The Last Israelis - an Apocalyptic, Military Thriller about an Israeli Submarine and a Nuclear Iran (8 page)

Yisrael walked quickly and well ahead of Daniel, to avoid any more awkwardness with him. At one point, he was tempted to turn around to see if Daniel was somehow communicating with Netta – with a wave, a whisper, a facial expression – but he preferred not to know about such things moments before boarding a submarine under Daniel’s command. Indeed, Yisrael feared that the two of them might never even make it into the Dolphin if he saw such things. So instead, he picked up the pace and soon was running as fast as he could towards the submarine, without looking back.

When Yisrael reached the submarine, he saw that Rafi had also just arrived at the foot of the boarding ladder and was holding an envelope in his hand. The admiral extended his other hand and Yisrael reflexively shook it, even though his muddled mind could not have been more removed from the interaction. Fortunately, nothing more was required of him at that moment.

“Good luck, Yisrael.”

Yisrael nodded deferentially and ascended the ladder.

Two minutes later, Daniel arrived at the foot of the boarding ladder. Rafi handed him the envelope. “You can open it once you’re aboard the submarine, but think carefully about the best time to share it with the crew.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Good luck, Daniel.”

“Thank you, Sir.”

PART II: The Voyage at Sea

Behold there is our God whom we worship; He can save us. From the burning, fiery furnace and from your hands, O king, He will save us. And if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we will not worship your god, neither will we prostrate ourselves to the golden image that you have set up.

— Daniel 3:17-18

Chapter 11: Mission Instructions

More than ever before in his naval career, Daniel felt the oppressive weight of his command bearing down on him, like a collection of large rocks that had to be balanced on his shoulders and arms, with the gravest of consequences should any stone fall to the ground. There was the unresolved tension, possibly even hostility, involving his second-in-command, lurking below the surface, waiting to emerge at some inopportune moment. There was the dispiriting cause behind the mission he had been given, followed by the dramatic breaking news about Iran – none of which had yet been revealed to the crew, and all of which he had just discovered after opening the top secret envelope handed to him by Rafi. And there was his uneasy gut, inclined to piece everything together in ways that made his foreboding worse.

Daniel was still digesting all of the information that Rafi had just divulged to him, and trying to analyze the overall strategic picture it painted, while deciding how and when to inform the rest of the crew about the news. Daniel found that rereading momentous information sometimes transformed it into a more manageable object of study, thereby creating a certain distance from the potentially dire ramifications at hand. So he decided to read Rafi’s message again.

****

“Due to the extreme sensitivity of this information, and to eliminate the possibility of leaks during the picnic, headquarters decided to disclose the enclosed intelligence update and mission instructions only after all guests had left the premises and the Dolphin’s crew had boarded the submarine. You must decide how and when to inform the crew of these matters.

First, the intelligence updates as of March 17:

I. The Leviathan submarine from our fleet has encountered two critical problems:

1) On March 15
at 1836 hours, while approaching the Strait of Hormuz, the crew began showing signs of food poisoning. By the next day at 0948 hours (at position 26.94"N, 56.61"E), every crewmember was seriously sick and needed to come home for proper recovery.

2) After headquarters ordered the captain to bring the Leviathan back to port, the submarine – being operated by a debilitated crew – was apparently detected by an Iranian Alvand class frigate and hit with depth charges at around 1115 hours on March 16. The crew managed to distance the submarine from the depth charges enough to avoid serious casualties but the Leviathan’s main sonar was seriously damaged. The Leviathan is on its way back to the port for repairs, traveling at 3-5 knots. Last contact was in the Persian Gulf at 26.21"N, 54.04"E.

II. Iran has nuclear weapons. One hour ago, Iran declared the following to the international media: ‘Yesterday the Islamic Republic of Iran finished moving all parts of its cherished nuclear program to a fortified location that is invulnerable to any attack from the Zionist entity. Soon, God-willing, we shall complete our technological progress. And today we announce that we have stopped attacks not just from the Little Satan, but also from the Big Satan. Even the United States will not dare to attack our technological jewels now that we have nuclear missiles ready for use. Let all of the Western powers know that they are no longer welcome in the Middle East.’

IDF intelligence has known for some time that Iran might purchase ready-to-use nuclear warheads from Pakistan, and the Mossad has independent sources confirming that Iran did indeed acquire a small nuclear arsenal from Pakistan. Now that Iran has publicly announced that it holds nuclear weapons, a variety of strategic, military, and geopolitical consequences are expected.

Second, your mission instructions: sail a course towards the Strait of Hormuz via the Suez Canal and replace the position of the damaged Leviathan. Ensure top readiness with weapons systems. Note that we have already made all necessary payments to the Suez Canal Authority, including all penalties for failing to give them proper advance notice of crossing.”

****

Daniel thought about the dramatic development of Iran now holding nuclear weapons. The captain knew from intelligence summaries and international media reports that the Islamic Republic had a long-standing nuclear relationship with Pakistan, despite the fact that Pakistan was a majority Sunni-Muslim country while Iran was a majority Shiite-Muslim state.

Media reports in 2010 discussed documents obtained by Simon Henderson, a research fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy; the documents established that Iran’s nuclear program was aimed at developing atomic weapons and that Pakistan had been instrumental to Iran’s efforts. The top-secret details were provided by the scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, a Pakistani scientist regarded as the father of the country’s nuclear program, while he was under house arrest between 2005 and 2009. Pakistani authorities had arrested Khan for offering to sell nuclear knowhow to the highest bidder. Khan eventually disclosed to Pakistani intelligence a plethora of details about his sale of nuclear secrets to Iran and Libya. The summary of the Khan interrogation by Pakistan’s intelligence services said that General Mirza Aslam Beg, a former army chief of staff and one of Pakistan’s most influential figures, favored helping Iran with its nuclear ambitions.

According to Khan’s account, Admiral Ali Shamkhani, a former senior commander in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and minister of defense from 1997 until 2005, arrived in Pakistan in the late 1980s. Khan claimed that Shamkhani, who came with an entourage of Iranian officials, offered $10 billion in exchange for ready-made atomic bombs. Pakistan apparently refused Iran’s offer but Khan later traveled to the Middle East, where he sold his services as a private nuclear consultant. Khan would go on to provide Iran with a variety of nuclear parts, blueprints for the centrifuges at its nuclear plant in Natanz, and a secret worldwide list of nuclear component suppliers.

Khan was later painted as a rogue scientist responsible for illicit proliferation activities, but subsequent reports alleged that his activities may have been ordered and supervised by the Pakistani government and/or military. Pakistan’s President at the time, Parvez Musharraf, pardoned Khan the day after the scientist confessed on national television that he had sold nuclear technology to Libya, North Korea, and Iran.

Beyond historical ties to Iran’s nuclear program, Pakistan had other reasons to sell its nuclear weapons to Iran. As a nearly bankrupt, quasi-failed state, Pakistan desperately needed cash. While Saudi Arabia, the de facto leader of the Sunni-Muslim world, was a more natural customer for Sunni Pakistan’s off-the-shelf nuclear arms, selling to Iran would quickly prompt a purchase order at least as large from Iran’s much richer neighbor and strategic rival. By selling to both sides of the Saudi-Iranian conflict, cash-strapped Pakistan could substantially boost revenues for its state coffers.

Besides Pakistan’s economic incentive to sell atomic bombs to Iran, there were political reasons as well, relating to the South Asian country’s fast-deteriorating relations with the United States. After the September 11 attacks in 2001, Pakistan became a key ally in the U.S. war on terror, receiving billions of dollars in economic and military aid – assistance that would have made a Pakistani nuclear arms sale to Iran unthinkable. By 2008, however, cracks in the alliance began to emerge. The deadly attacks by U.S. drones on Pakistani territory substantially strained bilateral relations as the U.S. increased its reliance on this highly effective but controversial tactic. Further complicating relations, the two countries fought a series of lethal, military skirmishes along the porous international border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Against this backdrop of escalating tensions, the U.S. killing of Osama Bin Laden in 2011 on Pakistani soil brought the countries’ relations to a new nadir.

As the rift between Pakistan and the United States deepened, Iran’s readiness to pay Pakistan even more money for ready-made nuclear warheads grew. Iran’s increased interest could be explained at least in part because the U.S. had made significant advances in the development of its Massive Ordnance Penetrator. The 30,000-pound, earth-penetrating bomb could potentially destroy even Iran’s massively fortified Fordo facility, buried under hundreds of feet of rock,
where Iran might try to enrich enough uranium to create its own nuclear weapon. The Islamic Republic’s best answer to an American elimination of Iran’s “zone of immunity” was a traditional nuclear deterrent in the form of ready-to-use nuclear warheads purchased from Pakistan.

Iran’s advanced missile development program had already solved the problem of how to deliver a nuclear warhead. In May 2009, Iran announced that it had successfully tested a Sejjili-2 missile, which is a two-stage, primarily solid-propellant surface-to-surface missile. The U.S. Defense Secretary at the time, Robert Gates, confirmed the test in Congressional testimony that same month. With a range of up to 1,500 miles, the Sejjili-2 missile enabled Iran to strike every U.S. military base in the Middle East and in much of Europe. In late 2011, Iran had also begun working on a missile with a range of 6,000 miles, capable of targeting the continental United States. Even without sophisticated missile systems, Iran could always resort to more primitive delivery methods. Use of a crude oil tanker or cargo container could still bring a devastating nuclear detonation to a major U.S. city, killing over half a million people and causing over $1 trillion of damage. Thus, it made a lot of sense that Iran would purchase the only part of its overall strategy that was still missing: the nuclear warheads.

Piecing together the explanation for Pakistan’s sale of nuclear weapons to Iran made the threat no less dire, but Daniel tried to view the development as positively as possible: “The Iranians bought nuclear warheads probably to deter an attack from the U.S. and not because they plan to use them offensively against Israel,” he reasoned. The problem was that nobody knew exactly how many such warheads Iran had bought; the more they had purchased, the less Daniel could be sure that they were all intended purely for defensive purposes. Thus, his attempts at optimism ultimately failed.

The captain would need to decide how and when to share all of the disturbing information from headquarters. The hardest detail to disclose to the crew was their target destination because they would immediately realize that – after just finishing ten days at sea with merely a four-hour shore leave – they now had at least six weeks on the submarine awaiting them. The lengthy absence from home ahead might seem even more palpable after the frustratingly short reunion with loved ones that had just finished. Thus, Daniel initially thought that it might be best to announce that they were going to the Gulf of Aden, which would mean only about a month at sea, and then later ease them into the idea of a longer mission. But then he realized that disclosing the dramatic news about Iran’s declared nuclear arsenal should increase morale enough to compensate for any bad news. Still, sensing how much so many dramatic updates could potentially distract the crew, Daniel preferred to wait until the Dolphin’s remaining routine tests and maintenance work had been performed, all systems had been checked, and they had embarked.

At 1835 hours, Daniel surveyed the 18 plasma screens that displayed everything a submarine commander needs to know – from fuel and fresh water quantities to sonar readings and weapons systems status. He walked past the Dolphin’s two periscopes, each integrated with night-vision and thermal imaging and wired so that anything viewable through the periscope could be relayed to any of the 18 large screens in the combat information center.

The captain began conducting final inspections with the officer of each department, in order to remain on schedule for a departure at 1900 hours. He walked around the upper deck from forward to aft, reviewing all areas of the combat information and technical control centers.

“Status report?” Daniel said, facing the navigation officer.

“GPS, echo sound, and other navigation systems are all green, Sir,” he reported.

“Steering systems?” he asked, turning to the helmsman sitting in the steering station.

“Dive planes, rudder control, hydroplanes, gyrocompass, and stick wheel are all green, Sir.”

“Passive sonar systems?” he asked, looking at Ambesah.

“Low frequency, passive ranging, intercept, and cylindrical array sonar systems are all green, Sir. All active sonar green as well, Sir.”

“Communication systems?”

“All radio transmitters and receivers, communication buoys, pumps and related systems, intercom, self-noise monitoring, and alarm system, all green, Sir,” Ambesah said.