Countdown to Midnight, page 21
Oh, smooth move, he scolded himself mentally. What was the number one rule for anyone with real-world military experience? Never volunteer for anything. And what was rule number two? Never, ever volunteer. Rules number three through ten were pretty much the same. And yet here he was like some overeager, green-as-grass recruit, getting ready to hurl himself out through the open door of a helicopter perched more than sixty feet above a fast-moving ship.
Swallowing hard, Flynn looked away from the side doors. Instead, he craned his head forward again, trying to get a better look at the tanker they were approaching. Apart from a few lights visible on the Gulf Venture’s multi-story-high aft superstructure, the vessel’s main deck was completely blacked out.
He frowned. Voronin’s Raven Syndicate had to have deployed an armed security force aboard. So the lack of any apparent reaction yet was odd. Both Panthers carrying the Shayatet 13 assault unit had various stealth features—radar-absorbent composite materials in their airframes, enclosed fanlike tail rotors, and reduced thermal signature engine exhausts. But there was no real way to render a military helicopter completely invisible to radars and IR sensors. And even though they were approaching from downwind to reduce their rotor noise, the Panthers were still pretty loud.
Flynn shook his head dubiously. Someone aboard that ship should have spotted them by now. They couldn’t all be asleep or blind and deaf to the attacking force heading their way. “Come into my parlor said the spider to the fly,” he muttered. Instinctively, he checked the assault rifle he’d been issued, making sure again that it was loaded and ready.
“You sense danger?” the Israeli commando seated next to him asked, raising his voice to be heard over the din of their helicopter’s turboshaft engines and spinning rotors. His teeth flashed white in the darkened interior. “More than we already expect, I mean?”
Flynn grimaced. “Yeah, I do. It could be I’m just turning yellow in my old age, but I’ve still got a really bad feeling about—”
And then all hell broke loose.
What had appeared to be ordinary shipping containers chained down across the Gulf Venture’s deck as some sort of extra storage abruptly fell open—revealing the weapon mounts hidden inside. Besides a number of Samavat twin-barreled 35mm antiaircraft guns, there were several launchers bristling with small Misagh-2 surface-to-air missiles, Iranian-made copies of China’s QW-2 Vanguard heat-seekers.
The moment their firing arcs were clear, the antiaircraft guns opened up. Curtains of bright orange tracers rippled through the night sky toward the Israeli helicopters. Seconds later, SAMs started launching—streaking off the deck in plumes of gray smoke lit from within by their rocket boosters. Reacting immediately, both Panthers veered away, twisting and turning in a series of desperate evasive maneuvers. Dozens of tiny decoy flares tumbled outward behind them, fanning out like a constellation of small meteors falling toward the sea.
Gritting his teeth, Flynn held on tight as the helicopter he was aboard spun wildly through the air. Though the forward canopy and open doors, he could catch only split-second glimpses of what was happening around him. But what he did see was nightmarish.
The Gulf Venture, once darkened and seemingly lifeless, was now lit from stem to stern by the strobing flashes of its guns and missiles. A dazzling orange-white explosion suddenly engulfed one of the Iranian antiaircraft guns. Another blast turned a missile mount into smoldering wreckage. The Israeli flight crews were fighting back, he realized, trying hard to knock out the tanker’s defenses using their helicopters’ pod-mounted 20mm guns. But it was all too clearly a completely unequal fight.
Flashes suddenly peppered the sky near the second Panther. It staggered in midair, obviously hit hard. The badly damaged helicopter dove away at high speed—skimming low over the waves with thick smoke curling away behind it. Frantic voices echoed through Flynn’s radio headset. “Paladin Two breaking off! I’ve got an engine out and wounded aboard,” its pilot reported.
“Roger that, Two,” he heard his own pilot reply. “We’ll cover you.”
Flynn grabbed hold even tighter as the Panther banked sharply, coming around in another tight turn. Through the door next to him, he saw the sky and sea swing dizzily through a wild arc. The star-flecked blackness outside the helicopter tore apart in a swirling maelstrom of blindingly bright tracer rounds, missiles, and flares.
And then their own luck ran out.
WHAAM. WHAAM. WHAAM. Multiple 35mm shells hammered the Panther’s fuselage.
Everything around Flynn seemed to happen in horrifying slow motion. An almost simultaneous series of bone-jarring bangs and jolts nearly threw him out of the helicopter. Jagged splinters punched through the sides and sprayed across the crowded troop compartment. Some were stopped by body armor. Others ripped through unprotected arms and legs. The Israeli commando next to him slumped over, with blood pouring from his wounds. Dazzling showers of sparks erupted wherever the razor-edged fragments struck metal. A thickening haze of smoke filled the torn cabin.
“Brace for impact!” one of the Panther’s flight crew yelled. “We’re ditching!”
Flynn threw one arm around the injured commando and wrapped the other around his seat, holding on with all his strength. Through the doors, he saw the wave-topped sea rushing upward at them with terrifying speed as the wrecked helicopter spun down out of the sky. They smashed into the water with an enormous, shattering impact, sending a wave of white-hot agony sleeting through his whole body.
There was a moment of almost unearthly silence, broken only by low moans and the pinging of hot metal contracting in sudden cold as the shell-riddled helicopter settled lower.
Dazed by the crash, Flynn shook his head frantically to clear it. Blood trickled down his chin. He spat to clear a salty taste from his mouth. Swell, he thought muzzily. He must have gashed his face on something when they slammed into the sea.
“Everybody out! Now!” he heard the Shayatet 13 detachment commander bark. “Go! Go! Go!”
Yeah, no shit, Flynn realized as everything around him suddenly shifted back into full focus. Seawater was already flooding in through the doors. The Panther was going down fast. He dumped his weapons and other gear with frantic speed. Then, hauling the wounded Israeli commando with him, he struggled to his feet and splashed out into the rising sea.
Sidestroking frantically, he swam away from the sinking helicopter—aware of other heads bobbing all around. When he got far enough away, he started treading water. Still cradling the injured man, he fumbled with the straps holding his body armor—desperately shrugging out of it before the added weight could drag him under.
Moments later, the Panther’s mangled fuselage slid out of sight with a sudden spurt of bubbling white foam. Torrents of water were hurled in all directions by its still-spinning rotor blades when they smacked into the sea . . . and then vanished. A few lighter pieces of wreckage bobbed back to the surface, but that was all.
Still treading water, Flynn turned through a full circle, counting off those in the water nearby. Like him, the Israeli commandos who were not seriously wounded were supporting their bleeding, half-conscious comrades. Miraculously, it appeared that everyone else had made it out of the helicopter before it sank. Off in the distance, he could see the two Morena inflatable boats speeding toward them to conduct a rescue.
With a deep sigh, he wheeled back toward the now-distant Gulf Venture. The huge black ship hadn’t altered its course by so much as a degree. It was still headed away from them, steaming almost due south into the darkness. Small fires guttered in places across the oil tanker’s deck, showing where return fire from the two helicopters had knocked out a couple of its antiaircraft guns and missile launchers. But it was obvious that the ship was otherwise completely undamaged—and now free to carry its lethal secret cargo wherever it wished.
Flynn felt a wave of despair wash over him. He’d failed.
MIDNIGHT was fully underway.
Twenty-Five
Aboard the Gulf Venture
T Minus 26 Days, a Short Time Later
Viktor Skoblin took the outside ladder up to the navigation bridge two rungs at a time. He came up onto the starboard wing, nearly one hundred feet above the tanker’s main deck. Two bearded IRGC Quds Force commandos were posted at the hatch leading into the bridge itself. Although they wore ordinary ship’s coveralls instead of their usual desert tan berets and camouflage battledress, the 9mm submachine guns they carried erased any illusion they were regular civilian sailors. Apart from Skoblin and his ten-man Raven Syndicate security team, all members of the ship’s crew were part of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
“I need to see the captain,” Skoblin growled to the guards. He found it ironic that those in Gulf Venture’s mixed Iranian and Russian crew were forced to rely on the language of their most powerful enemy, English, to communicate with each other. But only one of his men spoke any Persian beyond a few simple phrases, and very few of the IRGC soldiers and sailors aboard had any Russian. Then again, he knew that English was the standard tongue employed at sea—just as it was in air traffic control and commercial aviation in general.
Without speaking, one of the stern-faced commandos waved him through the open hatch.
Skoblin entered the dimly lit bridge. He stood off to the side for a moment, waiting quietly while his eyes adjusted. Together with its port and starboard wings, the navigation bridge ran the width of the six-story-high superstructure which occupied most of the tanker’s aft end. Large windows lined three sides of the bridge, offering almost unobstructed views over the deck and out to sea. The only place higher aboard the ship was an open-air platform studded with radar and radio masts located just above the bridge itself.
Down on the main deck, a damage control party had just finished extinguishing the last small fire. The blackened and twisted twin barrels of a Samavat 35mm gun mount were now slathered in foam. Three blanket-covered stretchers next to the wrecked antiaircraft gun held the mangled remains of its crew.
In other places, sailors were busy repositioning the painted wood panels that formed the fake shipping containers used to hide Gulf Venture’s newly installed guns and missile launchers until they were needed. By the time the sun rose, all of the oil tanker’s weapons would again be camouflaged.
Skoblin nodded approvingly. The Iranians apparently had matters well in hand. The tanker’s captain, Reza Heidari, stood near the helmsman’s station, listening carefully to a report from his second-in-command, Touraj Dabir. Heidari, lean and hawk-nosed, was a high-ranking officer in the IRGC’s naval forces, as was the somewhat younger and bulkier Dabir.
“All fires are now out, Captain,” Dabir said calmly. “The ship’s propulsion and steering, and the Zuljanah rocket storage and control compartments were not damaged. We have minor leaks in a few of the upper oil-storage bunkers, but those are being plugged rapidly.”
Heidari looked pleased. “Very good, Touraj. We certainly don’t want to leave a trail of crude oil floating behind us for an enemy to follow.” He moved to the front of the bridge and stared down at the deck. “What’s the current status of our defensive armament?”
“Two of the guns were knocked out, along with a pair of our Misagh-2 launchers. All other weapons are fully operational.”
Heidari nodded. “How much of our ammunition was expended?”
“The battle consumed approximately one-fourth of our stores of 35mm high-explosive and armor-piercing rounds and roughly a third of our surface-to-air missiles,” Dabir told him.
The captain frowned. Skoblin understood his irritation. Under attack, the ship’s gun and missile crews had fired wildly—hurling hundreds of shells and more than a dozen SAMs at the two enemy helicopters they’d engaged. True, they’d won, downing at least one, and possibly both, of the hostile rotorcraft, but their lack of fire discipline and control had been extremely costly. Without improvements, one or two more such attacks might leave the tanker out of ammunition and missiles, reduced to mere small arms for its own defense.
Still, what else could have been expected, the Russian wondered? The Gulf Venture was not a warship equipped with sophisticated, centralized fire-direction gear. In the short time Voronin had allowed, it had already required something of a miracle for the Shahid Darvishi shipyards to fit this ship with its improvised array of armaments. Jury-rigging the advanced fire direction radars and communications systems necessary to exert more control over a battle would have consumed months of dedicated yard time, not just a few days.
“What were our total casualties, Touraj?” Heidari asked after a moment.
Dabir shrugged. “We lost five men killed outright, with another four wounded.” He cleared his throat. “I’ve spoken to the medical staff. Three of the wounded will die unless we transfer them to hospitals with more advanced facilities.”
Heidari grimaced. “Arrange a rendezvous with a helicopter to fly them back to Iran? Making it that much easier for someone to find us at sea again?” He shook his head. “Impossible. We are at war now. And our first responsibility is to this ship and its mission. All those who die on this voyage are martyrs.”
Reluctantly, Dabir nodded his understanding. “Very well, sir. I’ll speak with the sick bay staff. They’ll do what is necessary.”
Skoblin knew what that meant. Their ship’s doctor would euthanize the critically injured men, injecting them with enough pain-killing drugs to kill them quietly. It was harsh, but Heidari was right. Now that the Gulf Venture had broken contact with the enemy tracking them, providing them with another opportunity to detect the ship would be foolish.
He waited while Dabir saluted and then left the bridge before approaching the Iranian captain.
Heidari watched him come with a carefully neutral expression on his narrow face. During the frenetic rush to prepare the tanker and its cargo for sea, it had become abundantly clear that the IRGC navy officer was not especially happy to have a group of foreigners aboard who were not explicitly under his direct authority. “What is it, Major?” he asked coldly.
Skoblin smiled thinly. He’d opted to use his former Spetsnaz rank for the remaining duration of MIDNIGHT. He’d done so hoping Heidari would feel more comfortable dealing with the Raven Syndicate team as if they were still fellow professional military men rather than highly paid mercenaries. So far, however, his gambit hadn’t made the captain any more welcoming. “I’d like to send a radio message to Moscow, reporting your repulse of the enemy’s attempted helicopter raid,” he explained. “The news of your success will be very welcome there.”
Left unsaid was the fact that Skoblin hoped to bask in the shared glory. After the fiasco in Vienna, he needed to seize every available chance to rehabilitate himself in Voronin’s eyes.
Heidari shook his head firmly. “That will not be possible, Major. You heard what I told Dabir with regard to our own wounded.” His lips compressed. “My superiors have decreed a total communications blackout for the duration of this mission. I intend to obey their orders to the letter. Therefore, we will not break radio silence for any reason. Is that understood?”
“Of course, Captain,” Skoblin assured him smoothly. Exasperating though it was, he wasn’t really surprised by this diktat. Before they sailed, Voronin had privately warned him that the Iranians might take such a step. Besides the clear military rationale, the hardline radicals in Iran’s revolutionary government undoubtedly wanted to make sure no one else in Tehran could suddenly get cold feet and attempt to order an abort of this high-risk mission. It was equally obvious that these same radicals did not entirely trust their Russian mercenary allies and technical experts. So it made sense for them to sever all communications links between Moscow and the Raven Syndicate team aboard the Gulf Venture.
Excusing himself, Skoblin turned and left the bridge. His request had been a formality—a polite nod to the niceties involved in working within an informal alliance. Now he was free to act according to his own orders from Voronin. What Heidari and his fellow Iranians might not completely understand was that their lack of trust was fully reciprocated. For now, Russia’s interests and those of its radical Islamic partner coincided. That might not always be the case.
After he reached the Raven Syndicate’s own closely guarded section of the tanker’s superstructure, he ordered the doors locked and sentries posted in the corridor outside. As a further precaution, all of their compartments aboard the ship were routinely swept for listening devices.
Satisfied that they were safe from Iranian observation and interference, Skoblin turned to Yvgeny Kvyat. “Get your gear ready,” he ordered. “I need to talk to the Raven’s Nest as soon as possible.”
Kvyat swung into action. The short, slightly overweight former GRU intelligence officer had been Skoblin’s drone operator in Vienna. Now he was chiefly responsible for the shipboard team’s communications and other high-tech equipment. He dragged a large metal case out from under his bunk and opened it, revealing a neatly packed assortment of spare magazines and boxes of extra ammunition for their assault rifles. Pushing two small catches inside the case allowed him to lift out its interior—exposing a smaller compartment hidden underneath. There, securely packed in foam, was a military-grade satellite phone, complete with lengths of cable and a long, flexible black antenna.
Working quickly, Kvyat connected a headset to the phone. When carefully extended through an open porthole, the antenna was virtually invisible at night. He listened closely while the phone hunted for the nearest Russian military communications satellite that could route their rigorously encrypted signals. Within seconds, he heard the soft chime that indicated success. “We’re in contact, Viktor,” he confirmed.
Skoblin took the phone and headset and dialed the special number he’d been given just before they left Bandar Abbas. After a series of soft clicks, it connected. Their call was answered immediately.
