Shadows of steel pm-5 Page 37

  ABOARD THE KHOMEINI THAT SAME TIME “The radar at Chah Bahar is down,” Badi reported to Major Admiral Akbar Tufayli. “We are resynchronizing with the A-10 radar plane and our own search radar. He is repositioning his orbit fifty kilometers further north to compensate for the loss of the shore station. We have requested that another A-10 take up a position to back up our A-10 on station; his ETE is thirty minutes Stand by …” It took only a few moments. “We have reacquired the target, sir, bearing zero-one-five, range ninety-six kilometers, speed six hundred kilometers per hour—it appears to have slowed down considerably.”

  “Possibly damaged,” Tufayli said. “Now may be the time to commit our forces to hunt that bomber down and destroy it forever!”

  “Range ninety kilometers, speed five-ninety, altitude now reading … sir, altitude is increasing. He’s climbing … now passing three hundred meters, four hundred … range eighty kilometers, passing six hundred kilometers in altitude. We have a solid lock-on, sir … seventy-five kilometers and closing, speed down to five hundred kilometers!”

  “Engage at maximum range,” Tufayli ordered. “Launch the alert fighters. Get everything we have airborne. Where is that bomber now?”

  “Still climbing, sir … Interceptor flights Twenty and Twenty-one engaging target, range sixty kilometers and closing..

  “Twenty? Twenty-one? Where are those flights from’?” Tufayli asked.

  “Those are the air defense F-4 Phantoms from Chah Babar, on station with the A-10.” He stopped and looked at his commander.

  “The A-10? Could that bomber be going after the radar plane?”

  “Get him out of there! Have him take evasive action!” But it was too late. The B-2A bomber launched two more AGM-88 HARM missiles, which horned in straight and true on the A-10 radar plane, sending it quickly spinning into the Gulf of Oman.

  “He’s … he’s gone, sir, off our radar screens,” Badi reported.

  “Interceptors have lost the target.”

  “No!” Tufayli shouted, slamming a fist on his seat in anger. The F-4s had poorly maintained radars, with few spare parts, and were not as reliable as the Sukhoi-33s or the MiG-29s. “Not now! We were so close! Badi, I want every fighter we have in the air right now! I do not care if we shoot at every bird or every cloud in the sky that even remotely looks like a bomber on radar. I want it done, and I want that bomber on the bottom of the Gulf of Oman! Now!”

  ABOARD AIR VEHICLE-01 I Nose pointed down to the sea, throttles to idle to present the smallest possible thermal cross-section astern, the B-2A Spirit stealth bomber plunged down into the darkness of the Gulf of Oman.

  As it passed through 5,000 feet, following the computer’s projected track to where it thought the carrier Khomeini was, McLanahan saw a tiny spot of light—on the ocean—soon he saw others. “SAR coming on he announced, “now … SAR standby. Got the carrier, directly ahead, fifteen miles … last four missiles are programmed and ready to go.”

  “Punch those ‘Elmers’ out and let’s go home,” Jamieson said.

  Thirty seconds later, the last four JSOW missiles were on their way to the aircraft carrier Khomeini.

  Following McLanahan’s programmed flight plan, the four “Elmer’s” missiles arced north of the Iranian battle group, then turned south-southeast, roughly following each other in trail 1,500 feet apart. They were just a few dozen feet above the tallest antenna on the destroyer Zhanjiang by the time they passed over the fleet.

  As they passed overhead, tiny bomb bays opened up on each missile and an invisible liquid vapor cloud sprayed over the Iranian warships. The heavy vapor droplets settled quickly in a straight sausage-shaped pattern, coating the ships with a thin, odorless, tasteless film. As the missiles completed their silent deliveries right on target, they splashed harmlessly into the Gulf of Oman, completely undetected and unrecoverable.

  In seconds, exposed to air, the thin clear film that had been deposited over the two big warships began to change toward THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER KHOMEINI “it is about cursed time!” Admiral Tufayli shouted. The first rescue helicopter was just lifting off the deck and taking position on the port-side, ready to rescue any crewmen who might have to eject shortly after takeoff. It had taken more than five minutes to scramble a crew and get a helicopter airborne, and that was totally unacceptable.

  The admiral turned from the helicopter deck forward to the short holdback point near the center of the carrier in front of the island superstructure, where a Sukhoi-33 fighter sat loaded with two R-73 long-range air-to-air missiles—the deck crews had managed to off-load the fighter’s four Kh25 laser-guided attack missiles, but did not have the time to replace the empty stations with more air-to-air missiles. With only a 400-kilogram payload and a partial fuel load, that Su33 could use the shorter 100-meter takeoff run, while the heavier fighters had to use the 200-meter run along the port-side of the ship. Tufayli was impatient, but he knew that night carrier operations were the most dangerous and the crews were working at their best speed. “Any radar indications on that bomber?” he asked.

  “Possible unidentified target bearing zero-five-zero, range twelve miles, flying away from us,” came the reply.

  “That has got to be the bomber, Badi,” Tufayli said. “I want it checked out immediately! And dispatch a radar helicopter to track that aircraft. If our fighters shoot it down, I want searchers to recover any bodies and as much wreckage as-“

  “Sir, we have an emergency, the pilot of our rescue helicopter reports a hot hydraulic pack and wants a ready deck for an immediate precautionary landing,” General Badi announced suddenly.

  “Denied!” Tufayli shouted. “I want two fighters airborne before any other deck operations!”

  “Sir, the Mil-8 helicopters have only a single hydraulic pack and an emergency system,” Badi reminded the Pasdaran commander. “The emergency system is useful only in performing a controlled descent, not for maneuvering. Sir, no hostiles are engaging us—it is not critical to have fighter coverage airborne right away. We should bring that helicopter aboard.

  “All right, Badi, but after the first fighter launches,” Tufayli said. Relieved, Badi passed along the order.

  As a second fighter was placed into the holdback position on the 600-foot launch run, the first fighter on the number two 300-foot launch track activated its afterburners, and after a few seconds to allow the thrust to stabilize, it was released and it headed for the ski jump. Acceleration looked normal, although any fighter launch off the short 100-meter run was always very tense.

  The fighter hit the incline bow “ski jump,” sailed gracefully into the night sky, disappeared as it fell beneath the ski jump, then could be seen straight off the nose, its afterburners still on full power. “Finally!” Tufayli shouted. “Recover that helicopter, then get that second fighter airborne as soon as …”

  “Sir, Interceptor One is reporting a flight-control malfunction!”

  Badi shouted. Tufayli turned his attention back to the fighter that had just taken off..It was still in max afterburner, climbing at a very steep angle. “The pilot is having great difficulty moving any flight controls, and the landing gear is stuck in an intermediate position.”

  “What in hell is it, Badi?” Tufayli shouted. The fighter disappeared in the night sky, its afterburners still on full. At that rate of fuel consumption, Tufayli thought, it might have time for one long-range missile shot at one of the intruders before it had to return.

  “it could be contamination in the hydraulic fluid,” Badi speculated. “This is a similar malfunction as the patrol helicopter. I …” He paused as he listened to the intercom report in his headset, then turned, ashen-faced, to Tufayli.

  “Sir, flight ops reports the pilot of Interceptor One was unable to maintain control of the fighter and was forced to attempt to eject.”

  “Eject?” Tufayli shouted. He leapt to his feet and scanned the horizon for the plane, but saw nothing. “What happened?”

  “His last report stated that his eject
ion system had malfunctioned,” Badi reported. “The fighter has been lost on radar.

  Tufayli was momentarily in shock, but his only thought was of the unidentified fighters out there. “Get Interceptor Two airborne!”

  he screamed. “Get it up there now!”

  “Sir, there is something happening on the flight deck,” Badi said.

  “I do not know if it is fuel or hydraulic fluid contamination or corrosion or some kind of maintenance error, but it may have affected the entire air wing. We should postpone all aircraft launches until the problem has been-“

  “No!” Tufayli shouted. “I want air cover up immediately! We are unprotected without it! Range to the bomber?”

  “Sir, the only possible target is now thirty kilometers from the carrier and increasing—it is not a threat to the group,” Badi said. He touched his headset, listening carefully to the intercom reports. “Sir, combat section is reporting a possible malfunction of the radar arrays.”

  “What in hell is going on here?” Tufayli shouted. “Is everything breaking all at once? What sort of malfunction?”

  “Problem with the antenna itself, possibly a bad bearing or problems in the gear mechanism—the radar array is not rotating properly,” Badi replied. “We still have adequate radar coverage and antiaircraft capability Sir, Interceptor Two is ready for takeoff. I request permission to delay takeoff until a fast examination of the aircraft hydraulic system can be accomplished.

  It will only-“

  “No, launch Interceptor Two immediately!” Tufayli shouted. Badi had no choice but to give the order.

  The takeoff appeared normal—for only a few seconds, right at the beginning of the takeoff run. The afterburners flared, the fighter paused, the holdback bar released, the fighter leapt toward the ski jump—then seemed to actually slow down! Tufayli thought it was an optical illusion, but as the fighter neared the beginning of the jump, it seemed as if the pilot were braking to a halt—it was slowing down! “Badi, what in God’s name …?”

  Just as Badi was keying his mike button, ordering flight ops to order the pilot to abort the takeoff, the long twin afterburner plumes wobbled unsteadily from side to side, then suddenly pitched upward as the nose gear collapsed. Still in full afterburner power, the force of the engines snapped the Su-33 fighter in half, the fuel tanks burst open, and the fighter exploded in a huge fireball that instantly engulfed the entire flight deck. The men on the admiral’s bridge dropped to the deck as the observation windows imploded, and a wall of searing heat followed the ear-shattering thunder of the explosion. Several secondary explosions rumbled around them as other fighters and helicopters up on deck caught fire and exploded.

  “All stop! All stop! Damage-control report!” Tufayli was shouting. The collision and damage-control alarms were blaring as Tufayli weakly got to his feet and stared in utter amazement and horror through the shattered observation windows at the flight deck of the Middle East’s first aircraft carrier. Although the foam fire-fighting cannons at the flight deck’s edge had activated, the forward half of the flight deck was still on fire.

  Damage-control floodlights revealed dozens of naked, burned bodies lying all over the scorched deck. “Badi, damn you, report!”

  “No report from damage control yet, sir!” General Badi, his face cut up and blackened by the blast, replied. “Sir, I am receiving a report from the destroyer Zhanjiang …”

  “I do not care about the destroyer, Badi. What is happening to my carrier?”

  “Sir, the Zhanjiang is reporting a foreign substance on its decks and superstructures that is causing severe damage to all above-decks equipment,” Badi went on. “Radar, weapons, all reporting severe corrosion from a sticky substance that is preventing any movement—objects are being stuck together, as if they had been coated with a powerful liquid cement.”

  “What?”

  “Yes, sir—the Zhanjiang cannot operate its radar or train any of its weapons, and even personnel on deck are having trouble moving around. Sir, it could be that the same substance fell on the Khomeini. If it got onto the fighters’ landing gear, it would have prevented a normal takeoff. If it got onto the rotors or transmission of the helicopter, it could cause stress of …”

  “What in hell are you saying, Badi?” Tufayli shouted. “You are saying we were somehow attacked … by glue? Someone sprayed our ships with glue to cause such damage?”

  “I do not know, sir,” Badi said, placing a hand on a cut on his forehead. He listened to his intercom, then said, “Sir, the fire has spread to the hangar deck. Damage-control crews are responding. The ammunition magazines and fuel stores are in no immediate danger.” He paused, then said, “Sir, you should consider evacuating the ship. You can transfer your flag to the Sadaf.”

  “Evacuate … my … ship?” Tufayli muttered. “Never! I will never-!”

  But he was interrupted by a sharp explosion and a rumble throughout the ship. He searched and found that one of the P-700 Granit anti-ship missiles, housed in vertical launch boxes on the front of the carrier near the ski jump, had exploded inside its canister, blowing huge sections of steel into the sky and gouging out large sections of the ship. Each missile weighed 11,000 pounds and carried a 2,200-pound high-explosive warhead.

  “One Granit missile has exploded, sir!” Badi reported.

  “I can see that, damn you, Badi!” Tufayli shouted. “Damage report!”

  “Substantial damage reported on all forward decks,” Badi reported.

  The general’s battle staff was in complete disarray; reports were coming in from all corners of the ship, and he could hardly understand any of them. “Sir, you should evacuate the ship immediately. You should take the entire intelligence staff; the senior staff will remain on board. I now suggest transferring directly ashore to Chah Bahar, since it appears that the Zhanjiang has been damaged and cannot defend itself, and it is too dangerous to bring the Sadaf alongside.”

  Tufayli thought for a moment, then nodded—he knew Badi was right.

  If just a few of the remaining P-700 cruise missiles went up, the carrier could be at the bottom of the Gulf of Oman in just a few short minutes. And if missile number seven, the nuclear-loaded missile, exploded … well, they would be spared the humiliation of a court-martial, at least. “All right, General,” Tufayli said.

  “I will transfer to Chah Bahar with the intelligence staff—but the captain stays with this ship at all times, do you hear me? I want no member of the ship’s complement to leave unless this ship is ready to capsize! I want the cruiser Sadaf to dispatch a helicopter to stand by with us at Chah Bahar, ready to take us back to the Sadaf to direct the remainder of the battle group in case the bomber tries to attack the fleet again.

  “Badi, next, I want this ship to maneuver in the center of the international sea lane in the Gulf of Oman and remain in place,” Tufayli continued. “If it sinks, I want it to sink in the center of the sea lane, and I want the sea lanes blocked by all the other ships. Whoever attacked this battle group, I want it made clear that we will still close this waterway to all traffic and control its access, even if we have to use our own ship’s hulk to do it!”

  It took another hour to execute Admiral Tufayli’s evacuation plan.

  Since all of the Khomeini’s helicopters were either destroyed, crippled by the adhesive, or under repair, a Mil8 helicopter had to be flown out from the destroyer Sadaf to fetch the admiral; a simple oilcloth tarp was laid out on deck for the helicopter to land safely. While Tufayli waited for his helicopter to arrive, he had to suffer listening to the systematic destruction of fran’s fleet by Gulf Cooperative Council air attacks. One by one, the smaller ships in the Khomeini’s escort fleet were struck and hit by wave after wave of GCC jets and helicopters launching Harpoon, Exocet, and Sea Eagle anti-ship missiles—without forward early-warning radar coverage or air defense cover from the carrier or the Chinese cruiser Zhanjiang, the escorts were easy prey for GCC attackers. Twice the cruiser Zhanjiang was hit; three times the clos
e-in-weapon systems on the carrier Khomeini came to life, destroying inbound anti-ship missiles seconds before they plowed into their prey.

  When Tufayli was brought up on deck to board his helicopter, he saw the devastation in the seas around him: dotting the horizon in every direction were the bright spots of flickering red, yellow, and orange light representing burning Iranian warships. The Zhanjiang was still under way, and had repositioned itself between the Omani coast and the carrier, but a fire below-decks was still not fully contained. But even worse than that sight was the look of fear, anger, and betrayal in the eyes of the Iranian sailors around him. The Khomeini was still afloat, crippled but still fighting—but its commander was running. Tufayli could almost hear the sailors’ derisive words, calling him a coward”

  It didn’t matter, Tufayli thought bitterly. It was their job to fight and die for him and their country—it was his job to command, to lead, and he couldn’t do it very well from a crippled aircraft carrier covered in contact cement, with a six-meter-wide hole yawning in its belly and a nuclear warhead threatening to blow at any second.

  ABOARD THE CV-22 PAVE HAMMER TILT-ROTOR, OVER THE GULF OF OMAN THAT SAME TIME The CV-22 Pave Hammer tilt-rotor aircraft’s refueling probe had no sooner nestled into the HC-130P Hercules tanker’s lighted basket of the refueling drogue and transferred a few hundred pounds of JP-7 fuel when the navigator aboard the HC-130P Hercules called on secure interplane, “Hammer Zero-One, Peninsula Shield Skywatch is reporting a single helicopter, designate Target Seven, leaving the deck of the Khomeini.”

  “Roger,” the pilot of the CV-22 responded. “Continue the transfer.” He clicked open the intercom: “Right when you said he’d show, Major.”

  Hal Briggs punched the air with satisfaction and smiled broadly at the men of Madcap Magician surrounding him. “You were right, Paul—but we don’t know Tufayli’s on board that helicopter. It could be a medevac, could be anything”