Esther's Sling (45 page)

Margolis cleared his throat. His response was muted. “Thirty-eight.”

“And if that plane doesn’t fly, the men who will either die tonight or worse, spend God knows how long being tortured by the Iranians, are all younger than you. I could be their grandfather. They are in their prime. They have families and children – or they will in the future. I do not and I will not.

“Look, give me a chute and a survival kit. The last thing the Iranians will be looking for is a gr
ay-haired old man. They will think I got separated from some tourist group.” The attempt at humor fell flat under the circumstances.

Margolis lowered his head to think. After a few moments he stood up. “If you will excuse me, I have to discuss this with General Schechter.”

“Of course.” Jim Miller knew at that moment that he had won the argument. As Margolis walked out, the American slumped in his chair, the meaning of what he had just volunteered to do hitting him like a wave.
Dear God, what have I just done?

Several minutes later, both co-commanders of Block G walked back into the room. Schechter walked straight to Jim Miller, who stood. “Are you absolutely sure you want to do this?”

“Yes.”

“You understand that once you leave here to return to the UAE, we will revert to the original strike packages and assignments? The IAF crews will receive their final briefings and all mission computers will be set under the assumption that you are going. By eighteen hundred hours, those strike assignments will be fixed for the mission and we cannot change them back. This is a final decision you are making here. Once you leave for the trip back, you have to go forward with your flight.”

“General, I understand completely both what you are saying to me and what is at stake.”

Schechter extended his hand and Miller grasped it. Schechter held on, looking into the American’s eyes and judging the man in front of him. “Okay, we need to get you back to the UAE.”

A little before four in the afternoon Swiss time, a Boeing 737-400F cargo plane, one of two that had been purchased by Swiss-Arab Air Cargo early in 2012, took off from Zurich Airport bound for Karachi, Pakistan. The flight was scheduled to cover over 3,500 miles and the plane had a scheduled stop at a small international airport located just outside the ancient Azerbaijani city of Ganja in order to refuel. The Ganja Airport was converted – salvaged really – from a Soviet era tactical airbase that had been wasting away in the often harsh weather. The crew planned for almost four hours of flying time from Zurich to Ganja.

The modern cockpit of the Boeing 737-400F required a crew of only two men. After their purchase, the two planes had undergone extensive renovation in Wichita, Kansas – at least according to the official logs kept by SAAC at its offices in
Ras Al-Khaimah. In reality, the planes had been delivered to Nevatim Airbase in Israel to be worked on by the same engineers who had been working on the Ilyushin 76 cargo aircraft. The two planes had officially been added to the SAAC fleet only eleven months earlier.

Inside the cockpit of the Ilyushin 76 that Captain Oleg Kolikov had flown to the Ukraine a day earlier, two men – a pilot and a flight engineer – taxied the giant cargo plane to the end of the single runway at Luhansk International Airport. The SAAC cargo carrier had filed its flight plan to return to its home base of Ras Al Khaimah Airport in the UAE, a flight path it had flown many times in the past under the command of Kolikov. The flight path would take it quickly over Russia, then briefly over Georgia and Azerbaijan before a long transit over Iran, passing south and west of Tehran as it flew towards the southeast on the path to the UAE. All of the required over flight rights, and the fees that went with them, had been paid for and acquired.

“SAAC seven fifteen heavy, you are cleared for takeoff. Runway
niner,” said the departure controller. Located in the airport’s tower, the man spoke in English, the universal language of aviation. His accent was noticeable, but his mastery of the English language was nearly complete.

“SAAC seven fifteen heavy, cleared for takeoff,” came the reply. The voice was that of Oleg Kolikov, a voice that many of the air traffic controllers recognized. The old timers in the area knew him for the Soviet war hero he was. But Captain Kolikov was not in the cockpit of the plane, he was sitting in front of several computer screens inside the command bunker at Mount Olympus on the edge of Sde Dov Airport just north of Tel Aviv. The computers gave him all the critical information on the Ilyushin 76 that would soon commence its takeoff roll, including position, horizon, altitude, heading and speed. The data link and the voice communications between Mount Olympus and the plane were being broadcast back and forth via encrypted satellite link – no different than the way
any UAV is flown by a pilot half a world away.

“Contact Rostov departure on one two five point five. Have a nice evening.”

“Rostov. One two five point five. SAAC seven fifteen. Thank you,” replied Kolikov, repeating the frequency for the regional air traffic control center in Rostov-on-Don in Russia. The Russian pilot glanced at the clock on the wall, which showed Iranian and Zulu time. The time in Iran was 8:07 p.m.

The two men actually
sitting in the cockpit listened in on the routine communications between a captain, who would normally be in the left hand seat, and the airport tower. The pilot told the flight engineer to back his hand as he pushed four throttles forward to command maximum power. The plane was heavy and would need most of the long runway. The Ilyushin was airborne in under a minute and on its way. Twenty minutes later, the plane was at its cruising altitude of 32,000 feet when the two men in the cockpit, both of whom were experienced combat veterans of the IAF, turned control of the plane over to two men seated by Kolikov at Mount Olympus. Confirmation of remote control was made and the two men inside the plane removed their SAAC uniforms to reveal pressure suits. Each man put on a parachute and a helmet and oxygen mask, activating personal GPS devices in the process. They next depressurized the entire cabin and made their way to the rear of the main cargo cabin, at spots having to climb over or crawl under the cargo they were carrying.

When they were at the rear cargo door they waited for a signal that was programmed into the plane’s mission computer. In less than ten minutes, a yellow light started to flash. After only a few seconds, the cargo doors opened and the two men jumped as soon as the doors gave them a clearing. They would land in a field somewhere north of Stavropol
, Russia. On the ground, a Mossad team waited in a van to home in on their GPS signals.

Captain James Miller received clearance from the tower at
Ras Al-Khaimah at 9:11 p.m. Iran time. The weather was nice in the UAE, with almost no clouds. The sky was dark and the moon was nowhere to be seen. In the cockpit, Miller sat in the left-hand seat. The plan had been for him to be seated about four meters away from Kolikov in the safety of the Mount Olympus bunker. Jim Miller’s right hand shook as he pushed the four throttle levers of the Ilyushin forward. The co-pilot in the right-hand seat placed his left hand behind Miller’s and applied pressure. The large plane was soon on its way.

After only ten minutes, the co-pilot and flight engineer each said goodbye to Miller, wishing him success. The two men soon jumped out of the depressurized cargo compartment and into the waters of the Persian Gulf where, by pre-arrangement, a U.S. Navy Seahawk helicopter soon homed into their GPS signals and p
lucked both men from the water.

Jim Miller continued north on the normal flight path for a SAAC flight from
Ras Al-Khaimah to Imam Khomeini International Airport just south of Tehran. The plane’s manifest showed that it was delivering medical supplies, but the authorities in Iran were actually expecting spare parts for Iran’s civil aviation fleet. SAAC had made its name in Iran by reliably delivering machine tools and spare parts in violation of the trade embargo put in place by the U.S. and the European Union. The embargo was an effort to convince Tehran to abandon its goal of nuclear weapons. SAAC had been delivering illicit parts and supplies to Iran for over a year. As a result, when the company needed to overfly Iran or arrange for deliveries at odd hours in the middle of the night, it was easily able to do so. The material being delivered was valuable and had required the approval of Prime Minister Cohen. As long as they delivered nothing that could benefit Iran’s nuclear program or air defense network, Amit Margolis had a green light.

Just minutes after Miller took off, the Boeing 737-400F that had left Zurich earlier in the afternoon landed at Ganja International Airport. The pilots taxied to the single tarmac and looked for an expected fuel truck.
Azerbaijan was still on Daylight Savings Time and it was late, almost 11 p.m. The airport, other than the two people manning the tower, seemed to be closed. “Where is the fuel?” asked the pilot. The question was to himself as much as to his co-pilot.

“It should be here.”

The captain talked to the tower in an attempt to learn the status of their fuel. The response was not helpful, the controller in the tower essentially telling the crew of the Boeing that fuel delivery was not part of his job description and they were on their own. The crew used its encrypted satellite communications system to discuss the situation with Mount Olympus. At the Sde Dov bunker, a junior IAF staff officer was assigned to contact the Mossad agents operating in Azerbaijan who had been responsible for arranging the fuel delivery. Money had been freely delivered and bonuses promised to ensure that the truck was waiting when the Boeing cargo plane arrived.

What the Mossad agents had not planned on was the Azeri truck driver stopping at his neighborhood pub to pass the time. The predominantly Muslim country still enjoyed a secular government, one of the positive things it inherited from its days inside the Soviet sphere. Despite the religious ban on alcohol, the driver accepted when several of his old friends bought the first round of vodka shots. Custom and honor dictated that each of the four men in the group pay for one round. Now the driver was telling drunken stories, each man attempting to outdo the others
in their subject of choice. An argument broke out over the recent performance of the star striker for FC Kapaz, the local premier football club. The driver had not checked his watch in over an hour.

In the Iraqi desert, at a spot that would be known as Shangri-La at least until the sun came up, 85 F-15 and F-16 fighter-bombers of the Israeli Air Force began to touch down on the main runway. Major Gideon Meyer felt very confident as the first warplane, an F-16C of 101 Squadron, the First Combat Squadron, touched down at 8:53 p.m. Iraqi time, 9:23 p.m. Iranian time.

Like all the planes coming into Mudaysis Airfield, this F-16 was outfitted for a SEAD mission, or Suppression of Enemy Air Defense. This particular plane was carrying four AGM-88D HARM, or High-speed Anti-Radiation Missiles, two AIM-120D AMRAAMs, or Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles, and two Python 5 infrared air-to-air missiles. After using its HARM missiles, the plane would assume its secondary role of providing air combat cover. Other planes flying into Shangri-La – the two seat B and D models – carried the Delilah missile. The Delilah would be launched from a distance of
one hundred miles or more to fly to its target area. It would then hunt for specific targets such as mobile missile launchers or truck-mounted radar and command centers. An optical feed to the back-seat weapons officer allowed for positive identification of targets before ordering the Delilah to home in on its kill. Still other aircraft were armed with guided bombs to target fixed command, control and communication nodes.

The Israeli men in yellow shirts guided the first F-16C to the front of ten refueling positions that had been established on the tarmac of Mudaysis. Two purple shirted
refuelers pulled a high-volume type-4 hydrant fuel hose underneath the plane’s left wing, opened a small access door, pushed the hydrant up onto the fuel nozzle and rotated the hydrant clockwise until it clicked. A flow of 1,000 gallons per minute of JP-8 fuel passed into the fuel tanks of the F-16. Next to the access door they had just opened, a number had been freshly painted. It told the two refuelers how many gallons needed to be pumped into this plane. It took less than two minutes to pump the 1,544 gallons, or 10,500 pounds, of fuel into the plane. By the time they were finished, three other F-16s were already parked in the line behind the lead F-16. Planes were landing every 30 seconds.

As soon as the hydrant was disconnected and the access door closed, a white shirted quality control officer checked the meter readings on the fuel pump, confirming the delivery of 1,551 gallons of fuel. He compared that against the number
“1544” that was also painted very visibly on the nose of the aircraft. He then walked under the wing to confirm that the plane and its weapons were ready for flight. He stepped out from under the wings and to the side to salute the pilot, who knew he had been cleared.

The F-16 applied power to move away from the refueling spot and within seconds was on the long taxiway that ran parallel to the main runway. He applied military power and his afterburner to takeoff to the northwest directly into the path of oncoming aircraft. He turned on his navigation lights for the takeoff roll and immediately turned right as he lifted off the taxiway, turning off his navigation lights once he was about a kilometer off the end of the taxiway.

This same process was repeated 84 more times over the next 48 minutes. At Point Romeo over the northern Saudi desert, seven KC-707 refueling tankers of the IAF fueled 121 IAF warplanes during the same period of time. The planes refueling at altitude included 24 F-15I Ra’ams and 55 F-16I Sufas. Gadget’s F-15I was the first plane to mate with the refueling boom of a KC-707.

A little before 1
0 p.m. Iranian time, thirty minutes later local time, two planes throttled up their engines to taxi to the end of the long runway at Ras Al-Khaimah Airport in the United Arab Emirates. The first plane was a SAAC Boeing 737-400F cargo plane identical to the one now waiting for fuel at the Ganja Airport in Azerbaijan. The second plane was a white C-130 without any markings other than a tail number.

The second plane had landed at
Ras Al-Khaimah only forty minutes earlier. None of the Emirati employees working at SAAC, all of whom had become accustomed to the 24 hour pace of a rapidly growing cargo airline, took notice of the C-130 as it refueled on the tarmac. When a panel van pulled onto the tarmac and drove up the rear ramp of the plane, the process was so routine that nobody thought twice about it. What the Emirati employees didn’t know is that the van held all of the records and computers of SAAC from the corporate office in Dubai.

A few minutes later, the Russian night manager finished loading his laptop
computer and a handful of files into his briefcase and walked over to the desktop computer of one of the customer service women who worked standard daytime hours. He logged onto the company network using his user name and password and doubled clicked an icon that had been placed on everyone’s desktop screen. A dialogue box opened up and the manager entered his user name and password once again. Now another box opened with a request for a second password. The Russian typed in the name of his childhood pet dog. A confirmation came back. In 25 minutes a virus would be unleashed in the computer network of Swiss-Arab Air Cargo FZE and every remaining computer linked into the network would have its hard drive wiped out. The manager grabbed his briefcase and walked out, telling the handful of Emirati employees that he passed that he would be back in under an hour.

He walked across the tarmac and up the ramp of the C-130. On board, in addition to the van,
was every employee of SAAC left in the UAE who was a foreign national. Once the white C-130 took off, the only employees of SAAC left in the UAE were all local Emirati citizens, none of whom had any idea about the events of the coming minutes or the true purpose of Swiss-Arab Air Cargo.

The Boeing
737 cargo plane took off and headed due west over the Persian Gulf. After reaching altitude, it turned slightly to a more northerly heading, establishing itself in the normal air traffic corridor heading towards Kuwait City. The C-130 took off a couple of minutes later and turned in the opposite direction, heading out over the Arabian Sea on its way to Mumbai, India. Somewhere over the ocean, the rear door of the C-130 was opened and the van – along with the computers and corporate records of Swiss Arab Air Cargo – was pushed out the back.

Inside the command buildings for the Iranian Air Force at
Doshan Tappeh Air Base
, General Hassan Shahbazi read through reports. The veteran F-4 Phantom pilot was bored as he caught up with his daily paperwork. He paused for a moment to think about what he would do if he were the commander of the Israeli Air Force. It was his favorite fantasy – the thought of having a real air force at his command. He ran through the scenario in his head that he had repeated over at least a hundred times before. He had Israeli planes coming into Iran in three waves from the north, south and over the central mountains. He shook his head to clear his secret fantasy. He had a lot of forms to fill out.

The message General Shahbazi sent earlier to each of the tactical air bases allowed pilots who had been close to their interceptors to relax for the night. As with all patterns of behavior that had gone unchallenged for long periods, the level of relaxation had gradually increased to a
point where it was now routine for many pilots to go to bed or to even leave their base to return to their families in nearby homes. There was no reason for tonight to be any different – after all, the new moon had come and gone the previous evening and the Hammer Squadron was at its base in the middle of the Negev Desert.

After finishing a few more forms that would be couriered to the IRGC headquarters in the morning, General Shahbazi checked the cloc
k on the wall. The time was 1825 hours Zulu time. Underneath the clock that displayed Zulu time, another clock gave the time in Iran, which maintains its own time zone. The local time was 2155 hours, 9:55 p.m. The country had returned to Standard Time from Daylight Savings Time on September 22.

Shahbazi stood up to walk around. The eighteen men on duty this night were all set up in temporary cubicles
using computer monitors wired to servers that had all been placed temporarily in a vacant office. The entire operations center had recently been moved temporarily into the current building. The historical operations building was undergoing a wiring and telecommunications modernization being conducted by a Chinese contractor. The general stopped to chat with most of his men. The discussion was supposed to be about business, but everyone was focused on the Classico football match that was now in the 31
st
minute. Shahbazi enjoyed the chance to increase the bond with his men.