He fiddled back and forth with the screen configuration, trying to decide how much priority to give the optical view of the lead UAVs. He tried his favored arrangement for the Sabre UAVs, dividing the screen into two unequal parts, the right side about three times as large as the left. He then created a pair of panels on the right, with an area plot at the bottom and the larger, forward video feed at the top. The left panels were split into four equal boxes, each to receive a feed from a different UAV. That would make it easier to switch as the mission progressed.
The control unit bounced on Turk’s knees as the Cessna jerked upward. They were flying in a mountain range, at roughly 8,000 feet, which left a hundred feet and sometimes far less between their wings and the nearby mountaintops. The pilot was even more nervous than he’d been when they took off, and on top of that appeared physically exhausted. He kept glancing to his right as he flew, checking on the Israeli in the right seat but rarely saying a word.
The Israeli said even less. His attitude made the severe Gorud look like a carnival clown high on laughing gas. Turk had begun thinking of him as the Grim Reaper, but grim barely described his demeanor.
“This shows where we are, right?” Grease asked, pointing at the lower map on the control unit.
“Not exactly,” answered Turk. “It shows where the target area is. Then when I add this, we get a GPS indicator to show that we’re in it. But I don’t want to query too often, on the off chance that the Iranians will monitor the signal.”
“Is that likely?”
Turk shrugged. It wasn’t, but at this point the fewer chances the better.
“So we’re close?”
“We’re a little ahead of schedule.”
“That’s not good?” Grease said, reading Turk’s frown.
“We’ll have to keep flying around. I’m afraid of being seen. There are radars all along this area, and a major antiaircraft site here at Natanz. Not that they’d need much to shoot us down.”
The antiaircraft sites had all been marked on a special map in the briefing files, which were destroyed when Grease torched the pad computer. But in truth the location was immaterial—the Cessna was already well within their range. The success of the plan hinged on staying low, near the mountaintops. As long as they did, the radars associated with the missile batteries were unlikely to see them.
“You’re going to have to hold the plane a lot steadier once we reach the target area,” Turk told the pilot as the aircraft bucked. “We’ll be there in ten minutes.”
The pilot didn’t answer.
“Tell him,” Turk told the Israeli.
“He knows.”
“Tell him anyway.”
He did. The pilot replied curtly, apparently not agreeing with whatever the man said.
“He suggested I fly the plane myself,” said the Israeli.
Turk laughed. It was the first time the man actually sounded like a pilot.
He reached forward and patted the man on the shoulder. Then he took the folded map on the board clipped to the instrument panel.
“This is where we have to stay,” he said, drawing the safe area within five miles of the target. He showed it to the pilot and then to the Israeli. “We fly a steady figure eight and hold altitude. We’re on the west side of the mountains. We have to stay steady until I say we go home. It’ll be a while.”
The Israeli explained. The pilot nodded.
“When he comes over the peak ahead, tell him to bank southward,” Turk told the Israeli. “Take it south gently, and stay in the area I’ve outlined.”
As bright as the stars were, the ground was pitch-black, with no lights visible anywhere nearby. The city of Badroud lay some twenty miles beyond the peak, off their left wing. Turk expected to see a yellow glow in that direction as they turned. When he didn’t, he checked their position again. The GPS locator in the control unit had them exactly twenty-two miles from Badroud, as did his handheld unit. They were precisely on the course.
Early, though—the UAVs wouldn’t be in range for twenty-two more minutes.
“We’re looking very good,” he announced, deciding to look on the positive side. “Just keep flying the way we planned, and everything will be fine.”
10
Omidiyeh, Iran
CAPTAIN PARSA VAHID TOOK HIS HELMET IN THE CROOK of his arm as he got out of the Khodro pickup truck, balancing the rest of his gear in his right hand as he reached for his briefcase with his left. Then he spun and kicked the door closed, walking toward the front of the ready hangar. The nose of his MiG-29 sat just inside the open archway. The aircraft was armed and fueled, sitting on ready-standby in the special hangar.
The pilot who’d been on watch until now was standing on the tarmac outside the building. He shook his head as Vahid approached.
“You’re late, Parsa,” said the pilot.
“Five minutes,” insisted Vahid. “I needed to eat.”
“You’re so busy in the day that you couldn’t eat earlier?”
Vahid shrugged. “If there had been a call before now, it would have been yours.”
“Phhhh. A call. The dead will rise before we fly in combat,” said the other pilot disgustedly, starting for the pickup truck. “The Israelis are cowards.”
“And the Americans, too?”
“Worse.”
“Good evening, Captain,” said Sergeant Hami, the night crew chief. “We are ready to fly tonight?”
“Ready, Chief. My plane?”
“Ho-ho,” said Hami, his jowls shaking back and forth. “We are in top shape and ready to fly when the signal comes.”
“So it’s tonight, then?”
“With God’s will.”
Vahid walked over and put his gear down on a table at the side of the hangar. A pair of metal chairs flanked the table; he and Hami would customarily play cards there for most of the watch. But first he would inspect the aircraft.
“A nice night to fly,” said Sergeant Hami, waiting as he set down his helmet and personal gear. His accent was thick with Tehran, reminding Vahid of the city’s many charms. “You will shoot down some Americans, yes?”
“If I have the chance.”
The nights were always like this: bravado and enthusiasm at first, then dull boredom as the hours dragged on. The first night, Vahid had sat in the cockpit, waiting to take off in an instant. Even the base commander now realized that was foolish. The U.S. forces in the Gulf were paper ghosts, strong in theory but never present. They kept well away from Iranian borders.
Of course, the same might be said of the Iranian air force, even Vahid’s squadron. The four MiG-29s, the most advanced in the Iranian air force, had been moved to Omidiyeh air base six weeks before. The base had been largely abandoned in the years following the Iran-Iraq war; while still theoretically open for commercial traffic, the only civilians Vahid had seen were the members of a glider club, who inspected but did not fly their planes the first week of the squadron’s arrival. Since then the base had been empty, except for military personnel.
He began his walk-around at the MiG’s nose, touching her chin for good luck—a superstition handed down to him by his first flight instructor. The instructor had flown in the Iran-Iraq war, where he had served briefly as a wingman to Jalil Zandi, the legendary ace of the Iranian air force.
Even without the connection to greatness, Vahid would have venerated the instructor, Colonel One Eye. (The nickname was not literally accurate, but came from his habit of closing one eye while shooting on a rifle range.) The colonel could fly everything the Iranian air force possessed, from F-86 Sabres, now long retired, to MiG-29s. Like Zandi, One Eye had flown Tomcats during the war against Iraq, recording a kill against an Iraqi Mirage.
Vahid stopped to admire the plane. The curved cowl at the wing root gave it a sleek, athletic look; for the pilot, it evoked the look of a tiger, springing to the kill. The export-version MiG was one of thirty acquired by Iran in the mid-1990s; the air force now had just over a dozen in flying condition.