead vertical, and screamed straight up into the sky. Everyone watched it, like a
huge firework, and they all saw it change course after twenty-five seconds, reaching its 11.5 miles altitude.
They saw it swerve north toward the target, still making 1,700 mph And they watched it obliterate the incoming empty aircraft in dark, but crystal-clear skies more than 20 miles from where they stood. A great sheet of flame seemed to light up the universe. It was a perfect front-lobe attack, of such awesome speed and power, no one felt able to say anything for a few moments.
Except for Commander Adnam, who said crisply, “Thank you, gentlemen. That will do very nicely. I think we can go home now.”
Fifteen minutes later, the 275-ton Kaman-Class fast-attack craft Shamshir came alongside to take off the admiral, the commander, and the missile officer. The engineers and the Navy guards would remain on the barge for the long slow journey home.
Admiral Badr and his submariners would be in Bandar Abbas in twenty hours. They would dine on board while the French-built Iranian ship sped through the Gulf at 30 knots all the way.
Conversation at dinner, during which the admiral and Commander Adnam sat alone, had an edge of elation to it. The system had worked, which, of course, at $300 million, was only to be expected. But the question of time was important. Unseen needed to be back in the North Atlantic by early January, which meant the work had to be completed and tested by late October.
Ben’s view was sanguine. “I cannot see it taking that long, sir. The hardest part is behind us. The modifications to the submarine are comparatively simple. It’s just a matter of ordinary submarine engineering, nothing very complicated.”
“And the dates, Ben, are you happy with them?”
“Well, I’m happy with one, January 17, the fifteenth anniversary of the day the allies attacked Iraq for the first time. But thereafter I think we’ll avoid anniversaries. I’m afraid it might look as if Iraq were being set up. And that would lead the Americans right to us. The missing submarine, the big new submarine dry dock in Bandar Abbas, into which they cannot see. Three hits against the West plainly designed to get Iraq blamed.
“No, Admiral, I think January 17 would be nicely subtle. It might take everyone a while to figure that out, but there are better ways to persuade the Americans that Iraq is responsible. Incidentally, we must not forget to put the new Kilo back in the new dock, as soon as I sail…and make sure we’re seen doing it for a few minutes right at the beginning of a satellite pass.”
241000JUN05.
The Special Ops Room. Bandar Abbas Navy Base.
Commander Adnam had drafted a totally bogus signal, to be transmitted from Navy Headquarters in Bandar Abbas to an Iranian Navy patrol craft in the northern end of the Gulf. The message ran as follows:
Intelligence received of Iraqi surface-to-air missile test in area east of Qal At Salih. Four missiles flown. One at fast high-altitude airborne target—apparently successful at time 222101JUN05. Launch platform unknown. Investigate. 240100JUN06.
It was encoded in a comparatively low-level operational system. And, as Ben Adnam had anticipated, it was intercepted by local American radio surveillance at the time of transmission. Fort Meade had decrypted it three hours later. Langley had a copy one hour after that. And the CIA’s chief field officers in both Jordan and Kuwait had it soon afterward
Ben’s plan was proceeding, as usual, with the inevitably of sunrise over the desert. This was not a drastic message, just one of several reports sent out on a daily basis. And it scored a bull’s-eye, ending up in the hands of Chuck Mitchell, an Arab-speaking American from Boston, who operated under deep cover in the main telegraph and fax office on the east side of Rashid Street.
Chuck had two messages that evening. The first was from Kuwait, which quoted an inquiry about missile test-firing in the marshes, east of the Tigris. The second message was from the CIA man in Jordan, asking baldly: Anything on Iraqi missile tests in the marshes near Qal At Salih? It added that there had been an inquiry from HQ.
The CIA man had heard nothing. But that did not mean nothing was happening. He contacted another CIA field man in Baghdad, Hussein Hakim, a recruit of some twelve years, and they arranged to meet at 2000 in a dingy coffeehouse in the poor south part of the city, both in Arab dress.
Hakim was late because he thought, neurotically, that he might have a tail, but it turned out to be a false alarm. He finally found Chuck, who was also getting nervous, at 2045. They did not wish to spend long together, and the conversation was terse. Yes, the idea of a big missile-testing program somewhere new was serious. But no, neither of them could work on it specifically. Best just to keep their ears to the ground and hope the satellites could find something.
Chuck Mitchell sent a signal back confirming he was on the case, requesting a better feel for urgency and/or need for confirmation. He was not optimistic, and his communication reached the desk of the CIA’s Middle East chief, Jeff Austin, shortly before lunch. He read it and ruminated on the endless problem of Iraq. If it was not one thing, it was another. That damned nation had practically caused a world war fifteen years ago, and since then there had been nothing but problems…possible nuclear weapons, possible chemical weapons, possible nerve gas being used on the Kurds again.
Not to mention, of course, the vaporizing of the Thomas Jefferson in the high summer of 2002. This was also plainly the work of Baghdad, and it had hitherto gone unpunished. Now the Iraqis were testing, in secret apparently, new antiaircraft missiles down in the marshes. There were two big questions: Where did they get them? What did they plan to do with them?
Jeff Austin’s antennae were up. And he hit the secure line to Admiral Morgan’s office. The two men talked for about ten minutes without reaching any major conclusions, save to keep a very careful watch on any activities by the Iraqi military in the marshes, and to be extra vigilant with the satellite cover in that area.
“Fucking towelheads,” growled the admiral, as he replaced the telephone. “That’s all we need. The Marsh Arabs with a nuclear deterrent. Holy shit. How about the fucking Incas? What about the Eskimos?”
What the admiral did not know was that the only missile of any significance that had been fired in the Middle East that year, was the big Grumble Rif in the Gulf of Iran a few days previously. But Commander Adnam had chosen his site well, way offshore, hundreds of miles from any city, and fairly close to the Iran/Iraq border. And it was all over in seventy seconds. There might have been the occasional amateur astronomer who thought he saw a flash in the sky. Possibly a group of tribesmen in the hills who thought it might be the end of the world. But no country had reported a downed plane, no one had seen a missile take off. No one had reported anything. Bar Adnam.
Meanwhile back at the Bandar Abbas Naval Base, a team of engineers was working on the new weapons system for HMS Unseen. Commander Adnam intended the system should be fitted as a self-contained unit, possibly as high as the top of the fin, bolted into place in an airtight and waterproof “box” and connected just by wires to the fairly basic control system already installed in the submarine.
It was cumbersome but ingenious, and Ben Adnam had already proved, to himself at least, that it would work to devastating effect. Inside the huge dry dock, the bolt holes were being drilled into the casing and into the stern end of the fin. By late August the missile system would be completely modified for its new and relatively simple task. Not even the Russians had the remotest clue as to what was happening in the dry dock. No one knew what the thick rubber cable connectors were for, as the engineers gunned them into place on the aft section of the deck.
Commander Adnam and Admiral Badr were constant visitors, waiting for the day when the heavy-load-lifting apparatus would hoist the massive “extra fin” into place. That happened on September 14, and when it was completely fixed, five days later, they pumped the water level as high as possible and submerged Unseen to the bottom of the deep dock. The water still only covered the fin by about 8 feet, but it was enough to check over several hours that she was watertight at periscope depth. That was critic
al, as important as the test results at deeper depths, when the whole system would be pressurized inside.
The seals held perfectly, not a drop of water entered the “box.” Then they deliberately overpressurized it internally, to two atmospheres. No bubbles emerged, and there was a smile on the face of Ben Adnam.
The workshop was quieter. Only the electronics engineers were still working, calmly checking circuits as the system depressurized.
That afternoon, as they walked into the dock, Commander Adnam said softly to Admiral Badr, “Soon, my friend, both your revenge and mine will be complete.”
And he gazed with the utmost satisfaction at the submarine he had personally stolen from the Royal Navy, the submarine that would very soon launch an attack the like of which had never been seen in the entire history of naval warfare.
He did not, however, linger for very long. He had been busy all day, and that night he wanted to pray, and to ask the forgiveness of his God.
5
January 16, 2006.
H.M.S. Unseen (1999) Page 14