The frogmen directed the forward operator to start his winch and then gave direction the aft operator. Slowly a narrow black mass rose from the depths. It was half as long as the hold, a narrow torpedo shape with a trashcan shaped conning tower amidships: a midget sub. On its aft deck were three cargo containers identical to the three containers now floating in the freighter’s hold.
The hatch to the tower opened and a man popped out. Two more followed, crowding the small conning tower. With a great deal of yelling and manipulating the winches moved the midget sub to the center of the hold. When it was in place the frogmen activated container’s air bladders and secured them with ropes. Then they unlatched them from the subs decking.
The containers bobbed to the surface and the frogmen moved them aside. The old containers were switched for the new ones. It was a seemingly simple process, but between the numbers of men, ropes and floating containers it quickly became confused. The captain of the ship and the captain of the sub shouted incessantly, and finally they got the containers swapped.
With the frogmen holding the containers in place on the deck of the sub the captain ordered the dive tanks blown. A hiss of air could be heard. Bubbles rose to the surface as did the midget sub. The containers settled to the sub’s deck and were deflated and lashed down.
With the sub’s deck now fully above water the sub captain and his engineer climbed out of the conning tower and onto the deck to inspect the damage caused when he struck the freighter. Squatting on the rounded hull, they looked with concern at what appeared to be a long dent or gash.
The captain of the freighter went down to the deck. As his men secured the containers he yelled down, “How bad is it?”
The sub captain looked up and yelled back, “We’re leaking. It’s not bad but we’ll be limited to periscope depth,” he replied. “We need to get going fast. We need the darkness.”
“Well why did you run into my ship in the first place?”
“You try berthing that tub blindfolded then you’ll understand what we were attempting! Do you know how many times I have done this—once!”
“All right, all right,” the freighter captain relented. “Get going then and may the Prophet be with you!”
The sub captain and his companion climbed the conning tower and disappeared into the midget sub. The frogmen cast off the sub’s lines. One man patted the side of the conning tower three times. The frogmen jumped off the sub and swam to the ladders out of the holds. As they clambered up the hold the sub began to sink into the ocean.
When it was gone the captain ordered the replacement containers floated to the center of the hold and then he closed the doors. The hydraulic motors whined and the gears turned. With a crunch and groan they closed. Three containers sat in the hold just like before.
Turning back to the sea, the freighter captain waited until the periscope of the sub popped up out of the water a hundred meters off the port bow. That part of the mission done, the captain turned to cleaning up the ship.
#
In the White House situation room the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine General Mertzl, was staring at the satellite feed with a scowl on his all too square face. He muttered loud enough for the entire table to hear it, “They’re up to something!”
National Security Advisor Carrabolla was twenty years the general’s junior with a curly mop of blonde hair and a choir girl demeanor. She sighed, “You always think the worst of people general.”
“You think when we have three plus tons of near weapon grade Uranium at risk this is just another political campaign?” he shot back, reminding Carrabolla the reason she got the job had nothing to do with her foreign policy experience. “This stuff is enough for a bunch of atomic bombs or a whole lot of trouble if they’re made into dirty bombs. This is real world stuff!”
“That’s why we have our Navy ships shadowing the Iranians,” she reminded him. “They’re not going to pull anything while our ships are there.”
“They already are,” he told her. “They’re doing it right in front of us. Why do you think the freighter has stopped and laid a smoke screen over its location? It’s night. Even our low light satellites won’t pick up any detail now and our Infra-Red satellite cameras are being blinded by the flares they’re sending up.”
“Maybe the ship is in distress; did you think of that?” she retorted. “We are monitoring their radio frequencies. The Iranian warships are moving in to assist.”
“And you trust these bastards?” he shot back, incredulous. Before she could answer, he told her, “These people love your candy ass view of the world. That means they can do whatever they want. The bottom line is this: in my professional opinion forged over the last forty years of service to this country, I say they’re up to something and the president should be informed; he should be here monitoring this in the situation room.”
“He’s on a fund raiser in Texas,” she told him emphatically.
“Since when has greasing the palms of fat cats taken precedence over an international crisis?” he asked testily.
“The wheels of government turn whatever other countries do general,” she retorted.
He laughed, and asked, “So where in the Constitution does it say that fund raising takes precedence over—anything?”
“Would you say that if the president was here general?” she challenged him.
“I wouldn’t have to say it; he’d be where he was supposed to be!” the general shot back.
Carrabolla looked indecisive. She wasn’t happy; but the general had a point. “The president has a responsibility,” she started, but the general cut her off.
“He has a responsibility to do the job he was elected to do! He is in his second term. There is no need for him to campaign endlessly.”
“If he loses the mid-terms, if he loses the Senate he can’t do his job,” she argued.
“So the government just stops, is that what you’re telling me, Ms. Carrabolla?” he chided, grimacing in a truly frighteningly way. When she hesitated in responding, he continued his point. “Listen to me: the Iranians are bald face lying to the world; which isn’t so unusual excepting this time it involves three tons of enriched Uranium. We know the Iranians have met with Al Qaeda; we know the Iranians have met with ISIS; do you really want to see those bastards get their hands on that much Uranium?”
“I don’t see the connection general,” she replied automatically, immediately realizing she’d said the wrong thing.
“You don’t realize the connection between three terrorist organizations—all rivals—meeting with each other and then lo and behold three tons of Uranium goes missing?”
“There is no Uranium missing,” she replied patiently. “We haven’t heard anything from the Iranians that would leave us to believe anything nefarious is going on.”
“You blindly trust them?” he replied emphatically. “Have you ever heard of Taqiyya?”
“I’m unfamiliar with the term,” she lied.
The general laughed bitterly, “Well it’s the use of falsehood to further ones purposes for the sake of Islam; rather like the political lies told to sell healthcare or target your political foes using the IRS or the attack on Benghazi.”
“All right general you’ve made your point,” Carrabolla cut him off. “At this point I don’t see anything that would give us any indication of alarm; this is a glitch, these things happen. This isn’t the first ship with engine trouble.”
“Well then you won’t mind if I send in some ships to lend assistance,” General Mertzl smiled, turning to Admiral Sampson. “Bob, who do you want to send in to lend a hand to our poor unfortunate Iranians?”
“I have four destroyers and a couple of guided missile cruisers that can be at the freighter in fifteen minutes,” he replied calmly. “The Nimitz is ready to put two flights of super-hornets armed with harpoons overhead in five; with full fighter CAP in case any ‘unfriendlies’ come our way. Just give me the word Frank.”
“Testos
terone driven Neanderthals!” Carrabolla cursed under her breath.
“What was that Ms. Carrabolla?”
“I said you are exceeding your authority,” she replied coldly.
“Ms. Carrabolla only one man in this country has the power to countermand my orders—one man—and he’s on the way to a fund raiser,” the general answered tersely. “I have a duty to safeguard this operation. Those are my orders. I will accomplish them as I see fit.”
“I think you are unnecessarily provoking the Iranians,” Carrabolla argued. “As the head of the NSA I object strenuously to this course of action!”
“Ms. Carrabolla, you and your NSA ideologues don’t know shit from shinola,” he told her. “You’re all political hacks. If you listened to your NSA professionals they’d tell you you’re full of crap!”
“You leave me no choice but to call the president!” she threatened.
General Mertzl raised his hands in supplication to a greater power. “Hallelujah! That’s what I’ve been trying to get you to do for the last fifteen minutes!”
“That’s what this is all about?”
“Good God in heaven do you have any clue about what’s going on?” he exclaimed. Burying his head in his hands the general took a deep breath before looking back up at her. “I really want to know how you ideologues think; what the Hell goes on in your brains?”
Carrabolla got the distinct impression he’d like to saw the top of her skull off with the knife he undoubtedly carried in his boots and look in to see what festering disease was rotting her brain—all while she was awake.
Angry, she retorted, “The days of bullying other nations is past general. We’re just one of hundreds of nations on this planet; the sooner you realize we’re nothing special the longer your career will last. The days of the last superpower are over.”
The general glowered at her. The situation room was clearly divided between the military, the CIA and the FBI and the other agencies, President Oetari’s ideologues. It was a simmering conflict of distrust, with one side firmly believing the political zealots were bordering on treason and then other side convinced that evolution had passed the warmongers by.
Carrabolla made the call. President Oetari was put out.
“You do realize that I have a very important fund raiser tonight,” he reminded her over the speaker phone. “It’s not as if I can cancel this because the Iranians are veering off the script.”
“Mr. President, we’re talking about the security of over three tons of Uranium 235!” General Mertzl said soberly, barely keeping his tone civil.
“The UN’s keeping an eye on it, why do I want to go and trample on their turf?” the president replied. Before a stunned Carrabolla or Mertzl could respond the president cut them off. “Listen, I’m doing the party’s business tonight; that’s the people’s business. Iran has to comply with the UN agreement—they signed it—so as long as they comply I don’t care how they do it. I’ve given the UN my ships to shadow the Iranians; what more do you want me to do? We are not the world’s policeman. As far as I’m concerned the subject is closed—good night!”
The president hung up.
Mertzl was seething. He echoed the president’s comment in disbelief, “His ships; his ships! They are warships of the United States and he’s just handed them over to the United Nations? Did he really just say that?”
For once Ms. Carrabolla was speechless.
An officer approached General Mertzl. She wore the dress whites of the US Navy. She handed Mertzl her iPad, pointing to the message, “From the Los Angeles class attack sub Key West. She’s shadowing the Iranian convoy.”
Her eyes raised and met Carrabolla. They was no gender fraternity there—none.
Mertzl looked at the message and then at Carrabolla. He said nothing.
His silence unnerved the NSA chief enough for her to finally blurt, “What is it?”
“The game has changed,” he told her emphatically, pounding the table with his open hand. The sharp, insistent sound made Carrabolla jump. Everyone in the situation room looked at the general with surprise. The room fell silent. “You need to call the president back and get him here right now!”
CHAPTER 26: Rahman’s End Run
Captain Bashir of the Iranian midget sub Abd-el Rahman paced the cramped deck of the submerged boat. The boat was named after the jihadi general whose rampage through the Iberian Peninsula and southern France left so many dead Christians, that in his words, “Only Allah knows how many are slain!”
Bashir and his crew took pride in that. They had the quote painted on the bulkhead of the bridge.
They ignored the fact that Rahman was himself slain and his onslaught crushed by Frederic “The Hammer” Martel at Poitiers. Martel saved Europe, but the Islamists still celebrated the death and destruction Rahman spread.
The captain was nervous, muttering to himself, “Park the boat blind in the hull of a freighter? These clerics and their loyal lapdogs have no idea of the reality of these things!”
“I’m sure the guidance comes from Allah himself,” his navigator warned him. The younger man’s glance was hard; disapproving of the captain’s lack of faith.
As a German naval captain might diplomatically reply to a junior Gestapo officer, or a Russian captain to his political officer, Bashir smiled thinly and said, “You misconstrue my comment. I speak only of my own shortcomings in guiding the boat blindly to a difficult berth. Allah’s plans may be perfect, but I am not.”
That appeared to placate the navigator for now, but Bashir chastised himself for speaking his doubts out loud. In today’s Iran, especially in the military, that could be dangerous, very dangerous. He knew of many friends who had disappeared for speaking common sense; they disappeared along with their entire families.
The image of dozens, hundreds of bodies swinging slowly from the gallows in the Tehran breeze came unbidden to his mind.
Purging his thoughts of such depressing memories, the captain went back to the periscope and watched the approaching convoy. The Iranian ships were being shadowed by the Americans; that’s what concerned him. If American ships were out there then their submarines couldn’t be far.
“It’s time to take her down to thirty meters—quietly!” he told the first officer.
“Ready sir,” he replied.
The captain looked sternly at the navigator. “Are we in position; exactly in position?” he demanded.
The navigator nodded, and said, “We are in position!”
The captain sighed, and struck back at the navigator, saying sharply, “We’d better be! Allah will not endure mistakes; not now! Take her down!”
Bashir stowed the periscope as the first officer ordered the tanks flooded and the hydroplanes set down. His orders were repeated much too loudly. It made Bashir wince, the Americans, if they were out there, had to be able to hear them; but it couldn’t be helped—shouting was the only way the seamen could hear the orders over the sound of water rushing through the slots in the hull and into the dive tanks.
#
Three thousand yards from the Rahman, the sonar operator from the Los Angeles class attack sub Key West, Seaman First Class Jonah Jameson winced at the same moment Captain Bashir did.
“Holy Moses they’re loud,” he said. “No doubt about it captain it’s a midget sub. He’s roughly three klicks at heading three-two-seven, right in front of the convoy, and he’s heading down from periscope depth. I can hear the periscope being stowed.”
“What’s his heading?” asked Captain Mars, a short, black haired graduate of Annapolis originally from Wyoming. He walked over to the sonar station and looked at the various sound patterns on Jameson’s displays.
“He’s going straight down captain, there’s nothing from his propellers.”
“Keep me posted on the midget sub,” he said. Then he pointed to a louder sound signature, that of the Iranian freighter. “Our job is to keep track of this guy, but why would a midget sub sit in his path, basically waiting
for the convoy to pass overhead?” He paced the deck silently, thinking. After one circuit of the bridge he returned to the sonar station and picked up his thread of thought.
“Those midget subs can’t keep up with the convoy. He’s not shadowing them; still, he’s up to something. Let me know if you hear anything, anything at all Jameson.”
“Aye, aye sir!”
Jameson kept listening. The midget sub wasn’t very stealthy on a good day. The boat was old, rickety and poorly serviced. Everything on it made noise including the crew. They were easy to track. This one, however, was noisier than any he’d ever heard. The sound was strange; something was causing a great disturbance in the water while the midget moved. What it could be he had no idea.
The Key West hung in the water at fifty meters; the midget was at about thirty. He guessed that by the way the sounds propagated through the water.
The freighter chugged along. It was another real noisemaker. Jameson and his sonar buddies had never heard anything quite like it. Then again, it wasn’t made for the open sea. It was a glorified barge set up to carry rocks. Consequently the doors of the hull, battered and bent as they inevitably were, caused disturbances in the water; that meant noise, and a lot of it.
It also made the ship easy to single out. Jameson backed off the volume on the known ships and highlighted the freighter. That way he could identify any small change, any nuance in the freighter’s sound signature. He was defining the signature, breaking it down into its component parts when suddenly it changed.
Something, it sounded like a generator of some kind, started up. There was a low whooshing sound accompanying it. It ran for several moments and then the engine wound down.
“Captain! Captain, we’ve got something,” he reported. When Captain Mars reached his station, Jameson explained what he heard.
“Could be an emergency generator starting up after an engine failure,” the captain said.
The Ghost of Flight 666 Page 21