by Jeff Nesbit
At the center of Baqa’a was one hope—that someday there would be peace with Israel and a new, united Palestinian nation. They lived each day with that hope of a new Arab nation with money, power, dignity, and independence from controlling nations such as Syria or Lebanon. It had been the hope for a generation.
The Palestinian refugees of Baqa’a and elsewhere were tired of never-ending wars and conflict. They hoped for peace in their time. Elizabeth and the staff and volunteers of WWB lived this hope in every encounter with refugee families who flocked to the free WWB medical clinics that operated throughout the region.
Elizabeth had been in and out of the region for almost a decade. And, for the first time that she could ever remember, hope was beginning to replace despair. She heard it in dozens of hushed, fervent conversations in the camps WWB operated in. The refugees themselves could sense that something was happening. They had begun to talk, openly, of a new, emerging Arab state. They all believed that their long journey in the wilderness would be over soon.
They didn’t know, yet, where exactly it would be located, who would run it, how its economy would function, or what it might be called. But Elizabeth could see—and hear—the confidence in the voices of the people she cared for and listened to on a daily basis. They knew somehow that a free, united Palestinian state—and a peace with Israel—was coming soon.
The inhabitants of Baqa’a had much in common with other people throughout history who’d spent a generation wandering in wildernesses, waiting patiently for the day that the great principalities and powers of the earth would grant them safe haven back to a homeland. The people of Baqa’a had almost infinite patience. They would wait until that day arrived, and rejoice when it did finally appear.
In fact, just that day, Elizabeth had received a most curious invitation that somehow seemed connected to these hopes and dreams for a real, new nation for the Palestinian nations—one that had taken up most of her day. She’d been invited to meet with senior officials of Jordan’s Ministry of Health about plans for a new teaching hospital that would also include a medical school.
Elizabeth had been thrilled to learn of the plans and had pledged her organization’s full cooperation toward its creation. In fact, WWB had already created modified courses for various public health professional training efforts. This would be bigger, but not all that different from what they’d already done.
When she’d asked about the prospective location, though, the officials had been strangely reluctant to reveal it. They’d talked vaguely about a new location, somewhere else. Elizabeth had decided not to press them. She’d learned long ago that it was better to just wait. Most things were revealed over time.
But she’d managed to steal a glance at one of the blueprints the officials had brought with them and was surprised to see that they included plans to convert existing buildings in an established city. And, if she wasn’t mistaken, the city looked an awful lot like Beersheba, in Israel. She wondered, privately, why Ministry of Health officials in Jordan were thinking about a city in what was clearly, and firmly, part of Israel.
It was all very curious. But Elizabeth knew that, in good time, she would learn more. And, until that time, she would do her work as she always had—and always would.
30
SOMEWHERE IN THE ARABIAN SEA
Ben Azoulay hated waiting. He’d never been any good at it. His teachers had been forced to find ways to keep him occupied in school. He’d fidget endlessly in his seat all day long, waiting for the moment he could leave his desk and jump into action.
It was ironic that his job now was to sit and navigate. But Ben didn’t view his job that way. He was at ease in the air, with a throttle in his hand and bright, flashing scopes before him. He was at his best when the world was flashing by him on all sides, an enemy to be confronted out in front of him.
But there was no enemy in front of him just now. Israel’s prime minister, Judah Navon, had ordered all of the IDF to stand down for the moment. They were on the sidelines, waiting for the inevitable next shoe to drop.
Azoulay and the other Israeli Bandits who’d managed to navigate the newly acquired F-117s in, around, and over Iran’s air-defense systems to their targets had all managed to make it out of Iran safely. Half of them, including Azoulay, were on direct orders from Navon to stand down and wait to see what Iran would do next.
So Azoulay could do nothing more than pace back and forth on the lone carrier that Israel possessed, which was deployed three hundred miles away from the fighting that was almost certain to erupt in the Persian Gulf.
Israel had gone back and forth for years about the need for a navy carrier. Shortly after Navon had become Israel’s prime minister for the second time around, he’d ended the speculation and discussion by committing to the purchase of an American-built carrier. Navon knew where the IDF was weak, and he moved to shore up those areas immediately after taking office.
A carrier was one of his first purchases. It was done quietly, without fanfare. Unlike Iran, which boldly proclaimed prototypes or weapons development that was years away from reality, Israel under Navon went about its business with no public pronouncements. The carrier purchase, one of those efforts, went almost unnoticed outside of publications like Jane’s Defence Weekly.
Navon was a fighter. He’d come up through the ranks of the IAF and had been one of the most decorated fighter pilots in Israel’s post–World War II history. He was just nineteen, and a brand-new fighter pilot, when the Six Day War remade Palestine and the Middle East landscape.
Navon had been one of those pilots who’d made run after run every day during the war that had allowed Israel to seize control of the Sinai Peninsula, Gaza, the West Bank, the Golan Heights, and eastern Jerusalem. He’d emerged from that war as a hero, and later parlayed that into a career as one of Israel’s most successful, conservative members of the Likud Party.
Realizing that the United States was important to Israel’s own national security interests, Navon had studied at Harvard and had worked for several years in both Boston and New York. He understood American political viewpoints quite well—even though he was rarely in sync with them.
Past American presidents had often been at odds with Navon’s blunt, opinionated style. One American president had called Navon a liar and cheat in private, only to watch in horror as his private assessment became quite public when someone who’d overheard it relayed it to a New York Times reporter.
But none of Navon’s political or personality traits mattered in the slightest to Azoulay and the IAF Bandits. To them, Navon was fearless, their leader and someone they would follow to the ends of the earth. They knew with certainty that Navon wanted only to protect Israel. Everything he’d done in his life had been with that end in mind, and the IAF Bandits all knew it.
Navon’s history was so well known to the members of the IAF—and Navon himself took such an active interest in the IAF’s missions—that Azoulay and the other IAF Bandits almost felt like they worked directly for him. That’s what made this current wait so difficult. They were itching to get back in the fight. But Navon had made it quite clear. They would let the Americans engage first in the Gulf.
More than a dozen IAF Bandits, fresh off their bombing runs to Iran, were on board the carrier. They’d all made it safely to the carrier in the dead of night and, like Azoulay, were anxious to get back in the air as quickly as they could. Each knew what was at stake and didn’t want to be stranded on a carrier at sea if Israel was attacked.
When the confidential Mossad communiqué finally came through that Iran’s entire fleet at Bandar Abbas had moved out to confront the American 5th Fleet, there was almost a collective sigh of relief among the fighter pilots. They would be engaged in the fight—and soon. They all knew it.
Iran’s strategy seemed odd to Azoulay, though. First, they had not pursued Israel’s planes—not out to sea or into Turkey. And now, against all odds, they were stacking all of their ships near Bandar Abbas for a hope
less confrontation with the mightiest navy the world had seen. It made no sense.
But Azoulay also knew that the greatest military strategists on the planet had studied the situation and would shortly tell them where to engage. As always, he would follow orders, and pray that those in command knew what they were doing.
31
JASK, IRAN
It was too good to believe. Bahadur had delivered the good news to Ali Zhubin via a secure terrestrial network, and Zhubin had in turn relayed the news to both the Rev. Shahidi and Ahmadian.
America had taken the bait. They had deployed most of the ships attached to their Nimitz supercarrier to the narrow waters south of Bandar Abbas. They were moving quickly to confront the Iranian fleet that had just left port. They were already seventy-five miles away from their carrier and closing in on the Strait. By the time the Americans realized their error, it would be too late.
True, the Americans had inexplicably left some of their ships behind. But it was pointless, Bahadur knew. Their swarm would overwhelm the Abraham Lincoln, and there was very little the Americans could do to protect their floating target 150 miles out from the Strait of Hormuz.
With most of their ships moving toward a fleet in the Strait, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards would shortly launch an all-out, full-scale attack behind them against the Abraham Lincoln. Using dozens of the subs, fighter jets, and attack boats that had been pre-positioned along the southern coast over the years, the American fleet would suddenly have a ferocious, unexpected rear-guard fight on their hands.
By the time they could react and turn around, the fight would be over—and one of America’s Nimitz carriers would be headed toward the bottom of the sea. Bahadur knew they only needed to buy time and win a fight. The Guards couldn’t defeat the American Navy over the long term, but if they won an early fight, the balance of power would shift. Iran would no longer be on the defensive and could shift into a full diplomatic offensive to make up at the United Nations and elsewhere what they’d lost on the battlefield in the past few days.
Bahadur stood at the end of the small, wooden pier that extended out to sea on the western side of the resort isthmus. He looked out over the water, wondering what the Americans would think shortly once they’d realized their mistake.
“Are we ready?” he said, turning to one of the aides who was waiting by his side for orders.
“Yes, sir,” the aide answered. “All pilots are in place.”
“The Yugos and mini-subs are ready?”
“They are running, sir. Waiting on your command.”
“The Sunburns?”
“In place, sir,” the aide said smartly.
Bahadur smiled. It was a good day to be alive. His only regret was that he would be unable to see the victory firsthand out over the waters of the Arabian Sea. But the reports would be enough for him—reports that would confirm this victory as the greatest in Iran’s history.
“It is time,” Bahadur said, turning back to his aide. “Send everyone out. Launch the missiles. Now.”
An instant later, doors to hidden hangars in the Makran mountains flew open. Jet after jet emerged from the hangars, headed out to sea, their bomb payloads armed and ready. Iran’s secret fleet of Yugos, mini-subs, and attack boats moved out from their concealed positions. Silkworms began to emerge from their positions. And the array of Sunburn and Dark Sword anti-ship missiles began their very rapid journey out to sea, all of them with just one large target in their sites.
Iran was taking the fight to the Americans, in a way they’d never anticipated.
32
ABOARD THE USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN
The scopes all lit up at once. There were so many blinking lights on the various pieces of equipment, from so many directions, it seemed surreal to the observers in the command and control center. At first, the junior officers who’d trained for years for this sort of combat thought that it had to be a mistake. Within seconds, they realized it was no mistake.
“Find the vice admiral and captain!” one of them yelled, almost at the top of his lungs. “We have a full-scale attack coming at us!”
Truxton burst into the room an instant later and took up a position just over the junior officers’ shoulders. He said nothing and only stared at the scopes grimly. He knew precisely what the blinking, moving lights meant.
The Pentagon leadership had vastly underestimated Iran’s force—and their strategy. Every single one of these targets coming toward them had emerged from the southern coastline of Iran one hundred miles outside of the Strait of Hormuz.
They were appearing out of thin air, which meant they’d been in place for some time. And there were dozens of targets, all coming right at them.
The anti-ship cruise missiles would arrive first, Truxton knew.
And they were arriving at almost Mach 3, a terrifying speed that would overwhelm the ship’s anti-missile computer system.
But he also knew something Iran’s Revolutionary Guards did not. America had not been idle as Russia had developed the Sunburn missile and then its successor. And when China had developed the Dark Sword, the Pentagon leadership had gotten very serious about meeting the threat.
In a rare show of procurement common sense, all branches of the American military had quickly finished researching, developing, and deploying a highly classified system that could generate high-power microwaves over a wide area and destroy electronic equipment controlling the individual cruise missile guidance systems.
The research had begun years ago in the U.S. Department of Energy’s nuclear weapons laboratories and had then moved over to the Pentagon once the architecture had been studied. The system had been originally designed to destroy incoming Soviet ballistic missiles.
But at the end of the Cold War, it became obvious that they would no longer need to worry as much about ballistic missiles launched at the U.S. continent. The much greater threat, the Pentagon had correctly assessed, was the new generation of fast, highly maneuverable cruise missiles from Russia and China.
The high-power microwave weapons system had emerged as the single, best counter to those threats and was now in place on all carrier fleets.
Captain Smith joined Truxton and stood off to one side. Neither of them said a word. They were both looking, and waiting, for confirmation that all of Iran’s anti-ship cruise missiles had been launched. Once they’d confirmed that, then they could deploy the countermeasures.
The seconds seemed like minutes. The Dark Swords would arrive first, followed shortly by the Sunburns. But neither Truxton nor Smith would wait for that moment.
One of the junior officers turned to Truxton. “No other missiles in the air, sir.”
“You’re certain?” Truxton asked.
“Yes, sir. Everything else from the coastline is confirmed at much slower speeds. The computers have confirmed this as well. There are no new missile threats coming at us.”
Truxton turned to Smith. “Captain?”
Smith simply nodded in return and gave the order. Without preamble or fanfare, a series of switches were flipped. The high-power microwave beams were sent out, and all eyes turned back to the scopes. They watched as several dozen lights almost instantly disappeared from the scopes.
Satellites picked up the video real-time as the cruise missiles that had been accelerating to speeds approaching Mach 3 suddenly took an abrupt nosedive and disappeared into the murky waters of the Arabian Sea, no longer threats.
The few remaining cruise missiles not caught in the wide-area microwave blast were detected moments later by the ship’s Sea-RAM computer system. All eleven of the ship’s RAM nine-foot-long missiles were locked and loaded, but they’d only needed a half dozen of them. They launched and intercepted the remaining anti-ship missiles six miles away from the Abe.
“All missiles down,” one of the operators said.
Truxton looked back at the scopes. They were still facing a massive threat from a horde of suicide bombers and attack boats. Truxton cursed to himself
that they had so few LCS ships in service right now, and the four they had were still not within range of the fight. They could use those LCS ships right about now, especially along the coastline.
Smith stepped up to one of the screens, the one that used the latest generation of extended blue-green lasers to track underwater threats. “Is that right?” he asked quietly, pointing to the screen.
The officer nodded. “We’ve counted fifteen of them, sir.”
“Fifteen of what?” Truxton asked.
“They have to be Yugos,” Smith answered. “We knew of the four from North Korea. But, obviously, they have more of them, and I’d be willing to bet my paycheck the North Koreans built them for the Guards. They’re moving too fast to be submarines. They have to be minis.”
Truxton shook his head. They had no subs in the area, and most of the ships that could meet the mini-subs were headed to Bandar Abbas. The Yugos were small—fewer than one hundred feet—and could likely get close enough to the Abe to crash into it, especially if their sole intent was a suicide mission against the carrier.
“Make sure we have the nuclear power plant covered,” Truxton said to the ship’s executive officer. “Nothing gets through. This is your only assignment. If they’re able to get any suicides near the plant, we’re in trouble. So make sure it doesn’t happen. Understand?”
“Yes, sir,” the executive officer said. He was gone a moment later.
“Captain Smith, do we have anything else we can call in?” Truxton asked.
“Not in the immediate area. Just the ships we have left.”
“Those are deployed, and will get much of what we have coming in. But we can’t handle all of their fighters.”
“No, we can’t,” Smith said soberly.