Exit Plan (63 page)

~ * ~

“Conn, Sonar, target zig, Sierra five seven. Contact is cavitating and has deployed a countermeasure.” Buckley’s voiced boomed from the intercom speaker.

“Sonar, Conn, aye,” Guthrie replied. “Any indication the countermeasure is affecting our weapon?”

Zelinski looked at the torpedo control panel, and asked his technician before he responded, “No, sir. It doesn’t look like own-ship’s unit is being affected at all by the Kilo’s countermeasure.”

“Time to impact,” requested Guthrie.

“At six five knots, impact in two zero seconds,” answered the fire control tech.

“Conn, Sonar, one of the torpedoes is turning toward the right. Bearing two four nine.”

“Sonar, Conn, aye. Keep an eye on it. I need to know if it keeps turning toward us,” said Guthrie. Glancing at the plot, it wasn’t a threat, yet.

~ * ~

“Incoming torpedo still closing.” The sonar operator was sobbing as he spoke. Mehr didn’t respond. It no longer mattered. The countermeasure had failed to decoy the American’s torpedo, and at its maximum speed it was three times faster than his submarine. The whale would swallow them after all. He closed his eyes tightly and prayed for Allah’s mercy.

Five seconds later, the Mark 48 ADCAP’s 650-pound high explosive warhead detonated right next to the Kilo’s hull, crushing it like a sledgehammer hitting an empty soda can. The twisted and mangled hull plowed into the bottom of the Persian Gulf.

~ * ~

“Conn, Sonar, loud explosion bearing two one six!” Buckley announced gleefully.

The fire control party erupted into a loud cheer, while Guthrie placed his head on the plotting table. They’d done it.

“Sonar, Conn, aye,” replied Simmons. “Do you hear anything else?”

“Conn, Sonar, propulsion noises for Sierra five seven have stopped. There are . . . there are breaking-up noises on the same bearing. The torpedo isn’t turning anymore. It will pass well astern of us.”

“Sonar, Conn aye,” Simmons responded soberly.

“Is it legal to congratulate you now, Captain?” asked Harper.

“Later. Let’s get our ass up to periscope depth and see if we still have an XO,” replied Guthrie wearily.

~ * ~

General Yuri Tamir commanded Operation Halom, Israel’s strike on Iran, but he wasn’t in the lead aircraft, and he wouldn’t be delivering any ordnance. He’d flown both the F-15 and the F-16, but he was also an electronics specialist and the Israel Air Force’s most expert computer hacker.

Tamir rode to battle on board a plane named the “Shavit,” a Gulfstream 550 business jet converted by Israel Aircraft Industries. One side of the plane’s interior was lined with operator consoles. A narrow aisle separated them from racks of electronic equipment on the other side. Tamir’s battle staff sat at the front of the cabin, working with a large video screen on the forward cabin bulkhead.

Externally, the white-painted Shavit looked like any other business jet, especially with the blue IAF insignia painted over, as long as one didn’t get too close. A careful inspection would reveal a long “canoe” radome under the forward fuselage and smaller antennas sprouting from other places. The canoe radome did not house a radar dish. Instead, a bank of antennas inside swept the ether for hostile radar signals, radio, microwave transmissions, and computer data links.

The Israeli Air Force called the Shavit a “Special Mission Electronics Aircraft.” It could listen for hostile radars and passively plot their location. It could listen in to enemy communications and warn pilots of hostile aircraft movements. It could also collect data from other sources and build a comprehensive picture of the battle, which was very hard to do in a blacked-out fighter cockpit while also trying to fly the plane. That’s why Tamir would run the battle from here.

But the Shavit’s mission was also offensive. Once it was in range of enemy territory, it attacked not the radars or enemy SAMs, but the air defense network itself. Analyzing, transmitting, intruding, it used sophisticated hacking tools to gain access to an opponent’s air defense network. Digitally dressed in the enemy’s uniform, they could read their status boards and duty roster, then scramble orders and add some of their own.

The Shavit had help with its mission. Long before it had taken off, two Eitan long-endurance UAVs had launched from Palmachim Air Base. With straight wings wider than a 737’s, and a single turboprop engine, the Eitan cruised at a stately 120 knots—glacially slow compared to most military aircraft. But it could fly for thirty-six hours at forty thousand feet, and its composite airframe was almost invisible to radar. Each Eitan carried a full set of antennas like the Shavit. This let the Shavit’s operators instantly triangulate any signal, and hack into an enemy network from more than one location.

General Tamir had overseen the development of the Shavit’s electronics, designed the tactics, and had used them to great effect, not just in exercises, but in battle. When Israel attacked the secret Syrian reactor in 2007 during Operation Orchard, then-Colonel Tamir had run the electronic intrusion of the Syrian defenses. His tinkering with the Syrian air defense computer network had the same effect as a “Jedi mind trick,” obscuring the Israeli strike, hiding it while in plain sight. The Syrians never got off a shot.

Tamir’s aircraft had taken off from Nevatim Air Base in Israel an hour before the rest of the strike. Registered as a civilian private charter, the plane had crossed Saudi airspace, then turned right when it reached the coast. Slowing slightly, it was flying down the length of the Persian Gulf. In the forty-five minutes it had before the strike’s arrival, it scouted the electronic spectrum, preparing its attack.

Standing behind the operator’s chair, Tamir had grinned with almost predatory joy. The console displayed the complete Iranian air defense picture: the condition of its radars, the status of every fighter squadron. At the moment, the operator was simply gathering data and monitoring Iranian message traffic. It had proven easier to get in than they thought, and with the extra time, Tamir felt the temptation to get creative, but he fought it. “Let them sleep, Dvir.” The young lieutenant nodded.

Tamir let his deputy, Colonel Epher Okun, run the battle “up front.” The general preferred to move from console to console, watching operators work like gunners at their posts. He’d trained this team until they could think and work as a single entity, but this was the Big Show. No more simulators, and they would only get one chance.

The radar intercept station was next to the intrusion station. Its map of the region was overlaid with symbols for the different radars—friendly, hostile, and neutral. The Shavit’s computers matched the signals with known sources and plotted their position.

“Any changes, Ari?” Tamir asked the young lieutenant.

“No changes to the Iranians, General, but the American E-2Ds are moving east and north. They may be picking up our strike. Calculated detection range for their radars is three hundred and fifty nautical miles.”

Tamir nodded. “The timing works. Don’t worry, those surveillance aircraft will keep their distance. They don’t want to be too close when we pass by. They’ll watch us as we attack, and they may learn a few things, but they won’t get close.”

The communications intercept station was next to the radar intercept console. Tamir turned to the operator, a senior captain, and asked, “Are you picking up any transmissions from those E-2s, Yoni?”

“No, sir. I can’t see their data link back to the carrier. It’s going via satellite, and it’s encrypted as well. I’ve watched them rotate the fighters escorting the Hawkeyes, and all their UHF stuff is encrypted.”

“And nothing new out of Bandar Abbas?” the general asked. The captain shook his head firmly. The headquarters for the Iranian Southern Air Defense Command was located there. If the incoming raid was detected, the Southern headquarters would start talking to many people, very fast. Tamir was prepared to do something about that, but not until it was necessary. Eventually the strike would be detected. One couldn’t hide a hundred tactical aircraft forever.

Okun’s voice came over his headset. “Yuri, feet wet in ten minutes.” Tamir checked his watch. The strike was on schedule, to the minute. In ten minutes the lead plane would cross the Saudi coast and be over the Persian Gulf. That was also the Initial Point, or “IP,” technically the start of their attack run, although they were still hundreds of miles from the target.

Tamir checked the intrusion display again. All quiet. He patted the lieutenant’s shoulder. “It should be about thirty more minutes, Dvir. Then we’ll have some fun. These are not the planes you’re looking for.”

And if they did their job right, the Iranians would never even know they’d been hacked.

~ * ~

Commander Tom “Heretic” Dressier, squadron commander of VFA-147, the Argonauts, waited patiently in his Super Hornet for the deck crew to move into position and ready him for launch. He’d elected to be the last in his squadron to launch, both because it gave him a few more minutes in the air, and so he’d know if any of his guys had trouble getting off the deck. Besides, his tactical displays were already up. Even with his radar safely off, the data link from
Reagan
showed him exactly what was going on.

Nobody ever lit off their radar on the flight deck. The microwave energy it put out would cook someone where they stood before they could even feel what was happening and get out of the way. But more than that,
Reagan’s
air group was launching “quietly,” with no radio or radar transmissions by any of the aircraft. They wouldn’t energize their radars or break radio silence until Taz said to.

The squadrons were taking off in reverse order, the Black Knights of VFA-154 went first, then the Argonauts’ sister squadron VFA-146 the Blue Diamonds, then it would be the Argonauts’ turn. Theoretically, each catapult could launch a plane every two minutes, and
Reagan
had four, two at the bow and two at the waist. That meant one plane every thirty seconds, but it all depended on the plane handlers and the rest of the flight deck crew.

Flight deck operations on a carrier have been called a “ballet.” Like ballet, it’s a precise art, and the performers on
Reagan
practiced and rehearsed it daily. But imagine the precision of a ballet combined with the noise and danger of a stock car race, where the stock cars are carrying high explosives. To complicate matters further, it was pitch black and the wind was whipping down the length of the flight deck at over forty knots.

Ready to launch, each Hornet weighed twenty-five tons, and was parked inches apart from the next. Almost any collision between two planes would render one or both unable to fly. The plane handlers had to move each plane in the proper order to its assigned catapult, line up the nose gear so the launch bar on the strut was engaged by the catapult shoe, and not get sucked into an intake or fried by an exhaust in the process.

Reagan’s
flight deck crew was putting over fifty aircraft, a full deckload, into the air. Everyone would be flying in fifteen minutes.

A plane handler in a bright blue shirt ran over and stood in front of his aircraft, holding lighted wands so Heretic could see his arm signals. As much as it depended on the plane handlers, Dressier had to do his part, and follow their orders precisely.

Heretic released his brakes and gently increased power, taxiing past the other aircraft to the outboard port waist catapult. To the commander’s eyes, with his nose pointed toward the portside edge of the flight deck, it looked like the handler was going to put him over the side, but at the right moment the petty officer ordered the squadron commander into a hard right turn, almost pivoting on the right wheel. The Hornet ended up aligned perfectly with the catapult. The handler inched him forward, and he felt the catapult shoe engage the launch bar on his nose gear.