Benjamin Adnam.”
2
September 12, 2004.
T HEY WERE 9,000 FEET ABOVE THE DESERT FLOOR, flying low in the thicker air. The big Iranian Navy transport aircraft, a C130 Hercules transporter, was making 240 knots through crystalline skies. Down below, along the northern edges of the Dasht-e Lut , the Great Sandy Desert, temperatures hovered around 114 degrees. The Air Force colonel at the controls of the Hercules made a course adjustment to the south as they inched their way over the old city of Yazd, which has been trading silk and textiles, in the middle of Iran’s vast, broiling wilderness, for 1,000 years.
“Can you imagine living in a place like that, Commander?” muttered Rear Admiral Mohammed Badr, the Iranian Navy’s most senior submarine expert, as he stared down at the desert city, all alone in thousands of miles of sand.
“Only in the line of duty, sir,” replied Benjamin Adnam, elegant in his new Iranian uniform with the three gold stripes on the sleeve.
The Iranian admiral smiled. “Where’s your family from, Ben?”
“Oh, we’ve lived in Tikrit for generations.”
“Where exactly is it?” asked Admiral Badr. “Close to Baghdad?”
“Well, it’s also on the Tigris, about 110 miles upstream, on the edge of the central plains. You start heading west from Tikrit, you will encounter precisely nothing for 150 miles, all the way to the Syrian border.”
“Sounds like Yazd.”
“Not that bad, sir. To the south, heading for Baghdad, it can be quite busy. We’re only 34 miles from Samarra…and of course you know Saddam Hussein’s hometown was Tikrit. His rise to power gave the town a new life and new prosperity…half his cabinet came from there. My father says the old rural feel of the place vanished once it became known as a cradle of government power.”
“Did you spend much time there as a boy?”
“No…not really…I went away to school in England, and when I returned I was drafted into the Navy…the Israeli Navy actually.”
“The Israeli Navy?” exclaimed Admiral Badr. “How did you manage that?”
“Oh, there was a group of us, the chosen Iraqi youth, fanatical Fundamentalists, which I was. When everyone thought I was sixteen, I was really eighteen. We were all placed with families, operating under deep cover in different countries—I was sent to Israel and ordered to join the Navy. But everything was arranged for me. I was spying for Iraq for years.”
“You were a submariner, weren’t you, Ben?”
“Yes, for several years I was. Trained in the Royal Navy, in Scotland, after Israel bought a diesel-electric boat from the Brits.”
“Think they’d train a few of our men if we bought a submarine from them?”
“Probably not. You guys are generally regarded as dangerous outlaws in the world community.”
“And soon we show them how dangerous, eh Ben?”
“Yes. Except they’ll think it’s Iraq.”
Both men laughed. They were the only passengers in the big, noisy military aircraft, as it thundered on to Bandar Abbas. But such was the deadly nature of their business, they still spoke in the guarded tones of strangers, despite having worked closely together in Tehran for more than three weeks. The two officers were already kindred spirits, mainly because of Ben Adnam’s certainty that it had been the U.S.A. that destroyed the three Iranian submarines.
Admiral Badr had been the project manager for the entire Kilo-Class program in 2002. He had been at his home in the Bandar Abbas dockyard when the American hit squad had struck, smashing all three of the Russian-built submarines onto the bottom of the harbor. For Admiral Badr it represented ten years of work in ruins. He was fortunate not to have been dismissed from the Navy, but the Ayatollahs liked the big, bespectacled submariner from the south-coast port of Bushehr, and he was held in great respect by his fellow admirals. No one in Iran knew more about submarines than Mohammed Badr. At least, not before Commander
2
September 12, 2004.
T HEY WERE 9,000 FEET ABOVE THE DESERT FLOOR, flying low in the thicker air. The big Iranian Navy transport aircraft, a C130 Hercules transporter, was making 240 knots through crystalline skies. Down below, along the northern edges of the Dasht-e Lut , the Great Sandy Desert, temperatures hovered around 114 degrees. The Air Force colonel at the controls of the Hercules made a course adjustment to the south as they inched their way over the old city of Yazd, which has been trading silk and textiles, in the middle of Iran’s vast, broiling wilderness, for 1,000 years.
“Can you imagine living in a place like that, Commander?” muttered Rear Admiral Mohammed Badr, the Iranian Navy’s most senior submarine expert, as he stared down at the desert city, all alone in thousands of miles of sand.
“Only in the line of duty, sir,” replied Benjamin Adnam, elegant in his new Iranian uniform with the three gold stripes on the sleeve.
The Iranian admiral smiled. “Where’s your family from, Ben?”
“Oh, we’ve lived in Tikrit for generations.”
“Where exactly is it?” asked Admiral Badr. “Close to Baghdad?”
“Well, it’s also on the Tigris, about 110 miles upstream, on the edge of the central plains. You start heading west from Tikrit, you will encounter precisely nothing for 150 miles, all the way to the Syrian border.”
“Sounds like Yazd.”
“Not that bad, sir. To the south, heading for Baghdad, it can be quite busy. We’re only 34 miles from Samarra…and of course you know Saddam Hussein’s hometown was Tikrit. His rise to power gave the town a new life and new prosperity…half his cabinet came from there. My father says the old rural feel of the place vanished once it became known as a cradle of government power.”
“Did you spend much time there as a boy?”
“No…not really…I went away to school in England, and when I returned I was drafted into the Navy…the Israeli Navy actually.”
“The Israeli Navy?” exclaimed Admiral Badr. “How did you manage that?”
“Oh, there was a group of us, the chosen Iraqi youth, fanatical Fundamentalists, which I was. When everyone thought I was sixteen, I was really eighteen. We were all placed with families, operating under deep cover in different countries—I was sent to Israel and ordered to join the Navy. But everything was arranged for me. I was spying for Iraq for years.”
“You were a submariner, weren’t you, Ben?”
“Yes, for several years I was. Trained in the Royal Navy, in Scotland, after Israel bought a diesel-electric boat from the Brits.”
“Think they’d train a few of our men if we bought a submarine from them?”
“Probably not. You guys are generally regarded as dangerous outlaws in the world community.”
“And soon we show them how dangerous, eh Ben?”
“Yes. Except they’ll think it’s Iraq.”
Both men laughed. They were the only passengers in the big, noisy military aircraft, as it thundered on to Bandar Abbas. But such was the deadly nature of their business, they still spoke in the guarded tones of strangers, despite having worked closely together in Tehran for more than three weeks. The two officers were already kindred spirits, mainly because of Ben Adnam’s certainty that it had been the U.S.A. that destroyed the three Iranian submarines.
Admiral Badr had been the project manager for the entire Kilo-Class program in 2002. He had been at his home in the Bandar Abbas dockyard when the American hit squad had struck, smashing all three of the Russian-built submarines onto the bottom of the harbor. For Admiral Badr it represented ten years of work in ruins. He was fortunate not to have been dismissed from the Navy, but the Ayatollahs liked the big, bespectacled submariner from the south-coast port of Bushehr, and he was held in great respect by his fellow admirals. No one in Iran knew more about submarines than Mohammed Badr. At least, not before Commander
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