Authors: Patrick Robinson
“I’m afraid I’m not really qualified to do that,” said Kathy O’Brien sweetly.
“Well…er…you ought to be. Ought to be general knowledge for anyone in Washington….”
“Oh…I hadn’t realized.”
“How far do you think they’re going, then?”
“How could I possibly know?”
“I know you don’t know. I’m just asking for guidance. Is that too much?”
“Well for all I know, they’re just going on a picnic,” she replied.
“Well, I wouldn’t care about that…nice basket of chop suey in the pouring rain on the South China Sea. But that may not be what’s happening. What I’m interested in is whether they are going on a long voyage, maybe to visit their friends in Iran. And if they are, those frigates are gonna get refueled from that damned new base of theirs on that frigging Burmese island.”
“Which Burmese island?”
“Haing Gyi Island, their first serious Navy base of operations outside of China—EVER,” the Admiral thundered. “Right now we’re returning to the goddamned fifteenth century, when their fleets dominated the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf.
“And another thing,” he yelled. “What the hell happened to all those sea mines from Russia…the ones we saw getting unloaded at Zhanjiang? Where the hell are they? And why isn’t anyone keeping me up to speed on this? Where the hell’s George Morris?”
“As you well know, my darling, he has cancer of his right lung.”
“Serves him right for smoking so much,” grunted the Admiral, puffing away on his cigar. “Where is he right now?”
“He’s undergoing intensive chemotherapy, as you also well know. Since that awful treatment has been making him extremely ill, I imagine he’s asleep.”
“Well, have someone wake him up.”
“Honey, please,” said the best-looking redhead in Washington with a sigh.
Two weeks later. March 27
.
Fort Meade, Maryland
.
Lieutenant Ramshawe was sifting methodically through a pile of satellite photographs. He had singled out a dozen shots, and he was trying to fit them together into a montage, trying to see if the three submarines were actually forming some kind of a small convoy, out there in the Arabian Sea.
He had a couple of VLCCs (giant tankers, Very Large Crude Carriers) in focus to help him, and the conclusion he reached was the submarines were all together, moving on the calm blue surface about a mile apart, heading north. More important, they were Russian Kilo-Class boats, the deadly little diesel-electric attack submarines, currently being exported by the old Soviet Navy to anyone with a big enough checkbook to buy them, especially the Chinese, the Indians and the Iranians.
Lieutenant Ramshawe was in the process of identifying the nationality of these particular ships. And now he was more or less certain. He had located all three of Iran’s Kilos, one in Bandar Abbas, two in their submarine base at Chah Behar, outside the gulf on the north shore of the Gulf of Oman.
So far as he could tell, the Indians had no submarines at sea, which meant, almost certainly, the three Kilos were Chinese and they were headed directly to Chah Behar.
This was mildly unusual but not earth-shattering. Chinese warships were no longer rare in the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea. They were occasional visitors to the Gulf of Hormuz, and just today there were new satellite pictures of a four-ship Chinese flotilla, including their big Sovremenny destroyer, heading across the Bay of
Bengal toward the southern headland of the Indian continent.
“Wouldn’t be that surprised if the whole bloody lot of ’em were going up to Hormuz,” pondered Jimmy. “What with that new refinery and Christ knows what else up there.”
Lieutenant Ramshawe was thoughtful. The four surface ships had been steaming very publicly all the way from the South China Sea. “No worries,” he muttered. But the Kilos had been much more secretive. No one had spotted them since they had left their base, since they’d mostly been deep, only snorkeling for short periods. But here they were now, large as life, making their way up to their close friends on the southernmost Iranian coast.
“That’s seven Chinese vessels, possibly going in the same bloody direction to the same bloody place,” murmured the Lieutenant, reaching for the latest edition of
Jane’s Fighting Ships
, the bible of the world’s navies.
Now let me have a look here…right…Jianghu frigates…they can hold sixty sea mines apiece…and that destroyer has rails for forty more…now…how about the Kilos…. What’s it say here? They can carry twenty-four torpedoes or twenty-four mines…not both. So if those little bastards were carrying mines, that’d be seventy-two, plus the two hundred twenty in the surface ships…that’s close to three hundred…. My oath, you could cause a lot of trouble with that little lot
.
The Lieutenant knew he was just trying to connect two separate mysteries. The first: What the bloody hell happened to all those sea mines that ended up in Zhanjiang? Second: What the hell are all these bloody Chinese warships doing in the Indian and Arabian Seas?
He had of course not the slightest shred of evidence there was one single solitary mine on board any of the ships. Certainly nothing that showed on the satellite photos, except for the big covers.
But still, he considered it his duty to alert his immediate superior, Admiral Borden, as to the possibility, even
if it did mean rejection. So he drafted a short memorandum and sent it in.
Fifteen minutes later he was summoned to the Acting Director’s office, knocked firmly on the door and waited to be instructed to enter.
“Lieutenant, I appreciate your diligence in these matters, but I heard earlier this morning from Langley the Iranians are staging some kind of a forty-eight-hour military hooley with the Chinese Navy down there in Bandar Abbas. Bands, parades, red carpets, dinners, speeches, television, the whole nine yards. Apparently the surface ships are scheduled to arrive there next Monday.
“So I’m very afraid your theory of a large traveling minefield is out. Thank you for your efforts, though…but do remember, I did warn you to forget about it…If someone’s laying a minefield, we’ll see them…all in good time. That’s all.”
“Sir,” said Lt. Ramshawe, making his exit, muttering, “Supercilious prick. Serve him right if the bloody hooley was just a cover-up and the whole U.S. tanker fleet was blown up.”
2015. Tuesday, April 3
.
Navy Base. Bandar Abbas
.
The festivities were over for the evening. The last of the Iranian public were driving home out of the dockyard and the great arc lights that had floodlit the magnificent parade were finally switched off. The huge fluttering national standards of the Islamic State of Iran and the People’s Republic of China had been lowered.
A 60-strong guard of honor from the People’s Liberation Army, resplendent in their olive green dress uniforms, hard flat-top caps with the wide red band, were retiring back to their quarters in the
Hangzhou
. The lines of electric bulbs that had floodlit the masts and upper
works of both nations’ warships were methodically being extinguished.
But as yet, no air of calm had settled over the fleet. They were running down the flags, but turbines were humming, senior officers were on the bridge, lines were being cast off. It was a curious time to arrange a night exercise after such an exhausting day of preparation and celebration. But that, ostensibly, was precisely what was happening.
The three Chinese frigates were already moving, slowly, line astern, led by
Shantou
, out through the Naval basin into the main channel, now dredged to a low-tide depth of 33 feet. Thirty minutes later, China’s 6,000-ton Sovremenny-class destroyer, the largest ship ever to enter this harbor, was escorted out by two 90-foot harbor tugs, the
Arvand
and the
Hangam
.
Astern of the destroyer, a 900-ton twin-shafted Iranian Navy Corvette, the
Bayandor
, almost 40 years old, originally built in Texas, followed, still flying the green, white and red national flag despite the late hour of the evening. Her sister ship,
Naghdi
, also armed with modern Bofors and Oerlikon guns, awaited the flotilla one mile southeast of the harbor, ready to guide them around the long shallow outer reaches of the shelving Bostanu East Bank.
Their 65-mile journey would take them past the great sand-swept island of Qeshm and on into the deeper waters of the Hormuz Strait. Forty miles farther on, east of the jutting Omani headland of Ra’s Qabr al Hindi, they would make their rendezvous, at 26.19N 56.40E. Admiral Mohammed Badr himself was on the bridge of the
Hangzhou
, accompanying the Chinese Commanding Officer, Colonel Weidong Gao (Chinese Navy COs are all three-star Colonels).
Under clear skies they pushed on southeast through light swells and a warm 20-knot breeze out of the west. Finally at 56.40E Colonel Weidong ordered a course
change to one-eight-zero, and running over sandy depths of around 300 feet they headed due south for the final six miles.
Gradually the little flotilla reduced speed until the sonar room of the big destroyer picked up the unmissable signal of the Chinese Kilos, patrolling silently at periscope depth in the pitch-dark waters off the jagged coast of Oman.
The plan had been finely honed several weeks before. The Kilos would take the southerly six miles of the designated area where the water was now 360 feet deep. Each of the three submarines would make a course of zero-nine-eight starting from the deep trough off Ra’s Qabr al Hindi. They would thus move easterly a half mile apart, launching out of their torpedo tubes a one-ton Russian-made PLT-3 contact sea mine every 500 yards—the ones made at the Rosvoorouzhenie factory in Moscow: the same ones that had so vexed young Jimmy Ramshawe on their top-secret journey all the way across Asia to the South China Sea.
At the conclusion of these three death-trapped parallel lines, six miles long, the minefield would make a 10-degree swing north, and then run for 24 miles dead straight, all the way across the Strait of Hormuz to the inshore waters of the Iranian coastline, at a point 29 miles due south of the new Sino-Iranian refinery outside the little town of Kuhestak.
And right now the three Chinese mine-laying frigates were moving into position.
Shantou, Kangding
and
Zigong
, a half mile apart, heading east-nor’east, slowly in the darkess, the soft thrum of their big diesel engines interrupted only by the splash, every 500 yards, as they sowed their treacherous seed in a barrier across the world’s most important oil sea-lanes.
The 60 mines on board each frigate would last for 17 miles. The final coastal area would be handled by the destroyer, and they would designate a sizable three-mile gap through which Chinese and Iranian tankers could
pass, principally because they would be the only tankers informed of the position of the safe passage.
Meanwhile the newly laid mines sat at the bottom of the ocean secure on their anchors, awaiting the moment when they would be activated electronically, released on their wires to rise up toward the surface and then hang there in the water, 12 feet below the waves, until an unsuspecting tanker man came barreling along and slammed it out of the way, obliterating his ship in the process.
It was a two-and-a-half-hour journey back to Bandar Abbas and the surface convoy set off at 0400, leaving the Kilos to make their own way back to Chah Behar, running at periscope depth (PD). There was time to spare because the big U.S. satellite did not pass overhead until 0800.
The frigates and their 6,000-ton bodyguard docked in Bandar Abbas at 0630, when the next stage of Admiral Zhang’s plan went into operation. The
Hangzhou
was immediately reloaded with 40 PLT-3 contact mines, plainly visible, as her original cargo had been the previous evening. When “Big Bird” took her photographs a few minutes after 0800, the fully laden Chinese destroyer would look precisely the same as she had on the last daylight satellite pass, just before the grand parade yesterday evening.
The signal back to Zhanjiang was as agreed, in the event of a successful mission:
DRAGONFLY
.
1130 (local). Tuesday, April 3
.
Fort Meade, Maryland
.
There is an irritating eight-and-a-half-hour time difference between the East Coast of America and Iran. This is caused by a time zone that runs bang through the middle of the country near Tehran. Instead of one half of the nation being four hours in front of GMT, and the other half
only three, they compromised and put the whole place three and a half hours ahead of London, which is of course five in front of New York.
Thus satellite pictures taken at 1930 (Iran) were shot at 1100 (Fort Meade) the same day. And this particular set of pictures of Bandar Abbas Dockyard landed on Lt. Ramshawe’s desk just as he arrived a half hour early for work.
Before him, in sharp focus, was the major event Admiral Borden had mentioned. Jimmy could see civilian cars parked in the dockyard with the joint Sino-Iranian fleet lit up brightly in the gathering darkness for the public to see. He guessed he would receive new pictures, intermittently, throughout the day, showing more or less what was happening in Iran’s Navy Headquarters.
Still allowing the issue of the Russian mines to burn away at the back of his brain, Lt. Ramshawe searched the decks of the Chinese frigates, under a powerful glass, to see if there was a sign of them. But there was none. Not so the destroyer. All 40 of the mines she carried could now be seen on her rails, though they had plainly been covered during her journey from China.
A new set of pictures arrived midafternoon that actually caught the little fleet on the move. It was very dark in the gulf now, and the photographs were not of the same quality. But this hardly mattered. What did matter was the sight of three Chinese frigates, one destroyer and two Iranian Corvettes heading off on a mission in the middle of the night.
For all he knew, they were off to attack Iraq or Oman, “or some other godforsaken place,” and Jimmy Ramshawe hit the button to the Director’s office, from where he was given his usual short shrift.