The Iranian submarine Sharaf cruised nineteen meters below the dark surface of the Gulf of Oman as it maintained a southeasterly heading toward the Arabian Sea. With the Straits of Hormuz well behind them, the crew had settled into their normal routine. They were, at that moment, sixteen hours out of their home port of Abbas on a routine patrol scheduled to last twenty-seven days.
Hamed Ammar lay quietly in his bunk, his head propped by a pillow, his face slightly turned from the other man who sat at the writing desk a few feet away. Rather than face him directly, Ammar allowed his gaze to fix on the maze of pipes and wires that ran along the ceiling of the small box-shaped officers' cabin as he listened to the sounds that traveled through the old diesel-electric submarine.
The mild whir of the twin motors, the creaks and groans of the hull fittings, the low murmur of voices had been friendly sounds once. Now they seemed ominous, foreboding. Each voice had a cutting edge to it that penetrated Ammar's consciousness. The young Iranian lieutenant turned back toward the other man in the cabin.
"What you told me earlier is true," Mohamed Abu-Zeid said after he had regained his roommate's attention. "I also hear," he continued casually, "that the komiteh have begun to enforce the ban on public swimming." Abu-Zeid leaned forward, picked up a piece of baklava from the plate on the desk, then popped it into his mouth. "I have seen for myself, firsthand, the young girls being arrested for immoral behavior. They had done nothing more than laugh while they walked down the street."
"Unquestionably enough of an offense," Ammar answered bitterly as he raised himself from his reclining position. "The Khuzistan madmen," he hissed angrily. "They will bleed us like leeches. They intend for not even a small degree of happiness to remain. They will not be satisfied until we are a country completely without joy."
Abu-Zeid held up his hand nervously, then glanced toward the closed door of their tiny cabin as he listened for footsteps in the corridor. To their good fortune, there seemed to be none. Abu-Zeid sighed with relief, then turned to Ammar. "You should know enough to keep your voice low," he said in a barely audible whisper. "Captain Jaffar still makes his home in Abadan. He is well favored by the uppermost authorities in the Pasdaran. If Jaffar overhears, the council will have your name — and mine," he quickly added with a frown, "at the head of its next list."
"I only pray that Allah can spare us from the elite councils," Ammar seethed, although this time he had taken the precaution to lower his voice. "The cockroach eaters seem to have absolute control over every last one of the crucial meetings."
Abu-Zeid shrugged. Although he was half Arab himself, he agreed with Ammar in principle, that the Arab influence in Iranian culture had gotten out of hand. Unlike most of the remainder of the Middle East, Iran was predominantly Moslem without being Arab. The Iranian culture and roots were unique, the people different. But that had become an academic point. The Arab influence was now an unalterable and pervasive factor in modern Iranian life. "Nothing will be resolved by name-calling," Abu-Zeid finally answered.
Ammar swung his tanned, muscular body out of the bunk and leaned closer to the fellow officer who shared the cabin with him. "The Pasdaran is intent not on saving Persia, but on destroying it instead." The sound of that historic, archaic name for their country hung between the two men. It was, Ammar knew, the closest thing to an overt signal he could give to Abu-Zeid, who was the only one of the seventy-three men aboard the Sharaf he dared to approach, even cautiously. The decision on whether to tell him more — regardless of what the American had insisted on — would rest on his friend's next response. Ammar continued to look at Abu-Zeid expectantly, all the while attempting not to give away his actual concerns and intentions. No matter how good a friend he had been, too much hung in the balance for Ammar to say more until he could firmly gauge the man's true feelings and allegiances.
Abu-Zeid shifted in his seat, took another bite of baklava, then scowled at Ammar. "Exaggerations are very dangerous. Things are not so bad. This is simply another period of change, a time of turmoil. The passions on both sides will fade. The extremists will mellow. I know for a fact that the farmers in Azerbaijan have once again been given a free hand to make their own planting and harvesting decisions. Progress is slow but definite." Abu-Zeid then smiled broadly, as if to show by example that events in their country were not so bleak. It was, he was certain, too dangerous to believe otherwise.
"Perhaps." Ammar lay back in his bunk. He allowed his eyes to drift away from his friend's face and looked up instead at the curve of the ceiling where it conformed to the shape of the submarine's bulkhead. That was, he knew, the last chance for Abu-Zeid. It had come and gone. Ammar now had to work very hard to keep his true feelings deeply buried if he were not to have a problem in those crucial moments that lay ahead. He also knew that there had been a recognizable note of despair in his reply to Abu-Zeid, and he hoped that it had not been noticed. No matter how painful it was, the original resolution had to be followed to the letter. "Perhaps you are right," he lied. "Things are getting better. Slowly but surely."
"Slowly but surely," Abu-Zeid repeated as he nodded and smiled. He was happy to have this unnecessary turn in the conversation behind them. He rose from his chair. "And since we speak of getting better, what shall I say to Captain Jaffar? Has your stomach settled enough to allow you to join us in the control room — or shall I say that you require several extra days of rest and relaxation?" Abu-Zeid added good-naturedly. "We are somehow limping along without your talents, but I'm certain the crew would welcome a visit from you."
Ammar forced himself to smile. His eyes drifted away from his friend and toward the ceiling again. He stared at one of the paint-encrusted nameplates that announced, in English, what the source and purpose of that particular set of pipes were. Ammar felt that there was justice in the fact that this obsolete American submarine — purchased by the Shah barely one year before the revolution had deposed him — would be the key element in overthrowing the madmen and gangsters who had done so much to ruin Iran. Fate and irony — the plan had the handprint of God on it. "Yes. I feel better," Ammar said as he looked back at Abu-Zeid. "It must have been no more than severe indigestion. Tell Captain Jaffar that I'll be fit to resume my post in the control room shortly."
"Very well."
Ammar glanced at his wristwatch. "Are we still precisely on schedule?" he asked as nonchalantly as he could. "Do we expect to pass abeam the point off Masqat within the half hour?"
"Yes. Our progress is textbook accurate. The Sharaf runs as if Allah himself was in command." Abu-Zeid yawned, stretched his arms above his head, then reached for the door handle. "I'll pass on your information," he said as he began to step out of the cabin.
"Thank you."
"See you soon." Abu-Zeid stepped into the corridor that led through the center of the old submarine, then began to make his way aft.
Hamed Ammar watched as the door to his cabin closed, then sat himself upright. He looked down at his watch and allowed his eyes to be mesmerized by the smooth arc created by the sweep-second hand. Allah is in command, Ammar said to himself. Allah is in command. He believed that Allah would guide him because he so desperately needed to believe it. In less than five minutes, Hamed Ammar would begin the action that he had planned so carefully for during every waking moment of the last several months.
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Clifton Harrison's newly grown beard had begun to itch, and he scratched at it vigorously as he continued his rapid walk in the damp night air. He rounded the corner of a dilapidated warehouse, stepped down a rotting staircase and onto one of the numerous docks along the northern edge of the seaport town of Masqat in the Sultanate of Oman. After a few additional steps, Harrison could make out in the distance the man he had left stationed at the entrance to the pier. "Are they all aboard?" Harrison called out as soon as he was within voice range. Ned Pierce was known to be trigger-happy, and Harrison had no intention of being mistaken for someone else and winding up with a bullet in his chest.
"That's right," Pierce answered back in a low growl. He waited until Harrison stepped up beside him before he put down the .38 pistol. "That guy Moss was the last," Pierce added. "He went to get some extra radio parts, or something like that."
"Fine. What about the Captain?"
"He went onboard a half hour ago."
"Give yourself ten minutes, then come down. We'll be ready to cast off by then. Be certain you give the Captain back his pistol as soon as you get onboard." Without waiting for a reply, Harrison turned and began to trot quickly toward the darkened outline of the boat tied to the end of the dock. The aroma of salt air and rotting fish drifted over him, and he could hear the rhythmic lapping of the water against the wooden pilings beneath his feet.
As Harrison approached, he could see Zindell on the flying bridge of the fiber glass cabin cruiser. His big, bulky body was hunched over the chart table the two men had set up earlier, the pinpoint of light from its desk lamp bright enough to silhouette the stump where Zindell's left arm had once been. "Captain. The news is good," Harrison called out as he stopped at the edge of the pier and looked up at the one-armed man on the flying bridge. "I finally got through. The telephone message was waiting."
Jerome Zindell laid down the calipers on the chart and turned to face the man on the pier below him, a dozen feet away. "Was it exactly as it was supposed to be? No variations?"
"That's correct, sir. Exactly. The sub's right on schedule." Harrison peeked at his watch. "We should shove off in ten minutes to keep ourselves within the limits of the mission profile."
"Very good." Zindell fumbled with the chart in front of him with his one hand for a few seconds, then glanced back down at the man on the dock. "Come aboard. Prepare to get underway."
"Yessir." Harrison could feel his heart pound with excitement. He climbed down the plank that led to the deck of the motorboat. As he stepped aboard, the lower cabin door opened. Olga stepped out.
"I thought it would be you," she said. "Is everything okay?"
"It's perfect. We'll be underway in ten minutes." Harrison smiled at her. "How are the men holding up?"
"They're restless. Anxious to get going."
"I don't blame them."
"Me neither." Olga Rodriguez laid her hand on her right hip where the leather bolas coiled into the loop of her belt. She turned to face Harrison more directly, her legs slightly parted. The light from the open cabin door poured out from between her thighs and cast two long shadows across the deck. "It's going to be one hell of a night," she said in a throaty whisper, the hint of a Spanish accent in many of her words. She was almost panting with anticipation.
"Yes." Harrison stared at her. Even with the light from behind, he could see that her shoulder-length red hair had been pushed back and tied with a scarf. It made her look different — but still as sensual as ever. She was not particularly beautiful, just incredibly sexy. The physical powers she possessed were a raw, vigorous gift that Harrison accepted gratefully. He knew that he could hardly control himself whenever she was around. He had given up trying.
Olga sidled up to him, a smirk on her face. "Better keep your hands off," she said tauntingly as she pressed her swelling breasts against his chest and pressed her left hip against his groin. "You know the Captain's rule."
"Screw the Captain," Harrison answered as he ran his hand down the front of her blouse. But he had the good sense to make his comment quietly, in a voice that no one beyond the two of them could have possibly heard. Harrison had no intention of violating any of Zindell's rules, not now, not ever. As soon as Harrison's hands had descended low enough to reach the top of Olga's pants, he dropped them suddenly to his sides as if they had been yanked away by invisible ropes.
"We'll have time tonight. After things calm down," Olga whispered as she nodded toward Zindell on the bridge.
"Right." But Harrison knew that Olga was wrong on at least one point. Things would never, for him, calm down again. He would never allow them to. The sensations of living life to its maximum — the dangers, the passions — were too exciting to allow them to fade for even a moment. As he glanced away from the piers and toward the blackness that he knew was the Gulf of Oman — the place where they would begin the incredible journey that Zindell was taking them on — Clifton Harrison wondered why he had wasted so many of his thirty-three years and why he had thrown away the last five in a Connecticut suburb and a New York office. No matter what Zindell had planned for them, it was one hell of a lot better than what would have happened if that imbecile of a Greenwich detective had figured out the truth any sooner. Being a married man, being a municipal bond trader in Manhattan seemed so far in his past that Clifton Harrison found it difficult to believe that he had ever done more than dream it.
<>
Without needing to look again at his wristwatch, Hamed Ammar knew that it was time. He took a deep breath, then rose from his bunk and stepped toward the wall locker at the rear of his small cabin. Ammar fumbled with the key, his trembling hand making it difficult to fit it into the lock. He finally opened the locker and. stuck his hand in, all the while listening carefully for footsteps in the corridor. There were none.
Concealed behind a stack of clothes were two metal bottles. Ammar took out the larger of the two, a green-colored cylinder with an oxygen mask attached. He slipped the bottle's holding strap over his shoulder, put on the oxygen mask and checked it carefully. Satisfied that the fit of the rubber mask against his face was airtight, Ammar reached into his locker for the second bottle.
The young Iranian lieutenant grasped the blue, spherical bottle gingerly, as if it might be a volatile explosive. He knew quite well that no amount of physical roughness could make any difference to the bottle's contents, but that didn't matter: it was still too dangerous to be handled any other way. Ammar stepped up to the door of his cabin, paused for another moment to be certain that no one walked the narrow corridor, then opened the door and moved outside.
The narrow corridor was deserted, although ten meters away through the opened hatch, Ammar could see several of the crewmen in the forward torpedo room. Some were asleep in their bunks while others moved about in silence. Ammar's body was shaking so badly that he was sure his shipmates must hear his bones rattling. Surely they must hear the roaring that filled his ears. Allah be with me! Light reflected brightly off a row of brass fittings and valves at the forward end of the compartment, and Ammar could see one of the enlisted men in animated conversation as he leaned casually against the stack of torpedoes on the port side. He heard someone in that compartment begin to laugh, and several others joined in.
Ammar turned his attention to the tiny officers' wardroom, which was no more than three meters from the door of his own quarters. That was, if any place, where trouble would come from. It seemed quiet. Ammar glanced over his shoulder. No one was coming down the corridor from the other direction either, and the door to Captain Jaffar's stateroom — four meters from where he stood — was closed. That was as it should be. The Captain was undoubtedly still in the control room.
Ammar bent down and laid the blue spherical bottle on the linoleum floor. As he did, the oxygen bottle on his shoulder swayed to the right, and clanked noisily against the steel bulkhead. Ammar ignored the sound and, with sweaty hands, began to twist open the valve on the pressurized canister he had laid on the floor.
"What are you doing?!"
Ammar looked up. A figure stood at the entrance to the officers' wardroom. It was Mohamed Abu-Zeid, a plate of baklava in his one hand, a sheaf of papers in the other. His eyes had opened wide with astonishment when he saw the crouching man in the corridor, an oxygen mask strapped to his face.
Ammar felt a mixture of fear and dread pass through him as he watched his friend take a tentative step in his direction. He attempted to ignore Abu-Zeid and concentrate instead on the bottle at his feet.
"Hamed, is that you? What are you doing?" Abu-Zeid asked. "Is there trouble?"
Ammar blocked out the words. The valve on the bottle was tight, and it took a great deal of strength to turn it. As quickly as he could he twisted the valve on the blue canister several more times until, finally, he heard the audible hiss of the escaping gas.
"Stop!" Abu-Zeid suddenly lunged forward, uncertain of what was happening, but sure that it was something that must be prevented. The plate of baklava fell out of his hand and crashed to the floor, pieces of the shattered plate scattering up and down the corridor. Ammar stood bolt-upright, tripping over his own feet as he backed toward the wall. The hissing bottle of toxic gas lay on the floor between him and Abu-Zeid.
Abu-Zeid reached for the blue canister, but by the time he touched it his eyes were bulging and his mouth had opened wide. A progressive shiver ran through his body as he began to stumble forward, his hand pushing against the hissing bottle of lethal gas but doing no more than shoving it harmlessly across the floor. The invisible, odorless poison continued to pour out of its pressurized container.
Abu-Zeid fell facedown at Ammar's feet, his hands groping at his friend's pants leg several times before his fingers clutched enough of the cloth to hang on. For the next few seconds Abu-Zeid clawed his way to his knees, using the other man's leg as support. But he got no further than picking his head up and looking at Ammar's face, half hidden by the oxygen mask, before he fell heavily back to the corridor floor, his head banging hard against the linoleum. Abu-Zeid's eyes remained opened but lifeless; his tongue hung grotesquely out the side of his mouth.
Ammar stood rigidly with his back against the wall, Abu-Zeid at his feet. Rather than face the body that lay no more than inches in front of him, Ammar looked down the length of the narrow corridor. In the forward torpedo room, several of the men had already fallen to the floor. As Ammar watched, one of them — it appeared to be Chief Ardabeli — staggered past the opened hatchway, his hands clutched to his throat in a futile gesture against the inevitable. The man passed out of sight to the starboard side of the cluttered, steel-encased room. An obscene array of sounds — gasps, choked-off shouts, feeble cries — filtered back from the compartment. There were more than a dozen men in that area and, Ammar knew, every one of them would be dead within moments. There was no escape from the invisible demon that he had let out of the blue canister. Ammar closed his eyes and prayed to Allah as he waited for the lethal gas to finish its journey throughout the submarine.
Carried on the current of air propelled by the ship's ventilation system, the deadly gas drifted its way aft.
In the control room at the center of the ship, Captain Jaffar huddled over the navigation table. Jaffar heard a strange muffled noise and glanced up. To his amazement, he watched both Kani at the bowplanes and Rafsanjani at the hydraulic manifold collapse simultaneously, as if their legs had been suddenly cut from beneath them. Before Jaffar could respond, three more men on the far side of the control room also fell to the floor. None of them had shouted any kind of warning, and only one of them, Mellat, the electrician's mate, had managed to utter so much as a sound — a brief, strangulated gasp that sounded more animal than human.
Jaffar spun around and lunged for the panel on the corner bulkhead. He hit the emergency alarm button with his fist. The submarine filled with the noise of a loud and pulsating Klaxon horn. "Toxic gas!" Jaffar shouted as he pressed his hand against the All-Compartments transmitting switch on the ship's intercom. "Battery gas! Secure all compartments! Shut down the ventilators!" Jaffar felt a spasm of dizziness. His vision had blurred and his arms had weakened. Chlorine gas. From the batteries. Yet even as that thought registered in his mind, he knew that it was wrong. Chlorine gas was deadly, but it had an odor to it. It was visible. It was an unwanted but predictable by-product of the batteries they used to power the ship while underwater. Yet it was a condition they almost never experienced, and one they carefully monitored against. It was not possible for the chlorine gas... to have gotten this far... ndetected... this gas... was too toxic... was something... something else...
Captain Jaffar sank to his knees, then crumpled to the floor. He was the last man in the control room to fall unconscious.
<>
In the crew's mess behind the control room, most of the men were not able to pick themselves up from their seats when the Klaxon alarm sounded — and those that did dropped immediately to the floor. In the crew's quarters, men fell from their bunks as they attempted to move in response to the shrill alarm. Those who remained mobile for a short while stumbled over the bodies of those who were not, as they scrambled to get away from the unseen enemy that was tearing out the insides of their throats and lungs.
In the forward and aft engine rooms, men ran to their battle stations only to succumb to the gas as quickly as they arrived. Mohamed Mehdevis staggered along the guardrail between the twin banks of diesel engines that had powered the ship on the surface less than one hour before, his hands pressed against his face in a futile attempt to stop the suffocating pains that consumed him. Mehdevis lost control of the muscles in his legs and, though he was still conscious, stumbled and fell against the row of aluminum-colored cylinders. Within an instant, Mehdevis' face and arms were being seared by the residual heat in the metalwork of the engines. The smell of his own burning flesh was the last sensation to register in his brain.
<>
Abol Khanoum was at the electrical controls in the maneuvering room when the alarm began. He had heard Captain Jaffar's orders over the intercom and had followed them to the letter. He slammed shut the hatchway between the maneuvering room and the aft torpedo room — the rearmost compartment in the ship — and then had the presence of mind to pull out an oxygen bottle and mask from beneath his seat.
Khanoum twisted the valve on the portable oxygen bottle, then slid the mask over his face. Nothing! No oxygen! He ripped the mask away and looked down at the pressure gauge. Two thousand pounds. Full. Yet the bottle seemed empty. He frantically rapped on the valve, then put the mask on again. Still nothing! He was growing dizzy, light-headed.
Khanoum sank back into his seat and gazed blankly at the rows of dials, meters and maneuvering levers in front of him. Then he looked at the useless oxygen bottle in his hands. Full... yet empty. Suddenly he saw what should have been obvious all along: the gauge's pressure needle had been carefully bent clockwise so that a zero reading would keep the needle pointed to its full mark. Full was empty. Someone had depleted the ship's emergency oxygen bottles, then had tampered with the gauges on them so no one would notice. Someone...
Khanoum slumped forward and died. His body sagged listlessly and settled at the foot of the quadrant of levers that controlled the ship's motors.
<>
In the aft torpedo room, the eleven men at that station had gotten the least amount of the lethal gas in their compartment before the hatch had been closed and the ventilators shut down. Aram Bactar pressed his face against the small glass porthole in the closed hatchway and peered forward into the maneuvering room.
Bactar saw Khanoum in the maneuvering room put on his emergency oxygen mask, and he then ordered the men in his torpedo compartment to do the same. Yet to his amazement, he saw that Khanoum had taken his mask off again and had begun to work frantically with the valve on the bottle. After several more seconds, the oxygen bottle slipped out of Khanoum's hands and the man fell unconscious.
"The bottles are empty! They indicate full, but they have no oxygen inside!" one of the men from the rear of the torpedo compartment shouted.
Bactar spun around. His face was covered with sweat. "Wait. Whatever has caused the toxic condition, it has been sealed outside our airtight hatch," he answered. His voice had been barely loud enough to carry over the incessant howl of the Klaxon horn. Bactar gestured toward the oblong steel doorway, the handle fully turned, the locking pins all in place. "We are safe."
At that moment, the submarine pitched forward, the deck beneath their feet inclined steeply toward the ocean floor. "The diving planes!" one of the young torpedomen shouted. "There is no one alive in the control room to work them!"
"The water is shallow — we are in no danger!" Bactar knew he needed to prevent the spread of panic among his men. "Once the ship has reached the bottom, we can utilize the emergency escape hatch." Bactar gestured toward the hatch in the ceiling. "It will not be difficult," he said as he prayed that no one would point out any of the hundreds of complications that could make their escape impossible. "At least we are safe from the toxic condition that has spread through the ship."
As if on cue, one of the men in the rear of the room fell to his knees and began to gag. Even while the others watched in horror, two more men collapsed. One started to claw at his face, the other emitted a shrill and hideous scream.
"Impossible — we are airtight!" Bactar shouted in defiance of what he now knew was the truth. Some of the poisoned air had gotten into the compartment before the hatch had been closed. Their fate would be the same as that of the rest of the men on the ship. "Get out, quickly!" Bactar ran toward the center of the compartment where the roof-mounted escape hatch was. He knew a hurried escape would be riskier, but there were no other options left to them. "There is no time for the safety procedures! Get out!"
Even as he moved the six-meter distance farther aft to get beneath the escape hatch, more of his men continued to collapse to the floor. Several of them writhed in pain as they tried to breathe in the chemically saturated air, the insides of their bodies seemingly on fire — yet numb as ice. Bactar reached the base of the ladder and began to push a young technician, Salar Fadl, up ahead of him. "Go! Quickly! Up to the hatch!"
Salar Fadl was halfway up the ladder when his arms gave out. He screamed a short howl of pain and fear as he tumbled backward.
Bactar tried to prevent Fadl's fall, but his attempt to grab the young man's body nearly cost him his own position on the ladder. The young technician fell past Bactar and then crashed onto the compartment floor below. Bactar looked down at Fadl's motionless body, then around the remainder of the aft torpedo room. No one stood. Most were motionless, except for a few men whose arms and legs twitched in obscene spasms. There was no one left to worry about. There was no one left but himself.
"Get out! Keep climbing!" Bactar spoke to himself aloud as he prodded himself farther up the ladder toward the escape hatch and away from the nightmare below. His foot slipped once, but he managed to grab hold of a section of tubing to prevent himself from falling. "Be careful. Not too quickly." The circular hatch was only an arm's length away.
Bactar felt the motion of the ship change. Perhaps someone had taken over control, perhaps the situation onboard the Sharaf was not hopeless after all. He paused for a moment as he tried to determine in which direction the ship was now pitched. But being inside the bowels of the submarine, without the help of the reference gauges in the control room, there was no reliable way to tell. Senses of motion were fraught with deception. Illusions were more real than reality. The loud Klaxon horn continued without interruption.
Bactar decided that there had been no change at all in the ship's motion, that he had simply deluded himself into thinking so. Even if there had been a change, more than likely the out-of-control submarine had simply been caught in a swirling sea current. The ship could be pointed anywhere from straight up to straight down, for all that he could tell.
Bactar pulled himself up the next step and into the escape chamber. He then turned around and reached for the lower hatch so he could lock himself inside the seven-foot steel tube that would serve as his escape route. Once inside that small chamber, he would flood it by opening the hand valve on the wall, then pop open the exterior hatch. By holding his breath, Bactar might be able to reach the surface — as long as the submarine had not gone much deeper than forty meters. Any lower, and he would drown before reaching the surface.
As Bactar bent over to close the lower hatch, the choking sensation he had seen in the others suddenly forced itself on him. With one breath of air, his insides had turned to pure fire.
A wave of intense pain washed over him and caused Aram Bactar to lose his strength. His arms sagged out of control and his legs buckled. He tumbled forward and fell past the lower ledge of the escape hatch. As he did, his left arm swung outward and hooked itself between the rungs of the aluminum ladder. Bactar's falling body, arrested by his left arm, snapped violently around and smashed into the frame of the ladder. The impact broke his shoulder and neck and caused Bactar to hang from the ladder like a bird with a grotesquely broken wing might hang from a fence. Yet for the few seconds that still remained to his life, he felt nothing beyond the horrid, unrelenting pain of chemical suffocation.
<>
When Hamed Ammar had moved from the narrow corridor outside his cabin to the control room, he had done it carefully. Ammar knew that if the oxygen mask he wore were to be ripped away from his face — either by accident, or forcibly by one of the crew who had not yet fallen unconscious — then he, too, would die.
As Ammar entered the control room, the ship had begun to pitch forward violently enough to cause him to be thrown off his feet and against the bulkhead where the Fathometer and standby helm were located. The bodies of the officers and crew were strewn everywhere, but Ammar paid no attention to them; instead, he focused on the bow and stern planes and the large gauges in front of them. Fifty meters of depth were indicated for the rear of the ship, while fifty-six meters were shown at the front. They were being driven on a downward path that might cause them to crash, bow-first, into the ocean floor.
Ammar staggered to his feet and headed for the diving controls. As he moved forward, the hose from his oxygen mask became entangled in one of the wall-mounted trimming levers. It would have yanked the mask off Ammar's face if it were not for a sudden change of motion in the ship at that moment that forced him to stagger backward. Ammar grabbed onto the trimming levers, untangled his oxygen hose, then started toward the diving controls again.
Allah is in command. Inside his mask, perspiration dripped down Ammar's face. He tripped over the body of Kani, then stepped on Rafsanjani's outstretched hand. Death was everywhere. The carnage in the control room was far worse than Ammar had imagined it would be. Allah stay with me, I beg you.
Ammar grabbed the large brass wheel of the bowplane and turned it quickly. Satisfied that the front end of the submarine was responding, he reached for the wheel that controlled the direction of the stern diving fins. When the gauges showed that the Sharaf had reversed its descent and had started up again, Ammar stepped around the bodies that littered the floor and began to work the trim and ballast levers. The Klaxon horn continued to bellow in his ears.
With the changes created by each successive valve he yanked open or shut, the submarine was jolted farther and more rapidly toward the surface. Ammar stumbled backward, then grabbed on and held fast to the ladder that led up to the conning tower, the oxygen bottle nestled to his chest, his face pressed against the ladder's rails so there was no chance that his mask might be taken off by the random motions of the wildly bucking ship. No more than an arm's length above him, a dangling hand — the dead helmsman's — swayed back and forth out of the opened hatch between the control room and conning tower on the deck above. Ammar fixed his eyes on the man's fingers — long, nicotine-stained, motionless except for the swaying of the ship — as he waited for an indication that the submarine had broken through to the surface.
There was no doubt when that moment came. The Sharaf’s extreme pitch-up angle caused the bow to break through the top of the waves like a rocket. As fast as the front end came out, it crashed back to the surface of the sea just as quickly. The force of that impact caused the lights inside the ship to blink on and off several times, but they finally remained on. Ammar was thrown to the floor, even though his hands still gripped the rails of the conning tower ladder.
When the gyrations stopped, Ammar picked himself up carefully, then looked around. The gauges on the panel told him that the ship was buoyant, seaworthy and riding on the surface. He could see that his oxygen hose was still intact, his face mask firmly on. Ammar attempted to gather his thoughts and recall the next step in the plan, but the loud Klaxon alarm seemed to drive his memory away. He stepped toward the rear of the control room, across Captain Jaffar's body, and pressed his shaking hand against the switch that silenced the alarm.
Except for the distant humming of the twin electic motors from the rear of the ship, the interior of the Sharaf became deadly quiet. Ammar could hear the loud echoes of his own labored breathing in the oxygen mask as he positioned several more switches and levers in the control room. Satisfied that all the necessary work had been accomplished, he climbed the ladder into the conning tower, then farther up another set of rungs to a hatch at the top of the roofline. After working the bolts and catches, Ammar gingerly pushed against the circular steel plate above his head.
The night sky was above him. Some of it was masked by the superstructure of the bridge, but other sections were brilliantly studded with stars. There was a half-moon on the horizon, and Ammar knew it would provide enough illumination for what was still to come. He propped open the hatch and paused for a moment, his body half inside the conning tower and half out in the night air on the bridge. As much as he wanted to go topside, Ammar knew that it was not yet time. Reluctantly, he checked his oxygen bottle again, then descended the ladder to finish the jobs that remained.
Ammar moved through the conning tower, down into the control room, then turned and worked his way aft. He kept the oxygen bottle and hose pulled tightly against his chest as he maneuvered around the bodies that lay in the compartments. The enlisted men's galley, the mess and crew's quarters were nearly impassable, and Ammar worked his way slowly around each knot of bodies, some piled one on top of the next, others scattered side to side. He was glad that he had taken the precaution to remain aloof from most of the crew, that he had hardly gotten to know any of them except in their official, technical capacities.
Ammar hustled through the forward and aft engine rooms and into the maneuvering room. When he reached the end of that compartment, Ammar leaned over the body of Abol Khanoum and yanked back on the large silver maneuvering handles. The sound of the twin electic motors that propelled the ship began to slow down and die. Ammar stood quietly for a moment, until he felt the gentle rocking that told him that the submarine had come to a complete stop and was now dead in the water.
Ammar opened the hatch that led to the aft torpedo room. He took several steps toward the center of the compartment before he became aware of the body that dangled from the ladder beneath the emergency escape hatch. Aram Bactar. Ammar winced.
Other than Abu-Zeid — his roommate and a fellow junior officer — Aram Bactar was the only enlisted man he had felt close to. They had been raised in the same section of northern Tehran and had discovered, through conversation, that they had several friends in common. Ammar was suddenly flooded with guilt at the thought that he should have approached Bactar, that he should have given him a chance to be part of the plan. Allah, I pray to you, do not desert me. Ammar grabbed Bactar's arm and removed him from where he had been pinned. The skin on Bactar's arm was still warm and, as he touched it, Ammar shivered. He laid the body gently on the floor, silently spoke the first few words of the prayer for the dead, then opened his eyes and climbed the ladder. He raised the exterior hatch to allow the cool night air to blow in.
Ammar retraced his steps back to the control room, but this time continued straight ahead down the corridor to the forward torpedo compartment. He opened the emergency escape hatch on that end of the ship, then headed back to the conning tower where he picked up a battery-operated searchlight and clipped it to his belt. He climbed above-decks to the bridge.
After checking the compass, Ammar aimed the portable light and flashed it several times utilizing the designated code. As he waited, he glanced around the dark silhouette of the ship. The Sharaf rode well, with no apparent lean. That meant that all the proper ballast tanks had blown dry, as they should have. Ammar looked down the deck to where the forward hatch stood raised. With three exterior hatches opened, the poisoned air would soon be drawn out. That was good, although Ammar had no intention of taking off his mask until the American had shown up with his test equipment and verified that the air inside the submarine was no longer dangerous.
Ammar flashed the light several more times. He was about to repeat the process when a light on the horizon blinked back the recognition code he had been waiting for.
<>
"There it is. Steer ten degrees to port. Have the men put on their masks." Zindell then began the clumsy task of fastening his gas mask with one arm.
"Yessir." Clifton Harrison spun the cabin cruiser's steering wheel, then turned back to where Olga stood behind him on the bridge. "Have the men put on their masks."
"Right." Olga moved rapidly down the ladder and disappeared below.
Harrison waited for Zindell to finish fastening his mask before putting on his own. It would be difficult to communicate with each other with the masks on, but no verbal communications would be necessary from that point on — not unless something had gone terribly wrong. The script for the next few moments had been carefully rehearsed dozens of times. Harrison felt a clump of tense excitement in the pit of his stomach; he could hardly wait until they pulled alongside.
They were within a few hundred yards of the submarine before its dark shape was clear enough to be unmistakable in the dull glow of the moonlight. For a brief moment Harrison was totally awed by the immense vessel that lay in the water ahead of him. He had never seen a submarine up close, not even an old diesel boat like this one. Harrison knew from his homework that the sub was nearly 300 feet long and weighed 2,700 tons. Lying dead in the water, its black-painted hull riding high in the light, choppy sea, the submarine seemed even larger and more threatening. Harrison reminded himself once again how this entire experience was literally a world removed from what he had learned as a navigator in the Air Force five years before. He hoped to God that he wouldn't screw up any of his assignments.
Several of the men had come from below and stationed themselves along the smaller boat's rail. As the cabin cruiser maneuvered in close, the men threw out their lines. The sole figure on the deck of the submarine — one man wearing an oxygen mask, the portable bottle draped over his shoulder — grabbed the lines and tied them fast. Without a word being spoken, the men jumped quickly aboard the deck of the submarine.
Jerome Zindell was one of the first to go aboard. He stood on the teakwood decking of the old submarine, just forward of the dark superstructure of the bridge. His portable oxygen tank was strapped to his back and his one arm rested casually against his hip as he slowly surveyed his new command. He took a few seconds to allow the old memories — his days on the Trout, the Wahoo, the Harder — to play back in his mind. It was the better part of a lifetime that he had spent inside those old sewer pipes.
Even in the washed-out light from the half-moon, Zindell could see that the boat had fared well after its years in dry dock and its eventual sale to the Iranians. That was another testimonial to the strength of the old hulls, another vote of support in his decision to use this particular ship. Zindell turned and motioned toward two of his crew.
Olga Rodriguez and Ed Wieckowski came forward, each of them holding a small metal cage in one hand, a portable oxygen bottle in the other. Zindell carefully examined the cages they held. Inside each were two gray pigeons, and all four birds fluttered nervously. Zindell glanced at his wristwatch, nodded his approval, then pointed toward each of the hatches he wanted Olga and Wieckowski to go to. The two crew members held the cages at arm's length in front of them as they moved rapidly toward opposite ends of the ship.
Hamed Ammar stepped out of the shadows and moved next to Zindell. Even beneath his oxygen mask, it was easy to see the sheepish, anxious look on the Iranian's face.
Zindell smiled, patted Ammar on the shoulder, then held up one finger to indicate that they'd need to wait another minute before they could speak. Ammar nodded eagerly to show his understanding.
After what seemed an interminable delay, Olga and Wieckowski finally came out of the hatchway in the bridge, she a few seconds ahead of him. They carried the cages down to Zindell.
Zindell looked at his watch, then examined the birds again. All four were still alive and continued to jump nervously in their cages. Zindell removed the oxygen mask from his face, and the others in the crew did likewise.
"Carry aboard the supplies. Remove the bodies." At his command, the eight seamen in his crew started into action to unload several wooden boxes from the cabin cruiser. "Prepare the boat," Zindell said to Harrison, who had remained on the flying bridge.
"Yessir." Harrison disappeared below.
Zindell turned to Olga. "Take care of the birds."
"Certainly." Olga smiled, reached into her birdcage and grabbed for the first pigeon. The bird fluttered away from her groping hand several times, but Olga persisted. Finally, she caught the gray pigeon and wrapped her fingers tightly around it.
Olga withdrew the bird slowly from its cage and held the frightened animal at arm's length. She then carefully reached out with her other hand and took hold of the pigeon's head. With a slow and continuous motion, Olga snapped the bird's neck until it cracked, then casually pitched the carcass overboard. Olga repeated the action with the other three birds. The glaze in her eyes and her short, quick breaths gave away the pleasure she took in her task.
"I expected a more scientific testing of the air," the Iranian said as he turned away from the woman and toward the one-armed American. He smiled meekly to indicate that there was no malice in his statement.
"The old methods are sometimes best,” Zindell answered in a flat voice. “Test life with life. It's always been a good technique."
"I see." But the Iranian didn't understand. He knew from past experience that Westerners were difficult to talk to — and his previous conversations with this man during those meetings in the back alleys of Tehran and Abbas had confirmed that he would be no exception. "The gas performed exactly as you predicted," Ammar said after a brief silence.
"That's good to know. I'll tell my supplier."
The two men lapsed into silence again, the rhythmic slapping of water against the hull and the movement of the men below-decks the only sounds to fill the empty night air. "Were there any problems?" Zindell asked to pass the time as he began to walk slowly aft.
"None," Ammar answered as he followed in the American's footsteps. "It went as you had planned." Ammar left no doubt from his tone that he would prefer not to discuss the horror that had taken place just a few minutes before. "At least now the madmen in Khuzistan will get a taste of their own medicine," he volunteered as he steered the conversation to a subject he was more comfortable with. "Soon we will be able to sink their patrol boats. Then we can block all shipping from entering Iranian ports." Ammar's voice had grown loud and firm again; it carried boldly on the warm night breeze. "That will bring the cockroach eaters to their knees."
"Right." Zindell watched as the first of the bodies were brought above-decks. With Olga supervising, the crew began to pitch the dead Iranians overboard. Their bodies sank immediately, but pieces of their clothing — caps, shoes, torn segments of shirts, pants and jackets — floated on the surface. Zindell was glad to see it because that was what he had expected — the floating scraps of clothing would add a nice touch to the display, an appropriate amount of evidence to support the obvious conclusion to anyone snooping around that the submarine had, for unknown reasons, torn itself apart.
"But I must be truthful," Ammar said. "I am surprised at two things; first, that your crew is so small in number. Second, that you have allowed a woman aboard the Sharaf." Ammar pointed to where Olga stood.
"This is only half the crew. We pick up the rest very soon." Zindell had given the Iranian what he knew he would want to hear. "As far as the woman is concerned, she is our nurse."
"A nurse? Then what in Allah's name is that device she wears on her belt?" Ammar pointed to the leather implement that hung from the woman's hip, next to the pearl-handled knife that also dangled from her garrison belt.
"A bolas."
"I have never heard of it." Ammar looked again at the device that the woman wore. Three strands of rawhide equal in length hung from its central core, each strand attached to a metal ball that would fit into the palm of a person's hand.
"The bolas is from South America."
"I see." Ammar had no idea what its specific use was, but he could tell that it must be a weapon of some sort. "What is its purpose?"
"It's part of her equipment." Zindell glanced toward the cabin cruiser and saw that Harrison had climbed off. That meant that the next step in the plan was about to begin. "Our nurse carries the bolas at my request. It's good for back problems — it gets people off mine."
"What does that mean?" Ammar forced his voice to become firmer as he attempted to sound more like the officer that he was. He would not take insults from any man — especially a foreigner — and the American's words had a mocking tone to them. "Is this some sort of joke?"
"Yes." Zindell flashed a friendly smile. "A small joke." He shrugged. "The fact is," he whispered as he leaned toward Ammar, "that the lady is the third in command. She uses the bolas to enforce discipline. Other than my own pistol, we have no small-arms weapons aboard. For obvious reasons." Zindell knew that in a pickup crew like this one, tempers could easily flare. He had no intention of allowing an underwater gun battle to occur.
"Can she control the men?" Ammar asked incredulously. No Iranian woman would have dared to even try.
"No question about it." Zindell had several times seen Olga use both the bolas and the pearl-handled knife while he was with her in Cuba, and he knew for a fact that it would be more than enough.
"Very well. If you say so." Ammar turned his attention away from the woman and toward the problem that was much more of an immediate concern to him. Technically, as far as he was concerned, Ammar felt that he should be in full command of the Sharaf. That would make the one-armed man second in command, and the woman as third or, perhaps, forth. Perhaps, he hoped, there would be no problem with the American after all, that they had all come to realize that the problems in Persia must be left under the direction and control of a Persian. Ammar could not imagine that the American CIA could have expected any other arrangement.
Zindell turned away from the Iranian and faced Harrison. "Go ahead with the scuttling," he ordered.
"Yessir." Harrison cast off the lines. With the cabin cruiser's throttle set and the rudder pre-positioned, the unmanned fiber glass boat pulled slowly away from the submarine. When it had gone no more than fifty yards, it was evident that the cabin cruiser was already riding measurably lower in the water. By the time the small boat had traveled another hundred yards, its deck was awash. Soon the fiber glass boat began to heel to one side, then toward its stern. Sixty seconds after that, it had disappeared completely and silently below the dark waves of the sea.
"That was very fast," Ammar said. He pointed to where the cabin cruiser had gone down, where now only bubbles remained. "No debris."
"That was the plan." Out of the corner of his eye, Zindell saw the gesture from Harrison. The supplies were already onboard and in another five minutes all the bodies would be removed. "We installed a large sea vent on the bottom of the hull so it could be opened and flooded quickly. We didn't want any wreckage — pieces of fiber glass that hadn't come from a submarine — left for people to get suspicious over."
"What difference would it make? The world will know soon enough that the Sharaf has become part of the action to liberate Persia."
"Soon enough does not necessarily mean this very moment. We may need a few extra hours or even days to get ourselves ready for the first attack," Zindell answered patiently, his rehearsed lines coming out easily and convincingly. "By the way," he continued, simply to fill the remaining time, "what does Sharaf mean?"
"Honor." Ammar averted his eyes from the American's stare and toward the dark sea. An officer's cap — Abu-Zeid's perhaps — floated on the crest of a swell several meters in the distance, its bright metal emblem making it easy to see in the reflected moonlight. Ammar shifted his weight restlessly as the pangs of guilt returned. He pushed the gnawing thoughts aside with the knowledge that Allah had been behind the plan, that the death of his friends on the Sharaf was indeed a small price to pay for the liberation of Persia. Allah would explain it to them and they would understand. They would commend Hamed for his brave fight to free their beloved Persia.
"This boat was originally S.S. 566," Zindell announced. He looked at the dark outlines of the bridge — a place where he had stood many times before. "I served as engineering officer on her between the summer of sixty-six and the fall of sixty-seven."
"Really? I was not aware of that." Ammar knew the ship had been American, but it never occurred to him that the one-armed man might have served aboard it. That was good news, since his knowledge of the ship might be useful.
"She was named the Trout. We spent most of our patrols in the North Atlantic. From that assignment I went to the Wahoo as executive officer." Zindell glanced down at his wristwatch; he gave himself a few more moments to wallow in this harmless nostalgia. "My first command was S.S. 568. The Harder. One hell of a boat."
Ammar fidgeted. In spite of the one-armed man's assurances, any discussions concerning command were still too delicate to be dealt with directly. He needed to wait for a more opportune moment to bring up the subject. "The Sharaf is a fine ship also."
"Yes. The Trout is a fine boat." Zindell bit into his lower lip at his slip of the tongue that the submarine they stood on was, for him, still the Trout. Yet as far as he was concerned, ships were more like men than women; the name you began with was the one you finished with. Continuity. Historical ties. The Navy usually felt the same way, because when a sub was lost they would build a new one with the same name. Usually. But not for the Thresher. It was as if nothing had happened to that nuclear boat, as if his father and the other 129 men aboard on that April day in '63 had not died a horrible death below.
"Which ship did you say was your first command?" Ammar asked. He decided that the more often he brought up the subject, the easier it would be to create a discussion of that sensitive point later on.
"S.S. 568. The Harder." Zindell would have preferred that particular boat for this job, but since the Harder had been sold to Italy he was left with little choice. With Iran officially on the outs with most every nation, no one would listen if they complained about a missing submarine. More than likely, the Iranians would admit nothing so as not to lose face. That was a little extra insurance.
"When will the additional men be along?" Ammar asked as he looked out toward the black horizon. "Will McClure also be with them?" He thought back to his meetings with the strange man from the CIA he knew only as McClure. Ammar shuddered. There was something hideous about McClure's smile and the way his eyes moved so coldly, so slowly across whatever he watched. Ammar hoped that McClure would not show up.
"Yes, he'll be on board with the second group," Zindell said, even though he knew it wasn't true. He glanced at his wristwatch. "They'll be here very soon." McClure. Zindell wondered what the hell that madman was doing at that very moment. Probably sitting by himself in the corner of some dingy New York bar and emptying one tumbler of straight bourbon after the next. He was a real psycho by anyone's standards — and the only one who could've come up with a scheme as crazy as this one. If McClure hadn't volunteered to take the most hazardous part for himself, Zindell never would have joined up with him. "Do you still have your signal light with you?"
"Yes." Ammar pointed to where it hung from his belt.
"Fine. Aim it in that direction." Zindell indicated starboard with his hand.
Ammar frowned and opened his mouth to protest, but then quickly decided against it. He would tolerate the American's orders a short while longer, until all the men were aboard and the submarine was safely beneath the surface. Then he would make it very clear who was in charge and who would give the orders. "In this direction?" he asked through clenched teeth.
"Yes. Use the same recognition code. We should be seeing them shortly. I'll check with my radio man to be sure that he hasn't picked up any signals from other ships in the area. We don't want any surprises."
"I'll let you know as soon as the signal light is acknowledged." Ammar aimed the searchlight and turned it on. The narrow beam of artificial light shone out across the gentle swells of the dark sea and mixed in with the silvery cast from the half-moon on the horizon. "The sooner we get them aboard, the sooner we can begin our attack against the criminals who control Persia."
"My sentiments exactly." Zindell pressed the palm of his hand against the .38-caliber pistol in his pocket. "I'll be right back."
"Very well."
Zindell stepped rapidly around the conning tower, then up metal rungs and onto the bridge. Satisfied that everyone else had gone below, Captain Zindell descended into the conning tower and quietly closed the hatch above his head.
Ammar flashed the light across the dark sea several times before a loud metallic banging filled the night air, followed shortly by a second, similar sound. He turned and pointed his light toward where the first sound had come from. Nothing was there, the deck remained deserted, all was well — except...
Ammar spun around and shined his light aft to verify what his pounding heart now told him: both the forward and aft escape hatches had been slammed shut. He had been locked above-decks.
Impossible! Ammar dropped the searchlight and bounded up the rungs that led to the bridge. As he jumped onto the upper level, he saw in the moonlight that even that hatch had also been closed. As Ammar raced toward it, he heard the familiar gurgling noises from the Sharaf’s ballast tanks. The tanks were being flooded with water; the submarine was about to dive.
"Stop! Open the hatch!" Ammar yanked senselessly against the locked steel plate that had been intentionally closed to him. "Please! In the name of Allah! Open the hatch!"
Ammar saw the first waves break over the bow. The submarine had begun to settle slowly into the sea, its forward motion almost nil so the ship would remain at nearly the same spot it had been for the last thirty minutes. Ammar tugged twice more on the locked hatch, then scurried toward the aft area of the bridge. The American had tricked him — but Ammar saw no reason why. None of it made sense. Without him, any attack against Iranian ship movements would be more complicated, not less. Ammar knew that he was a necessary element in the struggle to liberate Persia. The American's action was unexplainable, insane — unless there had never been a plan to attack Iranian shipping, unless it had all been a trick, unless...
The water had completely covered the teakwood deck and had begun to slap farther up the sides of the bridge. Ammar climbed another set of rungs and then another, until he was perched atop the highest structure of the submarine, the look-out's platform. Ammar could see some of the bodies of the dead crew of the Sharaf as they began to float up from the cold water below. The sea itself, a flat plate of unrippled silver when viewed toward the glow from the half-moon on the horizon, seemed to be churned up by isolated movements in several spots. It took Ammar a few seconds to realize that the eerie forms that sliced through the calm of the silvery surface were dark, triangular fins, The numerous fins from an encircling school of sharks cut closer and closer to where Ammar would soon be in the water.
"Allah! Save me! Help me!" Ammar screamed as the last of the Sharaf’s superstructure slid into the water. The young Iranian officer let out a long, night-splitting howl as he found himself treading water. He thrashed around wildly in the cold, becalmed sea as he twisted first one way and then the other in a senseless, futile attempt to save himself.
Ammar felt something bump into his left shoulder. It caused him to scream long and hard again as he desperately paddled forward as fast as he could from whatever was behind him. When he finally looked over his shoulder, Ammar saw that what he had bumped into was the body of one of the dead crewmen that had been borne up from below by the buoyancy of the cold seawater. But at the same time, something else in the distance caught Ammar's attention — something that caused him to begin to scream irrationally again, this time without any way to stop himself, without any hope for a pause. Less than twenty meters from where he was treading water, Hamed Ammar could make out through the phosphorescent glow of the water the hungry sharks that were coming toward him.