An excerpt from “Advance to Contact: 1980”
A US Navy Listening Post tries to Solve a mysterious fuel shipment.
This story explains what Fred Poole was doing in between Iran and Nicaragua
March 9th, 1980
TUSLOG Detachment 28
Sinop, Turkey
True to his word, Fred Poole had spent another week in the hospital at Incirlik. By that time he could get around on crutches and was in a rush to get back to work. He’d taken the train from Adana to Samsun and then caught a bus to the sleepy hamlet of Sinop. Prior to his being sent to Iran to support Operation Eagle Claw, he had been working with the on-site US intelligence assets to see if they could unravel the mysterious transfer of aviation fuel from Baku, Azerbaijan, to the town of Kaspiysk on the Russian coast of the Caspian Sea.
Sinop was a Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) collection site that NATO used to keep an ear on the Soviet activity in the region. In order to keep the Soviet’s guessing and to keep the Turkish government content, “The United States Logistic Group” (TUSLOG) was first created in the mid-1950s. This was to provide a cover for the intelligence operations integral to preventing Soviet aggression against Turkey in the wake of World War II. Since that time the Soviet Air Force had stationed a decent-sized force in the sections of the Soviet Union along the coast of the Caspian and Black seas. Besides these air force assets, there was a Naval fleet headquartered in Sevastopol, Ukraine made up of a couple of cruisers and destroyers with supporting frigates.
This Naval force was the reason Petty Officer 3rd Class Rhonda Keller was sitting at a terminal wearing an enormous set of headphones. At the moment, she wasn’t actually listening TO anything. She was listening FOR something. More to the point, she was listening FOR anything. Anything other than the High Frequency (HF) static that had been assaulting her ears for the past six hours.
As a Cryptologic Technician Interpretive (CTI), her job was to listen for Soviet voice transmissions across the airwaves, and if detected, translate that activity to create actionable intelligence. The Navy had spent eighteen months, and countless dollars training her in the Russian language and the operation of advanced signals collection equipment. During that training the mission sure sounded a lot more exciting than it did tonight, on the Mid-Watch from 2200 to 0600. During this period there was absolutely nothing going on. She’d fallen into a zone of “HF hypnosis,” a point where the droning noise of the airwaves would send you into a state somewhere between waking and sleep. If there were a radio wave version of “the twilight zone” this would be it.
Seaman Larry Webb rescued her when he came into the room with “dinner.”
“Hey Boss, Chow’s here,” said Seaman Webb.
“What’s it look like tonight?” asked Keller.
“A box of nasties,” replied Webb. “It’s a sandwich made of some kind of sliced lunch meat loaf… maybe turkey? It could be ham, I’m really not sure. There’s some cheese on there. Plus a bag of chips, and some kind of canned fruit cocktail.”
“Don’t be so negative Webb, remember: ‘It’s not just a job, it’s an adventure,” replied Keller, quoting the Navy’s latest recruiting pitch.
“These sandwiches are an adventure all right,” said Webb. “Hunter bit into something crunchy in his. I thought he would puke. Hell, I think I’m going to puke just thinking about it.”
“Before you do that, run over and grab me a coke would you?” asked Keller, holding out a handful of quarters. “And grab one for yourself.”
As Webb turned and walked out of the room, he passed Poole coming in. Fred loved the Mid watch. It was the best time for him to get into the weeds in the data and the intercepts. He didn’t need access to any real-time data. He didn’t need any of the senior intelligence officers and NCOs, and just as important, he didn’t need to get in anyone’s way while they did their jobs. No, all Poole needed was access to the information and a quiet place to analyze it. The operations floor during the mid-watch provided him with everything he needed.
“Evenin’, Mr. Poole,” said Keller as he came into her view.
“Merhaba, Petty Officer Keller,” replied Poole, using the Turkish greeting about as well as any English speaker. During Poole’s time in Sinop, he’d gotten to know the various watch leaders who kept the radios running in the middle of the night. Petty Officer Keller wasn’t unique in the Intelligence community, but she was something of a rarity. Until the late 1960s, women could not make up over two percent of the total armed forces, and even those who served could not attain the highest ranks within the service organizations. In fact, for the officer corps, the first class of female cadets and midshipmen were about to graduate from the service academies this spring. Things were moving in the right direction for women in the service, yet CTI3 Keller was still an anomaly on the ops floor.
As Poole made his way into the room, she noticed that something was off.
“What’s with the limp?” she asked.
“That information is available on a need to know basis, and you don’t,” quipped Poole. It was a traditional reply in intel circles and in this case it was as apt as ever. Poole’s presence in Iran hadn’t been reported, and there was no reason for anyone here in signals intelligence to suspect his involvement. Nevertheless, these folks were all trained analysts, and it wouldn’t take too much creative thinking to connect the dots. So he followed up with his cover story.
“Actually, it was a cycling accident in Ankara. I was checking out that new ‘Liberation Park’ and lost control. I ended up hitting a kiosk that was still under construction. I landed on a piece of rebar that punched right… actually, you probably don’t need the details. Suffice it to say, I will not be helping out on the detachment’s soccer team anytime soon.” The Agency had gone so far as to drop a note in a couple of local Ankara newspapers regarding the minor accident. The odds were long that this cover would ever come in handy, but in this business it was always better to err on the side of caution. Besides, it cost next to nothing to slip a local story into the newspapers.
“Damn, that’s rough. And you’re right, I don’t need the details,” replied Keller. Just then Seaman Webb returned with her Coke.
“Hey Webb, go grab Bryant and bring him back here, I need him to cover my position.” Seaman Chris Bryant was the only other Russian translator they had on watch at the time. He and Keller had been taking turns switching between listening to the never-ending static and brushing up on their language skills and such interesting topics as “radio wave propagation and signal amplification.” It was not just a job… It was an adventure. With Poole in the room, she knew that this would be the most interesting part of her week, so she would stick Bryant with the dull task of waiting for the Russian Bear to wake up. It was a jerk move, but fuck it. Rank has its privileges.
Poole had just gotten settled in the compact conference room he’d taken over when Lieutenant Brett Stevenson came walking over. Stevenson was the officer of the watch and the senior officer on the floor. He knew as well as Keller that working on this project would at least be interesting and at most could be a real career builder. It was always helpful to have a spook like Poole on your side when you were climbing the ladder. He knew people who knew people. Stevenson wasn’t sure who exactly, but surely some very important people.
“Need some coffee?” asked Stevenson.
“Sure, that’d be great,” said Poole.
“Hey Webb, go grab some coffee for Mr. Poole and me. I’ll have two creams and sugar and Mr. Poole’ll have…” he looked at Fred.
“Just black,” replied Fred.
“Right away Lieutenant,” said Webb, suddenly very aware of his junior position in the organization.
“Okay, let’s see where we left off…” started Poole, more to himself than Stevenson. He opened a hard-sided attaché case, and removed his notes on the case, as well as some reports that had been sent over via classified courier which he had left in a safe here in the Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF). As he perused the pages on the desk in front of him, Petty Officer Keller knocked at the door.
“It’s open,” called Poole. As it turns out it wasn’t, and while Keller jiggled the handle, Stevenson had to reach over and turn the knob from inside the room. “Sorry about that,” said Poole.
“I hope I’m not intruding, is there anything I can do to help?” asked Keller.
With that brief introduction, the three of them dove into the issue. Poole had received information from a confidential source in Baku that large stores of aviation fuel had been diverted from their normal shipping destinations to Kaspiysk. The asset in question worked at the main transit depot on the outskirts of the massive refinery complex on the South side of the City. From his vantage point, the asset could see thousands of barrels of JP4 which should have been transferred to the shipping terminal, were instead marked for delivery to Kaspiysk. Unfortunately, there was no way of knowing if the fuel was actually moving to Kaspiysk, or whether this was some kind of cover story. Sending fuel to Kaspiysk would be odd, but otherwise unimportant. If the deliveries were meant for forces in Afghanistan on the other hand… That was the working theory that Poole was going with. It was his job now to prove that the Soviets were hiding fuel deliveries to Afghanistan and then uncover why.
Of course, Keller and Stevenson had no idea about any of this. All they knew is that Poole was interested in military transfers of aviation fuel via Aircraft or Ship out of Baku to… anywhere. Once Webb had delivered coffee, Stevenson opened the manilla envelope that he’d been carrying. He withdrew a thick stack of papers and set them on the table.
“These are the transcripts for commercial aviation tracking into and out of Bina national airport in Baku,” said Stevenson. “We pulled the tapes after the last time you were out here and had the I branchers write it all down for you.”
“How’d you pick these up?” Asked Poole.
“That’s on a need to know basis, and you don’t,” said Keller with a wink.
Stevenson gave her a hard look and answered. “We get a lot of civil flight navigation off the air traffic control and air defense networks. I cross-referenced the two so we could get exact launch times out of Bina. Once they get out of there though, it’s tougher to track. We weren’t exactly bird-dogging civil navigation at the time so we really have no idea where they ended up.”
“Interesting,” mused Poole, not sure what to do with that.
“On the shipping front, there isn’t much better news,” said Keller. “The Caspian Flotilla was at anchor in Aktau during the period you were looking for. The odds of having something actionable from that period were slim to begin with, and they became zero when the naval threat was hundreds of miles away.”
“Please tell me that this is one of those times when you start with the bad news and then give me the really good news,” said Poole.
“If you’d settle for the less shitty news, I think I have that,” said Stevenson. “After you left, the Commander had us focus some of our collection efforts on any known frequencies used to communicate transportation coming out of Baku. There wasn’t a lot to spare mind you. Between what’s going on in Afghanistan, and then our hostage mission in Iran, there was a lot of activity, and to be honest, this mundane business is usually the first to get bumped in favor of some more pressing issues.” Poole let out a shallow sigh. They were in for a long couple of weeks at this rate.
April 10th, 1980
TUSLOG Detachment 28
Sinop, Turkey
Fred Poole looked at the transcripts in front of him for what seemed like the millionth time. No matter how long he stared at them, it wasn’t making any sense. His working theory that the Soviets were diverting fuel supplies to Afghanistan to support a major offensive effort wasn’t panning out. The evidence didn’t support it. In fact, all the heightened scrutiny of the refineries surrounding Baku had shown that the Soviets were in fact moving sizable amounts of Aviation fuel supplies to Kaspiysk. Poole sat in the conference room with Petty Officer Keller, and Lieutenant Stevenson trying to sort out the puzzle in front of them.
“Okay, we were looking at JP4 exports from Baku. It looks like our questionable fuel exports are all going to Kaspiysk,” said Stevenson, laying out the situation. Until tonight, only Poole had known that they marked the shipments for the coastal Soviet town. The Intel folks had reached this conclusion based only on the coming and going of tankers from the Port of Khatai just south of Baku and tracking their arrival in Kaspiysk.
“And now we need to figure out why,” said Poole.
“What about that new Destroyer? The Udaloy?” suggested Stevenson. This was a decent hypothesis. The latest Soviet ships, like their American counterparts burned jet fuel instead of diesel. It would make sense that if the Soviet Caspian Flotilla would receive an Udaloy or two, they would need some fuel for them.
“That’s a solid idea,” replied Poole. “Do we have any details on the ship?” Stevenson walked to the door, opened it, and called out:
“Webb! Bring in that Copy of Jane’s Fighting Ships,” and returned to his seat at the table.
“I don’t know LT, even if those ships use JP4, this seems like an awful lot of gas for a ship or two,” said Keller.
“How many barrels of JP4 does an Udaloy burn in a typical day at sea?” asked Poole, surprised at Keller’s in-depth knowledge of the ship.
“I have no idea what I’m talking about,” admitted Keller, “It just seems like these tankers we’re tracking carry a lot of fuel. If it’s all going to Kaspiysk for a destroyer or two… It’s not science, just a hunch. There’s way too much Fuel.”
“I see your point Keller,” replied Poole. “But we can’t ignore the possibility. Isn’t the Caspian Sea landlocked? How do they even get new ships in there?” he asked.
“They sail them from the Black Sea up the Don River to the Volga and then back down to the Caspian,” replied Stevenson. “It’s a real pain in the ass for them, so it’s rare for the Soviets to transit like that.”
“And they don’t normally put a brand new, front line ship in the Caspian. It’s not like NATO is really out there contesting it,” said Keller.
At that point Seaman Webb brought in “Big Blue.” Though not a classified source of information, “Jane’s Fighting Ships” had long been the first stop in many an analyst’s quest for details. Keller took the tome from Webb and deftly flipped to the Soviet Fleet. In no time, she’d found the Ship class in question.
“Bingo!” she exclaimed when she found what they were looking for. “It looks like they use gas turbines that burn jet fuel.”
“Okay, let’s write that one down. I’ll need to make some calls to see if we can figure out where they are putting those new destroyers. This could be something,” said Poole.
“Hold the phone!” said Keller, still reading from “Jane’s.” “What about this new ‘Tarantul’ missile boat?”
Stevenson leaned over to see what she was reading.
“That better fits the profile of what they’d put in the Caspian, but it looks like they are building those out in the Far East,” said Stevenson, reading from the book. “I doubt that they’d be sailing them all the way around India to park them in that lake.”
With that burst of creative energy spent, the group went quiet again. Stevenson stood to stretch and was just about to send Webb for more coffee when Keller’s head snapped up and she said:
“What about the Sea Monster!?!?”
Poole looked at her with confusion, while Stevenson rolled his eyes.
“I don’t think we need to waste Poole’s time with that Petty Officer Keller,” said Stevenson.
“Okay, you have my curiosity, Keller. What on earth are you talking about?” asked Poole. Keller paused and looked at Stevenson, seeking approval before continuing. Exasperated, Stevenson relented.
“Okay, you started this Keller, enlighten our friend here with your sea stories.”
Keller walked to the door and called out:
“Webb, bring us the file on the Sea Monster,” then sat back down. “Okay, back in the sixties, a satellite picked up an image of some kind of seaplane being built in Kaspiysk. It was huge, and it didn’t look like it was complete. There was no way this thing would fly. Anyhow, it had the letters ‘KM’ emblazoned on the top of the wing. That’s where the ‘Sea Monster’ nickname came from. It was called the ‘Kaspian Monster’ then the ‘Kaspian Sea Monster’ and finally just the ‘Sea Monster.’ We never figured out what the hell that thing was.”
Webb brought in a manilla folder containing dozens of loose sheets of paper and set it on the table.
“Here, look at this” said Keller, opening the file and sliding a photograph across to Poole. Fred could make out what looked like a port facility with several piers with small ships docked. Then just to the Northwest of the piers was a large berthing area containing… something. It looked almost like an airplane, but then not quite. It was too narrow to be a ship, but it was too large to be an airplane. That was to say nothing of the odd “wing” configuration. It looked like there were three sets of wings protruding from the fuselage. The first was short clipped and right behind what appeared to be the cockpit. The second was longer (but still short and clipped) set amidships. The last pair looked like a traditional horizontal stabilizer from a large aircraft, but in proportion to the wings they were huge. The stabilizer had about the same wingspan as the main wing. It was just… odd.
“I can see what you mean Keller. It looks like they never finished building out the wings on this bird,” said Poole. “How old is this photograph?”
“I couldn’t say.” Answered Keller. “It’s been here longer than I have. This folder gets passed around for all the new personnel when they first onboard. It gives them something to read during the mid-watch and helps make the whole job more interesting.”
“I can see that. Adding a bit of mystery always makes things more interesting,” replied Poole.
“As I was saying, we don’t know what the hell that thing is. That doesn’t mean that nobody knows, we just don’t know here,” said Keller.
“It has to be some kind of engine test bed. I don’t know why they have it sitting in the water, but that fucker won’t fly with those sad little wings, and it’s too stupid of a design to be a ship.” said Stevenson. “I would bet money that it burns jet fuel, but there’s no way that ridiculous monster consumes the amounts we’re tracking right now. This is a fun diversion, but it’s not a serious idea.”
Stevenson had never fallen for the Caspian Sea Monster legend. It was a fanciful story that engaged the imaginations of junior enlisted, but it wasn’t a serious avenue for exploration. The thing had been around for over a decade. If there were anything to report on it, they’d know about it by now. The entire world would know about it by now. Instead, it was just an obscure project in a Soviet backwater with no relevance to what they were looking for.
“I think we’re onto something with this new ship allocation,” continued Stevenson. “I think we should pull up anything we can on Soviet designs with gas turbines and see if we have any evidence of a major re-deployment to the region.”
“I think you’re right Lieutenant.,” said Poole. It was clear to Poole that Stevenson had made up his mind on this. It appeared there was more to the story of why Stevenson wasn’t interested in the Sea Monster, but Poole honestly didn’t care to find out. Any investigation into it at this point would just agitate the Officer further, and that would quickly become counterproductive. Instead, Poole filed the Sea Monster aside in his mind, and decided that when he got back to Washington, he would do more investigating on that front.
The night continued with the three of them looking at deployments of various frigates, and missile boats. There was a moment when they considered the brand new Slava class guided missile cruisers, before that was dismissed as ludicrous. The lead ship in the class hadn’t been commissioned yet, and besides, those ships were too important to be relegated to a backwater like the Caspian Flotilla. Once they had scoured their sources (including the ubiquitous “Jane’s Fighting Ships”), Poole drafted his report notes on the subject, and Keller returned to her radio, and Stevenson to his office. This was what Fred had come here for, and the next steps in his process would be in Washington, D.C.
September 12th, 1980
TUSLOG Detachment 28
Sinop, Turkey
CTI3 Rhonda Keller was in the middle of a dream. She had come back to the barracks two-and-a-half hours earlier at 0630, after sitting the mid-watch from 2200 to 0600. As usual during the mids, she hit the rack as soon as she got back to her room. Years of practice had turned this routine into an automatic ritual. Her relief would show up at 0550, she’d pass down the events of her watch to the Sailor taking her place, at 0600, she’d catch a ride back to the barracks, and within twenty minutes, she was out cold. If she’d stopped to do the math, she would have realized that she’d performed this same ritual 72 times since she arrived on station. A loud beating on her door disrupted her 73rd time.
“Oh my God! Shut the fuck up!” she said.
“Keller, get your ass up, we’ve got a total unit recall underway,” came the urgent report from the other side of the door. Dear lord, why do these drills always happen after I’ve been on the mid-watch? She wondered.
“I’m up, I’m up,” she said as she sat up in bed and tried to focus her eyes. She could hear the door beating progress in other rooms down the hall as anyone on the roster from last night’s mid-watch was rousted by the Sailor on fire and security watch. She grabbed her dungaree uniform from the night before and got dressed. No reason to screw up a fresh uniform for this bullshit, she thought. She staggered to the door, still trying to wake up. She would need some coffee for this, no doubt about it.
As she walked down the hall on her way to the assembly room on the first floor, she could see various shipmates moving about with greater purpose and intensity than usual. Everyone’s really focused on this today. I wonder if we have an Admiral making an appearance? In the ladderwell, she saw Seaman Webb coming off of the second floor on his way down.
“Hey Webb, what gives?”
“I don’t know man, but something’s up, this ain’t a drill.”
When they made it to the third floor, they saw a mass of sailors huddled around a radio at the watch station. When Webb tried to ask what was going on, the crowd immediately shushed him. Keller struggled to hear the radio from this far back, but she could make out bits and pieces.
“… fighting in the streets… General Evren… NATO Command….”
Just as she was getting a picture of what was going on, a Sailor at the front of the building called out:
“The Bus is here! Everyone load up, we’re moving out ASAP.”
In a bundle of chaos the school of squid made for the door. As the enormous mass funnelled into a single file line to get out the door, Keller was pushed into CTR1 David Burton.
“What’s the story Burt?” she asked.
“There’s been a Coup,” said Burton. “The Army has exerted control over the government. They’re trying to stop the violence of the past few years.”
“It doesn’t sound like it’s working,” replied Keller.
“It’s not. This whole thing is a shit show. It sounds like the Socialists were waiting for this. There are reports of coordinated attacks on military and police facilities starting right after the Army made the announcement. Somebody fucked up.”
Keller considered this. The fighting in Turkey had been concerning over the past few years. Being in the center of the world was nothing new to the region, but every once in a while things would boil over. This time around the fighting was between the political left and the political right with a healthy dose of Islamism thrown in for good measure. The fighting had picked up in the past few years, but it was still sporadic. If this crackdown was meant to stop the violence, Burton was right: Somebody fucked up.
They unceremoniously loaded up on the bus and headed towards the Operations buildings. The rumors raged through the bus like a wildfire. It was apparent to Keller that there was no telling what was coming from a reliable source and what was just conjecture that had been added to the story by a previous teller. Given that, she did what she did best: She listened to the incoming information and tried to sort it out in her mind. She had heard everything from “The Army is in charge now, and they are going door to door rooting out the Socialist agitators.” to “The Socialists have taken control of American Nuclear weapons and are holding Ankara hostage.” She was confident that the answer was somewhere in between the extremes.
When they made it to the Operations Center, they scrambled out of the bus and moved as quickly as their dignity would allow, funnelling through the security checkpoint. Keller wondered how they were all going to fit. The Ops Center wasn’t designed to hold the entire detachment all at once. But none of the other assembly buildings were inside the security perimeter. They would have to make do with what they had. Her first reaction upon getting into the building was that nobody here knew anything more than they knew at the watch station in the barracks. They were information warfare specialists, and they were running very short on information.
Finally, her watch section, Alpha, was ordered to muster in a section of the Ops Center that she had never been to. In the world of “need to know,” she hadn’t needed to poke around in there. It was dark and filled with older equipment. Things she’d seen in training, but never operationally. Finally, after the chaos of the morning, Lieutenant Stevenson made his way to the front of the room to get a handle on his sailors.
“Listen up men,” he said, without consciously considering the few women under his command. “I can’t tell you everything that’s happening out there, but I can at least tell you what is not happening. There is no nuclear crisis, and there is no threat of war. This is a localized issue, and we have seen things like this before.” Stevenson meant this to calm the troops, but there were some murmurings as sailors compared this information to what they had already learned on the bus. “Hey, I’m not done, shut up and listen up,” said the Lieutenant.
“At 0800 this morning, the Army announced that they have deposed Prime Minister Demirel’s government. Control of the Government is now in the hands of General Kenan Evran. The Army has taken this action in response to the continued fighting between extremist factions on both the political right and the political left. As a professed neutral party, it was the belief of the Army general staff that removing Demirel from office would quell the violence. Within minutes of the announcement, serious fighting broke out in Ankara. We do not have any official word but the reports we are getting indicate that the response to the coup was organized and targeted military and police facilities. The fighting has flared up with both socialists and nationalists attacking not only each other, but the Army and civilian authorities. In short, Ankara is in a state of lawlessness, and we have no way of knowing if this will spread beyond the capital. As of this morning, all leave and liberty is cancelled. We will consolidate all personnel within the SIGINT compound until we can guarantee the safety of said personnel.”
That last comment seemed absurd to Keller. The logistics of keeping everyone within the perimeter seemed daunting. They didn’t have facilities for cooking, cleaning or bathing. At least, not nearly enough facilities for the number of people that were about to be living here. And how long would this last? As she thought of that last question, someone in the back was asking it.
“I don’t know,” said Stevenson. “We’re going to be holed up here for the foreseeable future. Everyone is learning as they go. If things settle down in the next few days, things should start to return to normal. If this turns into a full-blown civil war… all bets are off.”
“What about our stuff?” asked another sailor.
“Right now, I need everyone to grab a piece of floor and make it your home. We’re not on watch for another ten hours, and you’re going to want to be as rested as you can be. I don’t want any of you falling asleep tonight. We still have a mission and we will not abandon it just because the locals can’t get their act together. We will figure out your personal effects after we figure out how we can safely man this detachment.”
It was clear to Alpha Section that the LT was done taking questions. As Stevenson left to get further orders for his sailors, everyone followed his order to get comfortable. Keller was exhausted. She knew that everyone was, but there was a nervousness hanging in the room that wouldn’t let anyone relax enough to get any actual rest.
Even in her exhausted state, Keller wasn’t able to get more than a few hours sleep on the hard floor of the operations center. That sleep that she did get was fitful with the constant coming and going of people. She finally gave up and wondered how long it would take for the watch section to get into a more tolerable routine. She sat in on a game of five-card draw for a bit, but losing money didn’t seem to be the best use of her time. She thought about going over to her position on the watch floor, but that plan was nixed. Each watch section was being corralled in a single location. This was to keep the watch floor from being overwhelmed by bored operators looking for something to do.
Alpha was finally let in at 9:45 that night. She’d spent ten hours in the building, but coming on watch was a relief. It brought a sense of normalcy to the situation. From her position, everything was just like it had been since her arrival on station. There wasn’t even any unusual chatter on the radio. Just the slow routine of the Black Sea in the middle of a Summer night.
She dialed up the local AM radio station when she could, and the information coming in didn’t bode well for the Turkish government. Instead of dying down, the attacks had increased throughout the day. Leftist opposition groups were gaining members and making bold attacks on whatever soft government facilities they could. The Turkish military could beat them back, but when they did, another group would appear somewhere else and attack another government building. There were rumors tearing through the building that a group of armed protesters had been turned away from the gates of TUSLOG, but nobody could confirm that. If she were counting her blessings that would be one: Her little outpost was shielded from the Chaos outside.
That all changed three days later. On the 15th, with fighting continuing, and platoon sized elements of the military abandoning their posts to fight with the “Worker’s and Peasant’s Party of Turkey” (TIKP). The many offshoots of the Turkish Left had consolidated under the TIKP, which gave even greater organization and structure to the movement. Once they gained a foothold in the military, the US Government started pulling their people out. That day TUSLOG Detachment 28 stood their final watches at Sinop.
Keller wasn’t on watch that day, so instead like many other idle hands, she was assigned to disposal. All the classified material that wasn’t being sent via courier was being destroyed on-site. The shredding and burning of that much material was a full-time job. It had started before she was assigned, and it would continue after she had left. With the luck of the draw, Alpha was pulled out first.
She and her shipmates were loaded back onto the busses for the six and a half mile drive to the small regional airport outside of town. As the bus rolled west down the peninsula, Keller could see black smoke rising in town. The rebels had bombed the government buildings on the main east-west road through town. They were making their way through town on side roads with an armed escort. They had all been briefed that while they were not under any immediate threat, they could still be in danger. An over-eager rebel could attack them under the belief that they were Turkish forces. More likely, they could just wind up in the middle of a firefight between different factions in the unrest.
Neither Keller nor her friends had been told where they were going once they got to the airport. They didn’t ask questions. Once they arrived at wherever they were going, they’d be told where that was. That was good enough for right now. At the Airport they were transferred from the busses to a chartered Boeing 707 that could barely use the short runway. Once they had huddled into the jetliner, they lifted off into the sky. After three days of sleeping at first on the floor, and then on cots, Keller and her shipmates were quickly asleep in the relative comfort of the airliner’s reclining seats.
Eight hours later they were hustled off the plane at Dubai International Airport. With surprising efficiency the Chief Petty Officer in charge of the transportation effort ushered them off the plane and onto another set of waiting busses. As the 707 refueled to start the trip all over again, the busses took Keller on a ten-hour adventure across the United Arab Emirates, parts of Saudi Arabia, and into the small island of Bahrain. Twenty hours after leaving Sinop, Keller was welcomed to her new home at Naval Support Activity Bahrain.
October 1st, 1980
Naval Support Activity, Bahrain
In the three weeks since her sudden exodus from Sinop, CTI3 Rhonda Keller had been busy. The building they had moved into wasn’t meant to host a fully staffed collection and analysis facility. There wasn’t any spare room in the crowded compound. The space shortage was just the beginning of the logistic challenges. Bahrain didn’t have the collection equipment that they needed, and moreover it was geographically out of position to maintain Sinops mission. Instead, Sinop was being operated by a drastically reduced crew and the collected data was being sent via courier to Bahrain for analysis.
The rumor around the facility was that the Naval Security Group would flatten the area around the current building and build up their presence. Over the past ten days many of Keller’s shipmates were transferred out to Rota Spain. The Iraqi invasion of Iran had meant that the Navy needed more room for Arabic and Farsi linguists, while the Russian linguists could be better used elsewhere. They had left Keller in place as part of a detachment whose primary mission was to pour through the signals traffic to find any sign of Soviet activity in the Iran-Iraq war.
Most of that collection was being processed during the day shift. Lieutenant Stevenson had put Keller on permanent mid-watches while she sorted out a batch of transmissions they’d received from Kaspiysk. The reel-to-reel tapes had followed them down from Sinop, and Stevenson was adamant that they be processed before Keller could return to the normal watch rotation. Keller had no direct evidence of this, but she was confident that she was being punished for digging up the old Sea Monster theory when Agent Poole was around.
She was listening to the tapes in chronological order. The first few had nothing of any actual value. Just routine communications checks and status reports of a port facility operating at night. She had become adept at fast forwarding through the hours of empty static and pinpointing the few minutes of actual transmissions each night. By the time she had processed two weeks of nothing, she finally heard something useful. At least she hoped it would be useful. She spent a couple of hours working up a transcription and rough translation before heading over to the watch commander’s office.
“Hey Boss,” said Keller, as she knocked on the door. “I’ve got something from these Kaspiysk tapes that I’d like to show you.” Stevenson cleared a spot on his desk and invited her to show him what she had. Keller set the translation down, with the transcript off to the left in case she needed to reference it.
“Okay, what have ya got?” asked the Lieutenant.
“Well Sir, most of what I’ve reviewed so far is just dogshit. That is, until about a week ago. On September 25th, this exchange popped up.” She pointed to a spot on the translation, and Stevenson read aloud.
“Shopkeeper, this is Buyer 3. We have encountered a problem with Eaglet 2.”
“Buyer 3, this is Shopkeeper. What is your situation?”
“Shopkeeper, Eaglet 2 has suffered an [garbled] engine failure.”
Stevenson looked up at Keller.
“What’s this garble here? Any ideas?” Keller consulted the transcription.
“I can’t say for sure, but it sounds like ‘Pody’em’ which means climb, or rise. But I’ve never heard it in that context. The prefix ‘Pod’ means ‘under’ so this could be any number of words. It’s just not clear enough to pinpoint it.” Stevenson went back to the translation and continued reading to himself.
“Okay. So, from what we have here, sometime around 0200 hours on last Thursday morning, the Ruskies had a ship suffer an engine failure, and they had to send a tug out to bring it back to port. What makes this worth reporting?”
“Sir, the first thing is that the engine damage was caused by taking water into the vozdukhozabornik.” Stevenson looked at her blankly. “The air intake. I thought that might be a reference to a jet engine.”
“It could be, but you know the fire triangle. All types of engines need fuel, flame and air. But I’ll admit I’ve never heard of a ship engine failing for water in the intake. I mean, unless it’s actually sinking. That’s the sort of thing you can engineer around when you put an engine in the water.”
“Also, look here,” she pointed to another section of the transcript. “When the port is taking the report they specifically ask about Eagle 1 and Eaglets 3, and 4. There are clearly more than one of these things out there.”
“Is there any significance in the difference between an Eagle and an Eaglet?” asked Stevenson.
“I honestly don’t know. In fact, I didn’t know ‘Eaglet’ was a word until I looked it up tonight.”
“So, you think the Soviets have deployed a fleet of jet-ships to the Caspian Sea, and they are now suffering catastrophic engine failures?” Before Keller could answer Stevenson continued; “I don’t think we have anything here we can report on. As far as I can tell, we just have a simple breakdown of a shitty Soviet coastal defense vessel. I’ll grant your point that we don’t have these callsigns mapped to any existing vessels, but they could just be updating the callsigns.” Keller’s face sank with the realization that what she thought was a break in their case wasn’t enough to convince the LT.
“Look, there might not be an answer here. This could all just be chasing ghosts. I appreciate the effort that you’ve put into this, and once you’re finished, we’ll send whatever findings we can back to the States. But don’t think you need to solve this riddle. 90% of the time, there’s no genuine answer. Some bureaucrat probably checked the wrong box on a form and sent a bunch of jet fuel to the wrong port. It happens. Just work through what you have left. I really need you back in the rotation for this Iran mission.” With that, Stevenson handed her back her file, and went back to writing his own report.
Keller went back to her reel-to-reel tape recorder and started plugging away at the rest of the tapes she had. She knew that Stevenson was probably right. And she also knew that if there hadn’t been a war in the Middle East, she’d have more leeway to work on this.
October 16th, 1980
Kaspiysk, Russia
There were three massive warehouses along the coastline of the Caspian Sea, just east of the city of Kaspiysk. These buildings were rather innocuous, especially when viewed from five hundred kilometers away by an American KH-11 satellite. The Naval Infantrymen of the 810th Independent Naval Infantry Brigade referred to these seaside warehouses as the “Eagles Nest.” Split between the three buildings were four very unusual craft. These unique vessels fell somewhere between ships and aircraft. They could float, like a ship, but they could leave the water and fly at low altitudes, and very high speeds. They were faster than any ship afloat, but could carry more cargo than any aircraft of a comparable size.
These were the ekranoplans of the Soviet Naval Infantry. The largest, the “Eagle” had been known as the Kaspian Sea Monster. It was a massive frame that could carry over two hundred and fifty fully loaded Marines. The KM, was originally a prototype used as a proof of concept. The massive unit measured over ninety meters long and could lift over five hundred tons. This made it considerably larger and more capable than the U.S. Air Force’s C-5 Galaxy. A large engine mount dominated the front of the KM. The Mount carried eight VD-7 Turbojet engines, four on each side of the fuselage. The engines had adjustable nozzles that would push the thrust under the main wing of the ship during the take off process. Once the ship was airborne, the nozzles would direct the thrust directly aft to give the KM additional speed. Two more of the huge engines were mounted on either side of the vertical stabilizer. When cruising, the KM could stay aloft with only the rear mounted engines.
The three smaller ekranoplans were the derivative offspring of the KM, officially known as the A-90 and affectionately called Eaglets. The A-90s looked more like conventional aircraft than did the KM. The A-90 had two smaller NK-8 turbofan engines concealed in the nose, with a single, massive NK-1 Turboprop at the top of the tail boom. The wings were set low and just forward of the mid-point of the airframe. Each Eaglet could carry two BTR Amphibious Fighting Vehicles, and the ten men who would fight each of those vehicles.
The ekranoplans used a principle of physics known as the “ground effect” experienced by all aircraft as they near a fixed surface. As a winged vehicle gets closer to the surface, lift increases and drag decreases. Using a design that maximizes this effect allows an aircraft of equivalent size to move much greater weight at much higher speeds than can be done by a conventional aircraft. As a tradeoff, these vessels could only fly at low altitudes. It didn’t take Soviet designers long to understand that carrying a lot of cargo over extensive ranges at high speeds, flying below radar coverage might have military applications.
Tonight was the culmination of months of training and practice. The Soviet High command was going to find out if their investment in this technology and training had any tactical value. During the night, Naval Infantrymen loaded onto each of the Eagles. The eight wheeled BTR-70s loaded up their crews and troops, then backed into the A-90s. Instead of using a traditional ramp, like most transport planes, the entire nose and cockpit section of the A-90 opened on hinges like a giant swinging door. This would allow the vehicles to exit the Eaglet as soon as it hit the beach, without having to “swim.”
The KM, as a prototype, lacked any such bells and whistles. Instead, she would need a pier to dock with. With the port side wing secured to the pier, the 250 marines and their equipment would scramble out of the Monster through an access hatch just above the wing. It was an inelegant process and would take much more time than a fully operational vehicle like the A-90. For tonight’s live fire proof-of-concept mission though, the KM could move the troops needed to secure a beachhead.
Once the Marines loaded onto the ekranoplans, each one taxied out into the water and began the take-off process they had been rehearsing for the past several months. Within ten minutes, the three hundred men and six BTRs began the first offensive use of a ground effect vehicle in combat. It would be a solid two-hour trip. The four ships flew south, southeast toward their target: Chalus.
Chalus was a perfect target for this offensive. It was a fair-sized seaside town, close to the capital of Tehran. The only direct access route between Tehran and Chalus was Highway 59, a narrow winding mountain pass. Any relief effort coming from Tehran would have to travel the gauntlet between the two cities, and the Soviet Air Force had pledged to make that trip impossible. Besides the Su-20s and Mig-27s allocated to the effort, the Soviet Voyenno-Vozdushnye Sily (VVS) were deploying a special detachment of their latest Attack Aircraft, the Su-25. Within an hour of the attack, the Su-25s would prowl Highway 59, looking for subjects upon which they could test their beautiful new airframes.
Chalus also had the benefit of possessing several commercial piers which could accommodate the KM and allow for the Marines to disembark in multiple locations to improve the dispersal. This would allow more troops to cover more territory than could be accomplished in other port towns along the Caspian coastline.
As far as the local commanders were aware, they needed to occupy the city to establish a secure zone inside Iran. This would be the stepping off point to a pacification operation that would end the constant and increasing terrorist attacks occurring along the border areas. If the Iranians could take positive measures to stop the violence, the Soviets wouldn’t need to “pacify” more of the Iranian countryside. If the Iranians wouldn’t or couldn’t stop the attacks, the Soviets would continue to add troops and consolidate control across the entire northern border from Afghanistan to Turkey.
In reality, the Soviets were making a calculated move to bring in additional US forces. They knew there was no way they could get away with an actual invasion of Iran without eliciting a direct military response from the United States. Instead, they were counting on it. Recent Intel had indicated that the Americans had moved a light division into the region and the Soviets estimated that this action would pull that Division into Iranian territory, and that the United States would then commit additional troops to the region. The Soviets balanced along the razor’s edge of antagonizing the US just enough to bleed their military strength, while not going so far as to drive them to initiate direct hostilities.
The ekranoplans closed to within a half hour of their destination. High above them, Mig-25 Interceptors and Mig-23 fighters loitered over the borders on either side of the Caspian. If the fighters detected incoming aircraft, they would engage to preserve the surprise of the first wave of the assault. The Ground attack aircraft were preparing to take off to join the fray in time for the landings themselves. They would approach at sea level from the north, staying out of sight until the last minute. Everyone knew that when the first A-90 hit the beach and unloaded the first BTR, all hell would break loose.
Intelligence overflights by Mig-25R reconnaissance planes revealed that the garrison in Chalus had been depleted to counter the Iraqis in the South. The Iranians had no reason to suspect that the town was at risk of attack, other than a possible air raid by the Iraqis. Even that didn’t make a lot of sense, given that there was no tactical or strategic value to Chalus regarding the Iran-Iraq war. The entire town was peacefully sleeping when war came to visit them.
The first landing of the three A-90s hit the beach in front of the Noshahr Airport. Within ten minutes of hitting the beach six BTRs were racing to the airport where the sixty marines would overwhelm the security and police forces. Once subdued, special teams of Marines would begin preparing the airport for operations. Within half an hour, troops and equipment would fly in on An-72 and An-12 aircraft. As additional Marines arrived at the airport, they would advance, adding control to more territory until they linked up with additional units that had made landings further along the beach.
Three miles to the west of the airport, the KM had docked with the recreational pier at Chaloos Beach. The Marines on board were piling out of the Sea Monster and scrambling along the wing to the pier, where they would then jog to the beach, and form up into squads. Once the Marines had gathered together by squads and platoons, they would advance south, securing the major roads that would allow movement throughout the town. The dismounted Marines would ensure the security of the area while their heavier equipment was delivered by the A-90s, or from the cargo planes beginning operations at the airport.
At the airport there was light resistance. None of the security forces there were prepared for actual combat. The police were likewise overwhelmed with little resistance. Sporadic gunfire rang out from the occasional stalwart, but within three hours the Marines had secured most of the town. BTRs and the smaller BRMD Scout vehicles patrolled the streets, while messages of pacification were being played on loudspeakers. The population didn’t need a lot of convincing to stay indoors. The shock and speed of the attack had taken most of them unaware.
In the skies above, Soviet fighters dared the Iranians to come out and play. A pair of F-5 Tigers were on Combat Air Patrol over Tehran when the first calls came in from Noshahr Airport. They sped north to see what aid they could render and were immediately pounced on by waiting Foxbats. Two pairs of R-23 missiles reached out from the Mig-25s and destroyed the Tigers long before the F-5s could get into position to interfere with the landings below. With dozens of Soviet aircraft showing up on ground control radar, the Iranian Air Force refused to commit more aircraft for fear of losing the edge they had in the south against the Iraqis.
This decision saved many planes on both the Soviet and Iranian side of the conflict. Unfortunately for the Iranians, it also doomed the relief column they had sent from Tehran. The Su-25s of the 200th TAS detected, engaged, and destroyed the company of M-60 Patton tanks that the Iranians had sent to push the Soviets back. The high cliff walls of the mountain pass made detection difficult, but once detected, they gave the Iranians no way to disperse their forces. The Su-25s flew up and down the road destroying tanks with a mix of 500 pound unguided bombs and K4-25 air-to-surface missiles. It was a massacre.
On the ground, the Soviet regiment completed their deployment. The Iranians were unwilling to lose more men in the effort to take back the seaside town. By the morning of the 17th, the Soviets were in control of a major chunk of the Caspian Seashore in Iran.