Stephen Coonts: The Disciple

Ahmadinejad walked out, went to his private office. That was several hours ago.

He had waited there for the jolt of the nuclear burst over Tehran, which hadn’t happened. Waited and waited and waited.

Now he wondered who had severed the communications line with the bunker. Zionists? Or his political enemies? The possibility that his political enemies had staged a coup after he went into the bunker could not be overlooked or discounted. The entire leadership of the Party of God was in the bunker, all the prominent clerics and leading citizens.

His enemies couldn’t get into the bunker, of course; all the bombproof doors were sealed from this side. What if they were up there now, patiently waiting for him to emerge… to assassinate him? Of course, if they decided not to wait, they could call him on the telephone beside the entrance door in the basement of the mosque. Thus far, no one had called.

So he sat by himself in his office, very much alone, waiting for the airburst that would flatten Tehran, wondering if the Jihad missiles had destroyed their targets and pondering the venality of his enemies, of whom he had many.

The B-2s were already over Tehran, thirty thousand feet up, making practice runs on their targets. Painted repeatedly by search radars that never locked on them, the stealth bombers cruised back and forth undetected in the sky as it lightened to the east. The pilot of the lead bomber was certain that the Iranians didn’t even know they were there.

Since the mission resembled a training exercise, they did a complete practice run and a simulated drop, then circled back to do it again for real.

The bomber was on autopilot, which was slaved to the computer, which the copilot was monitoring. The pilot didn’t have to do anything except turn on the master armament switch at the proper moment and be ready to take over if the autopilot refused to obey the computer.

This is like flying the simulator , the pilot thought, without all the failures the sim operator likes to create.

The two ICBMs launched at Israel had reached apogee and were now hurling downward toward their target. Steaming slowly toward the Israeli coast, just offshore of Tel Aviv, USS Guilford Courthouse was at battle stations, and had been for hours. She picked up the two small missiles on her radar while they were still almost five hundred miles away. This technical feat was only possible because the missiles were so high above the earth.

The tactical action officer, a commander, was in charge of the ship’s weapons systems. He telephoned the bridge. “Two targets inbound, sir. One behind the other.”

“You are cleared to engage according to plan, Commander,” the captain told his TAO.

The ship was equipped with six SM-3 antisatellite missiles. Using one, a Super Aegis cruiser had successfully destroyed a failed satellite in orbit 110 miles above the earth. Hitting a target that high traveling at eighteen thousand miles an hour was a stupendous technical feat, one that many scientists and physicists said couldn’t be done. Yet it had been done, just a few years before.

Still, the commander was nervous. Theoretically, the incoming ICBMs should be within the SM-3’s capabilities. Yet the angle wasn’t ideal. In fact, head-on was the worst possible angle of approach to the target; the slightest angular error in the missile’s radar and computer would result in a miss. Consequently, he and the captain had decided to shoot three Standard-3 missiles at each incoming ICBM, all they had. If they missed, the accompanying cruiser, USS Stone’s River , would launch her SM-2 missiles at them.

General Lincoln said the Iranians had only launched two ICBMs, but certainty in war isn’t possible. Besides, they could launch another in a few hours. Or two or three. Yet rather than wait for the blow that might not fall, the TAO and captain had decided a few minutes ago to give these first two their knockout punch. And pray.

The clock hands in Combat swept mercilessly on as the ICBMs raced downhill toward their target. Actually, the lead one was slightly off course. It appeared to be headed for Gaza. The angle differential might actually help, the commander thought as he watched the blips that were the missiles race toward the center of his presentation, which was this ship.

When the ICBMs were two hundred miles away, the SM-3s came out of their vertical launchers riding a plume of fire. Their exhaust blasts shook the ship. Away they blazed into the lingering night, until they became stars racing away into the brightening eastern sky. One by one they departed, six of them, and when they were gone the sea was dark and silent again.

A Flash message was immediately sent to General Lincoln. “SM-3s launched.”

The ship was in shallow water, actually too close to the coast for comfort, but the captain dared not turn her. The best radar reception was in the forward quadrant. He ordered the ship slowed to two knots and heard the bells as the engine room responded. Ten knots would be better-the ship more stable-but it wasn’t possible.

The captain wondered if he should tell the crew to prepare for a nuclear blast. He reached for the 1-MC mike, then changed his mind. No.

He was sitting there, staring at the lights of Tel Aviv on the horizon, when the squawk box came to life. “TAO, sir. First missile missed.”

The captain didn’t acknowledge.

When the squawk box spluttered again, he jumped. “TAO, sir. Direct hit on the first enemy missile.”

Automatically his eyes rose and probed the darkness to the east. The sky was cloudless; he saw all those stars… but no explosion. Too far away.

He waited, feeling every thud of his heart. Scratched his forehead, wondered if there was something he should have done but failed to do.

“Captain, TAO. Fourth missile, a direct hit.”

As relief washed over the captain, he said to the OOD, “Right full rudder. Five knots through the turn. Steady on course two-seven-zero and work up to twenty knots. I want to get away from this coast.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

As the giant warship slowly heeled into the turn, he picked up the 1-MC microphone and spoke to the entire ship’s crew. “This is the captain speaking. We have just destroyed two ICBMs targeted at Israel. Well done, shipmates.”

He hung the mike in its bracket. For some reason he felt a vibration. And heard a noise. What was that ? Several seconds passed before he realized that every man and woman on the ship was stomping their feet and cheering, even the bridge crew.

The captain put one hand over his forehead and wiped his eyes.

Five minutes later he was down in Combat looking at a map. The locations of the two missile kills were plotted on it. Both were destroyed over Jordan. He wondered whether the warheads had broken up in the air or when they hit the ground. Either way, radioactivity was going to be released.

The captain sent a Flash message to Washington with the coordinates of the kills.

David Quereau was at fifty thousand feet, flying at just above Mach 1, in a slow turn, letting his radar sweep the sky over and around Tehran. He shouldn’t be this slow-he well knew that in combat speed is life-but the silent sky had seduced him into this gas-saving measure.

The stealth B-2s at thirty thousand feet were giving him their position by encrypted data-link, so they were on his tactical screen, as was his lead, who was at thirty-five thousand feet over the city, providing close top cover. He watched the bombers in trail make their turns and begin their bomb runs.

He was thinking about death, about the two pilots and two back-seaters he had shot down earlier in the evening, just a few minutes ago. He wondered if any of the four men had gotten out of their planes. Since he was a young cynic, he thought probably not. AMRAAM warheads do horrible things to fighter planes.