Free Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 05 by Shadows of Steel (v1.1)

reconnaissance center—he forgot about Masters, who
was still typing away on his terminal. “We’ve got about ten minutes to get this
stuff overboard before they get within visual range. After that, it all has to
go out the SDV access hatch.” The same chamber in the bottom of the ship that
allowed Swimmer Delivery Vehicles to dock with the ship without surfacing could
be used to dump some of the classified equipment while the Iranians were
topside—that could give White’s crew an extra few minutes.
                 In
less than three minutes, the reconnaissance compartment was cleared out—all
except Masters. White wasn’t going to wait any longer: “Jon, dammit, pack it
up, now!”
                 “I’m
ready, it’s going,” Masters said. “Couple more seconds, and I’ll be done.”
                 White
was about to yank the plug himself, when he noticed a blinking UAV SYNC light
on the computer control panel, with a SYNC ERROR light underneath. “Jon, what
in hell is that?”
                 Jon
saw the blinking light at the exact same moment and hit a key—the light went
out. “I don’t know,” Masters replied. “The computer is trying to sync with
Skywalker—”
                 “Except
Skywalker was destroyed,” White said. But then what was the computer talking
to? “Shit, Jon, shut that thing off! That Iranian helicopter might have an
electronic warfare suite that can send satellite transponder interrogate codes.
Your computer was sending sync codes to the Iranians, trying to lock on to it! ”
                 “I
didn’t know... I didn’t realize it was still active!” Masters cried, yanking
cables and practically overturning the terminal to shut it down. “Skywalker was
off the air, shot down ... I didn’t think to shut down the uplink channel! ”
                 “The
Iranians must be reading our satellite transponder data signals,” White said.
“No way those signals can be mistaken for communication or navigation signals.
And if they picked up Skywalker’s uplink signals and matched them with our
transponder signals . . . shit, the Iranians will know we were talking to
Skywalker. We just gave ourselves away to the bad guys.”
     
    Aboard the Iranian aircraft
carrier Khomeini
     
                 “Message
from Patrol Helicopter Three,” General Badi reported to Commanding Admiral
Tufayli. “The crew reports non-directional microwave signals emanating from the
salvage ship. They report the signals are identical to the signals transmitted
by the unidentified aircraft.”
                 “Excellent!
We have them! ” Admiral Tufayli shouted. “And that unidentified aircraft
definitely constituted a hostile aircraft overflying my fleet without proper
identification or communications. That is an act of war, and I am permitted to
defend my men and vessels by any means at my command. General Badi, what
anti-ship strike aircraft do we have ready at this time?”
                 “One
fighter is airborne over checkpoint four, carrying two AS- 18 radar-guided
missiles and two AA-10 air-to-air missiles,” the air operations officer
reported. “It is scheduled to return to base in eleven minutes. Its replacement
will be ready for launch in five minutes.”
                 The
patrol point for that fighter was only five kilometers east of the American
warship—perfect! “Divert the fighter over checkpoint four, issue vector
instructions to that American spy ship,” Tufayli ordered. “As soon as the
replacement fighter comes up on deck, launch it as a second strike and air
cover; if the spy ship is still afloat, have the second fighter divert as well.
We must attempt to keep that vessel out of Omani waters until we can reach it
with a boarding party. Divert the destroyer Medina and Pasdaran Boghammar patrol boats to the
spy ships location to capture and detain any survivors and to