The Mingrelian (18 page)

The noise was made by the two Hoot supercavitation torpedoes launched by the Ghadir-class midget submarine 500 yards to the port side of the Normandy. They struck the Normandy before anyone could react, blowing two large holes in the hull. The crew going to battle stations had closed most of the watertight doors, preventing massive flooding below decks. Several port-side compartments filled with water and the ship listed to port, exposing its bottom. A second midget submarine fired two more torpedoes into the exposed bottom of the Normandy. She sank in less than an hour.

Chapter 32: The U.S. Attacks Iran!

This is Brian Williams at NBC News in New York. We interrupt this program for breaking news. It has just been reported by the Iran News Agency that the United States has attacked Iran with cruise missiles! We have no confirmation of this story from U.S. sources, but the Iranian News Agency has released video footage of alleged U.S. cruise missiles being intercepted in Iranian air space just moments ago. The Iran News Agency goes on to assert that Iran has countered with torpedo attacks on the U.S. warship that launched the cruise missiles. We have a crew at the Pentagon for a hastily called press conference in five minutes. The Iranian ambassador to the United Nations has already lodged a protest.

The President of the United States rushed down the steps into the White House situation room.

“Sir, Fifth Fleet/NAVCENT reports eight missiles fired from portable launchers at Bandar Abbas, which is at the Strait of Hormuz. Our guided missile cruiser in the area, the Normandy, responded with surface to air missiles to intercept, destroying them all. Apparently, the Iranian missiles were fired without target guidance and went straight up. The interception occurred in Iranian air space. The Normandy reported being hit by torpedoes immediately after the exchange, sir. They have begun to abandon ship.”

The president
glanced at the television monitors in the room as he took his seat. Other members of the National Security Council rushed in.

“How did NBC get this news before I did?” the president asked, nodding at the TV monitors.

“Sir, this only happened, uh,” checking his watch, “25cminutes ago.”

“In 25 minutes, the Iranian ambassador got to the floor of the United Nations with this story?”

“Our ambassador is not on the floor at this time, but her office confirms the Iranian ambassador was seated and got a telephone call,” the National Security adviser responded, just entering the room.

“Is this some action possibly started by an isolated rogue commander or something?”

“Sir, we had just alerted the Normandy that the latest satellite showed those launchers loaded at Bandar Abbas and that the missile silos at Khoramabad are on alert as well. The Normandy had orders to intercept any missiles coming out of Iran.”

The president frowned but said nothing. The telephone rang.

“Sir, it’s your office upstairs. The Iranian ambassador is in the reception area, asking to speak with you.”

“Let the Israelis know, stand up the battle staffs at CENTCOM and STRATCOM and get me a situation report and some options,” the president said as he left the room, jogging up the steps outside.

The Iranian ambassador was announced in the Oval Office and said, “Mr. President, thank you so much for seeing me on such short notice. There must be some misunderstanding at the Strait of Hormuz. Things are so tense there.”

“Please, sit down,” the president said, getting up from the desk and stepping to the conference area to the side.

“There has been an exchange of fire at Bandar Abbas, sir. We intercepted several of your missiles. It was a defensive act, and we assert that we have no offensive intentions.”

“You torpedoed one of our cruisers. That’s hardly a defensive act.”

“Sir, we were out of surface to air missiles at Bandar Abbas, and our commander felt destroying the ship that initiated the attack was necessary to prevent any further launch of missiles into Iran. I hope you understand,” the ambassador said, the picture of a contrite schoolboy called into the principal’s office.

“Your missiles at Khoramabad are on alert as well.”

“Yes, sir. Our commander felt it prudent to have our second-strike capability on alert when we were first attacked.”

“How did you manage to get video of the missile exchange and get it disseminated so quickly?” the president asked, a look of genuine curiosity on his face.

“World opinion is so fickle, sir, that documentation is a critical element. We were fortunate to have a news crew on site to document the readiness of the loyal Republican Guards manning the critical infrastructure at Bandar Abbas.”

“I need to speak to your president.”

“Yes, sir, but he is being moved to a safe location and is not, at this instant, available.”

*****

“They feinted, we responded, they counterpunched and took out our first responder to a nuclear attack on Israel, or anywhere else,” the National Security adviser began as the president returned to the White House Situation Room. “They could go all out at any moment. The Israelis are on hair trigger
alert for a nuclear war with Iran. They are evacuating their cities and recalling all reserves. Hezbollah is massing on the Syrian and Lebanese borders with Israel. Sir, this looks like the real thing.”

“The Iranian Ambassador claims it’s all a big misunderstanding.”

“Our AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System) reported that the Iranian missiles were fired one minute and 10 seconds before the Normandy fired. This was no misunderstanding.”

“Let’s don’t launch off a bunch of missiles just yet,” the president said, irritated that either the Iranian ambassador had just told him a bald-faced lie or his own staff was trigger happy – or both. “We need to get the Iranian president on the line right away. The ambassador said he was ‘being moved to a secure location.’ I think he’s stalling.”

“Yes, sir.”

“OK, what does CENTCOM say?” The president looked up at a screen on the wall.

“Good afternoon, sir,” a large black man with four stars on his desert uniform filled a corner of the screen. His battle staff in Tampa, Fla., could be seen scurrying around behind him.

“We have an Australian destroyer in the area now rescuing the crew of the Normandy, with helicopters en route from Bahrain and Qatar. We have scrambled the B-1 bombers from Al Udeid, Qatar, and placed them in a holding pattern safely out in the Indian Ocean. They can loiter for a few hours and then will proceed to Diego Garcia if they aren’t immediately needed. The Nimitz, just outside the Strait of Hormuz when this started, is making flank speed out into the Indian Ocean surrounded by her carrier battle group. Fighters have been scrambled and are
maintaining a combat air patrol over the region, while a second shift is dispersed to other airfields. Our armor and infantry are in defensive posture, and our Patriot Missile batteries are, as always, on alert. You see their locations on this map.”

A map filled the screen showing the location of Patriot Missile batteries in Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Turkey, Israel and Jordan.

“Sir, the Iranian president is not available,” a staffer interjected.

“Crap! OK, STRAT.”

“Good afternoon, sir,” an Air Force four star general filled a block on the screen while the STRATCOM battle staff at Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, Neb. was seen on the rest of it. “We believe this was a deliberate provocation to take out the Normandy and leave us with no response to their ballistic missiles during the launch phase. Now we must rely on the Patriot Missiles to intercept after re-entry.”

“OK,” the president said, annoyance beginning to turn to anxiety. The Iranians might prove to be a more determined adversary than he’d thought.

“We have a number of options ready for your consideration – cyber, kinetic, nuclear and combined.”

“OK. Bring me up to date on the options while we keep trying to get the Iranian president on the line. Oh, and have my press secretary set up a news conference in ...”

He looked at his watch and up at the monitor. All three news networks showed a press conference at the Pentagon.

“Uh, in an hour.”

The president turned back to the STRATCOM screen.

“Sir, we can launch a cyber-weapon that will shut down most of their power plants, cut their Internet and block their use of the GPS system, which will stop cellphones, credit cards and bank teller machines. We can block their use of satellite phones, scramble their military communications and open the floodgates on some of their hydroelectric dams.”

“Sucks to be an Iranian,” the president quipped.

“They will probably do some of the same things to us,” the general responded.

“Really?” the president said, surprised.

“Moving to the purely kinetic options, we’d need to use the B-2s to neutralize the air defense around Tehran, which is modern and well maintained. That would take a day for them to get there from their base in Missouri, and if there is no element of surprise they are much less effective. If we must act on short notice with just what is available in the region, we can expect substantial losses, though we would neutralize their radar and their air force eventually. We have bunker buster conventional bombs already loaded on the B-1s from Qatar, and they can penetrate most of their command-and-control bunkers and all their missile silos. A substantial portion of our immediate kinetic response capability was the cruise missiles on board the Normandy, now gone. We do have land-based cruise missiles in Kuwait and Qatar. Then, for special situations, we have a kinetic ICBM. ”

“Wait a minute, now you’ve lost me,” the president said.

“It’s a ballistic missile, fired from one of our silos in Wyoming that has a simple steel ball as a warhead instead of a nuclear weapon. All ICBMs escape the atmosphere and orbit the Earth, then re-enter the atmosphere to hit their target. This one shields the steel ball with a ceramic cone. When a half a ton of steel ball at a terminal velocity of 18,000 miles an hour hits the ground, it does a lot of damage; no explosion, no fallout. It’s like a meteor. We put this together for that special
mission where you need to take out a specific target with no collateral damage.”

“Are they that accurate?”

“They are.”

“Keeping the nuclear weapons off the table for the time being, what do you recommend?”

“Sir, the most aggressive option short of nuclear weapons starts with an air attack on their shore radar stations and surface to air missiles while jamming their inland radars and command-and-control systems with cruise missiles. B-2 bombers can sneak in at night in the chaos and get their command bunkers and sophisticated air defenses, then fighters can attrit their air force, and the B-1 and various fighters can take out all their missile silos and storage locations. It would take about three days.”

“So we’d have a substantial edge in conventional weapons.”

“Overwhelming, sir. That’s why they want nuclear weapons. If this conflict should go nuclear, they become more formidable, though still vulnerable in the end. We now know they have had enough plutonium to make a dozen weapons at least. We just learned that this month. It changes the whole equation.”

“Could they reach the United States?”

“They want us to think they can, sir. We doubt they could launch an effective weapon and get it this far with any accuracy, though just lobbing one in our direction could be a pretty effective deterrent.”

“Is there such a thing as a limited nuclear war?”

“Absolutely! That’s a very real possibility here, and one we’ve prepared for. If they launch some of their warheads at Israel, but maintain a second-strike capability, and Israel does
the same, then hundreds of thousands of people die. Parts, but not all, of cities would be destroyed, both countries’ war fighting capability substantially reduced.

“If this is their strategy, and we think it is, then they will launch Hamas and Hezbollah at Israel’s borders, giving them a pitched conventional battle to fight while reeling from a nuclear one. If we enter, they will launch at our command center in Qatar and try to neutralize our navy with submarines, like they did the Normandy. Then, before we launch an all-out nuclear assault that would destroy their civilization, they wave a white flag and begin to talk, leaving Israel wounded and fighting well-armed, crazed Arabs on all their borders.”

“So, what do we do?”

“If they launch one nuclear weapon, eliminate their second-strike capability with everything we have. It’s the only way to save Israel.”

The president of the United States broke a pencil in half and threw it across the room.

Chapter 33: Jaba, Syria

ehrooz Zandi was offended by the exuberant, dirty, Hezbollah fighters he encountered as he neared the Israeli border. They weren’t supposed to know about this “thing” in the truck as it bounced along the rutted back road to the bunker where the “bus” was hidden. The “bus” was a giant rocket – not a sophisticated intercontinental ballistic missile, designed to streak into the sky at supersonic speeds. No, the bus was an iron frame onto which four solid propellant booster rockets had been welded. It had no guidance system, no controls, just simple fins. It was designed to propel itself and a thousand pounds of something just far enough into the air to clear the next ridge and then fall to earth about 20 miles away. It was so slow and so low that it flew below the capabilities of the sophisticated Israeli air-to-air defenses, in the midst of which it was designed to fall.

Arriving at the site, he was further offended by the filth and litter. He was a fastidious man, an educated man. Though not a nuclear engineer, he did have a degree in physics, and Behrooz Zandi was proud of his knowledge and the years he had put in working for the Iranian Nuclear Agency. He’d been with the “thing” from Parchin, where it was made, to Tehran and the flight into Damascus with a load of weapons for the Assad regime. He was met by the commander of the sector, who was expecting him and knew full well what was in the truck. The man’s enthusiasm further offended Zandi.