Big Blue Sky: TEN

John “Mac” McCallister was a small but solid man, with the broad shoulders and physique of a competive swimmer rather than a soldier with thirty-four years in the Special Forces. His face was carved as much by a lifetime at war as by the perspective that ultimately peace was the goal, and that the purpose of men like John McCallister was to become obsolete in the world. A round pair of reading spectacles, which he found himself relying upon more and more, gave him a studious appearance. The father of four girls, McCallister had been married to the same fiery and tirelessly faithful Israeli woman he fallen in love with while on tour in Lebanon back in Eighty-four. A study in contrasts, McCallister had a ready smile, endless patience, disarming gentleness and a penchant for excruciating detail. At a glance one might easily mistake him for a Little League Coach or Driver’s Ed teacher than man who had fought and killed men in battle.
He was dressed in his desert cammies and windbreaker as he stepped through the hatch into the CATCC. Chief Green offered a quick salute that McCallister returned naturally.

“What do ya got, Chief?” He asked.

“Well, sir,” Green began, “One of the ACs picked up a distress signal on the ground inside Iran. We’ve done everything we can to confirm that possibility. As you can see the satellite is inconclusive. There is no wreckage and we have no known missing aircraft; ours or allied. Chief Murphy in the CDC is compiling a threat assessment for that region of the country.”

“Thorough, Chief.”

“Aye, sir.”

McCallister went through the reports as carefully as he could. If indeed a pilot was down, and perhaps hurt, time was certainly of the essence. The Iranian response so far was virtually non-existent, which seemed to exclude a shoot down. The CDC assessment confirmed that several patrols were in the area. Their casual, even stoic radio traffic offered a picture that they had no clue what they were looking for. That would change with the coming daylight. For the moment, if in fact a flyer was down, McCallister and his team had a window of opportunity, one that he wasn’t about to squander.

“Great work, Chief,” he said.

“Just thinking how I would feel if I was down there,” said Green.

“Good man,” McCallister replied.

The captain and Admiral were awakened. With the commander of the air wing all four men began the grim discussions around which history would change forever. Each of them knew exactly how unforgiving history could be. Foremost was the possibility that it was all a trick by the Iranians, but the pathetic level of their response so far made that unlikely. As blustery and obnoxious as the Iranian military could be, flexing their muscles and acting as intimidating as they could get away with, their military leaders had no interest in provoking a war with an American Carrier Group. For McCallister that left only one option, which he argued fully for.

“My team can get in and out of their in forty minutes,” he told the group. “As long as I know you boys got my back.”

“Threat assessment?” asked Admiral Samuel Danzig. He was a shrewd and calculating man. As an Ensign he had started his career in Vietnam, shoving helicopters overboard to make room for others in the desperate withdrawal from Saigon in Seventy-five. He leaned back in his chair, rubbing his square jaw. He would order that friendlies show ultimate restraint, even if fired upon by the Iranians. If the situation became untenable then he wasn’t willing to trade a series of escalating shots with the enemy. If his forces returned fire Danzig expected it to be concerted and strong enough to persuade the enemy they risked annihilation.
The CDC had set up the assessment as a Power point presentation.

McCallister reached across to the mouse on the table and clicked on the computer icon. A map of Iran popped up on the flat screen monitor at the end of the room Major military airfields and installations popped up all around the country. The Iranian navy was concentrated at Bandar Abbass to the south where Chinese-made missile boats, sporting ship-killer missiles, were docked. All along the coast the Iranians had deployed speed boats capable of slipping inside the carrier Group's defenses to ram ships head on. The coastline and islands bristled with anti-ship and anti-aircraft batteries. Further inland, medium and long range Shahab missiles and short range Fateh missiles could inflict terrible damage. The target area was bracketed by significant Iranian airbases at the coastal city of Bushehr to the north and Bandar Abbass to the south.

“The enemy could put a significant threat force into the air quickly from both locations,” said McCallister. “No surprise they are on a constant state of high state of readiness. To the south Bandar Abbass has two runways, Lamerd to the west with a single runway, and on Kish Island. I think even if they saw us coming I could get in and out before they could deploy.”

“Any word on military activity on their side?” asked the admiral. “If they are moving heavily I think this is a done deal.”

“Reports of a few patrols,” the CDC Commander cleared her throat. “Seems to be local cops and a few local Artesh, regular army, units.”

“Mac, said Danzig, “you’d better be damn sure. Those boys are on a hair trigger. You’ll be all alone for the better part of thirty minutes once you cross into their airspace.”

“The only other option is to abandon that flyer.”

“If there is in fact a flyer,” offered the Captain, a tall gray-haired Texan. “I’m still not convinced, and I’m not sure we are in the best position if this goes south and we end up in a shooting war.”

The fact of the matter was, the Gulf was a small place, and a carrier Group was like a bear conspicuous in a child’s pool. Given predictions of the Iranian order of battle, if it came to a fight they would have one chance to make the Americans pay. No doubt they’d scuttle tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, trapping the Group and then pummel the fleet with everything in their arsenal.

“Well,” McCallister put up the grainy image of what appeared to be a body curled beneath a bush, “we either go in and see for ourselves or wait for Ahmadinejad to parade him on al-Jezeera.”

The meeting was quick but thorough. Regardless of the decision to go or not to go, McCallister’s team was already gearing up, checking ammo and equipment, while the flight crews went over routes and scrutinized in greater detail any specific possible threats they might encounter along the way. Prayers for peace are better rendered through preparations for war.