Esther's Sling (48 page)

“Splash one. Splash one. Turning to Kilo.” His voice was calm, the years of training paying off.

By the time the attack aircraft of the IAF were passing over Point Delta – the airspace above the Dehloran radar site – Fordow and Natanz were in already in ruins. Esther’s Sling had worked as Amit Margolis had envisioned it years before. But three pilots who had each been personally recruited by Margolis were now dead.

Now Block G turned to the conventional firepower of the Israeli Air Force. In the lead through Point Delta were the F-16 and F-15 aircraft operating in the SEAD configuration. The planes split into three main groups, one heading north toward the key targets in and around Arak and Tehran, one heading straight in for targets in and around Isfahan and the other turning toward the south for military targets betwee
n Isfahan and the Persian Gulf.

Inside the Iranian air defense network, software code written by programmers of Unit 8200 was busy issuing commands that were certainly not authorized. The software sought out the computer chips inside the command computers of the 29 Iranian Tor M-1E missile batteries that were the primary concern of the Olympus planners. The integrated circuit chips were receptive to the command – they were the same chips that Amit Margolis had exchanged in a hotel room next to the Shanghai Airport years earlier. The long code word –
a series of digits and letters – activated an embedded command that caused the mobile target acquisition radars of each battery to broadcast a constant signal at 4.85 gigahertz. Nothing inside the radar control vehicles alerted the operators to the broadcast.

As planes reached designated spots that were an average range of forty miles from the primary targets of the IAF, SEAD aircraft launched AGM-88D HARM anti-radar missiles. In addition to their standard search protocols, each missile was programmed to find the 4.85 gigahertz signal being broadcast by the Tor M-1 batteries and home in on it. The radars that controlled the Tor batteries were among the first targets destroyed by the wave of Israeli
aircraft now flying over Iran.

Behind the SEAD aircraft, fifty-two F-16I and twenty-four F-15I fighter-bombers followed. These aircraft had all refueled over the Saudi desert before forming in echelon for the entry into Iran through Point Delta. The leading F-15I was flown by Gadget, who, along with four other F-15Is, six F-16Is and four F-15Cs, had the longest to fly to strike their target this night. The group of fifteen warplanes were headed for the military complex known at Parchin that was about 24 miles southeast of downtown Tehran. Parchin was the center of Iranian research and development of both nuclear reaction initiators and high explos
ive lens for implosion weapons.

For the first part of the flight, Gadget had little to do other than fly his proscribed route, which took his aircraft through known radar gaps and around air defense nodes such as Natanz and Isfahan. But in the rear seat, Pacer was busy enough to be sweating inside his flight suit. The Electronic Warfare Officer was monitoring all of the electronic equipment on board the F-15I that sniffed the airwaves for threats. All of the pilots and EWOs on this mission had been briefed about the viruses inserted into the Iranian defense network and the expected impact. If all went according to plan, the potent Iranian network would be severely degraded. However, everyone knew that operations as large as Block G rarely went according to plan. So Pacer never lifted his eyes off of the two key flat panel displays that summarized what the instruments on the plane were detecting. They had 33 minutes of flying from Point Delta until they could start their initial
attack run, along with two other F-15Is, against three tunnel entrances in the hills just to the northwest of the Jajrud River valley that ran through the middle of Parchin.

As they flew over Iran, Pacer picked up radar frequencies being emitted from all
directions surrounding the plane. Most of the signals were weak, indicating that the source was off in the distance – too far away to pose a threat to his plane. The signals would come alive for ten to twenty seconds and then go silent, only to be replaced by signals generated by different radar transmitters. This was the networked search pattern that had been developed around the world as a defensive measure against the type of sophisticated anti-radar missiles now being used by the IAF.

In the distance, Gadget could see the tracers of anti-aircraft artillery – most being the 23 millimeter rounds of dozens of ZU-23 gun emplacements – arcing through the dark sky.
The Iranian air defenses were no longer sleeping. Pacer noticed that the number of radar emissions he was picking up seemed to be declining as they progressed. He was not sure if this was because they were moving away from the big defense nodes at Arak, Natanz and Isfahan or if radar transmitters were being destroyed by IAF action.

What Pacer
didn’t know was that the Block protocol now inside the Iranian air defense network was effectively neutering the ability of Iran’s network of radars to do their job. Radars located in the northern defense sector – those along the coast line north of Tehran and along the borders of Azerbaijan – were left intact and operating normally. Those radars were sending information about aircraft attacking from the Caspian Sea to their operators. But the radars operating in the central and southern defense sectors – the radars protecting the heart of the Iranian nuclear program – had been compromised. These radars were now programmed to ignore any target that was emitting a specific code, and every IAF warplane now over Iran was emitting that coded signal. Worse, blips were showing up on the screens of the Iranian operators that showed aircraft flying from north to south. These were manufactured blips – simply lines of software code – that resulted in surface to air missiles shooting at ghost images and fighters being vectored toward Tehran and the airspace north of the city.

Around the center part of the nation, IAF aircraft struck electrical substations and major power lines. The lights were going out in central Iran.

But there were many Iranian officers who didn’t believe the information being fed to them. They maintained their discipline and kept their defense assets close to home, avoiding the temptation to send fighters to the north. The smarter officers powered up mobile radar units and ordered their operators not to connect to the central defense network. Even though the Tor radar units had been destroyed, the major defense points had other mobile radar units, perhaps not as sophisticated as the Tor units, but still powerful enough to locate and track aircraft. These units allowed smart officers to order “snapshots,” or surface to air missile launches toward an area of the sky where they had enough reason to believe that an enemy plane was passing through. This was the attack they had been preparing for over many years and there was no point in husbanding available missiles.

Gadget and Pacer continued on. In the distance they could occasionally see the track of a surface to air missile headed skyward. These were far away, but every missile track headed skyward still caused Gadget’s heart rate to elevate slightly. About forty kilometers away from the target, the planes broke radio silence and began to coordinate their approaches.
Flying ahead of Gadget’s plane, the four F-15Cs each fired a single AGM-88E HARM missile and dropped a single Spice 1000 flying bomb. The Spice bombs had fixed targets pre-programmed, which included two communication and command nodes, the local electrical sub-station and an IRGC command bunker. The model E HARMs, the most advanced version of the missile, each began a search pattern, their internal computers set up with a hierarchy of targets. One missile homed in on the target acquisition radar of a Tor M-1 that was broadcasting at 4.85 gigahertz. The four F-15Cs then turned away from the target area to assume a Combat Air Patrol pattern, their recently upgraded APG-63v3 AESA radars taking turns searching for enemy aircraft.

Along with two other F-15Is, Gadget maneuvered to set himself up for his assigned bomb run on one of the three north-facing tunnel doors. His Tunnel Defeat system was now
communicating with the two other F-15I Ra’ams. Pacer armed the first of two BLU-121B bombs underneath the fuselage. Over the Parchin site, “golden BBs” crisscrossed the valley. Gadget swallowed, using all his willpower to concentrate on the mission at hand.
I will not fail now. Not now
. The countless training missions were for this moment. The instinct to flee in the face of danger never disappears, but it can be made to assume a subservient role, the mind focusing on known tasks instead of unknown danger.

The approach was perfect and Gadget
’s ordnance released on the fourth and final tone he heard in his ear. The bomb flew horizontally through the concrete and steel blast door protecting the tunnel and penetrated 52 meters into the tunnel when it detonated at the same moment as two other BLU-121Bs that had been delivered into the other two tunnel entrances. The three blast waves converged to destroy an underground chamber that contained a factory for building high-explosive lenses – the lenses that are the key to imploding nuclear weapons.

Gadget pulled his nose around to the left and applied power to egress from the tunnel attack. Around him, F-16I
Sufas were delivering their ordnance, including several Delilah missiles, on the facilities making up the Parchin base. Gadget looked to his right. He finally saw what he was expecting: the blinking infrared beacon of another F-15I, one of his partners in the tunnel attack. That plane formed up on his wing. The third F-15I that had just attacked the tunnel climbed and turned away from Parchin. Its role at this target was over and it now had two Spice 2000 bombs – the larger cousins of the Spice 1000 – left to send on their way toward the Chinese-occupied cyber warfare center at Tehran University. One of the F-15Cs joined up with that Ra’am to accompany it as it dropped its two bombs and then headed home.

Gadget and his new wingman flew in a
wide circle and came back around to line up on the Jajrud River heading due north. Twelve kilometers in front of them was the face of the Mamlo Dam. The Mamlo was a massive earthen dam across the Jajrud that formed a large lake.

The Mamlo was one of the large number of dams in Iran that collectively generate about five percent of the electrical power consumed by the country. This particular dam provided all of the electricity used by the researchers at Parchin and for that reason it had made the target list for Block G. Both Gadget and his wingman had a single BLU-121B left hanging beneath their planes. This would not be a difficult run, the main skill being that the backseat EWO in each plane needed to illuminate the right spot on the dam’s face with their targeting laser. With that accomplished, each of the two thermobaric bombs would detonate at the precise spot inside the dam that physicists and engineers had calculated
would cause catastrophic failure.

In front of the two F-15Is, a blanket of tracer fire lit the sky. This was heavier than Gadget faced earlier when his tunnel entrance target was on the edge of the worst fire. Now he had to fly through the teeth of it. He hoped to see explosions from Israeli
weapons hit at the points of the tracer fire. His hopes were not met.

The two planes
increased their speed to 545 knots and separated from each other about a hundred meters. Their run to the dam would be straight and would only take eleven seconds to pass through the last three kilometers of valley where the anti-aircraft fire was heaviest. The Tunnel Defeat computers on the two planes synched up as they began the final approach. The first of four tones sounded in Gadget’s ear as the plane flew through the forest of tracer rounds.

Gadget felt the plane shudder as he released the second and final BLU-121B carried from Israel. The shudder felt different than every other time Gadget had released one of the big 2,000 pound bombs. His insides registered the difference before his
brain could analyze the change.

Gadget pulled his joystick up and to the left as his bomb flew true to its target. The plane that always moved as an extension of Gadget’s desires banked left but otherwise didn’t respond. In one of the random and capricious acts of war that separates survival from death, three rounds from a ZU-23 that had been fired off with nothing more than a hope and prayer, had hit the tail of Gadget’s F-15I. One round had passed through the twin tails without detonating. But the other
two rounds had destroyed the servo-cylinders that controlled the pitch angle of the two rear horizontal stabilators on the F-15I. Without the hydraulic cylinders, there was no longer any way for the angle of the stabilators to be changed – and without the stabilators, Gadget could not control the pitch, or angle, of the nose of his plane.

In the rear seat, Pacer watched his infrared targeting screen, making sure that his laser was locked onto the spot he wanted the bomb to hit. His trust in his partner’s flying ability was complete and he had no feeling that anything was wrong with the plane. In the front seat, Gadget fought the onset of panic. The large earthworks of the Mamlo Dam was directly in front of the plane, which was flying at 627 miles per hour
.

Gadget had only
a couple of seconds to react. His nose would not turn upward even as he banked to the left. He increased his bank and pushed in the rudder pedal with his right foot, trying to get his nose pointed upward to climb over the dam by using his tail rudders.

The nose responded by turning to the right – which was toward the sky. But it was not enough. With a fraction of a second left, Gadget’s mind conceded that his plane w
ould not clear the earthen dam.